tommy returns
I know this makes three days in a row that I'm mentioning the Seattle Times article about the coming PCC store in the Central District, but, I meant to mention this yesterday and I forgot. It gave me slight pause when I read this part:
People at the meeting were also concerned about food prices, Hardy said. She acknowledged that the organic, locally focused co-op grocery chain has higher prices than a conventional grocer.
“The truth is that natural and organic foods cost more,” she said. “They just do.”
To be as diplomatic as possible, I would say that quote could easily be, let's say, "mis-read." I feel like it might have been more effective there to pivot to things like our unparalleled bulk sections, which are a great way to save money on commodity foods. Or our competitively priced Field Day products. Instead, that response kind of comes across as just "This the way it is, deal with it."
Also, as long as I am catching up on things I forgot to mention in previous posts, I guess now I'll finally add something about the dinner with Becca and Tyler on Thursday last week.
They have two dogs, both quite large breeds. One is a German Shepherd and one is a German Shepherd mix. I think it's the latter that is less than a year old, so, still a puppy. Particularly for where they are at in their lives and their living situation (the left a rental where they got screwed over by roommates they had met at work, and now live with Tyler's parents again), I do not consider this in any way sensible. Cats are one thing, but two large dogs? When they are evidently only barely getting their lives back to a point of stability?
So, yes, I'm being a little judgmental. I only mention it now because, even though I still think they would be smarter to wait a while to get not one but two large dogs—I mean, shit, at least they don't have any fucking babies (and they are very open about having zero interest in kids just yet)—I have to say that they still impressed me with their knowledge, and particularly their commitment to training.
This is a really key thing. Growing up with Christopher and Mom, we never did anything even remotely close to training with any of the dogs we had. It wasn't something that ever even occurred to any of us; I wasn't exposed to people who considered it a standard part of having dogs until I moved to Seattle. Now it kind of astonishes me when people don't consider it. And Mom and Bill, who can barely take care of themselves (in fact, they literally can't take care of themselves, which is why they have state workers who come to the house), have two dogs. And my brother, characteristically showing no sense at all, got a separate dog of his own after moving in with them. Sheba and Teddy don't get along with Astra, so Mom and Bill keep them locked in their back bedroom with them. And even though Sheba is objectively adorable, she is also largely out of control, and the only way she didn't flip out when she had to be kept in the outside foyer when everyone came to the motel for lunch in Wallace was by having either Christopher or one of the boys sit out there with her.
So this was where I was being quite unfair to Becca. Like way too many people do, I was judging her by the actions of her family, and what I presumed would be her parents' influence on her. I really didn't even consider that she and Tyler might actually be pretty well on the ball with training their dogs. Granted, there is probably a lot of influence on Becca by Tyler specifically when it comes to this, but that doesn't change how unfair my assumptions were. And also granted, they did speak to many challenges with the dogs, most notably that the younger one has to be crated when left alone or else she'll tear their home apart. But even that is a key difference: they not only understand the utility of crating a dog, but they actually have a crate! The dogs at Mom and Bill's have no crates and no training.
And Becca and Tyler's dogs have training. In fact, according to Tyler, many places won't rent an apartment to someone with a dog unless they have a specific training certificate. This was the first I had ever heard of that, but it sounds reasonable to me. A lot of places also have weight limits for animals, which drastically lowers their housing options. Of course, that is where we get back to the sensibility of having the dogs at all: their housing options would be expanded exponentially without them. Still, I'm willing to cut them some slack. They're young and still learning about life.
I'm sure Becca would resent hearing that last part about being young. She talked to us over dinner about how frustrating it is to be treated with little respect just because she's young. I can relate, and I remember feeling the same way. But, I am also older now myself so I get to have my turn to say "tough shit." Frankly, I am giving her far more credit now than I felt like most older people gave to me when I was young. Because the whole point of this is for me to say: sure, I don't really think it makes sense for them to have these dogs at all. But, accepting that they do, when it comes to how they handle them—and particularly in sharp contrast to how Becca's parents (and grandmother) handled them—I actually found I was rather impressed. Their approach is actually far better than I was unfairly assuming. I would do well to give Becca more credit going forward.
So what should I tell you about last night? Oh! Kind of big news, actually: I saw Tommy, the roommate I had from May 2015 through November 2016. For about ten minutes, because he came by to pick up a package that had been sent to our address by accident. He thinks it was probably a Christmas gift from his sister who had it mailed to the wrong address.
I actually had not seen him since the end of 2016. We met for dinner once so I could give him a Christmas present that year. I made a seriously valiant attempt at getting together with him during my Birth Week in 2017, and all my texts and Twitter DMs were basically ignored. I chose not to judge him for it; I knew well that he had social anxiety, and whatever reason he had for ignoring my attempts at staying in touch, he probably then felt bad about himself for it. I had no interest in helping him feel bad about himself (his ignoring my attempts to reach out being objectively rude notwithstanding), so I just let it go. I even bought him a book for his birthday anonymously the following year. I still have never told him that was from me. I knew that book was perfect for him so I had it sent to his work address, since I only knew where he worked but not where he lived. Other than that, we have remained mutual friends on Facebook and still follow each other on Facebook and Instagram, but all I've ever gotten out of him was the occasional "like" on my posts. It's really too bad, because in spite of his apparently largely crippling insecurities, I always enjoyed his company and I even told him so at the time.
So, since he moved out in 2016, he has only met up with me twice, once in 2016 and now once in 2020, and evidently even then only because I had something to give to him. This time around, if it was a package from his sister, then he clearly could not get out of it or ignore it. He stayed for only about ten minutes, and was very warm and friendly, and just said, "It's been a long time!" as though that was all there was to it. I mean, he wasn't wrong about it having been a long time.
I told him I saw he has a boyfriend now (on Facebook). "Yeah," he said. "Two years!" Oh, wow. I didn't realize it had been that long. Then, he had to add: "Which is . . . terrifying!" This was both odd, and kind of surprisingly honest. I was slightly baffled by that at first, except to realize it's almost certainly tied to his presumably ongoing anxieties and insecurities. And, upon further reflection, two years isn't that long a time, and as he said, it had been many years since his previous serious relationship. He dated a lot during the 18 months he lived with me but nothing ever quite stuck. I've been with Shobhit 15 years which is obviously a very different thing. Maybe Tommy will be with this Patrick guy long enough to start taking their relationship for granted. Not that that's a good thing to do at all, mind you, but I would argue it's a hell of a lot better than being desperately terrified of losing it.
Anyway. Tommy never came in any further than the entryway just inside the front door. He even had to text me to ask for a reminder of what floor the condo was on. (I have no idea how many other places he's actually lived since moving out three years ago.) "I have to get back to the boyfriend," he said, a couple of times. But, we did get into a brief discussion anyway, because he asked me what my favorite movie last year had been, and if there's any way to get me going, that is it! It was actually a nice and kind of fun discussion. We talked about my top four movies of the year, and knowing he is himself a Star Wars fanatic, we talked a fair amount about The Rise of Skywalker.
Minutes after he left, I texted him the link to my 2019 top 10 movies post, via Facebook Messenger. I totally expected not to get any further response from him, but I actually did! So that was nice. He said he would bookmark that link, said again that it was great to see me again, and that his sister may have sent another item to my address.
After Tommy left, I had to Message Ivan about it, as Ivan was always weirdly interested in Tommy and how he's doing. In fact, Ivan once slept over in my living room while Tommy lived here, because Ivan had been visiting Seattle and he missed his bus back to Olympia (he was attending Evergreen at the time, so this would have been 2015). I think the interest was because Tommy was the only roommate I ever had after Ivan (and also before, as Ivan moved in again only the month after Tommy moved out), and I think Ivan projected his own latent insecurities onto Tommy because Ivan could assume at least he had his own shit together better than Tommy did. It occurs to me now that Ivan perhaps wasn't all that ecstatic to hear that Tommy is now in a long term and (by all appearances, at least) stable relationship, which is something Ivan has always wanted but finds harder to attain than most. The message exchange with Ivan wound up petering out almost as soon as it started, I'm guessing because hearing about things going well with Tommy was not that interesting to him.
Shobhit and I used up the last of the Costco bag of spinach we had to make a blended and spiced spinach dish with added chopped vegetables and tofu for dinner. It yielded one lunch for each of us in leftovers as well, for today. We then watched his SAG Awards screener of Once Upon a Time ...In Hollywood. I had to explain some of the historical context about Sharon Tate to him. When the movie ended, Shobhit said, "That was a weird ass movie." I actually like the movie, although I also think it's wildly overrated. Then I went to bed.
[posted 12:27 pm]