— पांच हजार नौ सौ छत्तीस —
I suppose you could lump this past weekend in as part of the "holiday weekend," New Year's Day having been a holiday, and plenty of people taking Friday off. (A few other people were in-office on Friday, though; it wasn't at all like the day after Christmas when I was straight up the only person here the entire day.) For me, though, it pretty much reverted right back to a fairly standard weekend: I did my thing, I hung out with a couple of friends. I did break down the Christmas Tree on Friday and take all the Christmas decorations back down to the storage room in the garage downstairs. I fully expect the "Building Repair Project" to be long done by next Christmas and I can get back to my fully realized decorations with all the window lights again.
That said, there is another significant thing about the weekend: I went down to Federal Way to have dinner at Gabriel and Lea's house. This might not have otherwise been
that significant, except Gabriel and I had not spoken since Lea's karaoke birthday party. That was on September 20. We have communicated a few times, but only over text and only occasionally, when we usually text or talk quite regularly.
And here is where I face a slight dillemma. Believe it or not, I don't want to get into minute details of dirty laundry about it all here. Suffice it to say that Gabriel was indeed taking a "Matthew break," as I suspected, although apparently he was doing this with three friends and not just me. What I have spent the last three and a half months wondering is exactly
why—it could have been so many things. The fact that I brought Shobhit to Lea's party? The fact that we had covid only a couple of weeks after that and never shared that with them? Some perceived mischaracterization I made in my blog post about the party? Something I said or did
at the party, or something Shobhit said or did at the party? Fuck if I know, and I hesitated to enumerate all the possiblilities right to him and thus risk just presenting some other reason to be upset that he hadn't even considered.
Apparently it was none of that. It turned out to have more to do with
me also not reaching out all that time, although I would still maintain I had good reason for it: he's taken these "Matthew breaks" more than once before, and if he needed to distance himself from me for a while (whatever the reason), then I was just giving him the space to do that. And then we were well into the swing of the holidays, a time of year I deeply love and was not eager to punctuate with a conversation I had no idea to what degree might be confrontational or characterized by unwanted drama. Conversely, it's a time of year Gabriel deeply dislikes and finds incredibly stressful, so why go out of my way to add to that stress with a conversation I had no idea to what degree might be confrontational or characterized by unwanted drama?
Well, goddammit. I've already gotten into more detail than I really intended. Gabriel is always afraid I am posting a "friends only" entry that he cannot read but all my other friends are privy to—except that functionality was exclusive to LiveJournal, a blogging site I have not used since 2017. The closest thing I can do to a "friends only" post here is to write and post something completely private, which no one but me can see at all, and what the hell would be the point of
that? So I guess, this way he can see everything I am sharing, with the only functionality Squarespace allows.
In any case, it seems we're all good again. In fact, the conversation took a turn toward what I had dreaded maybe a couple of hours into my visit, and it was neither particularly confrontational nor especially characterized by drama. Ultimately it was largely just an unfortunate misunderstanding between the two of us, resulting in a stupidly long streak of not speaking that either of us might have done well to break earlier.
There was a couple of times I thought it might happen. First was when Laney and I rode Light Rail all the way to Federal Way, on Opening Day of the Federal Way Link extension—that would have been Saturday, December 6. I considered texting him to see if he wanted to get together someplace near the station, for a Happy Hour or something. But, for a while we thought a friend of Laney's might be joining us (that fell through), and then it got to be late enough that it didn't seem worth attempting, as the train takes so long to get down there that we kind of preferred just turning around and coming back. We actually had no idea what time we'd get down there anyway, given that we got off at all three of the new stops to check them out. We might still have been inclined to consider it if we could have gotten down there earlier in the day, but I also had the Great Figgy Pudding Caroling Competition to attend at Pike Place Market until early afternoon that day. It's too bad, because all the station celebrations were over by the time we actually reached them. Also, I would never have known this for sure unless I asked, and in retrospect I really should have, but still: in all likelihood, he was busy. He was even busy much of the day this past Saturday and was only available at around 6:00.
The other possibility was New Year's Day. If Dad were having a New Year's family get-together again, I would not only be driving down past Federal Way to Olympia, but I'd be by myself, without Shobhit. I don't think I could have in good conscience gone down to Olympia without seeing if stopping by Gabriel's was an option, which would have forced a break in the stop in communication. But, Dad opted not to do the New Year's gathering this year, which immediately scratched that possibility off the list.
Dad has already decided he will do the New Year's gathering next year, though—that will make three such gatherings that now have all been every two years. Come think of it, I'm pretty sure when I stopped at Gabriel and Lea's house in Federal Way on New Year's Day last year, that was the last time I had actually been to their house before returning this past weekend. They've had six chickens and an entire chicken coop in front of their house for months, but this was the first time I saw them. They sent me home with six of their fresh eggs, and I used two for a plate of English muffin French toast for breakfast yesterday morning.
Whether I stop by their place next year on New Year's Day will likely be an open question for a while. It may depend on whether Shobhit is with me. I still prefer to keep them apart if I can help it. Even when they get along, hanging out with them both at once takes more of my energy than I care to burn. More to the point, even when they get along, all I can think about is how both of them are merely tolerating each other for my sake, which isn't great for any of us. I can't even imagine what would make that worth either of their efforts. If it's an attempt at making me happy, that's a fool's errand under such circumstances.
In any event, I actually had a lovely time there on Saturday, and when Gabriel came to pick me up at the station, it was kind of like we picked up where we left off, which was great. To say I was a little anxious about this visit was somewhat of an understatement, but that dissipated quickly, and didn't even fully reignite when we finally hashed it out. I feel far better now, and I very much got the sense that Gabriel does too.
We picked up takeout from a local falafel place, and Gabriel made me two different drinks—one of several reasons I chose to take transit rather than drive. I totally had access to the car, but I actually prefer not to drive, even when transit takes longer. Light Rail is normally the more convenient option just by virtue of Capitol Hill Station being closer; that's half a mile from my condo, while the Sound Transit #578 bus, which was what I took instead, left from 9th & Stewart, which is 1.1 miles from home. Now, when I can take Light Rail straight from Capitol Hill to Federal Way, that takes a solid hour (technically, a scheduled 58 minutes). But, the Light Rail tracks between Capitol Hill and Sodo Stations were closed down over the weekend for maintenance work, with bus shuttles running between them. This would have added another half an hour to the trip time. By contrast, point to point on the 578 bus was 45 minutes. This is on streets that could be impacted by traffic that would not affect where Light Rail was actually running, granted, but that didn't happen. The bus was on fine and it was fine; in fact, because the bus is only once an hour (another point in Light Rail's favor, as it runs multiple times an hour), I reached Federal Way Station by about 5:35 when I told Gabriel I was aiming to get there by 6:00. And hey, I
did.
I only admitted to Gabriel that I had been waiting 25 minutes once he found me. I knew he'd be exasperated by my being early and feel obligated to rush out to get me. No need for that. I just waited for him. I had my library book. Although I didn't really read it while waiting there, because I was trying to figur out where the hell he would drive in. He was as confused from the car; much of the area adjacent to the station is still under construction. And the entrance off 320th Street, which I had assumed he would come in at, was only accessible for people driving west, and Gabriel would be driving east on approach. Someone should find a way to add clarity to how the hell drivers navigate this spot, because both Gabriel and I were kind of stumped. He did find a place to park though and he got out to walk around and then found me.
It was nearly 7:00 by the time we actually had our takeout and got to the house. I was regaled with a wild story while we waited for our food, about an experience he had while in a youth group that included a bunch of Mormons and they all wound up in some bizarre mock-"luau" that included a pretend flight to Hawaii while in a foyer of their church, which then "crashed" and all the kids had to "testify" to what horrible things they had done in their lives—to the whole group—before they could go on to the next room with an actual party. Gabriel refused and so they called his mom to come pick him up and didn't let him go to the party.
Honestly, Gabriel could write a very entertaining book about all the wild shit that's happened in his life. Wild shit happens to all of us, sure, but it kind of feels like it's on another level with him. He's not really a writer, though. Maybe I should do it. Ha! Actually I haven't written so much as a short story since 2017. It's all blogs and movie reviews now. Hence this very post!
Lea was working on a blanket she crocheted for Gabriel, which she finished while we were there. The "string" was super thick, like an inch thick. It felt like a weighted blanket and was incredibly soft. "You should make me one," I said. (I wasn't really being serious. She did give me one of her chocolate orange muffins when I quite literally demanded one—"I demand a chocolate orange muffin," I said—and that was enough.)
Shortly before I left, I watched an episode of a Korean cooking show with them. They're both apparently obsessed. None of the food looked good to me. One of the contestant chefs was relatively cute though.
Having no idea when I would head back to the station, I was totally good with taking the longer way home, taking Light Rail, which runs until 1 a.m., to Sodo Station and then the shuttle to Capitol Hill Station. But, I was tracking the time well enough, and in the end I asked Gabriel to drive me back in time for the final northbound 578 of the evening, which was at 9:45. The bus this late took barely more than half an hour to reach 9th & Howell, and I walked home from there. I'd have transferred to another bus up the hill, but none were coming by soon enough. I made it home before any even passed me.
— पांच हजार नौ सौ छत्तीस —
— पांच हजार नौ सौ छत्तीस —
What did I do before heading down to Federal Way on Saturday, then? Oh, right—I almost forgot: I went down to SIFF Cinema at the Uptown, to see
No Other Choice. For this week that's the only local theater it's playing at; I was stunned by how packed the house was, probably 75% full. I don't often wear a mask at movies anymore but I did at that one. And, come to find out, the damned movie is opening next week at Pacific Place, where I could have used my monthly AMC membership! Oh well, I wanted to see a movie on Saturday and that was kind of the only option for me anyway.
This does mean, though, that between that movie and going to Federal Way, that took up the entirely of my day. I had barely an hour between returning from the movie and needing to leave again, and I barely managed my review in that time. I actually considered packing my laptop with me so I could write on the bus, but thankfully that proved unnecessary.
— पांच हजार नौ सौ छत्तीस —
As for yesterday, Alexia came over for a double feature at my place. Specifically, I had the theater downstairs reserved for this. She arrived at noon, I spent nearly an hour catching up with her first, and then I could not get the screen mirroring to work properly. The movies were
Hot Fuzz and
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World—both Edgar Wright films she had never seen—and neither would cast to the theater screen. My computer screen, and even the browser and tabs and all, would show up, but the movie screen, while playing the audio, would just stay completely black. This has happened when trying to play Shobhit's SAG Award screeners on screen share, which I found out was a copyright issue. But I
actually rented these movies, and I wonder if this has to do with them both being Sony films? I still need to dig into this further, and may yet take Alexia's suggestion of writing Amazon to ask about it even though I still watched them up in the condo.
I told her if I'd known we'd shift up to the condo I'd have done some cleaning, and she was like, "I don't care about that!" I actually did vacuum just the other day, but there's clutter all over the place and furniture out of position a bit, due to the ongoing "Building Repair Project" work on the windows and balcony doors. I'll be so glad when all that shit is finally over.
Alexia clearly liked
Hot Fuzz way more than
Scott Pilgrim. We should have watched them in reverse order; I went for chronological. I kind of love both movies, but
Hot Fuzz is undeniably more hilarious. Alexia laughed and laughed, which was pretty satisfying.
We're also now talking about taking a holiday season trip to Vancouver, B.C. Surely they have a ton of holiday stuff to do and see just like Victoria did. Next time we'll do it in early December though and not so close to Christmas. We also need to take our trip to Alaska we've been talking about for at least three years. Her freedom will open up after she retires on April 1 at the latest, and the more she talks about it, it sounds like she'll peace out even earlier than that. Based on how she describes the turns her job has taken the past couple of years, as far as I'm concerned she could easily do so with no guilt. And after that, we'll potentially spend even more time together—her now living in Issaquah notwithstanding. Which is kind of funny given how much we disagree on a lot of political stuff. But, we have a ton of mutual interests, and as we learned last month, not only do we travel well together, but she even travels well with Shobhit. And that's not nothing!
— पांच हजार नौ सौ छत्तीस —
One last thing. For my lunch breaks here at work, which I just finished, I tend to go out the back entrance to the office, past the building's garage elevator bank, around and up the escalator to the Rainier Square Tower end of the shared lobby space. There are sporadic soft chairs to sit in around what is otherwise a very wide open space, on the northeast corner of this block. There was a young man sitting in my favorite chair I like to sit in, so I sat at the end of a kind of couch-chair maybe 15 feet away from it.
Haflway through my time up there, that first guy got up and left, and was shortly replaced by a new young man. I didn't even notice it until I heard these regular sort of clicking noises. When I paid attention, I realized it was really smacking noises. And it was this guy, chewing with his mouth open.
Mind you, there's a lot of anbient noise up there. It's not quiet. It's a giant public space with vents and people passing through at a constant pace. And still, through the ambient noise and from 15 feet away, I could hear this dipshit smacking his food at a volume that was astonishing. Once I realized what it was, I could not stop hearing it.
Does he only eat like this when he knows, or thinks he knows, he's alone? Or probably more likely, does he eat like this when inside whatever building he works in, around coworkers? Does he eat like this at home with a spouse or significant other? Do people in his life tolerate this? I have so many questions! I looked at him eating and he would just take a forkfull of food out of his lunch container, and just chomp and chomp while opening is mouth astonishingly wide open with each chomp. It was unbelievable. I almost moved to another chair further away, but by this point it was almost time for me to return to my desk anyway.
I usually love spending my lunches up there. I've never been so happy to be at my desk. God, it was disgusting.
— पांच हजार नौ सौ छत्तीस —
[posted 12:40pm]
