The summers die

2006-10-09 - 5:30 p.m.

I sliced the tip of my right index finger on an open fenoldopam ampule at work yesterday. It hurts a bit to type, but I feel like talking. Just a warning: this is a likely to get long and rambly and probably not too interesting for you.

After we got back from England, Lolo spent the first night at my place. We basically washed off the travel grime and got into bed right after getting home. The following morning I took him back to his place even though we both had that day off because we both needed to get cleaned up and do laundry and all that. I worked the next day but he had it off and then the night after that he started his week of graveyard shifts. Which means, basically, that I haven't seen him for real since last Sunday morning, only for a few minutes at work on a few days. I miss him. I want him to pay more attention to me when we're not together--call me, e-mail me, anything. But he doesn't. He's always been this way, so I expect it, but I still want more. I'm looking forward to living together so that even when our schedules are opposite, I will still see him a little bit. If I can only see him for a few minutes at home, at least I can touch him there. Tonight is his last night of graveyards and I have tomorrow off. I will see him tomorrow, but I don't know when. I wish he would tell me.

During the time that Lolo and I were in England, Twinkie and Robin (another office romance in my pharmacy) were in Italy. When they got back Twinkie was telling me how she thought it was nice to be away from Robin for a little bit because while traveling they were constant companions. Every time she turned around, he was there. Twinkie and Robin already live together, but there's definitely a difference between living together, where work pulls you apart (even if you work in the same place, schedules are different), and traveling together, where you do everything together. But you know, I couldn't commiserate. At the end of our trip, I wasn't sick of seeing Lolo. I enjoyed having him around all the time. I was mildly annoyed with him on a few occasions (1: Our first stop in Paddington Station trying to figure out where to go to buy our Oyster Cards he would just stand in one place and look around lost while I wanted to at least walk around and see if I could find a sign or someone to ask or something. 2: He took forever in the bathroom every day and he's not willing to open the door and let me share the sink or use the hairdryer (I'm not keen on the idea of either of us actually using the toilet in the other's presence, but I have nothing against sharing the bathroom for other purposes). Mostly this was just a problem in the hotel where the hairdryer was a bathroom fixture. 3: When he lost his credit card, he wouldn't tell me. I was going to get money from the ATM with my card, but it had no money. It flashed a screen that said something about the machine not being able to give me money because it was empty and then asked, "Would you like to complete another transaction?" It always asks that so I just pushed "no" without reading the part about the machine having no money. When no money came out, I didn't know why. I thought maybe it hadn't accepted my card. So Lolo tried his, and this time we read the screen about it being empty. We told the rest of the people in line behind us that it was empty and went to another ATM maybe 50 yards away. This one said it wouldn't accept my card when I tried. So I asked Lolo if he'd like to try his. But he didn't. He walked away back to the previous ATM and started pushing buttons there. Did he think it had magically refilled with money in the last five minutes? Disappointed, I thought, that it was still empty, he walked away from it and just stood there staring at it, doing nothing, saying nothing. "What are we doing here?" I asked him. No reaction. So I grabbed his arm and shook it and repeated impatiently, "What are we doing here?" Then he told me he had left his card in the first ATM machine and it wasn't there anymore. I was annoyed at him for not telling me right away (Was he ever going to? He said he didn't because he was embarrassed. Dear, it's me, you're going to have to do something significantly more dastardly than forget your credit card at a busy train station ATM in a foreign country to make me stop loving you.) and I was annoyed at myself for shaking him so.) but over all I was never tired of him and never didn't want to be around him. I don't know if he felt the same as me or not, and I can't really ask him because he can't exactly tell me he was tired of me, can he? I wonder when he was annoyed with me. He was probably annoyed with my indecisiveness a few times (particularly dinner the first night--I tried harder to be better about it after that, and possibly when I was trying to decide which show to see (I was the one who wanted to go to the theater--when buying tickets I created a long list of shows I wouldn't mind seeing, which he narrowed to a short list of shows he wouldn't mind seeing and then made me make the final decision. I knew I wanted to see Les Mis, but he had fallen asleep while trying to see it at the 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle years ago so I didn't know if he would want to give it another try...but he had put it on his short list...)).

I told you we're thinking of going on a trip to Maui or Kauai (we haven't decided which, or maybe both) in March. Wednesday morning, when his first graveyard shift was nearly over, Lolo sent me an e-mail. He ended it by asking, "Wanna start thinking about Maui or Kauai?" I replied saying, "Of course I want to start thinking about Maui/Kauai, but you know what I really want to start thinking about first? Two bedroom apartments..." To which he replied (24 hours later--what, he can't be bothered to talk to me more than once a day?) "I can't wait to start looking for to 2-bedrooms too." It really is the next thing on my docket and I'm glad it's still on his after spending nearly two weeks straight with me. After tonight Lolo has the next five or so days off. I'm hoping during that time I can convince him to do research into where we should live. My lease is up at the end of November and I don't really like the idea of going month to month after that. I want to be out of here by then. I don't know if I can get Lolo to move so quickly, though.

A funny thing: I'm not nervous at all about living with Lolo, but the idea of living with someone makes me nervous. I don't know how to describe the destinction. It's like living with Lolo just feels right and there's no doubt in my mind about that. But moving in with someone seems like a major step in my life, and the thought of taking that step somehow makes me nervous. Does that make no sense?

The other thing that makes me nervous: telling my parents. I'm torn between telling them Lolo and I are moving in together or asking for their permission to do so, thus running the risk of them saying no--and then what?