I'm baaack

Hey all,

I've been officially ordered to blog about my trip, so here goes. Just warning you, it's a little foggy in recollection, but I'll try to hit the main points. I'm also still processing some of what happened, and hope everyone concerned will have patience with my side of the story.

The flight out was a little stressful, but ended up being ok. When I got to the airport Friday afternoon, my flight out of Albuquerque had been delayed an hour. So, I was in jeopardy of missing my connection in San Francisco. Which wouldn't have been the end of the world since there was another flight into Seattle out of SF about an hour or so later, but I REALLY wanted to get there, and didn't want my friend Matt (who so graciously offered to pick me up from the airport) to sit around wondering where I was. (p.s. get a cell phone dude!) I barely made the connection after running my ass through the SF airport, and got there on time, as did my luggage, so all was well.

We cruised over to Stine's place, getting only marginally lost along the way, and proceeded to hang out and wait for her to get home from the show. Maybe now is a good time to mention about Matt. Matt is one of my oldest (other than my fam, known me the longest) friends. We met Freshman year in high school in Monterey. We've had a semi-rocky but seriously tight friendship ever since. He is currently living in So. Cali. but his little bro lives in Seattle and he was up visiting him the same weekend I was visiting Stine. I was excited to see him, but nervous about being in the same space as him (we've only experienced each other in proximity once since I left California, and it was a tad tense), and nervous about how to accomplish spending a little time with him and also getting to spend the time I wanted to with Stine. Long story short, feeling a little torn. To add to the conflict, his wife had just told him she was leaving the week before. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Friday night was nice. We all got to hang. My head almost exploded a couple times, just from having Matt and Stine in the same space at the same time. Stine knows me best of anybody, and she was certainly picking up on my nervousness, and just being in the same room with Matt makes my head want to explode sometimes. Stine and Ly went to bed, and Matt and I stayed up and chatted into the wee hours. I was hoping that spending some serious time discussing where he was at with the divorce and the job situation and all, and just allowing our energies to be in the same space and get used to each other at close range, would alleviate the nervousness, and help me to be more relaxed about the friend dynamics of the trip. It did, and it didn't, but you'll see.

Saturday, Stine had a client at the chiropractor's office for massage, so both she and Ly (the workingest kid I know right now) were off to work fairly early. Even though I had been up late, I was up around the same time they were. I called Matt to see if he wanted to rendezvous for some breakfast, and right after I got off the phone with him, Stine called me. Seems her client went wacko on her, and stormed out, so, no massaging going on. She was headed back home. Conflict. What to do? Wanted to hang with Stine, but didn't want to be rude to Matt. I called him back, and explained what had happened, told him I'd call him later about the how and when of going to the show that night, and waited for Stine to get home. We walked up to Coastal Kitchen and had a marginal breakfast (their stuff is usually much better than what we had, weird), stopped by the vitamin store to stock up, dropped by the grocery store, and went home. We figured out our plan for the evening, called Matt again and left a message, and spent the rest of the afternoon chilling.

Saturday night. Hadn't heard from Mr. Matt (for some reason Stine's apartment is a black hole for my cell phone), so Stine arranged another ride to the theater. By the time I heard back from him, we were going to have to hurry to manage to eat something before the show, plus, we didn't know how to get there. Got marginally lost a couple times on the way over, grabbed a Subway sandwich, and got drenched in the rain before the show.

The Show. Wow. It was SOOOOOO GOOOOD!!! Stine just blew me away. The rest of the cast was fantastic. My second favorite performance would have to have been Phillip, who played Stine's husband. The dynamic between the two of them was perfect. I feel like I shouldn't be surprised by the depth of talent my best friend has, but every time it surfaces, I'm surprised again. She had me in tears at one point. I laughed, I cried, my ass fell asleep, good times. I wish I were one of those writers who could help you experience just how fantastic it was, but I'm not. Just trust me when I say it was a heartbreaking, mind blowing, super-fantastic performance.

After the show, we cruised back to Stine's place with a couple other people from the cast. Stine and Phillip and I rode in the backseat together, it was fun. I started getting into my theater fan, out of towner, hanging with the cool people mode. Something about getting so far out of my daily life is really good for me. I could never do theater, the lifestyle would likely kill me dead, but I'm a serious appreciator, and spending a little time with the people who make it happen is frosting on the cake. Looking back, I maybe should have asked Matt to drop us off, and sent him to go hang with his bro, but I didn't. We stopped by the grocery store to pick up some beer, and maybe it should have been a red flag when he bought himself a bottle of wine, but it wasn't. Can you see where this is going? I'm not going to try to recap the entire evening, but it ended with Matt leaving much later than I had wanted him to, and then me sitting in the dark crying. So much for no breakdowns in Seattle.

Woke up Sunday morning and cried a little more. I was just really really angry. Matt is one of the few people in my life that can make me angry like that. We have a complicated relationship, he and I, and sometimes it spills over into my real life much more than I would like. We have talked through what happened, and I think we understand each other about the boundaries, and the misunderstandings, and the piss poor timing, and all that, but at the time, I was just furious that I had lost some of the precious little time I had to spend with my bestest friend in all the land. Thank god we had all day Sunday to hang out uninterrupted.

Sunday. Stine made me the best scrambled eggs ever, we watched some Buffy, listened to some music, played some cards, had some massage, it was super-nice. It just went way too fast. Before I knew it, the sun was going down. Ly came home, and we went out to dinner. I had planned on Kingfish, which ROCKS, but it was closed, so we walked back up to Coastal Kitchen. Better meal this time than breakfast Saturday, so that was good. Went back to their place and watched 'Millions'. Very cute film, highly recommended. We passed out early, which brings us to...

Monday. Stine was supposed to work, so I was going to grab brunch with Matt and then head to the airport. That had been my plan. I wasn't so much looking forward to dealing with Matt, though, and then Stine's work fell through again, so some rearranging was in order. Matt came to the house, I gave him a cd Stine and I had put together for him, and got back a tape I had left in his rental car. I think at this point it was obvious that Stine and I needed the few remaining hours I was going to be there to be together, and he picked up on the (none too subtle I'm sure) hint, and left to have lunch with his bro. A little more Buffy, a little more chill time, and then I was in a cab to the airport. The sun came out on my way, and it was really nice to just be able to sit in the back of the cab, close my eyes, and let the sun beat down on my face.

Ran into Matt briefly in the airport, as he was also flying out that afternoon, and we had some words. The flight back was uneventful, everything according to plan. It just felt really nice to be by myself for a few hours. Read some silly magazines and finished off my book. (Salman Rushdie, 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet' I found it incredibly interesting after I got through the first 100 pages, and now I want everyone to read it and tell me what they think. One of those.) It was really nice to be going back to Albuquerque and realize that it was going home, and that it felt good.

All in all, I think I cleared out some things that needed clearing, and refueled enough to feel like the trip was worthwhile. It didn't play out like I wanted it to or expected it to, but as Stine said, it probably worked out like it should. I am so grateful that I got a chance to see my girl on stage, that was definitely one of the highlights. I came home relaxed and refreshed, which isn't how I always come home from Seattle, so that was really good too. In the past, Clark has asked why I even bother going if I'm going to come home so twisted up, this time, he said, wow, I think we need to send you to Seattle more often, so I'm not going to argue with that.

Sorry for the delay on posting all this. As I said, it took awhile to process, and things have just been busy. Tuesday I was beat, and spent the day doing mostly nothing. Wednesday was Clark's birthday, so I spent most of the day in the kitchen. I made some luscious baby back ribs, his mom's homemade macaroni-n-cheese recipe (which came out so much better than the time I made it for you, Stine), a yummy salad with cabbage, carrots, red pepper, apple and raisins, and chocolate cake with fudge frosting from scratch. Thursday I finally got my ass out of the house and ran some errands that had been piling up. So, aside from fighting the headache from hell, it's been a good week.