I was cooking some salmon earlier this evening, grooving to my usual, and the smoke detector goes off.

I'm not the brightest person, at times. Should have probably opened the windows before spending that long at the stove.

I'm 5'9". Usually I can stretch, jump, and hit the smoke detector open, then jump again and knock the battery loose.

My new place, however, has high ceilings. Somewhere in the 10' range. Fortunately, the detector wasn't on the ceiling, but high above the french doors leading into the kitchen. The little white circle above those doors, below...



Unfortunately, it was still out of reach of my leaping capabilities.

Unfortunately, I haven't bothered buying a kitchen table and chairs yet, so I had nothing to stand on, the only chair in my residence being one of those plush executive deals on wheels. I might be slow on the uptake, but I do know that hardwood floors and standing up in rolling chairs don't mix.

I tried to smack at it with my maglight and pop the cover.

I opened the kitchen windows.

All ineffectual in stopping the shrill beeping.

And then I realized my apartment is full of books. Grabbed my unabridged dictionary, an encyclopedia of poetry, and a history of romance in 1920s films, coasted up nine inches in extra height, turned the thing off.

See, books are useful.

Currently sitting in a crowded coffee shop, a funky jazz band playing in the back, a friend across from me who does the most amazing paintings, if you're into horror.

I like this city.

I like this life.

I finally gave in and bought a Blackberry on Wednesday. Paired it up with my car and basked in the joy of clear sound while driving down the freeway. The salesperson transferred all my contacts over and told me he had only seen one other person with more numbers than I have. I really need to clear my phonebook out.

I sat down here tonight, hooked up the laptop, started backing up files, pulling photos and video off my camera, digging through my iPod to determine which Portishead song I'm going to use as my ringtone (ended up being Strangers). I'm turning into one of those people. I used to keep it so simple, used to keep all the information I needed in my head.

And I thought it would get simpler, when I stopped couchsurfing. That my schedule would settle down, that the social demands I feel continuously under would ease off. I thought I'd be able to spend more time writing, more time on my classes, getting things together.

But the demands have grown. I'm finding that, again, I am getting one night per week to myself.

It's my choice, I know.

I'm becoming different.

Sometimes I feel like I took so much of GV8 into who I am making myself. I've found I've lost a lot of my shyness, a lot of my "respect" of social boundaries, of territorial boundaries. I'm taking more control of my social relationships, especially with men.

More confident, more self-respecting. I'm losing fear, it's dripping out of me, and I know, when I look inwards and compare, things are different.

I ran into an old friend last weekend. I spent all of Sunday exploring the city. I picked a direction and walked, was gone for hours, walking for miles, people watching, checking out restaurants, bikepaths, how everything is interwoven. And, gods, the architecture. I need to go on one (or many) of those architecture walking tours, with a guide who actually knows what they're talking about.

On the way back, I stopped at a little cafe that I had been eyeballing for a few weeks. I flirted with the staff, talked about the food, sat and enjoyed myself in the afternoon sun. I left just before one of the staff did. I was around the corner and almost to the next block when I discovered that he had followed me, to give me his number. He was cute, he was a little older, he was confident, though not charismatic. Charming in a scrappy way. Not for me.

I could tell he was getting up to asking me to accompany him to some coffee shop or other venue, when I happened to walk by someone I recognized from years ago, when I used to do photography of abandoned buildings, refineries, hospitals, and the like. It was the one guy, the "that" guy, of the group.

That guy. The one who maintained my focus. Hot, tattooed, an amazing artist, but also a writer. Gods, do I have the hots for good writers. A man who can write like he does instantly catches a part of me, a part of my interest, that few will.

He's now in his mid-to-late thirties, I believe. Probably where I should be dating, though I find myself more interested in the late-thirties, early-forties men these days. It just keeps pushing farther and farther back. I always hoped that eventually I would start being interested in men my own age for more than casual stuff, or at least something closer to my own age, but... no.

I was so surprised at seeing this man, this writer, that I did not bother to maintain conversation with the man from the restaurant. We shook hands and he took off as soon as he realized he had lost me.

I caught up with my old friend, talking about his life, sniffing out his details as best I could, kicking myself for wearing my "fake" engagement ring. We're likely going to meet up on Sunday morning, do some writing together... he lives very nearby.

Yay for proximity.

The hug goodbye was not one of those chest-to-chest hugs. No, it was a fully body hug, letting me feel his hard leanness. Gorgeous. Sounded like he had some girl-drama on the side, though, so I'm going to take this slow, if at all. I don't poach, and I don't touch men if I know they're having girl issues. They've got enough going on without adding to it, and it tends to breed negative associations. It's a matter of finding out what is going on, which I'm good at. Once that is established, we'll see.

And I feel even ridiculous saying that.

It's habit. It's complete habit. Date him? No, he engages in a deal-breaker. This was my brain shifting into old patterns of establishing a casual friendly partner, also wanting to check him off of my list of men-to-do. Completion. Bragging rights, even though I would brag to no one but myself and this blog.

I would know I had finally tagged him.

Tagged, yes. I've, for some reason, turned that into my lingo for bagging a guy for the sheer sake of checking him off the list. For no reason other than who he is, what he means, something aside from emotional attachment or desire for emotional attachment.

You tag them and then you release them into the wild.

I mentioned this to a friend recently and he told me I was starting to sound like a rapper with my language regarding men.

It's funny. I'm fairly resolved to not have sex for the next few months, if not longer. It has been, if you can believe it, almost two months since I've had any major sexual contact. I've turned down repeated offers of DP from a couple of sources, turned down old partners, turned down potential new partners, turned down a couple of one-night stands that kept calling or texting for more, turned down dates and phone numbers without care.

My body is a bit sad, I will admit. I love physical contact, I love, gods do I love, to pleasure. I was able to take a little bit of edge off of that need when Playboy came down, but it was just scraping at the top of it. I have so much knowledge in these hands, in this mouth, and I'm not using it. It seems like a waste. I want to be appreciated, I want to hear those sounds of gasping shock. I want to work on my tricks, want to refine further. I want to learn new bodies, want to learn new ways to please new men.

And I'm not. I can't bring myself to do so.

I'm not sure if it's my monogamous nature still clinging to GV8. I can't stomach the thought of touching another man when I'm in a relationship, and I know I'm single now, but... no desire.

It might be that I know that it's unlikely that any male I do pick up will come close to GV8 in bed. That man was... amazing. His philosophy of sex and mine meshed perfectly, as well as how we interacted. He said to me a few weeks ago, though I don't remember exactly what we were talking about, "You knew how to touch me from day one." I've never been with a man that I could spend hours with in bed, completely enrapt. I've never been with a man who did not, eventually, bore me (aside from Riot, and that's only because he was so wonderfully rough I never had a chance to get bored because I was too busy trying to survive his lust). GV8 had amazing technique and total joy of sex. Not of orgasm, but of sex, and most men will never understand that.

Or it might be that I'm now in a position where no man can impact me. I'm financially independent, finally. I am not co-signed with anyone on a lease for anything. My debt, minimal as it is, is my own. Only half of my monthly take-home is spent on bills. I'm organized, I'm capable, and my social network continues to grow stronger.

And I'm finally getting the body I want. In the next month or so, I'll be hitting the healthiest I've ever been. No coffee, no drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes. Exercising almost every day. I'm starting to see the flare of my ribcage, cheekbones are slowly becoming more pronounced, and I've tossed bags and bags of clothes away that now just hang on me.

I've felt limited by my appearance for a bit now, in an annoying way. The mind, the experience, but physically not caught up to where I should be. Now I am close enough to taste it. And it's a joy. Seeing what my body is, how curvy my skeletal structure makes me, I love it. I'm totally digging my body for the first time in years. I like that this is enabling me to step up to so many things that I have been unable to tackle, how much fun it is for me to take people by surprise when they expect certain things of me by my appearance and find other things entirely.


Social dissonance.

Reminds me of the day my stylist told me it was a good idea that I dyed my hair black, as people needed some sort of warning label before approaching me, as my natural blonde was too misleading.

I spent my lunchbreak today hanging out with a professor of Russian history at one of the local UCs. I had ordered my food and went to sit down and read, and saw him reading at the table next to mine. We made eye contact and then I raised my book as though it were a glass at him and said "Cheers". He did the same.

He was reading A Woman in Berlin, I was reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. He filled me in on the history of the book, of why Germany had condemned it so strongly, how a movie had recently been made, etc. I told him of Egger's writing style that I have found myself loving so strongly, how he dances between non-fiction and total fantasy.

It was a fun lunch, where we determined my love of modernism in literature was completely antagonistic to his historian viewpoint, and made plans to meet again next week, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.

Another day in the life.

Date tomorrow night- art show, cafe hopping, gelato.
Clubbing after the date- dancing, sweating, flirting.
Meeting with my old friend Sunday morning, then going to a Superbowl party.

But tomorrow morning, tomorrow morning is gloriously free.

Maybe I'll set off the smoke detector again.

It tolls for thee...

He's breaking me down.

There's something to be said about submission.

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

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

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

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

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

He's breaking me down, slowly.

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

Control, my addiction.

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

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

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

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

But I danced for him.

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

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

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

I stayed like that until the shaking stopped.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It truly does amaze me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who knows?

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

It'll be okay...

GV8 took me out to the Hard Rock Cafe at Universal City Walk on Sunday.

This is something that has been missing from my Los Angeles experience, as I have yet to go into anything Hard Rock related aside from the casino in Vegas.

We wandered around the City Walk, waiting for a table to open up, GV8 humoring me as I pranced through the sock store they have there, looking at all the cute knee-highs and various leggings and fishnets.

Mid-prance, we were shouted at and he introduced me to two young boys... well, young as in they were in the 22-23 range. You know, nearly two to three years younger than me. It was his nephew and a friend.

It made me wonder what his family thinks of this. Probably not much, with the life-style he's had that they're all aware of in some form or another. Made me wonder what his nephew was thinking as GV8 rested his hand on my waist, a fellow college-student, youth of America.

From what I can tell, the previous girlfriends he has had (not that I'm his girlfriend at the moment) have been in his general age range, give or take seven to ten years. When he sleeps with people in my age range and younger, it seems to be a one or two time thing and he's done, maybe the occasional booty call off and on.

He's says that, essentially, younger girls don't know how to fuck. And he gets sick of it. I know I surprised him with my... er... "talents". When I took him home that first night, he probably thought he was going to get a one-night stand out of the deal.

I'm just full of suprises.

After bidding his nephew adieu, we managed to snag seats at Hard Rock. Wasn't too busy, but the front desk people were not organized at all.

I mentioned to him the realization I posted on here, how we've been together almost five months (and the only reason I know this is because he was making fun of me for not remembering the date we met and I had to go look up the date of the event online) and I've yet to get bored, yet to consider sex a chore, yet to not enjoy myself.

It's a combination of things, most of which I mentioned to him, one which I didn't.

Sex with him is... amazing. It's not mind-blowing (only Riot of Tattoos has fallen into that category), but it is good. He's talented, he's educated, and he pays attention... but never in a submissive way.

But what I realized was the most influential factor is that he really doesn't care if he orgasms. He is the only partner that I've ever had that really, truly doesn't care if he gets off. He enjoys sex for the pleasure, for the touch. If he wants to get off, he says, he'll just masturbate. The point of having sex with another person is to enjoy them.

This man is perfectly content stopping at the end of a three hour session where we have been all over the place, tearing up the bed, and go get food... without ever orgasming. He doesn't say a word. It doesn't even cross his mind.

Sex, with him, doesn't go into that realm of "oh, we're having fun, fun, fun, and now I have to do this particular rhythm or motion for this set amount of time so he can get off". Blowjobs do not go into that part I hate where he's in my mouth for hours and I'm just happy as a little kid at the Disneyland that is his crotch and suddenly I have to spend x-amount of minutes with my lips clenched and my tongue doing the same repetitive motion as always that ends up killing my jaw muscles.

There's no pressure to perform. There's no pleading looks if I tell him my mouth is hurting or I'm wiped. There's no begging of, "Almost there, please baby..!"

When I want to stop, we stop.

And because of that, I almost never want to stop.

This is the first man that has truly believed in the sentiment: "It's not about the orgasm."

I've had many men tell me that they agree with that idea... but then their actions don't line up.

And I hate it so much when my partners lose control, start begging, start panting like mindless dogs in heat, when sex stops being about pleasure and starts being about that one brief moment they're striving for. Orgasm is such a tiny, insignificant part of it. Seeing what you can do to make your partner feel good, to make yourself feel good, the taste of different parts of the body covered in sweat, in nails going down your back or the inside of your thigh, teeth in your shoulder, hair across the chest, angles, contractions...

I feel like I've finally found a good lover.

Like a veil has been ripped off of my eyes and now I know what it's actually like to be with someone who enjoys all the moments of sex, not just the end, so uncaring about the end.

I think he's the only man I have any true respect for on a sexual level.

And I can't believe that I actually said that.

That any man would ever be able to live up to my expectations.

Not of performance, but of philosophy.

Of control and values.

I can't stop wanting him whenever he's around. Because he has perfect control. He has perfect control that rivals, possibly exceeds, mine.

What I did not tell him was that one of the reasons that I continue to desire him is that he keeps me on edge. In our relationship, he's perfectly dominant, perfectly alpha. Not asshole-alpha, but just confident, calm, controlling alpha. He doesn't let me cling, he doesn't let me whine, doesn't let me beg. Doesn't let me know exactly where he stands.

He leaves me doubting, leaves me wondering, leaves me constantly wanting to impress him, to prove myself to him, to please him.

It's perfect game. He balances between concern/caring and ambiguity, possibly without even knowing he does it. Not willing to commit, but open to it "sometime in the future" if things "go that way".

Without reading so many of the PUA blogs, especially The Fairer Sex which, while not only one of my favorite blogs, is a significantly more realistic than some I could name, I would never have recognized this, never been able to manage things as much as I have been able to.

Not that I'm doing a lot of managing.

But I am able to identify his actions and control my reactions.

And I realized yesterday that this constant low-level anxiety he keeps me in, with the spikes of happiness from his acknowledgement and care, is allowing me to learn how to deal with my regular anxiety that I get whenever I meet someone new that I'd be willing to actually date.

I'm getting able to manage it.

The worry, the wondering, the self-doubt.

He's slowly burning out my adrenal glands, getting me used to it, getting me to cope with it. Getting me to believe in myself, to be confident in myself, whether or not he stays.

This is a major breakthrough for me. This is something I've always had a problem with, as much as I hate to admit it.

...he might help me fix this part of myself.

I wonder if he even knows it.

Was talking with a friend last night, on my way home from work.

This is a man I am... decently close to. He shares my feelings of alienation, even though the source is not the same, even though we cannot truly relate to one another on what makes us feel disconnected, and the ways we each handle it are different, how we view it... it's still there.

Yesterday, we were talking about my disconnect. Well, for the most part. Conversations with him tend to easily derail, frustratingly so.

It was actually funny.

Started off with a general, "I'm sick of taking lovers that I can never relax around, never be myself around."

With him advising, "Well, be yourself and then those who can accept you will find you and you'll relax."

And by the end of the conversation, oh a good thirty, forty minutes later, he was saying:

"Yeah, maybe you should just keep those parts of you inside and just act normal around your lovers."

When I started laughing at him for the differing advice, he backtracked, but didn't really retract his ending sentiment.

The frustration I feel so often pervades my male-centered relationships. The need for self-control, for accepting, the need to be low-maintenance and low-drama because I am able to do so. Lying in bed with one, watching his face, watching his body language, laughing at his jokes, picking apart his words, looking at him with adoration, doing everything I can to please him, type depending on who I'm with.

Blond and Studly, Darkeyes, and Ev preferred the girl next-door/independent woman combo.
GV8 and Stuntcock preferred the strong woman turned sex-starved sub.
SFPlayboy prefers the strong woman-player, turned sex-starved sub for him.
Riot of Tattoos is simple, preferring the submissive slut at all times.
Zat and VG prefer the girl next-door.

Hardwood Floors and Wolfboy were the closest I have gotten in a long, long while of just being able to be myself.

But with Wolfboy, I still have to be gentle. God, do I have to be gentle with him.

I have to be gentle with all of them, though with Playboy I can be a little more me.

I'm too nice, too concerned.

Maybe it's atonement, as I sometimes suspect. Making up for misdeeds, for the damages and pain I have caused others, and my relatively new ability to actually be empathetic.

Maybe it's my constant need to please, to serve, taking the edge off of the fact that I have had no one to truly focus my submissive nature on for almost a year. I miss that. I maybe need to find a dom, something every two or three weeks to allow me to focus on myself and, of course, to allow my body to heal.

That's probably not the answer, though.

It'd be nice, but I doubt it would do anything other than relieve my need and take another chunk of time out of my schedule.

Anyhow, back to where I was.

Talking with my friend, having him advise me to just keep things inside. To not let my partners know how much I study them, how much I read them, how much I adjust myself and my behaviors based on their feedback, based on creating a web of self-disclosure where I disclose stuff that should be so personal (and it does sound as such) causing them to disclose stuff that is actually personal so I can use that information as I see fit.

I mentioned, a few posts ago, about getting a guy so wrapped around me that he ended up slamming his head into the hood of his car repeatedly, and I was apathetic and slightly amused. I did not mention the next day, where I spotted a male friend and proceeded to act upset over the events of the previous night, and he held me, comforted me, consoled me, continuing with my own internal apathy and amusement on how easy it was to do these things.

That was... hm, I was seventeen. Second semester in college. Probably Spring semester, 2001. Eight and a half years ago.

Fortunately, several months later, I managed to complete my process of burn-out. Destroying everything that I found sacred, my little trial by fire.

Cheating on the boyfriend, purposeful alcohol poisoning, squatting by the traintracks smoking left-over roaches, Mountain Dew can for a bong in the alley, drugged up threesome, cutting myself just to fuck with my closest friends (still have the scars, yay), alluding to my parents the things I was doing that they had no control over just to destroy that relationship with them, stealing thousands and thousands of dollars of merchandise that I did not even want, finding the sleazest, most strung-out guys I could just to make myself part of them, making out with the boyfriend of my bestfriend, picking up horrible men in front of my friends who were so worried about me just to hurt them, flunking out of college, picking up men online, men so much older than me, never learning their names, going back to their places with no knowledge or thought of safety, being used, leaking semen out of whatever orifice they felt fit to use. Heh, using one of my friend's houses as a pick up point. They had no idea what to do. The men that used me, used me. The men that loved me, liked me, cared for me, I purposely fucked with like I did with Jake. Taking my parents' money, my mother going to bed in tears.

Yes, I know this.

I know all of this.

The things that set you apart.

Burning myself out so well that my own mother admits that while she loves who I am now, she mourns who I used to be. That she never envisioned this life for me, how I am such a different person than I was, that it is like the girl I used to be died and she was given another child grown.

People wonder why I am not more cynical, how I can still believe in love, if I am even capable of love.

People wonder how I am not as damaged as I should be.

They didn't see the years of work. The sitting down and taking count of what I did, how I did it, why I did it, and what it did to me. And the battles I had to fight, the behaviors I had to recognize and change, the people who believed in me and supported me, who put up with my internal struggles.

I'm healthy. Not 100%, but certainly more than most of the people I know. Given my history, it's surprising, not only to me, but to others.

But I'm not normal.

You don't get to be "normal" again.

You get to learn how to fit in, you get to learn what to say, what not to say, how to present yourself so people aren't necessarily aware of any difference between us. You learn how to hide, how to camoflauge yourself. You know that when you enter a social group the first few times, the easiest thing to do is shut your mouth and observe until you know who outranks who and in what way you can integrate yourself and how much you can relax into who you are, what skin will fit and how much maintenance it will take.

To exercise parts of yourself, you keep different social groups with different values, different ideas of morals, of what is acceptable. Alternate through them so you don't feel too trapped in one role. Multiple lovers means multiple avenues of exercise. You don't have to wear the same face, and you find that some of them adore you, are intrigued by your internal struggle, by your different faces, and you learn to identify that. They want to protect you, want to be special.

They can't. And they never are.

You're told that you're like so many others, but when you give input, you're told that it is invalid because you're an outlier and you find yourself more amused than frustrated.

My friend, the one I started this post off about, he's one of the few who has recognized, without being told, that I have more walls up than anyone ever realizes. Everyone considers me so open, so out there and honest and easy to get along with, easy to talk to, easy to confess to... because of the openness that doesn't actually exist.

I don't like being told that I'm crazy. I don't like being told that I'm cold and calculating. I don't like being told that I'm manipulative and studied, that being the way I am is the wrong way to be and normal people, normal people aren't like me and I need to seek psychological help because I need to fall in line so people feel safe around me.

Not everyone is the same. The line that I should fall into is one I would not care to join. It hurts every time someone sees me, sees what I'm doing, and tells me I am horrible for being the way I am, for viewing the world the way I do, like it was a choice I made or a symptom of horrific damage and if only I dealt with my psychological damage, my baseline would change and I would be a different, happier person.

Because I couldn't possibly be happy as I am.

And they never believe me, can't wrap their brains around how happy I am, how much I enjoy life, enjoy the people in it.

It's apparently impossible to be different and happy.

But somehow I manage.

The tiny midnight caravan...

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

Not an angry scream.

Not at him, anyhow.

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

Because I'm mellow.

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

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

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

I suppose I am.

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

And now what? Mid-twenties angst?

It only left me when I was with Rick.

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

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

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

What a joke.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Self-acceptance, will I ever find it?

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

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

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

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

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

That I will get over this.

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

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

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

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

Anyhow, I just derailed.

But I'm feeling mildly better now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's juvenile.

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

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

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

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

It's my own insecurities, as always.

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

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

In my own blog.

Bwah, I continue to amuse myself with my logic.

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

The air conditioner helps as well.

You are just another thing I've yet to fathom

This is one of those 'bleech' moments.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's how I see it.

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

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

And I should have.

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

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

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

And I know so much better than that.

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

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

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

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

I still don't know what I did.

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

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

What could I be doing wrong?

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

Was it the references to his sordid past?

I'll know in the next hour or two.

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

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

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

Which could mean one of two things:

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

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

Which is okay.

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

So we'll see what happens.

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

Who knows?

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

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

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

11-13-08

Well, I am back from my adventure with my tattooed man, where I sounded my barbaric yawp.

I arrived in his neck of the woods around 1130PM. He has a house in this winding, narrow neighborhood a bit up in the hills. I parked on one of the tiny, dead-end streets and meandered over to his front door.

After general banalities were discussed, we went up to his room, where he finished up some business and hopped into the shower, telling me to keep him company with witty stories. So I sat on the edge of the over-sized spa in his bathroom and chatted with him about the various hijinks of the past week while watching him bathe through the glass shower doors. It's amazing, how old some of his tattoos are, and yet they all are so bright and crisp.

He finishes his shower shortly, then pads over to his bed and sprawls out like some large jungle cat. He's totally at ease with his body, and it's easy to tell. And it's truly magnificent. Wide shoulders and chest, fully muscled arms, a narrow waist, ski-slope ass (just like mine!), and his thighs... god. I find thighs to be a good measure of a man who works out. So many guys, as I've said, totally neglect them, but it's the ass and thighs that power the thrust. They're vitally important to that pounding sex I love. And he's got the thighs of steel, totally defined, each muscle its own entity.

He starts to fiddle with my top, a button-up shell, and, after a moment, tells me that I should probably take them off, otherwise he'll get impatient and rip them off me, for which I would send him the bill. Which is true. We're not friends- the relationship is completely physical. We don't kiss, don't cuddle, don't even call each other by name. If he did damage my clothing, I would make him pay for it because that is the nature of our set-up.

So I shed my top, my bra, lean back to undo my pants and his hand is on my chest, kneading. A quick hip lift and I slide the down to my ankles and kick them off. Underwear follows suit.

I wore my hair up tonight, for the sole purpose of having him be able to wrap it around his hand and steer. He does this, guiding my mouth straight down to his cock. Instead of the somewhat usual face-fucking me, he lets me (somewhat) take my time, before flipping me onto my back and forcing me to deepthroat him repeatedly, our bodies facing in the same direction. Better angle, that way, really. Past the gag-reflex straight into "lack of oxygen" territory, I'd tap his thighs to get him to let me breathe before he forced himself back in.

I ended up alternatingly rimming him and playing with his balls in my mouth while he stroked himself for several minutes, which was a great thing as it allowed me to catch up on my breathing, which his penis had interrupted.

However, in all of this, he decides that he's going to push my legs apart and start spanking my crotch. Yes, I've heard that many girls do not like this, but I think it is fabulous and was absolutely thrilled when he started. But he quickly got distracted and buried two searching, curling fingers into me, high speed, insane stimulation that made me squirm to no end. I was wet, but then suddenly I was soaked. He made me squirt. On purpose. Without any towels laid down. I'm a flooder- his poor, poor mattress.

But then he stops, gets up from the bed, grabs a towel... and continues to make me squirt, using the towel like a catcher's mitt. I don't know if I ran out of fluid or he got bored, but he straightened from his bent position and began wiping all of my excess fluids over my face, shoving his fingers into my mouth, having me clean them for him. After that task was complete, he started rolling on a condom, which I took as a good time to continue to suck and lick his sack. He definitely approved.

But once the condom was on, he instructed me to lie down on my side, facing away from him. I, of course, complied. He lined himself up behind me, and whispered, "You know what's coming?" I grinned at him over my shoulder, "Some pleasure, some pain..."

You see, my tattooed man likes the anal. Me? Well, I'll have whatever he's having. If I'm making someone happy, as long as the activity isn't a total turn-off, I'm aroused just to be pleasing.

He scoots me down further on the bed and starts sliding into me. The first half inch or so is fine, but as he starts to widen, there just isn't enough lube and I'm much too tense. He withdraws, adds some lube, lines himself up, and tells me to slide down on him.

And I do. Inch by inch, stopping every so often to let my body adjust to his size, his mouth near my neck, I can hear him inhaling my scent. He's certainly above average in the size department (no, I don't know why my luck has been so good lately). Each time I take more of him in me, my fingers digging into his arm, he whispers in my ear, "That's a good girl. Keep going... ahhh, yes. Mm, good girl."

It's takes about two minutes for me to comfortably get most of him, but I can't quite get that last inch. So he starts moving. Slowly at first, then building speed. I clench, he slows, and starts to rotate me. Instead of lying on our sides, front to back, he's on top of me, slowly rolling his hips, working that last inch in. And then he slides into me, all the way to the hilt.

Stop. Breathe. Relax muscles.

And it starts to feel good. Not nearly as pleasurable as standard intercourse, but it's hardly painful and the sensations are building... certainly doesn't hurt that we're in my favorite position. But there is still discomfort, enough so that I am making noise. Not as much as the time before, but still noise. His hand goes over my mouth, I tease his fingers with my tongue, which causes him to let me take one into my mouth to suck and lick on it to my heart's content.

But then I notice that, across the rather large bedroom, there is a mirrored closet... one that we're perfectly reflected in. I was completely drawn in by the image. He's so much bigger than me, so masculine and rough, and his body is arched on top of mine in such a primal way, his chest hair rubbing against my back each time he thrusts into me. I expected him to throw his head back at any time and roar like some beast in the midst of a wild mating ritual. And me? That curve I love so much, my favorite part of my body, the dramatic sweeping line of my lower back, is even more pronounced with him riding me, my hips lifted up beneath me, rounding my ass perfectly. The lighting was amazing, and I found myself wishing I had a camera.

I watched us for a few minutes, entranced by a mirror during sex for the first time in my life. Yes, I've had plenty of mirrors around during various sexual escapades, but none ever trapped me with their images like this one.

While I was watching us, he decided that he didn't feel like finishing in my ass, so he pulled out, stripped off the condom, and laid back, his hand wrapped in my hair again. We shifted repeatedly between his penis in my mouth, head bobbing by order of his hand, or his testes in my mouth, tongue juggling them back and forth.

As he was about to orgasm, he yanked me over and drove my face down on his cock, just in time for me to catch everything in my mouth. His semen was oddly sweet tasting, and I would've spent more time enjoying it, but we both had places to be. So I licked his head clean- not that there was much of a mess, and headed home for the evening, rocking out to Garbage.

And now... now I pass out. I do need to sleep sometime.

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

Current:
As a reflection, and looking over other older journal entries that have yet to be posted here, this man ruined me for sex. No one has ever been as rough as he has been, no one has ever pushed me that hard (and that entry was an easy night). He always left me sore and tottering on my feet for days. I can never convince my partners to go as hard as I would like, they're always afraid of doing permanent damage or scaring me.

When a man scares me in a sexual way, I will freaking write to the NY Times.

Hold your breath and count to ten...

I'm slowly going to be consolidating old journals over here.

Beginning now.

11-03-08

I found myself in a bit of a quandary last night.

The problem I encountered was this:

What exactly to you do or say while gazing up the length of a very attractive naked man, covered in amazingly beautiful tattoos, who is standing with one foot on either side of your torso, arms in the air in a victory stance, while semen is pooling in the hollow of your collar bone?

Well, in my case, you laugh... and promptly get mushroom-stamped by said tattooed male.


Sigh.

You were so strong.

I remember. I remember your large hands, the warmth that radiated off you. I remember how perfectly your muscles laid, how comfortable you were in your own skin. Master of your body.

Every step you took was powerful. Each thrust into me was perfect.

You used me.

Just like I asked you to.

You made other lovers pale in comparison.

Your complete lack of care, lack of concern, for my well-being was easily understood. I knew how you viewed me: a set of warm, willing, and enthusiastic holes.

It's amusing how most men can't get past their sexual-social upbringing.

But I did not ask you for friendship or respect. I never went to you for validation.

You showed me how I could be. Without even knowing, you showed me how to take care of my body. Watching you care for yourself was like watching a master sculptor at work. You showed me strength, showed me confidence and the utmost authority that could be had in movement.

And even though I'm just a footnote in your mind, I continue to silently thank you.

You gave me something to strive for. You showed me how I could start down the path of another strength, how good I could be. You, unknowingly, gave me a goal.

So thank you. You will never read this, but thank you. Thank you for caring so little. Thank you for showing me a strength I could follow.