weekend o' my man

this is pure cheesy/stream of consciousness spewing. you are forewarned.

friday. not the very funny chris tucker and ice cube movie rather a day spent with j. we've been talking a lot about our careers. to be specific, we've talked a lot about what we don't like about our careers - mainly, that we don't like it. we basically do the same thing though he has a much better position, i think. so, it just so turns out the only other thing we both ever wanted to do was to be a lwayer. well, he said judege and i want to fight for the little people. as i say, "i want to work for the people not with the the people". anyway, j tends to be something of a dreamer (read 'pisces'), i, on the other hand, am pretty practical (read 'virgo') so wanting to be supportive, yet realistic, i decide that since we both have the day off we're going to go down to salem to visit willamette university to see what the place is really like. it takes us like 35 minutes to get there with me driving. we walk around on a self guided tour. it's actually quite a lovely campus. very green and even has a mini-willamette (the river) running through it! cute! so we wander around their legal center and peek into classrooms, etc. it was a good trip and i think it accomplished my goal of making the idea of going to law school a lot more concrete. we left and it took TWO AND A HALF HOURS to get back. crazy! anyway, it was my turn to pick where to eat out and i picked delta cafe since i'd heard so much about it. well, it was closed. so my next choice was tin shed. j was already cranky because he'd only had an apple in the last 6 hours. silly boy. anyway, it took FORTY FIVE MINUTES to go from SE to NE, restaurant to restaurant. i silently thanked God that there was an open table when we got to tin shed so we could eat soon - i think j's head would've exploded if he'd had to wait any longer for nourishment. this is why i always carry snacks. anyway, we parted ways after respectively giving/receiving a neck and foot massage. score!

the rest of my night was spent with m. she has quite a little scandalous situation going on! we spent three hours overanalyzing it - of course - and then i came on home.

saturday. i went to ab lab and it was ass-kicking, as usual. i came home and did...my taxes. great saturday fun. it was ok because the weather was horrendous. i had invited j to come over after work for a walk but because of the weather i decided to nix the idea. i realized i hadn't yet cooked for him so we went over to freddy's and bought stuff for lasagna. i made a fat and phat lasagna full of yummy turkey goodness. i prefer italian sausage but i used turkey sausage. i also prefer onions and mushrooms, both of which j does not eat. sigh. anyway, it was still good. it was mostly meat and cheese and really - how can you go wrong with that?! we had no veggies (yes!) and garlic bread. it was a wonderfully filling meal. so filling it was a bit painful to clean up the kitchen after eating but we did it and decided we needed to walk. well, since it was FORTY EIGHT DEGREES (c'mon!!!) we decided to drive up to mt. tabor and take a walk. we did and it was nice. we had a discussion about his tendency to be 'a six year old'. i think all men do that personally so that what you get when you date one. sigh. anyway, we came back and just sat and listened to the cd he made me. yep, we're exchaning music, watch out! so he made two actually. one fast, one slow. the slow one is the one i love. i've listened to it five times already in twenty-four hours. he even typed up a little blurb about each song. sweetie! so we parted early that night too because the next day was easter and he had two church services to sing at. i tried to stay up and watch "stay" but i didn't make it all the way through before i fell asleep. it's weird. review to come...

today. easter sunday. i was raised "in the church" as many of my people are in the south. i quit going when i was twelve because i decided i hated the hypocrisy and don't really believe in the bible as the text for my life. that's basically it. otherwise, i think church is a nice place. i think faith is a great thing. i personally believe in God, a "higher power" if you will, and i believe that this God is really love. they are one in the same to me. so because i believe that - i do not believe in a God with petty human attributes like - being vengeful, judgemental, punishing, needy, you know all that stuff. i have discussed this several times with j. it's our only conflict, granted, it is a big one, but this being the healthiest relationship i've ever been in, we keep the communication going. well, today i decided that i'd attend his church. maybe easter was a bad day to pick to attend because it's really about jesus (as church is wont to be) and stuff but it was also a safe choice because i knew what it'd be like. sure enough, there was lots of 'he has arisen, hallelujah!'. but there was the good stuff i remembered like the children's pagaent. oh they were adorable!!!!!! so cute! also, this was the MOST culturally diverse church i have EVER seen! j had told me that they were the unofficial 'interracial marriage church capital of portland' and i would have to believe that now. that was nice. lots of cute brown kids running around. anyway, i did enjoy how much music was performed. and i do mean performed. the actual 'sermon' was maybe half an hour long but the music was about an hour's worth. HUGE change from what i grew up with. the whole experience was much less, much, much, much less formal that what i was used to. the pastor didn't even wear a suit! my old church congregation would have been aghast. anyway, the nicest thing about it was that i got to meet some of j's friends. he has, seriously, met almost everyone i know in portland! it was feeling a tad unbalanced. so it was good to see some people. i even got to meet his infamous roommate. that's a funny man! so anyway, i had lunch with j and a couple of his friends. it was nice. it was hella long too - we were there for almost three hours! so j and i take off for a walk. we did the 5 mile east/west esplanade circuit. that was cool. then he bought us coffee at a little cafe on the waterfront. sweet! it was pretty romantic because it was just us in front of a little fireplace in these big wicker chairs. we talked about everything from the lasting psychological effects of slavery to water. it's always like that though. after that we went over to his place in gresham. i've taken to calling it "the 'sham" - dunno why, really. so we went grocery shopping for him at winco. i have to say - i have been converted. it's like 25% cheaper than freddy's!!! so then we had dinner. at dinner we decided we needed to travel together so we spent some time talking about where. we've decided on alaska, anchorage to be exact because he gets a yearly buddy pass from alaska airlines. sweet!! i have no idea when this will occur but it'll be a nice distraction because i WILL plan and plan and plan until i don't want to even hear the word alaska. funny thing is he's like that also. also during dinner we had a very serious talk about our different belief systems. i don't know how we got back on the topic but i brought up how i don't believe i'm (or anyone else) sinful. i granted him 'imperfect', certainly but i just do not believe in the concept of sin. so that started a big discussion about God and jesus and such. whew! it was good though. here's the thing - i said i could very much fall in love but i recognize that that means complete acceptance of all things about a person and his faith is problematic for me as i'm sure my lack of organized religious affiliation does bother him. then we were off...it got a little intense but we came to an understanding. we'll see. we moved on.

turns out we both have a tradition of eating A cadbury creme egg on easter. weird. so we were on the hunt for one. there were none in winco. none in safeway. none in walgreens. none in freddy's - well freddy's was closed. finally, we scored at albertson's. he's cute! i went back to his place and laughed and chatted it up with him and his roommate and decided i needed to bring my ass home. whew! what a day!

i have tomorrow off but i think i'll just go in late. it'll be nice to be there and just get work done. i have already changed my voicemail to say i wouldn't be in and i made no appointments so i really could get some work done....it's a thought except that as i type this i notice it's TWO in the morning. what the hell! i think i'll look up something about anchorage though....