Dreams v2.0

"It's nice seeing you again"

"You have no idea"

"I really missed you, you know"

"SC, you stole the words right out of my mouth"

"JP..."

"shhhh, let's just walk"

The day was coming to an end, the sky, a vivid orange and the air still warm from another summer's day. The trail followed the contours of a slow moving river, trees line the coast.

"How has life been treating you JP? College treating you well?"

"It's been pretty good, quieter than I thought it was going to be"

"Hah, well you're still alive I see so that must be good"

"SC, I still don't know why I can't get you out of my head"

The ground became looser, small rocks studded the trail, crunching slightly with each of our steps.

"JP, come here"

he puts his arm around my waist, I do the same. It felt so good to be so close to him, his body next to mine. We continue to walk in unison, over small hills, wandering in and out of the shade, everything still bathed in a orange light.

"How's your senior year been going?"

"It's been good JP, trying to punch through it as I'm sure you knew too well"

"Crew's been good to you?"

"Yeah, things are much the same, I'm still in the same boat"

"Nice to hear that"

"Yeah"

"SC"

"yes?"

"You know this really isn't right"

"what do you mean?"

"I really don't want to get too attached, especially this close to the end of the year for you. I mean, I'm going to school here in D.C. but you said you were probably going to that school in New York. I'm really not in to that long distance e-relationship stuff"

"You know it could still work"

"I suppose but..."

"You should stop worrying so much about the future sometimes. You're the one who told me I should just enjoy...."

"enjoy the moment...."

By now we had stopped walking. for how long, I have no idea, all I know is that it's just him and me. His blue eyes still locked on to mine. He leans in stopping just short of our lips meeting. "just enjoy the moment" he whispered, and I give in. His warm lips felt so right against mine. We stood there in the tranquil setting, blissfully unaware of anything going on around us. As we stood side by side again and resumed following the beaten path along that lazy river, I felt such a high, like I'd just accomplished the greatest feat in all man kind. I knew this still wasn't how things should have been, but right at that moment I didn't care.

"So how long do you have before you head off to New York?"

"I don't know, a few weeks maybe, maybe more, maybe less"

"Too short a time per usual"
"Well JP, maybe that's all the time we need"

"SC, I want you to stay"
"That impossible"
"I know"

The sky was now getting darker. The sky was no longer orange, the sun had disappeared over the horizon and the dark blue of the quiet night was slowly sweeping over the land. We continued to walk in silence, hand in hand down the riverside trail, then the trail ended. The trail ended at a grand stairway, at the top we could hear cars, the bustle of urban life. What looked to be an office building, lights still decorating the looming grey facade peeked out over the top of the stairs.

"Race you to the top"

"You're on"

And we took off. Him on one end, me on the other, my heart began to race, my breathing deeper and faster as the scenery rushed by.

I opened my eyes. I wasn't on that trail anymore. No, I was on my couch, sprawled across its entire length staring at a white ceiling with pale streams of sunlight peeking from between the folds of the sheer white curtains. I was at home and everything came back into perspective. It was noon, I had just eaten breakfast a few hours ago and I could hear the TV quietly chattering on about the day's news in the adjacent room.

"fuck"

I whispered as I laid my head back down on the pillow.

Dreams are great things. They can transport you to new lands and places you've never imagined. Try as hard as I might, they take my deepest wants, fears, anything and everything and produce grand films in my mind, leaving me powerless to control what's going on, and leaving me confused about the boundaries between reality and imaginary when I wake. I only wish that sometimes they would be less vivid, or that I wouldn't remember them quite so well.

Maybe I should stop taking naps after breakfast

JP

*Happy Memorial Day, my prayers go to all those who have fallen in battle, and thank you to all the soldiers who defend our nation, because freedom isn't free*

I Wanna be a Billionaire

Cute Song for the Summer :)

Prom

There are a handful of things all high schoolers must experience before graduating,

[x] Go to a football game
[x] Try out at least one sport
[ ]Prom

etc.

Well, the time has come to check off another box on this list. Prom has come and past, a celebration of all things extravagant and a culminating event for Seniors and their dates before graduating and going off into the mysterious world of (semi)independent living and college.

To be honest, I thought prom would be pretty straight forward, get a tux, get a date, have a nice dinner etc. well, apparently no one told me the amount of time (and money) prom actually involves.

"be my date?"

Finding a date for me was a complex issue. Back in elementary school (4th grade to be exact), me and my friend Maria had promised each other that we would go to prom with each other. Yes, it seemed all cute and fun back then but this little pinky promise stuck around longer than I imagine either of us expected. By the time prom season rolled around, the situation had come to look like this - maria had apparently found a potential date with a guy she met at a college orientation (and who goes to school in the area). Well, seeing this as a signal that I should go date searching I started off seeing who I should go with. Yes, I wanted to ask a guy but you can probably figure out where that went. So in the end, my problem solved itself, it turned out that the crew team was going as a group. Yes, there would be couples and such. My friend Mads asked me to prom and I readily accepted.

Happy I got a date, and Mads happy she had a date, she began dress hunting an dme searching for a limo and other prom-related things. two days later, things got complicated. Apparently Maria decided she wasn't going to prom with Mr. Tall, Blond, Built and Handsome and that she felt bad for leaving me behind. At this point, word of me going with Mads hadn't quite reached her so I had to break the news, she wasn't very happy to say the least.

Feeling betrayed, she said I had to make a decision. In the end, it was between whether having more fun and enjoying prom more with Mads and the crew kids, or going with my best friend and having an ultimately less enjoyable time in the end. Despite feeling like a total bitch for doing so, I chose to go with Mads which left Maria that much more irked. Yes, I felt horrible and me and Maria didn't speak for a few days, but in the end, things pulled through and luckily 13 years of friendship was strong enough to withstand prom drama (Prama?).

The Night of.

My group met up at a local pond for pictures, I knew all but two people there. Johnny, one of the guys, was the date of my friend Catherine, the other, Trent was Dutch's date. He came up all the way from Richmond, Virginia to come to our prom. While most of us wore the normal tux, vest, tie combo, he wore a rainbow bow tie cummerbund combo that made him admittedly the fiercest out of all of us. Trent was Dutch's gay bff while she was at Governor's School, and we all knew that h would be someone very fun and interesting and he didn't disappoint. The rest of the group included people mostly from the crew team including Southern Charm (who looked really nice in a tux), my friend Eva and a German foreign exchange student Julian. Mads wore a beautiful dark silver dress that in the light showed shades of purple-blue, my silver-vested tux complemented it well. Me and Mads chose pink and white trimmed orchids ot be our bountonniere/corsage flowers and they looked stunning in contrast to the neutral shades of our outfits. Once me, my date and everyone got all our individual corsage/boutonniere photos done and our parents some of their picture-excitement done, we began the long process of group pictures. None of us knew standing and smiling could be so tiring, but after holding a smile pretty much non-stop for 20 minutes, our cheek muscles were ready to fall off (try it if you don't believe me, haha).

After pictures and parting farewells from our parents as if we were embarking on a year-long tour of the world and wouldn't see them for that amount of time, we got in the limo and set off for dinner. Our reservation was for 7:45 at P.F. Changs, a Chinese fusion restaurant and we arrived just in time. Unfortunately, because we wanted to have a table all together, we had to wait extra because the table who took the chairs and table needed to extend our table fully was sitting idly and no doing anything despite finishing their meal. "We should give them death glares" suggested Catherine, "We have been" says the hostess. We finally sat down at 8:10, late, but we didn't really care since most of us enjoyed the dinner portion more than the actual dance portion anyway.

By 10 we left for the actual dance, we had to reroute twice because of road construction so we arrived at 10:30, not even close to the original plan of getting there by 9:30 but for our group's theme of "Classy Prom", we were just arriving fashionably late. There was a room filled with desserts and drinks and the ballroom was bathed in a beautiful blue light with an illuminated Eiffel tower against one wall in honor of the Paris theme for prom. The dance floor was packed by people grinding as per usual in modern high school dance fashion but nevertheless we, well at leasthe girls, Quinton and I danced, while most of the other guys stood awkwardly or just gently swayed, straight guys really need to learn to bust a move now and then.

At midnight everything was done, with the limo still having one hour left to go, we had our driver take us to a McDonalds and we all got some milkshakes or ice cream to finish off the night.

The night came to an end ar 1AM as we rolled back up at the orginal pick-up spot. For the girls and some of the guys, me not included, there would be a race the next (same?) day. We all hugged each other goodbye and ended the night on a high note.

A Reflection

So that was prom, simple, fun and we all had a great time. maybe it wasn't the most action packed night of our lives, but it will sure be a night I won't forget. I'll post some photos soon enough hopefully.

All the best,

JP

Southern Charm

It's happened again...I think I've fallen for a straight guy again. To fully understand the situation, we need to back up to the beginning of this school year.

Before the crew season started, we held an interest meeting for novices and anyone who might have already ha previous crew experience. On the second of two meetings, there was someone none of us recognized. He was standing in the corner and after the meeting and the freshmen had left, he came up to be and the other returning rowers and he spoke to us for the first time. He had moved from Florida and was a junior, he had rowed for a couple of years already down South and would in all likelihood had become a varsity rower. He wore black skinny (ish) jeans and an orange sweatshirt and had the nicest blue eyes and brown hair. He was attractive alright, not in the all-out model way, but that tall, nice I-want-to-know-you way. We'll call him Southern Charm, SC for short. SC was appealing, and I got the feeling he might be gay but I shoved that notion aside knowing that if I got too caught up in him and things didn't work out I would only set myself up for more problems later.

As the season started and winter conditioning was under way and me and SC bonded in a friend/workout buddy way. He was a fun guy to be around alright, goofy at times, serious at others, but he never was uptight. In the weight room we benched together almost every day and we both often joked about how we wouldn't improve his admittedly low bench-press numbers if I didn't push him to his limits. We had a good time, I would be lying if I didn't say that being more than workout buddies would have been better, but at the time, the only goal was to get stronger, faster, leaner and more competitive once were on the water.

Things were peachy, but before on the water arrived, I learned that I wasn't the only one who had taken notice to him. Jess, a girl who I drive to and from practice and also a good friend of min eon the crew team had also taken notice. Still slightly broken hearted form last-season's fallout in a relationship with a guy on the team, she had come to like much of the same qualities of SC. Jess knows that I'm gay so she talked to me frequently about him as I quietly nodded or agreed and soon I became her own private spy into the mind of SC. She was determined alright, and I was her way to achieving her prize.

On the water began and things between Jess and SC got increasingly more one-sided. She had been trying to put on the moves towards him for a few months now but to no visible effect. Soon, Jess resorted to more drastic action, Rather than just hinting, she decided that she would try and force her way onto him. Now, every time she sees him, she has to give him a hug, tease him, and ogle over him in her own special way. To be said however, her attempts to be subtle aren't terribly subtle. Jess doesn't hide her emotions well. She gets giggly, jittery and even crazy whenever she is in close proximity to him, which, in comparison to his cool, calm and collected demeanor, seems like an unlikely match from the start.

The season worked on and the attempts continued and my feelings for SC laid dormant as it had since the winter. We rowed in different boats and the only real interaction I had with him was the time on shore where we'd talk and occasionally play a game of steal-SC's-hat that I feel we'd had more fun playing than him. By this time, I had generally settled into being friends is more than enough mentality, seeing as senior year was almost over, I might as well just wait until college where I could get a fresh start before my love life makes any headway.

It almost worked.

"I think SC's gay" - Dutch
"What?" - Me
"I think he's gay"

Of the two people in my carpool, there is one person I can talk about anything with, her nickname is my "Pennsylvanian Dutch Friend", Dutch for short. We were returning from a pasta party and Jess wasn't there. The conversation was about crew team relationships and how every year there were always a few and after we discussed Jess and her infatuation with SC, she said it.

Me - "What makes you think that?"
Dutch - "it's hard to explain"
"try me"
"Well, you know how sometimes you get that feeling, that you just sorta have that suspicion?"
"yes"
"well, I get that feeling with him. Also, have you noticed how so many girls on the team are absolutely infatuated with him, I mean really, you know they have tried to flirt with him and no one seems to make any progress, he just...ignores them"
"To be honest, I got the feeling that he might be gay when I first met him"
"really?"
"yeah, I don't know why, I just did, gaydar isn't foolproof but it works sometimes"
"I don't know, but something about him just makes me think that"

This was a weird moment for me. Someone who had no idea about my own suspicions previously shared an idea that I had been harbouring for months. I was happy alright, but I knew this wasn't a legitimate happy, it was false-hope happy, the kind of happy that gives you a high and then sends you crashing later on.

Since that day, I've looked at SC differently. I really shouldn't, but the thought still nags me incessantly like a summer mosquito - "What is he really is gay and is just afraid to admit it?" But recently another thought has entered my head " What if I really do like him and am just afraid to admit it?" Each day that thought has seemed to become increasingly true. But what's the point? My high school career is almost over and unless I visit during crew practices and regatta days next year(which I had planned to do regardless), he will only exist as a friend on Facebook. But still, that thought still haunts me.

Time will take it's course and things will unfold as they will.

All the best,

JP