Steve, Steve, and some houses

I went to Buffalo on Monday evening for a visit with Steve. We drove to Cleveland on Tuesday for the 311 show that night. Our hotel ended up being really nice, considerably nicer than it ought to have been for what I paid, but I certainly wasn't complaining. We relaxed on the king size bed all afternoon, napping off and on. It was a perfect getaway.

Unfortunately, the perfection ended there. Whenever I wake up from any amount of sleep, I need a minimum of five minutes to get oriented. We were woken up by Steve's phone ringing; his friends who had also come for the show were in the lobby, and wanted to come up. No more than 90 seconds later, two guys I'd never met before were packing a bowl in my hotel room and lighting up. Normally I wouldn't have cared, but I'd just woken up, plus my predictable paranoia about the smoke kicked in. The windows didn't open and the bathroom didn't have a fan, so I freaked out a little. Nothing bad ever ended up happening, but I couldn't really calm down for the rest of the night. Even after the guys left, I was so nervous and edgy that I knew I wouldn't be able to have a great time at the show. For whatever reason, I've found lately that I'm experiencing some pretty intense anxiety problems. I don't know what that's all about, since I've never really had such problems before, but who the hell knows.

As predicted, most of the time we spent at the arena was me sitting on the ground shaking slightly while [drunk and stoned] Steve looked me in the eye with genuine concern. That's what I love about that kid... chemicals in his body at a big concert, that's his element. That's his idea of a kick-ass time. Despite that, he was ready to get up and leave in a heartbeat if it would have made me more comfortable. To be honest, part of me did want to leave, but I wasn't about to disregard the fact that this trip was his graduation gift to me. Plus, I really wanted him to enjoy himself, and I really do love 311, so I pulled myself together and managed to enjoy the last half of the show with him.

On Wednesday we drove back to Buffalo, and I spent half that time on the phone dealing with work stuff. His car's air conditioning broke, but I needed the windows to be up so I could hear on the phone, so he sat there patiently, sweating his balls off, so that I could do my work.

But, of course, my visit was filled with our usual problems, too. He's smoking cigarettes even more now, up to about a pack per day, and knows I can't stand it. He doesn't hear half the shit I tell him. He snores. Loudly.

But despite all of this, I'm still in love with him. We first met five months ago today, in fact. I keep looking for ways/reasons to completely break things off, mostly for my own selfish sanity because of the distance, but I just can't. He smokes pretty heavily, has the world's worst farmer's tan because of his job, has the listening skills of a toddler, and has serious financial integrity issues, but I'm still crazy about him. Last night, our last night together, he smoked a little too much weed and literally passed out on top of me in bed. I couldn't hardly move all night because he was out cold. I didn't mind too much, though... he's just so damn cute when he sleeps.

See? I told ya so.

So I'm a little sad to be back home, since I won't see him for another five weeks, but the good news is that my fourth real estate transaction just went through today. I was also posted as a $1,000,000+ producer for the month of July in my office, a very rare thing for a rookie, so I'm pretty proud of that.

Tomorrow I have a few work things I need to take care of, and am then piling into the back seat of a Jeep Cherokee with two other people and setting off for Albany. Yes, I know I've only been home from New York for less than one day, but that's just how life works. I'm just tagging along with a few friends who're visiting family because I'm sure we'll have fun, plus I'll hopefully get to visit a few college friends.

I miss everyone from New York.

I'm Listening To: Concord Dawn - The Drill
One Thing I Did Today: received a compliment from devian