Nothing much! / Greetings from Svidnyk, Slovakia

Man, I am fried. Gotta find a way to Krynica, Poland by tomorrow evening. I dunno how that's gonna go. I'll have a good report with photos when I get home and decompress. Right now, I'm way beyond being able to type a meaningful entry. I'm simultaneously homesick and just starting to get comfortable here again. I wish I had a few more days for the "meat & potatoes" of my thang, but such is life. Maybe I'll get a huge raise next month and manage to come back here again before winter sets in... if not, "eh....!" (Next vacation's gotta be a weekend in Rehoboth. Yunz had better hold me to that.)

čauko!

A Day of Firsts

I will always remember today as the day Gabriel and I had our first kiss.

You read that right, folks. Saw the G-Man at the Pride festival today. Got a hug and a kiss on the cheek, which I gladly returned. It was more sweet than passionate or sexy (onthecheeks usually are that way), but I may still always remember it. I don't intend for it to be the last.

There were some other firsts: first time interacting with him outside of the bar (last evening's parade doesn't really count), first time seeing who some of his friends are, and first time spotting the only-temporary-if-I-have-anything-to-do-with-it BF. (How evil am I becoming??) I can see the external appeal, but I wonder if there's any more to it than that. Anyhoo, the affection between them was a little hard to stomach, so I took it in as a reality check, and made a quick exit when it was starting to spill over into disgust (mine, not theirs).

I'm off to the old country, y'all. Be good now, ya hear? I may blog from the road. (And I promise to not be G-Blogging anymore until I get back. Cross my heart!)

Pride 2005

Happy Pride, everybody!




Oh, and Gabriel says "hi" too.

G-DAY 3

I'm going to blog this after all, just in case some of you are waiting to hear.

More than halfway (as I figure it) into my Kafkaesque metamorphosis into a barfly, I set off after work for 30 Degrees (y'know, Cobalt) with butterflies in my stomach but a fairly positive attitude.

An hour and a half in Gabriel's archangelic presence later, I left the place a bit dejected. Maybe because my ostensible primary goal was not achieved. (Translated: there will be one less postcard sent out of Slovakia later this month.) But I guess all things considered, it went pretty well. And maybe you'll tell me that I'm crazy to think that it didn't go well. ("All things considered" would be that he isn't "available", mainly. I'm sure I'll come up with more later.)

Once again, there was lots of cute & familiar interaction, and some especially endearing cuteness on my part (I'm really giving this a lot of effort, people!) -- don't think that didn't register with him. I could read it all over his face. So -- when you think that a month ago I knew nothing more about the G-Man than two photos in a newspaper/website, perhaps you might tell me that getting to this point is pretty ballsy & pretty remarkable (esp. for little ol' me). I may even start to believe it myself.

Meanwhile, I'll try to avoid overanalyzing every minute detail of the duration of our relationship.

Yeah, right. Good luck with all that, Richko.

A near-death experience

Last Sunday night I came back to my apartment around midnight to the sight of a body lying on the floor at the end of the hallway.

As I approached, I could see that this body belonged to my psycho next-door neighbor. (I call him psycho because I have compelling evidence to believe that he is the one who broke into my apartment the night of my housewarming party 2 years ago after a group of us decided to head down to the Mall for some late-night monument viewing. But don't tell the psycho that, he'll probably sue me for libel next.)

I did walk over to the body and saw that it was breathing, somewhat normally. (Then again, what the hell is normal about passing out in front of your own apartment door?) Not wanting to get involved with whatever was going on with the psycho, but with my conscience not willing to let me pretend I never saw anything, I started to yell out his name, ask if he was OK, all that stuff. (I didn't touch him, though. That's crossing the line to buying into the psychosis, especially if he was just fucking with me. [Ha! "Who's the psycho now?!!?" I hear you saying. Fuck you! (I say that with love.)])

The yelling got no response. So I stood over him and yelled again. No response. (Maybe if I'd thought about it for another minute, I woulda poked him with a stick.)

So I went back downstairs and told the "concierge" (soon to be the night duty nurse of the locked unit that 1234 Mass Ave has become) what I found. He goes, "yeah, that guy's really messed up; he's got a bad drinking problem." So he and I returned to the scene. (I had to tell him the psycho's name, which he then called out and tried to rouse the guy.) Meanwhile, I told him I didn't wish to get any more involved (and reminded him why, oops, setting myself up for slander there) and finally came back inside my apartment.

About 15 minutes later, the paramedics showed up! Ambulance, fire truck out front, the works! They couldn't get the neighbor to respond... I was listening through the door and apparently they shot him up with something (they can do that?) and finally he responded a bit. (At least I assume it was a shot; I heard the one paramedic say "you're going to feel a little prick"... OK, let's not go there.)

They had a stretcher, gurney, whatever, in the hallway and it sounded as if they were going to put the neighbor on it, so I waited and watched out the window to see them come out and haul him to the hospital.

They appeared downstairs, rolled the stretcher out to the ambulance, but without a neighbor.

Strangely enough, he evidently was able to go back into his apartment under his own power (I heard him milling around over there after the paramedics left). I imagine he was supremely pissed off the next morning. I wonder if he knows who called the paramedics??!!!!

Maybe more interesting stuff happens to me than I give credit for.

as seen in "bitch session" (#3)

Time to step out of the G-Man stream for a while, and get back to what's really important: being bitchy!

"You didn't call because you didn't want to become a satellite that revolves around me? If a simple phone call makes you that, then what the hell hyperbole does a date make you? I was right to chalk you up as a loser the first time."

"Aren't we all just totally fed up with pudgy white straight males in bad suits, expense accounts and no life of their own telling anyone how to live theirs?"

(WashBlade, 5/27/05)

G-DAY 2 (the real one): the pleasure, the pain, the aftermath

This was truly G-DAY 2. Accept no substitutes - this was the real deal.

Just like last Friday, but with the determination of seeing Gabriel one way or another, I prepped myself this morning for the after-work visit to 30 Degrees (aka Cobalt, 2nd floor) and, if necessary, Cobalt (aka Cobalt). I knew Gabriel works on Fridays, so I needed to make this one count.

And did it ever.

Plan "A" went into operation when I entered 30 Degrees and saw the object of my affection, in bartendering mode and just waiting for me. I went into the men's room to try to put myself together, and then jumped right in.

The fun part was that he pretty much remembered me (he even guessed my name on the first try, once I reminded him it started with "R") and my "dilemma" about not having a favorite drink, etc., even that it had been 2 weeks (he thought just one, but still!) since we met.

Long story short, for the next 2 1/2 hours he was all mine. (Except for the handful of interlocutors who had the nerve to expect him to serve *them* drinks with me standing right there!)

I learned a lot about him (and he, about me). The wild thing is that he is almost exactly the person I imagined him to be. He's bright, he's "deep", he's sweet, and he is completely and utterly lovable.

And he is 24 years old.

Not what I expected, there! And I found out many other tidbits, almost all of which endeared him to me even more -- as if that was possible, but it was.

About an hour into our 2nd date, he dropped the "B" bomb.

Yep, he has a boyfriend. I should have expected as much. Well, honestly, I did expect it.

I'm still kind of wondering where he was coming from in relating to me the way he did. It could have been just uber-friendly & engaging bartenderness. About which I wouldn't complain except that if it was possible to be any closer to being in love with him (realistically, I'm not), I don't think I could have been any closer. He's really interesting, and well-spoken, and just a delight. And we really shared a lot of info about ourselves, which I did not "push" at all -- it was his questions to me that made me continue to show my (obvious!) interest in him.

The only other down side to what was perhaps an evening I'll never forget is that once I'd indicated it was about time for me to go home, he became a little distant, er, businesslike, leaving an opening for "to be continued" but what felt like only in the context of the next time I showed up at the bar. So at that point I decided not to put an offer out there to get together outside the context of the bar. (Which breaks my heart a little bit, but somehow I can't bear to just write him off. Likewise I could not bear to make that offer and be shot down, not after how much I feel we did connect on whatever level(s).)

He offered a handshake upon my departure, but I did "insist" on a goodbye hug. Unfortunately it seemed a bit "pro forma", in that I had to ask for it. Which made me think that somehow he knew why I was there tonight.

I talked to Jason after I got home and he says that I should be very happy with how things turned out, how much we talked and how much really sweet interaction we had. Above and beyond the call of duty of the bartender, definitely. (Still, I wish I could be more sure.) And Jason also thinks that I shouldn't write off the G-Man at all yet, but to cultivate this blossoming(?) friendship and be all "who knows what might happen?". The erstwhile dreamer in me says to not get my hopes up for anything; they've only been dashed in the past every time. Yet I can't help but imagine what wondrous things could be in store.

If only...

G-DAY 2...?

I thought this was G-DAY 2. (Of course, when I woke up this morning I wasn't so sure. Somehow I managed to put myself together "fly" enough that I was able to decide shortly thereafter to proceed with attempt #2.)

I took the Red Line after work up to the Dupont station, from where I walked over to Cobalt / 30 Degrees. Hoping (perhaps irrationally) that Gabriel would be working the afternoon/evening happy hour.

I walked up the steps into 30 Degrees, approached the bar and saw... a very attractive bartender-dude, but my G-Man was nowhere to be seen.

{sigh} Another miss.

I wonder if the universe is trying to tell me something?

But what exactly is it trying to tell me? I finished my drink, headed over to Safeway to pick up a bag of salad mix, and then headed down 17th Street towards P to cut back over to my neighborhood. As I came upon the Universal Gear store, I looked over grinning, expecting to see Gabriel's swimsuit ad in the window as it's been for the past 2 weeks.

It's been taken down. And in its place?

Don'tcha know whose hunky torso that is on the right?

(You bet it is!) So what the heck is the universe trying to tell me? Either this is the lead-up to something really good, or it's some kind of sadistic torture.

Let's go ahead and reschedule G-DAY 2 for this Friday evening or night, OK?