I’m actually writing this like three days later but wanted to put days on their days. So I’m going to be vague in places, but this is the best I can do.
So. (Going back into Sunday Voice.) People played silly fucking buggers today and so I was very late getting to the conference site, and so I missed all of S’s presentation. I am not sure how much I would have gotten out of it, but it would have been more time around him, so I was a bit grumbly about missing it.
Anyway. At this lake house where we held the conference, there are two bathrooms. One’s in the master bedroom, one’s just off the kitchen between it and the mud/laundry room, and both were open to attendees (the bedroom one before 9pm and after 9am, due to that being the women’s room — and yes, we would have enforced that shit, had we needed to). I ran into a lot of situations where I needed to go but they were both occupied so I’d have to flit back and forth ’til one was clear. Yesterday, while I was passing through the kitchen in the midst of this, I noticed the volunteer sign-up roster on the side of the fridge and that meal prep and cleanup for lunch for today were blank. Two slots each, no one had taken any of the four. Ah ha, I thought. Here’s how I get to talk more with S. So I signed up for both before and after for lunch for today.
This was where I did the Facebook flirt I mentioned yesterday. “Not me signing up for kitchen duty again. Probably helps the chef’s cute.” Something like that. And by the way, he never noticed it. Or he did, but ignored it. Or avoided it. I really don’t know.
ANYWAY. So today that was a thing. There was some talking. Not as much as I’d heard him doing with M. I wasn’t too surprised. There wasn’t as much prep to do, either, which didn’t help. I wound up washing a fuckton of dishes afterwards because the dishwasher was already full and running. Other than that it was kind of a dud. I suppose at least I helped people out, so it wasn’t all for nothing. The conference is not for me to be chasing men, DANA.
But at some point I asked him where he was going to end up because I knew he couldn’t go back to Tanzania on account of his visa troubles (they changed the rules while he was there, which fucked his ability to stay). He said he’s in Canada for now, in British Columbia, until the election. Then, depending on how it goes, he might have a job and he might not. He didn’t spell this out, but presumably that amount of time gives him space to sort out his visa situation, so he could very well go back to Africa if the election goes wrong. He asked me where I thought I was going to end up, and I said I had no idea. I mean, I don’t. This can’t be permanent, and I have no followup plan for when I leave. I think that I might like to go back to Ohio, but I don’t know if I can actually accomplish it and not end up homeless again. I didn’t say all that to him, of course. He didn’t seem like he wanted to get excessively chatty.
Later we were talking in the living room, and I said he looked like he could use a hug, so I finally got one from him. (Hugs are great. You get to give and get at the same time.) He seemed quite pleased about that. We chatted a bit about this and that (he has a tendency to pontificate about political stuff, and he talks about himself a lot too), and then he said the most amazing thing. Suggested that I might like to move to British Columbia myself to help with the campaign. I was flabbergasted. Where was I supposed to live? He apparently knows someone I could crash with. I pointed out that I have no passport and no Real ID driver’s license either, just the plain ordinary one. But could I take a rain check on discussing it further? Because maybe I could sort that out. So we kind of left it open-ended, but he seemed pretty sincere about it. I have NO idea where that came from.
It being a conference for Deep Green Resistance, there was much talk about DGR’s mission and about its future direction. I’ve known about them pretty much since they started, but this is the first I’ve actually come close to joining. Figures that right now they don’t have a good process for that because they don’t want to do what they had been doing to bring in new members anymore. But there’s new leadership (well… some of it), and they’re trying to revamp a lot of stuff. Why do I want in? It’s not just the trans thing. It’s not even mostly. I’ve been closer to nature since I got here, and for years I’ve been trying to ignore the worst of what’s going on, and I can’t ignore it anymore. And all I see is a small ragtag group of rebels against the system trying to bring it down by speaking a language almost no one understands. Bloody academics. I have this knack for translating Academic into Plain English, and I wonder if I might not be able to put that to good use. They need a proper propaganda arm, in the old sense of the word. Lacking the arm, I’ll be one fingernail, at least. Whether I actually join DGR or not. I can read the book it’s based on at their website. I can get the general idea.
But! At least for now, it looks like I will be helping them with fundraising. No one else was raising their hand when that call went out and it mostly involves tech stuff. Neighbor is not fond of tech, L pretty much despises it, and I’m comfortable with it. It is a no-brainer. So B, who basically heads DGR now, and I will be discussing this in upcoming weeks and we’ll see what we can cobble together. And then, if we get that going smoothly and someone still hasn’t jumped on the merch, I’m gonna dig into that too. Long past time.
Some of it’s to do with Neighbor. I’m 99% sure he’s L’s, but I’m gonna feel what I feel there for a while yet. I don’t know what it’s going to turn into, but he matters to me in some way, and he’s getting discouraged that nothing he set in motion is really getting anywhere. I probably can’t fix it, but if I can kick things up the arse and get them moving in some small important way, and if that makes him happy, I’ll be happy. Sounds shallow, but if love doesn’t get us through this, nothing will.
“So why are you so ate up about S?” Because I’m 99% sure Neighbor is L’s. Because there’s no hope there. If he had a shred of interest in me beyond just being interested in human beings as he is, he’d have said so by now. And because S seemed like he might be interested in me, and that’d be a fucking first in years, and I already thought he was an interesting person. He ain’t pretty but, as a friend of mine pointed out, he has kind eyes. He’s another nerdboy, and you know I like nerdboys. He’s smart, he’s tall (omg), he’s funny (he’s one of the chief reasons I laughed so much this weekend — only Neighbor made me laugh more), and he’s a nervous wreck from everything he’s been through — and may have been a nervous person anyway — and God, that’s bringing out the caretaker in me. His big flaw other than the talking about himself all the time is that he drinks. That may yet be a dealbreaker. I haven’t decided yet and it’s not like he’s trying to climb down my pants, so I figure I have time to figure that out. Probably the rest of forever, actually, the way my luck’s been going.
Left him a Facebook message telling him goodbye and sending a virtual hug in case I couldn’t do any of that in person — he has tended to duck into his quarters early in the evening through this whole thing without saying goodnight to anyone. But I lucked out and saw him again before we left so I got to hug him again in person. HA.
Neighbor’s house for bears and dog walks again. This time M and I got a ride back to L’s, so no more having to play woods guide. Yay.