My gosh, the fact that I haven’t had time to write until now is evidence enough that the weekend was exceedingly busy. But somewhere in there I manifest a three-car accident and accidentally become a vegetarian!

So, I met this guy . . .

ROLF!!! Two guys in as many weeks, I must be crazy . . .

So I met this guy, a very tall good-looking guy that I seemed to have some chemistry with besides a great connection when the group went out dancing on Halloween after the seminar was over. He texted me this morning, and we texted a little while, fun and a little flirty. I was working, and when the conversation ended I didn’t really think about it much except recognizing the fact that it’s fun to be even somewhat attracted to someone. And I realized I wanted to see him again but will probably not, which was a bummer.

So I pulled up my new-found no-fear accept-rejection-as-progress perspective that I’d just learned yesterday in Steve’s workshop and I texted him asking him if he’d like to have dinner with me if he was still in Vegas. He wrote back that he would love to but he was leaving. So oh well, that’s the end of that.

But then, around 7:30PM when I was cleaning and getting the RV ready to roll in the morning, he texted me again. “Change of plans, want to have dinner?” Or something like that. As we worked out the time and place, it was clear that he was still with the CGWers, which was kind of exciting because in the afternoon I had started having a little withdrawal from the great energy we all shared together.

I got to the restaurant before them, just by a minute, and there were three of them. We all had warm CGW hello hugs. Wow, those unconditional love hugs are just the BEST! 😀

I Accidentally Become a Vegetarian

We had kind of a big table, one of those with a booth side and a chairs side. I slipped in on the booth side and waited to see who followed me closest, leaving it to him to choose whether to sit right next to me or not. He did. We got the menus, and he asked if I was vegetarian. I told him “I think I am,” and explained that I want to give it a try, and we talked about why (potential for improving general health as well as somewhat cancer-preventative and, since I can’t run or play sports with the neuropathy in my feet, maybe going vegetarian will help reduce some of the flabbiness I’m so self-conscious about. He’s vegetarian, and it was a tapas restaurant, so I asked him if he would order for me so I wouldn’t have to try to figure out what’s good on the vegetarian side of the menu. He and Kevin did the ordering at our end of the table. And dinner was very, very good actually. I had zero meat or fish, but pretty much everything I tasted was great.

Not long after the four of us had sat down and before anything had been ordered, five more CGWers showed up, and now we had a nice big table full of people, and lots of good conversation. There was a lively debate regarding marriage versus life partners and the traditional roles of husband and wife. Turns out at my end of the table, we all have the same opinion on the subject of marriage, so I didn’t really talk in the conversation, though I was still actively engaged in it. It was funny to see how stubborn the Germans were to Kevin’s suggestions regarding the non-necessity of marriage.

At one point before the food got there, amidst various conversations going on around us, I asked the guy (dang it, it’s hard to maintain someone’s confidentiality when there’s a story to tell) if he was actually planning to drive to LA after dinner. It would be late, and that’s such a tough all-night drive. He said he was thinking about it, then we were drawn back into the larger conversation.

There were a few times he and I sidetracked into a quiet private conversation, about more personal things. Much later in the dinner, after we’d had a few glasses of sangria, I said to him, freakishly similar to how my mom would say something like this: “you’re not going to drive now, right?” He looked at his glass and said yeah, he should just wait until morning. Very soon thereafter, people started getting up to leave, and I asked him if he had a place to stay. He said he apparently had floor space at the house where everyone else was staying. I said, “you can come with me if you want, I have two beds, so at least you wouldn’t be on the floor. Just a thought.” He looked into my eyes, but I couldn’t read what he was thinking. I must have looked harmless enough though. A little chemistry does not necessarily make a happily-ever-after ending to the so-I-met-this-guy story. He said, “yeah, ok,” and he smiled to himself. The only thing worse than sleeping on the floor is sleeping in your car, I think, and that may have been his back-up plan.

He would still need to go to the house to get his car in the morning, and since I knew my morning was going to be nuts unhooking the RV, hooking up the Jeep, taking the RV in, getting the cats to the kennel and then catching my flight to Atlanta, I suggested we go get his car tonight and then he could head out whenever he needed to in the morning.

Rear-Ended

We were chatting on the drive and it turned out he didn’t know I was staying in an RV, I must not have told him that. I said “yeah, I’m on a road trip in the RV with my two cats. You’re not allergic to cats are you?” And WHAMMO, he says he is definitely allergic to cats. I immediately told him it would not be good for him to sleep in the RV then, it just too close a space and very catty. I couldn’t put someone with cat allergies in what would surely be a miserable situation. So, it turns out I was just giving him a ride out to the house to go sleep on the floor after all. We were still talking about cats . . . he was saying something about how he hasn’t had any problems near me, holding me dancing, for example, and so the cat dander on me must not be too bad, and then suddenly . . . traffic on the freeway ahead of us was at a dead stop.

I stopped the Jeep with three or four feet to spare, then looked in the rearview mirror and thought there was no way the guy behind me would be able to stop, but he seemed to stop just a couple inches from the Jeep. But in the mirror I saw another one coming behind him, way too fast to stop without a BIG bump, and that bumped the guy behind me to rear end me. I didn’t hit anyone else bouncing forward, thank goodness, and so we three pulled to the side of the road to exchange info. I was hopeful that the guy behind me had smashed up his grill on my heavy trailer ball-hitch and not actually hit the Jeep itself, because when I just glanced at the back of the Jeep it seemed fine. So I went to see his damage first, and darn it all if he didn’t have this huge bracket on his truck, which had clearly hit my spare tire mounted on the back. Not good. I went back to the Jeep and tried to open the door. There is definitely something messed up there, it wouldn’t open properly or close properly. At least the back window glass hadn’t shattered from my spare tire getting crushed into the back of the Jeep, which is my guess of what the truck did when it rear-ended me.

So, oh well, ok, we were in a little car accident. I thought I was still ok mood wise though I have no idea what we discussed after that, because I was thinking about how if I get another accident on my record after that parking lot incident causing $30,000 in damage to my brand new RV last year, well, getting another accident on my record just under a year later will probably have pretty serious consequences on my auto insurance. Then, we’re back on the freeway, and the Jeep starts to shake and I have to slow way down.

Good grief, is it possible that guy hit me hard enough to bugger up my alignment? Or FRAME? Now I’m really, REALLY stressing, thinking I’ll probably lose my good car insurance with USAA and have to pay a lot more to some crap insurance provider like State Farm or something. I was still speaking when appropriate in the conversation and I think I was acting pretty normal, but by the time we got to the house, I was having a holy war in my head: tell the insurance, don’t tell the insurance, tell the insurance, don’t tell the insurance, and btw omg how bad is it really, should I tell my insurance or not tell my insurance, tell, not tell, tell, not tell? My thoughts were chaotic.

We got out of the Jeep and I said hellos and goodbyes to everyone at the house. They suggested I come in and suggested I have a cup of tea or something, but I said I should get going. I got back in the Jeep and started it up, and started my GPS, and I realized that I was practically frantic and I shouldn’t drive feeling like this. So I went back to the house and went inside and said a cup of tea would indeed be a good idea, I was just freaked out and needed that good CGW energy a little longer.  It was offered for me to stay over if I wanted (man! this not naming names thing is really hard in storytelling) and I said I appreciated the offer but probably not since there were so many people there already.

Manifestation Realization

People were figuring out where they were sleeping that night, and we (“the guy” and I) were alone in the living room, and he’s telling me the Jeep is fine, it’s all fine, I don’t need to stress on it . . . you know, all the things you say to help someone calm down. I was sitting down next to him on the ottoman, and he said, “you know, you probably manifested it yourself because you wanted to spend more time with the group.” I looked up at him (he’s so flippin’ tall, even sitting down), then I leaned my head on his shoulder just like I would with Brian (in other words, like with a longtime trusted friend) and said “holy cow, you’re absolutely right, I did. We were talking about your allergies and cats and I was bummed that I wouldn’t get to spend more time with you tonight. And just earlier today I was journaling that I’m starting to have CGW withdrawal . . .” Then I laughed out loud. “Uff da, you are SO right! I totally manifested it.”

Some people came back downstairs then, and a few of us sat around the kitchen table talking while others were getting ready for bed and such. We joked about my realization that I had manifested the accident myself because I wanted to spend more time here. For a bit “the guy” and I were the only ones at the table, sitting quietly together, and I started getting a little too into the mental of thinking through the Why of this particular manifestation. He saw it in my face and said, “don’t let it get too mental.” And I said, “yeah, well, it’s pretty obvious anyway.” I was there because that was where I wanted to be. The car accident had created a situation that basically made it a necessity for me to go in the house and hang out with CGW people a while longer, calming down in the good GCW energy.

People kind of came in and out of the table conversation a bit randomly. It was getting really late, and people were going to bed. So the guy walked me out to the Jeep and we said goodnight and had a quick, heartless hug (I hadn’t gotten that much energy back), and that was it.

More Manifesting

I got back to the RV about 2AM, and delayed my alarm an hour to get up at six instead of five, thinking I’d just have to cram everything a bit in the morning. That didn’t work out. Everything took too long, including the RV place and the cat place, and I missed my flight. But there was another one in two hours for $50 more, so I booked it and then sat down for a leisurely lunch with my book, which was exactly what I needed at that point. Good reason to miss my flight.

The End of “The Guy” Story

I have no idea where things were left with the guy, but I also know that there’s no chance I’ll see him again anytime soon anyway since he’ll be in LA while I’m in South Dakota. And there was just this slightly weird vibe at the end, almost like maybe he has a girlfriend back there or something. You wouldn’t have thought that given how he danced with me the night before, but sometimes dancing isn’t much of a representation of any kind of reality. Truth maybe, but not reality. And he had always been a bit careful not to let the flirting go too far, though I was being cautious about that too, so that could mean nothing. Weird. We all just spent three days together practicing openness and courage and truth, and here we were skating around a whiff of chemistry practically like high school kids.

Chuckle. All this manifestation and subjective reality stuff can really make your head spin.