Water Signs

I just had a very content wonderful day.

I woke up and felt ok, even after going to the theater with my family and then Indian food with my siblings late last night. I decided I'd work out in my building's exercise room, so I put on shorts, my sports bra, and a t-shirt and took Freud for a walk. We went past Neighbor Guy's new apartment and I figured I should stop by and say hi and see if he wanted to come with me later when I went on my antique boutique selling mission.

Thirteen hours later, Neighbor Guy and I parted ways while Possible Boy stuck around for another hour.

Possible Boy just happened to drop by Neighbor Guy's apartment soon after I arrived. My dog was totally well behaved at Neighbor Guy's place and only got growly when Neighbor Guy's dog tried to sniff him. The three humans sat on NG's floor and talked for hours. Then we decided we should go swimming at the beach, so Possible Boy ran home to get his trunks while NG and I walked to my condo and cooked. NG made some pasta thing that I couldn't eat because it was pasta, but I had the noodles in my cupboard and it got them fed. I fried up the shmancy no-nitrate uncured bacon my mom bought me at Whole Foods and made my brown sugar, cinnamon and butter goop for rice cakes and with apple sauce on the side I was a well-fed camper, too.

By the time we went to the beach, thunder and lightning and lifeguards chased everybody away. It poured for half of the two block walk back to my condo and we swam in the rain instead.

I keep saying that Neighbor Guy is like Dori the fish in Finding Nemo, so Neighbor Guy decided we had to watch Finding Nemo. Halfway through the movie, the rain stopped so we headed back to the beach and had a lovely time in the freezing cold water. Possible Boy didn't want to go all the way under because it was too cold. It took me forever, edging deeper and deeper, before I dunked myself completely. Lake Michigan. Ice cold. Very very cold. But fun. Neighbor Guy went right in. No second thought, just dove. Possible Boy wouldn't go much past his waist. Then as we were getting ready to go and Possible Boy was fully clothed, he went to put his shoes back on in the water so his feet wouldn't be all sandy. He laughed as he struggled to keep his balance on the first shoe, then promptly fell backwards completely in the water, shirt and towel and everything. He was amused and NG and I were cracking up and the whole thing was perfect and fabulous.

A huge fog cloud rolled in over everything as we left. It was beautiful. Neighbor Guy told a little girl to look out for the monsters that come out of the fog.

Back at my house we filled the jacuzzi tub and moved Finding Nemo to my laptop so we could watch it from the tub. Wet clothes and towels all went into the dryer, except Possible Boy and my bathing suits as we plunked down sideways in the jacuzzi. I'm 4'11", so I can comfortably fit my whole body across just the width of the tub. Possible Boy is 5'11", so his legs hung over the side. Neighbor Guy wasn't invited to be in the tub because he'd put everything in the dryer and was wandering around in a towel and naked Neighbor Guy would have been awkward in this situation.

After Nemo I went to put on dry clothes and Neighbor Guy had Les Miserables started back in the living room before I had a chance to clasp my bra. Possible Boy went home because he is not the youngest of a gazillion (I think the real number is like 17) children and values time spent alone. Neighbor Guy, not so much. But I wasn't going to kick him out because I know it's good for me now and again and I'd already shot the day for productivity. By the time the French Revolution began, Possible Boy texted me that he was back out and at the bar if we felt like coming out. I didn't feel like watching the movie in the first place and spent most of it eating and then playing with makeup and dolling myself up in my cherry dress and being ridiculous. The movie ended and we went to the bar. I drank water. Other Girl was there. Possible Boy still clearly likes Other Girl, but according to Neighbor Guy, that's over and didn't work out, whatever that means and assuming he has any idea what he's talking about. But Other Girl left and then Neighbor Guy left and I got to talk to Possible Boy alone for a bit until we decided to call it a night and went our separate ways and now I'm in a bit of a mental and emotional frenzy.

Possible Boy is fabulous human being. I definitely like him as a person. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about him beyond that. Sometimes I get tingly. Sometimes it's totally non-tingly. Most of the time I'm stupid around him and fighting my head and the crazy and reality and shoulds and shouldn'ts and not knowing what I feel because I'm so stuck in what makes sense and doesn't and I don't know what I want or really want or something. Maybe all the drugs I'm on have my feelings muted so I can't hear my heart to know what to follow. Or maybe I'm freezing up at the signs of a real possibility. Whatever the reason, we're totally socially awkward with one another and act like sixth graders when anything even remotely boy-girl related comes up: our forcefields go up, we stare at the floor, we act like two people who don't know what sex is for the sake of innocence and terror. How do I get over that? I need a sign that he's really truly interested. I need a sense that I'm really truly interested. And then I need to stop being a chickenshit but not scare him either. How do I do that? Hellllllllllllllp!

Waiting for Nemo

I took over 300 photos today at a stranger's wedding.

Neighbor Guy asked me last weekend if I wanted to be his date to this wedding he was invited to on a boat on Lake Michigan on July 3rd. I said probably yes, but I was nervous about my head. I'm not quite sure what happened after that, because next thing I knew it was Friday night and no word from Neighbor Guy, so I ended up at my downstairs neighbors' barbecue hanging out with her entertaining, hard-partying, and mostly jock-lesbian posse. Then I called my other neighbors (the ones with the brother I shtupped) to see if they'd want to go down to the beach at the end of the block to try to catch some fireworks, since I kind of thought I'd be seeing fireworks that night from a friggin' boat on the friggin' lake. The one who isn't the brother of my shtuppee took me up on the offer and we had a very nice time. No shtupping. We did manage to run into Neighbor Guy at the bar, though, so I guessed I wasn't the only one who wasn't on a boat.

I was feeling well enough again on Saturday to play Hostess/Housewife and invited my cousinses, Neighbor Guy, and my Fireworks Friend to dinner. I cleaned all day until my house was sufficiently perfectish (unbelievably perfect if you know me) and my cousinses thought they were coming around 7 but then they were coming around 8 and then they showed up at 8:30. Neighbor Guy kept saying things about some other barbecue he was supposed to go to but since I cooked he really wanted to come over for at least a little bit so he'd stop by blah blah blah. At 7:45 he called and asked if he could bring his roommate with him, too. I asked how many people? He said just him and one of his new roommates (two Slovakian girls in the US for the summe, who moved in last week after answering his ad on Craigslist), so I figured since I never heard from Fireworks Friend I had plenty of food. At 8 I opened the door to Neighbor Guy, his roomamte, and "Chris." "Chris" was some random guy they'd met earlier at the bar or something. I have no idea. Neighbor Guy does that sort of thing all the time. He meets people he finds interesting or boys he thinks are cute (who usually turn out to be straight or in stable, committed relationships) and just brings them places assuming it's ok. But that's sort of how he lives his life. He reminds me a lot of Dory from Finding Nemo, and everbody loves Dory, right? He's a great friend for me to have around, even if I do find some of his human fascinations terribly annoying. Some of them are great, and I'm one of his human fascinations, too.

Turns out the wedding wasn't July 3rd, it was July 5th. Today. Neighbor Guy (co-worker of the bride) also thought it was in the evening until he called me and woke me up at 9:30 AM to say the boat left at noon. He'd mentioned on Saturday that he wanted me to bring my digital camera. Well, when we go to check in at the boat, I find out that we're the photographers. Really, They didn't hire professionals. A few other people brought digital cameras, too, but Neighbor Guy had offered to take photos and somehow (it being Neighbor Guy, there's a million possibilities for how) we were now their primary source for photographic wedding memories. After Neighbor Guy took a few awkward, timid pictures with my camera, I asked if he wanted me to do the actual picture taking. Yes! Oh, he was so relieved!

I feel bad for the couple, since my camera and photography skills aren't great and who knows what the bride's expectations were based on whatever conversations she may have had with Neighbor Guy. So I took pictures of everything from every angle to make sure there'd be enough good ones in the end. I'm about 2/3 of the way through half-assed editing the 300+ pictures from the day.

Dory the fish. I'm always trying to be less like Marlin, anyway.

I need to sleep now. Pity, I didn't make it to talking about the (possible) little love triangle in which I'm getting one of the good corners.

Goodnight.