Manley Pope's Journal

12:24am: So. I'm watchin' Joey on Kilborne last week, and yeah, you could say I was surprised by his little announcement. We've been spending time, a lot of it--mostly just boring stuff, playing on the beach, cooking lessons; I've gone to watch him do his Fame thing, he's been to the bar I play at sometimes. But it's been... reserved. Both of us holding back, I guess, going slow. A lot of talking, a lot of comfortable silences. He's brought Bree around a little, and hey, I'm not the best with kids, but she's a sweet little girl, and she likes coming here to make sandcastles. But still. The first thing I thought when I heard him say he was engaged was, wow, now I know the reason for the slow pace. I was pretty relieved to be wrong.

He came over, he explained, and it was... great. I think we're doing it right this time, we got lucky enough to get the opportunity to do it over, try to avoid those familiar mistakes, and I'm cautious, but happy. It's just a lot better than the last time; I pushed for it then, when I knew it was a bad time, everything was so fucked up, and then we just sort of stopped without dealing with anything.

Second chances. Even when you get 'em, it doesn't automatically mean it's gonna make anything better. But sometimes you get lucky. I'm starting to believe that this might be one of those times for me.

8:16pm: Well I'm no gourmet cook but I think I can come up with something.

Plans to get together with Joey the other night fell through-- who forgets the *Tony awards* but Fatone, I swear. So he's coming over here, we're gonna do a quiet little dinner and just hang out. It's still kinda weird--at least in my head, because we're sort of finally doin' all the casual stuff that's supposed to come before you get to the sweaty naked parts. But it's good. As long as I can get the damn barbecue going...

10:34pm: it's a test... it's only a test