Ivan and The Plan
Ivan arrived a little earlier than expected last night, close to 9:30. I'm guessing he took the BoltBus that arrived at 9:00 and then got to our place surprisingly quickly by getting a Lyft or an Uber. Shobhit was in the middle of packing for his camping trip, and when his phone rang and I showed him the phone number, he recognized it as the Braeburn Condos intercom. I should add that to his address book so it actually reads "Braeburn Intercom" on the screen when it gets called, like I did long ago with my phone.
I didn't manage to answer the phone in time, so I just rushed downstairs to let him in. I came out the stairwell door which is up a small staircase from the main building entrance, where Ivan was standing, about to attempt a phone call on his phone. He looked fantastic, as always.
He gave me his patented quick hug and we then rode the elevator together up to the condo. We hung out and chatted in the living room for maybe an hour. That counts! Ivan gets a point on the next Social Review. That'll give him three for this weekend and two for next weekend, which I just realized yesterday may very well place him right back at his old position at #3 that he consistently held when he lived with us, after Shobhit and Laney. (Shobhit gets a point for last night too: when we get visitors at home and he participates in the socializing, that's a point.)
In short order, I learned several interesting things about Ivan and his imminent move to Bellingham.
He was in Bellingham yesterday for paperwork regarding his new job, and to watch training videos. He'll be working at a rehabilitation center right outside St. Joseph Hospital -- evidently the very kind of place my mom was just at for about a month after getting out of the hospital. His first day of work is actually Monday next week! He'll still be back in Vancouver next weekend to hang out with me, which, when Shobhit heard that, made him go off again on what he perceives to be the pointlessness of my taking that trip and perhaps I should cancel it. Neither Ivan nor I agreed that it was pointless, and besides, I asked Ivan whether he'd go to Vancouver next weekend even if I weren't coming, and he said yes. He said he'll spend all the weekends the rest of this month there, because "Why not? I have a free place to stay." Or, not exactly free: already-paid for is more accurate. Now, honestly, I'm not certain I trust the veracity of his claim that he'd go back next weekend rather than the following weekend when he'll need to get the rest of his stuff out of his room, but whatever. We're both looking forward to spending time together in Vancouver next weekend.
Ivan claims to be "flat broke" and relieved to be getting this nursing job -- in an industry which, amusingly, he has multiple times in the past insisted he'd never do again, after quitting jobs. This would include when he quit Parkshore in Madison Park back in February. His grand plan at that time was to travel Eastern Europe for three months, then move back to settle down in Vancouver, B.C. His unfortunate discovery (or, at least, his personal experience) of Vancouver over the past three months is that their wages are too low (at most, apparently, about 65% of what he could get for the same jobs in the U.S.), competition for those jobs too high, and the housing market far too tight and too expensive. Apparently this job in Bellingham is paying him even more than he was getting in Seattle. So now he's going to take a yearlong school program for hypnotherapy. Frankly, it remains to be seen how that works out for him in the long run, his "grand plans" radically alter with such frequency.
His initial impressions of Bellingham, its being a city far too small for me ever to want to live in notwithstanding, are very positive. It seems to him a lot more laid back, and he keeps comparing it to Seattle's Fremont neighborhood. It's right on the water and has the same beautiful natural surrounding scenery as pretty much any Western Washington town. That said, he was similarly excited upon leaving Seattle in January 2015 for his year of schooling in Olympia, only to discover the experience depressingly isolating, with slim pickings in the gay community and nothing to do.
To be fair though, I don't have any idea (yet) where the house is where he'll be living in Bellingham, but the rehab center he'll be working at is barely more than two miles from the Bellingham Marina on the waterfront, which would also cut through the city's downtown. When he lived in Olympia, he lived on campus at Evergreen State College, which was far more secluded, in the middle of the woods five miles from downtown and nowhere near the waterfront. Ivan also said he really liked his new boss he met yesterday, and felt good about what he observed of her evident relationship with other nurses currently working under her.
Naturally, I still have my doubts: Ivan finds a reason to hate where he works within about a year of pretty much anywhere he's got a job. He's only committed to this Bellingham scenario for a year at this point, though. He says if he likes it, he'll stay. If not, it seems fairly likely he'll wind up in Seattle again. (Hopefully not subletting with us again though. Seriously, I've endured two emotional goodbyes with him already, and I don't want to go through it again.) He was talking much more favorably of Seattle last night, and when I called him to task about how vitriolic his talk about Seattle was upon leaving in February, he just laughed and said, "Oh Matthew, I don't mean half the things I say!"
It definitely helps him that Andrew, the guy he never was officially with but has always been in love with, no longer lives here. Apparently, of all things, he joined the Peace Corps in Mongolia, and that's a two year commitment.
Hopefully Ivan will get a place all his own sooner than later; he's moving into a house in Bellingham with two housemates, and time will tell how happy he is with that. He pretty quickly hated the room he's got in Vancouver, after all -- and last night told me he's got a mouse in his bedroom walls. Yeesh! I told him all he'd need to do was tell me that and I wouldn't even have inquired as to whether he had space for me to stay there with him. He seems much more open to making room for me to visit sometime in Bellingham, though, and says he has already talked to his roommates about potential visitors, and they're fine with it. "You can sleep on the sofa, or I can sleep on the sofa and you can sleep in my bed," he said. He already once proposed that he and I still go to Vancouver together again for our shared birthday next year, even though he'll no longer be living there, and I'm thinking now that a great way to save money on lodging in that situation would be to stay two nights with him in Bellingham and just take a day trip to Vancouver from there on the actual day of our birthday. It's only a roughly 90 minute drive from Bellingham, after all, as compared to the three hour drive from Seattle. And then my drive looping over to Port Townsend to see Auntie Rose and then Shelton to see Jennifer would be a hell of a lot simpler -- and cheaper.
As for his return to Vancouver for next weekend, I asked when he'd be taking the bus. Probably Saturday morning, he said. Well, shit! I've already booked the 6:30 am BoltBus out of Seattle, which then leaves Bellingham at 8:30. I suggested that was still too early for him to be up and ready to travel, but he was like, "I don't know, maybe I will!" I'm not going to press it further, but it would be great if he could just hop on the same bus I'm passing through on, and then perhaps the same bus south that I booked on Sunday. Otherwise I'm going to wind up amusing myself for a few hours on Saturday, but then, honestly even that holds a certain appeal to me.
Oh, and Ivan told me something else last night I found slightly touching, although there's no doubt in my mind he didn't specifically intend it that way. All this time, I had assumed that he had some logistical purpose for his visit this weekend: bring stuff for storage, or maybe take some of the stuff he still has in storage out, or some other administrative thing he needed to take care of. He does have a stack of mail. But, when it became clear he apparently had no specific plans for the weekend, I actually asked him about it: before he knew he'd have to go to Bellingham on Wednesday, what was the purpose of his visit this weekend? At first, after all, his plan was only to come down Saturday and leave on Sunday; he only extended the visit so he wouldn't have to take two trips down from Vancouver.
Apparently he just wanted to get one last visit to Seattle in before getting deep into his new life (however temporary that may be) in Bellingham -- "and to see you," he said. Oh! Well, that fills me with warm fuzzies. I kind of stupidly forget that perhaps he's gotten about as fond of me as I am of him (on a purely platonic plane, anyway). He even seemed a little bummed when I told him I would be gone at Happy Hour with Laney much of the evening tonight (something long planned, as our calendars are marked for that the second Friday of every month), and then was clearly happy when I messaged him that Laney told me she has an apparent stomach bug and had to postpone (for now, Happy Hour will be Sunday afternoon now -- after Ivan leaves and after I get back from the Redmond PCC store-to-farm bike ride), so I'll be all his all evening after all. With this change, though, I may be more inclined to meet up with Danielle and Jeanna tomorrow afternoon, but still, we'll see.
More than anything right now, though, I'm looking forward to visiting the newly renovated Space Needle with its revolving glass floor (claimed to be the only one in the world) tomorrow evening. If I had to hazard a guess, we'll go out for pho' this evening and then somewhere else for dinner tomorrow before the Space Needle visit. I don't have any idea yet what we'll do together in Vancouver next weekend, but I don't much care. This will be the first time I've visited that city two years in a row since 2008, and the fourth time I've ever gone there without Shobhit but with other friends (after Barbara in 1999; Susan in 2011; and Other Danielle and Andrea in 2015). Last year I had thought perhaps Shobhit and I could return this year for Vancouver Pride, but at that time I had no idea that a) Ivan would be living there this soon, let alone for only a few months; or b) the Third Annual McQuilkin Family Get-Together at Mason Lake on the same weekend would preclude a return for Vancouver Pride this year.
Under normal circumstances, after weeks of heat waves, I would be thrilled that we've got clouds and perhaps even some rain in the forecast tomorrow, but in this case there's an element of disappointment to it. The National Weather Service is predicting a high of only 70° and a 70% chance of rain showers -- at least that percentage goes down to 40% chance in the evening, but that's still a rather high chance. And Ivan and I go to the newly renovated Space Needle at 8 pm. I suppose the clouds could be a cool element to it too, though. Wouldn't it be awesome if the clouds were low-lying and we could see the top of the clouds by looking down? I mean, that probably won't happen.
And then there's Shobhit, and his weekend camping: tomorrow is the one full day he has there. The forecast for Granite Falls is hardly different from that of Seattle, even though it's 64 miles away and a lot closer to being in the mountains. It's supposed to dry up, break up the clouds and get warmer on Sunday, at least, and although that's the day Shobhit comes home, he may very well not come home until later so he can maximize his time spent on the river out there.
[posted 12:32 pm]