Can't believe it's almost Thursday. I've been so tired, sick, and already overwhelmed with schoolwork that I've neglected posting here.

There isn't a lot to say at the moment. I'm hitting that odd sort of contentment that comes with a comfortable relationship. Not quite stirring myself up like I do, anxiety fades a bit, I end up mellowly moving through, still watching people, but not with that constant alarm at the back of my brain telling me analyze their every move, every sentence, flick of an eyelash.

PD and I had an enjoyable trip up to San Francisco, drove up the 5 on Friday morning, me behind the wheel. Found our hotel with minimal effort, dropped our bags, and wandered over to the Orpheum, where we found some hole in the wall Mexican joint and grabbed a bite to eat before the show.

Wicked continues to be my favorite live show, and this cast was absolutely delightful. Since it was near the end of the run, they were improving constantly, trying to make each other mess up- just slightly. PD and I were delighted to find ourselves sitting next to another inter-generational couple... but only because it was so very clear that it was a hooker and her john. I was leaning over, whispering into PD's ear, "Ohmygod, it's the couple from outside the theater! We're sitting next to her! This is so cool! She's so gorgeous! Eek!"

They didn't come back after intermission.

No, not because of my excited whisperings, but, you know... *cue porn music*.

PD was also amazing enough to get us front and center seats. Fourth row. Fourth freaking row. I squealed like a little girl. Totally did.

After the show let out, we wandered around a fairly empty section of the city, looking for a late night dessert place. Ended up finding a donut shop still open, serving cheese cake (for him) and carrot cake (for me). So we took our carby goodies and walked back to the hotel, curled up in bed and ate cake.

And we finally had anal sex.

It was... bizarre.

I mean, yes, I've had anal sex before. I wouldn't say I'm the most experienced in it, but I've probably had... oh, somewhere around seven or ten guys in my ass.

...that sounded odd.

Anyhow, I've had regular anal sex, then rape scene anal sex, then bondage anal sex, and then just freaking violent anal sex, and the DP, of course.

But it's not, you know, my thing. It's totally PD's thing, though.

He's been having me stretch my muscles out over the last several weeks, with metal plugs, and he's been fucking my ass with them when we have regular sex, so it's no longer a struggle to get two fingers in, but I'm certainly not a four-finger girl. I hadn't quite made the connection before, which I suppose was silly of me, that the sphincter muscles stretch like any other muscles. The more often you stretch, the easier it becomes, the further you can go. It's not like a rubberband, once you overstretch it, it's not done. If you don't do it for a bit, it goes back to the original condition.

Which is nice.

So by the time we actually got around to having anal sex, I was mostly fine. It was simply a matter of not clenching up on him, which hurt. I'd gotten so used to the solid, cold hardness of the plugs, that having something soft (texture) and warm was... almost a relief. Looking back at it and going, "I was frightened of this???"

Saturday morning, we roused ourselves and I walked us over to a tea shop. PD loves his tea (I hate tea, much like I hate coffee). We sat outside on a patio in Yerba Gardens, eating a healthy gourmet breakfast, watching the birds, the wind in the trees, listening to the church bells ring. It was so gorgeous out.

Back to the hotel, we grabbed my car and headed over the the Walt Disney Family Museum, which is a rather large collection of memorabilia brought together by the Disney family. Stuff you don't get to see anywhere else. Handwritten notes, employee manuals, family home videos, character design sheets and sculptures, Walt's original train that he used to sit and ride around on (the one in the photo with Salvador Dali), family accounts, one of the original cars from Autopia. Both PD and I have a love for Disneyland, rather, it's history and theme. The idea made real.

We spent most of the day there, then drove around until we found some food. And parking. I forget how shitty parking is in SF. Ended up at a burger joint just south of Golden Gate Park, BurgerMeister. Fabulous. We sat across from each other at a bar, poking fun, laughing, making faces, people watching. Just enjoying a meal, the company, the environment, no rush, no place to be, purely in the moment. We likely could have been there until closing time, content.

We caught a late showing of Toy Story 3 at a theater near the hotel, then came back and (eventually) passed out.

The morning was what got me.

We had planned to be on the road first thing, hit Winchester on the way down, along with Gilroy, be back in Los Angeles around 8 or so.

But I did my usual: I sat and sassed and teased him and we ended up wrestling on the bed, him tickling me, spanking me, me squirming and jerking, telling him that we really needed to go, then just sassing again or crawling back on top of him. Two hours later, we were both exhausted and, well, late.

I sass. I will sit and harass for hours. It's how I flirt. At the initial stage of a relationship, or when I first meet someone, it's a way of shit-testing them. I want to make sure they can keep up. I want to make sure they're smart. I want to make sure they're socially competent. Banter is an easy way to do this. Once we pass that stage, I'll still do it. It's like poking at a sleeping bear, waiting for him to wake up and smack you. I don't need him to prove anything, I'm just playful.

And PD, PD continues to own me. He's so quick, so funny. And he's stronger than I am. I really am, like every cute cat video you've ever seen, a little kitten batting at a dozing dog, waiting for a reaction.

We wandered around, looking for breakfast, finally settled on a coffee shop called "Celtic" or something along those lines. I couldn't see the point in the name, really. I decided to have a vacation diet and had PD get me two cookies and some milk, so I was sitting in a booth, grinning at him, dipping my chocolate chip cookies in milk and enjoying every bite, when he looks at me and says, "I've never felt as old as I do now. I'm here with my juice and muffin and you're sitting there eating milk and cookies."

It was pretty great.

Winchester Mystery House was good, as always. PD had never been, I just enjoy the architecture, so we wandered around on one of the tours. Makes me wish there were more really good haunted house movies out there. We've got "The Haunting" and "The Haunting of Hill House" and the more recent version of "House on Haunted Hill" (seeing a name trend, are we?) was good (even though that was a sanatorium, not a house)... but that's all I can think of. I need a good haunted house movie based in a old bayou mansion. I suppose they just aren't popular anymore.

Gilroy, garlic capital of something (the state, the country, the world??), was a podunk disappointment. Breezed through there once we realized that most everything was closed and what was open was unappealing.

Ended up back in LA a little past 11PM. Tired as hell. His cats desperate for attention that I willingly showered on them until bedtime when one of them made a bid for sleeping on my face.

Things are... kinda weird.

I'm getting used to some aspects of dating him. Walking into the warehouse, the dungeon, the sounds of porn as he edits (or films). His huge scope of sex knowledge... I mean, he knows so much and I'm just blown away by it. His job is to produce arousal through designing scenes, stories, sound. There's so much going on and so many different things to keep track of.

But he's got it down.

On the other hand, it's still a little weird. When I tell my friends that I'm dating a porn director, they are never surprised. It's not as though most of my friends are anywhere near as experienced, active, or alternative as I am. This isn't exactly common. But they expect it of me, it seems. I asked one if it surprised him and he said, "No. It makes perfect sense."

Never really thought that way.

For all my experience and activities, I don't define myself by my sexuality or the sex I've had. It isn't a big part of my life. What is a big part is what I've learned from it about people, about myself, and how comfortable I am with many things that most girls aren't. If someone was to tell me I would spend the rest of my life having sex with only one man, as long as he was open to exploring sex, learning, growing, and I loved him, I'd be perfectly fine.

On the other hand, if someone said I'd be having bad sex with one man for the rest of my life, we'd have a serious discussion.

So... a porn director?

I don't really view him as "a porn director". He's PD. He's this amazing, intelligent, funny man who really kinda *gets* me. Who I can be silly with. Who I can sit around with having serious, reality/history/ideal discussions, then later find myself being faux-raped over the back of some black leather-clad piece of furniture, then be made breakfast, who will sit and stroke my back and laugh at me when I wiggle in his arms because I'm just happy to be there. We can sit around watching cartoons, eating cake in bed, or get dressed up and hit an art show, or wander around the city, getting lost, happy.

I feel... so much more myself. A happy self.

I know it's not good that I did not achieve this happiness while single, but I did not give myself the chance to do so, between GV8 and PD and all the madness that happened this year before I even met PD. I got to ground myself a little, but each time I did, GV8 would sweep me off my feet again.

I wonder, if/when PD and I break up, how I'll land. If I'll be able to stay single for a longer period of time. I've always had months between relationships, grounding time, but I'm more than aware that it has almost never been enough time. And I think that grounding time is very needed in order to establish a sense of happy-while-single-ness. And okay-while-single.

Whenever I get close to that, I meet someone.

And I am okay-while-single. But, at the same time, I think I could be more-okay-while-single. More me. More like shifting gears than shifting a life. Not being defined in my head as a partner, not having that impact on my schedule.

I remember, once I moved into this apartment, after GV8 and I broke up, how awkward the weekends were for me. I did not know what to do. I was lost. My weekends had been full of him. I would wander and clean and watch movies, but... it was so weird, having no one but myself to take into account, and I had to figure out what life was like when it was just me.

Now I'm back in the position where life is no longer just me and I wonder how long it will be, how old I will be, when it is just me again. Or if it will ever be just me again. I don't mind not being just me ever again, but it's likely that eventually PD and I will part ways, life does things like that.

Makes me wonder how I'll land... on my feet, or on my ass?

So, I'm off work in two hours.

I've never thought of myself as patient, overall. If you tell me something exciting is going to happen in two months, two weeks, two years, I'm perfectly fine with waiting, totally calm.

But when we get down to that finish line, and we're just hours away... I turn into an impatient spaz and I must get going now.

That manifests in other ways, as well. When I have a project that I suddenly feel the need to get done, but it's going to take me six to ten hours and I should space it out, I won't. I won't eat, won't sleep, will begrudge going to the bathroom, until it is done. Whatever time of day or night this wild hair takes me, I'm lost.

So, I'm sitting here at work, two hours from bolting out the door, about to chew my own leg off in frustration to escape this time-trap.

I'm excited. I haven't seen PD since Monday morning. He's been working, working what appears to be about 16-18 hour days trying to get these two movies done. This means I've been exiled (or he's been quarantined) as I'm too much of a distraction and me in bed encourages him to forget editing and think about fucking and sleeping.

But the quarantine is off for tonight and tomorrow night, as he's going to be out of town until Tuesday of next week and I need to get my lovin' on. I go a little... batty... without physical affection.

He mentioned that, in one of his guest posts, that I was crawling all over him in a doctor's office in an effort to offend the populace.

This is partially incorrect.

I was crawling all over him in a doctor's office in an effort to crawl all over him, populace be damned. I need my cuddles. I need them more than sex, I think. If they go sexual, that's just another manifestation of my physical affection.

And we had this talk.

I don't set out to make people uncomfortable (except for that grumpy older group at the restaurant in Cambria who was looking at the two of us with total disgust so I had to stand up, kiss him, and then run my hands down to his ass and squeeze while he had his back to their table and the closest one was about two feet away). The only time I actually, purposefully, use PDA to have some sort of social result is when I'm getting poor service at a restaurant or retail location. Nothing sends the help scurrying on their way like overtly sexual behavior in their place of business.

Observers of my Displays of Affection are completely unnecessary to such displays. I touch, I need to touch, I need to be touched. Part of the whole "Poetry of Flesh" thing. It's not sexual, it's just how I mellow, how I connect.

Anyhow, that tangent aside...

I get to see PD tonight. I'm likely going to cuddle his face off. He has no idea the amount of physical affection he is in for. Well, he has some idea because he knows me, but we usually don't got this long without seeing each other. So it'll probably be excessive.

And he enjoys it. Win.

There's this part of me that... hrm. GV8. I spent so much of this blog idolizing him, turning him into this godlike figure. Because he was, to me.

Then he toppled.

And when he did, he came in here and started making a mess. I had to clean up more comments than anyone ever saw. Some where he posted as himself, some where he posted anonymously. To the point where I was having PD do it for me because I was so upset about how angry and offensive he was being.

Not upset because I was hurt, but upset because he had been so much of my life, had done so many amazing things for me, been there for me and helped me through such hard times, helped me become better as a person, live more of the life I wanted... and then, then when the weekend after our engagement hit, when everything happened, how he acted, what he said... it hurt.

But I understood. I didn't blame him.

But his subsequent aggression, he killed, was trying to kill, that shining image of him I had.

Well, maimed. It's still there. Sometimes I think about calling him, think about how I want to talk to him. And then I realize the person I want to talk to... isn't there anymore. He stopped existing. Died, in a way.

But that wish is still in my head.

And then I remember the things he said. The things he wrote. The look in his eyes at the diner when we broke up. And the lies. That's the hardest part. He lied. He lied to me, lied in his blog (which I've yet to read, but discussed with others).

He used this image of him I created in here to do damage to me.

And he did damage. I can tell.

I know I hurt. I hurt on many levels. And I know I'm swallowing some of it down, ignoring it, forcing it away with distractions.

I know I'm vulnerable, especially with PD. I'm so hung up on him. I think, like I thought of GV8, that he's just the end-all-be-all of men. I know I do this. (Well, I didn't do it with Darkeyes.) The more I interact with him, the more I get to know him, the more I feel that way.

It's a reaction. And it's a habit.

These last three days, away from him, have been a bit eye-opening. I still am wildly head over heels for PD. But I realized how much of my life I give up when I'm in a relationship. A real relationship. I usually only realize this after things have ended.

It's good to know. It's good to have it smack me in the face, that I'm doing it again.

I need to allocate time. I need to not lose myself again.

And, tonight, I need to lavish affection on the man I'm growing to love.

There's a balance. I just need to find it.

Blinking at the screen.

While my brain isn't going haywire or anything resembling haywire (the origins of the word "haywire", anyone?), circuits are still firing.

Went over to C's new apartment. Just a few blocks down the way from mine. Getting there made me grateful to have a parking space, as I ended up having to park in front of what I believe was a lesbian bar two blocks away.

It's a cute place. Large, lots of built-in shelving and cabinets. Not enough windows for my taste- there's never enough windows. One of the reasons I picked the apartment I'm in now was because the windows take up more than fifty percent of the walls they rest in.

She has so much stuff. Wandering around piles of boxes and clothes, random assorted things that I've never seen before though I couch-surfed with her for nearly a year. I don't have a lot of stuff. I'm not a monk or anything, but my belongings, furniture aside, would probably only need the smallest U-Haul and not necessarily fill that.

Her boyfriend was there. I watched them interact. She had mellowed down significantly, and I have to wonder if it is because of another man she has recently started dating (she and her boyfriend believe in open relationships)... the whole available resources thing.

And this other guy is a douche. I really cannot stand him. I've tried, for her, I've tried. But, as of last night, I've reached the amount of my time I'm willing to spend in his company. No more.

He's slimy. Manipulative. So very self-centered. Martyring. Socially job-centric. Materially validating. Damp. He's constantly damp, his hands, his hair, his skin, a slight sheen of sweat. Sneering lips, baby-cheeked, his hair cut in a slight A-line, curving around his jaw, up at a tiny angle. Too-small glasses. Clothing over-tight. Not because he's fat (not at all), but because he has to have the skinny-fit everything.

And he provokes. And he condescends. Plays "poor me".

I've shut him down twice now. Once on C's birthday, when he was going on and on about how the restaurant she had chosen (start nasal accent here) obviously wasn't high quality because he asked for a refill of his cappuccino and it never came, and he was just going to sit there because he shouldn't have to ask twice, if they were doing their job right. He'd rather go without his refill, he said, that deign to ask a second time. More annoying was that he also refused to ask a second time for a refill he had requested for C because of the same reasoning.

So I got it for him. Not in an obvious manner, but by meeting the gaze of the waiter, raising my eyebrows, he came, bent down, I asked for a refill of the drinks, not loud enough for anyone at the table to hear... and then when the waiter brought them less than two minutes later, he brought them to me. And I handed them out and went back to eating without saying a word.

It was, in its own quiet way, an amusing way of rubbing his nose into his own shit. And he knew it.

Last night, at the birthday dinner, he started bitching about his ex-girlfriend. C spurred this conversation, because she thought I would want to hear it.

After the second time of him whining that he never would have invested so much time and energy into this relationship if he had known she was going to leave him, I ignored him.

And not in a "I'm still looking at you, smiling when you smile, nodding when you nod, frowning when you frown" way.

No. I simply decided that I was no longer interested in his conversation and broke eye contact, shifted my body towards C, and waited for him to trail off in confusion and then I started a new conversation.

Was it bitchy? Myeh. It was a snub, but one that did not seem to get noticed by those around us.

When I hung out with C tonight, she was telling me that Mr Damp was also dating a stripper. He would meet her at her work and, apparently, allllll of the other strippers would hit on him and flirt with him and, apparently, pretty much any girl hits on him if he goes out and, apparently, he gets numbers all the time.

And, apparently, he's so sick of it and just wants to be left alone.

Apparently, I might punch him in his face if I'm forced to interact with him again.

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

On the sister-front, her ex-boyfriend used the key he had and let himself into the house last Thursday morning, 3AM.

His mission was to retrieve some coathangers he left there and get his apartment key back. They broke up around Easter of this year, tried to remain friends, despite his continued freak outs that she might be dating someone.

So he let himself in, went upstairs (luckily for him, my parents were out of town, or he would have gotten his ass handed to him), confronted my sister, and since the coathangers were scattered, he grabbed her phone as hostage and bolted down the stairs.

She chased after him, he jumped into his car (a car, by the way, that my parents gave him half the down payment for) and tossed the phone on the passenger seat. She leaned in to grab it, he took off (squealing tires, according to the girl who is renting my old bedroom) and shoved her out of his moving vehicle into the street.

She called him from the renter's cellphone, he said he would bring her phone back in exchange for the keys and hangers, then didn't show up for an hour.

When he did show up, he wanted to go inside the house. My sister wouldn't let him. The girl who is renting my room, a friend of my sister's, came outside the house with her.

Of course, then the nutbag grabs her, breaks one of her fingers, bruises her wrist, cuts a divot out of another finger with the key he's so desperate to suddenly get from her at what is now 530AM. Both girls start shrieking and hitting and kicking him but he won't let go and since they are both girly girls, neither of them knows how to do an ounce of damage (kids, this is why you spec for DPS).

While they are trying to get them off of my sister, the roommate digs her cellphone out of her pocket and calls the cops (yes, while continuing to ineffectually hit him).

The screaming wakes up the navy guy who is renting the guest room.

He comes downstairs, diffuses, does the exchange, and minutes before the cops pull up, the nutbag drives off into the night.

Statements are taken, pictures of her hands and arms are taken, police go hunting for the nutbag, my sister gets a temporary restraining order.

Once the police leave, my sister finds out why he didn't show up for an hour.

You see, he had logged onto her Facebook, changed the email associated with the account, and proceeded to go through all of her messages and any that were from males, wrote to them that "we can no longer see each other". And then messaged her coworkers saying offensive things. And then posted degrading status messages. And then texted some people, in particular the girlfriend of one of her male friends informing her that her boyfriend had been cheating on her with my sister. And other things.

Whether or not any of this has any lasting impact on her very active social life, it's fairly clear that he's a nutbag. When you add into this equation that he has an autistic kid he's fighting a losing custody battle for, he's obviously gone off the deep end.

My sister, having been shielded from any sort of asshattery like this in the past by either my parents, myself, or her own defensive mental barriers, was not really psychologically prepared for it.

I spent Thursday day hanging out at the parents' house, letting her sleep, looking into getting the locks changed, talking with the roommate, then driving us all to Taco Bell for quick dinner and girltime.

My parents are trying to get her to get a permanent restraining order, but she's balking because she doesn't want him to lose custody of his kid. We'll see how things go.

And, though I was planning another thing in this post, I think I'll get running to bed. Places to go, pillows to visit.

It's something o'clock. I'm blinding myself at the Nerd Station Control Center.

Yes, I know, virtually every post of the last couple weeks has been at the Nerd Station Control Center or simply at the Nerd Station Command Tower.

Got my HPV notice from my doctor today, things look normal. I don't know if that means that my body fought it off (which happens) or if I'm just not spawning lesions yet.

Either way, I'm a bit surprised, as the amount of stress that the whole thing with the ex created should have aggravated things, not have made them go away.

PD is downstairs showering, his ex and her husband are downstairs packing up the kitchen. It's been a rough day for him, as much as he tries to disconnect from the situation. I feel for him, can't even imagine what he's going through right now. Hefty emotions. Wednesday is supposed to be their last day here, we'll see how that goes.

As a side note, Mr. Brush-off emailed me last night.

This would be the PUA I picked up about this time last year, the cello player/stuntman/6'9"/yummy abs-open shirt guy. Apparently, he's been thinking of emailing me for a bit now, and finally did so.

And I'm looking at this email, shaking my head, because it's such a booty call. He's going to be in my neck of the woods next week and he's trying to line up some ass.

He was hot, he was hung, but he's too young, and I don't just mean on an age level.

Sleeping with him was the supposedly primary motivator that caused GV8 to end things with me a second time, saying that he wasn't jealous or upset (we weren't in a relationship at the time), only that he thought my tendency/love of pick-up was unhealthy and a sign of insecurity and deep-seated need for validation and that, in his own words, I was sick. Mentally ill. Imbalanced.

That, however, didn't stop him from getting back with me later down the line.

Anyway...

Went to a wedding today. In Hemet. For those of you not aware of California geography and social prejudices, Hemet is to California what Alabama is to the rest of the US, except it's in the middle of the desert. Brought to you by the letters B, F, and E.

But it was a friend's little sister getting married, and he's this awesome guy, 40 year old nerd/angry, yet loving manbeast, and we both thought it would be amusing if I showed up as his armcandy, swooning and batting my eyes and being all "Oooh, --------, how strong and desirable you are, you sweep me off my feet *tittertittergiggle*"

So we did, I did, met his mom, who was really freaking cool, and his sister, who was a little younger than me, and totally sweet.

Oh, yeah, I just said "freaking cool" and "totally sweet". This blog has been transported back to the 90s. Please do not adjust your monitor.

It was a little odd, watching the ceremony, the people, thinking of how things turned out. How skittish I've become. Wondering if I'll ever want marriage again, if I'll ever be able to call PD my boyfriend without letting relationship-phobia clog my throat. Logically, I'm sure I will, just wondering about the when and the why.

Well, it has been a bit.

I know, normally I'm posting a few times a week. I've been avoiding this blog of late. The whole thing with the ex left a sour taste in my mouth, combined with PD reading this thing (though he hasn't touched recent entries out of respect of letting me write freely, knowing that it's likely he'll eventually catch up to the "now" of things is a bit of a stopper for me and I need to work through it).

It has also been busy. I'm with PD almost every night, with C on the one night a week I'm not at PD's place. We spend most of the waking hours of the evening together, then I sleep and he goes back to work in his office.

And... I like it. I like this.

I've been processing a lot lately, trying this pieces out, trying to reflect and see what goes together, what doesn't go together, what theories fit, what can be applied, and what was nonsense.

It's hard to sort out the fantasies from the realities, sometimes.

I still am not sure if GV8 was the man I thought him to be, or if I just idolized him so much that I failed to see his flaws.

If he was who I thought he was, then he changed dramatically in the end.

If I idolized him so strongly, then it was only at the end that I started acknowledging behaviors of his as poor, and that was only enabled because I was away from him for long enough during that last split to get my head back together to a degree, and because I started dating PD, which reminded me of what a "normal" relationship was like.

You know, where partners are equals.

Where disagreements end in discussions, not decrees.

Experiencing that was like shedding off a too-heavy cloak.

An "Ooh, yeah, I forgot this."

And then it came back.

The knowledge, the experience, the things that I said I would never let myself do or never let someone do to me because it was unhealthy and unequal.

I keep thinking back to the party he took me to that Saturday, our first Saturday back together, the Saturday we split up. The people. Gods, the people. The sex in the pool, on the hill, the man pissing into the girls mouth until she fell into the planter, the drunk couple playing drowning games in the pool, her face bright red, make-up slogging down her cheeks like a strung-out whore, the rolls of fat hanging over rope-corsets, the people barely sober enough to walk up a short flight of stairs, the man shoving some girl's face down on another's cock, the blonde Vienna sausage- so stupid, so arrogant, so compensating, the trust-fund baby with the bitch-tits, the Playboy/Penthouse/Hustler/Whatever photographer with the skeezy ponytail, the roaming eyes when GV8 introduced me, the though flashing across faces of knowledge that he swings, so they'll be fucking me soon enough, the girl bent over in front of the bar, getting punched in the back, her grunting screams like some wild beast dying.

This was not for me.

That life was not for me.

I stood there, looking around, feeling trapped, feeling so anxious, my fiance apathetic to my distress, later telling me that if I couldn't accept his party lifestyle, I shouldn't have said yes. Later telling me that he would fuck when he wanted, who he wanted, all I had to do was be at the same party.

I stood there, looking around, and realized that as little as I think of myself so often, I am a thoroughbred compared to the majority of the crowd he was exposing me to, and I would be ruining myself if stayed and allowed the trash at that party access to my life, my body.

I sat across from him at the diner, looking at him, feeling my sadness and rage growing as he laid down his law again. Realizing that nothing had changed. Realizing that I was second class. Realizing that it was no longer love he felt for me, no longer chasing me to be with me, wanting me to be happy.

No. He was missing his favorite chew toy. The squeaky ball. And the only way to get it back was to dangle a deep desire in front of it, one that would keep it there without chance of ever leaving again.

It stopped being "us", it started being "him", more than it had been before.

I want to hate him for ruining it. This whole thing spills over onto good memories like a bottle of ink. I would have happily spent the rest of my life looking back on him, wishing things could have worked out, daydreaming about how things could have worked out, still thinking of him as the most amazing man I'd ever dated, letting the "what if"s run about my head.

Instead I'm at this foggy place where I'm trying to be understanding, trying not to be mad, trying to recognize that he is simply human with a lot of experience in managing people, but not a lot of experience in maintaining a relationship. He doesn't get certain things. Maybe he's not wired that way, maybe he just doesn't have the experience, maybe he simply doesn't care.

It doesn't matter much, though. I've been told by both PD and Roman in their own ways that the intentions, the feelings, don't matter, it's only the outcome. To stop trying to analyzing him and our relationship, stop trying to puzzle it out, and just accept how he handled things (poorly) as an end result and work forward from there.

Now... now I'm here. Nerd Control Tower. Sitting on a comfy futon, cats around me, cat hair on my face, on PD's laptop. I'm with a man who really likes me. Maybe even adores me, in his own way. He treats me incredibly well, we have a wonderful dynamic and, yeah, there are issues. Some of them we may or may not get through. But he never tells me that it's his way and if I don't like it, then I should leave. Or if I don't change my behavior, I'm not worthy of dating.

It's unexpected.

Meeting someone so soon.

And I think that part of me knows that if this doesn't work out, and doesn't work out in such a way that causes me a good deal of pain, I'm going to withdraw for a bit, hermit up in my shell.

I've gotten commitment-phobic. Relationship-phobic.

It was fine, pre-proposal, but now that that is all over, I'm terrified of being in a relationship again and each time some little thing happens with PD, my first instinct is to bolt. Fuck this, fuck relationships, fuck trying to work things out, I can't handle this, I'm so gone. And each time I have to sit myself down and remind myself that I'm being irrational, getting spooked too easily, that PD is not GV8, that he's never going to treat me like GV8 did.

And that makes it sound so bad. Like GV8 was abusing me or something.

He wasn't. He was caring and supportive, nearly always willing to lend a hand. He was good to me, good in ways that I needed.

But, ultimately, it turned into something not good. And there was always that undercurrent of imbalance that was maintained, that undercurrent that let me be constantly aware that I better be good enough for him, or I'm gone. And I better let him do what he wants, or he's gone. Which really pushes home the idea that I'm not equal in value to him. I'm of lower value. Inconsequential, really.

Nothing more than something that makes him feel good.

The erratic behaviors, the ups and downs, the constant testing, the lack of communication, the sink holes, it was a constant battlefield of me trying to keep my head up, me trying to be what he desired.

I don't know, I'm too tired to explain this right now. It's going to keep coming out incoherent messness.

He loved me, in his own way.

And I hurt him. In his eyes, I'm sure I utterly betrayed him. I told him I would marry him, marry him on July 1st, and then I bailed. I went against what I promised to do, went against my word.

And he'll never understand why.

Hm.

At the Nerd Station once more, my eyes bleeding from the overabundance of white on PD's desktop wallpaper.

White. Eesh. Who came up with that one?

PD's ex and her husband are downstairs watching Family Guy, I hear their laughter from here.

Spent the earlier portion of this evening with a friend I hadn't seen in a few weeks, catching up, watching comedy bits and I managed to con him into watching the first episode of "Glee" from which he may never recover.

Also chopped off a foot of his hair so he could donate it to Locks of Love. Check that off my nonexistent bucket list: brutalize friend's hair.

I keep thinking back to the other night.

I don't remember what we had been doing. But we were down in the kitchen, PD sitting on the counter by the sink, me in a pair of his sweatpants and a black wifebeater, barefoot.

I suddenly had a craving for vanilla bean ice cream, which I relayed to him.

He groaned at me, cursing me for planting this idea in his head. We were exhausted, it was almost midnight, and I was barely functional.

He gave me a pair of his sandals, I tossed my car keys at him, and he drove us to a Yogurt Land in Little Tokyo, me half-dozing in the passenger seat as he handled my car.

Parking lot, we get out, wander over to the Yogurt Land, my hair messy, chest braless, his arm around my waist. Guides me in and we grab one bowl, vanilla icea cream and bits of mochi on one half, cheese cake ice cream and brownie bites on the other, two spoons. Taking turns eating our portions while sitting in bed until they melted together and I passed out.

He says I crawl up onto his chest like a cat when I'm asleep, curl into the place where his shoulder meets his chest. Runs his fingers down my tattoo, that barely perceptible raised skin down my side. I never remember this, I'm always too far gone.

He tells me many things, things I never expected to hear, things I've never thought of. I look at him and it's like he's got a script full of things to say that will make me melt, echo through my brain.

Not normal, girly romance sayings, though he does those as well.

But the baser things.

"I love how you smile after each time I hit you."

"You were built to be fucked from behind."

That latter one sounds like an insult, made me laugh, but when he explained about genitalia positioning, Mr. Porn Director himself coming down from the mount to explain sexual logistics, it made me purr.

When he told me he wanted to protect me and abuse me.

So few people will understand that, truly understand that place, I don't even want to try to explain because I'll just get moral and psychological lectures, telling me that this need I feel, this need I've always felt, is some twisting of my psyche, and that I can be "healed" with love and magical unicorns that shit rainbows and lactate poptarts.

As if liking something that isn't considered mainstream immediately makes it a psychological deviation.

We went out on a date yesterday, went to Amoeba, to see MicMacs, then for Thai before returning home to bone each other silly. For a man in his early forties, his refractory period is quite short. I'm impressed.

On the drive to the theater, my sister called to invite me to join her and her construction worker on a double date. That lead into my mother grabbing the phone from her and lecturing me on getting the hell away from yet another nonmongamous man. PD was laughing the whole time at my squirmings.

But then, the tables turned when his mother called him and I was allowed to answer the call. Talked to her, introduced myself, poked fun at him to her for robbing the cradle.

Entirely weirded him out. Turnabout is fair play, or so I'm told. And he gave me the phone.

We somewhat decided, or had decided for us, that we are An Item a few days ago.

Then, over the course of the last week, multiple comments and teasings, the "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" titles came up. Repeatedly. Harassingly.

So, we semi-had that discussion.

It's certainly there if I want it.

But I haven't technically had a boyfriend since Darkeyes. My ex never declared his intentions or defined our relationship other than by us fucking or not fucking, then by us being engaged.

I never realized how much that impacted how I viewed us, viewed our relationship.

And the thought of stepping into that "girlfriend" role again terrifies me. Especially considering how things went down with the ex.

I really am a bit of an abused puppy. Bad behavior, dump. Monitoring behavior, determine it's bad, dump. Boundaries are completely undefined, but if they are crossed, dump or punish. Never given the rule book until a screw up is made, then punished.

I'm afraid of doing anything that isn't completely respectful and distant.

It's ridiculous, but it does panic me.

And we're still waiting for me to calm down and heal enough to have the "monogamy" discussion. Which who knows how long that will take? There is that stressful pressure of a potential unspoken deadline of healing, of how long he'll keep before he gets fed up with my slow going.

Trying to call him my boyfriend is hard. I'm a tangled mess of relationship issues right now. "Boyfriend" title to me changes dynamics to places that, even when we were briefly engaged, my ex never let us go. I never felt allowed to go.

PD is giving me leeway to do what I need to do, experiment, determine my own boundaries, which no one I can think of has ever let me do. It leaves me feeling adrift, and I know I'm just going to have to keep doing what I want to do, test the waters, then wade in a little deeper.

Scary, but no progress is made if you don't step forward.

I have... yeah. Things that I don't even know how to begin.

The thought of writing here is starting to cause anxiety, and since I will not allow myself to stop blogging because of a little anxiety... need to power through it. God knows I've gotten enough negative comments here in the last few days, though a lot of those were from the ex.

I don't quite feel safe anymore, to be honest.

I'd venture forth that he'd be happy to know that.

I'd venture forth that I never knew him at all.

Post-split behaviors translate into a man I never knew, spits on the image of the good times we had, and I can't help but wonder if... gods, if I was so wrong. Not wrong for making the choice I made, but wrong in my perception of him. If he's so hurt that he's lashing out against me in pain, or if, like so many say, no matter how much I defend him, that he's simply acting the upset child who lost his favorite toy.

I'd like to think that he loved me. That those moments we shared, just the two of us, were real. That our perfect Valentine's Day weekend together was genuine, and the love I saw in his eyes wasn't just something I deluded myself into believing.

It'd be easier to think that he felt nothing, nothing other than passing amusement, that I was a good fit into his life, thumped into the shape of a doormat over time.

That way I wouldn't worry over his hurt.

I don't think he'll ever believe that I would have left him that Saturday night whether or not I had known PD.

Because there's loyalty to your mate, and then there's loyalty to yourself.

You have to know your boundaries, and you have to know when you will break.

I saw myself breaking.

I was going to break down the course of the events in epic narrative, from when he "proposed" on Thursday night/Friday morning to how I found myself sitting a couch on the first floor of PD's warehouse, alternately talking and crying.

And maybe I will, one day down the line.

Between the dinner with my parents and the conversation in the diner in the Valley, from the moment that blonde Vienna sausage opened her mouth at the BDSM party he took me to our first weekend back together... it was simply a chain of events leading to the moment where he let me know that my opinion, my needs, my happiness, would never matter as much to him as his own and if I wasn't okay with that, he would withdraw his offer of marriage.

Some people just don't fit.

I finally accepted that, after months of him trying to beat that idea into me, my own sense of self-preservation managed to kick in.

Of course, now it seems to be far too late to save any tatters of friendship.

Many will probably think I left him for PD. Leaping, like so many girls do, from one man to the next. Security, validation, comfort sex, distraction from internal stressors, clinging to endorphins inspired by limerance.

I'm not going to argue that. It's pointless. Many would be surprised that I, I didn't touch him the night I left the ex. Nor the night after that. Or the next.

It was near pure companionship while I gathered my head back together.

Heh, finally free of that chain latching me down to sex as a magic psychological healer. Took ten years, but it happened.

I don't know exactly what PD and I are doing. I'm... really being the pathetic abused puppy. It's kinda sad. I'm hypersensitive to his moods, his expressions, looking for that displeasure, that look of calculated evaluation. Constantly worried that I'm taking too much of his time, too much of his attention. Trying not to get in the way.

But, when I get up for work in the morning, he makes me breakfast, walks me to my car, and then goes back to bed.

And when I asked him to go clubbing with me on Saturday, so he could see me dance, he said yes. He didn't tell me no, that it would be a bad idea, because he might run into someone he knew and want to bang them, which I would simply have to deal with, which is why the ex only went clubbing with me once.

When we brought up how rapidly we were falling for each other, and I expressed concern over his not-quite-monogamy, PD didn't tell me that he would never change, that his needs were his needs, he just smiled and said that we'd make it work. That we'd find a way to make both of us happy.

I sleep in his bed on the second floor. Cats jump up onto the blankets, curl at our feet, our sides, occasionally our faces. Daylight starts filtering through the warehouse windows, illuminating his book cases, his dungeon, his face next to mine. He wakes up and smiles at me, I smile back. Happy. Feeling safe to be myself.

Thursday night, we went to an art gallery/fashion show in Downtown, on the lush patio of the twenty-first floor of one of the buildings. I wore a short skirt, stockings, a loose black tunic, and my usual boots. He was in a dark button-up and jeans, the thick piercings through his ears black and tribal, eyes always looking wicked at me. He included me in conversations, whispered jokes into my ear, introduced me to friends, always made my company feel desired, like I was more than an arm-piece.

Friday night, we met with two more of his friends to discuss a screenplay one of them had written. We talked for hours, I started nodding off, my right leg across his left as he stroked my thigh, talking business, talking ideas, making jokes and ranting, as he does. His friends were wonderful, all of his friends have been wonderful. Open, accepting, easy.

Saturday day we went to Olvera St in downtown, took the Metro in. Wandered the buildings and the booths, people-watching and talking about everything, like we do. Conversation is non-stop. Ideas, thoughts, plans, feelings. Looking into old buildings, walking around in the two museums they have there, reading and discussing, identifying antiques. He bought me a Day of the Dead ornament I loved in a tiny store full of art. Went back to his place and dozed on the couch downstairs, watching movies while he loaded his truck with equipment for the next day. Hit the club where we ran into a tiny porn star, a friend of his, who was quite entertaining and friendly, just like all of his friends have been.

I slept in today, he went to work. Left me a note on my purse, made me smile.

It's good. I'm happy. Anxiety and worry aside, I'm actually happy.

I feel like I should be miserable, but I'm not. I think a large part of it is that I've been put through the emotional wringer by the ex so many times that I've gotten a bit numb to it. There's grief and there's sadness, but not that heart-stab I've had so often with him in the past.

Finally strong enough to move on. Strong enough to stand up for myself.

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.

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.

Hallowed be thy name...

Two thoughts.

Wedding on Saturday.

I'm not one of those girls that gets emotional at weddings. I'd say that seems fairly obvious. I don't dream of my wedding, the bouqet (or whatever) tossing goes unnoticed (I usually miss it), garter removal, wedding cake sampling, alchol intake, it all sails by me. I am not looking with adoration on the flower girls or the ring bearers toddling along the aisle, dreaming of my own future flower girls that I will be able to donate to use at future weddings of friends or family.

Sorry, that all flies by me.

I sit and watch. I like to witness the emotions, the connections, the subtle movements across faces and where their eyes are prone to wander.

I found myself sitting at the reception, watching my boss and his bride do their first dance as a married couple. He's a good looking man, and she's, oh god, she's gorgeous. Beyond beautiful. Even without the wedding make-up and glow, she's always struck me with how incredible looking she is.

So they're dancing, and I'm watching.

And after their dance, the DJ does this thing where he calls all the married couples onto the dancefloor and starts ticking them off. "Leave the floor if you've been married for a year or less. Leave the floor if you've been married for five years or less." Etc. So he hits the 40 year mark and there's only one couple remaining and they're dancing and having a great time, and the new bride and groom give them a gift "from the shortest married couple to the longest". Which I thought was neat. Symbolic.

Watching the married couples, the male and female counterparts, who was with who, who looked like their partner, who did not, how they interacted with each other... it was interesting. It made me turn into myself and wonder what it would be like to actually find someone I'd love and trust enough to marry.

I mean, I barely find men I'm willing to date.

And that made me realize that even when I'm asked out by someone, and I do accept and go out with them, it's never with a relationship on my mind. I view them as a potential sex partner, not even considering long-term. It just doesn't occur to me.

The thought doesn't even enter my mind.

I didn't even realize I was skipping that whole "maybe this is the man for me" mental process until about ten minutes ago when the wedding came up at work and I started re-examining my reaction to it.

I still have this gut-level reaction that I am so torqued, that because of who I am and what I want in my partner, I will probably never find someone I'd actually wish to spend my life with in a committed fashion.

And it's not because of high standards. I have standards, yes. But they aren't "normal" standards. I don't look at income as much as experience, looks as much as how someone carries themselves.

It's because I'm an oddball.

Sometimes people tell me that I'm absolutely normal, that there are thousands, if not millions of girls out there like me. And, for a short while, I believe them. And, maybe, I think that I might actually be blending in with everyone else, that this feeling of disconnect, of being foreign, is all in my head.

And then things happen, I do things, I view things a certain way, I talk to someone, and they end up looking at me, when I express myself, my experience, my ideas, like I'm an alien. Like the concepts I'm putting forth are beyond human comprehension. That there are no other girls out there like me.

Which is incredibly self-centered to believe.

I say, every so often, that I know girls like me.

And, in the past, I have known some. Two, to be precise. One, I lost contact with. The other, as we both grew, we became different. We still connect, we still are close and understand each other like no one else will, but we've chosen different lifestyles.

I don't know any girls like me now, aside from that one. If I could know them and have the type of relationship I do with the one I currently know, that would be wonderful and relieving.

But it will still come back to the wedding, to the relationships, to the dynamic that, maybe, one day, I'll have. But I can't imagine it. I can't imagine meeting someone I'd want to do that with. Someone that would fit me, that I would fit.

Second thought:

I was, exhaustedly, hanging out with C and Redwing last night.

Redwing, he falls below my radar. He's too young (personality-wise), he's wildly inexperienced, and he carries himself poorly. He's amazingly beta in social interactions, beyond most I've seen. C likes that, likes men that are more socially androgynous than most, but that is so very not my thing.

Anyhow, C is a hair, make-up, and fashion girl. She loves it, loves dressing up for everything, which I think is rocking. She spends hours in the bathroom before we go out, making everything perfect. I think that's crazy, but she always looks good.

Last night, she did Redwing's hair.

I walked into the bathroom as she was finishing it, and he stood up... and was hot.

Well, until he opened his mouth.

Anyhow, he was hot. I gaped at him. "...you....you... look standardly hot. You actually look good in a socially acceptable way."

So I'm not that tactful, for those of you gaping at me for saying that to him. I was tired. That's my only excuse. I was just blown away.

He did look good. If he fixed his teeth, his face would be fantastic. His teeth aren't even that bad. They're straight, it's just that they run a little oddly, which messes with his bite, which translates into his face.

And he does dress better than I would have expected, should I have met him elsewhere.

We went into the kitchen, and he started doing what he usually does. Slouching, gesturing with feminine movements, injecting whiny tones into his voice, acting feminine in behavior, and whenever topics shifted away from him, he would interrupt and bring them right back as best he could. His facial expressions are, while not ridiculous, incredibly feminine, overdramatic, unattractive. He flutters his hands. He slouches insanely.

I found myself getting irritated.

He has a good face. He has height on his side. If he put on muscle, he'd have a fantastic body. It's all freaking there. He'd just have to control his mannerisms and stop acting like a girl, and he would be so damn good. I just wanted to smack him and tell him to shape up, that he could be so much better, lead a better life, have better relationships, if he would just get himself together. Respect, which he never gets. Self-confidence, that he is so obviously lacking.

He has all the raw materials he needs. It wouldn't take hardly any effort. He could become fantastic and desirable in just a few months, without spending a dime.

I hate wasted potential. I hate seeing what a person could be, that they never will chose to be, because they're satisified with what they have, with mediocrity, or worse. When someone complains about what they don't have, or how what they do is unsatisfactory, but they don't take the steps to achieve what they want.

Take those steps.

You're capable of more.

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.)