It's October 12 today. That means this blog is 15 years old. Happy birthday blog. It's fun and strange looking over the first entries. I lived fairly different life back then.

My separation from RO is proceeding. We both agree that seeing a mediator won't be a good use of our time, so I'm going with petitioning the court for dissolution. It was a little under a year ago that I left RO. It's time to finish off the legal parts of our relationship. I'm surprised how long this has taken. So are my friends.

LIfe in Canada…

My mother was complaining how the length of this year's Canadian Federal Election process. It's twelve weeks long! Usually they are only six. Every night the news is the same thing-- who said what on the election trail. The real news is being pushed to the back burner. Get it over with already.

Perhaps she was subtly ribbing me about the American election cycle. Twelve weeks would be refreshing.

C2 is in town. He wants to move back to Seattle and may do so. He is a government contractor and the finance debated that happening now may cause him to loose his job. He wants that to happen.

We went to the state fair last night. Saw the animals. Rode the rides. It was fun,

Last week, RO tried to kill himself again. We were talking on the phone. He threatened to take pills. He wanted to end it all to solve all the problems and make everything simple again. I told Steven what RO was up to. Steven called 911 while I stayed on the phone with RO.

RO is already out of the hospital. I don't understand why he isn't under constant observation. This is the 3rd or 4th time he's tried to kill himself.

Weddings. So many of them.

This past weekend Steven and I went to Yakima for a friends wedding. The wedding was at Gilbert Cellars. Very nice place.

Weekend before we flew to Denver for a wedding & a few days R&R.

The 20^th, we caught a concert at the Red Rock Amphitheater. The Piano Guys. They are a great band. I was initially surprised that I had never heard about them before. After all, they filled a ten thousand seat venue and they were clearly knew there stuff. Over the course of the evening though, I figured it out. They are Mormon, and they are very famous amongst Mormons. I'm just not in touch with the Mormon world.

Check them out on YouTube.

Friday we went to the Celestial Seasonings Tea factory for a tour. Yes, you heard that correct.

It was one of the most intense experiences I have been through. One of us got injured and had to leave. The peppermint room was an assault on the senses…. I exaggerate but only a little.

The tour was largely populated by middle aged women and their families. Oddly enough we were there at the urging of a female middle aged friend who wanted to see it.

One person on the tour did have to drop out. She was asthmatic and the tea dust made it hard for her to breath.

The peppermint room was intense. Celestial Seasonings has a separate warehouse room to store peppermint. When you walk into that room your eyes and nose start to run.

And then we sampled tea.

Saturday we went to an amusement park but left early because the threat of lightening shut down the big rides.

Saturday night was the frosting emergency. The mother of the bride had elected to make the wedding cake. But Saturday evening, for the Sunday Wedding, the cake was still not ready. In fact the first batch of frosting didn't turn out and the mother of the bride didn't have a car or kitchen available to her to make another batch. So, we drove across Denver Saturday evening to a friends with an available kitchen.

The frosting and the cake turned out very well.

On Sunday was the wedding. It was held at a barn at a botanical garden. It was very beautiful.

The parents...

My parents are getting old. The roomies parents are getting old. It makes me ask hard questions about how I want to live out the rest of my life.

Fifteen years ago my mother flew with me for a month to Zimbabwe. Today she won't leave the country.

Steven's mother is pressuring him to buy a house big enough that she can move in.

A coworker just bought a new house with a bedroom on the ground floor, because his parents were having problems using the stairs at his old house.

C2's father just sits there and does nothing with his time.

I don't enjoy watching the inevitable changes of time affect my parents. I exercise regularly and watch what I eat. Perhaps this will extend my healthy and active life. But in the end...

Yesterday was my first court ordered anger management session. It was actually good. I enjoyed it. Maybe even got something out of it. I have to hand it to the instructor. He is trying to be helpful to a room full of people who would rather not be there. I think the program is very 12 steps based. He tried very hard to emphasis that we are responsible for our actions and that we have to be honest with ourselves because anger is often the result of someone revealing our personal fears and shames. If we are not afraid of ourselves... if we are not ashamed of our selves...

Steven hates the stories.

Last September, Steven checked him self into rehab for crystal meth addiction. He lost his job shortly after leaving treatment.

Since then he's come along way. He has a great new job, even better than the old. He has distanced himself from drug and alcohol using friends. He attends AA regularly and has a sponsor.

He still has a lot on his mind. Everyone he met in the rehab treatment center has since relapsed. Regularly, someone he knows through AA falls off the wagon and hits tough times.

He read "Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction." The son in this book also had crystal meth addiction. The son relapses often.

All these stories of relapse worry Steven. There are not many role models of people who stayed sober.

I don't know what to say here. His life is going well now so he has the strength to say sober. Sooner or later he will hit a rut. We all do. I hope then that all his friends will help

No update in over a month. I've been lazy.
 
My charges are in the process of being dropped. I have to take an anger management course. After that the prosecution has agreed to drop them.
 
Not much progress finalizing RO and my separation.  We are in the progress of getting a mediator, neither of us are pushing that one along, so the process has stopped.
 
Steven and I spent a few days at Cannon beach in Oregon. Was beautiful. As we joked-- imagine a beach, miles long with soft white sand. The beach's land scape is dotted with gorgeous hay stack rocks. All beautiful. Now, imagine that beach has a constant, non stop cool 20mph wind. That beach is Cannon beach.
 
Indeed. We've had a heat wave here. Seattle has hit 90F every day. Cannon beach barely scratches 70F.
 
Steven and I also spend a weekend at a friends cabin in Shelton WA. Very quaint.
 
Steven, as well as his friend are both in AA. I've getting to know the AA vernacular a bit better than perhaps I wanted to. Fortunately it's all very practical. About establishing proper relations. Being responsible for yourself and acting to allow others to be responsible for themselves.
 
I drink much less hanging out with Steven. I generally like that. Now, I do enjoy a glass of wine, or a beer every now and then, but I don't drink daily any more.
 
On a different topic, I don't think my parents will travel out here this summer. I'll probably go and visit them. They are getting older and more hesitant to travel. Too bad
 

Over the weekend we had a big BBQ with about 30 guests. It was great to see old friends and meet new.

RO & I… The time is coming when RO and I have to have a good hard chat. He lives in the house I own. He works at the business I own. These facts are dragging things out.

I know I am not responsible for his happiness. I am not responsible for him earning a living. Yet, my actions can't help but hurt him. I have to close the business. I have to sell the house. With his struggles over the past few months, I can only imagine how he will react.

It is my birthday today. Have been reflecting on the past six months.

I'm settling down to a new normal, however I still have a ways to go. RO agreed to switch to mediator, which I want as well. My lawyer and RO's lawyer were both accusing the other of never returning phone calls. This log jam ate of time and soaked up money.

I like living in my new place and my new roomates. Steven is great to half around. He's a Big E Extrovert, and is always planning something. Brown, on the other hand, is quiet, like me. This is very comfortable. Brown and I can be in the same room for hours and not talk to each other. We both like that. The silence bugs Steven. He doesn't understand our introverted ways.

Since I left RO, I've used two tubes of tooth paste. I think I'm on my third bar of soap. It's weird that I know that. My post RO life is so clear in my mind that these details are sticking with me.

My life is very minimalist right now. Intentionally so. Mind you, I'm not living without stuff Steven owns a lot. So my bedroom and bathroom are clean and spare. The rest of the house is well decked out. It's a good balance.

It looks like my assault charges will be dropped. The prosecutor and my lawyer have agreed that if I take an anger management course, and stay out of trouble for six months, then the charges will be dropped. All that has to happen now is for the judge to sign off on everything.

I spent the week in Chicago for work, for a conference. It was a nice trip. Very busy, but fun. I thought that I'd have a chance to relax a little, but that never happened. Between work, and dinner with coworkers, I wouldn't get back to my hotel till after ten.

The flight back was a pain. Two mechanical failures and a thunderstorm meant that I spent about four hours just taxiing on the runway. Bleah.

I had another hearing on the assault charges. Everything is going so slowly.

Last week, the prosecutor had not turned over a copy of the evidence to my lawyer. At my pretrial hearing, my lawyer tried to have the case dismissed on that basis.

The prosecutor didn't even show up to argue. A poor para-legal was there trying to answer the questions. The file she had only contained copies of my lawyers request for the evidence.

The judge gave the prosecutor 3 days to turn over a copy of the evidence.

Of course, two and a half days later we finally received the copy.

We meet tomorrow to go over the evidence package in detail.

I did have a great weekend. The weather here is very nice. C2 is in town for a few days. Also, our new roommate, Browne, just arrived. He's a very nice guy.

Despite all the trouble dealing with RO, I really like how things are turning out.

This is the view from my bedroom window. I have remind myself that no matter how bad this year has been, that I still am very well off. I live with a good friend.  I have a great job. I will be ok. No one should feel sorry for me.

Steven has a job. Not only does he have a job, but he has a very well paying job and he really likes the people he will be working with. This is great news.
 
2015 has been very bad year for both of us, until now.  

RO had a small heart attack last night. He is ok, but he will be in the hospital for a few days

We were negotiating our separation contract. He didn't like what I proposed and we argued via txt message. A few hours later I got a txt from Boone that he drove RO to the hospital with chest pains.

The Wind...

Last Thursday's dinner with Behr & BitBehr was very nice. It was good to catch up with them. Much has happened in the years since we last spoke.

For a while, we talked about drug and alcohol use in the gay community. It's far more common than I'd like. Steven even spoke a little about his drug use, it's beginnings and what pushed him to treatment.

I can only speculate why drug and alcohol problems are so common around me. I suspect it's because this crowd has nothing to care for other than themselves. With no children, all our money earned is spent entertaining ourselves and finding the next hot guy to have sex with. This can be a very selfish life and unless you are careful, very self destructive.

I'm visiting C2's cabin on Hood Canal. For lunch I stopped by a little lake to eat in the sun. As I sat and watched the lake, I saw patches of little ripples. The ripples would appear in an area, shift, grow and subside. Sort of like how a cloud changes shape.

Over time I noticed that I'd feel a slight breeze when the ripples were by me. It donned on me that the ripples were caused by the faintest eddies of the breeze. I was watching the wind.

After a while the sun hid behind the clouds and the breeze picked up. I finished my lunch and left.

C2's cabin is quiet. It offers me time to contemplate, to read a little, to write a little.

Cell phone coverage is spotty, though wi-fi is good.

Soon the sun will hid behind the hills. I'm going out to enjoy.

I have my clothing. This makes me happy.

When I moved out, I didn't bring much with me-- a few t shirts. A few long sleeve shirts, some jeans, underwear and toiletries. That was it. It was very minimalist. For the past three months, it worked, but I had to do small loads of laundry a few times a week.

It's been difficult to get back. With the no-contact order I can't even get within 500 feet of my house.

I finally got Boone to bag up all my clothing. We met last night and handed it off.

There is nothing new to report on my charges. When we met for pretrial, the prosecutor had not yet given my lawyer a copy of the evidence. In fact the prosecutor showed up at the court with no files at all. Somehow they were misplaced. Now everything is delayed by a month.

I'm starting to re-establish contact with my old friends. I lost touch with many people while RO and I were together. I knew RO wasn't beloved, but I didn't dwell to much on the details. I was fine not going out.

BitBear thanked God for the excorcism when he heard about our separation. That surprised me. BitBear is usually calm and quiet and I didn't think he ever talked much to RO.

I have to walk a careful line here. RO has known for a long time that many of my friends stopped talking to me while we were together. Part of him wants to think that this is because people (me included) are saying cruel things about him behind his back. He doesn't realize how combative and overbearing he sometimes is.

I spent the night in jail. Now, How did this happen…

RO and I met to talk about our separation contract. RO started to get belligerent and took a few swings at me. I tried to leave but he blocked the way. I held him at bay for about 10 minutes. I didn't know how else to end it, so I took a good swing and pushed him down.

I stayed around to make sure he was OK. He started talking and swearing at me. So I  left.
We both called 911.
The police came and we chatted for a while. I'm not sure why took me and not RO. So, I spent the night in jail.
At my arraignment, I was charged with 4th degree assault and released without bail.
On my way out, the jailer joked with me "Before you go telling anyone any I-did-hard-time stories, let me tell you that you spent the night in the nicest jail in the county, and that 4th degree assault is not a felony. "
I never felt unsafe the whole time was there. Worried but not unsafe. My cell had 11 other people in it. Everyone was clean and well kept. When I entered the cell, they quickly figured out I was new to this whole process. One of them helped me set up my cot. Then he gave me a short speech on cleanliness. There were no janitors there so, everyone had to help keep things clean.
The cot was not comfortable.
This is not something I want to go through again. But, kudos to the staff and inmates.
Now. More later on what I've learned from this.

But wait, there's more....

Steven's potential job is in Los Angeles not Louisiana. Sorry for the confusion Tommy.

But wait… At the interview Steven was informed that the Seattle manager was interested in taking the Los Angeles position, opening up a position for Steven in Seattle.

Anyways, Steven passed the first round of interviews. Hopefully he will land the next round as well.

I am out at he Hood Canal this weekend at C2's cabin. C2 owns two places right next to each other. One he rents out. One he keeps for himself and friends.

This morning I was talking to C2 via Skype on a tablet. I walked around the property with the tablet so C2 could see how the place is holding up. 

While I was walking with the tablet, I happened upon the tenet. She was very excited. She had quit her job and was opening up a thrift store. C2 let out a long groan. He has a long history of tenants who loose their job and then stop paying rent. One of the things he liked up about this current tenant was that she had a good stable job.

Oh well.

On the RO front, RO is becoming very angry. I'm not sure how to handle this. I listen to him vent at me. He has no friends now. Hopefully venting at me is more constructive and helpful than bottling it up.