My brain has been a bit weird since late last night.

Which is normal, I suppose.

Last night was actually pretty wonderful. Well, it was nice, then it segued into pretty wonderful.

The pole dancing/fashion show... that was interesting. The hotel was okay, the pool was, as far as pools go, quite lacking. But the people watching (lots of women with a stripper/playboy bunny approach to clothing and make-up) was interesting enough.

What got me, out of all of it, was their approach to pole dancing. See, this was a pole dancing competition. And I don't mean a fun, "who can incite the most boners" approach, which is what I expected. I quickly came to learn that the competition for pole dancing is not for who is the most sexy (that actually seemed to be a bit frowned upon), who moves the best to the music (which was mostly ignored, making me question the word 'dancing' in the competition title), no, it was who can do the most impossible looking pose... and hold it.

It was basically a very slow moving gymnastics competition.

Unexpected. Unimpressed, for the most part. I love dancing, love watching others dance. There was one, maybe two girls, out of the entire evening that did anything remotely resembling moving to the rhythm.

So I got in my car and chugged on over to PD's place, texting him that I was on my way and quite aroused (not due to the dancers, thank you, just due to the thought of seeing him).

We have such an excellent connection. Being able to lie in bed with someone for hours and just talk, tease, and fuck... it's wonderful. Tickling, squealing, slapping... laughing and licking. He amazes me. He's such a good man or, at least, good to me. His personality is so wonderful, he's so goddamn smart and constantly makes me laugh, something I haven't had with a boyfriend before, though Rick came close.

It was lovely.

But then, somehow, the topic of money came up. How he is so far deep in debt we now have to lock the gate because his car might be in default. Months behind on rent, electricity and water bills in the high hundreds each month. The porn industry, at least as we know it, is dying. And he's left here, stress growing, little to no work... and I hate it.

I hate that I can't do anything about it. His bills probably hit somewhere between $9-10K a month. Anything I could do to help would be a drop in the bucket. A needle inserted into a haystack with no intent of removal.

I can't help and it kills me. I just sit and watch him stress.

I've always been the helpful one, who rushes into battle, who leaves the office at a phone call to go save the day or lend a hand. Give time, give money, give an ear and a shoulder.

Not here, not now.

I'm useless, or next to it.

Frustrating helplessness.

I'm a 26 year old college student with an income that covers my bills, covers my tuition, and allows me to save some. That's about it. I'm no trustfund baby, my parents have been in poor circumstances since Dad went batty last year and lost his job, I can't even help them.

Where I am in life does not afford it. They, PD and my parents, are in an entirely different income and debt bracket than I am. My debt is near laughable.

I keep thinking I could just speed up the book, dedicate my nights and weekends to it, to the research, the interviews, churn it out and someone, somewhere, will magically hand me money and I'll be able to fly in and fix everything that has gone wrong.

But that's not the way reality works. This isn't a course on wish-fulfillment.

And all I can do is be sweet and supportive, loving and nuturing, having faith that things will turn around for both parties. Somehow. Not contribute to the stress, if I can't take away from it.

Back to life.

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.

What, language? No, touch.

I went out to dinner with Rick earlier this evening.

Met him at a restaurant we used to go to constantly when we were dating.

I haven't seen him in close to four years, I would guess. He's gained some weight around his middle and his jawline. Still easily recognizable. We talked and he told stories, caught me up on social happenings for groups I'm no longer part of.

Told me to date sane men, not men eighteen years my senior. He did it in a pretty amusing voice, too.

He showed me pictures of his wife and his stepchildren, told me stories of the house they bought and all the work he is doing, how little time he has for himself.

It doesn't seem to bother him, though.

Whenever we talk, he reminds me that I've never been alone. I've never had "me" time for more than the briefest of periods. I start building momentum and, invariably, there's suddenly men. Whether or not I've invited them, whether or not I want them, there's men and I love sex and companionship and learning about other ways of being and thinking and I'm hooked.

For the last week or so, I've been distracted by others. I've been getting all tangled up in my emotions and in my issues, instead of untangling them like I should.

I glare at my phone, I glare at myself. I act like a fool, in more ways than most people see.

I keep looking outside myself. I keep abandoning myself for external stimuli.

And I do, gods do I, want that lover. That weeknight booty call. Someone attractive, someone friendly, someone entirely undistracting. Someone I can text who will be at my door in fifteen minutes, ready to go.

So I can get on with my life.

Friday night, tomorrow night, is a club/concert event with friends, or maybe a documentary I want to catch before it leaves theaters, or maybe a night in finishing my desk.

Saturday, maybe Venice Beach. It's getting warm again, beautiful and sunny, but it isn't tourist season yet. Walk the boardwalk, take a book with me and sit on the grass, listen to the various performers put on their shows, leave my hair down and blowing in the wind. Going away party for a friend on Saturday night, out of town for business for a few months.

Sunday, Easter brunch somewhere down in or around Carlsbad/Rancho Santa Fe, on the beach. Family. Patio dining, fine foods, and sea winds. Taking the 5 south, feeling those curves beneath my tires, accelerating at the perfect moments to swing into them, to take that extra tilt of the wheel to slide into the next lane for that slight centrifugal pull. Yes.

I want to turn off my phone, put away my laptop. I want to be unreachable, disconnected from the world, just for a little.

I want to remember who I have the possibility of being.

I want to stop the social games, the miscommunication, the misunderstandings, the defense and mincing words. I want to untangle it all, the people we play at being, the people we are, the affectations.

I want to talk to someone and not have to think.

Send a man to my door. Don't have him speak, and neither will I. Crawl into bed where touches cannot be misinterpreted, where nothing is read into, where fingertips sliding down the spine means nothing more than pleasure and the pressure of skin on skin.

Rick ended up forgetting about our dinner date due to sickness and mishaps at home with his kids.

Roll to 745PM, me sitting in the waiting area, legs stretched across the aisle to rest my heels on the bench opposite, book in hands.

I got there early. There was a store nearby that I wanted to check out... that I did not know would close at the ungodly hour of 7PM. Arrived at 658PM, thirty minutes to kill before he was supposed to be there.

I haven't been stood up in a long time. Actually, I can think of one other occasion, and what was simply, like this one, a reschedule.

When I called him, and he relayed to me that the babysitter fell through, he was sick, had completely forgot... when I called, he didn't pick up the phone with an apology or an "oh my god" it was more of a "hey, what's going on" and then I had to remind him.

Yeah, that bad.

The emotion that followed that was like a spear through my side.

It's... it's a lot. He said we'd be best friends, good friends, for the rest of our lives, once we had enough time to separate our emotions, move on. Cue a couple years down the line, we're both over it, and yet... best friends? No. Good friends? No. Close friends that occasionally happen to talk? Yeahhhhh. Nearer to that.

We share too much history not to be close.

But there's close because of shared history and there's close because you connect, or you're without barriers.

It makes me feel like a discarded doll. He has his life, his wife, his kids, his houseful of random animals, and I am, rightly so, a relatively unimportant feature. He makes time for his guy friends, but not so much for me.

This is why, when GV8 told me at our December break-up, that he'd always be my friend, always be in my life, I told him, "Sure. I'll believe it if you're still around a few years from now."

It's motive, motive derived from value.

Too many times, too often. Cast off for others that are also cast off themselves. Another life comes by, and they've disappeared because I no longer offer value to them. Or not enough to compare to the potential of what they may have.

And should I be that important? When in the face of their future? No, probably not.

But I do not want to be told of a future that we're going to have when it's based off of emotions that will fade. I know they're not lying to me, they have full intent of being close friends... but then when the love fades, followed by the guilt of not living up to what they promised when still brimming with connection, they go on. I go on. That's the way it is.

Because time is sparse. We can only devote enough of it to each person that comes by, and we do so by measuring value. We make time for people we get more value from, and that value is defined differently from person to person. When you have a relationship where the main value lies in building a future together, and the emotions that link the two of you, once there is no longer a future together, and once that emotion is put onto another... where do you derive value?

I value Rick because he's the one person whose opinions and input I trust. I might disagree with him on certain topics, but he will make sure I understand what I'm disagreeing with. So I make time to call him.

The ending we had was, while incredibly painful, was not nearly as damaging to me, I think, as the subsequent promises of close friendship that were abandoned when he met his wife.

And even though I can go through the logic of why that happens, as above, logic I truly believe, I cannot stop myself from feeling abandoned, hurt, and betrayed.

He knows this.

And he felt awful that he had forgotten our dinner plans.

But that does not change the way things are, nor should it.

I don't like this feeling of abandonment. I don't like feeling like I've been shoved into the corner of the closet in his mind, to be taken out when impulse strikes, which it rarely does. It tosses everything we shared out on the street, like a freight truck with its doors flapping open, boxes tumbling out.

It makes me feel less. Makes me feel little.

And I keep telling myself that I should not derive my value from others, but who among us does not? Who is entirely self-contained and happy? I know so few, and I keep preaching to myself to stop picturing my own worth by who loves me, who wants me, and that is not a safe thing to do.

But oh so typical.

GV8 texted me this morning.

See, the theory was, or so he said, that we were going back into radio silence, until he figured out what he was doing with his life.

Instead, I get a text around 930AM, with a picture he took of me with his phone at a charity event we went to in mid-February.

I sent him back a picture of me sitting my tongue out at him, he made a sexual joke, and I told him I was confused. That we were supposed to be in radio silence mode.

He excused it, saying he was just looking at pictures in his phone and found that one.

No reason for him to send it to me. There was no need.

I told him that I thought it was cute that he missed me. He sent me another picture.

I responded once or twice more... and then I stopped.

I'm not going to do this again. I'm not going to let him get inside my head if he's not allowing me fully into his life. If he wants radio silence, he's going to get radio silence. I'm not going to let his desire for me, how much he misses me, alter the rules he set forth.

This. Is. Not. How. Things. Are. Going. To. Go.

I have too much to do with my life right now, and I'm finally getting on the right path. I can't have him messing that up because he misses me and rationalizes contacting me in whatever way he sees fit. It doesn't work that way. He doesn't get to have parts of me.

When we were talking last night, I found myself flirting with him. I haven't flirted with him in a long time, since we started sleeping together. I... was surprised. I hadn't realized I had stopped, but then I saw the patterns, the teasing, the slight voice change. Getting him to want me, someone I had already had. Never have done that before.

... ... ...

I spent entirely too much time goofing off at work today. Chatting, reading blogs. That totally derails my workflow. I'm usually quite on it, as much as I can be, given the barriers I have to work with.

It's weird for me. This is the first job I've had that I've ever played the simpering beta bitch. It's just so much easier, being silly and helpless, while still getting my work done. The office manager tends towards mass amounts of micro-management, and it's all I can do to not lose it when dealing with her at times. It's pretty ridiculous.

Dinner with friends, earlier, talking with a fellow anony-blogger on the phone while I did the commute to the restaurant. I'm cat-sitting for a week, starting Thursday. Awesome cat, totally solid, knock him on his ass with a good pet and he's purring a storm. Still have the desk in pieces in front of my fireplace, but two of the four mini-papers are done. Other two tomorrow night, after dinner with one of my exes.

Yeah, seeing Rick for the first time in about four years or so.

We talk on the phone, but I've only seen him once that I can remember since we broke up just after my 22nd birthday. I still have a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that he got married last year, has four step-children and a houseful of animals. Like, near zoo-style.

He's one of the most amazing men I've ever met, and I count myself lucky that I dated and lived with him for a little over two years. He is my sounding board now, someone I call when I need my head set on straight or need to figure out a way to understand another person's point of view. I was hoping that we'd be closer friends now, but it's hard for him, what with a large family and lots of responsibilities.

I still hear the smile in his voice when he tells me he never expected how his life turned out. Never expected to be taking his step-son to little league, dressing up his youngest step-daughter, having family meals, etc.

I'm glad he was able to heal from his childhood. Glad he found someone who could patch those holes in him that he never realized he had.

Finally pulling all the pictures off of my camera, hundreds of pictures that I've done nothing with since, oh, mid-November.

I've got pictures from the night when I sat in a restaurant and cried because I had left GV8. Pictures from the Elephant High Dive Revival, from a concert, from the night Pseudonym Pending and the Broken Prince rammed into me like a perfect set of hole-filling pistons.

And then I have pictures from the family thanksgiving gathering out in Los Feliz, pictures from the day I cast myself towards GV8, the dates that followed, the night of the Hollywood Christmas Parade, eating at Cafe Was, the wonderful day at Disneyland... and then the fall out and subsequent devastation.

I also have pictures of the hospital, of sitting in the waiting room, the exam room, my father asleep on the hospital bed. I have pictures of the guest room we stayed in, of the psychotic notes left around the house, the rearranged furniture, the damage.

It's been a busy two months.

I took an extra hour over my lunch break to go sign the lease paperwork, pick up the keys, and show my mother the apartment. It's such an old building, things are... falling apart. But in that attractive, old building sort of way. The kitchen in pink, I'm thinking of doing a sort of Alice in Wonderland theme in there. We'll see.

I also realized that my bookcases aren't going to fit. I gave away nearly one thousand books around this time last year, but I'm still worried about how I'm going to get all my books in that apartment, then display them so I can find the one I'm looking for, whichever one it is, at whatever time.

GV8 is trying to buy me a $995 bedframe. It's monstrous. It's also an absolutely gorgeous gothic canopy deal. But it would dominate my living space. I'm going to have to take some measurements before I give him the go-ahead on that one.

Went to Ross after work, picked up some dinnerware. White, square dishes with asymmetrical black flower designs on them. Ran over to Home Depot and got the keys copied while I was out and about. Spoke with Rick on the phone, who told me that he's getting fat due to his wife's excellent cooking and he's truly proud that I'm finally moving out on my own with no major male influence. That I've needed to do this for awhile, which is true.

I'm hitting a small point of buyer's remorse now, over the apartment. It is so very old, lots of damage due to the simple (is it ever simple?) passage of time. The wood flooring by the bathroom is water damaged, the linoleum in the bathroom itself is torn. One of the knobs on one of the kitchen cupboards is broken off, leaving the screw embedded in the wood. There's not a lot of storage space, though I think there's enough to get by. The vertical blinds are visually appalling.

But it's cheap, it's mine, only mine. It's across the street from a very popular hang out, which means whenever I want to go get my flirt on, bring someone home with me, it's simply a matter of walking straight out the front door. The neighbors are, thus far, quiet. And I actually have a parking space, something near unhead of in this city.

It's just odd to think of.

Even odder is that GV8 put my last name together with my father's first name. Somehow. He doesn't know how. And he knows where my father went to school, or at least grew up. GV8 grew and ran in the same area, though he's a few years younger than my father. So they might know each other from before my parents ever met.

Strange? Oh, yes.

I'm going to be dropping all my classes tomorrow, then adding just the one for this semester. My boss has (very) begrudgingly allowed me one day a week to leave at 3PM to make it to this class. He says that I shouldn't even go to school, that I'm working in a fine industry where education doesn't count, only experience, and I have years of experience in this field.

He's not the smartest at personal interactions, I'll say that much.

How weird it is, entering into the world of adulthood. Finally. Bills, debt, monitoring your credit score, being accountable only to your financial accounts. Watching every dollar. Making everything count, making everything stretch.

Self-definition. Something I've said, and still believe, that I lack.

Maybe this will let me know who I am, or at least who I could be.

Need special handling...

Huh.

Total breakdown on the freeway today.

No, not my car (fortunately).

Me. Sobbing my eyes out for longer than I can ever remember doing.

I'm not a crier.

I feel guilty about crying, actually.

Because I'm always partway detached from most everything, so even when I'm down and overwhelmed and starting to cry, part of my brain is off, somewhere else, examining things, speaking logically to me, planning the next day... you get the picture.

So I feel as though my tears, my experience, my emotions... they aren't incapacitated. What I'm feeling isn't as real as it is with other people because I don't completely lose control.

I feel false.

Does anyone else feel this way, or is it just me and my constant detachment from the moment?

I really do feel like I'm cheating. That if anyone comforts me, I'm taking advantage of their sympathy because I'm not fully there. I feel like I'm using them for attention, even if I can't control the sobs that break out of me. That if I had more control, if I really, really wanted to, I could stop.

So it's not true sadness. Not 100% grief.

Which brings me back to sobbing on the freeway. For once letting my emotions get the best of my driving ability, as I found myself going about 50 (in the slow lane, mind you) when the rest of the freeway was traveling about, oh, 70-80MPH.

Starting to hit that point of no emotional return, mild control, losing it.

Because of GV8.

Because of my friend killing himself, which brings this year's total to four suicides and one death of natural causes.

Because my father is incredibly unstable right now due to his work environment and is doing what he does best when he's stressed: becoming volatile, projecting, and displacing. Because when he gets upset he has no care for personal space, for territory, for giving respect to others.

Which is probably the major, major reason I am so territorial, why I am so oriented on having my space, and how anxious I become when I do not have that space or when that space is violated.

Which meant, this morning, when I got the phone call that my friend had killed himself, followed within thirty minutes of one of GV8's employees dropping the box of my stuff off, followed with the 5PM phone call I received from my father that rapidly descended into another violation of my property, followed by another phone call from him telling me that I was obviously unstable and needed to put my medication (which, by the way, is minimal and for my anxiety) in his hands because he was a stable individual who knew best for me...

I lost it.

My parents think that I'm being rapidly drawn into the bowels of depression because that's what happens to my father. And that by actually sitting at home and dealing with my grief over GV8 instead of burying it and letting it come bite me in the ass harder, later, I was showing signs of depression and they were both worried for me and want me to up the dosage.

If I was my sister, this wouldn't even come into play.

My father has been bugging me for weeks now to let him take control of my prescription. To let him fuck with my head. Because he knows what I'm experiencing better than I do because, he says, I'm essentially his clone. And since he's depressed, I must also be depressed.

A. That's incredibly scary
B. This is why I don't trust my father
C. Jesus Christ, really?? For a man so smart, he's incredibly uncontrolled and really not aware of himself.

I would never trust my father with any major life choices for me. Hell, not even minor ones.

And this goes back to my basic idea of trust: someone I know who would make the decision I would choose for me should I be unable to do so, no matter how much they disagreed with it. Because of that basic respect and understanding.

My father has no respect for me. Not even as a fellow human.

And why should he?

My life has been a series of bad decisions. He says I love to learn things the hard way and that is accurate. I'm, once more, living at home, under his roof. Admittedly, this is so I can go to school, but because I am pursuing my education goals and dreams, I am going to be unable to support myself financially.

So why should he respect me?

He told me the other night, when doing the "I told you so" about GV8, that women look for their father in their mate selection. That they find the men just like their dad because they're used to that type of man.

I've heard this enough, so it must be true to some degree.

But, really, my father scares the hell out of me.

And not just because he's my dad and he's 6'5" and could beat my ass. Not because I don't think he's human. But because he has no control over his emotions and that lack of control terrifies me. Mindless rage. I grew up in a household where my father would, without rhyme or reason to me, turn into a raging beast a couple times a year.

No warning.

Just ripping and rending pain of manipulation and bestial anger.

Which is why, when I have friends that lose their tempers past a certain point, I never speak to them again.

Which is why I cannot date a man with a temper.

Because I can't relax. I can't trust.

It's why I hate crowds and shy away from strangers. It's what make me anxious, above all, when talking to new people.

That overwhelming fear. Being shoved back into my child-mind helpless state. I can't deal with confrontations because I'm so busy panicking that I freeze.

It's a weakness. It's an incredible weakness.

So he calls me, drops into anger, into manipulation, into passive-aggression that I know he's doing but I'm so low from the week that I let him get to me.

Then he calls me again, tells me I'm imagining things, that I'm unstable, that I need help, that we're the same person and I need to up the dosage, at least for a few months.

This was the same man who told me to go get a sleep test so, when it was proven that I don't sleep well (I sleep like a rock) he could get me on the same medication he is on which, apparently, he is now stuck on for the rest of his life and if he misses a night, he'll potentially have seizures and he put my sister on this.

So I go to my best friend's condo and my sister meets us there. My friend, who wants to be a chef, makes us chicken and dumplings and we sit down and watch Repo Man and then I head home.

I get home at 10PM and my father, who I was hoping was in bed, walks into the entryway and informs me that he's been waiting for me and we're going to watch Slaughterhouse Five so get into my bedclothes and join him.

So I change and find myself in their king-sized waterbed with my father, my sister, he boyfriend, my mother, and a couple of cats.

By this point, I'm emotionally exhausted.

Especially because, between changing, I unpacked the box that GV8 packed full of my stuff in hopes that maybe, just maybe, he left a letter in it, something handwritten, something concrete that I could keep and seek reassurance and love from, and I found nothing.

But when I flipped through the pages of the book I lent him, his scent wafted up to me. And I found my dressing robe, a sheer black thing, in the box... so I held it to my nose and inhaled. Smelled him, his odd combination of scents that I can't quite describe, and started crying.

Again.

I don't know if I've ever cried this much over a guy over such a period of time, unless it was Rick. Usually I just get it out of my system in one go, occasional slow tears at a later date, but not really crying. Not that ragged breathing and accompanying redness.

No note. No last words of love.

Just his scent.

Inhaling, pressing the robe to my face, knowing that as time passes, the scent will quickly fade, engulfed in my own. And one day, it will be the last time I will smell him, and I'll likely never know until the next time I return to it and am left bereft.

It has been a long day.

Now I have two papers to write, a company Christmas party to attend, a mellow cuddle/sex date with RR to get the physical contact I need, a hair appointment... and emotions to let myself drown in, just for a short period of time.

Just long enough to maybe not feel like I'm half a robot, inside. Something cold and disconnected.

Trying to get into that precious moment.

I wasn't going to write today because I have so much work to take care of before I leave the office, but two things happened that struck me as somewhat odd.

The first was, in the middle of lunch with my coworkers, the very first man I ever dated, the first man I ever had sex with, called.

Alpha, you know.

Not alpha male, but alpha as in the first, the original, the start.

He was out and about and thought he saw me on the street, was calling to see if it was, in fact, me.

We're still friends, we just don't talk often. There's the geographic distance between us, as well as the space that comes with me growing past him. We can still connect, we can still have fun, talk, go out and enjoy ourselves. We still have mutual friends.

But it's just... I'm mostly indifferent.

He was my case of requieted puppy love. We both moved on.

Well, we moved on, then he came back and was like "'Sup, baby?" and I was like "Er... no, I'm good. Thanks though."

He didn't actually say "'Sup, baby?". I'd never remain friends with a guy who talked like that, no matter how good he was in bed.

So we talked briefly and then I went back to join the herd at the trough.

Wrapped up lunch, was at my desk for all of twenty minutes, and my phone rings again.

And, of all people, it's Rick. The man who temporarily broke me, pre-Darkeyes. You know, The Ex. The reason why I haven't been able to open up and relax with a man completely, emotionally severed, for the time being.

So I've got the physical Alpha and the emotional Omega calling me within a span of an hour of each other.

I'm expecting the Ghost of Christmas Present to show up sometime before six.

Hopping on a plane in exactly nine hours, iPod is loaded with the music I determined would be best for this trip, my backpack is ready to go.

I wonder if this is going to be soon, this feeling of impending collision. It feels like something is going to happen and it's building, an escalation of unrelated events timed to unite in that one moment... though if that moment is beneficial or harmful, I am not one to guess.

And maybe it's all in my head. It's felt for so long like something is careening my way, perhaps someone else's destiny coming to sideswipe my flank. Images of beads sliding along abacus strings, clicking, adding, come to mind often. Foreboding and rich.

This life is what you make of it.
If it does not suit you, leap.
What you are at any moment is what you have become.
And when you look back, will you see a series of mirrored images, strings of paperdolls, or something old and near-unrecognizable?

Tumbling walls buried us with debris...

GV8 and I went out last night. Roamed the streets of Hollywood, as seems to be our tendency. Wandering and watching, seeing what we find, seeing who we find. Strolling Hollywood Boulevard at 8PM, looking for a restaurant to our liking, threading through the performers by Graumann's and avoiding the male(?) with manboobs jigggling his flesh to a tiny boombox resting on his cart, using a balloon sword as a prop.

Dropped down to Sunset Boulevard, strolled past Seven Veils, did an illegal jaywalk that landed us in the middle of the street, waiting for traffic to pass with lips locked and wandering hands. Dinner was found at Bossa Nova, dessert at Mashti's, we lapped at our icecream and walked further down to peer in the windows of High Voltage at the over the top decor, then to an art gallery that seems to have a mural in front painted by my favorite artist, Sylvia Ji.

Before we went roaming, his requests (demands?) were oral sex and then to watch me get myself off, legs spread in front of him, fingers dancing. He loves to watch my twitches, hear my breathing change, moisture dripping.

Afterwards, as I was rolling off the bed to rinse off and get dressed for dinner, he said, "I'm cracking your nut."

"What?"

"I'm cracking your nut. I'm getting inside your head. You're finally starting to trust me."

"I've trusted two men in my life. I'll let you know when you're the third." Said to him without malice, he tossed the comforter over my face and crawled onto me.

"You will."

Trust is an issue for me. Not because I've been treated so badly by men in the past (though, yes, I have been by some), but because of my worldview. It's not just men, but women. Humanity, as a rule.

I've heard the question too often in so many humanities classes and at coffee shops by the caffiene-fueled would-be philosopher: is humanity innately good or innately evil?

And everyone has these immediate reactions, with incredibly solid beliefs in their anectodes and personal experiences. It's never a wavering belief, but something clung to, almost desperately, like someone is needing to know that their cynicism is justified, or that they aren't living in an unfair, unjustice world, the dupe among wolves. Or that their behaviors are excusable.

When I was younger, I used to say that humanity simply is. Neither bad, nor good, as those are definitions we construct based on our views, based on our morals, religions, experiences, and how actions hurt or benefit ourselves and those we care about. I remember having those arguments in high school, having the hardest time trying to explain the idea that good and evil were just concepts.

While I still feel that way, my answer changed one day. I do not remember what class I was in, but we were discussing that constant question, and my classmates were throwing out the usual answers with the usual evidence to support their view.

I had been dating Rick at the time, constantly discussing philosophy and ethics, and hearing these arguments somehow made me realize that I did not believe that humanity just "was" anymore. That the actions we label as good and bad, and how those actions impact us... that judgement is made out of self-interest. Even charity is usually done with self-interest, though that's another topic that I'll likely never bother discussing in depth.

So I came to the realization that I believed humanity was neither innately good or bad, just self-interested. This wasn't some epic moment in my life, just an acknowlegement of how I view the world.

Which makes it hard for me to trust someone.

People do things all the time for someone else's "own good". And it is usually the decisionmaker's interpretation of "good" that they force upon the person they supposedly care for, without taking into effect what the receiver might actually find "good" themselves.

And that's on the basis of that someone else caring for you, loving you, wanting what's best for you.

I cannot trust someone who would not act with my best interests at heart when engaging in behavior or decisions that impact me.

That may sound incredibly impossible. That I would never be able to trust another person because of that ridiculous standard.

But I do trust people. In varying ways. I trust that the construction workers and engineers will build bridges and overpasses that will remain steady. And that the pharmacist will dispense the right medication, or my doctor will be able to prescribe the right treatment when I become ill. I trust that the men who come and inspect the various elevators I use will do a thorough inspection, and that the chefs in the restaurants that I dine will not keep rat poison by the food I consume.

I do not believe these things because I think these people care about me, but because these people are interested in keeping their jobs, in not getting fired, in not getting massive lawsuits thrown up against them. They are working with total self-interest.

And I do not find this wrong. I don't think self-interest is a bad thing, it is simply what we all do to survive.

But when you enter into personal relationships, not only romantic relationships, but any sort of relationship that exceeds the bounds of acquaintance, it becomes a matter, for me, of determining how each person's self-interest may manifest in negatively impactful ways.

Some people, you can tell secrets to. Some, you can't, but you do know you can call them any time of day and they'll be there to help you with a problem.

Some men you can sleep with and trust that they'll be safe with any other partners they have, but you know you can never date them because they can't control their lusts or the beasts that chase them.

Some people are flakes when it comes to being there at important occasions, but they are wonderful advice givers.

You take what you get and you balance the positives and negatives between them. Sometimes that friendship gets deep, gets intense, and you know that that particular person is able to maintain your complete trust because they truly care for you, respect you, and will make the right decisions for you if a decision has to be made in your stead. And you for them. This isn't a one way street of a person who has scads of people vying for trust.

It's a relationship. Two people. Symbiotic, parasitic, unbalanced, healthy? It is what we can make of it, what we allow it to be.

I stopped trusting my father when I realized that if, in a moment of rage, a decision was placed in front of him, he would possibly do something to harm me. He would regret it later, but he can't control his anger when it surfaces. And even if it wasn't a decision made with anger, he does not understand my idea of health and happiness, and he does not know or respect me enough to allow me to do what I feel is right if he has any say in the matter.

Because he knows best.

And he is my father. He did raise me, pour money into me, pour time, effort, stress, hours and hours of work, into giving me the life I have.

So, yes, he is going to make decisions for me that may not be what I want.

But I do trust my mother.

Which is funny. My father is so very controlled 98% of the time, and my mother is constantly ruled by emotion (and my father), but I know that she would make the decisions I would want her to make for me.

And she is one of the only people on the planet that I trust entirely with me. If I was killed today, maimed, made braindead, she would be the one I would want to handle me, handle my future. No doubt in her decisions or abilities.

Other people, I trust with them.

I trust C to be late to most everything. I trust her to respond in anger when provoked, to offer me a place to stay when I need it, help me when I need it, to go after the most beta, effeminate man around, and to always speak her mind, which is what I value most.

I trust SFPlayboy to be a horndog. I expect him to be going after anything with two legs that he finds attractive. I expect him to put his health and fitness first, to shove me out of bed no matter how much I grumble and take me down to the gym. I trust him to read the books I recommend, and to tell me when he finds one he thinks I'll like. I trust him with my diet, having my health in mind.

We learn to expect things from people, even from strangers. We walk around and interact with varying amounts of people every day, and we expect certain behaviors out of our baristas, our sales girls, the people in the cars beside us. We trust others on the road to stay between the lines, to not run red lights. Deviation from this is a violation of our trust, even though we all know that people will swerve, people will run lights, hit pedestrians, not look when making a right and ram into your car.

Which leads us back to GV8.

How do I trust him?

I trust that if I'm in trouble, he'll be there. I know if someone hurts me, he'll hurt them worse. I know if there's an emergency, he'll be at my door as fast as he can, violating as many traffic laws as he is able and still keep his car in one piece. I trust that if I do something wrong in bed, or something right, he'll tell me. I trust that he uses protection when he sleeps with others. I trust he will not intentionally hurt my feelings, and that he does want the best for me.

Do I trust that he respects me? No, not yet.
Do I trust that he knows and understands what I want for myself? No, not yet.
Do I trust that he will never do anything to seriously embarass me in front of friends or family? No, not entirely. Not because he can't read social situations, but because his reality is so far from my parents', and something normal for him is not normal for them.

But he is getting to me.
He is "cracking my nut".

And maybe, one day, I'll believe that his self-interest will shift to match what I need from him to trust him. And mine will shift to his.

Because I don't trust what people say. Emotions are easy and fade as quickly as they come on. I trust self-interest.

It tolls for thee...

He's breaking me down.

There's something to be said about submission.

Something strong running through you, in different ways, with different needs and trigger points.

My issue, as I will call it, though it is not precisely that, is my need to please and serve. My desire to have someone worth serving.

My submission gives up my individual identity. I cease to be myself and instead become an extension of my partner.

If I can submit.
Which means I need to relax and trust.
Which means my partner needs to make me feel safe and that he has to be worthy of my trust.

Safe means power and strength. Trust means perfect control and honest communication.

He's breaking me down, slowly.

My need to please rises, and I feel that tugging in the back of my brain telling me that I need to become his. That I need to sink into him, that feeling of perfect surrender, that feeling of willing loss of control.

Control, my addiction.

Because I have never found a man with more control over his lusts than I have over mine.

Hence the lack of respect.
Hence the lack of trust.
Hence the lack of surrender.

He breaks me down. I seek his body under times of stress.

He made me dance for him. Something I have never done outside of a club. I'm not a performer. The compliments, the confidence, the knowing that unless a select few people are on the floor with me, it is likely that I am one of the best in the club. It leaves me. Nervous and shaky.

But I danced for him.

In the half-dark. Song of choice, Portishead's "Strangers". I always return to my trip-hop.

Too nervous, too shaky, blocky movements caused by anxiety. If we had been at a club, it would have been so much easier.

When I finished, the shakes continued to vibrate my body. I walked to where he was sitting and gently dropped to my knees in front of him, put my head in his lap and slid my arms around his waist while he stroked my hair and told me how much he liked the way I moved.

I stayed like that until the shaking stopped.

And I knew I had given him something, a part of me that would cause us to entangle even more. A hook on a line leading from me to him, something that would hurt if he ever ripped it out.

It wasn't the dancing. It was the recovery. It was the laying with my head in his lap until I settled. It was using him for comfort instead of finding it in myself. It was trusting him to treat me gently until I calmed and fought off the waves of anxiety that come from a solo performance.

He was right. It's something to battle, something to get over. I've had many men ask me to dance for them and I've declined each one, too nervous, too anxious. He was the only one that meant something, that had that power over me, the power I had given him, that could make me dance.

We had sex later that night. It continues to get better, continues to get more intimate, and for the first time I felt the stirrings of an orgasm solely from penetration. Oddly, it did not frighten me. The idea that, one day, I could give up my focus, my control, my monitoring, of what goes on during sex, enough so I could relax and actually orgasm through penetration... amazing.

We come closer and closer to that vaunted "making love".

Something I've certainly never done. Not even with Rick.

It truly does amaze me.

And, maybe, all those people who talk about the ectasies of making love, of that partner they truly care about, how that sex makes all others pale in comparsion, maybe they're right.

But it makes me think of the couples that make love who have had sex with no other partners.

Do they know, really? Do they know the difference in feeling between a grudge fuck, a pity fuck, a fantasy fuck, a one-night stand with no pretensions, a caring fuck, a friendly fuck, or a drunk fuck? Do they know what it's like to have sex with someone who you do not love, possibly don't even know, where all it is is the physical and what you create inside your head?

I do not mean for this to sound derisive, but how do they know what making love is, if they've never encountered its opposites? If they've had no variation? How can it be treasured?

I've always laughed at the idea (for me) of making love.

That anything could be as good as the brutal, animal fucking that comes with a man like Riot. Being completely used and degraded, being tossed around like a blow-up doll because your partner is so damn strong. Having your mind so involved with surviving the sex that you can't actually be bothered with thoughts of anything aside from taking the blows and the penetration (wherever it ends up) as best you can, minimal damage. Days later, you're still staggering when you walk.

That, to me, is sex. Is perfect sex.

But now I'm entering a realm of something I haven't experienced, something I don't understand, and, honestly, I don't really respect the opinions of most of the people who talk to me about it because it's such a religious experience for them and they usually have so little experience in the sex arena that I can't quite take their information seriously.

Which isn't the best of me, I know.

Maybe it won't happen. Maybe GV8 and I will split before I ever get to that point with him and, maybe, because of that, it'll wreck my trust for any men in the future. It's possible. I am a bundle of damage, but at least I take stock of my wounds and attempt to heal them.

I picked up Dune as Hope suggested. A cult of women that I think might be my heros, save for what appears to be a heavy thread of spirituality. But maybe it will change me like it changed her.

Who knows?

I've always said sex is what you make of it.
But I'm starting to think that I am what sex has made me.

Give a little love...

Tired, as per usual.

Tuesday, C went out to kareoke with friends. I stayed in. My cousin's baby was born.
Wednesday, we went out to dinner with another set of friends.
Yesterday, I had dinner with VG and drove around a different set of friends, looking for that all-hallowed bar where we would sit and I would not drink.
Tonight, a concert.
Tomorrow, a date, a wedding, and a night spent with GV8.
Sunday, breakfast with GV8, then shacking up somewhere in Hollywood to write and study.

I know I'm forgetting something. I need to talk to my sister.

Let's break this down a little further.

I don't remember much of Tuesday. I was exhausted. I can't remember if what usually happens, happened: a phone call at 1030 from someone I want to talk to. That always happens when I try to go to bed before 9.

I remember lacing up C's corset. I remember being so tired. I remember reading in bed, and C cooking me chicken. That's all I remember. Just flashes of that.

Wednesday, I picked C and her new interest, Redwing, up, before heading out to dinner. I was picking Redwing's brain for writing ideas, for what I write. For how to write, because I've never taken any input or classes, or been to any conferences. I don't know the "official" process. My writing, it's how I talk. Truly, the way I break my paragraphs, the excess of commas, it's where I space things. People are always startled when they meet me after reading my stuff for so long, to find that the voice in their head matches the voice I speak with.

We drove to the place, a little diner-type out in Los Feliz area.

The man I wrote of last week, the one that I was interested in so briefly, but then I realized that there was no point because he's not my kind, well, he was there. I think I'm going to call him Ev.

Prolonged eyecontact, conversations, me making sure that I was engaging everyone, and if I felt excluded from a conversation, I would simply join another one, much to his surprise. It worked out, and I continued to feel his awareness of me.

He asked for my blog, he wanted to read it.

I gave him the information for the other one, the public one.

He emailed me through it, to ask me out.

Well, technically, he did not ask me out on a date. He's polyamorous. I find this nice because poly people tend to be more aware and accepting of not-so-mainstream sexualities. So even though I'm monogamous, my sexuality and how I deal with it, allows me access. So he emailed me to tell me that, while his relationship card was full, he has been craving some variety in his sex life and he found me desirable, and would I like to meet up and become a periodic sex partner?

That's pretty damn perfect for me. An intelligent, attractive man who keeps healthy and honest communication with his established partners, who is dominant in bed and tends to head his social group? Sure, I can work with that.

So we're supposed to be going out this weekend. Tomorrow, in all likelihood.

Anyhow, I've stepped into future plans as opposed to the things that have happened, things I need to mull over.

Crosser showed up to dinner as well. C wanted to talk to him, so they left early, leaving me with Redwing. That was cool with me, because I wanted to pick his brain. I was looking forward to the drive back, comparing notes and ideas with this man.

That's totally not what happened.

It was sex. Sex sex sex sex. And I don't mind that, really. I'm used to it. What drove me absolutely up the wall is that he would ask me a question (after prefacing it with whatever he felt needed to be said) and as I started answering it, he would cut me off mid-sentence and start talking about himself.

The entire freaking drive.

It was... insane. Because he talks so fast. And it was constantly, "Well, how do you feel about..?" and I would go, "Well, in my experience, I [insert something here] and-" and suddenly he'd swoop in, "Oh, I know! This one time...!"

So I stopped answering his questions and just let him talk. And talk. And we hit construction, so this drive turned into a forty-minute hell-fest of me going, "Holy shit, this kid cannot read my body language to save his life."

I even stopped listening. I rarely do that. But it was just this full-bore, all-engines-go verbal barrage of "me me me me me" which wouldn't bother me at all, except for the occasional "and you? oh, wait, nevermind, me me me me". Don't engage me and ask me my opinion on something if you aren't going to bother listening. I mean, I actually like listening to people tell me about their sexlife, but he made it this nightmareish chore that I hope to never experience again.

And then we get off the freeway and he says to me, "So, how do you see me?"

...Jesus Christ. WAI OH GOD WAI?!

I tried to put it off. I did. I tried to distract him into talking about himself again. It worked. Unfortunately, C lives ten minutes off the freeway, so by the time we pulled up to her house, he was worrying me like a dog worries a bone.

So I told him I thought he was young. I told him he carried himself and spoke like he had missed a crucial element in socialization. That he was years behind where he should be, for his age, for dealing with people, and that he continually made unnatural affectations when he spoke that were all too obvious and he seemed altogether uncomfortable with how he presented himself and how he felt about himself in general.

And he totally agreed with me. And seemed a bit shocked.

...but he continued the conversation into the house, while I gathered my night clothing pre-shower, and then I shoved him onto C and told her to back me up.

Which she did, while I showered.

Writing about that all is actually starting to give me a headache. Geesh.

Thursday night was not that interesting. I had dinner with VG, then walked in on C gluing feather's to some guy's back with latex. I had forgotten she was doing this. But he's an art model and, for whatever reason, the artist wanted little black wings on him, and C volunteered to apply them. I left them as I found them, went out to meet up with some other people.

The first bar we went to was closed.
The second was dead. Wow it was dead.

So I left.

But C mentioned that she had been planning on sleeping with Redwing that night, so I texted her to let her know I was on my way back early.

Actually, what happened was, when I got back to C's place and she was gluing on this guy's wings, I asked her if she was coming out with me and the others.

She said no, that she wanted to bone.
So I pointed at the guy with my cellphone and said, "Him?"
And she said no, "Redwing."
And I said, "If I walk in on you two having sex, I will slap the ass of whoever is on top, I tell you now."

So I politely texted her I was coming back, to which I received:

"go away"

I told her to wait five minutes and I would crash on the couch in the livingroom.

I did not, however, tell her to be clothed. So I walked in on her and Redwing naked and entwined in bed, both asses in places where I could not smack them.

We talked while I changed, and then I dragged myself to the livingroom and passed out.

Actually, while I was driving to C's last night, GV8 texted me.

I have this rule, where I keep an even text-exchange going. So if I'm the last to text a man I'm interested in or sleeping with, I will not initiate again unless I need to relay information to him. This works with GV8 very well, I have to say. I know he finds it odd when I don't message him often.

So he texted me, checking on me, seeing what I was up to, telling me about how construction is going on the loft (glass walls were put up yesterday, apparently). His birthday is on Saturday, so I asked him if he had made plans. No, he hadn't. Too busy. Did he want me to come over and help him relax on Saturday night?

Yes, he very much would.

And, apparently, I'm wonderful.

I'm beginning to wonder if he hasn't gotten as far from me as I thought.

I don't push boundaries. If someone says they don't want to be with me, I say "okay" and I leave. I don't argue. I don't try to convince them otherwise. I don't flaunt new lovers in front of them. If they've made up their mind, I'll respect it... even if I feel that they secretly wanted me to fight for them.

I'm not going to.

That's not my style.

And I also assume that everyone that has casual sex, like I do, has my robot-like tendencies when it comes to emotion and design. I did not expect GV8 to continue to have feelings for me... but he might.

Which means I can sit him down and talk to him, talk to him about what doug1 said in some comments, which I think might be more accurate than he's willing to admit.

But I don't want a relationship.

GV8 is great. He is. He makes me feel completely safe, which is something that no man, including Rick, has ever been able to do. And maybe I'll never find that again. He's a wonderful guy, a great lover, someone who shapes reality into what he wants it to be. And I admire that. He has his own beasts, though they're not like mine.

But... no. I can't. I shouldn't. I'm not ready to give this life up.

And this might all be pointless anyway.

I'm reading him off of texts, and while words... words are what makes me... I won't know until I see him in person. We haven't seen each other in weeks because he's been so busy with his business and construction.

And I'm not so sure I can be with a guy that doesn't know himself when it comes to relationships. He's happy and willing to communicate, and he's honest, but he's not completely aware of where he is, of what he's doing, when it comes to me. He's certainly better than most, don't get me wrong.

...he is better than most.

I'm not going to do this to myself. I cannot give up my focus. I am not going to actively attempt to change his mind, nor am I going to read him and subtly engineer my actions to keep him.

I think.

God, I'm too tired to be thinking about this stuff.

As amazing as he is, we don't resonate. We don't sync. I did not see him and absolutely know him, like I've done with others. He could take care of me. He could protect me. I could be his princess, his toy.

And I'd be happy.

I'm only experiencing this doubt because I'm tired. If I wasn't so ready to pass out, I'd be fine and not even considering it.

Not to mention, I could easily be reading into him.

I'm not going to plan ahead. I'm not going to daydream and make up stories.

I'm going to focus on me, on my writing, on school. I'm going to enjoy him, as well as my other partners and future partners. I'm not going to get distracted again. I've been single for one year, and I plan on being single for another.

I'm not going to let my heart get tangled up in this.

O Sailor, why'd you do it, what'd you do that for?

Last night was... amusing. Unexpected. Odd.

I had the brilliant idea of attempting to remember all of my sex partners, and then other partners where I did not have sex with, but did have significant sexual contact, or impacted me in some way.

I have not been able to keep track of this for a few years now, so I knew it would be a challenge.

But C, another friend, and I, had plans to meet some other friends and acquaintances for dinner in Silverlake, which meant I ended up propping myself up at one end of the table, my paper journal open in front of me, playing with the end of my pen with my lips and tongue as I, Winnie the Pooh-style, drummed my fingers and went, "Think, think, think."

C was flirting with her boyfriend (she and Crosser decided to be friends for now, due to a drunken threesome they had with his primary partner last weekend that weirded the girl out entirely too much, as she isn't secure in their relationship right now, as they recently opened it) and the friend we came up with, her boyfriend and I were cuddling while I wrote, and I was occasionally doing my usual dry humor, interjecting at appropriate moments.

Think, think, think.

I remembered things I had forgotten, but there was still a good two or three year period where I was drawing a blank.

This was frustrating, and as I continued to list and lip my pen, people kept trying to peer over my shoulder, read my notes, ask me what I was doing.

By the middle of dinner, people were going through the alphabet, listing out male names, hoping to jog my memory. It did work, some. It also made me laugh way too much and, after an hour or so, I put the journal to one side.

During this, I gained the attention of a decently attractive blond. We started talking, as a group, but he continued to seek me out. Even when the conversation splintered into sub-groups, he would still be listening to me with one ear, looking for my opening, trying to draw my attention. Standard things such as continued eye contact, catching him looking at me while I was engaged with someone else, him asking me to email him. Normal, basic things.

I was pleased. He had an above average body, a decent face, and he was decently intelligent. Above average, maybe more, if we talked more.

I would not have thought anything of it, but before the group became so animated, before attention was focused on me, they had been discussing a Christian Slater movie called "The Heathers", and how another member of the group should watch it. Opinions were asked for, and while I was telling them I found it romantic, others were calling it a dark comedy. Which it is.

But I also find it romantic.

C and our mutual friend just looked at me, one of them said something along the lines of, "Yeah, you would find that romantic."

I tried to explain to them, about finding someone just as damaged as yourself. Someone that is torqued in the way you are, rather, in a complimentary way. They referenced the cigarette lighting scene, and I told them that was exactly what I meant. She burns herself, he lights his cigarette in the heat. Perfect.

Of course, then he tries to kill her.

Anyhow...

Finding someone who is a greater beast than yourself. A bigger monster.

Wolfboy, he has a reputation for being insanely good with the women. He has sex and more sex. He's the group badass, the damaged rebel, the recovered addict, the tragic romantic. As we would cuddle, talk, and fondle, we would compare techniques of seduction. Our natures matched so well, the need to be hunting.

But I was always better. My numbers doubled his, my successes and techniques covered a wider range than his. And I was smarter. Less damaged, or at least more able to maintain, than he. More in control of my life and myself, more able to direct what I was doing, and to control situations.

I'm straying a bit.

Combined with the movie discussion, earlier that day, I had a date cancel on me.

I... occasionally do things that I loosely call man-projects, or guy-projects. Where I meet a guy with a lot of potential, a good personality, but something about their sexuality is off. They may just have issues with sex, they may be inexperienced with sex, they may have had a horrible experience (or several) with a woman.

So I talk to them, I learn their issues, and then I start spending time with them, usually sleeping with them, coaching them, complimenting their body with words and touches if it is needed, making sure that the sex is relaxed and good, that errors in judgement or motion are corrected and treated as they are- inconsequential. Laughter is key. Making them comfortable with themselves is key. Making sure they can understand and communicate their desires, needs, and comfortability... major.

Sometimes this lasts for a few days, and they get a little weirded out by it. Sometimes this last for a few weeks. Sometimes months.

My favorite one, hands down, is my friend who is getting married in September. We spent so much time together, working with his issues regarding his body and sex (bad ex-girlfriend). And, after several months, he was okay. He was on the road to being good with himself, to being happy and healthy with such a key part of his life.

Eventually he met the woman who he decided to make his wife.

I still haven't met her, but I am going to their wedding. The invite is sitting on my nightstand.

I was 20 when I met him, and all of this happened.

Sidetracked a little again.

So I met a man a few weekends ago who I thought would make a good man-project. And he agreed, we started working on it. It was going slowly, but well. We planned to go out this Friday, but he sent me a text saying that he didn't think we had much in common, didn't see this going anywhere.

I specifically communicated with him, and he agreed, that I was going to get him to relax around women. That I would teach him how to flirt, kiss, and touch. That was it. No future plans, no relationship in the works. Simply potential friends working together.

Yes, I know, I know, I'm an oddball that I do this (I'm an oddball anyway, actually). I just see a need for it, and offer it when I can.

But he was nervous. I did get him to calm down in my presence, but I think the time spent away allow the anxiety to mount. Maybe. I don't know. I don't pretend to really understand anyone's logic but my own (and even then, not always my own).

I was mildly hurt, and surprised. I got over it quickly, though.

...and all this leads back to the blond guy at dinner that I found decently attractive, I swear.

So I was flirting with him, basking in his attention, and I was suddenly hit with the text message from the potential man-project, with GV8's dislike of the pick-up, and with the beast/dark romance I find in "The Heathers". That made me think of all the times I've had to subdue parts of myself, the darker parts, that make men uncomfortable, that predatory nature, the near-sociopathic analyzing of everything and everyone around me and how best to move them in my life.

In a man, this is usually acceptable, or at least okay, behavior. This is logical man-thinking, whatever. In a woman, I've found, people tend to view it as sociopathic and manipulative.

And it irritates me that I seem to have this near perfect blend of those tendencies and my need to be compassionate, kind, and helpful.

So I thought of those things, of meeting men in the past who loved my external nature. Who told me I sparkled, that I was unique and magnificent. Brilliant and funny, clever, witty, exciting, intelligent, so different than other girls. And then, as they got to know me, and found the things that exist underneath... they realized that we just didn't match. That there is something swimming beneath my currents that makes them uneasy.

And then they leave.

And it hurts, because I am not just the beast. They should know me that well.

But then the suddenly knowledge of those darker waves, something that they had no inkling of before, it's really no wonder.

The ones that don't leave, they become boyfriends. Beacuse they have those same beasts in them. But then they realize that, with all my strength, I'm still battling with self-esteem problems, that our mutual fixation on being strong... I'm not as strong as they are. Because I date older. Because I date men who are more experienced than me, who have lived longer, done more, had time to establish themselves.

And I haven't.

Then they look down on me. Because I'm weak, compared to them. When you toss in my need to submit and serve, it becomes even worse.

And then they leave.

Only Rick understood.

So I found myself looking across the table at this bright man, realizing that even though he finds me attractive, finds me desirable, we have only the external in common. And any time spent pursuing him, or getting him to pursue me, will only end as he realizes that I'm more and less than what he sees.

Because he's not my kind.

... ... ... ...

Side Note: as I re-read this after I posted it, checking for typos and my tendency to dance between tenses, I realized that the likely reason that I am not even bothering to look for a relationship, that I'm viewing men as potential companions and lovers only, is because of how I am. Men, currently, can only feature in my life as lovers, one-night stands, or friends. Because nothing else works, and it becomes increasingly unlikely that it ever will.

The tiny midnight caravan...

I'm totally getting my mope on right now, which amuses me. My humor leaks into everything, no matter how poorly I feel. And I sit here and know that I'm moping, and I know that it is due to a combination of things, the primary of which being that I'm tired, followed up by accidentally coming across Bradley's (the suicide) myspace last night, stacked with the thing with GV8, which "ended" well, for all intents and purposes, but it still makes me feel like screaming.

Not an angry scream.

Not at him, anyhow.

Not that I ever, ever scream or raise my voice.

Because I'm mellow.

It really is a blow, even though it shouldn't be. I expected it.

You'd think that if I hooked up with someone like him (and I'm not going to go into detail out of some odd respect for his wish to leave his past behind him), he would have understood. Somehow. That disconnect.

He made me feel like such a child. A little girl with issues.

I suppose I am.

I suddenly was sixteen again, with the poor fashion sense, the cigarettes, the alcohol, the sex with near strangers who I don't really remember anymore, shouting at the world how no one understands me, no one will ever understand me, I'm just so bloody different. Teenage angst.

And now what? Mid-twenties angst?

It only left me when I was with Rick.

And now I'm looking at The Bassist. He's three years younger than I am. That's not my style. I rarely can tolerate people my own age.

He's so young. He's fun and happy and wonderful to be around. He reads. He actually reads. And he has dreams and motivations and he's amazing to watch on stage, wonderful performer. So I'm looking at him going, "I'm too damaged for you. You see me as nothing more than a friend because I don't attract guys that don't have some wild damage about them, unless they're trying to save me from my own head." And part of me is hoping that he's got some hidden issue, some damage, some scar. That he hasn't gone through life untouched, that we will be able to relate to each other as more than just friends, more than just lovers.

He's healthier than I am, it seems. And more mature. And more responsible.

What a joke.

But every so often I'll catch these glimpses, and I'll wonder if he's hiding some part of himself.

He's a nice guy, a good guy, but not... in a bad way.

I wish the man in my head was real. I wish I had that understanding in another person, that true understanding that is only available via one's own mental construct. I wish I had someone I could talk to, really talk to. That I did not have to mentally divide up myself among social groups.

In some, I can be nothing other than the sex beast. I have to live up to my name, I can show no weakness. I'm a trophy, one that I let so few of them have. Stories about me circulate, even when I disappear for a year or two.

In some, I'm the teacher and confidant. I do not get to let go of my burdens. I must listen, I must advise. I feel as though if I do not, all the experiences I've had are useless, that I'm doing them a disservice. That I'm being horribly selfish. I feel that if I bring up my own problems, I'm suddenly not someone they can look up to, and then they lose confidence in themselves and me.

In some, I'm a pleaser. I'm an attachment. I'm that girl that so-and-so is fucking. I give great head and have a snarky comeback at all times, but I never outshine my partner unless it pleases him that I do so.

In some, I'm another version of the sex beast. I'm the shark. I get who I want, even if it takes years, I will eventually get him. Girls watch me, admire me, and try to follow my lead. I get masses of nerds and beta males at my heels, trying to play the nice-guy card.

They all want to save me, seeing me as some sort of nice girl in distress, that fell into bad crowds and bad ways, but if they just point out my errors in judgement, correct how my morals have shifted, I'll be a normal, functioning member of society again.

I hate this. It's such disrespect. It's basically someone telling me that:

A. I can't do it on my own.
B. There is only one acceptable way to be healthy.
C. They represent what is healthy.
D. It does not matter if I do not consider them healthy.

I have other crowds where I'm the shy girl, the loner, the brain. Standard stereotypes that are only pieces of me. Ones I feel trapped in, sometimes. But not as much as the others.

In some groups, if I show weakness... yeah, that's not a good scene.
In others, if I show too much of myself, my experiences, my sexuality, my need to play the game, people are frightened and judgemental. I'm a damaged freak, seeking validation, just as GV8 said.

It made me feel so very small. So very young. But, then, he is almost 44. He could be my father, with that age. Not to mention, he's lived enough for five lifetimes.

It's harder, when you look up to someone, and then they call you sick. Unhealthy.

I was just getting used to that as a state of being. I was getting used to that as being okay. That is was okay that my brain is off at this 90 degree angle from everyone else's. That I'm not strange enough to be one of the wild ones, the people that are willing to lose everything so they can pursue their madcap dreams, but I'm not normal enough to fit.

Self-acceptance, will I ever find it?

And I have friends, especially my best friends, who will accept me no matter what, and I know this. Two of them have been there from the self-destructive fall to today, and one of them has seen so much of it, amuses himself by watching me game guys when we go out. I love them, they love me. And there are parts of each of us that sync, and parts that don't. There are pieces of each other that we'll never get. But we accept it.

Now Hardwood Floors is back in town, back from traveling and promoting his work. I do not know if we will hook up again, if he found someone on the road and is now happily contained in a relationship.

I miss him, more than most partners I've had. Which is saying a lot, because I rarely miss lovers for more than a few weeks after we've ended. Out of all of them, Riot of Tattoos and Hardwood Floors are the ones that haunt me. The ones I want again. Riot, because he's an animal in bed. He's the roughest, most visceral man I've ever been with. Hardwood Floors, because he's... him. Because he rivals me in intensity. Because his work is so heart-stopping. He's rough and lovely, a damaged dreamer, with a bone structure that defies reality. And he understands, possibly better than anyone besides Rick.

I feel stupid, for having revealed those vunerabilities to GV8. My aching sense of isolation, that feeling that I will always be alone and outside, that feeling that, compared to everyone else, there will always be something off about me. That people like me, but only parts of me, and if they knew all of me... they wouldn't, not so much.

So then I toss out parts of me, the unfriendly, the unflattering, the damaged, the alien, and they're slapped back like I'm an inexperienced child.

That I will get over this.

You know, when I'm more mature and worldly.

I've been told so often things along the lines of:
-You're always with someone, you've always got company.
-You're never single for long.
-You'll get out of this funk.
-You'll find someone special who will change your mind.
-There's someone for everyone.

I've been told that 95% of American women marry.

I don't even know why that is relevant, since I don't view marriage as a symbol of love, only trust, an an abused one at that. Not to mention what I think of social statistics. Eesh.

Anyhow, I just derailed.

But I'm feeling mildly better now.

God, this blog is getting so damn emo of late.

Really, when I look at it, I can do alone. I prefer alone, most of the time. And, yes, I keep saying that. Because it's usually true, and has been all my life.

Sometimes it grates, when something happens and I realize I have no one I feel that I can truly talk about it to except myself. I don't have a partner with that connect.

So I create shadows in my head. Shadows that have no basis in reality, but soothe me.

It's just this feeling of embarassment that I come back to. Invalidity of feelings, like a spoiled teenager crying because mommy won't buy her a car for her 16th birthday and she's going to go upstairs and listen to Linkin Park (though it was Megadeth for me, but I'm trying to stay current) and rage about the unfairness of it all.

I feel stupid and embarassed for feeling so different and alone.

I feel like a walking stereotype. One in a million people who feels like they're so damn special and no one can understand their pain and I'm going to compose an epic rock ballad about my pain and paint my nails black because my pain is so dark and tragic etc etc etc.

I don't have pain. I have alienation. I have a fractured sense of self. I have a tendency to write so much that I doubt I will have the patience myself to read this all the way through after I post it (humor leaking in again).

I feel like if I just relaxed, I would be okay. That I would just cover it up and not think and analyze like I do.

I feel that GV8 thinks that I'm just like all the young girls he's slept with over the years: dramatic, with an inflated sense of individualism.

That with all my experience, with the demeanor I have, that calm assuredness that fools so many people, with my mellow tones and ability to take on so many points of view, I'm just a child. A teenager. A girl that hasn't grown up and found the love of her life, settled for whatever came my way, and popped out some kids.

I feel like I should be better than this. Healthier than this. That I've failed myself by not leaning on my years of life-education and coming to a better conclusion than, "I'm a weirdo, and it's unlikely that I'll find a matching weirdo."

That out of all the billions of people on this planet, I'm so damned special that I don't have a potential mate out there.

It's juvenile.

I feel like a foreigner in my own home, and I'm punishing myself for it because I think it's retarded, dramatic, and self-absorbed, and if I had half a brain, I would have gotten over it years ago because, really, it's not like I've ever fit in anywhere. So it's no surprise. I'm not raging against the dying of the light or anything.

Nothing is going to change, other than appearances, other than me feeling confident that I can pass myself off as average/standard/typical/any-word-other-than-'normal'-because-I've-used-it-too-much-in-this-post.

Because I can't accept myself, on a social level, as I am.

Because I don't think I'm fooling anyone. And I don't have the knowledge and experience to do so, at least as of now. I don't need to be normal, I just need to be able to fake it as needed. I do it okay, but I want to do it well.

It's my own insecurities, as always.

When I was in junior high and early in high school, even though I did not believe in any sort of god, I used to lie in bed at night and wish and pray that I would be "normal" one day. That I would fit in. Be average. I did not need to be the most popular or pretty girl. Just a standard one with standard grades and a standard boyfriend, standard family, standard drama. Or that I would, at least, fit in the with the "weird" kids, the goths and punks. Just somewhere, you know?

God, I feel like I'm whining. It wasn't so bad when I knew no one was reading this. I could whine to my heart's content. Now I worry that I'm being incredibly annoying.

In my own blog.

Bwah, I continue to amuse myself with my logic.

I turned down a concert tonight because I was feeling so on edge. I still am, but not as badly. Instead, I'm going to curl up with a friend and finish DollHouse, season one. He has a way of making me calm.

The air conditioner helps as well.

The Players

This is going to be a picture-heavy post with little backstory because I'm tired and have to be up early tomorrow.

What I've done is gather pictures of the people I've written about, or plan to write about, and cropped them for anonymity. These are pictures I've taken myself or stolen from myspace or various other sites. I'm missing some crucial people (Riot of Tattoos being my primary annoyance on digging up a picture), I know, but it's still a work in progress. I'm just putting up the main people I've spoken of, but there are more in the folder, and I'll be added to it as time goes on.

But onto the people.

The girl I spend so much time with, C.

From The Players

Hardwood Floors, one of my favorite lovers over the years.

From The Players

SFPlayboy, stolen from one of his photo shoots. Such a hottie.

From The Players

Rick, my "major" ex.

From The Players

Wolfboy, the almost boyfriend.

From The Players

Mr. Brush-off, the one night stand from July 4th weekend.

From The Players

And, well, me.

From The Players

Also, this past week's pictures are up. They include a drastically oversized urinal, a sign for Big Wang's, and a couple shots from a concert C and I went to on Tuesday, along with other random things.

July 19th 2009 Week

And now... shower time.

You are just another thing I've yet to fathom

This is one of those 'bleech' moments.

GV8 texted me to see how I was doing. Which is cool because I see no reason not to be friends, so I'm glad that he was comfortable enough to do so.

I text back with news my friend's suicide, and we start talking about emotions, how hard a time I have letting go, how I've only truly let go the tight control I have on my emotions twice (first, when Rick broke up with me, the other during sex with Riot of Tattoos, which continues to be the best sex I've ever had, because he was so rough he completely pushed me over the edge) in the last six years or so.

He basically told me I need to grow my own emotions.

Several people have, in the last two weeks, inferred that I am some sort of robot. I'm getting mildly tired of it.

Interesting to note, was when I did not respond to one of his texts right away, sent sent a "Well, gee, I guess I'll try later, when you are not so busy," text, which is very, very out of character for him. I looked at that and determined that he is more affected by our split than I expected (which I expected him to be completely unaffected by it, honestly).

So, out of nowhere, he starts talking about why we aren't seeing each other anymore.

This, this is something I don't need to discuss. Basically, what is going to happen is that I'm going to fixate on it in my head and blame myself for not being more aware and socially adept enough to notice that I did something to bother him.

The relationship we had is over. We never committed. I don't need to know why we slid apart, I just know that we did. It happens.

But he starts texting me about why he decided we would not work out and I had just finished a crying spree about Bradley's death (I basically walked in the front door of the house and lost it, nearly out of the blue. I'm glad it happened, because I needed to cry, but I pulled myself together before I could truly reach the height of the emotional release that I needed because there were things to do, errands to run, people to help.) and then he started telling me how I, in my view, basically failed him. Failed to observe him. Failed to understand what was important to him and what wold bother him. Failed to be the best I could be for him.

That's how I see it.

Because if I was more aware of how I come across, more aware of other people's needs, more aware of individual quirks, body language, and the subtle clues that word choice gives, I would have noticed that something was wrong.

And I did notice. But I was not aware enough, apparently, or experienced enough, to determine what it was. And I was not so sure he was aware that something was off, so I did not ask him.

And I should have.

I failed. I failed to live up to my own expectations of myself, I failed to be aware of him as a partner.

And, sure, one could say that he failed to communicate to me that something was wrong, that I was doing something that made him uncomfortable.

But I was aware that something was wrong, and I did not act on it. I hoped it would iron itself out, so instead of addressing it directly, I let it slide under.

And I know so much better than that.

I'll put the text messages up here later, when I have more time. Basically, it reads that I was not respecting him. Not in the typical way, either. Apparently, it was not in person that I displeased him, but my actions when he was not around.

I do not know what those actions are yet. We are going to talk about this later this evening, on the phone, because he's busy now and exchanging the amount of information we were, on the topic we were, through text, was annoying and not good.

But, apparently, I did something while he was not that reflected poorly on him.

Which wouldn't matter, if we hadn't been starting to think of a (open) committed relationship. But since things started shifting that way, he took my behavior to be a poor reflection on him.

I still don't know what I did.

I suspect, though I am probably wrong, it was my one-night stand with Mr. Brush-off. Or maybe he found this journal and did not like the way I wrote about him.

...I really don't know. I can't imagine anything else. I just hope that, whatever it is, it does not make me feel terrible about myself, about being the person I am. I think I'm a good person (doesn't everyone?), I think I am considerate of others. I try to always be polite, try to respect other people and their opinions, no matter how foreign to mine they are. I'm there for my family and friends the instant I am needed. I'm rarely late. I have a decent (though certainly not great) job, and I'm pursuing my education and the future I desire. My wardrobe is decent, my body continues to be a work in progress, but there is significantly obvious progress being made.

What could I be doing wrong?

Was it the "sugar daddy" jokes? Hell, he tried to take me clothes shopping and I ended up only letting him buy me two things because I just couldn't reconcile with myself the idea of a man, no matter how rich, buying me so much. I've done nothing to earn it. Sex? Ha, I'd be doing that anyway. Why pay me for doing something I'm quite content doing for free?

Was it the references to his sordid past?

I'll know in the next hour or two.

I just wish it didn't make me feel so bad and doubtful. I know that everything I've listed here will not be it because I was able to think of it. That's the way it works. It's always something I haven't considered, something so left field that doesn't even enter into my vision.

I was okay with it being over. A week later, and I was hardly thinking about it, rarely moping.

And now we're talking about it, something he brought up without stimulation from my end.

Which could mean one of two things:

1. He wants me to know what I did wrong, just to communicate, just to justify to himself what happened.

2. He wants to get back together, in some capacity, and this week of absence is to make me aware of how much I may want him. Then we'll talk, I'll hear what I did wrong, and then I'll be aware of it and adjust my behavior accordingly (assuming it's something I'm willing to adjust, which it should be). And then we'll continue doing whatever, but with no discussion of a future.

Which is okay.

Not the most flattering, but I need to be single anyhow. He was having too much impact on me, and this week has allowed me to see how much. I think I'm going to enforce a "once every two weeks" rule with future guys, just so I do not allow myself to get so time- and mentally-wrapped up in any of them. I need to focus on me.

So we'll see what happens.

Maybe this is a, "Good-bye, I no longer want to be friends" conversation.

Who knows?

I'm sure that, afterwards, I'll be up here again, furiously typing, expelling from my mind all the confusion and emotion I'm experiencing in order to understand it all.

This keyboard... any keyboard... it's really the key to me. I'd be lost without this, this words drain from me like tocins. It lifts me, makes me lighter, reminds me of who I am.

Albert Camus had a great quote on that. If only I could remember where I left the book that contained it.

Good to be out of the rain...

"Oh, I do have some news for you."

I'm lying on my side on C's futon, phone resting against my ear. "Oh, yeah? What's that?"

"Bradley killed himself."

The name doesn't register. I flip through locations in my head, of his various social groups, and I cannot remember any Bradleys at the bar or coffee shops.

"Bradley? Bradley who?"

"Bradley. My little brother."

A quick intake of breath as my stomach drops, numbness starts growing and my eyes start to fill. Even thought it's a stupid, stupid question, I have to ask, "Did he succeed?" hoping against hope that I misheard his words, that due to static or a temporarily dropped connection that he actually said, "Bradley tried to kill himself."

He lets out a ragged breath that echoes over the phone line, "Oooh yeah, he succeeded."

"What happened?" I can't imagine that the bright young man I knew would kill himself. My brain is flooded with time spent, with conversations and laughter. I'm suddenly struck with the hope that I kept the little plush Scotsman he bought me while on vacation in Scotland. He was my favorite of my ex-boyfriend's three brothers, the one I had most looked forward to calling my brother-in-law, the one I most wanted to see grow up, to see him find the woman he would one day call his wife, knowing how amazing she would have to be, knowing the friendship we would share.

I listened as Rick told me the events leading up to Bradley's suicide. Of how he joined the army, was sent to Kuwait, then eventually Iraq, where he was stationed at one of the worst places to be, and how, a week in, he put a bullet in his brain that didn't kill his body, only his mind. Rick spoke of how his little brother's squad was able to keep the body alive so it could be moved to a hospital in Germany, and how he and his mother flew out to be there when they pulled Bradley off life support.

He explained that's why he hadn't returned my calls, that the last month had been overwhelming and he called few people back.

He mentioned that, under instruction of his sargent, Bradley wrote an "In Event of Death" letter a few weeks before he died, and what an amazing thing that had been for all of them, reading it.

He spoke of how difficult it has been for him, how little things have been setting him off. Giving him the sniffles, he says. In the years we were together, I only saw him cry once, when his mother and I surprised him by flying her out here for his 30th birthday, having him walk up behind him at his birthday dinner. They've had a strained relationship for years, but he still loves her.

It's hard to imagine Rick upset, hard to imagine him grieving. He was always so strong, so in control, so steady.

It's hard to imagine Bradley getting to the point where he could not stand to be where he was, and could not see any point in the future ahead of him.

As we talk, I find my usual strength in shoving away the emotion. I will acknowledge this later, I tell myself. This sense of incredible loss, I can do nothing. I will not cry, I will not allow myself to think on this too strongly because there is nothing I can do besides grieve.

And I will. Eventually.