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

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

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

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

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

Ending without him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's what I do.

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

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

It's just another drug.

Emotional high.

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

The magic of that place.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Drove home, freeway flying under me.

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

I came home to an empty apartment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I need that other person. It gives me something.

It's so hard to be without it.

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

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

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

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

And guarantee source divine...

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

What I want...

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

But I, I am at work.

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

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

This means something.

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

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me...

I have to say, this is one of the rare times I don't want to be blogging because my mind is simply too full and I just want to retreat into my cave and not talk to anyone until it goes away, by either zombie attack or lobotomy.

That's right, baby. Brains: come and get 'em.

But since I missed last night's posting, here I am.

By "here" I mean sitting in my bed, wearing an ex-boyfriend's old thermal and shiny blue pajama bottoms with the phrase "Sweet Dreams" printed across the back in a sort of strange italics.

My hair is up in a bun because it's so cold I did not want to wash it and go to bed with hair that hadn't dried fully, so tomorrow is going to be an "interesting" hair day that will translate to me having it "bunned up" all day.

How many more "words" can I put in "quotations marks"?

At the top of my brainmush, is female competition combined with insulting phrasing that is inherently for female recipients, but really only exists to complain about whatever behavior isn't suiting the user at the time.

Which is, magically, how I can be a slut and a cocktease at the same time.

How do I achieve this remarkable feat? one may ask.

Simple. I just have to have two different men looking at me with two different different backgrounds.

The externally active one (meaning, to the person who doesn't understand my slightly odd pairings of words, the one who looks outside of himself to determine what is wrong with "society" and how he is more the result of what has been done to him than his own actions, or even more simply, the one who views the world out of pure egocentricity) will tend to label towards "slut"-themed words.

The internally active one (meaning the one who isn't quite bitter and egocentric enough to enforce his opinions on the rest of the world as The Way Things Should Be) will go towards the "cocktease" or "cunt"-themed words. Not near as aggressively judgmental.

What do they have in common? I'm not sleeping with either of them.

What you just read (or skimmed) above is a fairly common and generalized sentiment.

Men are bitter, angry, hostile, etc etc.

But what it is, though, is a way to control and influence. Girl isn't doing what you want, label her appropriately, get others to back you, have enough status that your label actually matters, or simply get fear of a word entrenched in a group... bingo- behavior will change.

What's worse, and what I've noticed more of these last few days, is when other women do it. Not only do they have to be concerned with their own sex life, but the sex lives of other girls. It's competition and, wow, unhappiness.

As why would a woman who is truly happy with her sex life and her sexual presentation (both socially and physically) care about what another woman is doing, and be anything but supportive as long as the other is safe and happy?

Especially among friends.

And before someone reading this gets the idea that I had some traumatic experience in the last few days/hours/weeks with a girl going off on me, you'd be incorrect. As for a guy going off on me? Not so much either.

Continuing.

I can't tell if the competition at this point is to see who can snag the best man or who can make the others around her more miserable.

I mean, really, that's how you win, right? You get the alpha football jock millionaire high status star and you've won! And then, OMG, you lord him and your acquired status over your girlfriends and they all look at you in envy. Or you make sure that since you're so very unhappy with what you've done with your life, that no one else can be happy and make you feel worse with their success.

I've been reading these MRA blogs about honor and values and how women simply lack them. That's right, kids, women don't have morals. I believe there's supposed to be a genetic difference, some part of the brain that prevented morals (back to the lobotomy, eh, Jones?).

And when I see these women that tout themselves as MRA supporters or anti-feminism supporters, I've just got to sit back and watch the magic.

By magic, I mean grown women behaving like an idiotic school of fish, hanging out in the water, mouths open, begging for the validation of whatever MRA man will come along and tell them that they are special, that they do understand, and that they've got this lovely little doggie bed for them in the garage.

Because these women are actively advocating that they are inferior purely due to biology. That their physical sex is the determining factor on who they are, what they can do, and what morals they can possess.

I can't even read this stuff all the way through.

I'm not a feminist. I don't advocate social change based on my own idea of what society should be. I simply don't have a social -ism or an -ist or any sort of label to apply to my belief set so I can communicate them to others in an attempt at conversion.

Someone tries to talk politics to me? I apologize, tell them I'm dreadfully ignorant, and completely apolitical.
Someone tries to talk religion? No, don't do that either.
Philosophy? Nope.
Sexuality? Oh, hell no.

I'm not going to get into it any place other than online (and for me to step far outside my blog for any significant length of time is uncommon).

Because they're simply beliefs. It's not reality. My believing in the things I do does not make them correct, and it certainly doesn't make them more valid than any other set of beliefs that any other person has. And for me to attempt to force my beliefs on others is an exercise in selfishness and ego-stroking that I don't desire to pursue.

I'll stroke my ego in other ways. Usually with physical action that requires stroking. (wink wink, nudge nudge)

I was going to continue that above parenthetical remark into the rest of the Monty Python skit, but then realized how disconcerting that would be to anyone who hasn't seen it. Yes, you all disappoint me. Except for you. You can stay.

So, to bring that back, controlling others through words, through strength of words, and then having that reinforced by people who should emphasize with the negativity of those words... no. We assign such a high value to words without even realizing it.

I hate how we cut ourselves down, and then we go to be pet by the person who handed us the ax. I'm not a dog, I'm not going to have my "master" sic me on other people.

And this leads into my concerns with GV8, concerns that I've spent all week trying to avoid, only to have them come up again.

I'm 26. I'm now on my downslope. I'm not getting hotter each year, I'm declining. I have to fight to keep my body healthy and in shape. As much as it's going to get, anyway. I have somewhere between ten and fourteen years where I can reproduce.

And then that's it. Uteral party is over.

That's my window.

Crazy how it creeps up on you.

I have to find someone within the next two years, just as I slide into my late twenties. And then I will be, in all likelihood, finding lower and lower quality males that are willing to accept me in my "declining" years. (Aldonza, I have to say I am imagining you shaking your head at me right now and I fully give you permission to boot me in the head later.)

So I've got two years that are no longer optimal, then I have to marry, go through the honeymoon phase, and then pop out a kid or two, hopefully by thirty-five.

It seems like such a brief window.

And that's assuming that I ever find a man that I get along with enough to consider marriage. Yes, I have male attention. But, as has been noted again and again, I'm a bit... intense. I have to have a man that can handle that, and handle it well.

It drives me nuts to think that, for so many, my desirability is not based on my brain, my character, my too-extreme Disney-like morals, but my appearance. And this is accepted. This is the way it is. And there's validation for it. Attractiveness declines with fertility leaving. Of course, that could very well be another chicken-and-egg argument. Then add in Darwin's idea of sexual selection and twist it up more and there you go. Madness. Sparta. Of course, if I recall correctly, Darwin said females choose, males court, but I think it spins both ways because one has to have power to choose, which means one has to be desirable enough to battle over.

So there you go.

Which means that every day I spend moping over GV8, or spend with GV8 (which encourages more moping) is a day that is wasted. Because he's too old, likely not going to marry, and he's now sterile. As long as I'm hung up on him, I cannot truly engage with another male.

But that's just from a biological standpoint.

When you layer in the psychology, the emotions, the personal growth, the life experience through hypergamy... it swings it back around until we're in this limbo where it could either be positive or negative.

And in the end, it just drives me crazy to think about.

So, with the words of god knows how many people ringing in my ears, I called GV8 to tell him that I couldn't do this to myself. I couldn't keep spending time with a man that wouldn't give me monogamy, marriage, or munchkins.

I wanted him to give me a counter-argument, maybe tell me he'd be willing to drop his sport-fucking outside of swing clubs.

Tell me that our relationship was more important than his sport-fucking.

Yeah, that'd be nice.

Instead, he agreed with me. Of course. So not only did I not get an argument, I also lost the high of being the ditcher as opposed to the ditchee.

He's not going to change, I can't ask him to change, sport-fucking is something he's been doing for thirty years and he's not going to give it up, it's as natural to him as breathing. We need to be friends, we've exceeded our "dating window", five break-ups is too many, we need to give up on it.

And I'm sitting there, going "fuck, really?" because now he's taking control of the situation and telling me all these things that I was going to tell him. Which left me feeling incredibly insecure and lacking in validation.

He's way too good at this.

So then I end up pursuing. Not saying that we needed to get back together, but that it bothered me how easy it all was for him, how sad it makes me that he's so willing to give me up for sport-fucking, how rarely he shows his emotions, how surprised that he felt our "dating window" was up. Trying to get that emotional acknowledgment, hating that he's so much stronger than I am.

We were going to go out on Saturday. I called to tell him that wasn't such a good idea. By the end of the conversation, we're back on for a tentative Saturday and I'm here thinking, "Christ, he did it again." Or maybe that should be: "Christ, I did it again."

I'm supposed to call him later in the week to confirm if it's a yes or a no, think on it some.

We talk to each other and... melt.

I got his hackles up a bit, more than once. Pissed him off a couple times. I never used to monitor him so finely, but talking with Roman has made me even more aware of conversational twitches, and the space since GV8 and I last talked allowed me to get my feet under me somewhat so I could play with the conversation, be a little more assertive.

Though at the end I started to crumble. Losing words. Unable or unwilling to articulate the mess in my head.

This is the second time I've considered and decided to take a step away from him.

Each time, I've been blocked by him.

But I think this time, he is set that it is over.

I wish I could have been the one to make that call. He takes control of every conversation and by the end of it, flips me around like Alice down the rabbit hole.

Now I don't know what he wants, what he's planning, and I hate to think that he's done with me so easily. I wish I could see into him like I do others, see that he hurts, that he misses me and hates doing this, as opposed to those words that I hear... but no emotion attached. It would make this so much easier.

He makes me so weak. I let him. I drink him down with Hope for a chaser.

Quickest girl in the frying pan...

It seems as though I'm developing an attachment to someone, or at least the beginnings of a potential attachment to someone.

Someone that isn't GV8.

It's a mixed bag.

My sadness at GV8 leaving me, even if it winds up being temporary, has morphed into a mild lack of respect for him, which I believe I've mentioned recently. When he's reminded of me strongly, through events or actions, he forgets his rules... maybe forget isn't the right word. He discards his rules for the pleasure of my company.

Just tosses them straight out.

And something that I valued in him, the first thing that made me stop and realize that maybe he was one of those few men I truly consider mine (in the sense that this type of man belongs to me, fits with me) was his self-control.

A friend of mine mentioned, when I told her how much I admired his self-control, that it was easy to have self-control when you had no rules for yourself.

I'm finding that more and more true.

I miss him, I truly do. It becomes easier each day, a little bit at a time, to not think of him. But when he does stray into my brain, that gutpunch feeling causes pain and mental doubling up around the source, trying to wad the memories of him in foam, box them up and store them in the furthest corner of my attic.

So I don't think of him.

And I try not to be angry. I try not to think that I opened myself to him fully, was willing to bare pieces of myself that I've held tightly so long, to mesh with him without reserve or doubts... and he said no.

Or, at least, not yet.

How can I return to that? How can I go back to him with open arms? Trust is burnt, respect is damaged, I'm shying away from him again, going back to my wild mustang hindbrain: teeth-bared-eyes-rolling-ain't-never-gonna-to-put-a-bridle-on-me-boy.

How can I expect him to even want me back, with his wild nights ahead of him, the club opening up in two weeks, living the life of a playboy, girls falling on him like they do.

How could he ever look back at me and think that he'd be willing to compromise, he'd be willing to give some of it up, so he could love me?

He's told me so often that he isn't relationship material, but he keeps trying with me anyhow.

I pass his tests. I'm the whole package, he says. The whole package, as far as I can tell from our talks, entails a combination of intelligence, drive, family values, confidence, ability to handle money, constant honesty, and insane sexual ability. I think I'm a bit wishy-washy on the drive and the confidence, but he was mostly okay with it.

Even if he did come back, even if he was able to gentle me, heal the damage between us, do I want a life with a man who won't offer monogamy? Who already donated one STD to my life? Who won't give me children? Who constantly changes his mind and his plans, who is never dedicated to one path if another one arises?

I don't know.

I say that often.

At least I admit it, I suppose.

And then this dark horse shows up, and I end up intrigued.

Makes me wonder if I'm just as bad as all the MRA guys say when it comes to women. Toss someone who smells like alpha at me and I'm spreading my legs. That's the belief, right?

No, I'm not having sex. I haven't touched anyone since The Bassist. My body feels like begging for touch, for an hour in bed with someone with hard, smooth skin and a strong jaw.

I feel disloyal.

Imagine.

I feel disloyal who a man who never offered me physical loyalty. To a man that said he'd call me when he figured things out... with no set date. It could be next year when my phone rings. To a man I may never actually talk to again.

I feel inconstant, easily attracted, easily distracted.

In my defense, I wasn't looking for it.

In my defense, maybe it's a good thing to remind myself that there are the occasional rare males out there that I can actually connect with, so I'm not so desperately hinged on GV8, thinking that he's the beginning and end of my world and letting that dictate my behavior.

It makes me wonder if I'll be able to respect a man again, or how long it will take for that respect to develop. GV8 pushed the bar so high, so far out of reach when it comes to certain behaviors and desired traits, and then... then he fell.

I remember, one of the last times we were together, he was sitting at his desk, looking at me. I don't know what we were talking about, but he commented that he wondered how long it would be before I was disillusioned with him, until I looked back at him like I do so many other guys who didn't live up to my expectations- not of a partner, but of a person, the same expectations that I hold to myself, constantly striving for, even if I don't meet them.

I have high demands of the people around me. The closer they are to me, the closer I allow them to me, the higher the demands rise. Those expectations aren't financial, or social, they aren't about wardrobe or who drops the most names. They center around honesty, integrity, self-awareness, ability to communicate, lack of external judgement, self-control, ethics, honor, perception, compassion, emotional stability and intelligence.

It's a lot, I know.

I strive towards those traits. I respect those traits.

So I look at myself and wonder why this is happening. If I'm being weak by allowing it to happen, if I'm guarding myself from the pain that GV8 will inflict when he lets me know he can't compromise his life style for me, if I'm giving myself a platform of objective reality, if I'm cheating on my lack of intimacy rule I've set for myself, if I'm using him as a crutch to feel not so alone as I deal with all these changes in my life, if I'm a disloyal and inconstant whore, if I'm just as bad as all the MRA guys would say, if it's all about that alpha-related tingle, if GV8 will just add it to his mental list of reasons he should not be with me, if this is really as weak as it sounds.

Lots of ifs.

One instinct.

My brain runs wild and I balk. Rare connection, ability, blessed ability to talk, to discuss ideas, to find someone who will be honest with me with their feedback, no rose-colored glasses, no white knighting. Knowing I'm just as wrecked as them.

What am I going to have to give up with these actions?

Which domino will start the chain of events that will unravel this thread?

How much can be held against me, and how much can I hold against myself?

What am I doing? Creating self-loathing or saving myself?

Probably the former.

So weak. Still so weak.

Since Friday, I've had four men ask me out. Two of them while I was at a coffee shop.

The first of the two at the coffee shop interrupted a conversation I was having with C and proceeded to completely ignore her as he tried again and again to get my number, email address, anything. He did not seem to understand that I was not going to change my mind about giving him any of my contact information. His behavior enraged C, as she has no patience for social retardation, and she spent the ten minute conversation of him near begging for my attentions glaring off to one side with him being completely unaware of her presence no matter how often I tried to draw her into the conversation.

This amused me more than anything, especially after he left when C turned to me and said, "Fuck you, V, with your man-magnetism! Fuck you!"

She cracks me up.

Sunday night, I spent working on my final paper, and managed to strike up a conversation with one of the men sharing the table with me at the coffee shop, as I kept having to get up and leave my things to take care of various things (phone calls, more coffee, fighting off tears in the alley behind the place after GV8's texts, you know, the usual).

I mentioned to him that I would be back, working on another paper, on Monday night.

So when I showed up the next day, guess who was sitting there, reading Chomsky, with an open chair next to him?

We talked for about an hour, about what we were going to be doing with our lives next year (his application to the PhD program at UCLA for linguistics and his alternative plans), which was interrupted by a text from some guy I had been hitting on at a club a few weeks ago who keeps inviting me to things.

Which lauched me into a frustrated mini-rant about GV8, life in general, the sudden overabudance of male attention and my state of mind regarding men.

And I eventually cooled it off, apologized for ranting, etc, that I was just feeling burned out and wished that the men that are trying to be in my life would just take a temporary "no" for an answer until I figure out what I'm doing and where I want to be.

Fifteen minutes later, my Chomsky-reader asked me out.

So I'm sitting there just staring at this guy going, "Did you really... just... do that??"

Goddamn self-disclosure leading to white-knighting.

... ... ...

Also realized that I have a significant dose of fear regarding GV8 and his likelihood of not being in my life if I wait too long, whether that's realistic or not, as he gets over the emotion of missing me.

That feeling of impending time-liney doom is stressing me out.

Conflict of wanting him in my life, wanting his advice and care, and knowing that it's not healthy, not now.

And how much I wish he could just be mine.

Best friend? Confidante? Mentor? Go to person? Rock? That's simply a boyfriend without the sex.

This makes me think less of him. Not a lot less, but his constantly altering mindset towards what we should be doing and his rationalization of what he wants makes me think of him as a mildly unstable justifier and this bothers me.

Makes me feel this is just a temporary window until he gets over it.

However long that will take.

I know I should stay away from him. But the thought of staying away does not produce feelings of relaxation in me, which is always what happens when I come across a solution, no matter how difficult, to a problem that is plaguing me on an internal/emotional level.

Something is wrong. This isn't the answer. But keeping him in my life like he wants produces feelings of stress and anxiety, so that's even more not the answer.

What to do..?

Sudden wave of depression, brought on by exhaustion and hunger.

Driving too hard, wrecking the body, it rears back and stops.

In a month, it will hurt less.
In two, time will start nipping at the edges of your memories.
In four, you'll begin to breathe again.

A year later, he'll still cause a twinge. The regret, the what if, and the if only.
And in two, he'll be an interesting set of stories told to another man whose face you cannot yet see.

Three and four, the years stack, and he becomes a footnote to the men that will come after him, the memories gone, but the stamp he pressed into you is there forever and will manifest in ways that you will not be able to connect back to him, following those breadcrumbs until the birds of time that has passed end your journey.

That's what this is.

The men that have come and gone, the subtle weaving of the lace of your heart, your sex.

My heart, my sex.

It's another loop, another twist to be added into the design, one thread supporting and dictating the actions of another, all of them coming together to form one image.

You.

Me.

88 lines...

Mmm, mildly late-night blogging.

Was over at a friend's place watching Dollhouse. I love that show.

It's not just the show, actually. His apartment makes me feel very relaxed, just drains the anxiety right out of me. It's very minimalistic and clean, and the air conditioner works wonderfully. I'm a total A/C girl. Best way to get me to relax is to put me in a dim room with a bed and pile of blankets and, of course, the A/C running.

It's a childhood thing. When I lived in San Gabriel Valley my bedroom had one of those air conditions that would stick out of a window. My bed was directly below it and, on summer days, I would sit beneath it and inhale the cold air through my nose. Something always made it smell so good. It helped to put me to sleep, helped relax an energetic child.

My mother likes to recount the day of my birth. I was the firstborn, a project that took them five years to achieve. My birth was quick, I came out clean- no blood, no mess. I had done absolutely no damage to my mother's body upon exit. I did not cry, just settled in on her chest and slept. We've been bonded since that moment, if not before.

Of course, then I was constantly sick. Anything I could have, I did my best to acquire. I think my crowning achievement was getting Scarlet Fever when I was two, which is what is theorized to have done the damage to my heart.

I was, as I said, the firstborn. Not just to my parents, either, but the first grandchild on my father's side of the family. There was no shortage of babysitters and caregivers for me.

But something was a little off, and commented upon. Women rarely soothed me, including my mother. I would spend all morning, all day even, screaming with whatever sickness I had gained, my mother half out of her mind with dealing with me being so sick every day, but as soon as one of my male relatives or neighbors came by and she put me in their arms, I was calm.

This continued through my entire infancy, noticable enough that relatives still comment on it.

I still feel more at ease around men than women. The significant majority of my friends are male, and it has always been that way. I don't feel comfortable touching women. Even when C hugs me or touches me, I lock up without thinking. I don't know if it's a scent or the sounds of their voices, but I just cannot relax with most females.

I hope that I get through this one day. It's something I've been working on.

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

I am approaching the one-year anniversary of the end of my last relationship. In truth, I do not know exactly when it was. Not the day, not the month. I'll have to go digging through old journals to find it.

This is the longest I've gone without getting into a committed relationship since my first serious relationship.

This has been a goal of mine.

Singlehood. For a year. I was so craving freedom during the last six months of that relationship, so craving the stimulation provided by other people, wanting to roam and explore, wanting to get out, to go out, more.

And I have been. This year has been a fairly active one for me, though I feel like I've gotten mildly stagnant on the personal progress front, especially where it concerns tackling my social anxiety and doing things that make me uncomfortable, but only because I'm frightened of the unknown.

But a whole year.

A whole year of not being tied to a single entity. Of not having to think of a partner's concerns and wellbeing.

Of course, now that I've vocalized this, some random man is going to come into my life in the next few weeks, sweep me off my feet with what usually does it for me (intelligence, banter, drive, and sexual/social dominance), then tie me up and bone my brains out, then request exclusive access to my body.

Because that's my usual luck.

In the hopes that that does not occur, once I hit my one year mark, I think I'm going to do something special for myself. A vacation or something, all on my lonesome. And then I start plotting for my two-year anniversary.

It's not that I don't want to be in a relationship.

I'd like it, eventually.

But I don't think that it'll be easy (or possible) to find a man that truly suits me. That I suit.

And why should I get into a relationship with someone who doesn't entirely fit? I can get sex from any number of sources. There's no reason to settle.

Oh, gods, I'm beginning to sound like all those other blogs (usually by men) about the search for that one special person, and how they'll continue to live life and party it up until they come in contact with them. Save me from myself.

What am I going to do?

Well, this week:
-Drop my transcripts off at the university
-Register for fall semester
-Register for CSET
-Review my transcripts and compare what is needed for the two programs I am planning on entering
-Potential concert on Tuesday
-Dinner with friends on Wednesday, or a date, depending on if he gets back to me in time.
-Movie night with friends on Thursday
-Another concert on Friday
-Study for CSET, then BBQ on Saturday
-Potential date on Sunday, or Arrested Development marathon with a friend

Somewhere in there, if I manage to meet the man of my dreams, I will report back right away.

But, really, I think Henry Rollins is out of town, so there's no chance of me running into him.

(End note: I'm tired, I'm rambling, this is silly. I'm going to bed.)

(Secondary End Note: The more I've thought on this, the more this chain of thoughts keeps circling my head. I'm looking for someone worth pleasing, worth serving. Worth submitting to. Someone worth linking myself to in every way, though not necessarily right away. But I really do hope that one day I find a guy that I can respect in every way, a man that I can bow to, who will understand that particular dynamic not just as a sexual one, but a social one. My need to serve, to support, to please, runs so very strong. I want to belong to a man, I want him to own every piece of me, and value that ownership.

Until then, I'm going to run free and become the best I can.)