Journal blinder's Journal: A Clear Record 21
no, there were no secrets. there wasn't subterfuge or obfuscation (okay, maybe a little obfuscation... the "BD" moniker was a little clever i suppose).
but, since it has come up for discussion i thought it might be a good opportunity to fill in a little of the back story. why bother? because i'd rather have a clear record on the matter (something i learned in all the pr classes i took).
solemndragon and i had been online friends for a while... just over a year or so. i first started paying attention to her after she posted this in my journal, quiet week, almost 2 years ago. we were, like many people in our journal circle, casual, but warm acquaintances, friendly, exchanging pleasant comments here and there. i rarely commented in her journal, simply because by the time i would get to them, they'd have something like 20+ comments in them already and i just felt like another knucklehead vying for attention (not that is why people comment in her journal... please don't think that... that was how *i* felt).
as the months went on, i got re-involved with zine publishing, and started minusone (which isn't dead, btw... i swear). i remember reading somewhere that sol was a writer. well, i'm not much of one and knew i didn't want to write everything in the zine, so i sent her an email (fully expecting it to not be answered... i was like that) along with a few other folks asking if they would be interested in contributing written material for this new zine i was starting. well, about two days later, i got a response from sol (i still have it) expressing interest and also included an attachment of some of her short fiction. i can remember... heh... tracy and i reading it, and really enjoying it. i wrote her back a few days later saying "this is great, i want to run some of it."
well, i did, the zine came out, sol was pleased with the outcome and then i set out to make more. sol had again expressed interest in helping out, and doing more. sweet! i'm lazy. i don't want to do all the work. so of course i took her up on it. just as i was putting together the second version of the zine, and getting it developed, tracy left me and my life fell apart.
sol was there for me, with kind and caring comments in my journals, and about this time we (courtesy of tl) starting having brief im conversations (one night i was chatting with tl while he was chatting with sol... tl mentioned to sol that he was chatting with me... tl told me to shoot an im over to sol, in that the discussion was of music), so she was there to send me quick im messages here and there. after i got back from atlanta, we started talking more and more about music. we got into a near nightly ritual starting in october of last year of sending each other mp3s and just going on and on about music. as october chugged along my friend patrick invited me to boston, to get me away from my house for a day or so, and just so we could hang out. i mentioned this to sol and she immediately thought this would be a good opportunity for a slashdot meetup of the boston contingent. i agreed, sounded like a good idea. i felt a little bad for my friend patrick. i mean, i know how slashdot meetups go
i can remember, it was election night, and buffer-overflowed, sielwolf, mekkab, gmhowell, eth, and cy guy were all at this place in the district, i was telling eth or buffer about how i was flying to boston the next weekend and that i was actually going to meet solemndragon.
so, that weekend came, i flew to boston on a friday morning. patrick, his younger brother brian and i had to get up kinda early saturday to meet sol at the science museum (for the duck tour!). i remember showing patrick a picture of sol (one she had sent me a few days before... so i knew who to look for). patrick had made a comment like "wow, she's cute" (sol forgave patrick for such a remark). we met sol at the science museum, she had her leather bomber jacket, long purple scarf and swiss army hat, i was impressed. we got along really well right from the get-go... and i learned to fold a paper crane on a duck.
we sat in a dark corner in the basement of the unos in harvard square, patrick, who i didn't realize till much much later, was running a perfect wing man operation... diverting most of the attention on himself and daoine... which made sol and i perfectly comfortable to sit back and say quiet things like "can we set them on fire now?"
at the end of the afternoon, with spoons running low, we gave a lift to the dragon and friend back home. i can remember later that evening, as patrick, brian and i were heading out to see some bands, patrick mentioned something like "why didn't you ask her out?"
i responded with something like, "um what?" patrick laughed and just let it drop, because he's like that.
after that meetup, sol and i were becoming really good friends, real-life (i hate that term) friends. hell, i remember cheering her on when she was telling me about going out on a date the week after that first meetup. a bit later, when i had that terrible weekend in kansas city, and in particular that dreadful day, sol was the first person i called. saturday morning, from my hotel room. wow, she was so wonderful, comforting me. she told me to just grab my ipod, don't turn it off and have a day on my own. i did just that. it helped like i couldn't believe.
throughout this time i was getting some wise council from my friend in nyc, who i emailed constantly during this time. i am still eternally grateful for the time and consideration he gave me.
then december hit. i was starting to figure out a few things out, about how i was feeling, where i was going and what i thought i was capable of. i remember, it was saturday, first saturday of december. i woke up that morning feeling terrible. feeling convinced that something bad had or was going to happen. i couldn't hang around the house, so i left, and ran to guitar center, a borders and got a chai from starbucks. around three o'clock that afternoon i decided i had to go home. when i got home, i checked my messages. i got word that something bad happened to my friend sol. i immediately called her. she was there and picked up. just completely numb. we talked for about a half hour or so, i think to mostly my benefit. after i hung up i think i cried for about an hour. i didn't know what else to do... but i made my decision that i was going to be the very best friend i knew how to be.
just prior to this we decided to have me spend the holidays in boston. i mentioned in a passing conversation, to sol, about not wanting to spend them in atlanta with my family. sol offered an invitation, and i accepted. well, after that first weekend in december, i was convinced that the invitation was to be rescinded, which, hey, i would have completely accepted, without question, and without protest. but, as the weeks went by, the invitation was still there. i flew to boston two days before christmas. sol met me at the airport. she was exhausted. i had a rental car and after an hour of getting lost, found her home.
that was a strange weekend. strange not in a bad way. i wrote all about it, and so has sol, so there's no point to go into it. there was so much pain, a lot of crying, all-night talking, long quiet times and some laughter and marry poppins. yes, we watched marry poppins. and oh yeah, deciding to go out for an evening drive in the middle of one of boston's worst snow storms of that season. we didn't care about the weather.
we were the best friends either of has really had. my big thing was that i would never, NOT EVER second guess sol. i respected and still do, every decision she made and makes. i am allowed a vote in some things and i offer counsel when appropriate, but i do not ever second guess her. its really that simple, that, and simple kindness. we still are the very best of friends. that is the basis of our relationship.
well, after the holidays it was agreed that at some point after the new year, sol would visit baltimore for some recording time. the second weekend in january was chosen. i picked sol up at bwi airport and had her to my house and a nap within thirty minutes. after a nap and the dime tour of the house we set to working. we are frightening when we are working. 10+ hour days in the studio? yeah, no problem. we'd break for snacks, but work straight till it was time for sleep. the night she was supposed to fly home there was a terrible snow storm in boston and all flights were canceled. sol was a little stressed out because she wasn't going to get home for work tomorrow. she borrows my cell phone, calls her work's voice mail and says "yeah, i'm still in baltimore, at the airport actually, there's no way i'll be getting back there tonight."
after that, i collect her things and i said "no music tonight." she was incredibly tired so a night of rest was in order. we decided to have a light dinner, and watch some movies. it was a quiet and still night, the kind of thing we both crave. just stillness. safety.
drove her to the airport early the next morning. i was so out of it, i drove into work after getting back from the airport, but it was mlk day. ooops. that week was confusing, for the both of us. i had been noticing a transformation in my feelings for the dragon. i first noticed it after our first meetup, but was quick to write it off as just excited to have a real friend, who i could trust completely. i remember sending agonized emails to a friend or two about this, and having the odd im conversation with a good friend, and getting really good advice, which calmed me and kept me grounded. after that week after sol got home from baltimore, we talked. it was a sunday night. it was a long talk, a happy one. it was that night, over the phone, we managed to tell each other how we really felt.
i think we came up with a plan to see each other at least once a month. i bought tickets to fly up to boston in a couple weeks, the first weekend after valentines day (no, that stupid fucking holiday had nothing to do with it). that's when i posted my journal about getting a date. sol and i had such a nice time. i spent a few hours before hand researching local boston restaurants who served celiac-safe food. after that weekend (which remind me, that if i ever want to walk a quarter mile, at 4am, after a snow storm, to catch a 6am flight -- just push me in front of a moving bus) we decided that i would come back up for the flower show! i did, and boy was that cool. i got to hang out with pancho and sol and (former) bestfriend (and i also ran into patrick and his fiance there... weird - boston is a small town). it was after that visit that going a month without seeing each other was madness. so i started making the trip every two weeks. that lasted until april where i was making the trip every weekend (alternating between flying and driving).
it was difficult doing that. i mean, i was literally living out of a suitcase. i didn't much care. i did what i had to do. my routine was actually, pretty routine though. i would work till about 3:30 p.m. on a friday, then from work i would drive to the airport, and then fly to boston on (usually) the 6:30 p.m. airtran flight (which put me into logan around 7:40pm). then on monday morning, i'd catch a cab around 5:30 a.m. so i could get on the 7:10 a.m. back to baltimore and then just go straight from the airport to work. yeah, now *that's* a commute! 340 miles (as a crow flies).
it was just after our trip out west where we started thinking in terms of me getting out of baltimore. clearly we were both happier together than apart, and it was then that i made the decision to get out of baltimore. i had been considering it before that, but we always said to give ourselves more time, and we did. well, when plans changed, and i lost my job in baltimore (i was getting more and more unhappy in baltimore) the writing was on the wall. the day i lost my job, i got home, called sol at work, then called a realtor and the next day i signed the contract to put the house up, i cleaned up a bit... packed a lot of clothes and drove to boston that afternoon.
the past two months have been wonderful, difficult, fun, hard and filled with learning. we now have a place we can both call our own on october first. its beautiful, located in the heart of cambridge, with lots of space so we can both follow our creative pursuits (which actually include music. yes, lots of music, now that we have a place to record and the 400 miles are now gone, we can finally get serious about recording... we want to record an album of stuff -- and a new zine. i need to journal about this separately, but sol and i have come up with a new kind of "graphic novel" that seems really cool, and we are both rather excited to have the time and space to work on it), have room to comfortably make dinners and watch movies. so, this is where we are. we are happy. we remind each other everyday how happy we are with each other. we often tell each other how we feel we've won some kind of lottery.
we both feel really strongly about sharing stuff with you, our community, and it just seemed like the right time to mention this. there were a few of you, and you know who you are, who have been so wonderfully supportive of us, offline, and i cannot tell you how much we cherish your support, your discretion and the guidance you've provided both sol and i.
i would also like to take a minute and just mention how much i am grateful to rdewald. i won't go into it, but i am eternally grateful to him, the time he gave me and the wisdom he shared. i ultimately found my path, as it is now, he helped me do that.
Well OK... I read the whole thing (Score:2)
but since I read the whole thing can I have a cookie?
Re:Well OK... I read the whole thing (Score:2)
you poor dope!
we've also discussed your christmas present already... and we have a plan.
Re:Well OK... I read the whole thing (Score:2)
Re:Well OK... I read the whole thing (Score:2)
A Mega Booger. Are you dyslexic or something?
blinder & sol: you go.
Re:Well OK... I read the whole thing (Score:2)
You Cylon bastards! Don't trust them, ellem, they're going to nuke your house from space.
Re:Well OK... I read the whole thing (Score:2)
zine? (Score:2)
Re:zine? (Score:2)
But - yeah. It's downloadable, and hard copies can be ordered as well. Including probably back copies. It's got some stuff from other slashdotters too.
Blinder- did i miss anything? Post the link?
s
Excellent (Score:2)
* Don't mean that to be awkward.
** Yeah, trying to coin a new phrase here. Slushies, seems smoother than slashdotters. I doubt it'll stick though.
When the clue train rolled into town. (Score:2)
I am so freakin' happy for both of you that I can hardly stand it. You two have gone through enough difficulties for several lifetimes and are deserving of the happiness you bring each other.
And since you both are silly together: May you both con
Tell the truth! (Score:2)
I remember. I remember it well. And what you really said was, "I'm flying to Boston to meet Smoochy-Bunnykins, errrrrr, I mean, SolemnDragon", and we all sorta gave each other this knowing look, except sielwolf, who was too busy puttin
Re:Tell the truth! (Score:2)
Totally Awesome (Score:2)
Re:Totally Awesome (Score:2)
Humpf! (Score:2)
How dare you keep the details of your personal life from some guy on Slashdot you've never met, you deceitful bastard!
Congrats, you two.
Re: (Score:1)
yay (Score:2)
I did read the whole thing (amazing for me to concentrate for so long) , kind of cheered me up
I don't have anything particularly useful or wise to say except
time is nothing more than what is displayed on a clock
Seriously
I may not be the first to say this, (Score:1)
you make me *squee* (Score:1)
As surprising as George Michael coming out (Score:2)
Still looking forward to hearing some collaboration on the music front from you two as well! :)
Aside: are you still looking for content for next zine?
Aww! (Score:1)