magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

i stopped by the boys after work and chris.k says to me, "are you going to let us smoke you up tonight." and i'm almost always tempted, but this time i thought to myself, it would be one more thing i'd have in common with stef, but said no.

he and christian and i went for a walk after dinner. stef called as we were on our way out the door. we talked for a little while.

the walk, by chance, led too close to stef's to ignore, so i broke away and stopped in. and it was nice to see her, i hadn't in five days or something, but something seemed awkward between us.

and when i got home i wrote her a long email about it.

[...] it felt as if we were out of sync tonight. one of the things that i was thinking when i was quiet but didn't say anything was about how when i don't see you for a while it seems as if it just isn't possible that you really like me. not that you don't, just that the whole situation seems so unlikely. [...]

i do know that i miss spending the night with you. even though the bed's too small and i never sleep all that well. even though i'm restless in the mornings and you want to sleep later. when you call late at night i wish that you'd say "i'll be over soon." and come and climb into bed with me. i know that you have to take things at yr pace. and work is good, because it forces us to build more slowly. that it keeps you from getting intoxicated on me, or from burning us out. but i also worry that the opposite will happen. that i'll forget how you taste. that i'll figure things are okay without knowing.

and of course if i'm worried about five or six days, what about eight months? and really, i think that's where a lot of this is coming from. i leave in less that four weeks. and i want to still be with you next may. i'm planning on being with you. (there's a blue piece of paper on my desk on which i wrote some words for a song: 'cause i'm leaving / i'm leaving / i'm leaving here / but i'm not leaving you.') but part of me feels like these are the last four weeks, and i'm scared of only seeing you a small handful of times.

i've seen less of you the last few weeks than the first few weeks when we were truly part-time. in a way we're already sort of long distance. and i'm not ready. [...] i kind of want to just jump ahead, but i also really want to go to rome. this year will be good. and we'll be okay. we will.