Strange morning.

Last night, I had trouble getting to sleep.

I suppose it's a combination of things.

I went to a platonic male friend's place last night, one of the places that I couchsurf at during the week. We marathon TV shows, occasionally watch movies, eat a little too much sushi, and go grocery shopping. He's a cool guy, one of those quiet types that you wouldn't think much of upon meeting, but as things slip through his lips, those bits of dry humor and intelligence, you realize there's more there.

So, last night, we were watching a couple of episodes of season two of True Blood. As usual, my head was on his left thigh, standard position, with variations of if his arm is across my waist or not.

But he started rubbing my neck, unasked for.

And then, when I shifted to my stomach, he put his head in the curve of my lower back.

Now this, this for me is normal. If I have a platonic male friend, chances are that I've established my lack of interest in them through actions and words, and we reach a good balance where I am freely able to sit on them, crawl on them, cuddle with them, hug them, massage them, and nothing is thought of it.

But this one, this one I've yet to reach that level with because he's so reserved. Our physical contact is, at maximum, a quick hug hello and my head on this thigh, closer to his knee than his crotch.

So this touch, this touch goes out of our pattern. Surprisingly so. I never thought we'd reach that level.

And, because of that, I have not done my usual setting of walls. Of talking about my partners and my sex life and the men I date. He hears none of that. Much like with my Long Beach group, I keep myself as sexless as I can with this one.

I'd like to think he's getting more comfortable with me. I hope he is.

But with the recent trend of my platonic male friends starting to point in my direction with romantic/sexual interest, I worry. This would be the third in the last month.

I hate how this happens. I hate that this is happening. I used to be so good at managing my male friends, at letting them know that if I had wanted them, I would have taken them already. I don't wait. If I see that my interest is returned, I act.

I don't want this to get awkward. I don't want him to be doing this. I hate how my concert buddy is starting to get me little presents and wants to cook me a nice dinner, and how much I hope I reading him wrong. I hate how I have to constantly remind my clubbing friend, someone I like very much, that I am not interested in him and he needs to stop making sexual references in my direction.

So I crawled into my sleeping bag last night, on my marathoning-buddy's living room floor, and shifted, rolled, turned, trying to get comfortable, trying to do my usual cure-all for sleeplessness- daydreaming. It did not work.

Finally I slid into sleep.

My phone woke me early. I dressed quickly in his living room, clothes moving over skin, and left. Elevator in his building unhurried, and then out the front door, to the street filled with clouds and smoke from the fires, the sunlight this odd peachy-orange, turning everything slightly yellow.

I picked up coffee, noting the male in line behind me, a beautifully tattooed specimen of manhood. Out, across the parking lot, I walked, walking around cars with their bad drivers, feeling the wind that reaches out from the nearby beach.

I had Royksopp's The Understanding in my player, a compromise from last night as I discovered I had managed to hide The Church's Life Before Starfish from myself.

Track #10: Someone Like Me.

Remembering months ago, I was listening to this song, to this CD, being sent by work to the local college to pick up some Chinese, being rammed in an intersection on my way to class, on the chiropractor appointments, on the Rollins books, on meeting GV8, this was what I listened to.

No signifigance.

Just a division of time.