I have a partner!

I planned on sleeping in today because I was going to drive back to Seattle at the midnight hours. I did not sleep in like hoped. I was in great pain due to my ankle. I also got several phone calls, the first one at eight-thirty am. I was trying to sleep and someone woke me up before ten am on a weekend. It always happens to me when I want to sleep in. But I could not turn off the phone because I was on call for the coroner's office.

Finally I crawl out of bed half past eleven am. I barely could walk. I went and watched some TV and elevated my ankle. I had to walk around a little bit. As I did more and more my ankle loosened up. It was starting to feel a little better.

I decided to do something around the house. I had some glasses with some hard water stains from leaving water in it and having the water evaporate out. I had some CLR. I put that in the glasses with the hard-water stains. I swished that around and then rinsed the glass. Unlike the TV commercials the stain was still there. So I used some soap and water with a scrub pad. The stains came off. So I think the CLR loosened up the stains. I put them in the dishwasher with the other items and got the dishwasher going.

I was going back and forth with myself over whether I was going to sleep at the house until five am and then go to Seattle or leave right after the softball games. By the time I left I had decided that I was going to come back to the house and sleep until five am.

I called Kristine and asked if she would be my partner so I could play IM Softball. She said she would. Ryan was going to do it for me but I thought it would not be too comfortable for him to do. I was happy he was willing but I did not want him to essentially announce to the IM people that he is gay.

I drove to Pullman and straight to the rec center. I got signed up for softball. Then I went to my office. I checked my mail. Got a check for my sub-contractor. Got a check made out for the rent. I also got the deposits ready for the bank. Then I got dinner and headed over to Ryan's apartment. We hung out until game time. I had a chance to watch the end of the movie Radio. We had started to watch it Friday night. I did not see the end. This time I did.

I got my softball uniform on and we went to the field. It was raining and cold. But we finally started to throw the ball around and warm up. We had ten guys exactly. That was nice. We played the first game against some guy Asian guys. They were not very good. But they were having an awesome time out there. They were laughing and enjoying themselves. As a team we liked to play against them because of their wonderful attitude. We ended up beating them sixteen to three.

The second game was not very good. We did not hit nor did we have great fielding efforts. We ended up losing by nine runs. It sucked. We also has a dispute over something that happened. I looked up the rules afterwards. Our field manager and the other arguing the point were wrong.

I went back to Colfax and decided that I was not tired and I decided to head to Renton to night. I stopped by Rosauers. I talked to Stacy for a few minutes. She told me about a high speed chase through Whitman County. It went all the way to Vantage. They were chasing two guys in a car who were involved in the shooting of someone in Moscow.

I was driving along and I was fine for the most part. I was not tired. I was listening to Art Bell. He had people on there talking about Near Death Experiences. That got me thinking about a lot of things.

The first line of thought brought me back to high school. We use to play full tackle football at a near by park on the weekends. One of the guys who showed up was about two years older that me. He played with us from time to time. He did not go to Liberty, however. One day a show came on TV about NDE's. Then I saw him on the show! I was shocked. I don't remember anything about his story.

Then as I listened longer a lady from Seattle was on the show talking about her NDE. She talked about meeting Jesus. She spoke of seeing for the first time. She has been blind since birth and has not seen a single thing in her life. She spoke about having a chance to see people she had known and had a chance to experience their thoughts. She essentially saw the other side of the fence with all these people.

After going through what she did she became a lot more religious. A doctor was on the show talking about medical issues with NDE's. He said about ten seconds after the blood stops going to the brain it loses activity to the point where no activity is recordable by even the most sensitive equipment.

As I listened to her story I thought about me. I thought about where I will be going. If I will be meeting my maker or going to hell like some in the religious world think I will go to. She talked about the love and forgiveness she has learned.

As I listened to her I reflected on a lot of things that have happened to me lately. I can't say there is forgiveness, for no one has really hurt me. It was me choosing to push others away. It is me who should be asking for forgiveness.

I have been thinking about some things and about my conversation with AJ the other night. I am a control freak. I like to be in control at all times. I reverse into parking spaces so I can leave quickly if I need to. I hate the feeling of being drunk. You know you are impaired. You mentally know it. But you cannot physically do what you want, yet you know you can't. That is like being trapped in a body with no arms, no legs, no eyes, no voice, etc. You cannot do anything, but you are mentally fine. It is like being trapped in a hellish prison. That is a messed up thought.

I think about those people who are in jail, who are going to be executed. They have no control over their life. No matter what they try to do what happens is not up to them. I get totally freaked out by the idea that I lose control.

That control is what happened to me. I lost control with my mom knowing that I was gay. I lost control with people knowing at G-Shack. I lost control over what was happening with my softball team. I was losing control of everything. The only thing I had control over was whether I continued to communicate with the shack. You can say that maybe the reason why I chose to leave has a little to do with being forced out and a little to do with exercising some control to know that I have it.

AJ and I talked about whether I had to come out or not, but like I told him I was in a bad situation. I had a few choices. I could ignore the question and let it fester out there and see where it goes. I could lie about it, but I decided a long time ago I will not lie about it. I will only dodge the question if possible if I am in a situation where I don't want to answer it. The other option was to exercise what control I could have and be the one to come out rather than someone else pushing me out.

Speaking of coming out on my own terms rather than being rushed. Richard, a man who I do respect, said that I should take what happened to me and come out to the rest of my family now versus waiting for my mom to accidentaly out me. That of course would keep the control in my hands. Not telling anyone keeps the control in my hands, because I choose not to say, but should my mom say something, then the control is gone and I then have to deal with it on their schedule versus them dealing with it on my schedule. Though that is a good idea, I am very much for keeping it hidden and pretending that I lead a normal life.