Inner Child Living

This post may sound a bit random and possibly nonsensical, so forgive me in advance.

Now that you've been warned...*LOL*.

Things are relatively back to normal now that my parents are back in Detroit. I went back to my place of employment Monday. I held out a faint hope that the project I'm stuck on got cancelled in my absence. No such luck. Damn.

As I mentioned in my last post, my plan was to be pretty incognegro on the blog tip while my folks were in town. It pretty much also extended to my immediate social circle, namely Rock and Eugene. I only made attempts to contact both whenever I wasn't around my parents, which was primarily late at night. Unfortunately for Rock by the time I would reach him, he'd already be in bed and we wouldn't be able to talk long.

Hemingway back to my parents briefly. Overall the visit was cool. I stayed pretty close to home base the entire time they were here, mostly taking them out to shop for various items. Both my parents have slowed down considerably, especially my Mom, so at most they would only have enough energy for a few hours of activities. While home, my parents helped me plant flowers I bought from Home Depot in my patio. My Dad BB-Q'd ribs and chicken on Memorial Day while my Mom did a lot of the cooking throughout the week. My Dad also helped fixed a leaky toilet for me.

I kind of felt bad that my folks were working while on vacation but a part of me knew that they wouldn't mind. In a way I reverted back to being a child in my own house.

Best case of that point was the fact that I didn't answer the phone (though it rarely rang...*LOL*) and didn't make calls around them. My rationale for not doing this was that it would only lead to questions about who's calling and what did they want.

Also I took my folks to a seafood store where my Mom immediately went into sticker shock at the prices of their lobster tails (some ran as high as $90) and despite my wanting to buy some (not necessarily the highest priced ones), she was dead set against me spending my money on any. It was semi-embarassing not to mention borderline annoying because the store clerks kept looking at us. I wound up getting some cheaper calamari instead of the tails.

In both of those cases, I didn't assert myself at all to change the outcome. In the first case, my quest to avoid having to explain who's calling resulted in me cutting off folks that are a big part of my life. That nearly caused Rock and I to come to blows. More on that later.

The second time, instead of insisting on getting the pricey lobster, I caved and bought the cheaper alternative. Of course my frugal ways also played a role there so it wasn't all on my Mom.

In a way, I was being very child-like, instead of showing that I was an equal adult. Of course with my ISFP ways, I do tend to be a people pleaser so no doubt that played a role.

So Hemingway after dropping my parents off at Union Station (and dealing with a particularly annoying staffer there), I eventually dropped my rental back at Budget. Rock offered early on to pick me up from O'hare's Budget. So he went ahead and did just that.

I picked up earlier while my parents were in town that Rock was none too pleased with my neglecting him. I remember calling him real early Thursday morning and he was put off and basically said since we haven't spoken much in the week, that it'd be okay if we didn't speak till Saturday. So I left him alone until Saturday morning.

I immediately felt his aloof vibe when I entered his ride. I thanked him for picking me up and he coolly stated that he had already said that he would. When faced with adversity, my natural reaction is to withdraw from a given situation. So I quietly sat back for a bit and observed Rock, who had a sour looking face the entire time.

Eventually I asked him if anything was wrong and he quickly said he was fine. I could see that he wasn't, though. It wasn't long before he expressed his displeasure at my lack of contacting him and how during the one time I did before that early Thursday morning, how peeved he was when I quickly excused myself from the phone when I heard my parents coming nearby. He said something that he thought our relationship had progressed but felt like we were set back.

When I told him that I wasn't speaking much to anyone (and by anyone...it's pretty much been either Eugene, Sally, or Rock), he protested that I did mention speaking to Eugene once. Sigh.

All I could tell him was that I was sorry for neglecting him and my intention wasn't to ruin our relationship. He eventually came around and we spent a cool afternoon chilling at my crib. I was imagining when my neighbors saw Rock's car they were thinking....damn, E couldn't wait to dump his parents so his boyfriend could come over. *LOL*. I'm coming to terms with possibly being known as the "gay, black neighbor". My attitude is long as they don't bother me or say anything to my face about it, I'm good.

Speaking more about Rock, I notice one thing about him is that he appears to be a very structured individual. If he has in his mind that he has specific plans, it's hard for him to deviate from such plans.

I paid a surprise visit to him Monday evening and he seemed quite peeved with me for my short notice visit. I basically called him when I was five minutes from his place and told him I was in the neighborhood.

I didn't tell Rock my true motive for the visit, though his first thought was that I was visiting to spy on him. As I mentioned, we spent a nice afternoon Saturday at my place. We had such a good time I didn't want him to leave. Rock however insisted that he needed to get his patio furniture moved out and buy a bunch of flowers and take care of his house in general. When I suggested swinging by his place Sunday, he told me that I would merely be a distraction to him. I even offered to help him out and was shot down.

Eugene suggested I drop by Monday to see if he really did put his patio furniture out and got the flowers like he said he would. I saw that he did have everything together, which was cool. Rock seemed quite peeved with me, basically telling me that I should've called him sooner and that I lucked out since a previous engagement of his was momentarily cancelled just before I called him.

He asked me what I would've done if he wasn't available or if he had co-workers over. I told him if that was the case, I would've driven back home....no big deal. But Rock wasn't liking the idea of me even taking that risk. (Hmmm...maybe he was treating me like a child...*LOL*).

We wound up watching this cartoon movie Over The Hedge, which was actually pretty good. Rock eventually came around and told me that he appreciated seeing me since he wasn't expecting to. He told me that he needs to work on being less rigid about keeping a schedule. But he still wanted me to give him half a day's notice before coming over. He so wants to be in control, which is fine most of the time since I tend to be more laid-back, but I'm more spontaneous than he is and that spontaniety is something that he doesn't like much.

I was reading the Myers Briggs personalities again (yeah yeah yeah...*LOL*) and I concluded based on what I read, that Rock's letters are ISTJ. Reading how they coorespond to my personality type bought it home for me. It'd be nice to get verification of this from Rock but he refuses to take the test. I'm still working on getting him to take it. That's a challenge and a half...*LOL*.

So Hemingway that's all for now on the Rock front. We're going on the 7 month mark by the way, which is definitely an accomplishment.

Ohh...and I couldn't tell my parents that I was gay just yet. It just didn't seem right to tell them while they were visiting me. I figured it's better to do it when I'm visiting them.