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So, now that my brain has broken...

Found the comment on the previous post:

A beautiful post written by a very special, one of a kind, Alli Kitten.

There is much to be said for saving the making of love, for that one special person.

I am very proud of you for the strength and resolve you have shown over the past months, by not falling back into old, self destructive behavior.
You grow by days every passing minute.
(I think I just penned a new quote)

I can also appreciate the honesty in your writing. Spent the better part of a day reading through it all. It comes so much from the heart.

I may just have to marry you one day soon.
With your approval of course...

This actually was GV8. This has been confirmed.

It's 320AM.

For my own need to go back to bed, I'm denying that this has happened.

Nope, not reality.

As a side note, I'm going to be in San Francisco all weekend+holiday for a co-worker's wedding. Won't be posting, but I'll be back.

Assuming my head doesn't explode from trying to mesh that comment with real life.

For those of you new to the blog, sometimes I go into great amounts of detail about my sex life. This is one of those times.

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The date on Saturday, as I said, was good. Slow building of physical contact. Brushing our shoulders together as we walked, the placement of his hand on my lower back for a brief moment to guide me, leaning slightly back into his body as we watched and whispered about the bit of fluff porn being shot in his studio.

After dinner, we went back to his loft in downtown.

Walked up the stairs to the second floor, his bedroom and library running half of the width of the building. Unlit candles lining the steps, obviously used many times before.

I dropped my bag on the couch in the library, dug out my skirt, nylons, and tights. Sat down and began to remove my shoes and socks, then stood and unfolded my little black skirt.

He had sat down in the armchair directly across from the couch.

"Mind averting your eyes for a minute?" I asked.

"I do," he said, watching me.

I raised an eyebrow at him in amusement, then shrugged. Undid my pants and let them fall to my feet. Stepped out of them, then sat back on the couch, placed toes in nylons and unrolled them up my legs, tights followed suit. Brushed my blouse back down over my hips, knowing it was revealing just the lower curve of my ass. Wasn't quite long enough to cover.

Stepped into my skirt and wriggled into it. Zipping it up the side, smoothing it down.

This was the moment. Instinct uncurls from the base of my spine and winds up my back: if I do not step forward now, I'll leave without physically connecting with him. And I do want that connect.

He later said I slinked forward, walking that ten foot distance between the two pieces of furniture, before placing my hand on his chest and settling onto his lap, my skirt riding up my thighs as I placed them on the outside of his while his hands slid from my waist to my ass, gripping.

Ran my hands from his chest to the back of his neck, whispering to him "Sorry, I just couldn't resist". Watching his smile grow just before we kissed.

Establish contact with tongue half a second before lip contact. That's the rule I follow without thought. Anything else seems childish and unnatural.

Lips closing on tongue, suckling, teeth biting lightly down and tugging on that lower lip. Tongue sliding on the outside of one lip, then the other, traveling down to neck with open-mouthed pull and wet tickling of earlobes while grinding hips in a light, erratic bucking rhythm. Rub the length of his torso with your face followed by your chest, back to lips, then slide down to his feet, nuzzle stomach and crotch, scrape the teeth down his jean-encased cock, warm breath through the fabric.

Yes, I know you. I know this poetry.

Relocate to the couch, more room to lean back.

But my teasing nature, my constant smart-mouth, lands me in trouble.

On purpose, of course.

He yanks me up, so fast. Turns me and traps my hands behind me in one move, strides across the open space shoving me in front of him and I'm face down, ass up over the side of his bed. Pulls my stockings and underwear down, tosses them behind him, pulls me up, discards my shirt onto the couch (skirt was discarded long before).

Back to the bed, naked. He's still fully clothed.

His hands leave my ass red, me yipping into the comforter with each blow. He bends down, still holding my hands behind me, licks me from hole to hole, so warm and wet, me moaning and trying to keep my feet from sliding on the slick hardwood floor.

He gets on the bed, pulls me all the way on, flips me onto my back and drags me against him, hitting my breasts until I'm whimpering, burying his fingers in me, curling deep until I free myself from his hold and unsuccessfully pull against his wrist to stop the overwhelming sensation.

He stops. Only to pull my thighs farther apart and start spanking me directly on my cunt. Such a weakness for me... I hate it and love it. Body starts jerking against his hand as I shout, then I'm squirting because the sensation is too much and my body loves it too much. I hear him groan his happiness as each smack causes more liquid to eject, spraying and splashing onto the bed, my thighs, his hand.

When he stops, I'm left panting and happy. He lets me curl up onto my side, and I lay there, face buried in his chest. I hear someone come down the stairs from the third floor, walk through the library area to the next set of stairs: the resident studio photographer. I would receive a text the next day letting me know that he thought I had a lovely ass.

We shift positions, I start dozing with my head on his chest. He's warm and comfortable. I've needed this affection and the physical relief of palms bruising my skin. Trail my fingers over his jean-caged erection, lay a kiss or two on his chest. Some time later, I bid him good night and drive home, with him telling me we'll get breakfast in the morning.

How odd. I don't spend the night, we don't sleep together, and he drives to me to take us out to breakfast on the beach the next day.

It was lovely, sitting in the sun, the beach to my left, ocean breeze running through my hair. Talking. Talking with that ease of familiar comfortability though we've never met.

I will admit some anxiety. It's always like this for me, when I meet someone I'm interested in. What makes it annoying is that I know with him having a vasectomy, there's no future I want there. But he makes me nervous anyhow.

He has access to my other, public blog. A year or so of entries spanning the end of Darkeye's and my relationship, into my winter of seeking sexual validation from men, spring of that continuing... and then the beginning of things with GV8, when it tapered off and life started to go... odd.

It worries me.

It shouldn't. But it does.

I was so very different. I was so young, so searching and desperate. I'm still searching, but that desperation is mostly gone. I'm still a little wavery on the confidence front, but I'm light years better than I was. Worried that he'll judge me on who I used to be. Worried that that information will turn him off.

But it shouldn't matter. It's not who I am now. And he's not someone I can "have".

It's the rejection. It's always the rejection at the heart of things, the insecurity that fuels it. It's times like these that leave me grasping at getting thought patterns under control. Times that I know I need to get a handle on it or I'm going to slide and lose what progress I have made.

Breathe.

Date with the porn director (henceforth known as PD because I have no imagination) was... incredibly good.

Instant comfortability.

Constant conversation, no awkward moments of silence. Complete easy flow.

There's actually a lot I want to write and things I want to remember, but I'm so goddamned tired (as always) that I don't want to write in this state.

We had fun. We had good chemistry. I met some of his coworkers, his ex-girlfriend (who I later looked up online and am now completely intimidated by), watched a -very- softcore lesbian porn being shot (by someone else renting the space). Wandered through downtown, just talking. Went back to his place, messed around a little bit, but he kept his pants on.

I totally didn't. Such a slut, I know. Stone me, already.

I didn't spend the night, though I wanted to. When I left, we made plans for breakfast, and he showed up at my place bright and early and we walked down to a restaurant on the beach, talked more.

I really like him.

But that doesn't matter. That's a no-go zone.

Makes me circle back around to my fear that since GV8 broke down my walls, I might not be able to have casual sex again without turning into one of those girls that falls in love with her casual partner.

I don't want to go through that again. Once with GV8 was enough.

Personally, I'm going to do my best not to dwell on it. Not until it proves to be a potential issue. As things are right now, we have two dates under our belt and scads of things could happen to prevent any future dates. I've seen it go that way before and, while disappointing, is just the way life can go.

I'll examine, watch, and be aware.

But I'm not going to live in fear. Not this way.

Moment of *squeak*

Well, it's currently official, pending interference by natural disasters.

Roman is coming out to stay with me for a few days in three weeks.

The one man in my life right now that I'd actually sleep with.

The one man in my life right now that I can actually talk to.

I'm torn between a *squeak* of happiness and a "what exactly is the universe planning that is going to prevent this from happening?" thought.

Because that happens to me a lot.

In other, less exciting news, tomorrow looks to be packed. Scattered errands and socialization in the morning and early afternoon, date in the late afternoon/early evening with the porn director, clubbing at night. Invited to a birthday dinner as well, but that's likely not going to happen.

Not really... wanting to go out on that date tomorrow.

It's one of those fruitless endeavors. It really is fairly useless. He's not anyone I would have a relationship with, nor can/will I sleep with him. Too risky. So it's just another social point of contact in yet another series of social leapfrogging because I don't let my social circles overlap.

Which is probably because of experiences I had in childhood/early teenage years of losing entire social groups due to drama, and always being the little bitch of the group (because I did not grow a set until after getting kicked out of college).

It's simply not socially safe to have a small number of social groups.

Things happen, people change, drama happens, groups age and then... cocooning. Watching some partner off into safe, happy, sexless relationships. Content. Not adventuring. Locked into their lives. Locked into their friends, their friends' friends, and those who float in, having little to no say over the whole group.

I never fully belong.

But, sometimes, that's a good thing.

So, another friend. Maybe someone I mildly mess around with. Another person to work into my too-busy schedule.

Useless.

I kinda don't even want to get to know him, as he's just going to wind up another guy that I hung out with once or maybe twice, then tapered off talking to because my plate is already too full. And then I feel bad, and pressured.

Heh, I'm kinda setting myself up for a miserable date, aren't I?

No time for a relationship, losing desire for casual sex.

Frightening to think that maybe, after what I experienced with GV8, that I may no longer be able to have casual sex. God knows that the only reason I'm able to consider sleeping with Roman is because I care for him so much. As much as you can when all you have is the voice on the other end of a telephone, knowing that things will go absolutely no where.

So am I there now? Stuck in that place where nothing is going to "work" except for emotions, that I'll start emotionally entangling myself with any man I end up sleeping with regularly?

Or is that just weakness, vulnerability, left over by GV8 stripping me so raw?

That, eventually, I'll get back to normal, to casual sex for the sake of casual sex?

Maybe. I suppose time will tell.

Kinda of odd, being so emotionally vulnerable on a sexual level. That's so new, something I can hardly remember. When I started banging the nights away, I was doing so out of self-destruction, more focused on myself than the person I was sleeping with, using them to hurt my basic value system instilled in me by my parents. So the man didn't really matter, and I was aiming, purposefully, so low quality, that one-night stands were expected. It wasn't until I was 17-18 that I started having regular partners.

Aside from the first person I slept with, I never had that real chance or inclination to bond with my partners. And even that first person, while I thought myself in love with him, the sex did nothing to bring us closer together, though I enjoyed it. It wasn't needed, no bonds were strengthened.

Then GV8 flips things around on me. Shows me what emotional sex can be like.

Never thought I'd learn that.

Never thought I'd be one of those people that say making love is better than fucking.

Another check-mark in the column of "craziness".

And I'm sitting here going "eh, whatever" staring off into the space that is filled with laptop+lamp+empty glass+vertical blinds.

Hit a point of irritation today.

Which is making me start to realize that I'm withdrawing into myself. I'm hermiting.

I'm in this odd area that makes me not want to partner up, but rather just hang out in my brain. Which is new. Ish. I mean, in the past, even if I was dead-set against getting into a relationship, I'd still be actively hunting for a regular bed partner to help keep my lusts in check.

Right now, I'm in a new zone of not wanting a relationship and not caring if I'm getting laid. Mostly want to be left alone. Feeling frustrated. Feeling annoyed. Don't really want to talk.

Part of it is likely because I'm going out so much.

It really is a nearly every night thing.

And it's my own fault for keeping my social groups spread out so much, never linking up.

I have to plan it: I'm going to be in this part of the city for this thing and that person and that other person live in this chunk and I haven't seen the latter in longer than the former so I will schedule them in between this thing and this other thing and then maybe I'll go home, blog, return emails, shower, ride the bike, cook lunch for tomorrow, and pass the hell out. And while I'm commuting between these places, I've got to call another person and maybe a couple more other people to set plans and connect.

So, Monday, I cancelled plans, and today I just forcibly stopped plans from being made. Catch up on things around the apartment. Laundry. Dinner. Cleaning. Going to bed by midnight.

That last one is important.

I could only imagine what having kids must be like. Good-bye sanity.

And there goes the phone...

Well, it's not quite eleven yet. That's progress, I suppose.

I feel like I'm drawing more and more inside myself.

Not sure what is causing it, but I feel less like sharing and more like basking in my own mind.

Maybe it's a lack of puzzles to work out, or maybe it's me just mellowing out, getting into the groove.

It's likely my busy, busy life that leads me wasted at the end of each day, trying to keep up. It's a race that never ends, really.

My thighs are twitching lightly, each heart-beat a spasm, warm, fresh from biking.

The bar patrons across the street have their voices funneled up the alley and into my bedroom window.

Roman might be coming out to visit sometime this summer. Just for a few days.

Trying to suppress my excitement, trying to remember that six dozen things can happen between then and now, and my fantasies, even ones as simple as a visit, never actually happen.

Trying to suppress my drive to do. Get it done, move it along.

Just lay back and be mellow. Picture myself floating on my back in a pool, drifting aimlessly, enjoying the heat of the sun and the wind across my skin, the smooth silk blanket of water flowing against me.

What happens is what happens.

In the meantime, we keep on trucking.

Talking less and less to people. Learning more about the superficial conversation, learning more how to keep what I'm thinking inside.

I suppose that means I'll lose part of my charm. Mutual self-disclosure is such an effective bonding tool.

But there are other ways to connect, other ways to be.

Twenty-six and sometimes I feel like an old woman sitting in a rocking chair on a porch, hours in thought, not a word spoken.

I wonder if I'm just losing that urge to share, to validate myself by sharing my thoughts with others. If that's what that is. I'm not sure. That whole... lack of self-definition I have, maybe my constant need to share, to discuss, is to have others... sort of define me? Not really give me terms, but acknowledge my existence, my thoughts, to a point of making me real and part of a "community", even if that community is as common as humanity is.

I've never really felt part of it. Humanity.

Always sort of drifting on the outskirts, using words as connectors. Trying to bridge that alien feeling.

So, perhaps, this lack of needing to share so much, so often, is a sign that I'm getting more comfortable with being me, and being on the outskirts, trying less to bond with others and spending more time just enjoying myself, my mind.

Interesting.

The things that you say that you do...

It's been a bit.

I know, I know. Six different kinds of fail. It's not like things haven't been happening, my life has suddenly grown dull. No, things are still chugging along, life is still odd, observations running full tilt, like they do. Still spending most of my time off in my head, watching the world.

It actually hasn't been that long. It only feels like it, I think, because of all the things I've been getting up to.

Kinda hard to cover them all. The experiences stack up and I only have short periods of time to allot to attend to them.

Family- my sister's exboyfriend phoned her with a suicide threat. After his mom called the cops, he admitted he only did it so they would get back together. Reminded me of the boyfriend I had when I was 17-18. He used to threaten suicide all the time, run off into the night saying he was going to throw himself into the nearest large intersection, but actually hide in the bushes. He was... 27, I think. A year older than I am now. Funny how then it seemed normal, and now it seems like crass idiocy.

Date- I have a date this weekend. No, not a serious one. Just a "get to know you" date. A "maybe we'll connect" date. Which I normally would've said no to, but when a man in his early forties with a shaved head who directs porn and owns a large loft/studio/warehouse/dungeon in downtown asks you out after you break up with a man in his early forties with a shaved head who has porn filmed in his large loft/studio/dungeon/adult club in Hollywood, you say yes.

Because I couldn't say no.

Because it's too goddamned silly.

And it cracks me up, in a way, because I am nowhere near as hot as the girls these guys see every day are, yet I'm the girl they ask out.

Win for me?

Work- training my assistant is... interesting. I'm trying out a new way to train and my boss wants me to document it so it can be implemented for future hires... assuming it's successful. The assistant himself is a total, total omega. At least in the way I view them, which may or may not be accurate to public opinion. He makes betas look alpha. It hurts. I want to take him to the kennel and teach him how to use newspaper instead of just making a mess everywhere when he "potties". He's a nice guy just... yeah.

Been talking with Roman a lot.

He's been going through some life upheavals.

It's... odd. I feel so connected to this man. Not necessarily in a romantic sense, but just, we get each other. We get each other in that basic way. So much so that we can actually talk to each other. About anything. Well, anything for me. He's still a bit hesitant. Doesn't matter. That driving urge for understanding I have so deep in me, that haunts me so much, he meets it.

Unusual.

He talks to me and I mellow out. My anxiety, my stresses, they leave my system and I feel like I can breathe again.

Hard to imagine I won't have his constant companionship soon.

But that's the way life goes.

I have a picture of my mother on her wedding day on my desk. She's holding her bouquet, smiling so widely, her dress pooling out around her. I have her smile.

I think she was twenty-three when she married my dad.

That's the way life went.

Twenty-three and so in love, so young, so inexperienced. They've been married over twenty-five years and the things they have gone through together are things that none of them had any inkling of when they met, when they married. My father danced at the wedding reception with his older sister, tall and blonde. Didn't know that a few decades later they'd find her body in the garage, a bullet in her brain.

Things move on. We just keep stringing ourselves through time, linked by experiences.

In a few years, I'll have lost friends to life, and I'll have gained new ones. I'll have dated and slept with men that I have yet to meet. Another broken heart, another experience to scribble about here, half-mad with exhaustion. Sweep me off my feet, then set me back on my heels.

There are people we connect with that we can't imagine not being there, in some capacity, for the rest of our conscious existence. Our parents are there from the moment we're born (usually) onward, our world is defined with them as part of it.

When they die, when they leave, what happens to our world? That role they filled can't be occupied by another.

To someone, somewhere, we truly are unique snowflakes. Common, but unmatched.

He asked me why I am so fascinated with him.

Am I supposed to say that every tone in his voice, I hear? Each word, each inflection, the shift in his moods comforts me. It's warm. It's like hearing every fantasy I've ever had come to life in a rough reality.

But it doesn't matter.

There are things that are real, things that will not be real. It doesn't matter how good you are, how true, how brave, there are things that will not be changed. It's not that they cannot be changed, but there are paths and dreams to follow, and friends wish you well, a smile, a hug, and hope that things work out to your fondest hopes.

Because they're nothing more to do.

And that's the way it goes.

To attempt to change it would be selfish, to demand more would be obscene.

I'll settle for what I have, keep ticking out these words, writing alone in my apartment, listening to the water run through the pipes and the traffic speed through the streets.

In the morning, I'll wake up, stretch, and keep living.

First, I've gotta say, this guy's writing continues to impress me. I mean, really, this post was gold. Swoon.

My head has been all over the place the last few days.

And being unable to write for part of those days... I've kinda retreated.

I've been noticing that more and more lately, after one of my friends told me that I shouldn't lay everything out on the table for people in the belief that mysterious girls have better game.

Of course, that friend was the one that hid from me the fact that he had a kid.

So that bit of advice must be taken with a grain of salt and a margarita. Or two.

But I have been withdrawing. I haven't been communicating as much. The only man that I talk to regularly on a personal level without holding back is Roman. But that's because he's him and I'm me. It works. It works now. In a few months, shrug, that's the way life goes.

What am I supposed to say, really?

The Bassist came over on Tuesday to fix my laptop. I was perfectly good. Angelically good. Sexual situations were diffused with quick adjustments, physical distance was kept, jokes were not made.

Then C came over.

My behavior changed rapidly, sexuality coming to the forefront.

I believe it was a combination of her expectations of me and me knowing that I couldn't "accidentally" (*cough*rationalize*cough*) do anything with her there.

The former, though, is why I keep my social groups separate like I do. Everyone has a different image of me, of who I am, of what I'm like. I can't play the roles everyone has for me at one time. It doesn't work, which makes two major things happen: personality discontinuity and loss of trust.

Not trust as in "I trust you with this secret" or somesuch nonsense, but trust as in "I trust, innately, that how you've presented yourself is who you are and the behavior patterns you've shown me will continue on in logical paths set forth by what I've observed of you". The kind of trust that we don't really think about.

We trust authors to make sense. We trust that, midway through a book, they won't suddenly change genres from romance to sci-fi. Aliens will not suddenly descend. Writing style will stay the same or if there are any changes, they will make sense in context of the book.

Otherwise we put it down.

It's not like I'm acting. It's more that certain people are comfortable with certain things and I need to stay within those boundaries. I'm more than a 2D character. I can suppress my sexuality and become "the Friend", "the Ear", "the Guru" or "the Shoulder" without thought. Or I can play "the Wild One", "the Aggressor", "the Sub", or "the Sex Queen". With all the various tweaks those come with.

With C, I tend to roll "Sex Queen". With the Bassist, I try to keep myself in "Friend".

So when he's sitting at my desk working on my comp and she's lounging in my bed talking about my oral skills to me... there's a bit of conflict.

Also of note, I realized that a good deal of C's affected social apathy (that stems from anxiety/awkwardness) is alleviated when she's able to put herself, mentally, in a superior position. And she considers herself in a superior position to The Bassist when it comes to my friendship and my apartment. It was interesting to watch her shift like that.

Anyway, that's enough notes. I still feel like I'm burrowed deep inside my head, thinking and planning, but hiding it from myself. Something is going on in my brain and it doesn't want to be known... and since it's midnight, I'm going to put this "thinking" stuff to an end and enjoy this "sleeping" activity.

One computer is up and running.

It required reformatting my hard drive, but everything that really needed to be salvaged was salvaged.

Final paper has been turned in, the additional papers required will follow suit tomorrow.

Spent about an hour or so earlier taking in a dress I like, but is now too large on me. I forget how easy it is to adjust clothes, sometimes. I've been putting it off for months, but now it's good to go for a club I'm hitting this weekend.

Speaking of, I'm quite... well, not happy, but a shade lower than happy. Finally got guest-listed for this club, the biggest club in the scene right now. One of my exes, Darkeyes, this is his favorite club. He's been going for, oh, maybe two or three years. I can't remember when I introduced him to it. And I'm finally on the guest-list. I disappear for nearly a year from that club, come back, and I'm sailing past him. He'll never know, probably, but it gives me a warm fuzzy.

And since we're on the topic of warm fuzzies and men...

A different club, last weekend. A man was there who I had made friends with, who was very flattering, decent looking, a good dresser. A bit of a beta bitch, but I wasn't expecting more. That was December.

Anyway, back in December, he flaked on me.

It wouldn't have been anything major. I would've just shrugged and written him off.

But it happened that he flaked on me the very first time I was stepping away from my family since the incident with my father. It was my escape into fantasy land where everything that had happened in the past two weeks didn't exist and I was just going to go to a club with this guy and lose myself on the dance floor.

I got all ready to go and, at something like 840PM (when he was supposed to be picking me up at 9), he calls and says he can't make it, something came up.

Normally, by the by, I don't let other people drive me to the clubs. Nor do I drive other people. I don't like having my location in control or influenced by other people. The only reason I was letting him pick me up and drive us to the club was because I was so stressed and exhausted I didn't want to do it.

I was not quite devastated. But with the weeks I had just gone through, and the subsequent guilt trip that my father tried to lay on me for going out... I was pretty damn crushed.

But I forced myself out anyway. I drove, exhausted, to the club. I danced, I talked, I flirted.

And I saw my flakey date for the evening.

Oh, he was there.

It's just that one of his friends needed a ride as well.

So he gave him my seat.

Instead of simply telling me this, he lied to me.

Didn't really talk to him much after that, though he tried.

We roll around to this last Saturday.

I'm introduced to some guy I hadn't spoken with before, but had seen around, knew who he was. We're out on the smoking patio, talking about Buddhist enlightenment or some such. The December Douchebag rolls up to us to join in the conversation.

And being, well, not well-versed in club etiquette, he does what some people do when they've been going to clubs for a little and need to validate themselves as "clubbier-than-thou".

He starts criticizing the DJ. Starts talking about the song choice and how she spins and generally being "oooh, I know what I'm talking about because I'm scene."

Throughout the course of the evening, this happened a couple more times. I'd be talking to the new guy on the patio, the Douchebag would come up, insert himself, fail to insert, so start in on how scene he was by DJ-bashing.

Just think: if he hadn't pissed me off so badly in December, I would have told him that the man he kept talking to negatively about the DJ and the music was the DJ's boyfriend of several years, and was also a DJ himself.

Whoops.

We are now experiencing technical difficulties...

Both of my computers are dead, it seems.

Work is incredibly busy and I start training my assistant today, which means posting or even replying to comments this week is very unlikely.

The Bassist is coming over tonight to put his tech skills to use, so maybe, just maybe one of them will be functional again.

If not, I'm going to have to go shopping this weekend and posting and such will be erratic until then.

I'm not overly pleased at the moment.

I am... well, I think I am, hitting that point.

That point where you're squirming in your chair going, "Oh god, I need to get laid."

And it's this battle between my body wanting it and my brain saying, "Nope, that's not the best idea."

In two weeks, I'll be hitting that three month mark. Three months for me is, well, might as well be a year or two. Especially after GV8. That man was ungodly good in bed, and we had ridiculous amounts of sex.

I got used to it. I got used to having a fantastic lover who, even after months of dating, still got me hot and bothered, still got me dragging him into bed to jump his bones whenever possible.

And now I've got this apartment to myself. I've got a metal canopy bed with a good number of tie-down spots. I've got toys, a large bottle of grapeseed oil, candles (not that most guys care about that, but I love the lighting), and... and... fuck. I mean, I can host. I can actually say, "Let's go back to my place" and not worry about roommates, not worry about what's going on, not sneaking them into my bedroom when I lived at home, timing when my parents would be out (though it's been years since I've had to do that).

I've got my own place with my own rules and I'm not using it.

It makes me whimper. Totally does.

I didn't realize I was having this issue so strongly until, last night, at the club, I found myself eyeing my club friend (the one that I keep having to turn down, the one I had to smack down a little bit ago at a party for him thinking he could socially pressure me into kissing him) going, "Hm... I could just crawl on top of him, go to town... he's got that reputation... could probably teach me a thing or three in the BDSM realm... mmm... skin and tongue..." and that shifted to "Whoa, holy fuck, no."

I don't find him desirable. I've never found him desirable.

This, this isn't good. And it's annoying.

Last night was interesting, though. Hit the club. Pulled into my usual parking spot, went inside after pleading with the door guy (wasn't much of a plead, really) to let me in without the person who was guestlisting me, so I could dance to a song that was on. And he did.

Lots of new people out. Some drama, though none of it involved me, which is normal. An acquaintance got shitfaced and started falling over, sobbing, laughing, getting pissy. Drama, drama, drama. Turned into a mid-sized ordeal.

On an amusing note, I happened to catch, while I was dancing, a blond man pointing gesturing at me to the head of security at the club. Figured the security guy would tell me if it was important, later, so I dismissed it.

About thirty minutes down the line, I'm out on the smoking patio, and Mr. Security comes up and says, "Hey, you know that blond guy..." describes him to me, "Have you ever talked to him?" Negatory. "Well, he pulled me aside and said, 'You! Study how she dances! Study how she moves! Watch her!"

"Okay..."

"And last week he was out and started talking about the bar-tender to me, about how..." insert x, y, and z pervy acts. This guy, not the most socially competent of men. I always get those men. I am a magnet for socially incompetent, as we have discussed.

So that was amusing. But, what was the killer for me was, oh, an hour or two down the line, I go to step on the dancefloor, which was fairly packed, and I realize that the empty spot I found is next to this guy.

Who looks at me.

Who leers at me and grins.

Who takes a step forward and puts his arms up towards me.

My mind went, "Eep!"

See, if you knew me at the clubs, you'd likely know that I've got years of experience moving away from groping men, physically aggressive men, and simply poor dancers without looking like I'm avoiding them. Without looking like I'm fleeing away in annoyance (or terror, if they're really bad dancers). Calm, cool, I can go across a whole dancefloor to avoid someone and make it look completely natural.

So this guy, this guy comes at me. No subtly. The dancefloor is packed. This guy, this guy is going to come up to me and either grab me or start talking my ear off with drunken compliments and poor flirting. And quickly.

I bolted. I bee-lined it across the back half of the dance floor and sequestered myself behind a guy I had met earlier in the evening. On the way, I nearly walked into someone, tripped a little. I don't do that. If anyone I knew had seen me, they would've been so confused. And once I explained, they would've laughed their asses off.

There were some random other events that happened, little things. A weird guy I've been seeing around for the last several months interrupted a conversation I was having to tell me that I was a beautiful dancer, a beautiful lady, and he should know, he's been married for twenty-six years.

And I still cannot figure out what the last thing had to do with the first two things.

I have an urge to put a comment here about being "too pretty" and something about my fashion accessories, but only one person would get it. So I won't.

Oh, and the head of security tried to make out with me at the end of the evening.

Except he's married. He's very married. And it was awkward. It was, "Oh god, how do I do this so I don't offend or embarrass him, yet still get him away from my face?"

I managed. But it left me a little... sad. He's been a decent friend for a couple years. We always flirt and cuddle, but he flirts and cuddles with most of the female regulars. He's really good at banter, lots of fun to talk to, and he's a good head of security. I do really like him.

Drove home. Woke up to a text from Roman telling me about his evening spent under the haze of hallucinogens. Or whatever they are. I don't know my drugs. I don't care to know them, really.

Went to my stylist who is finally back in town. Got my roots done. Oh, so done. So freaking done. I can't stand having that blonde there. Now I'm back to my black with my red-tinted tips and very much like a happy clam.

One of her other customers told her I looked like Snow White, while I was at one of the mirrors, finishing up my hair. I can only hope that I am able to maintain this level of paleness this summer.

And I finished my final paper. Whoo! I can have a life again. I was thinking of getting in touch with a guy I went out with earlier this year, hang out some, fool around some, now that I have a little more time, but I'm debating my actual motivation.

Oh, and I took my mom to Hollywood Forever Cemetary on Saturday. You know, usual mother-daughter bonding stuff. Visited the grave sites of my great-great grandparents.

And, of course, I was chased by geese.

It's a talent of mine.

Really.

If there are geese, they will chase me.

I don't understand it. I will possibly never understand it. I believe my uncle, later that day, was suggesting that I go see an exorcist.

Aside from the avian-induced terror, my mother and I had a great time trying to sneak around a building. We were tip-toeing, leaning around the corner like we were in a Scooby Doo episode, looking for the geese. Not that they chase my mom. But if they saw my mom, they'd see me, and then it'd be all over. It was kinda perfect, actually. We were on the outside of a large masoleum with marble steps that went around the entire building, so when we peered around the corner, we were at two different heights, really, just like Scooby Doo.

Of course, we got a few further steps in and one of the geese spotted me and I shouted, "It's comin' right for us!!" and we ran.

I took her by Aroma Cafe on Sunset (my favorite breakfast and lunch spot in Hollywood), Amoeba (she had never been, but was very excited about picking up two Franz Ferdinand CDs that she didn't have), Cafe Was (speak-easyish, decent food, wonderful atmosphere), the Arclight with the Dome (so nice), the Cat and Fiddle (we had onion rings and people-watched), the roof of the parking lot of the ArcLight (amazing view... and I've made out with a few too many men up there), and Musso and Frank's (oldest restaurant in Hollywood).

Afterwards, we drove up to my uncle's house in Hollywood Hills. He and his two boyfriends cooked us dinner. I hadn't met the more recent one... was rather flamingly fabulous, but nice. My mom thinks he's the cat's pajamas. We sat out on their balcony and I watched the four of them get silly on wine, enjoying the evening before the sun set.

It was a good day.

And since I have to be at work tomorrow at 630 or so, I'm going to get to it.

It being "sleep". Like I do.

One, two, three, branch.

I... had a minor blow-out with a friend today.

This doesn't happen often.

It should bother me more than it does, I think. I'm likely just so... tenuously balanced. I know I'm leaning on Roman too much for sanity. We talk, pretty much, off and on all day. It's not going to go anywhere, I've accepted this. And I do know that, without his companionship, I'd likely be much worse off than I am now.

He's this very distant male-focus point.

So when I got into it with another friend, I found myself texting Roman for sanity.

This whole situation is a bit awkward, with my friend.

I've known this guy for coming up on two years. We've never met, though we live, vaguely, in the same city. Just an internet friend turned phone-friend. He was there for me with things with Darkeyes left me so raw, was there to soothe me and make me smile when anxiety was running at all-time highs. I had a crush on him for a long while, and we would flirt. I'd get my hopes up that he'd ever have time for me and, of course, he never did.

He's amazing at dodging and deflecting questions, derailing entire conversations. I never learned much about him, and for those of you who know me well, one of my more annoying and persistent personality traits is to interrogate everyone within an inch of their life so I can figure out how things work.

Questioning this guy, learning anything about him, was like trying to crack open a slab of marble with a throw pillow.

So I eased off. I try not to press boundaries.

A year later, I find out that he was seriously seeing someone while we were flirting and I was being naively hopeful and weak.

He never told me. He never mentioned it. I, I was flirting with intent with someone who was taken. That, to me, is one of the most awful things I can do. That violates so many of my rules concerning sex and relationships that it makes me feel seriously sick at heart, even though I'm quite well aware that I had no way of really knowing, and it was not my responsibility to be so suspicious to obtain such information.

...I think that, that was the last time I got seriously swoony over someone. I never wanted to be in that position again, with that imbalance of interest. I lost faith. I lost faith in my ability to judge a person's character, I lost faith in the idea that the average male could stay loyal, and I lost faith in my desirability.

Not once did I blame him.

I should have. It was an easy thing to see, to break down. A guy dates/flirts with a few women at once. One becomes serious, but just in case that one doesn't pan out, you've still got a couple on the back burner.

He never made time for me, his phone calls were erratic, and I was trying to recover from the blow that Darkeyes inflicted. All of these are simply excuses. They're accurate excuses, but excuses nonetheless.

So I let it slide.

And when it was brought in front of me, after they had gone their separate ways, I felt guilty, embarrassed, foolish, inexperienced, and used.

But I kept him as a friend. He wasn't anyone I would want to date, after that.

Aside from the flakiness, he was a good friend when we talked. Phone calls continued to be erratic, but I let that go. Saying he'd call in a certain amount of time, only to hear from him two or three days later, if at all. Saying he'd email, but never did. I just kept letting it go.

You know what that shows? Disrespect by him for me, and me accepting it, which confirms his disrespect as accurate. Rewarding poor behavior patterns, reinforcing an imbalanced friendship.

Roll around to today, where I mention that I'm aware that he omits things. This was spawned due to a statement he made where he told me he never lied to me.

This may or may not be true.

But he omits, and I finally called him on it.

Which led to a discussion where, eventually, he told me a piece of information that I, I should have known early on in our friendship just because it's a very life-impacting thing.

He's got a kid.

His defense was that other girls reacted poorly.

I might be very standard in some respects, but I do know that I am leaps and bounds away from sharing tendencies and values with "other girls".

As an amusing side note, I find men with children more attractive than those who have not reproduced. Some girls find men in relationships more attractive because it shows they are desirable, I find men with kids more attractive because it shows they're fertile, and that's very hot to me.

I'm an odd duck, I know, I know. Move along.

At learning this, I was... well, not enraged. Irritated and disappointed. A shade below pissy.

Having a child is a major thing, especially if you've got split custody, which it sounds like he does. They impact your life and behavior in so many ways, not to mention your free time. They show who you are as a person, the way you handle them illustrates your values, controls your schedule.

I found myself feeling, once more, like an idiot.

Like someone just slid another thing under my radar. Like all my powers of observation were reduced to a pile of youthful inexperience.

And that it wasn't the first time he had done it.

Tried to express that, when all two people do is communicate by phone, the value of the exchange lies in the truth of the information being presented. You take away that truth, you warp it and twist it, the conversation loses value, and if the friendship is based solely on conversation, the friendship loses value.

Tried to point out that, earlier in the conversation, he said he didn't lie to me because he didn't want to do that to our friendship, but he was more than willing to rationalize major omissions as perfectly fine and expected.

He says he feels protective of me, but I'm starting to feel like a pet.

And not the awesome kind of pet scenario where you're sleeping in a doggy bed at their feet and crouching under the kitchen table in the morning while they feed you scraps while you give them head.

No.

Just the social imbalance that occurs when one person does not disclose, so bonding becomes imbalanced because the power structure in the relationship is not equal. One person becomes the mentor, one the student.

But, like in so many cases, if information was equally disclosed by both parties, the friendship would have been equalized without having the mentor on some lonely summit dispensing kernels of wisdom to his devoted sect.

It was easy, listening to him, looking up to him, going to him when I was upset. He was the big, strong male with his life together and his head together.

By the end of the conversation, he was telling me "do as I say, not as I do" while I was quoting Braddock's version of "don't take advice from anyone who isn't living the life you want to live".

That was a quick tumble. I didn't even see it coming.

After he told me "Suit yourself" I didn't respond.

What was I supposed to do? Continuing arguing with him? We're not going to agree on this, and I highly doubt he'll fold.

I value honesty so highly. Not some twisted version of honesty where you're trying to manage information flow, control your output, but total honesty. Which is what you all get to see here on a somewhat regular basis. It's not always comfortable, but truth isn't always comfortable, especially when it's revealing so much weakness.

How could I take advice from a man that I could never trust to be honest with me? He says he wants me to learn from his mistakes, but he doesn't seem any happier for where he is now. What little I know of his lifestyle, his intense need for privacy, it's not a goal of mine.

How would I ever know what he is telling me is true, and not just him trying to achieve some sort of random goal, like those moms do with the five year old beauty queen champions? Those parents that push their kids into soccer practice, karate, french lessons, ballet, tap dancing, and honors programs.

Conversation is wasted when words become of questionable value.

Honesty is the currency.


First twenty-three seconds.

Something's got to stop the flow.

I keep feeling oddly lost.

Well, I've always been lost. It's just that I'm usually able to focus on something long enough for that feeling to fade.

Rick was right. Get me away from a male partner, whether casual or not, and... where am I? I don't know what do with myself or my time, and I panic, thinking that I need to get things done now or I never will.

That sense of aimlessness keeps claiming me, making me irritable, driving home the point that I've never been able to define myself or my goals. Or, rather, I've never been willing to articulate those goals because I "know" somehow that the minute I tell another person, those goals will be made impossible. Something always happens, it seems.

But, really, what can I do? Take some sort of quiz to tell me my life path? Find religion? My religion has been, for so long, a man in my bed, under my mouth and in my body. But that only lasts so long. We fade, people change. I wind up with a false idol.

Figures I'd be having one of those stereotypical quarter-life crises.

No matter what I do, no matter what I accomplish, I'm always going to make it less than it was, discount it, until I feel truly good about myself, overall. Rick says that I'm a good person, that that should be good enough, that that is all I need. I try to remind myself of that, and it's... an interesting mindset.

But it's hard to hold onto because "good" is so very relative.

Lately I've been feeling that everything I've been pushing for is just to make myself more ideal, more desirable, for a partner. It's always that way, I suppose. It's hard to shove aside what we're told we should be to be the best we can to what we want to be to be the best we are.

If that makes sense. There's a bit of duplications of words in that last sentence, but I think it reads right. Maybe.

I keep getting advice, which is what I want, to find out what it is that I should be doing. Who I should be becoming. Trying to figure out how people see me. Knowing that I have friends, so many friends, and trying to determine why they value me. Not to justify or rationalize their friendship, but just to understand how it works, what people perceive. If I communicate myself effectively.

GV8 kept telling me to relax, let go, stop analyzing everything in my path.

It's so hard to get into any one moment if my body isn't being overwhelmed by another's, or if there isn't a story being told to me in some fashion. Books, movies, blogs. Clinging to those distractions.

Wondering what I could do, where I would go (mentally) if left to my own devices, without responsibilities piling in, without my cell phone, without the internet.

If I'd ever figure this out.

Rough day.

Doesn't help that I'm spending my evenings up and wandering, not getting enough sleep.

Have to push myself into the ground, of course. It's what I do, what I've always done. Push and push until you crash, recover, then do it again.

Didn't have a nightmare about GV8 last night. That was... good. Unexpected. It's so hard to play out the different versions of the same thing, watching echoes of past relationships creep up on me, consolidate into the last ex.

In the dreams, I'm nothing to him.

In the dreams, I'm less than a stranger. I'm "someone he knew, once". Someone he thought he loved. Someone that was worth his love and attention. And then he looks at me in the dream and realizes that I was nothing. An infatuation, a symptom of foolishness. Not worth the most basic of human caring.

Back to those fears again.

Always devaluing myself. Always doubting. Always taking my value from the man who I spend time with, the man who I do my best to please.

It's better now than it was.

Still not 100%.

And it's hard to untangle the strings of actual lust from the strings of internal motivators stemming from other sources.

I have one man right now that I would willingly take to my bed, with near total confidence I would do so out of caring and connection. Being a couple thousand miles apart, though, means my bed is going to be empty for some time.

I'm coming up on my first cut-off. I said no new partners until a week after GV8's and my anniversary. Next Monday. I thought, by then, that there could be a chance that I'd be okay enough to start engaging again.

But I was wrong, and I'm having to move it to the next cut-off. August 1st.

I don't think I've ever gone so long without sex since I was 16 or so.

But, what? Do I really want to just trip up again? Find some "special" guy when I'm not ready for it, have to start again when it falls apart a year or two from now, when I'm 28 and I'm still at the same spot I was before? That I've been at so many times? How foolish that I keep turning to immediate pleasure, knowing the outcome.

So much easier than dealing with what I am now: tension. Anger. Grumpiness. Anxiety. Mood swings. Barely controlling myself from snapping at those around me.

I caught myself on film today. It was unexpected. I went to Lucha Va Voom's Cinco de Mayo show at The Mayan in downtown. A man with a video camera walked down the line, recording people waiting for the doors to open. I was on the phone with a friend, walking away from the line so I could hear. The timing was perfect. I walked about thirty feet in front of the camera, just for a second or two. They played the whole video just before the show.

I haven't seen myself move in years.

Yes, there are mirrors at the club, but I don't really look at them and, honestly, I'm dancing. It's a given that I'm going appear somewhere between decent and very good.

But I got to watch my walk. Something that I've been working on and adjusting, something that gets commented on and draws attention fairly often. Controlled, centered, internal. Rollingly smooth. The hipsway my family teases me about, saying I move like my cat.

It was surprising. I knew I moved differently, but I didn't realize how noticeable it was. Good to know that my body-awareness is paying off.

The show was good, the dancers, the performers, and, of course, the luchadore. For all three matches, each set of wrestlers were "thrown" out of the ring and into the chairs in front of me, people dashing out of the way, spilling drinks, the girls buzzed and shrieking.

I walked to my car afterwards, bidding C and friends good-bye for the evening. They were wandering off to find food, but I wasn't looking to spend money on things I already had at home. The freeway was smooth and empty, I slid into an easy 80, sometimes 90, letting my wheels take me home. My left-handed driving is getting better, though the awkwardness of using the turn signal is cropping up. Less and less I need to bring my right hand into play to make sure I get those extra-tight curves. I think that, within a month at most, I'll be driving just as smooth with my left as I do with my right.

It's a bit of a reality check for me. Making myself face the likelihood that I'll eventually lose all fine motor control in my right hand. Not anytime soon, but probably in the next ten to twenty years, depending on lifestyle choices. If I learn to do more things with my left, that time will extend, which I am aiming for.

But it's 1AM and my neighbors are slowly staggering home. I hear the laughter in the hallway and that's my cue to get myself unconscious.

Another night, another nightmare about GV8.

It's like my brain is giving me a high-five of suck.

I keep wanting to text or email him, see if he's just as bad off as I am. Connect.

But it's just hope disguising itself.

Gotta keep my head down and get through the day.

Gotta ignore my gut.

Another night where I am... not writing my final paper.

You know what's going to happen? I'm going to spend all Saturday running around with my mom in Hollywood, then go to a club, which will likely be followed by going to some sort of all-night dining establishment that will round us into 5AM departure, in bed around 6AM, up at 1130AM to dash up the freeway to my stylist to (finally) get my roots done (I've an inch of blonde coming out of my skull. AN INCH.), and then I will plop my sore body down at some coffee shop and hammer out the paper in a five hour sitting, complete with rainbow highlighter markings all over my hands.

I just can't get myself to do it in pieces. And I keep flopping around what I want to write on.

It's... been a year. As of last night/this morning, a year.

A lot has happened in a year. A year with him, parts of it without him.

Ending without him.

Trying to remember what life was like then, before we met.

I had just started couchsurfing. I was still recovering from the terror that Darkeyes had instilled in me, terror of life, terror of control. This blog was a few months in the making. I had just been in that car accident that ensured me that I was my father's daughter, that my hands on a steering wheel are everything I will ever need.

I had no idea what would happen, what the coming twelve months would bring.

That I would learn to love, to love whole-heartedly. That I would actually meet a man I could trust and respect. That those things were the things I was missing. I'd learn how to blindly leap into someone's arms... and how to recover when I impacted the earth.

I made new friends, did things I never thought I would do. I grew, grew so quickly.

Yesterday I went to Disneyland. It was a large social event for a group of us.

The last time I was there, it was December. I was with GV8. We ate at the Blue Bayou, the restaurant inside Pirates of the Caribbean. We took pictures beside the tree in the Grand Californian, laughed and explored.

Roman called when I was physically on the Pirates of the Caribbean. I had just passed the restaurant, felt my stomach clench and the drive towards my redeeming sexual contact, that need to center me.

It's what I do.

I talked with him until we were plunged past cellphone reception, warned that dead men tell no tales.

All day I was with varying friends, catching up with people I had not seen in months, sometimes a year or two. Waiting for that Disney romance that I know doesn't happen. Wishing that someone would steal me away from my reality, just for a moment. For a dinner and conversation, something to hold on to for the coming weeks.

It's just another drug.

Emotional high.

I left the park a little before ten, walking through the crowds of families lining Main Street, waiting for the fireworks to start. Looking at the children, the husbands and wives that saved for the magical day, saved for the weekend or the vacation, to have this experience for their offspring.

The magic of that place.

That one day that the child dreams about until it finally happens. And then they hold fast to it, waiting to go again.

I remember, when I was younger and we were poorer, we'd go once every year or two. Pack lunches. I'd stay up at night, hardly able to sleep, fantasizing about everything we would be doing the next day. I loved the park so much, idolized Mickey. My mom has a picture of Mickey pushing himself up off the sidewalk after a three-year old me tackled him to the ground in excitement.

I'm 26 and I still love it there. Not the rides, not the shows, but the people and the details that go into that park. I used to take a book or a drawing pad and go into the park, prop myself up somewhere and enjoy the atmosphere, the laughter and so much joy.

I forced myself to leave. I forced that stupid, girlish daydream, spawned by multiplied insecurities and my constant need to partner, out of my head.

Turned my back on the fireworks, the young couples embracing.

Walked to the tram, eyeing the outside of the Grand Californian, dragging my mind away from the lobby that I could spend hours inside of reading. Slid into the back car next to a couple, was suddenly joined by a few too many people, ramming my pelvis sideways in order to fit us all.

Drove home, freeway flying under me.

Wished, wished for more than just a moment, that GV8 would be there. That he would have used the keys I had given him months ago, and come here, to spend what would have been our one-year together.

I came home to an empty apartment.

Dropped my bags next to the bookcase by the entry way.

Showered by myself, water scalding my torso pink, wet hair pressed tightly down my back. Roughly dried myself, leaned over the tub and squeezed the excess water out, listening to the drops fall the few feet, thunking into the bottom of the tub.

Crawled into bed, wet hair loose over my pillow. Black on black. Knew my friends would be out at clubs as I laid there, dancing their evenings away.

My life is slowly coming towards a semblance of average order. Nothing spectacular, but nothing dismal.

I've done this so many times. It's a strain. I never last long.

One of my friends asked me today, what it is that I am so good at that I take such comfort in.

I told him, "I'm good at pleasing, at pleasure. It's something I love, but also a way I've learned to cope and give myself value. I was breaking that habit, finally learning to have sex with no internal motivators. Just got to get back to that point."

I've said that so many times, or rather, versions of that. Most of my "adult" life has been versions of me trying to get my insecurities and issues under control so I can stop running my demons loose in bed.

It gets old. It's become a soundwave on repeat.

I'm tired of it. I'm tired of saying it, I'm tired of working on it. I'm annoyed that I'm 26 and, while so much better than I've been, still having issues with not having that sex partner to focus on.

I need that other person. It gives me something.

It's so hard to be without it.

Every day I go exploring in some way. Every day I look for that one connect.

And I'm not even over GV8. No chance.

I hate that this continues. I need to do something new about it, need another tactic, but I'm fumbling blind.

I don't know what more to do than what I've already done.

And guarantee source divine...

I've been in a state of vaguely awake all day. Haven't been able to push myself into total coherency. No motivation.

What I want...

What I want is a stereo in my bedroom, a man in my bed, and daylight sliding between the vertical blinds. I want perfect rhythm and miles of skin to explore with my tongue, find all the different tastes and textures a man's body has to offer, those hollows at the base of the throat to bury my nose in, let body heat carry male scents upwards, the taut skin running from neck to shoulder, my lips on the curve of that muscle, teeth nipping lightly. An ear pressed to his chest, feeling the heartbeat echo into my skull. The weight when someone shifts on top of you, rolls you onto your back, nuzzle-thrust-nuzzle. Hot breath in your ear.

But I, I am at work.

I am at work and there is no man in my bed.

And every time I have gone to write "bed" in this post, I write "head" instead.

This means something.

There are too many men in my head, and not enough me.

Promise me you will return...

Got some more work done around the apartment this morning. Shifting boxes, dumping trash, organizing. I'd like to it get done by the time school is over with so I can focus on my book. If I ever do start the damn thing.

Headed over to meet the texting moron that I've ranted about once or twice on here. He kept asking me to take him shopping for clubwear because, apparently, I've been recommended. And he knows my ex, who I also had to take on similar shopping trips at his request. I suppose, for that circle, I'm the go-to girl for club-related things.

We met up at 1130. The store I had chosen (more for its location- by the beach, as I was feeling in a beachy mood) had incredibly limited stock. Last time I had been there, I was able to pull several things for my ex that he cycled through with ease. This time, absolutely nothing.

So we wandered down near the pier and grabbed lunch at a little Mexican place with a patio (necessary). Talked. I let him know that I was on a chastity phase, and that I wasn't dating. Of course, since I didn't directly tell him that that statement included him, he's going to likely dream himself into being the magical exception to that rule. Guys do that.

I was... rather disjointed. As soon as I parked my car, I felt those twin steel ropes of tension thread up along my spine and bury themselves in the base of my skull. Quick twitch of my head to the left and the right, cracking the spine, trying to get my neck to relax, no dice.

I went into a shitty auto-pilot. An auto-pilot so barely monitored, I must've come off like as looney.

And it was because my brain, the thoughts and feelings running through my mind, were louder than what was going on directly in front of me. Truly. They drowned out his words when I was staring at him, trying to hear him. It was the most bizarre thing. I felt like I was thinking so loudly and intensely that he should be able to hear me. I kept trying to start sentences based off of things I was thinking, no lead in, nothing. Just like shifting a conversation from internal to external, stream-of-consciousness stuff that I do here but, very obviously, don't do so much in life.

By the time we got to the restaurant, I was starting to get overwhelmed. I was starting to lose my ability to keep track of our conversation, to make sense of the words he was stringing together. It was like trying to have two phone conversations at once.

I sat there, mentally winding up, unable to figure out what the hell was going on with me.

And then my phone rang. Roman.

I apologized and answered, to tell him that I would call him back. Exchange a few lines of teasing.

When I hung up and put the phone down, my tension had left me so fast that I started laughing. The relief, the total relief of having the last two hours of my life full of wordless voices, suddenly silent. The texting moron just kinda looked at me, bemused. And I laughed the sweet, sweet laughter of release.

Conversation was easier after that. The barrage of thoughts started again, but not so intense, not so wild. I was able to maintain and apologize that I was being so off.

And things shifted to sex. That happens a lot. And, apparently, he had been asking about me to some mutual friends. They told him that if he ever wanted a girl that could keep up with him on a sexual level, it would be me.

So that came up and, like most always, the validation started. I wish I had recorded that conversation so I could point out all the ways he attempted to validate himself and all the ways he was tested the waters of my sexual interests. I wanted to say to him, "Hon, every time you try to validate yourself to me, especially sexually, is another point off. Your attempts are having the exact opposite effect you wish them to have."

Afterwards, I drove through the city to get to the freeway that would take me to my parents' house, listening to the CD my club friend had made me. Another set of songs he could see me dancing to.

He approached me, last time we were both at the same club. Did a slight toe-scuff, rubbed the back of his neck, looked at me and told me that one of our mutual friends asked him (again) why the two of us aren't dating. And he said he told her, in what sounded like a cute and defeatist voice that we just weren't. Some things didn't happen. I shrugged at him and apologized for my lack of interest. In a loving, but platonic, way.

He keeps looking for that keyhole. That one way to get into my life.

Ended up in a Starbucks, supposedly working on my final paper, but instead reading Martin's Game of Thrones, which has completely sucked me in.

I had no focus for my paper. The words could not hold the rising wave of thoughts. Couldn't drown them out so I could get done what I needed to do. The book could.

Couple hours later, I was at my parents' place, laying across the family room couch, book in front of me. Brain was in an uproar, thoughts too scattered to make sense, too much flooding me that the book could no longer hold my attention.

I excused myself for a walk.

Stepped out on my childhood streets. I used to walk the neighborhood dogs here, year round. Blisters forming on my bare feet during the summer when the asphalt would get so hot the dogs and I would tear across it to the grass-lined sidewalk.

It was too small. I could walk the whole neighborhood in less than forty minutes.

Picked a direction, picked a destination, went.

Arrived at the destination, my brain still unsettled, picked another direction, went.

Four miles later, I was on my old college campus, tears in my eyes.

Not for college. No, that campus simply taught me that "higher" education and shared focus does not actually breed common ground. I fit in there just as well as I fit in at a church.

Near the end of the walk, I realized the reason that I was strung so tight.

While the date isn't the same, it was this Saturday, last year, that I met GV8. The event that I am going to tomorrow is the same event that I went to running on twenty minutes of sleep because of our bedroom activities. This time, last year, I was at a club where, in three hours time, I would strike up a conversation that would lead to some major life events with a man that would impact me more than most any other person ever has. And I miss him so very much. Even as I write this, tears are forming and I have to keep them from rolling down my cheeks. I have to distract myself from how much this hurts.

So that's bad enough.

But it gets even better. Because of the event I am going to tomorrow, because of the people I am planning on going with, I get to spend the day with my most disliked ex-boyfriend. I've had some shitty experiences with relationships ending, but this guy puts all the others to shame.

Which means, not only do I not get to spend our one-year anniversary with GV8, but I do get to spend it with Darkeyes. When I would much rather be lighting him on fire and kicking him down a flight or five of stairs.

Really, it's been almost two years since we've broken up, and I still want to do damage to this guy. That is so rare for me.

I'm not sure how I'm going to play tomorrow. I had been planning on doing the usual social butterfly dance until he realized that I now own him in nearly every way possible, but now my anger and frustration is running so close to the surface that I'm not sure if I just want to chase him off at the beginning of the day and be done with it. That could cause rifts and drama, but I really don't want to spend my day playing with him when I could be hanging with friends.

...and I just figured out what I'm going to do.

Thank you, Blogger. You solve all my problems.

I've been trying not to post while under the influence of exhaustion, but my life lends itself to being exhausted.

Spent the evening with some new (sorta) friends.

It was an odd experience.

It let me see how much I've changed.

I met the coordinator of the group when I was about 17 or 18, when my hobbies were of a significantly nerdier bent. He was my unplanned dance partner for the occasional folk dancing class. We danced really well together, perfectly in sync, no matter what style of dance we were doing. Our favorite was a Russian number that I cannot hope to spell that would increase in tempo until you were near running through the steps. Another, more western European, possibly British, country dance involved switching out partners, snaking your way into the form. Essentially, dance cock-blocking others.

I stopped going to the classes when I was around 19, when I met one of my LTRs.

So there's your backstory.

When I was down in San Diego earlier this month, I ran into my old dance partner at a party. We talked a little bit and, surprise, his girlfriend lives less than two miles away from me up in LA. He invited me out to their occasional board gaming get togethers.

No, I'm not talking Shoots and Ladders or Checkers. This is more along the veins of strategy games. RISK. Advanced Civ (my personal favorite, though that takes somewhere between six to twelve hours to run through so most people won't play). Various brightly colored, cheap'n'easy games like Puerto Rico, Carcassone, Dos Rios, La Citta. You can get through those anywhere between thirty minutes to two hours.

I... don't play boardgames anymore. I used to. I enjoy them, I like the strategy building, the planning ahead, trying to read your players, watching people interact.

Part of the reason is time.
Another part of the reason is finding people to play with.
And a major problem with the above, which makes it so difficult, is finding sane people to play with. And by "sane", I mean intelligent guys that will put up a challenge but aren't so socially awkward I feel like I'm being masturbated about under the table OR won't just drive me absolutely batshit with whatever gamer quirks they have.

And there are a lot of quirks. I had NO idea.

Ah, blissful ignorance, I miss thee.

So this guy says he's got a couple of people that he plays with and I like his girlfriend (though she's a little... oh, we'll say, totally nuts), and so I agree to come over to her place one night and play games with them. Boardgames, you goddamn pervs.

She actually ended up living in an apartment that was next to one I had been attempting to look at when I was apartment-hunting, but the property manager was so incredibly incompetent at returning calls on time and arranging to let me into the building I wrote it off.

Her apartment is... well, built around the same time period as mine. Would be cute, if the windows weren't so tiny. I can't deal with tiny windows, I love how mine just line the walls of my apartment. College student apartment, messy, books and papers everywhere, no decoration. I couldn't imagine living there.

Met the friends that were joining us for the evening. More college students, save for my old dance partner. Mildly awkward nerds, but sweet.

The dynamic was... odd. Very odd.

Two couples. We've got my old dancing partner who is probably 28 or so and his girlfriend, who is 20. She's a college student studying marine biology, doesn't work, just does the school. He, as I found later in the evening, has let his body kinda go to pot. Pointy little man-boobs, wide, sagging belly. It's not really at the "paunch" point, but it's taken his trim waist and, well, you know. No bueno. She's short. Short like 4'10" short. Curvy, but her ratio is slightly off. I think it's her shoulders, I'm not sure. Frizzy dirty blonde hair. Glasses. She'd have a good body, but she's carrying a good ten or fifteen extra pounds on her, and at her height, that isn't a small sum.

Other couple, also college students. The male was blond, wide, round face. Odd haircut, falling into his eyes every so often. Small mouth with not quite perfect teeth, enough to be noticeable, but not enough to have you recoiling in horror at the sight of Lawnmower Man 3. Maybe 6'. His girlfriend... I think she was somewhere in the realm of Vietnamese/Filipino/Korean. Excessively wide face, decent body. Friendly, but socially awkward in some situations.

I could not get over the interactions within each of the couples.

Playing the games with them, with both their boyfriends telling them what to do. Telling them how to play, when they were making a wrong decision, when they missed something. Especially the Asian girl/Blond boy combo. She is never going to learn how to be good at any game as long as her boyfriend is telling her what to do instead of teaching her how to view the game, how to handle situations.

And my dancing partner was no better with his girlfriend.

While I was learning new games, trying to wrap my brain around them in ways that make sense to me, there was constant input. A little too much input, and in ways that did not make sense to my brain.

Finally I grabbed the rule book for one of them, started reading it while we were playing. I wasn't sure what was going on, and the way that it was being explained was not working for me.

About half-way into the game, I was able to get enough of a grasp of the thing to bring it around.

But before that, the two guys kept leaning over, telling me what to play, even as I was making my own moves.

Looked up at the dancing partner, said, "I've got this. If you keep telling me what to do, I'm never going to learn how to play."

I had to say it once more after that before he let me fly free.

Give me just a few more times with that game, and I'll be able to beat both of them regularly.

Watching the sexual interactions between the couples. Touching, kissing, the casual "I love you"s. Total naivety. When asked about a particular situation, I mentioned that, when I was 18 or so, a guy tried to get me to sleep with him (or at least go down on him) because he couldn't have sex with his girlfriend because she had cysts in her vaginal canal due to some disorder. First off, I told him no. Even then, I didn't poach. Secondly, as I told my gaming friends, that's what anal is for.

They wigged a little.

The "ew!" and the "oh my god!" and the "gross!" and the squirming... even the guys. I was completely blown away by their reactions. Well, not the girls so much. I kinda expect that in college girls. But the guys? Really??

When we went to leave, the blond and Asian asked me where I had parked, offered to walk me the half-block to my car. The blond told me he heard that there had been three drive-bys in the area recently, and that one of his friends refused to come to this area at all. I thought he was joking. It's not the best neighborhood, but it's nowhere near drive-by material. His girlfriend piped up that he was a master at Aikido, so he could protect the two of us from anyone that might attack us.

This is when I stare.

Well, not physically. That'd be rude.

But, mentally, I'm just staring. Staring at her, staring at him.

I can't imagine being that young. I can't imagine being that inexperienced. They're probably four years younger than I am, and our lives are so far off from one another. I used to be like them, in a way. Used to be that awkward, that tentative about sexuality, about social interaction. It feels like so long ago.

Watching them as we played, those movements and touches that speak of hesitation and territories not yet explored, or not explored thoroughly enough so one might call them their own.

Watching their lives play out. Possibilities of their lives. The weight-gain, the poor aging, the shitty diet, the vaguely cocky behavior put on by a need to show that he's more than he is. Her psychosis, whatever its source, that is going to be passed onto her children. Wondering if she'll ever mellow out. Wondering if they'll cocoon together like so many couples do much too early on.

Drove home.

Got to my beautiful little apartment. My bachelorette pad. Changed into my pajamas and climbed into bed. Living on my own. Living without that male companionship that I love so much. Going out so often, so many friends, so much to do all the time that I wipe myself out.

Wonder if that sort of life, their sort of life, was ever in the cards.

Or if this was the way it was meant to be.