Still waiting

Mood: just in pain, being sick
Weather: I don't care a shit for the weather - but seems to be fine
Music: Atom Bomb - Fluke

I'm still here.
I'm still waiting.
But I can put my mind at rest.
Foreman, Chase and Cameron are on their way and I'm damn sure Foreman can cope with an ordinary lock.

So I'm sitting here, moving around in the appartment with Allenby's computer chair, drinking coffee, eating cheddar and listening to some music. As I told you at least the son of a bitch own some good compact discs.

To distract me, I'm writing down about what Jim and me talked yesterday morning. We commemorated how we first met...
Well....we've been talking about his marriages and...what we have planned for our future. I asked him if he really wanted to try again - with me. I looked up to him and he looked straight into my eyes.
"I never wanted anything else", he replied to me and I was taken aback.
"What? You...never wanted anything else?" I asked, looking blank.
"I always wanted to be with you", James said, looking out of the window.
I just stared at him. "Is hat true?" He nodded and I swallowed.
I thought for a while and remained silent.
"But....I thought you really loved Susan...", I began. Susan was his first wife and he married her four years after we met.
"It was different...It is the first time I really feel that kind of love", he said and tried not to look at me.
I still stared at him and I remembered that congress 10 years ago. "And at first sight you thought 'Good hell! What a curmudgeon!'", I remined him.
He grinned and I proceeded. "When I just thought 'Gaaaaawd...he's cute....' and tried to be at my best behaviour..." I shook my head and watched James' face.
He looked at me with a somewhat bewildered expression. "You thought I am cute?"
I shrugged and nodded a bit embarassed. "I did. I still do."
James grinned "Well, and you are still a curmudgeon ... Sometimes" and winked at me.
I shrugged again. "You do not know what you looked like..."
James took me into his arms and started to caress my back. "Then tell me..."

I am not quite sure if I remember everything right....but I'll try. Maybe James can recall it, too and write down his own point of view sometime.
But I remember I was sitting in that assembly hall, the old fart in front of us began to talk and to greet us and I was immediately bored. In my mind a picture of three horrible days waiting for breakfast, waiting for lunch, waiting for dinner and getting drunk began to form.
A few minutes after he began, there was a slight disturbance by the door being opened again and James rushed in. He was late and in a hurry, his tie back on his shoulder wearing a black suit and with slightly deranged hair. I'm sure he tore at it when it came to his mind he was bound to be late.
He stammered a few excuses and then looked around for a seat. No big surprise - the one next to me was still unoccupied and he flung himself into it, raising a discreet little cloud of Fahrenheit.
Maybe I grunted instead of saying hello...but that was just because he hit my ribs with his elbow.
I looked at him from the corner of my eyes and thought "Geez! He's cute!" and felt an unfamilar twinch in my stomach. This puzzled me and I decided not to pay too much attention to this - and him. So I tried not to stare at him, forced myself to look away and stubbornly stared ahead where the prosing chairman still was greeting us.
I'm sure I must have made the impression of 'Eyes front!'
After a while I decided to look at his shoes instead of the old fart in front of us and discovered there was dirt on them. I stared at his shoes for about half an hour (and didn't give a shit to what impression this could make) and afterwards was sure he parked his car at the lake. The parking lot was crowded by then, so he had to be at the lake. My black Chevy was there, too. I had plenty of spaces to choose from, but I didn't want to meet any other doctors after I saw one with the unspeakable sticker Have you hugged your MD today? on his bumper.
"Good Lord! I'm sure I'm surrounded by idiots!" I thought and decided to park at the lake.
I had plenty of stuff in my car - a sleeping bag, some pairs of sneakers, books, a mug and so on.
Suddenly there was that poem, which came to my mind:
I know now that the voice of man can reach to the sky
I know now that the gods have heard as I prayed
I know now that the gifts I asked for have all been granted
I know now that the word of old we truly have heard
I know now that our future days will have no number
I know that only good will come, my love, to us.
I shook my head, found myself still staring at his shoes and thought "YES! You are making a perfect first impression!" Then I decided to just remain silent until he'd approach me. Besides that I didn't know what to say to him and kept on giving him side glances. Geez, what did he think of me? "Crazy scumbag"?

The doctor talking to us was an awful bore and the whole lecture was a bit of a yawn, so I started to throw spittle-wetted paperballs to other people's heads. Most of them landed in the sprayed hair of that lady in front of me which made her look like a snowman after a while. "God, Greg...you're making a fool of yourself...what will he think of you?", I thought.
I longed for lunch and flipped open my book - Shakespeare's sonnets. James turned his head and tried to look at what I read. "What are you reading?", he asked.
"A book!", I replied and immediately wanted to smack myself. I focused on my book and wondered if he watched me. But to make sure would mean to watch him which I tried to avoid.

I was ever so relieved when finally the lunch break saved me from being bored to death, jumped up and ran to the restaurant. To my big surprise James joined me at my table, but I prefered not to talk to him and just answered his remarks on the weather. ""It is raining cats and dogs - so I wouldn't call it a weather!" Then I stared out of the window and remained silent besides showing him that puppy who looked into the restaurant. "See? It is raining dogs...."

In the afternoon I started to talk to him...I leaned over to him "He is soooo boring!"
James blushed and I think he hoped no one heard me complaining. But it was boring and I was close to standing up and shout "Tell us something new!" James was scribbling notes into his little black book and I wondered what he wrote down. The lecture didn't end...the whole thing was going to be one big waiting for lunch, waiting for dinner, waiting to get drunk, waiting to fall asleep, waiting...to meet his eyes.

That evening was much nicer though...although I rushed into James in the hall and he ruined my sports coat with his single malt. (And I pressed him to buy me a new one. I got a wonderful Ermenegildo Zegna jacket...) We mocked the other participants, laughed our ass off and drank ourselves into oblivion just to discover we had to share a room.
I think that night I didn't even bother to put off my clothes.