Ok, ok, so in reality, my title is technically only part true......the drugs is a lie......the sex part is almost sortof kindof half true...... Actually, I just chose the title because it sounded cool, though Dr. Demento *was* pretty nifty.
First things first, I wanted to say hi to Allen. He's already wandered into this online journal-thingie...he's a fast learner. The rest of you will have to wait a couple paragraphs before you meet Allen.
To get on with my story, you will all remember from my last entry that I was venturing down to Columbus for Marcon over the weekend (now two weekends ago). Let me state right now that the Con, and the weekend as a whole were far more than I could have ever expected in my wildest dreams(well, *perhaps* in my wildest....evol grin). So, I left work around 3:00 and picked up my friend Mickey from campus. The trip down to Columbus was fairly uneventful, except for a stop at Friendly's for chocolate malts and a couple of truly exquisite spots of traffic that I attribute to drivers being jackasses more than anything else.
Even though the Hyatt Regency had been booked when I called Wednesday, there were openings at the Crown Plaza Hotel across the street, so I had made reservations there. We checked in when we got there, and freshened up a bit before heading over to the Con, so as not to offend anyone. I have to state right now that the hotel was really nice.....the room was mostly like any nice hotel room, but the bathroom really stood out. Don't laugh, it's true! So many hotels have two problems: the showers are crummy and don't work well, and you can't easily reach the toilet paper. This was not the case here.....plus they gave us sufficient towels and other bathroom stuff. It was so wonderful to not have issues with the bathroom....silly as that may seem.
We went over to the Con and registered and headed up to the dealers room right away to see if there was anything good worth purchasing. Right off I found a cool place called The Rowan Tree that makes a lot of different medieval type costumery. A few years ago when I went to the Great Lakes Medieval Faire, I bought a cool hooded cloak, and I have been looking (not very hard admittedly) for a shirt and leather boots to go along with it. They made some very affordable ones there, so once I replenish my coffers a bit I plan to order one or the other.
After that, I moved forward and eventually landed at the Steve Jackson Games booth. JOY! The SJG people are all very nifty. I chatted with various Men (and Women) in Black. I also got to talk to Alex, the guy in charge of MIBs. Hopefully I will get to help out at some cons in the near future and eventually GM some stuff for them. I bought a few GURPS books, one of which was Who's Who I. You might remember way back at the beginning of my journal that I mentoned working on an entry on Albert Einstein to submit for the book. I hadn't mentioned it again, but I unfortunately got beat out by a couple days in getting an entry in. However, they are working on a second volume of Who's Who, so I am hopefully going to get something submitted in the very near future. Of course, the coolest thing was actually getting to meet Steve Jackson....I'll mention him more later as he pops up in the weekend.
Friday night Mickey and I got to enjoy a screening of various bits of Babylon Park, a new Babylon 5/Southpark spoof. It was really funny, and I await the completion of the first half-hour feature. After that we got all dressed up in our costumely garb for the dance, which for me was the aforementioned hooded cloak, and for Mickey was a semirevealing sexy ensemble as she is wont to wear for such events. Dr. Demento was DJing, and it was a blast....I had a glass of wine which was the extent of the "drugs" for the weekend for me. This suited me fine anyways, as I would lose enough cognitive skills to sheer exhaustion by Sunday, without other less than benign influences. I got to dance with some nice Catholic Schoolgirls that evening (heh....if anyone believed they were actually schoolgirls....LOL). They were evidently dancing with anyone who resembled a priest or monk in costume.....yay me! Hehehehe...
Saturday was another lovely day....I think we started out in the Art Auction. There were all kinds of pieces by various Fantasy and Sci-Fi artists both famous and lesser known. I discovered the paintings of a wonderful artist I had never seen before named Ruth Thompson. Her artwork was truly stunningly beautiful, so I bid on a piece while they were still doing paper bidding. It turned out that the piece I bid on went to the big auction while I was playing GURPS later, but I'm planning to buy some prints of hers in the near future. In particular, visit her homepage and check out the painting entitled "Ascension". That's the one that I bid on unsuccessfully.
In the afternoon I scouted the dealers room a bit more and sat in on a Q&A session with Steve Jackson about their upcoming products. I got to play an unpublished game where you compete to build tabloid headlines from various word tiles. It was so funny, and Steve Jackson really demonstrated his wit by improving on some of the ones we made. After that, I went and played some GURPS Fantasy. I had hoped to get in more GURPS than that over the weekend, but as fate would have it, some other things came my way (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).
That evening, there were various and sundry parties occurring throughout the convention hall/hotel. Dressed in costume, I wandered around various of them for quite a while....got quite a few pictures of me in costume taken.....very flattering.....tho I owe that mostly to whoever made the costume. In any case, I wandered back up to the main "Dr. Demento" party once I ran into Mickey. This is where things get really interesting.
We danced around a bit and she eventually got to dancing with a cute guy who wasn't dancing with anyone else. If memory serves, eventually they wandered out to sit down for a bit, and at some point it came to light that this guy, Allen, was friends with a guy, Vince, who had been playing Celtic music in the dealers room (by the Rowan Tree booth) that Mickey had had her eye on all day. In any case, by the time I had wandered out to see what was up, Mickey was sitting with Allen and Vince and flirting with them. I joined them for a bit and we all variously wandered back and forth at various times. At some point Mickey explained to me that when I came along Allen's attention very visibly diverted from her to me, and whenever I had wandered off for a few, he had asked her if I was straight or not or something to that effect.
In any case, I was pretty stunned since I've never been checked out at random before, at least to my knowledge (then again, I'm fairly ignorant of that type of thing, so I suppose it shouldn't surprise me). It is, of course, such a wonderful thing especially since I'm not used to it, and it's extremely flattering. So, being that this was a new situation, I guess I started breaking new ground for me. We flirted, there was some miscellaneous caressing going on, we talked and laughed and sat around....and, eventually, we went back to the hotel room.
Now, before anyone gets too [insert emotional response here], let me qualify all of this. We all know me fairly well at this point. We all know my thoughts on stuff, I think. Well, let me put it this way: what happened on Saturday between Allen and I was a long way beyond anything I've ever done before (well, considering that I had never even french kissed before then....(yes it's true, stop gawking at my purity, it tends to happen when you know you're interested in guys from an early age, but everything in your life tells you it would be bad to persue that)). At the same time, IMHO we didn't even approach most definitions of sex. If anyone needs me to be more explicit e-mail me.
In any case, Saturday night was something new and something very special to me. I'm really thankful that it happened with Allen, because he was very respectful of my personal limitations and comfort level, and never made me feel like I was disappointing in any way. Everything I know about him so far makes me think he is a really special guy. He's also pretty cute too, which never hurt anything...(evol grin at Allen)
When I started writing this, I was intending to be very measured and cautious, and I had whole pages that bordered on some type of disclaimer of my concerns, but I decided sometime yesterday to throw all that out the window. The basic gist of it was maybe things went too fast, and I was worried about any relationship with Allen getting based on the physical from the start.
That is a lesser concern now.....I'm getting over most of these particular issues. I talked to some friends and they had some useful things to say. Allen and I have e-mailed some in the last couple of days too, and I think we've shared a lot more and we're starting to build a good basis for relating to each other on many levels.
I do feel like in some sense I may be putting the cart before the horse. Every once in a while I just start letting my mind jump and think of the possibilities, and then I realize that Allen and I only met a week ago and we barely know each other in some ways. I really don't know all of how he feels or how I feel, and I suspect we're both in that same boat of sorting out thoughts and feelings. I think I will allow myself to dream anyways, and I'll just make sure to pull myself back to earth every once in a while.
Hmmm.....I'll get this posted now, I think. I still have all kinds of events front this past week to touch on at some point soon.
Well, I'm managing to catch up on the journaling a fair bit this week with a relative lack of activities. Having left off with Saturday of Marcon, I'll continue with Sunday, and continue through with the events of the past week and weekend up to the present.
First things first, one interesting thing I forgot to mention about Saturday evening had to do with Steve Jackson. Prior to meeting Allen at the party, I was just dancing around and whatnot, and for a good while Steve Jackson was there too with some of his compatriots. The funniest thing was when Dr. Demento played the Macarena....Steve Jackson danced the Macarena along with myself and everyone else....now, the odd thing was not his dancing, because he didn't look any sillier than anyone else doing the Macarena. What was odd was that he and his friends continued to do the Macarena through the next three songs....I found this vaguely disturbing.....
How is it that a man who knows so much about conspiracies and all things illuminated could fall so completely under the control of a simple dance? Could it be that Dr. Demento's demented mind has created an insidious new form of mind control? Could it be that Steve was not really under the control of the music, but was instead conducting an ancient magical ritual hidden within the Macarena? Could it be that the person I witnessed was not even Steve Jackson, but a clone, android, shapeshifting alien, or something even worse? I suspect we will never have the answers to these questions, but next time you see someone dancing the Macarena a little too long, observe them very carefully (just make sure to wear your tinfoil hat!)
So, anyways, we didn't end up making it out and about on Sunday until late morning. Mickey and I had to pack our stuff and Check out of the hotel first. After that, I went up to retrieve autographs from some Babylon 5 celebrities. The three guests from Babylon 5 were Richard Biggs [Dr. Franklin], Jeffery Willerth [Ambassador Kosh], and Robin Atkin Downes [Byron]. Their autographs were added to my Babylon Project RPG book, along with Jerry Doyle and Mira Furlan who I met in the last two years at Origins in Columbus.
Eventually, after much wandering about I ran into Allen again, and we went down to see Steve Jackson running his "Evil Stevie's Pirate Game" which utilizes the Lego pirate sets to run a miniature sea battle. We got to talk a lot more too, and it was all good. We met up with Mickey midafternoon, and waited for Vince to finish helping pack up The Rowan Tree booth. After that we headed out....Mickey decided to stick around with Vince an extra day and Greyhound it back, as she had no commitments up north. I took Allen back to his apartment so I could salvage as much additional time with him as possible before I made the drive back to Cleveland. The drive home was uneventful, and I passed out to a good night's rest shortly after I got in.
Monday was a busy day at work. Monday evening was the Cleveland Council on World Affairs annual banquet. Their guest speaker was Senator George Mitchell, who talked about his experiences as chair of the Northern Ireland peace talks. I was invited by Dean Bassett to attend as part of the group from CWRU. The talk and dinner were wonderful, and I managed to have a good convo with the assistant dean who we will be working with to try to coordinate the transfer the Council's high school model UN program to the CWRU campus.
Tuesday was my pass out and catch up on sleep night.....I did nothing of significance. Wednesday night I headed to campus to join in a game of "live-action" GURPS with my gaming group. This was the last game session in the campaign we had been playing for the past 3 years, so Andrew decided to make it a little special. We had a lot of fun. I'm now planning to run my own GURPS game in the coming weeks, with whomever is still going to be in the area over the summer. I'm drawing on my own fictional world which I created over 10 years ago during my "I want to write comic books" phase. I'm updating it to be a bit more realistic and logically plausible as a near future technology level setting.
This past weekend was graduation weekend at CWRU. Friday night I partied with many people at Missy and Debbie's apartment. It was even better that the party they had a couple weeks ago, and was just a lot of fun. I passed out for the night on a couch back on campus. Saturday morning I headed home to get a haircut, and then back to my apartment to get myself ready for the events of the day.
Saturday afternoon/evening was a chaotic chain of events. First, I headed to the home of my friend Andrew (who lives in Chicago)'s parents, as he was in town to celebrate his 21st birthday. I hung out there for a bit then rushed back to campus for a graduation mass at the Hallinan Center. The mass was wonderful and somewhat emotional, since this was the last time for a number of seniors to be singing with our music ministry. Everything was almost perfect, and you can't ask for much more than that. After mass, Kari, John, and I headed down to the Flats. We were supposed to be meeting up with two separate groups of people and doing some "clubbing". As it turned out, various bad things happened, times were thrown off, plans were thrown off, and we never ran into anyone else. I happened to run into an acquaintance from high school at The Basement, but that's about it.
On Sunday, I headed to campus again for the graduation ceremony. I was all excited for my various friends, and I took a roll and a half of pictures. I hugged many people, and was generally joyous....the weather was beautiful too, so it couldn't have been a more perfect day all in all. I went to a graduation party for John at his Grandparents' house for most of the afternoon, and spent the evening on my own at home.
Finally, Monday night, I spent some time on the phone with Allen. We had e-mailed a few times last week, but with all my activities, I was less than responsive sometimes. I was feeling bad about that, but I guess Allen realized how busy I was and wasn't bothered too much by it. Anyways, we talked long into the evening, and learned so much more about each other....a lot of the little things and the big things as well. The next couple of weeks are looking to be busy, but I think we're planning to get together again sometimes in June....I can hardly wait, as it seems like an eternity since Marcon. I think I'll also be going down to Columbus for Origins again this year over July 4 weekend and meeting up with Allen there as well.
Hmm....I think that's all I needed to catch my journal up with my life. I should get back to various other tasks. I've been doing much cleaning and bill paying, and I want to put in some writing time on my GURPS campaign and my submission for GURPS Who's Who.
Haha....I am now going to laugh at Robb.....Haha
I'm laughing at Robb because he can't spell worth shit when he's high.
He also can't communicate his ideas very well when he's high either. Actually, I'm sure it's because his brain is thinking so much faster than normal that his fingers can't even keep up, so they just neglect minor things like spelling and coherent sentences and all the related stuff that makes one's writing intelligible. I'm sure that's it.....heh.
I'm also laughing at Robb because he missed his opportunity to hook up with me
Now I am somewhat hooked up with Allen, who rocks my world and thrills me and amuses me and who I wish I was spending the weekend with since the opportunity was all there except I had family plans. People keep telling me to not get ahead of myself, and to just enjoy things for what they are now, and not worry about the future. I can't do that completely...it's not really the way I work. I'm a visionary and I think in the long-term, big picture. Never fear though, because even while I'm envisioning the possibilities of the future, I'm staying grounded in my happiness and joy in the present.
I think I trust Chadley to take care of Robb tho....Chad has at least one thing in common with me in that he refuses to smoke pot. I say good for him. I'm really happy for him and Robb.....I'm glad things are working.
I'm also laughing about Robb because I know he can take it
He and I have our special friendship bond. I know that he'll give me his normal cocky Desidono 'tude. I'll laugh at him some more though and he'll be more indignant, but eventually I'll give in and apologise just cause I know he's stubborn. Here's to Robb! He amuses me!
Anyways, that's enough picking on Robb...I am in a bit of an odd mood being that it's late I guess.....I finally got over to Brian's updated site, Wicked, tonight. I was really impressed. He's got a new look and a new attitude, and most importantly, his writing now has an inspiration that seemed to be lacking in the old incarnation.
I forget all that I said here before, but things are still going more than well between myself and Allen. Every time we talk we discover something new that we have in common. On Thursday we were on the phone for about 3 hours. Among hundreds of other things, we learned that both of us collected comic books at one time....we went on a big comic book tangent, which was fun, since I haven't had an opportunity to do that in a long while. We talked about Roleplaying Games and our own campaign worlds that we are in the midst of reconstructing. We talked more about what we want to do when we get together again in a few weeks. We talked a bit about our relationship and distance, but for the most part we were giddy and silly and laughed and giggled a lot.
I think that both of us are thinking and projecting forward a bit in our relationship from the present. I can just tell from little things that Allen says that he has some of the same thoughts going through his head as I do. I think we're both just being a bit cautious too, because we care enough about each other to realize that we don't want to mess things up.
Various persons, on and off net, keep telling me to take things slow and don't worry about the future. I've been trying to explain to them that I'm not worrying, I'm just thinking and dreaming. That's one thing I think Allen and I have in common; we're both dreamers and visionaries and leaders. We're willing to do what it takes and make some sacrifices to make things happen and reach our goals. And I know that we can make things happen.
In the morning I am heading home for a day because my grandparents are in town. We're going to do a bit of family bonding and good fun stuff like we always do. I expect it will be lovely. Well, I should sleep before I pass out here at the keyboard. I'm sure that I will have more interesting stuff to talk about sooner than later.
I wanted to get to this sooner, but there were more important things in my life.
Now I've got a bit of time, so I'll deal with it.
Basically, this has everything to do with Robb's journal entry on May 25. He felt the need to diss me and talk a lot of trash about how *I* was the one who passed up the chance to hook up with *him*. Somehow, I fail to see it that way.
In any case, I was gonna talk some more trash about him and how he's full of shit if he thinks I'm the one who dissed him, but I decided against it...<g> I had a sudden stroke of genius, as I often do, and I remembered that I have to think like Desi to understand him (I've got the talking shit part down, but the thinking like him part is harder.....LOL).
So, anyways, he's talking a totally different talk than I am......all he has on his mind is fucking. He doesn't understand at all that sex is not my main motivating factor. Yeah, Robb, I think I know exactly what you're talking about. I am perhaps wrong, but I expect that he's talking about some of our more recent phone conversations and icq chats (the past couple months). He's referring to his little smug sentiments that he'd get me in bed someday and my adamant denials that it'd happen. He seems to have taken that as a refusal.....what he seems to have missed is *what* it was a refusal of. For me it was a refusal to even consider a meaningless sexual encounter with someone who's in the middle of a committed relationship.
What I'm talking about goes back a bit further than that....the *real* refusal happened in Robb's entry on March 9, where, after all his months of talk about how he wasn't sure if things were ever going to work with Chad, he made the decision that the relationship was important enough that he was going to keep working with Chad to make it happen.
Now, I'm not *even* attacking Robb's relationship with Chad. I stated way back when that I was happy for them and that I hope it lasts, and my sentiments have not changed at all. The only thing that's bothering me is that suddenly I'm the person closing doors. Yeah, perhaps if Robb expects that I'd make a good "fling" then I did pass up the opportunity. But if we're talking about a real relationship, something that I'm looking for, and something that I think I've found since, then he shut the door a long time ago.
On other notes of my life, last weekend was nice....I got in some quality family time. Did a bunch of gardening/yardwork with my mom and grandparents. The work week was good, sometimes slow, but generally well paced. Last night I had my friends Kari and Karen over for dinner. I made spaghetti, which turned out really well. We went for a walk and ooohed and awwwwed over the cute little geese living near my apartment. We spent much of the evening playing a new card game called "The Arbitrarily Fucked-up Card Game". It was a blast, and I managed to pick the basics up pretty quickly.
On a bitter note, I ended up having to get my brakes replaced yesterday because one of the calipers locked up and destroyed the pads and rotors....all of them were getting in need anyways, but that was $300+ that I didn't want to spend especially after shelling out about that much on a new alternator last month. If I was not so dependant on my car I wouldn't have one I don't think. Let this be a warning to all of you without cars....heh.
Allen and I also talked much earlier in the week. We've sort of gotten our plans set up for me to visit next weekend. We're hoping to get some varied bonding activities in I think....some classic dating stuff, if you will. Movie and nice dinner, will no doubt be on the calendar, and we talked about going mall shopping too. Depending on the weather I'd sortof like to do fun outside stuff. But the actual activities really don't matter as much as the time together. I plan on having plenty of time to just talk and do *other* intimate things.
Also, I get to meet some of Allen's friends hopefully. I'm looking forward to that, as I'm all about meeting new people, especially since they've heard lots of good things about me and will approach it with a good impression. Last night I told Kari and Karen more about Allen too, and they said that they'll have to meet him now. I'll have to arrange for some amount of "meet-the-boyfriend" time when he comes up here to visit. They're all used to the gay relationship thing with various of our other friends, so this will be natural. I know all my friends will like him because he's just that special a guy.
Hmmm....well, I'm off to enjoy the gorgeous weather this Memorial day weekend. Mix 106.5 is having an all 80's weekend, so the music is cranking, and I get to enjoy a bit more family time, along with trying to get a tan. Laters!
Up in the sky the little birds fly,
While down in their nest the little birds rest.
With a wing on the left and a wing on the right,
Softly they sleep all through the night......
Shhhhhh......THEY'RE SLEEPING!
Up comes the sun,
the dew falls away.
"Good morning, good morning,"
the little birds say!
An old boy scout camp song Howdy! That song popped into my head one morning before the heat became icky. Hope you all are enjoying some nice weather. It's been really hot and dry around here all week. Earlier in the week was bad....temperatures approached 95 deg. F (35 deg. C, I think.) Work has been good this week though....enough so that I have not really had time to work on writing this entry. It has been a nice pace, so I'm not complaining.
I'm sorry that it's been a bit since I last wrote.....I had that nice week of every-other-day entries a couple weeks ago, but I've fallen back to weekly stuff again I think. Of course, I know you all are wondering about my weekend in Columbus with Allen. I'm getting to that.....I just wanted to hold you all in suspense for a bit....make you read through all my meaningless prose.....heh.
First, I do need to mention Menmorial day, so I don't lose an entire week. Basically, I had a decent time at my high school Alumni Association Banquet....got to hang out with a bunch of old folks......LOL. I guess we are planning to have a big shindig next year for the millenium. I did a lot more family stuff.....good picnic food and whatnot. I also went to the mall and found a great 2 CD set called Club Mix: The 90's. It's got a great selection of "90's dance classics". Not everything, but a significant assortment of stuff. I've been listening to it a lot cruising down the highway......I really need a cool car to go with my cool music now.....LOL. Anyways, back to my trip to Columbus....
I headed down there after work last Friday.....traffic was a bit annoying, but not nearly like it was for the drive down to Marcon last month. Even though I forgot to print out the directions, I had Allen's address, and I know Columbus well enough to make it fine on just that. When a arrived, Allen was making dinner.....it was too wonderful. We had Chicken Tetrazini with Caesar Salad and a bottle of Zinfandel. Dinner was *so* good (Allen has some skills in the kitchen, which is nice, since it means I don't have to fear his cooking, and in fact can enjoy it).
We decided to save dessert for later and to go for a walk around campus first to wear off dinner. We wandered throughout the main area of campus surrounding the small and large ovals. It was nice to enjoy the greenery and buildings and other people who were wandering and enjoying the weather. Of course, I've been to the OSU campus enough times to know my way around a bit, but Allen showed me a lot of neat things that I had never seen before. At one point we stopped at a bench amidst a few trees on the edge of the oval. We chatted for a while and Allen tieda beautiful ring on a string (is that the right word....hrm) around my neck. It has a celtic design....sortof interwoven bands and designs. I was so surprised. Allen is truly so sweet....when it comes to thoughtfulness, he has me beat hands down.
After we finished our walk, we got back to dessert, which was this delicious light cheesecake. Considering the lightness, I didn't think it would be very rich, but I was wrong.....it was one of the best cheesecakes I have ever had. It makes me sad to say it, but the dessert was even better than the dinner. After dessert, we just hung out for a while and more or less partook of each other's presence. We did other things too, but that's not for me to talk about here.
Saturday morning, we slept in a bit, and then Allen made french toast (this was good too!) After we ate, we headed down to the City-Center Mall to do some shopping. Mostly it was just wandering and looking at all the things I'd buy if I actually had the money to blow. We did go to Games People Play and picked up some GURPS and AD&D stuff. I forgot my bonus shopper card for the store again, so I had to get a new one and get it punched. I always forget them, so I now have about 4 of them partially punched. I'm hoping that the combined total is enough to fill up one fully, so I can get my bonus sale shopping day next time. After shopping we waited in the center of the mall for Allen's friends Jeremy, Alanna, and Jason to show up. While we waited, we did a lot of people watching, which was fun. I've concluded that people watching is more fun when it's hot out because there are more people and less clothing to see....evol grin. (I think Robb had similar sentiments about biking the other week......LOL.)
After Allen's friends showed up we went down to the Art Festival in Bicentennial Park. We wandered there for most of the afternoon looking at all the sculpture and pottery and painting and glasswork and more esoteric items. It was fun in general, and moreso because I got to enjoy it with Allen and his friends. I wish I had the money to buy some artsy stuff like that. Then again, I really have nowhere to put it at the moment.....someday....
Saturday evening, I got to meet even more of Allen's "Ren-faire" friends. Allen is very involved in the group that puts on the Renaissance Faire/Festival at OSU....it's sort of like me and Model UN....isn't that scary?! His group seems to associate with each other in much the same way that many of the MUN people do too. Anyways, one of his friends lives out in the country east of Columbus and had everyone over for a picnic/bonfire. I met about a dozen people there (probably more) so it's amazing that I remember most of the names.
I got to play a bunch of games of sand volleyball at the picnic. That was somewhat of a highlight for me because, if I have not mentioned it yet, volleyball is one of the few sports that I really like. Happily, Allen's friends invited me right into the game and they were really a joy to play with. It didn't hurt that for the most part I was having a really good personal volleyball day.....aside from a few bad serves early on, I was on top of most things.
After the volleyball, we ate and I talked some with people and kept meeting more people throughout. Allen told me that all of his friends really liked me, and that was a pretty big thing for me. It was such a good thing to feel so fully accepted by a group of people. And for my own part I have to say again that I think Allen's friends are very interesting and fun as individuals and as a group.
Of course, I know that you all want to see pictures. I have a pic of Allen that I am going to scan in ASAP, but you will have to wait on the rest until I finish off the roll of film and get it developed. I think I got pictures of all the essential people who were at the picnic, but I'm not sure if all of them will turn out well.
On Sunday we got a late start getting up, which was fine because I needed the sleep. We ended up going to Wendy's for food and running into Ren-faire people again, who had just finished up a planning meeting. I got to meet a few people who were not at the party, so it was good. After that, we got my stuff all packed into the car and I headed back up to Cleveland.
After I got back, my roommate and I ended up going out by school to see Rhiannon's apartment and also because Brian was in town and staying with her. Both of them are part of my general Alumni House group of friends. I don't think I have pics of them up yet, but they should be coming when I get more film developed. We went to Arabica coffehouse down in Shaker Square.....this was when I realized that I forgot to have another piece of cheesecake before I left Allen's. I got cheesecake from Arabica, but it just didn't compare....oh well.
I talked to Robb on Sunday night....it was the first time we've talked in a while. I was more or less getting a different perspective on relationships and some questions I've had running through my head. It was a good conversation.....I came out of it feeling fairly good about how things are going and my ability to grasp and cope with new relationship issues. I was really worried about my having inner concerns at this point, but I think it's just me slipping into reality from the sortof emotionally charged euphoria that I've been in for the past month. I'm still feeling truly blessed that things are going as well as they are....the distance does make things tough in some ways, but I'm doing ok so far.
That's all I have to say about the past.....the rest of the week has been me trying to accomplish stuff, falling asleep instead, and waking up to do it all over again. Tonight I am going to visit Jeneanne at her new apartment. She's living with Natalie and Sarah, who was our music director at the Hallinan Center. Technically, I guess I'm visiting all of them.
The weekend is uncharted territory so far.....I expect I'm going to try to accomplish some more design for my GURPS campaign world and work on some Model UN stuff. I'll probably get together with someone, tho I'm not sure who yet. I also need to go apartment searching with John this weekend if possible.
Next weekend is my friend Jeff's wedding. I am in the wedding party, so it's all exciting. I think I might have something going on that Friday, though I can't remember what. The weekend after that Allen should be coming up and going to the Great Lakes Medieval Faire with me. I'm hoping that I will get to introduce him to some of my friends, but I'm not sure if many people who I am out to are going to be around....I shall have to look into that this weekend. Finally, over July 4th I will be down in Clumbus for the Origins gaming convention. I'm going to be staying with Allen and company, but I may have a few friends from school who are going down there on their own.....we shall see. I'm also wondering if I will run into any people from the comic/gaming shops at home....I went down to Origins with them last year, so it's possible they will be down there again. Hmm.....after that my plans are basically bare.....I expect they will fill up with some fun get-together-with-friends events, a few more trips to Columbus, moving at the end of July, and general busyness. Oooh.....I also have 4 tickets for the Orchestra this summer at Blossom Music Center.....I will probably go at least once with Helen and friends, who bought the tickets for me. I know my friends Kari and Karen also got tickets, so maybe I can bring Allen for a show and a meet-the-friends event.
Well, I should likely return to other tasks. I think I've laid my life sufficiently before you all for this week. This weekend I might come up with some commentary on other journalers and whatnot. Laters!
Hrm....no one is online tonight....oh bother.
I just got back from seeing a fairly good movie called All the Rage. I was disturbed.....
It was a very Ebeneezer Scrooge, three-ghosts-of-Christmas type of experience for me.....I guess the movie is popular at film festivals. If anyone out there has seen it, let me know, and maybe we can talk about it.
I'm sure there are some song lyrics out there that should go with this, but I don't know them.....oh wait, maybe I do....
You can walk away from your mistakes
You can turn your back on what you do
Just a little smile is all it takes
And you can have your cake and eat it too
Loneliness will get to you somehow
But ev'rybody loves you now
Everybody Loves You Now
~Billy Joel
Later in the day
Hrm....I just don't know....you ever have one of those inner conflicting sort of days? Today is one of those days for me I think....actually this whole weekend is, probably. I think I'm going through a "Living Contradiction" phase or something (to steal a phrase from Robb.)
It's odd, because in my sort of haphazard life I've felt like I wanted so many different things (actually I probably want it all). I want the deep meaningful life....the Albert Einstein life and the Mother Theresa life....and at the same time I want the glamorous life....the Princess Diana life and the media star life, and yet, I also want the simple ordinary life of my family and of an earlier day.
The thing that really bothers me is what I see as my personal failures. The way I spread myself thin and try vainly to achieve many things and succeed in achieving many things *halfway*. The way I've managed to go through 3 years of college getting only mediocre grades when I should have been getting great grades. The way I have great intentions of working out and looking better but never end up sticking with it long enough to make a real difference. The way I'd like to be involved in more musical and theatrical endeavours, but I never find the time to join the groups or do the things that would let me accomplish that. In general, I sometimes feel like I have all this potential to do great things, but that it's somehow squandered in mediocrity
I'm not all sure of what my purpose in this is....I'm probably just ranting because I rarely open up and truly rant and lament my existence in my journal....things are usually too thought out and controlled. It feels good to do this on this rare occasion.
I'm still deeply conflicting over the movie from last night. In some ways I'm really frightened of the superficial shallow existence of the main character, that I could fall into something similar, if not so extreme, as that. In another sense, a part of me finds the superficiality attractive; finds it more appealing than my life right now. There's so much more to it than all that, but I'm not sure I can adequately express it in words right now. I'm just sortof paging mentally and emotionally through a lot of contrasting realities at the moment, and I'm not sure which one I prefer because all of them are a departure from the theoretical ideal reality. I'm just trying to find my best approximation to that ideal and the best way to achieve and hold on to it.
I guess I'm looking for positives right at the moment. I'm looking for a way to fuse the deep and meaningful with the superficial; the physical, mental, and spiritual in my life, to create some kind of whole that manages to find success in all areas instead of finding failure in all areas. I'm looking for a "me" that I can look at as truly positive.
This morning I went to church....this was good, as I almost decided to skip it. I missed church last weekend when I was down in Columbus....I need to try not to do that in the future. The important thing about going to church, for me, is that it helps to keep me grounded and focused at least once each week on the things that are important to me. It brings me back to my faith....it brings me back to the ideas of community and doing good for others....it gives me a good outlet most of the time for my musical urges. Today it did all three, which meant it was a good church day. The priest gave a good homily, after an opening that had me worried. He talked a lot about communities and especially faith communities. The music was also all good....all stuff I could sing and be happy about.
This afternoon I went to the pool in my apartment complex. This was the first time this year that I've had a chance to just soak in the sun. I started work on what will hopefully be a nice tan in the coming weeks. I feel a bit superficial about that, but I guess that as long as I don't let those kind of things control my life I'm not too concerned. In any case, I read a bunch more of my Nostradamus book while I was out in the sun. I'm really going to try to sit down this evening and write on that because I sense that I am running very short on time before Steve Jackson Games gets all the entries they need for their Who's Who volume II. That's one of those things I need to make myself work on, otherwise I'll kick myself later.
I actually am thinking about running out shortly to get something to deal with hair removal.....I am becoming rapidly intolerant of what back hair I do have. I suspect that I won't have an adverse reaction to the chemicals because my skin is fairly resilient in that way. I consider this an easy way to buy a bit more happiness with myself and boost my spirits enough to do other things requiring a bit more discipline....like exercise.
I've been doing bunches of crunches every morning since about the middle of the week, which also pleases me greatly. I may have mentioned this before, but for me, and I suspect many people, the hard thing about exercise is making it an integral and regular part of each day....making it a priority along with everything else. Because I've discovered that my evenings are too haphazard to plan regular exercise, my only resort is to go with the mornings. This requires that I get to sleep at a regular hour most evenings, but this is a good thing for me to do for many other reasons too. As I get myself acclimated to the schedule, I'm going to move on to finally making use of the weight set that I bought a couple months ago. I also need to alternate in aerobic stuff....going running or the like....that's really the tough part for me, because my mind just gets intensely bored with that, and it's really hard for me to do endurance stuff if I'm fixated on how much I'm hating it. Soooo, I'm hoping that maybe this time I've hit things just right so I won't find excuses in a week or two and lapse again....keeping my fingers crossed.
So anyways, what's my deal? I don't know....first I rant on how things suck and then I go and extol how I think they might be getting better. If they *do* actually get better, then that question is moot, but if not...if anyone has any insights or answers, please let me know because I'm feeling slightly torn at the moment.
Motoring
What's your price for flight
You've got him in your sights
And driving thru the night
Motoring
What's your price for flight
In finding mister right
You'll be alright tonight
Sister Christian
~Night Ranger This post was a long time in coming.....sorry for that....things were somewhat hectic last week, and the weekend I was away for most of the time. Then came this week, and it's been just as crazy at work.....no shortage of stuff to do.
I talked to Allen for a long while last Tuesday night on the phone. I called him because I've been trying to work through a lot of doubts and personal issues I've been having with relationship stuff. I sortof had been trying to think through things a little on my own and I was getting about as far as I was going to like that. I'm sure you could tell from my previous weekend journal entries that I was fairly troubled by stuff.
I always say that I trust myself more than anyone else....I know how I want things to be and I don't trust other people to get things done right most of the time......so I do things myself. Well, suddenly, I feel like I'm in a situation (relationship, etc) where I'm treading on completely new ground. All my theories and ideas and logic sortof goes out the window.... And the thing that bothers me about all that is that suddenly I found that I don't necessarily trust myself to make the right decisions anymore. And I explained to Allen that it's not because I intend to make wrong decisions, but because the well thought out logic suddenly doesn't work as well anymore.
So anyways, we talked for a long time about a lot of stuff, and came to a couple conclusions. One of them is that we have really good communication, and it's important that we keep communicating what's on our minds. Another thing is that we are going to try and take things a bit slower, and not rush too much.....this sortof ties to me trying not to think ahead of myself too much. I need to just take things a day at a time. I need to stop conflicting so much about things and just live life for now.
During the last week I also went with my roommate to look at potential living spaces for the next year. I don't recall if I've mentioned this, but myself, John (who I have not posted pics of yet, but who will likely be in my next set), and our friend Dan are going to be living together starting in the fall, and we're currently looking for a place, since the current lease ends July 31. We looked at a number of places, and finally decided on one. It's a duplex a bit off the south side of campus. It's somewhat more expensive than the rest of the ones we looked at, but it's larger than the others too. We're planning to bring in a fourth roommate for at least half the year if we can find someone interested. We got our credit check okayed, so we are going tomorrow to pay the deposit on the apartment.
Last Wednesday, I found out that one of the guys I've been working with a lot at work has leukemia. He hadn't been feeling well for weeks, and he finally went to the hospital last week to get tests done and whatnot. It's sortof freaky scary because he is only 25. I don't know any details, but if those of you who are inclined to could keep him in your prayers I'd appreciate it.
In a very nice boon, I inherited a pair of Indians tickets for last Wednesday night....we were supposed to have customers up to go, but they changed plans, so in a very nice gesture, my supervisors gave them to the co-ops to use. After some frantic calling around, I got a hold of Jen, one of my friends from Model UN to go with me. We had fun and it was an exciting game especially towards the end. It's probably been 4 years since I've been to an Indians game.
On Thursday I went out to Mentor to try on my Tux for Jeff's wedding......it fit well, and they sewed on a button that was missing. On the way back I finally bothered to get a bottle of Nair and try my hand at getting rid of back hair. My big discovery is that it doesn't work very well on coarse hair. I suppose it worked halfway, but it's not really what I was hoping for I guess. I might have to take one of my female friends up on the possibility of waxing....ouch. Someday when I have the spare money for electrolysis......
On Friday, I got to attend a project kickoff meeting with customers for the first time at work. Usually I am just doing background stuff for projects when the meetings are going on, but due to various factors I was the most knowledgeable person around about the type of project we were talking about. It was also cool to get free lunch for the first time. Afterwards, I guess that our project manager and engineers were pretty impressed with me. It was such an awesome feeling. At this point, I feel really good about my chances of being hired on by Foxboro a year from now when I graduate. Assuming I don't find anything significantly more impressive, I will probably want to work there too......I like pretty much everyone I work with, and it's usually a fun and exciting place to work.
So, that was the extent of my week for the most part. My weekend was no less busy. Friday night, I went to Jeneanne, Natalie, and Sarah's new apartment for a housewarming party. I got to see a lot of people I have not seen for a month or two. I got to drink a decent amount of alcohol.....tried some new local beer. Speaking of alcohol, Andrew (who lives in Chicago) was in town for the party. Evidently, he now has a drink named after him at some bar in Chicago. It's something he picked up in college, and I guess he told the bartenders how to make it and people liked it, so they asked for a description and called it the "M-Special" after him..... I think this is something to aspire to.....having a drink named after you.... Anyways, the party was good, I was probably the last to leave because I needed to let all the alcohol leave me.....I actually only had about 4 drinks, and I was there for many hours.
Saturday, I spent the morning gathering my stuff to go home for Jeff and Jamie's wedding. I got my hair cut when I got home, and spent the afternoon at my grandparents' visiting with relatives. I went over to Jeff's mom's house where the wedding was going to be for the rehearsal that evening. We ran through everything and had a lovely cookout type dinner. It was yummy with hamburgers and corn on the cob. We then had a mini party for Jeff that evening. We drank some, and watched "The Wedding Singer". I never saw it before, so this was good. Oh, Karen also brought over some video of a 50's burlesque movie that her dad gave her for the occasion. It was really funny, fairly risqué without really having nudity persay, and somewhat scary in that some of the women looked like they were 50 or something.....LOL.
The wedding was Sunday, so I got over to Jeff's mom's house late morning and got all suited up. I hate to say it, but we all looked damn good! They decided to go with tuxes with Nehru collars, sort of like Kano wore in the old Green Hornet TV series. I think I like them a lot better than normal tuxes. Jeff's brother Doug was the best man, and myself, Paul, and Jeff's mom's boyfriend's son Russell were the ushers. All the bridesmaids wore very beautiful peachish colored floral dresses. Jamie's sister was the Maid of Honor, and Karen, Jeff's sister Emma, and a girl whose name I forget were the bridesmaids. The ceremony was beautiful....they had it in the back yard, and the weather was wonderful. There was a beautiful wooden trellis as a backdrop for the ceremony. Jeff's tux was the same as ours, except he was all in white. Jamie's dress was white with a long trailer behind it.
The reception was wonderful, with lots of homemade food. There were plenty of people there that I had not seen in a long time, so I had no end to conversation. Jeff and Jamie eventually left for a honeymoon in the Allegheny Mountains. After everything was over I helped to clean up everything, and spent some more quality bonding time with Jeff's mom and also some with his brother. We went up to Lake Erie and I jumped in the water......it was frigid....LOL.
So anyways, this week, as I mentioned before, has been mostly work and recovery from the weekend. I took two rolls of film to be developed on Monday. They have the wedding pictures and the pictures from my visit to Allen in Columbus, along with a few others. You'll know when they are scanned and posted because links will appear in my entries about the Columbus trip and the wedding. I'll make sure to link from later in my journal too. Allen and I are going to talk tonight about our plans for his visit up here this weekend. We're haded for the Great Lakes Medieval Faire, and I hardly know what else we might do.
Oh, before I end this, I wanted to give a big congratulation to Robb for getting his sort of promotion at work. It sounds like he's doing pretty well for himself these days. Maybe he'll finally make that trip out to Toronto to meet certain paople.....evol grin. I think that's about all that is on the books for now....catch ya all later!
Last updated 23 June 1999.
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