So, for the first time in what feels like forever, I had a weekend largely to myself.

After work on Friday, I went to Kava House and wrote. 

On Saturday, I went to see a movie.  Then I did a little shopping.  Then I went to Kalamazoo around 6 p.m. for Tracy’s birthday bash, a tightly knit affair (only a dozen people were there over the whole evening) with lots of great food, conversation, music, and dancing with some of my closest friends.  Of course, getting home at 4:45 a.m. kinda sucked, but …

… on Sunday, I slept until around 11 — something I haven’t done in years.  Then, I stopped by Wendy’s for lunch before going back to Kava House for another writing session.  And now I’m home, preparing to do laundry and whatnot.  Oh, and I left a gentle tweak to Frankie about the glories of Wassila, AK.

Very relaxing.  Sometimes, the mundane can be like a mini-vacation.

Youth is truly wasted on the young.

I had to do some banking and errands in Standale this morning.  As luck would have it, the Grand Valley State University men’s track-and-field team was hosting a car wash at the corner gas station.

With temperatures barely rising into the mid-60s, a dozen members of the team — clad only in running shorts — stood along Lake Michigan Drive in an attempt to solicit donations.

Admittedly, this was superlative eye candy.  But seriously … at that temperature, those poor, scrawny boys had to have their nuts sucked into their stomachs.

Incidentally, I stopped by Rivertown Crossings to watch a movie, and ended up stopping by B&N for a copy of Blue Water Sailing.  As I flipped through it at lunch today, I was reminded of why I am so eager to make for the open water.

And on a sad note, my GI distress is back.  Not sure what’s going on — I might break down next week and visit my doctor.  Gastritis, perhaps?

This week has been mostly cool and rainy; temperatures have been low enough that I’ve worn a sweater to work, and put on a hoodie as I’ve been out-and-about.  The weather has been cooperating nicely with my goal of having a slow, relaxing, drama-free autumn — a time to unwind and recharge before the winter/holiday season.

In fact, this weekend should be remarkably clear, calendar-wise.  Today (Friday) was uncommitted.  Except for a few hours’ quiet revelry in Kalamazoo on Saturday with Tony, Emilie, Jon, Tracy, Teri, and a few others, I have no plans, except possibly for a cup of coffee with Charlie.  I may or may not do something on Sunday with Edmund, depending on … him.

Cool air, calm calendars.  Ahhhh.

With the advent of Google’s new browser, Chrome, I decided to celebrate by installing the latest beta of Internet Explorer 8. 

In a word — lovely.  I’ve always been inherently pro-Microsoft, and the new enhancements to IE8 are wonderful.  Everything works flawlessly, and the improvements to the beta since its initial public release are significant (especially the accelerators, and the InPrivate browsing mode).

Highly recommended.

The period between Memorial Day and Labor Day, A.D. 2008, will stand in the Annals of Jason as being a period of intense growth and transition, as significant to my personal development as the myriad events of December 2004 and the autumn of 1997.  Herewith a recap of the chief lessons and experiences, in no particular order.

1. The biggest “baggage” I took into the summer was a deep-seated feeling of inadequacy about my body.  Although I lost a lot of weight a few years ago, I retain a fair amount of stretched skin on my abdomen, and have been very self-conscious about it ever since.  Happily, I’ve met enough people who were attracted to me physically — including some exceptionally good-looking folks — that this self-consciousness no longer presses upon me as once it did.  I’m still not happy with my body, but the lingering disaffection is no longer paralyzing; in fact, it motivates me to do something more about it, perhaps including surgery.  My concern about my body has moved from the domain of the negative, to the domain of the positive, and this marks a huge turnaround … I haven’t been this comfortable with my appearance since I was a teenager.
2. Related to self-image has been the larger question of physical intimacy.  Until this summer, I had been somewhat touch-averse; I was aware of touch, and usually didn’t appreciate it — hand-holding, kissing, even a gentle pat on the arm were simply foreign to me, and the whole “what do you do at the end of a date” thing would tie my stomach in knots long before I’d part company with my companion.  THAT hang-up has been resolved; nowadays, I’m more likely to be too “touchy,” and lately I’ve been known to partake in the occasional tacky/excessive public display of affection (like last week … when Matt threw me down on the pool table at Diversions and others broke us up before we got tossed out).
3. I’ve learned that gay men are no better than straight women in the relationship department.  In fact, they can be much worse.  Whereas women tend to be reserved and very specific in what they seek, men tend to be open to more, but with generally less willingness to commit to anything beyond sex.  In fact, the gay community in West Michigan feels dysfunctional in a lot of very important ways (it seems that just about everyone has slept with everyone else), and I’m grateful that I’ve had Andrew to help me with my initial wayfinding.  At this point, having sampled the heretofore “forbidden fruit,” I’m back, I think, to being more nuanced in my approach to sex and dating — if no one seeks to understand us bisexuals, we may as well retaliate by being dark and mysterious and coy about our true accessibility. 🙂
4. The hesitancy I’ve felt about meeting people, on account of my inexperience, has been utterly eradicated.  After my brief relationships with Dawhn and Rachael before the summer, and my various forms of involvement with Andrew, Dave, Edmund, and Matt during the summer, I no longer feel like I have an experience deficit.  To be sure, I don’t have a long “ex” list, but I’ve experienced enough to feel comfortable with myself and my ability to handle new situations with a satisfactory degree of grace.  In fact, the old approach anxiety — the bane of well-meaning but timid men everywhere — has evaporated quicker than a cube of dry ice in a high-school chem lab.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Tony’s “method” and from Matt, it’s that self-confidence and social poise count for more than a good body or fat wallet.  No one will be successful if he stands in the shadows with a drink and watches the revelry; he needs to actively engage others and provide a social value (e.g., not being a creepy molester type) that draws other, less outgoing, people into his orbit, if he wishes to grow new relationships of any type.  Plus, as Tony reminds me:  What do you lose, really, even if you do get shot down?  Just move on to the next person and try again.
5. My drive to form a meaningful, long-term relationship has cooled off a lot.  Although I’m still looking in an abstract sense, I have been less careful than I should have been this summer, and I paid an emotional price that was not insignificant.  Those lessons in the virtue of prudence have been learned.  I am still a believer in being open and honest and direct, but I’m no longer focused on relationship-seeking.  If something should happen, fine.  But I’m not specifically looking for love or sex anymore — I’m merely seeking friends and interesting new experiences, and if something more should develop, that’s OK, but I won’t expect it to.  This isn’t bitterness talking, either — having satisfied my initial curiosity, I’m now content to wait for the right situation instead of the immediate gratification.
6. I’ve met some very interesting people this summer who have shaped my life for the better in various ways.  Andrew has become a good friend and confidant, and has helped me to navigate another side of my personality.  Dave helped me to understand that I really could date a male, and that I am worthy of someone like him, whom I can respect on many different levels and is the archetype of the “perfect boyfriend.”  Edmund helped me to understand the pros and cons of spontaneity and fast movement, and I hope he will continue to engage with me even though I pushed him too far, too quickly.  Matt, despite the short time I’ve known him, taught me that emotion unfiltered by reason can be as dangerous as it is powerful, and that rejecting others is almost as hard as being rejected myself.  Through it all, my established friends have been invaluable; Emilie and [redacted] have supported me in ways I didn’t presume to ask for, but for which I am most grateful, and my relationship to Tracy and Teri has become stronger over the last few months. 
7. The emotional unsettledness I’ve experienced of late has finally lifted from me.  The cumulative impact of the summer, when assessed in depth during a three-hour road trip, has been overwhelmingly positive, and I think that my former serenity has returned with renewed discipline.  My friend Jen once told me that I needed to stop acting like a 12-year-old girl, and I think she’s right.  I needed this summer to play catch-up for all of the life-and-love experiences that most people my age take for granted, because they started in junior high, but which I compressed into just a few months during my 31st year.  I’m now satisfied that I’m on the same playing field as my peers, and this realization has been incredibly comforting and confidence-building. 
8. My sense of being tied to the expectations of friends, family, and community has been broken.  My innate independence has become manifest by means of my new openness about my bisexuality, and I think I’m a better person for it.  I no longer feel a need to be secretive about aspects of my personality and aspirations merely out of concern for how others will react, and this is liberating.

The above notwithstanding, I’ve fallen back a bit in some areas.  The several interpersonal dramas I’ve participated in sapped a lot of my time and energy, and some areas — most notably, my karate, running, and diving — suffered significantly.  I’ve also been slow to continue my work with Gillikin Consulting; the summer has been a period of unacceptable dormancy, requiring a fair amount of ameliorative effort to get back on track.

However, on balance, I’ve learned, loved, and grown this summer, and I’m a better person now than I was before Memorial Day. In the end, that’s what’s important.

The period between Memorial Day and Labor Day, A.D. 2008, will stand in the Annals of Jason as being a period of intense growth and transition, as significant to my personal development as the myriad events of December 2004 and the autumn of 1997.  Herewith a recap of the chief lessons and experiences, in no particular order.

1. The biggest “baggage” I took into the summer was a deep-seated feeling of inadequacy about my body.  Although I lost a lot of weight a few years ago, I retain a fair amount of stretched skin on my abdomen, and have been very self-conscious about it ever since.  Happily, I’ve met enough people who were attracted to me physically — including some exceptionally good-looking folks — that this self-consciousness no longer presses upon me as once it did.  I’m still not happy with my body, but the lingering disaffection is no longer paralyzing; in fact, it motivates me to do something more about it, perhaps including surgery.  My concern about my body has moved from the domain of the negative, to the domain of the positive, and this marks a huge turnaround … I haven’t been this comfortable with my appearance since I was a teenager.
2. Related to self-image has been the larger question of physical intimacy.  Until this summer, I had been somewhat touch-averse; I was aware of touch, and usually didn’t appreciate it — hand-holding, kissing, even a gentle pat on the arm were simply foreign to me, and the whole “what do you do at the end of a date” thing would tie my stomach in knots long before I’d part company with my companion.  THAT hang-up has been resolved; nowadays, I’m more likely to be too “touchy,” and lately I’ve been known to partake in the occasional tacky/excessive public display of affection (like last week … when Matt threw me down on the pool table at Diversions and others broke us up before we got tossed out).
3. I’ve learned that gay men are no better than straight women in the relationship department.  In fact, they can be much worse.  Whereas women tend to be reserved and very specific in what they seek, men tend to be open to more, but with generally less willingness to commit to anything beyond sex.  In fact, the gay community in West Michigan feels dysfunctional in a lot of very important ways (it seems that just about everyone has slept with everyone else), and I’m grateful that I’ve had Andrew to help me with my initial wayfinding.  At this point, having sampled the heretofore “forbidden fruit,” I’m back, I think, to being more nuanced in my approach to sex and dating — if no one seeks to understand us bisexuals, we may as well retaliate by being dark and mysterious and coy about our true accessibility. 🙂
4. The hesitancy I’ve felt about meeting people, on account of my inexperience, has been utterly eradicated.  After my brief relationships with Dawhn and Rachael before the summer, and my various forms of involvement with Andrew, Dave, Edmund, and Matt during the summer, I no longer feel like I have an experience deficit.  To be sure, I don’t have a long “ex” list, but I’ve experienced enough to feel comfortable with myself and my ability to handle new situations with a satisfactory degree of grace.  In fact, the old approach anxiety — the bane of well-meaning but timid men everywhere — has evaporated quicker than a cube of dry ice in a high-school chem lab.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Tony’s “method” and from Matt, it’s that self-confidence and social poise count for more than a good body or fat wallet.  No one will be successful if he stands in the shadows with a drink and watches the revelry; he needs to actively engage others and provide a social value (e.g., not being a creepy molester type) that draws other, less outgoing, people into his orbit, if he wishes to grow new relationships of any type.  Plus, as Tony reminds me:  What do you lose, really, even if you do get shot down?  Just move on to the next person and try again.
5. My drive to form a meaningful, long-term relationship has cooled off a lot.  Although I’m still looking in an abstract sense, I have been less careful than I should have been this summer, and I paid an emotional price that was not insignificant.  Those lessons in the virtue of prudence have been learned.  I am still a believer in being open and honest and direct, but I’m no longer focused on relationship-seeking.  If something should happen, fine.  But I’m not specifically looking for love or sex anymore — I’m merely seeking friends and interesting new experiences, and if something more should develop, that’s OK, but I won’t expect it to.  This isn’t bitterness talking, either — having satisfied my initial curiosity, I’m now content to wait for the right situation instead of the immediate gratification.
6. I’ve met some very interesting people this summer who have shaped my life for the better in various ways.  Andrew has become a good friend and confidant, and has helped me to navigate another side of my personality.  Dave helped me to understand that I really could date a male, and that I am worthy of someone like him, whom I can respect on many different levels and is the archetype of the “perfect boyfriend.”  Edmund helped me to understand the pros and cons of spontaneity and fast movement, and I hope he will continue to engage with me even though I pushed him too far, too quickly.  Matt, despite the short time I’ve known him, taught me that emotion unfiltered by reason can be as dangerous as it is powerful, and that rejecting others is almost as hard as being rejected myself.  Through it all, my established friends have been invaluable; Emilie and [redacted] have supported me in ways I didn’t presume to ask for, but for which I am most grateful, and my relationship to Tracy and Teri has become stronger over the last few months. 
7. The emotional unsettledness I’ve experienced of late has finally lifted from me.  The cumulative impact of the summer, when assessed in depth during a three-hour road trip, has been overwhelmingly positive, and I think that my former serenity has returned with renewed discipline.  My friend Jen once told me that I needed to stop acting like a 12-year-old girl, and I think she’s right.  I needed this summer to play catch-up for all of the life-and-love experiences that most people my age take for granted, because they started in junior high, but which I compressed into just a few months during my 31st year.  I’m now satisfied that I’m on the same playing field as my peers, and this realization has been incredibly comforting and confidence-building. 
8. My sense of being tied to the expectations of friends, family, and community has been broken.  My innate independence has become manifest by means of my new openness about my bisexuality, and I think I’m a better person for it.  I no longer feel a need to be secretive about aspects of my personality and aspirations merely out of concern for how others will react, and this is liberating.

The above notwithstanding, I’ve fallen back a bit in some areas.  The several interpersonal dramas I’ve participated in sapped a lot of my time and energy, and some areas — most notably, my karate, running, and diving — suffered significantly.  I’ve also been slow to continue my work with Gillikin Consulting; the summer has been a period of unacceptable dormancy, requiring a fair amount of ameliorative effort to get back on track.
However, on balance, I’ve learned, loved, and grown this summer, and I’m a better person now than I was before Memorial Day. In the end, that’s what’s important.

On Tuesday afternoon, after a series of phone calls, I made a last-minute trip to Chicago to attend to Matt.  His arm, which had been wounded the prior week by a bull mastiff, had become seriously infected, and the emergency-room doctors at the South Side hospital he visited had suggested that he might even lose the arm.

Matt doesn’t have a good support network for dealing with healthcare issues.  So, I decided to head to the Windy City to assist as best as I could.

As it happens, the infection — although bad — responded well to IV antibiotics, so Matt was discharged on Wednesday morning, albeit with a prescription for two rather powerful oral antibiotics.

Matt had decided, however, that my willingness to travel at the last minute to help him meant something very significant, in a romantic sense.  Long story short, he put a lot of pressure on me, before I returned to Grand Rapids, to start dating him formally and to plan for a relatively quick relocation to Chicago.  He was determined that I would be living with him by Halloween.

For my part, I was intrigued; he’s roughly my age, a lot of fun, very loving and carefree, very trusting, and exceptionally good looking (he’s a dancer and model, with the portfolio to prove it).  Benefits aside, though, there’s too much going on in my life to consider his invitation.  What I did consider, at length, was whether the time had come for a radical disruption.

I am a firm believer that every now and then, people need to shake things up in a major way, to shed the minor comforts that lead to stasis and complacency.  The whole trip back from Illinois was consumed with the question:  Would moving to Chicago (facilitated by Matt) be the sort of transformation that would serve me well?  Would it be a kick in the ass to push me to the next level?

I think not.  The change to which I am committed is encapsulated in Project 810; to derail this for the sake of a person I don’t even know all that well is irresponsible.

It’s not much of a secret that I’m not wholly enthused about the West Michigan culture.  I want to leave — but on my own terms.  This situation has been a helpful reminder of why I need to keep plugging away on the mundane things that will facilitate my grand voyage away from Grand Rapids.

Yay, serendipity.  Herewith a recap of the Labor Day festivities:

1. THURSDAY.  Met Cameron for an enjoyable evening of conversation and hiding in the bathroom from his roommates.
2. FRIDAY.  Took much of the day off — wasn’t feeling well.  In the afternoon, I met Charlie (a guy who works in my building) for coffee, which morphed into a viewing of Disaster Movie with him and his friend Kara.  Interesting tidbit:  Kara’s father is a friend of mine from church.  After the movie, we went to BW3 for drinks and dinner.  A lovely time, with lovely people.
3. SATURDAY.  Spent the whole day with Andrew.  Went to Oval Beach for the day; five hours of intense sun with only SPF 4 sunscreen and precious little base tan means that your humble correspondent turned a lovely shade of crimson.  In the evening, we went to Diversions, where I met Matthew, who is a dog groomer and backup dancer from Chicago.  He was unmistakeable, insofar as he was the only guy in the bar who ran around shirtless and acted like the life of the party — he was the super-hot guy who everyone drooled over but no one had the balls to approach.  His friend Jim, also from Chicago, was there; he seemed to like Andrew well enough.  With another local (Bobby), I went with Matt and Jim back to their hotel for conversation and such, and I ended up spending a fair amount of time getting to know Matt, and to share with him the cultural differences between West Michigan and Northeast Illinois.
4. SUNDAY.  Went to Muskegon for a brief conversation with Mike.  By then, the combination of lingering illness, sunburn, and lack of sleep left me really rather cranky, and I fear that it showed.  I had planned, after leaving Muskegon, to do an airport trip, but this got canceled at the last minute and I was free to accept Matt’s invitation to go to Rumors to see the drag show.  The drag show was … how shall I put it? … a drag, so we left early and returned to Diversions, a venue that Matt and Jim both enjoyed — no accounting for Chicagoan tastes. 
5. MONDAY.  Ran errands with Matt (including a pharmacy run to get his antibiotic scrip filled; a dog bit his hand a few days prior) before sending him back to Chicago with Jim.  Did some laundry and had a delicious salmon dinner (thanks, bro!) with my mother and grandmother.  Saw Traitor at Studio 28, in lieu of my canceled dinner plans with Edmund, who begged off on account of a migraine and hangover.

It’s been a fun-filled couple of days in the life of Jason.

1. On Tuesday, I had a delightful evening at Kava House that culminated in drinks at Applebees with Jen, Becca, Steph, and Nathan.  They’re a nice group of young people, and the conversation was pleasant.  Steph and Nathan are recently engaged, and they’re about the cutest couple I think I’ve seen in a long time.
2. On Thursday, I met a new fellow named Edmund.  He’s 29, 6’5″, and a swimmer with the build to match.  He works as a substitute teacher and server.  After some enjoyable conversation, we agreed to a little spontaneity — that very afternoon, we had a picnic lunch in Grand Haven, along the channel.  We did a lot of walking, a lot of talking, and I got to watch him spill his ice cream all over himself.  It was a blast. 
3. On Friday, I had lunch with Shannon — always a treat — and got some stuff done in the office.  After work, I dropped Becca off at the airport and then met my mom for her birthday dinner at Beltline Bar; after that, we went to the store to get some cupcakes so we could have a little party for my mom at Brian and Candace’s place, at my little nephew’s behest.  Later, Edmund and I went to see Mirrors, a new horror flick, at Celebration North.  We then went to Monte’s to see one of his friends, then to the Apartment for a nightcap.  I suddenly remembered why I don’t like venues like Monte’s — too busy, too loud, too much unconstrained testosterone being excreted by walking slabs of meat who only think with their smaller heads.
4. On Saturday, I took Edmund to Vermontville (Michigan’s own little throwback to Laramie, a one-stoplight town filled with hicks) to see my dear friend Tony’s lead performance in “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.”  It was a blast — the performance was a riot, and well-done to boot.  I was genuinely impressed with the production, and the acting/singing, especially from ol’ T-Bone.  After the show, Tony, Jen, Jon, Emilie, Tracy, Teri, Edmund and I went to a little bar for horrible service but the most delicious homemade pizza I’ve enjoyed in a long time.  

In other news, I learned today that my friend Duane has confirmed that he’s going to Korea to teach.  He wasn’t able to find a job in his field in the United States, so he’s returning to the RoK to provide language instruction.  As always, I wish him the very best.

Oh, and about running — it’s even easier when I bump up my pace to 7.4 mph.  That’s almost an eight-minute mile, sustained.