Back from Caborca

So I’m back from Caborca, but writing this post in San Diego now.

La CarretIt’s been one whirlwind trip down south. We got down there about 6ish on Monday and went straight to this restaurant called “La Carret”. This place had the MOST AMAZING food ever! You get this neat little heater thing with tons and tons and tons of Carne Asada, ribs and cow udders on it. With tons of vegetables and stuff on the side and you make your own tacos. I seriously could have eaten a full one by myself! We typically had one for every 2 people on the table! Anyways, met with all the employees down there and had a good time chatting and what not. Got done about 9ish and went to the office to do some work and then got to the hotel by 11 I think.

Tuesday we got up, at breakfast at the hotel with all the co-workers and then headed out to the office. Apparently the truck we were supposed to be driving was in the shop, so we had to wait around to get that fixed. About 10 we got on the road to the first stop. Got there and found out that NONE of the passwords I was given before coming to Caborca worked! So I was basically LOCKED OUT of everything! I couldn’t do SHIT. So I get on the phone with the guy who PROGRAMMED the software and SETUP the servers/etc. He has NO IDEA what the passwords are. So I call my boss, ALSO has no IDEA what the passwords are. ARE YOU KIDDING ME! IDIOTS! Who does not WRITE DOWN THE FUCKING PASSWORDS.

Sorting AsparagusSo basically the whole trip was a wash. I couldn’t do anything that I was supposed to do. So we went onto the other sheds and had a good time, had lunch around 2ish and met up with the other 2 guys from the LA office. Found out that they both HATE my boss as well. In fact one of them got into a YELLING fight on the phone with him. It was quite hilarious! Other other sheds were fun and it was cool to see how the asparagus grows and get’s packed and what not. They also apparently burn off the fields before they start harvesting, which I find strange. But whatever!

The last one we were at right around sunset, so we drove across the fields to the base of this huge mountain, got there and found a HUGE nail in the tire, so we drove back to the farm shed real fast and stopped to change it. Well that’s when the fun started! We couldn’t get the spare tire to release and then they couldn’t get the TIRE to come off. There were 7 Mexicans POUNDING on the tire to get it off.

We again had dinner at the same place, had about 30 people there, with all of our growers and what not. It was funny because Dole came into the same place with their ONE grower, while we had like 25!!! LOL. You’d think they would have a lot more people then we are since they are such a HUGE company! Again got back to the hotel late and watched a movie and crashed, AFTER we got locked out of our rooms and had to fight with the stupid front desk people. Idiots fucking DE-ACTIVATE ALL keys every day and you have to go in and have them re-activated. How stupid!

Wed we got up and had breakfast at the hotel again and then off to the fields! Again had a good time, this was a short day and went back to one of the BIG sheds that was packing. It was cool to see it all in full force.

Went around town after that, saw the church again, did some shopping, etc. Had dinner at the same place and ate WAY to much.

Thursday was the drive home, which wasn’t too bad. Got home around 5ish, but called in sick anyways on Friday. It was a REALLY long week. And Friday ended up being REALLY long as well. People are complete idiots!

We couldn’t send ANY emails to Costco and the main phone number was NOT working at all. UGH. I also sent the boss instructions on how to add additional email accounts to someone’s Outlook. He replied back saying he couldn’t figure it out. He had ONLY followed the FIRST of 8 instructions!!!! UGH. What is wrong with people.

Anyways, so here I am in San Diego now… We went out to the shout house which was tons of fun!

Well, time to go! Adios!

San Diego and Dreaming!

Another trip to San Diego and another great time! I love that city and it makes me want to move there even more every time I visit!

Last week was VERY productive! Aaron got here early on Thursday morning and we went out for breakfast and then came to the office. We analysed everything and worked through the numbers and what not and found out that we can save my company 43% per-month on phone costs, which amounts to around $65,000 over the next 12 months! Insanity! I was basically unable to believe it for most of the time. I kept sitting here saying, “We have to be missing something”. Thankfully we put a line item in for a monthly cost called “Fluff” @ $1,000 and we also built in 50,000 talk minutes @ $0.035 so hopefully that’ll absorb anything we missed!

Friday night we all went out to WeHo and I got WAY to drunk, but oh my god was it tons of fun! It was a good time just like what we used to have. Got home about 3ish and was up till around 4am. Got a call Saturday morning from work about something not working which was very very annoying.

Got up about 9ish and was planning to leave for SD much earlier, but everyone was slow and the drinking was crazy, so Kris and I went to breakfast and then picked up Aaron and off to SD we went. Got down there and I was going to take the scenic route down and just chill in the beach cities and what not, but Aaron wanted to go to TJ, so we headed there. It was a very interesting experience to say the least. I got some really cheap shoes and Kris got some really cheap Alc! Yay!

After that we headed to the hotel room which ended up being a Euro Style hostel! We were NOT expecting that at all but it was a REALLY cute place and had it been in Europe and wasn’t so fucking expensive it would have been perfect. When we got there Aaron apparently knew the front desk clerk guy which was a little AWK.

Went to the room and relaxed for about 30 minutes and then headed out to the house of blues for appetizers and a drink. Aaron said he was tired and went back to the hotel. Kris and I metup with his friends at the Yardhouse for dinner and we were there forever. It was a TON of fun, but they all just kept talking and talking. After that we went next door for a drink and then headed back to the hotel room. I think we got back at like 1:30ish or so and slept till 9:30 the next morning.

Got up and ate breakfast with some of Aaron’s friends and then headed to Cabrillo point which was just amazing! From there we went and toured Kris’ old college which was CUTE as hell and then headed back to LA. Dropped Aaron off at the airport and then went home for a few hours, took a nap then Jason, Kris and I watched 2 more freddy movies.

Astricon!

Wow. I’ve really sucked at updating! Astricon last week was amazing! I learned so much stuff and had so much fun and met tons of new people!

One night we all went out to Sushi at this crazy place and it was PACKED full of Astricon folks. Mark paid for out table which was over $1,000! What a crazy boy! We also went to this western place one night and Mark rode the bull. Very funny!

Not much else really happened. I spent the whole time at the conference and took an hour each day to hit up the gym which was much needed after all the junk food they fed you there! I also met this cool guy named Aaron who will be helping out with our VoiP at the office! So exciting!

The rest of last weekend was pretty dull, I spent Saturday at home doing random stuff, cleaning and what not. Then sunday was the normal rock climbing back out at the typical place, it was REALLY hot this past weekend and I wasn’t doing too good with the climbing, though I was very sore after it was all said and done!

Monday was my day back to work and it was very busy, lots of crazyness going on. I’m still very annoyed by the boss about most everything though. IE today I was SITTING in his office and someone comes in and asks HIM who manages the printers and he told the person to just call this company. EXCUSE ME? That’s MY JOB, ASK ME what to do!

And the PERFECT EXAMPLE just happened.

This guy at my office got a new phone (by asking the boss and NOT me FIRST PROBLEM). Now he can’t get the fucking blackberry manager to connect to his PC. So he comes to me and I spent an HOUR working with him trying to get it to work. Find out that A) He was trying to install the wrong software.

So I downloaded the RIGHT software and the RIGHT drivers and STILL couldn’t get it to work, so I tell the guy, well since we don’t have the right documentation because you didn’t get the BOX for the phone when you picked it up I am going to have to go back to my office and research it. So that’s what I did, went back to my office and started research it. About 10 minutes later, I get a call from the boss man bitching at me about not having a solution or an ETA. I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE PROBLEM COULD POSSIBLY BE! UGH!

Fuckin’ A! Idiots!

I cannot stand this shit, does he want me to do my job or not!

Wine, Concerts and Climbing!

What a freaking week! I didn’t even have a night at home till FRIDAY!

So Monday, I worked. Nothing exciting there. Projects are going great. I got a call from our Argentina employee saying he couldn’t get onto the VPN. I had him send me a pic of his setup and it was ALL blank! So since I have never done the setup here, I sent username/password information request to our old contractor… I also left for about 2 hours in the middle of the day to go to my personal trainer, since I missed him because of staying at the office till 3am Sunday/Monday morning… I got an email half way through the work out saying “Chris, call me when you get back”. Ugh, annoying! So I call the boss when I get back into the office RIGHT when I told him I would be back. “Yeah, just wanted to let you know everything is working OK”. WTF!? asshole! I swear he’s just calling to check up on me. Arg!

That night I got home after picking up my cute new outfit from Zara. I’ll have to take a pic of me in it! It’s adorable! Anyways, got home and ate then went over to Jason’s and we went to HomoDepot and LesbiLowes! Lots of fun! We went back to his place, drank some wine and watched TV.

Tuesday was more of the same at work, again nothing exciting. Lots and lots of projects! I can’t say that enough! Went to the gym that night and worked out, came home, ate dinner and then was going to go to Marina but ended up at Jason’s instead. Kris joined and we drank, talked and watched some movie. Erick RANDOMLY showed up at the door which was VERY AWK! I hate that he does that.

Wed work work work! I got another call from the Argentina guy and AGAIN requested the information from our former contractor. After work I went to the gym, then met up with Christian for dinner and we went out to see Jon McLaughlin in concert. He’s so great! And dreamy! haha. Got home late from that.

Thursday was more work. AGAIN went over to Jason’s for the evening. He packed, we chatted and watched Rock Haven. Very good!

Friday I got ANOTHER call from the Argentina guy AND one from his boss. So I CALLED our old contractor’s CEO and asked for the information. He simply said, “Talk to your boss.” So I call my boss, “Yeah, all requests like that need to be approved by me.” Ummmmmm. EXCUSE ME!? Why did you NOT tell me this before! This guy has been WAITING ALL FUCKING WEEK for this information! UGH! So I started bitching at him about this shows he doesn’t trust me to do my job and how he hired me to do something and I can’t do it with this sort of shit going on. Obviously not in those terms. And he was like, “Well I just like to be kept in the loop”. EXCUSE me! In the loop means that you get like a weekly report or something, NOT having to approve EVERY FUCKING THING That I do! UGH! I was very annoyed. So THEN I started running an audit on shit, only to find out that he’s been having our former contractor going in and doing shit on the systems. EXCUSE me?! That is supposed to be MY FUCKING JOB! So on Monday I am going to confront him about this shit. It’s unacceptable.

That night I AT LAST got a night alone! It felt soooooo great. I watched Life After All. Amazing French movie. I just lounged around on the couch, and cuddled with the cats! excellent! 🙂

Got up early Saturday morning and took the car in for 15,000 mile service. Got home from that at like 10 and watched another French movie called Wild Reeds. Also very excellent. I love French boys, why is the one at the Crepe place up the street not gay! He’s sooo cute! He looks very much like Serge in the movie that I watched. I wish I could go skinny dipping with him! 🙂

That night I had a date.. What a freaking mess! I was about ready to call it off when we were on the phone talking about what to do. I told him I lived by Riviera Village. He was like, “That’s not RB, that’s Torrance, people there just think it’s better to say RB” blah blah blah. Well I’m sorry, my fucking ADDRESS is RB! Therefore I LIVE in RB! Asshole. I wish I had just canceled it. We went bowling, he paid for an hour, we were there for 50 minutes. He cut his finger on the ball, he kept dropping it, he didn’t break 60. Then he spent like 15 minutes arguing with the manager because we were only there for 50 minutes, so he wanted his 10 dollars back. UGH! Very annoying. Fucking lawyers.

Big Rock @ Lake PerrisGot home and chatted with a few people then went to bed.

Sunday morning I got up at 5 and drove out to Big Rock at Lake Perris. Amazing climbing! We started off with a 150 foot lead climb. Got up to the top and setup a top rope. We had three total climbs setup and then these two hot guys showed up… And right behind were their kids! 🙁 The one guy was UBER hot and took his shirt off and had nipple rings! YuM! AAnnnnnywaaaays! I did the 150 foot climb twice and then did a 100foot climb once. By that time my ankle was not hurting, but getting very swollen so decided to just lay off it. The other guys did another shorter but harder route. I am very annoyed with my ankle it needs to get better!

We talked about the upcoming weeks and it sounds like TONs of fun! Next weekend we are going to go back to Devils Punchbowl again and then we’re going to go up to the base camp at Whitney and then the next weekend do a 1,000 foot climb!! I am so excited! 🙂

After the climbing we went to Mission Inn and had a 2 hour brunch with Champagne! YAY! Very delicious!!

I am excited for the next week. Should be more relaxing and shit.

Pictures from Rock Climbing are here.

I love you.. But I’m not IN love with you…

Oh those wonderful words… I’d rather hear. “I hate your guts and never want to see you again.”

But instead, I heard those words. Along with. “I just need to grow myself”. “I really care about you, but I’m not in love with you”. “The spark is just missing”. And lots of other stuff.

Over the last 3 days, Constantine and I have spent nearly 4 hours on the phone. Discussing, arguing and crying over what’s going on in our relationship. I spent my whole day Monday at work bawling my eyes out. I hope that no one noticed. I was devastated that day because I was sure that he was going to end things with me that evening.

It all started on Sunday when I brought up the “I love you” thing. I’ve said it to him for a little over a month now, but he hardly ever said it back. The first time I wrote it to him in Russian and he said. “Thanks”. So I brought it up. He says he loves me, but he’s not in love with me. He says that he misses me, but doesn’t want me to come spend time there. He says he cares about me, but isn’t excited about his trip back next week. He’s only indifferent.

He says he used to love me, that he used to care about me and miss me. But it went away. Because we never expressed it. We never said I love you up till a month ago. On our 6 month anniversary. I listened to a friend who said, “Don’t say it to early. You’ll scare him away”. So I waited until I couldn’t keep it in any more. And now I’ve potentially lost my boyfriend. This amazing person, the only person I’ve cared for so much since Andrew.

Since he’s left, I’ve spent so much time thinking about him. Wanting him to be back, wanting to hold him and kiss him again. Wanting to be able to talk to him for hours and to just look into his eyes as we lay in bed. I’ve spent so many nights not being able to sleep because I miss having him next to me. Over the last 6 months, I’ve found that emotional side of me again. The caring and loving Chris that’s been hidden since the days of Andrew. I’ve found that better side of me. The one that wants to treat his boyfriend so caringly and so lovingly that he’ll never want to let me go. And I tried to do that as much as I could. But instead I lost him because I was to afraid of losing him to tell him that I loved him. I did everything I could to show him, but I guess that wasn’t enough.

He doesn’t mind not talking every day, he doesn’t mind if I txt him something sweet and he doesn’t respond, because he’s not in love with me.

When I love someone, the only thing I want to do is sit and talk to him. I could do nothing but sit around all day and talk and go and see things and hang out and hold his hand and cuddle with him and kiss him oh so softly on the lips. I wish that we didn’t have to work so that I could spend every second of every day with him.

I hate not being the last one to say good night to him, I hate not being the first to say good morning. I hate not knowing what he’s up to and missing all the things he does every day. Small things matter so much to me. I’m crazy like that. “What’d you have for dinner”. “What time did you get home”. “When did you get to bed”. “Did anything make you happy/mad at the office today”. These are all questions that I love asking and love knowing about. It may seem small, stupid things, but I love knowing them, I love finding them out. Instead he just sees hem as controlling.

So we’ve spent the last two days going back and forth. “I love you, but I’m not in love with you.” … “I don’t want to lose you, but you deserve better then this”. “I’m so devoid of emotions and I think you need more then that.”

He says he doesn’t want to lose me, but he doesn’t know if he wants to continue. We talked about the emotions things and I suggested he get a therapist while he was there to try and work through it. I hope that he does.

In the end, after all the crying and yelling was done. We decided to wait till he comes back next week. See how things go and then decide what’s going to happen.

One part of me wants to just start distancing myself emotionally now. But another part is screaming at me saying. “You have to make this the best weekend of his life. You can’t let him get away.” I don’t know what to do. I’m so tired of crying over him, but I care about him so much. He’s been an amazing boyfriend, few emotions and all.

I think the whole issue is just because he’s in a new place. I am a little controlling, and we’re at that critical time in our relationship where the spark is in fact fading and we must work harder to keep the fire burning while he is so far away….. I hope that things turn out for the better. I have to be honest that over the last few days thoughts of suicide have started to come back. Why must I be so fucking dramatic? I am going to go see a therapist on my own to work through those issues and the few remaining issues I have with the breakup from Andrew regarding long distance and trust. So I hope that I can become a better boyfriend for Constantine and I hope that Constantine will go and see someone so that he can become a better boyfriend as well.

Below is a letter I wrote to him after our last big discussion….

Hey Babe.

I am really glad we talked again last night and were able to start working things out and start our spark back a little. I spent some time to do a little research and thinking again… I think that the following resources will really help us both and I will be trying to take the advice to make our relationship better. I’ve started this process by making a list of things in myself that I and you don’t like. A few of them I’ve already started to work on. Such as not bottling things up, others are new that we’ve talked about or brought up over the last few days. I also started a list of things that I’d like to see us work on together or little things that I think can help us in the long run.

http://www.essortment.com/lifestyle/longdistancere_saqt.htm
http://www.spiritual.com.au/articles/relationships/long-distance-relationships.htm
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Long-Distance-Relationship-Work
http://ezinearticles.com/?Great-Relationships:-How-to-Get-the-Spark-Back&id=57608
http://www.aish.com/dating/advice/Dating_Advice_109_-_The_Missing_Spark.asp

A few things that I need to accept in myself:

1) Calm down – I need to give you space to enjoy your time there. I will make a resolution to not freak out when you go out and to stop the questions that you feel have a negative undertone.
2) Give you space – I feel that the following quote is best suited for this:
“Consider the fact that living far apart gives you both a chance to grow as individuals. Some couples break up to “find themselves”, but in a long distance relationship you both have enough space to do your own things and still have a connection.”
3) I want to talk more about what we want out of life in the long run.
4) Go out more myself and take this time to find and make better friends so that you don’t feel like I am dependent on you.
5) Not to bottle things up. If something is bothering me, bring it up immediately.

A few things that I want us to work on together:

1) Sharing our feelings
2) Talk at least once a day.
3) Drinking tea together whenever we talk at night
4) Spend a few minutes each day thinking about the other person.
5) Take time to reminisce with each other about good things in the past.
6) Talk more about our history, our childhood, what makes us happy, what makes us sad, our short and long term goals, etc.

I’d like for you to take a minute to think about what you can change that will make us a better couple. I’d also like for you to think of anything I’ve missed that either I can work on or that we can both work on.

Lastly, I know we talked about your emotions last night, and I think that you are genuine in wanting to change that some. I love the Constantine you are, few emotions and all. But it seemed like you were concerned about that in yourself and wanted to change. I took a couple minutes today to call a few places there, since I’ve been through so many therapists doors, I’m pretty good at picking them any more. I talked to one who’s just a few miles from your apartment, she doesn’t prescribe miracle pills and has a philosophy of active listening and self-development. She’s been very active in the gay community and said she regularly holds gay couples counseling sessions. Her name is Nancy White and you can call her at 713-961-5243. It’s completely up to you babe if you want to call or not. I love you for you. :-*

“If you rest upon the ground,
In the warmth,
I’ll become the grass.
And embrace you.”

Love,
Chris.

PS. Sorry I’m so wordy lately!!! I hope this one doesn’t print out to 10 pages! haha.