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So here's the blow-by-blow.
On Friday morning, I left the house just before 6:45 am to catch the train for Midway airport, which is about an hour and a half trip. At the station, I ran into my buddy Br___ who works at the library near Midway, so it was nice to have company during the trip. I got to the airport, boarded, etc. and ended up sitting next to this young Catholic priest who hasn't quite completed his seminary and is currently teaching at a boys school in New Hampshire. He was nice and answered my questions about the structure of the Catholic church and the different branches work. He's in the "Legionnaires of Christ", which sounded scary to me, and apparantly some folks call them "the new Jesuits". Hmm. He wasn't really good in engaging though -- I love talking theology with people, and I'm really not overly argumentative, but some people just don't bite. And he never asked me any questions about myself, except for 1 or 2 about my Methodist upbringing. But anyway, it was interesting. So I arrived at Manchester around 12:30 pm and occupied myself for 4 1/2 hours. I ate lunch, read part of Choke by Chuck Palahniuk, read part of Honky by Dalton Connelly, people-watched, played a couple of arcade games, and listened to my walkman.
MelRo arrived shortly after 5 pm, and we both almost didn't recognize each other! She looks super cute with her new haircut, and looks very tan and buff from her summer activities. We went to the car, and she opened her gift from Gw___ and the gift I made her. We then hit the road and headed for Cape Cod. The drive was good -- we talked about the nonmonogamy relationship, we talked some about living together, she shared lots of stories from camp, I shared some stories from Chicago, etc. We got to the house around 9 pm, and her uncle's mother was there. We visited a little, ate something, then went to bed. We fooled around, then fell asleep pretty quickly. The whole night was sort of a weird back and forth of our bodies, as far as negotiating sleep positions and touching. We both woke up really early, before dawn, talked some, then fell back asleep and slept in.
Saturday we spent the morning going to the grocery store with her cousin Dave, then came back had lunch, went to the beach for a couple hours, Her cousin Rob and uncle showed up, we played cards until we had dinner, which was lobsters. Yummy. Went to bed pretty early.
Sunday morning we work up and just sat on the deck, played cards some more, had fried clams for lunch, then left for Vermont after that. Almost the entire drive to Vermont (about 4 hours) was spend playing "I'm thinking of a person..." which is basically 20 questions without couting to 20. It's a very addictive game, especially for pop culture dorks like us. And the lack of time limit leaves it open to interject jokes, anecdotes, and other stories. We got to Vermont, I got a walking tour of the camp which was cool, then we drove to Hanover and ate dinner. At dinner we talked a bit more about lines and rules and whatnot when it came to the nonmonogamy, and talked about my need for reassurance as well as my new freedom to date women. We finished dinner then drove to the hotel, which was nice. We went to bed pretty early, and fooled around again and went to sleep. I sort of had a hard time falling asleep. And then I finally did but got woken up because Melanie started to make the moves in her sleep. Seriously. I thought she wanted to have sex, so I'm sort of getting into it, then she rolls over and stops. I then figure out the the entire encounter happened while she was dead asleep, but now I was awake and hard. doh. But I eventually fell back asleep.
On Monday morning we drove back to camp, and I got to meet a couple more folks, though not all the ones she wanted me to meet. I did see "the girl" (the woman she's hooking up with) but it was from a passing vehicle. It was sort of funny.
So then she drove me to the bus terminal, where we said goodbye. I felt pretty good about it -- like I was a little sad, but not distraught, and felt more secure about the next 5 weeks. More on this topic later. So neither one of us cried, which is what happened the last time we said goodbye.
I sat in the bus terminal for an hour and a half and fininshed reading Honky. The bus ride was really nice and relaxing because of the beautiful scenary. The bus was nearly empty (about 10 people total, most sitting in the front), and I think because of the influence of reading Choke, I decided to, um, validate myself, so to speak, on the bus ride. Ah, public sex. Anyway, I got to the airport at 3 pm, and found out that my flight was leaving at 6:45 pm, not 6:05 pm. Doh. Got a snack, bought 2 magazines as a treat to myself, killed some time, flight got delayed because arriving flight was delayed. Finished reading Choke, got on plane, sat in the front row with this weird but nice middle aged woman. Flight arrived in Chicago only slight late, practically ran to the train station, took the train home, walked in at 10:05 pm to a blistering hot apartment and tons of mail, including my bribary check from Dubya. Showered and went to bed fairly early and woke up before my alarm. Then I made it to work.
Whew.
So that was the physicality of the weekend. Emotionally it was good, too. Reassuring to see and spend time with Melanie. Contact felt good -- physical and verbal. Did feel we were a little disconnected, but only in the way that we haven't been around each other much in the past 5 weeks, so we had new habits. Like we were both readjusted to sleeping by ourselves. And not necessarily used to talking all the time. So there were a couple times when I was like "are you okay?" and she was like "yeah, why?" and I realized that nothing was wrong, we just were in a weird place. I think neither one of us wanted to totally just let it all hang out, since we know it was only for a limited time, and it would make the saying goodbye more painful. But we weren't too reserved either. It was a hard but good balance, I think. And we definitely did talk a lot about all the previous issues. I learned a lot about myself and what I'm going through, which I might write about later. Or not. I guess I realized that last fall I was really searching for myself and feeling unsure about a lot of things. Then Melanie came along and I was pretty sure about her and threw myself into her. In the late spring, I started to revisit my search for self-discovery, but then sort of threw myself more into her because of her going away for the summer and preparing to live together. So this summer the feelings are back whether I want them or not and I have to deal with them. One thing I learned about myself is that I need to be busy. It helps retain my mental health. So after this week, I'm going to start all sort of new activities. Here's a partial list:
1. pack and move! re-establish my home (this sounds weird, but I"m a homebody, so there's a certain unknown to myself ritual I often perform when I change homes).
2. music. this includes, but is not restricted to: working on recording course, making mixtapes, producing some beats, sending out some feelers for DJ gigs, playing guitar, doing some jam sessions with S__ (Ti__'s boyfriend)
3. go out with friends that I love/miss hanging out with, like La___, Ar___, Co____, De____, Meg (the nonanonymous friend! -- hey Meg, we need to go to Neo again!!) and of course, my LJ buddy ALEX!!!
4. call up El___ and ask her out on a date. even if she's not interested in anything physical, I'm pretty sure she'd like to have coffee and be friends, and it will be a fun exercise for me, as well as spending time with a super-sweet person. (she used to work at the bookstore, and she lives in the neighborhood, so I maybe see her twice a month and talk to her for about 5-10 minutes every other time. last week she came in the store and asked for a suggestion regarding a textbook anthology she's editing. we talked for awhile, then she gave me her number. I told her "if I find something I'll call you. Or I'll call you anyway." so we'll see....)
5. see more movies with friends. because of money issues, I haven't seen as many, but that will be better soon. it's an art form I take for granted when I'm not seeing them as much.
6. read. I've read four books in the past 5 weeks, which is the most I've read in the while -- my appetite has been whetted again. I'm even missing fiction, which I haven't been as into as much.
alright, that's enough for now. I'm sure my copy job is way over, since it was only supposed to take 10-15 minutes, and I've spent more than 20 typing this.
On Friday morning, I left the house just before 6:45 am to catch the train for Midway airport, which is about an hour and a half trip. At the station, I ran into my buddy Br___ who works at the library near Midway, so it was nice to have company during the trip. I got to the airport, boarded, etc. and ended up sitting next to this young Catholic priest who hasn't quite completed his seminary and is currently teaching at a boys school in New Hampshire. He was nice and answered my questions about the structure of the Catholic church and the different branches work. He's in the "Legionnaires of Christ", which sounded scary to me, and apparantly some folks call them "the new Jesuits". Hmm. He wasn't really good in engaging though -- I love talking theology with people, and I'm really not overly argumentative, but some people just don't bite. And he never asked me any questions about myself, except for 1 or 2 about my Methodist upbringing. But anyway, it was interesting. So I arrived at Manchester around 12:30 pm and occupied myself for 4 1/2 hours. I ate lunch, read part of Choke by Chuck Palahniuk, read part of Honky by Dalton Connelly, people-watched, played a couple of arcade games, and listened to my walkman.
MelRo arrived shortly after 5 pm, and we both almost didn't recognize each other! She looks super cute with her new haircut, and looks very tan and buff from her summer activities. We went to the car, and she opened her gift from Gw___ and the gift I made her. We then hit the road and headed for Cape Cod. The drive was good -- we talked about the nonmonogamy relationship, we talked some about living together, she shared lots of stories from camp, I shared some stories from Chicago, etc. We got to the house around 9 pm, and her uncle's mother was there. We visited a little, ate something, then went to bed. We fooled around, then fell asleep pretty quickly. The whole night was sort of a weird back and forth of our bodies, as far as negotiating sleep positions and touching. We both woke up really early, before dawn, talked some, then fell back asleep and slept in.
Saturday we spent the morning going to the grocery store with her cousin Dave, then came back had lunch, went to the beach for a couple hours, Her cousin Rob and uncle showed up, we played cards until we had dinner, which was lobsters. Yummy. Went to bed pretty early.
Sunday morning we work up and just sat on the deck, played cards some more, had fried clams for lunch, then left for Vermont after that. Almost the entire drive to Vermont (about 4 hours) was spend playing "I'm thinking of a person..." which is basically 20 questions without couting to 20. It's a very addictive game, especially for pop culture dorks like us. And the lack of time limit leaves it open to interject jokes, anecdotes, and other stories. We got to Vermont, I got a walking tour of the camp which was cool, then we drove to Hanover and ate dinner. At dinner we talked a bit more about lines and rules and whatnot when it came to the nonmonogamy, and talked about my need for reassurance as well as my new freedom to date women. We finished dinner then drove to the hotel, which was nice. We went to bed pretty early, and fooled around again and went to sleep. I sort of had a hard time falling asleep. And then I finally did but got woken up because Melanie started to make the moves in her sleep. Seriously. I thought she wanted to have sex, so I'm sort of getting into it, then she rolls over and stops. I then figure out the the entire encounter happened while she was dead asleep, but now I was awake and hard. doh. But I eventually fell back asleep.
On Monday morning we drove back to camp, and I got to meet a couple more folks, though not all the ones she wanted me to meet. I did see "the girl" (the woman she's hooking up with) but it was from a passing vehicle. It was sort of funny.
So then she drove me to the bus terminal, where we said goodbye. I felt pretty good about it -- like I was a little sad, but not distraught, and felt more secure about the next 5 weeks. More on this topic later. So neither one of us cried, which is what happened the last time we said goodbye.
I sat in the bus terminal for an hour and a half and fininshed reading Honky. The bus ride was really nice and relaxing because of the beautiful scenary. The bus was nearly empty (about 10 people total, most sitting in the front), and I think because of the influence of reading Choke, I decided to, um, validate myself, so to speak, on the bus ride. Ah, public sex. Anyway, I got to the airport at 3 pm, and found out that my flight was leaving at 6:45 pm, not 6:05 pm. Doh. Got a snack, bought 2 magazines as a treat to myself, killed some time, flight got delayed because arriving flight was delayed. Finished reading Choke, got on plane, sat in the front row with this weird but nice middle aged woman. Flight arrived in Chicago only slight late, practically ran to the train station, took the train home, walked in at 10:05 pm to a blistering hot apartment and tons of mail, including my bribary check from Dubya. Showered and went to bed fairly early and woke up before my alarm. Then I made it to work.
Whew.
So that was the physicality of the weekend. Emotionally it was good, too. Reassuring to see and spend time with Melanie. Contact felt good -- physical and verbal. Did feel we were a little disconnected, but only in the way that we haven't been around each other much in the past 5 weeks, so we had new habits. Like we were both readjusted to sleeping by ourselves. And not necessarily used to talking all the time. So there were a couple times when I was like "are you okay?" and she was like "yeah, why?" and I realized that nothing was wrong, we just were in a weird place. I think neither one of us wanted to totally just let it all hang out, since we know it was only for a limited time, and it would make the saying goodbye more painful. But we weren't too reserved either. It was a hard but good balance, I think. And we definitely did talk a lot about all the previous issues. I learned a lot about myself and what I'm going through, which I might write about later. Or not. I guess I realized that last fall I was really searching for myself and feeling unsure about a lot of things. Then Melanie came along and I was pretty sure about her and threw myself into her. In the late spring, I started to revisit my search for self-discovery, but then sort of threw myself more into her because of her going away for the summer and preparing to live together. So this summer the feelings are back whether I want them or not and I have to deal with them. One thing I learned about myself is that I need to be busy. It helps retain my mental health. So after this week, I'm going to start all sort of new activities. Here's a partial list:
1. pack and move! re-establish my home (this sounds weird, but I"m a homebody, so there's a certain unknown to myself ritual I often perform when I change homes).
2. music. this includes, but is not restricted to: working on recording course, making mixtapes, producing some beats, sending out some feelers for DJ gigs, playing guitar, doing some jam sessions with S__ (Ti__'s boyfriend)
3. go out with friends that I love/miss hanging out with, like La___, Ar___, Co____, De____, Meg (the nonanonymous friend! -- hey Meg, we need to go to Neo again!!) and of course, my LJ buddy ALEX!!!
4. call up El___ and ask her out on a date. even if she's not interested in anything physical, I'm pretty sure she'd like to have coffee and be friends, and it will be a fun exercise for me, as well as spending time with a super-sweet person. (she used to work at the bookstore, and she lives in the neighborhood, so I maybe see her twice a month and talk to her for about 5-10 minutes every other time. last week she came in the store and asked for a suggestion regarding a textbook anthology she's editing. we talked for awhile, then she gave me her number. I told her "if I find something I'll call you. Or I'll call you anyway." so we'll see....)
5. see more movies with friends. because of money issues, I haven't seen as many, but that will be better soon. it's an art form I take for granted when I'm not seeing them as much.
6. read. I've read four books in the past 5 weeks, which is the most I've read in the while -- my appetite has been whetted again. I'm even missing fiction, which I haven't been as into as much.
alright, that's enough for now. I'm sure my copy job is way over, since it was only supposed to take 10-15 minutes, and I've spent more than 20 typing this.
no subject
Yay! for your trip :)
JD