4 years later, next chapter

I randomly got a spam bot comment posted to a blog entry, which reminded me that I had this blog! My last post was in 2013 almost 4 years ago. Wow how so much has changed in that time. I'm pretty certain that no one will see this, but for the sake of posterity and future nostalgia:

• 4 years ago, I was just moving into a new house. I loved that house. I just sold it -- and will be closing in a few weeks.
• Andrew and I just celebrated our 5th anniversary.
• I finished and defended my PhD in computer science
• We have a dog named pumpernickel who just celebrated her 3rd birthday.
• My mom moved to Florida with her husband
• We moved to Seattle and I started a new, exciting job.
• To celebrate the new job and finishing my PhD, Andrew and I had the most expensive meal for two that I've ever had. It was also the best and most interesting meal that I've ever had.
• I have now met a few twitterers/bloggers, including TylerTGBH, boboncvn, MaskedAek, randomthinker (although i likely already mentioned that years ago)
• I'm still cycling a lot

Some of that requires some additional explanation:
I am now 33 years old, which just seems unimaginable to me. I remember writing the majority of these entries 8-9 years ago. Back then, I had only been out of school for a couple of years. Life still seemed like it was just getting started. Almost ten years later, it certainly doesn't seem at the starting gate, but it also doesn't feel like it's been all that long. I can say a few things about the aging that I've done in the last ten years: 1- it does seem true that every year, I change in ways that are imperceptible while they are happening but are unmistakable in retrospect; 2- while there is no single point in time where I realize that I understand things now about life as a whole that I didn't understand previously -- again in retrospect that seems true. 3- I doubt that there would've been any way to educate my younger self to have the perspective (hopefully wiser) that I have now. 4- I believe that somewhere in here is an ambiguous definition of maturity. Or at least some kind of smoke screen that older people tell themselves is maturity.

On the more tangible side, I think there biggest difference that 10 years has made is that I am much more confident in myself as a worthy human on this earth. 10 years ago, I had such a crippling insecurity that I don't think I made any new friends during and after college for years. And this makes no sense. I made some work friends but that was basically through force since I spent so much time with them. Now that I have an easier time meeting new people and experiencing new things without anxiety and self-doubt, I look back and don't understand what I was thinking at the time.

As far as basic stats: I finished my PhD! And shortly thereafter started interviewing. I no longer live in Memphis. I moved just a few weeks ago -- selling my house, leaving our friends, and leaving my home (city). I started a new job with a very large, very well-known, very competitive tech company in Seattle, WA. I've only been here for 3 weeks, and in fairness, the summer weather is amazing whereas the winter will be miserable -- but so far I love this city. It is everything that I want in a city and everything I've been missing. It is beautiful, active, interesting, and has professional growth opportunities for me.  Not to mention that financially it's a big increase from my previous situation.

Andrew and I are enjoying the early days of our new-city adventure. We've made a few friends here and have a few more "on the books" to meet up with soon. I really hope that we survive the miserable winter and make enough quality friends to get back to a relatively nice social life. I am so happy that now that I'm done with my PhD, I can get back to spending my "free time" digging into some aspects of computer science and software development that I've had to leave to the side while finishing my thesis. The new team that I've joined is awesome so far. I really like my new manager, and I am surrounded by smart peers, who actually care about their work and their careers. I had a few of those in my previous company, but it was rare. My group here is the opposite. I'm really excited to see what the next few years hold.

I hope that I can update this more than once every 4 years. One day I'll go back and read some of these and enjoy the memories. I already have vivid memories of writing some of the more recent ones -- in the various different homes in which I lived.

Until next time, friends!

Steve

Eek! not doing well keeping up with this blog thing...

Well it's been almost a year since my last post!! Eek!  Let me see if I can summarize the last year:

• I spent last new years eve in Atlanta as normal, but instead of going to Swinging Richards, I went to a gay dance club with Andrew! We had a wonderful trip, ate some great food, and partied like it was ....well 2013.
• Work has been very busy.  My team has built a new product, successfully sold it to the largest hospital network in a very large state, and are in the middle of installing it!
• I got a promotion! 
• I hired one of my good friends from college and he's working out great!
• Andrew and I spent our 1 year anniversary in San Francisco!  We stayed at a cool boutique hotel, saw all of the sights, spent a lot of time partying with the gays, and ate SO much amazing food.  I pretty exclusively picked michelin starred restaurants ;) The last night of the trip (our actual anniversary night) we had a wonderful dinner at Foreign Cinema, then I drove to the top of twin peaks.  I told Andrew it was a surprise and had him close his eyes.  We got to the top, I held him in my arms, and told him to open his eyes.  We looked out over the best view of San Fran -- with all of the beautiful lights below.  It was pretty awesome.  I'm getting all happy just thinking about it.
  
• A few weeks before, Andrew moved in with me! It really wasn't much of an event; he had already been spending a lot of time there. It's sooooo nice having him there every night.  I like cuddling with him before falling asleep and giving him a kiss in the morning before heading off to work.  We're quite domestic :p
• My world the last few months has been nice.  I've had to travel a lot for work to Toronto, Dallas, and Washington DC.  I'll actually be in DC next week! I was hoping to meet some twitter folk but looks like I'm going to be too busy.
• Still in school for a PhD.  Still going very slowly.  
• My mom has been doing really well with Andrew.  We've had dinner together a few times now.  She even invited him to thanksgiving.  Goes to show that even the most ardent moms that seem least likely to come around can change.  
• I still am really in to mountain biking, although I do a little more road biking and less scary off-road biking (due to my accident).

Well I guess that's it! Hopefully I'll post a bit more frequently!

Much Love,

Steve 

Biking accident, moving, and mom (redux)

It's been two months since I last blogged and this has been a crazy two months... In bullet form:

• I had a mountain biking accident and spent two days in the hospital.
• My mom re-discovered I am gay and we had a big fight
• My mom's friends are awesome and one of the local catholic priests is awesome and both have really helped her.  I think we're going to be ok.
• I moved in to a new house! Well... not everything is unpacked so thats really present progressive tense not past tense.
• Work has been insane
• School has been slow :(
• Andrew and I had our five month anniversary yesterday!!!
• I met Andrew's mother for the first time
• Andrew's dad found out that Andrew is gay from his mom sort-of accidentally

Some of the above merits additional exposition.  I do a lot of mountain biking and had ridden this trail hundreds of times in the past year.  This particular day was a bit muddy and wet, and I was going down a hill really fast and hit a little beat up bridge.  My tires lost traction and I went forehead first in to one of the wooden slats.  I was wearing a helmet, of course, but I think the impact was against my forehead under the helmet.  I don't remember much of that day due to the head trauma and that whole evening is a bit of a blur. Some couple found me just wandering around disoriented in the woods, covered in blood, and they took me to the emergency room.  I wasn't able to form short term memories while my brain was swollen due to the trauma, so I apparently kept asking the same questions over and over again.  The nurses got tired of answering me so they started writing down the answers and just pointing (see picture below).  The stuff at the bottom is what Andrew wrote trying to help me remember the weekend.  I'm totally fine now and back to mountain bike riding!   

When I was in the hospital my mom and my boss were both there, and I asked my boss if anyone had contacted Andrew.  My mom asked my boss who Andrew was and he said "special friend".  She immediately turned pale as she realized what that meant, and despite coming out to her once before it was like she never knew :/ Andrew showed up later that evening and my mom said about two words to him before leaving, obviously quite shaken and upset.  Andrew stayed until like 2am.  

The next morning my mom came back and said that I "had made my choice" and that she was going to cut herself out of my life quickly.  I, in pain lying in my hospital bed, screamed back "well what the fuck are you still doing here then?? get the fuck out of here".  we shouted back and forth a few times and she hung around for a while in silence.  She eventually left and came back the next day to drive me home.  The ride home was weird but cordial.  

My interim short-term memory

Over the next few weeks we didn't talk much -- but I found out that she went to see a priest at one of the churches here.  He is very sympathetic to gays and runs the local "Fortunate Families" meetings here (think "catholic PFLAG").  He obviously said some really nice, supportive things to her.  Also, a bunch of her friends came to her support.  She even went to lunch with two of her friends who have gay kids, and I think they helped her.  We went to dinner a few weeks ago to talk about "my story", and she explained that this "wasn't about her" and that she wanted to have a relationship with me.  She said that she believes that everyone is god's children and that even though she doesn't understand "this", she loves me.  It was an amazing turn around.  She still can't really talk about it without crying, and she clearly will need a lot of time, but I think it's going to work out.  We're at least going in the right direction now -- even though its clearly baby steps.

Things with Andrew are just fantastic.  It was our 5 month anniversary yesterday and we went to dinner with some friends and then went to Spectrum the gay dance club here.  We danced and got drunk woot!  The previous night he and I went out to dinner with some of my oldest friends that were in from out of town and their mom (one of my "second moms").  It was really nice having Andrew meet my friends.  They all think he's really awesome.  I feel like we've been kind of nicely transitioning from dating to couple-mode the past few months.  I really love him, and expect and hope that we'll be in each others lives for a long long time.  Hearing about other people's relationships and the normal "rocky" stuff that seems to happen so frequently -- its nice that we're not like that.  We still haven't had a fight yet...I don't know that we "have to" but statistically seems probable at some point.  I think as long as we're still "in it" as much as we are now, we won't have any trouble.  At five months, this is now officially my longest relationship ever and _by far_ the best.  I mean its so far from the previous ones-- I never imagined a relationship like this could happen.  Our six month anniversary will be on Christmas eve, which is a neat coincidence!  

Whew... a lot has gone on in the past few months.  Let's let the next few be a bit less dramatic!

Steve

Turmoil in Steve-land

Received an e-mail this weekend that was not intended to go to me.  The email contained extremely sensitive information regarding a company that I work for.  This has happened before, because the owner's name is also "steve" but because he is really old and didn't have a computer for a long time, I got the "steve@blahblah.com" email address.  Its happened in the past that I have received emails intended for him, but they were never anything too serious.  Unfortunately, this email is insanely sensitive, and affects me and the people that I have worked with for the last 13 years.  I can't share what the email is about, but it infuriates me and worries me.  It affects one of my best friends, and might affect his financial situation, which then might affect my financial situation because he was planning on buying my house.  I cannot say anything to anyone about this email, and given some of the details -- it won't matter -- it will be happening very soon.  I hope that it's not as bad of a thing as I fear, but you never know -- in any case.... I hope it will be ok.

I'm a few weeks away from closing on my new house! Can't wait to move! Really should start packing...

My boyfriend and I are doing really well.  I was out of town all last week for work stuff and then I went to Atlanta for a little minor cosmetic surgery.  I got back home Friday night and he came over.  We spent the whole weekend with each other.  It was wonderful.  We watched a few movies together, ate a lot, laughed a lot, and found...other things to occupy our time as well ;)  He is just so right for me-- everything I wanted out of a relationship but never thought was possible to find.

I flipped through some old posts about previous boyfriends last night and there's one from last Spring talking about "L".  It's so funny how I thought that was a "good relationship".  I enjoyed hanging out with him -- we got along fine.  We shared laughs, etc., but I do that with friends.  On the real "relationship stuff" L was not a good fit for me.  He did not communicate well at all -- it made him uncomfortable.  I think that he had a hard time growing up and he learned early that he could put up a tough exterior to shield himself from pain.  I mean I only ever knew that he even actually cared for me a few times in the relationship when he would "slip up" and say something.  We could never have honest conversations.  I dealt with it at the time, because I thought something was wrong with _me_.  But now I know what its like on the other side -- to be able to talk honestly and openly about feelings with a partner.  Also, I knew in that relationship with "L" that I liked him more than he liked me.  I knew there was an inequity.  I'm sure that *never* works in the long term.  If that's how the relationship starts, then it will never change.  It's why guys can't ever "convince" girls/guys to "just give them a shot" etc. If there's no spark-- no chemistry-- no congruence on the personality things that each person needs, then it's just not going to work.  Anyways I'm really thankful that I found Andrew and that he's exactly who he is.  He makes me so happy, and I think I make him really happy too :3

One of these days I'll write a post that doesn't gush on and on about Andrew... but its got to mean something that its been over three months and both of us still feel this way -- I might be even more in love with him now than I was a month ago.  Hard to gauge, because we're in new uncharted territory for me...

Much Love,
Steve

Big things a-brewing...

Well things have been eventful in Steve-land:


 My friend is going to rent then buy my house so I can finally move out of the suburbs and into midtown where more of my friends live. Also, I found out that my boss is open to moving the office closer to midtown when our lease comes up in March so woot! I made an offer on an awesome house in midtown and it was accepted (see pictures throughout this post!)! I'm moving October 26th! The new house is awesome - much better kitchen. Better living areas. Excellent location. Can't wait!! Another benefit of moving to midtown is I'll live 5 minutes away from Andrew ;)

My boss and mentor that I've been working for since I left Rhodes resigned last Friday. My job won't really be affected, but it will be sad to not work with him on a daily basis. I'm sure I'll still see him frequently, and who knows maybe he'll have an opportunity at this new company in a few years when he can afford me ;) 

Andrew and I are still doing just awesome. It's almost our three month anniversary! Today we became "facebook-official". It's kind of interesting because I'm sure most of my friends from HS don't know that I'm gay. My facebook "interested in" has stated "men" for a while, but I hid the update when I first changed it. So this will probably be news to some people, but that's a good thing :) We had a fun weekend. Went to dinner and my favorite bar Mollie Fontaines for drinks. Met up with some of his friends and went to karaoke then crashed at his place. Saturday we had a quiet night out to dinner and a movie! Overall it was great. Woke up this morning to a cute text: "Had a great time last night! Woke up this morning thinking of you :) kisses!!"

I love him so much.  I know its got to be rare for it to be this good. I still can't help but feel like its too good -- like it scares me that its this good, because it makes me fear for what it would be like if all of this went to shit--to even imagine having to go back to the grindr/gay dating world. I didn't even install grindr on my new phone, and haven't checked on okcupid, etc. in months. I would probably never find another Andrew with his awesome smile, cute personality, and similar intellectual drive...and he apparently enjoys kissing as much as I do ;) BUT i have a strong suspicion that this one is going to work out for a while and I wont have to go back to that lonely grindr world any time soon.

Steve

Birthday Weekend!

I know that all my posts are about Andrew recently, and I'll just apologize in advance for that.  BUT (1) there's not really anything else worth blogging -- work is busy and stressful, school is busy and stressful and (2) I want to record some of these things to look back on in a while and remember.  Hopefully it will be happy memories that lead to more happiness and not "get a pint of ice cream and cry over remembering a past, now-gone relationship" :p

This weekend Andrew and I went to St Louis, MO! We met up with one of his oldest friends and her boyfriend to go to Six Flags and a music festival.  STL is a cool city too-- my parents used to live there and I really like it.

We got in Friday night and stayed at Union Station downtown. It was a really nice room. We didn't get in until pretty late so we just unpacked and relaxed in the room. Andrew gave me the Adele 21 piano songbook (sheetmusic) for my birthday, and I was so surprised and delighted I was about to explode--earlier in the car by coincidence Adele came on and I mentioned "I've been meaning to buy that songbook forever, because I love Adele, and my moms friend demands that I play it for her!"  Little did I know that he was high-fiving himself for the good fortune and coincidence!  So that was fun.  It was also our two month anniversary Friday!

We got up early Saturday to meet his friends and go to Six Flags.  We spent the day and early afternoon riding rides and having a fun time.  We all love roller coasters and rode Mr Freeze, Batman, and even the scooby doo swamp tour! I love just holding hands and walking around-- it feels so... normal and special at the same time.  I don't know what it is, but we just click well.

We left and all were drained from lots of walking and the hot sun.  Everyone went to their hotels for a while for a nap...and maybe some other things ;) We met back up for dinner at a cool Pizza place called "Pi".  We got this delicious specialty pizza with pruscuitto.  Then we went to LouFest music festival and saw Girl Talk. Its 90s rap meets modern pop music-- it was a fun dance party.  The crowd was hilarious too -- drunk white guy dancing.

Afterwards we went to the "gay street" and enjoyed the gay bar Just John.  We took a cab, and got pretty drunk.  Well Andrew got really drunk and I got fairly drunk.  We made friends with these four girls who just graduated from law school.  They were fun.  Andrew is one of these people that can make friends with girls anywhere.  They kept saying how cute of a couple we were (awwwwwww) ;)

Sunday morning was a little rough waking up and getting out of the hotel since we were out so late, but we made it without forgetting anything and met up with his friends at the awesome St Louis Galleria mall before going to the zoo! Lions Tigers and Bears, oh my!  Again lots of cutesy hand holding and couple-y things and really no awkward stares or anything from the myriad of families and "missourians" around.  I wasn't really paying attention or looking for that but I imagine anything obvious I would've noticed.  All of us enjoyed some sushi before saying our goodbyes...it went by way too fast :(

On our way out of down we drove by downtown to see the arch at sunset.  We parked on the street walked up the steps and just stared at this massive man made thing that is overwhelming when you are standing right in front of it.  It was kind of drizzling rain a little bit, but you could still see a nice sunset through the clouds.  We took advantage of the setting to exchange an "i love you" and more than a few kisses.  It was wonderful :)

It was a fantastic weekend.  I hope this is just the first of many trips we can experience together <3

oh my god im 29

only one more year until gay death :(