too fucking honest

i am a fucking hedonist by nature, augmented with an unwieldy amount of conscience. i have higher expectations for myself than what i often demonstrate. perhaps i am just tired from the last 48 hrs of mayhem and need some alone time, as i tend to get very twitchy and irritated when i don't.
chronological recount:
tuesday: swapped shifts so i could get off work at six. he had the same hours. i drove to tacoma in brilliant dawn, feeling quite jaunty, only to check my phone and realize that my mother had left me a message, informing me that my grandfather has had a serious stroke. he is improving, as of yesterday. got to work. was stuck in surgery for hours, trying not to snicker at the doctor's choice of crappy soft-rock on his ipod (tegan and sara, for example). left work, me hyperactive, him mellow, and drove to seattle in pink twilight. bought a fifth of bacardi. drank a healthy amount at my lair, then walked downtown with the rest in a plastic bottle. slurry-drunk by the time we got to the showbox. leaned against the edge of the stage and gushed over architecture in helsinki. somewhere along the way he said "because i'm drunk, i can say this: i really dig you." "i really dig you too" i replied untidily; we proceeded to maul one another. after the show i went to the loo, but the queue was too long, so i went outside to wait, but neglected to tell him i was doing so; they wouldn't let me back inside because i was, by this point, very repulsively inebriated, and i vaguely remember politely apologizing for my state to the disgusted bouncer. he emerged from the club and we staggered uphill, giggling, crashing into shrubbery, the sort of display i would roll my eyes at were i not the participant. no, we did not have sex. i am glad of that.
the next day: it gelled in my mind, as sun gushed through the windows, as i sneaked out of bed to let him sleep: he is a friend. he is a friend who i care very much for, and as such i will not fuck it up with weird romantic bullshit. there are too many caveats to this situation to list. suffice it to say: it is a bad situation, one that i am both admiring and horrified of myself that i even got into. we went out to breakfast at a bowling alley. everyone else there was ancient. it was a good vibe. the windows were tinted glass. the food was delicious. we went to the zoo. cloudless, red leaves, both of us in very good moods, watching spiders spin webs, the wide-eyed secret creatures of the nocturnal exhibits, staring into the kind face of an orangutan. greek food in fremont. sitting on the end of a dock in west seattle, wakes from invisible boats making the pier undulate, passing a joint, feeling like i was on a slow roller coaster into the heart of downtown. and then the abstract sadness that is still persisting began to set in. i became very introverted. i loved being around him but desperately wanted to be alone. i wanted to go back to my stupid apartment by my stupid self and read a stupid magazine and be depressed. why the fuck would i, at such an iconic moment, want something so pathetic? because it's familiar? because it's comfortable? because i'm more scared than i want to admit? we ended up renting 'broken flowers.' it is a good movie, but very ponderous and slow and sad. why it's touted as a comedy on the fucking sleeve befuddles me.
i was relieved to be back at work today, though incredibly self-conscious about the fucking hickey on my neck. none of my coworkers have mentioned anything about us, but it is fairly fucking obvious that something has been transpiring. but just when i get panicky about everything, when i start to suck into my own toxic head, he has a talent of saying or doing just what i need. and this is the truth that makes me stop and think "you know what?... this is pretty fucking cool, and i deserve to be happy, i deserve to have fun... and i shouldn't worry." when i dropped him off en route to the clinic, we smiled awkwardly at each other, then he said "come here" and i leaned in, tense about what uncomfortable thing might happen, and he kissed me on the cheek, and immediately everything was easy and right again.
ultimately, what? we are friends. i don't want more. i either want a really fucking good friend, like i have found in him, or i want some lothario i don't give a fuck about emotionally whom i can merely ravage. i am nowhere near ready for both in the same person. perhaps i never will be, or if i am, it will not happen. life has already demonstrated this to be a fucking rare, if not impossible, thing.
unrelated witticisms from the 253:
"tacoma: 200,000 alcoholics can't be wrong."
"glassblowing: it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye."