Fun in St. Louis

Last week I headed to St. Louis for several days for a much needed break from the monotony and frustration of the mundane world. Most of the week I spent with Pine at his cute, cozy house in the 'burbs, just relaxing and enjoying getting to know him more. It is much quieter at his house than mine, so I had lots of good, uninterrupted sleep and I slept in quite late most mornings, which was rather unintentional, but nice for a change. We geeked out a lot with jigsaw puzzles, video games, looking stuff up on Wikipedia and playing with legos. There were plenty of other kinds of fun as well, but I will spare you all the details...

One afternoon Pine and I went to Laumeier Sculpture Park, which was lots of fun. We just wandered all about and climbed on things we weren't supposed to climb on. I'm actually in one of the sculptures at the park in this photo. It was a nice, warm afternoon and I had fun wandering about and playing in the woods with Pine. We were a little spontaneous after the park and decided to head down to the loop to meet up with Willow, whom I just had to see while I was in town! On the way, Pine showed me one of his favorite spots on the WashU campus, "the tree". It was a nice little spot to relax for a bit. So, I met up with Willow and we ate at the awesome falafel place that we both love and had some girl time to catch up before Pine came back (he went home to collect his fire gear). It was great! The food was good too, mmmtabbouleh.... Then Pine and Willow were introduced, and it went well. I think she already has a higher opinion of Pine than she does of Owl. That's not very shocking really.

Then it was fire time! We met up with one of Pine's friends and they played with their fire toys while Willow and I watched and giggled. It was so awesome! I had of course seen Pine eat fire before, but this was the first time I had seen him spin poi. I was quite impressed, and even more turned on ;-) There are some photos on my flickr, although they definitely don't convey the excitement of watching fire spinning in person, but...they'll do. Both Pine and his friend were fun to watch, they performed some pretty neat tricks. It was just a nice evening getting to spend some time with Willow and being so graciously entertained by Pine and his cool friend. I was quite happy that Willow and Pine got along so well. It seems she thinks he is a good pick, yay!

The next evening, Friday, Pine and I stayed in and had fun together. We rolled for a little while, and it was definitely an experience. I didn't feel the physical sensations as strongly as I expected, but I definitely opened up more emotionally. We spent a lot of time talking and being totally honest. It was as if the barriers I have put up were temporarily broken down. I got a little emotional about Owl and clued Pine in on some of what I have been feeling, things I had been keeping quiet about. I think he was surprised at a sudden, unexpected outpouring of emotion. I don't know if I was ready or not to tell him those things, but...I don't feel regret. In that moment I felt very safe, and comfortable with Pine. It was reassuring that he was very much in that moment with me and was able to share with me as well. I think we've had similar experiences with love, and for some reason that made me feel glad. He has never made me feel bad for still loving someone else, nor has he ever made me feel pressured to do or say or be anything. Also, there is nothing expected, and that is a good feeling. So far we have just been in the moment, and that is working rather well. So, back to Friday night...mostly we just sat on the couch in candlelight listening to chill music and enjoying each other. We talked a lot, about a lot of things I don't remember, and of course touched a lot. We had picked up some strawberries earlier in the evening and they were a very good investment. I've never had more fun being fed strawberries, or feeding strawberries to someone else. Mmm! :-D

It was a GREAT week, I so needed to get away from my little world here, as it can really bring me down sometimes. It wasn't too hard coming back, but our little fake world really is mundane.