Slept in as long as I wanted this morning, which was much-needed. I have officially rid myself of all sickness. I really wanted to smoke weed last night, but I am so glad that I didn’t. I still woke up with a food hangover, though.

My body is back to OOC – Out of Control. I think it’s a mix of the post-Pride bloat brought on by all of the drugs and alcohol of last weekend, along with my diet of the last week. I’ve essentially been living off restaurant food and sour candy. The Clubhouse offers their employees a meal plan, which I foolishly opted into last month. I need to quit the damn thing. As long as I’m paying for that food – if you can even call it “food” – I’m going to want to eat it. I can’t have cheesy potatoes and tortillas for breakfast anymore! I can’t even fit into my clothes anymore!

While in bed this morning, I did my usual phone scroll. Imagine my frustration when I discovered that Phillip and PW were together at a party last night. I fucking hate social media.

This morning’s discovery had me angry for two reasons:

Technically, I could have been with PW last night. However, that doesn’t really frustrate me all that much. A house party wouldn’t have been the best venue for a second date anyway. That’s fine. You get a pass, PW.
Phillip never fucking invites me to anything. Meanwhile, I invite my brother to everything. I invite Phillip to parties. I invite Phillip to my apartment. I invite Phillip’s friends to my apartment. I serve them all drinks. I facilitate penetration between Phillip and my friends, I promote his work, and the kid won’t even fucking introduce me to his friends. It’s like my own brother is embarrassed of me. It hurts.

I worked in my room for a while, fixing my resume, and beginning the application process for some new job postings. I also listened to Mariah’s MTV Unplugged album on a continuous loop for about three hours. A typical Saturday morning, really. Afterwards, I went downstairs, had lunch, played with Tabitha, and then took a nap. I ended up working in the library, solely because I wanted to be near the cat.

I truly believe in animal therapy. That damn cat puts such a smile on my face. Tabitha wipes away all of my troubles. It’s such an incredible feeling. Maybe I do want a dog. I went on a rant last week about how much I hate them but, as much as I love cats, dogs are more responsive when it comes to human emotion. Tabitha is good with me for about five to ten minutes, and then the claws come out and she wants to brutally murder me like one of her mice or chipmunks. Ah, who am I kidding? I love my baby. We are so much alike when it comes to our social tendencies.

While working in the library, I ended up texting with Lauryn quite a bit. At a certain point, Phillip came up in our conversation. It’s not like Lauryn and I sit around talking about Phillip all day, but the two of them did have sex. Now that Lauryn knows Phillip – like, actually knows him – we talk about him from time to time.

Lauryn could tell something was off with me, and asked if I was upset with Phillip. I admitted that I was. I explained to Lauryn how Phillip never includes me in anything, and how it hurts. Lauryn’s advice was that I shouldn’t keep it bottled up. I should talk to Phillip about it. Together, Lauryn and I drafted a text, and I ended up sending it to Phillip. I was honest, admitting to Phillip that I was upset over how he won’t include me in his social life the way I include him in mine. That was around the time all hell broke loose.

Phillip didn’t respond to my message for about a half an hour. Then, out of nowhere, a 1,000-word essay text message was delivered to my phone. I’m telling you, it was insane. Phillip explained that he has harbored a lot of resentment towards me because of an argument we had ages ago – at least a year – about me being friends with his ex-girlfriend, Alison.

Apparently, this whole time, Phillip hasn’t been okay with my friendship with Alison. The truth had finally come out. Phillip revealed that he had purposely been keeping me out of his social life, because he had been waiting on an apology for that argument. Meanwhile, I don’t even fucking remember talking about Alison in that argument. As far as I was concerned, my issue in that moment from yesteryear was with his most recent ex-girlfriend, Sarah, and how I thought she was controlling him with her jaded views towards family. Well, I guess I was wrong. Really wrong. I felt sick to my stomach.

This was Phillip’s first message:

Phillip: “I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. It’s something I’ve tried to get over for a long time, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that I never got over how you continued to have a relationship with Alison after we broke up. Then, when I started seeing Sarah, I told you how it bothered me that you two were still friends. You got really defensive, and it felt like you valued your friendship with Alison more than my feelings. The truth is, you wouldn’t have made any of those friends if it weren’t for me. I know how selfish that sounds, but that’s just how I feel. As my brother, you should have distanced yourself, knowing that seeing Alison after the breakup was difficult for me. I would have done that for you without question. So, yeah. I’ve kept my social life more to myself after all of that. It’s shitty that we don’t see each other as much as we should, but I think I’m still waiting on an apology from that fight we had a long time ago.”

I was shocked. Where in the fuck was all of this coming from? This whole time, I thought Phillip was fine with the Alison thing. When Phillip is around Alison – even as recent as last weekend at Pride – he’s totally fine. For fuck’s sake, they were sitting and talking together on my couch a week ago!

As if Phillip’s first message weren’t enough, he then brought up two other issues he had:

An argument we had last year in Hawaii, where I basically called Phillip out on being an unemployed bum.
Another comment that I didn’t even know was an issue, which was when I called his Instagram account, “A photographic collection of corners of buildings.”

As for the second issue, I’m not going to lie. I still laughed at that Instagram comment when Phillip quoted me. I didn’t know he would take that so personally, though. God, my Instagram is an absolute mess! It’s social media. Who cares?

The Hawaii thing was crazy, though. That was yet another long since forgotten argument, which happened over a year ago, and Phillip had apparently been upset about it this whole time.

Responding to Phillip’s admissions was a difficult situation. I didn’t want to undermine his emotions. At the same time, the entire thing was fucking ridiculous. How could he have kept all of that inside for so long? Especially when the person he had an issue with was his fucking brother!

I was still talking with Lauryn while all of this was happening, sending her an endless stream of screenshots. Lauryn was basically my on-call therapist.

I’m not the biggest believer in astrology, but Lauryn told me that Phillip’s Cancer sign meant he was the type of person who was very, very sensitive. For Phillip to open up like this was huge, because he knew that what he was expressing was absolutely ridiculous. As a result of Phillip’s honesty, he was also very vulnerable in this moment. I am happy Lauryn was telling me these things. My gut reaction was to rip Phillip to shreds for being so outrageous.

Phillip: “You can be one of the most thoughtful people I know, but sometimes you can be cruel and say rude things. They cut so deep, it’s as if you’ve been waiting to say them. You need to work on that. If I don’t feel like you respect me, how can we have a reciprocal relationship? I want that so badly, and I’m sorry it took so long for me say all of this. I don’t know why I let it build up to this.”

But, I didn’t even know that what I was saying was hurting Phillip.

Kurt: “Yeah, I don’t really know either. I apologize for saying things that hurt you. Telling someone to “work” on something one to two years after an incident isn’t going to help the situation, though. You can’t expect someone to change, or even apologize for something, if you hold it in and excommunicate them from your life. I’m happy to know how you feel about me. If this is, in fact, how you feel about me – and what you think about me – you really don’t know me at all, or have any idea of the level of respect I have for you. I talk about you endlessly. I introduce you to my friends – one of whom you had sex with. I invite you to events, make connections for you, up-sell your work, and sing you endless praise. And you apparently choose to hold resentment towards me for years without saying anything.”

At this point, I was thisclose to grabbing my bottle of Xanax. My conversation with Phillip was making me absolutely nauseous. I felt like a fucking idiot. I was so upset that Phillip had felt this way for so long, but had never told me. I get it. I did some shitty things. But, I only saw that after Phillip had told me. If you have a problem with something, speak up!

Lauryn was telling me that she and I are very alike. However, some people are not as expressive as us. They are very sensitive. Instead of calling people out on their bullshit like we do, people like Phillip respond by pulling back and retreating. That, to be offended by something, it means that they look up to a person in such a significant way. Lauryn said that Phillip made an emotional sacrifice by sending all of that stuff to me and finally opening up. I told Lauryn that I wanted to mend things, but I also wanted to stab things. I was angry. I needed Phillip to know how wrong he was. Lauryn said that Phillip already knew. My brother had sacrificed his ego to tell me those things.

I think what bothers me, is that all I want is for Phillip to be open with me. I always thought we operated on such an honest playing field. To learn that someone you love has been upset with you for over two years was gut wrenching. I also hate it when people assume that I am being intentionally cruel, or that I am even capable of doing that to someone I love. Yeah. I’m capable of it, I guess. But, why would I ever do that to someone I care for?

My conversation with Phillip was turning out to be a huge mess. It started out with me being upset for not being included in his life. Now, it turned out that Phillip was mad at me for three separate things – all of which happened one to two years ago.

Lauryn was right, though. Phillip knew that he was wrong. Once Phillip got all of that stuff off his chest, the kid didn’t put up much of a fight when I gave my points. Phillip knew that he was wrong for keeping all of that resentment bottled up. As soon as he let it out, I apologized. I don’t know what Phillip was expecting all of this time. If a person genuinely doesn’t know they’ve done something wrong, how can you expect them to apologize for their actions? It’s idiotic. After my apology, Phillip was actually the one saying that he was wrong. Much to my surprise, Phillip also admitted that he needed to make more of an effort to include me in his life.

Things were finally resolving themselves. Thank God. The whole thing could have been really ugly. I apologized for hanging out with Alison, for the Hawaii thing, and for the comment on Phillip’s Instagram account. Phillip responded by saying that me maintaining a friendship with Alison was fine at this point. It was all water under the bridge. Out of nowhere, Phillip then brought up PW, which I was not expecting.

Phillip: “And as for Phillip, it bothers me a little. But, not to the point where I would ask you to stop seeing him. I want you to be happy more than anything, and it’s fine with me. But, it might be a little weird for you, considering we share the same name hehehe.”

I didn’t even know that Phillip knew about PW. Nonetheless, I figured I would just come clean about the whole thing. I told Phillip about our recent date. I admitted that I took PW to dinner, and that it was the happiest I had been in a long time, which was true. Honestly, I was so worried that Phillip was going to shut down my thing with PW. If he did, I would have been really upset. After all of this recent drama, Phillip’s order would have meant that I would have actually had to stop seeing PW. I like this guy so much.

It also turned out that PW had talked to Phillip last night, and told him a lot about our night together. PW said that he had a really great time, and that he liked me, too. Yes! This was great news. I’m not sure why PW has been quiet since Friday afternoon, but this was good insider information. Not to mention, I had now received the all-clear to go ahead with everything.

Phillip and I wrapped things up. We said the I love you’s, and that was the end of everything. Jesus. I was not expecting that. But, it really did have to happen. Thank God it did, too.

Kurt: “We are so similar, but we are so different when it comes to things like this. I am such a loud mouth. I will run my mouth whenever I feel like it. Things like this don’t usually happen with me, because I am confrontational.”

I mean, that was also a big lie. I hold a lot of things in. Especially when it comes to my romantic life. But, still. Today, I was upset about Phillip. Despite opening a can of worms – which, granted, needed to be opened – I still expressed my feelings in the moment. Now, things had been resolved.

I feel very relieved. I don’t care if a friend is mad at me. For example, I haven’t heard a word from Evan since Saturday night. I’m sure the guy is busy brewing a potion to slip in my drink the next time he sees me, but that doesn’t bother me. To be honest, I don’t care enough about Evan to let that bother me. On the other hand, when someone like Phillip is upset with me, I want to throw up. We’re talking about my brother here. My only brother. My flesh and blood.

Anyway, it’s resolved.

Having finally emerged from the library, I had dinner with Mom and Dad. Afterwards, I applied to some more jobs, and finished talking with Lauryn before going upstairs to do some exercises, masturbate, and go to bed. I should have been a bit more active today, but my argument with Phillip took up a lot of my time. Mind you, so did lip-syncing to Mariah Carey in my bedroom, and taking an hour-long nap in the afternoon.

While exercising on my floor, listening to Mariah Carey’s 1996 Daydream Tokyo Tour, it hit me. “Underneath the Stars” was exactly what had happened with PW. I didn’t even realize it until I was listening to the song.

It’s funny. I have tried so many times to push the narrative of “Underneath the Stars” on other dates and relationships. Meanwhile, my evening with PW was exactly – word for word – what Mariah was singing about in her song. I lay on my floor, listening to the lyrics, and thinking about how I can’t wait to see PW again.

I was drifting, drifting, drifting.

“One summer night
We ran away for a while
Laughing we hurried beneath the sky
To an obscure place to hide
That no one could find

And we drifted to another state of mind
And imagined I was yours and you were mine
As we lay upon the grass
There in the dark
Underneath the stars

Weak in the knees
Wrapped in the warm gentle breeze
So shy a bundle of butterflies
Flush with heat of desire
On a natural high

As we drifted to another place in time
And the feeling was so heady and sublime
As I lost my heart in you
There in the dark
Underneath the stars

Beautiful and bitter sweetly
You were fading into me
And I was gently fading into you
But the time went sailing by
Reluctantly we said good bye
And left our secret place so far behind
And I lay in bed all night and I was
Drifting, drifting, drifting, drifting

And imagined I was yours and you were mine
As we lay upon the grass
There in the dark
Underneath the stars”