My brain is a bit of a mush pile right now.

I'm sick, I'm tired, and I've been going near non-stop today. It's been really productive, but I'm ready for bed.

The post from yesterday reminded me of this guy from nearly two years ago now.

He was a ginger kid.

I'm not a fan of ginger kids.

Strike that. I'm not a fan of male ginger kids. Something about it creeps me out.

Anyway, I met him when I was still dating Darkeyes, at the tail end of our relationship. We were living together in a cute little apartment I found, trying to make things work.

And this guy, who I am going to call "Ginger" and hope that I don't associate it too much with Gilligan's Island, was introduced to me by one of my best friends while at a club.

I assumed that, because this particular friend had introduced us, Ginger was an okay guy. Just initially creepy. So I was friendly and chatty and mentioned I had a boyfriend straight off the bat to counteract any attention he might float my way.

You see, in my silly world, when someone has a significant other, you don't pursue them.

He continued to unnerve me all throughout the evening, but I was convinced in seeing the good in this person that was a friend of my best friend, who had left the club early.

Due to meeting Ginger, a new social group at the club was opened up to me. I suddenly found myself in the midst of all these people who were quite friendly and fun to be around, people I hadn't really talked to before, but had seen at the various clubs.

So when they said they were going to drive over to Fred 62's (a cute little 24 hour diner in Silverlake) post-club and Ginger invited me to join them, I agreed. I'm always up for new 24 hour diners, as sometimes I don't want to sleep and would rather be out at a diner reading until 4AM.

Sign number one that I dismissed:

When I asked Ginger for directions, he said he'd drive me.

I told him no, I'd drive myself.

He insisted that he would drive us.

I told him again, no.

But, really, he should drive. I don't know where I'm going, it's just easier, get in the car.

If I had been younger and less experienced, I would have submitted to this rather than cause a scene.

I balked like you would not believe. There was nothing on the planet at that moment that would get me to give up access to my car.

This is a major rule of mine: always always always be in control of your own transportation. If you aren't, you are at the mercy of others. Your time is not your own, which means your body is not your own, nor are your desires taken into account.

With a disgusted grunt, he gave up and told me to follow him to the diner.

By this point in the evening, I had made sure to bring up my boyfriend in conversation multiple times, just to lay extra groundwork. This relaxed me, made me feel like he got the point that I was inaccessible. My work here was done. I could enjoy my evening, free from worry that this guy would try anything.

So we parked at the lot across the street, walked over, and since there were so many of us there we had to sit outside at a large, round table.

He chose, of course, to sit next to me, legs brushing, until I moved away.

Then I noticed my hair was all over the place from dancing, knotted and tangled, so I stood to go get my brush out of the car.

He stopped me, insisting that he had a brush in his car and he would go fetch it for me, and trotted off down the street.

Which was... odd.

But not disturbing.

What got me, more than the car thing, more than his flirtations at the club, more than him insisting he buy me drinks (I hate that), more than his faux-accidental touches, was what happened next.

He came back and I brushed out my hair.

That taken care of, I realized I was still wearing dark lipstick that would immediately begin to look odd once I started to eat, as I was wearing a sealant on top of it. This causes it to rub off in patches, which makes me look like my lips have leprosy. Having a bottle of water at the club has no effect on it, kissing barely moves it, but eating an entire meal... not so much.

So I grabbed a napkin and started scrubbing at it, taking condensation off the outside of my glass to moisten it, checking it every few seconds to see if red was still coming off.

Finally, I asked the girl across from me if I still had lipstick on.

She said that I did, and pointed at a spot on her lip to indicate where it was.

So I scrubbed at that spot, checked with her again. Still there.

Repeat.

By that time, there was a conversation going on about that particular sealing product, with me making jokes about how long it could stay on and how little would budge it and how moronic I felt to be sitting outside a diner coming up on 4AM scrubbing at my lips with a paper napkin that was falling to pieces.

Ginger, Ginger decides he wants to play the hero.

He reaches for my face.

I jerk back. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to get the lipstick for you."

"I've got it, thanks."

He reaches again, his thumb going for my lip. "It's cool, I'll get it," I tell him.

"You keep missing it. I'll get it."

"No, I've got it."

"No, I'll get it."

"I'm fine."

"Just let me get it."

Finally, I submitted. I didn't want to cause a scene. He was the friend of my best friend. I'd deal with it.

So he leaned over to me and scrubbed at my lip with his bare thumb.

And I took it like a little bitch, uncomfortable, but still naive enough to believe that because he knew I had a boyfriend, he wouldn't try to seduce me.

When I mentioned I was good at Scrabble, he offered to get coffee with me and challenge me to a game.

I took him up on it, telling him I'd have to check my schedule with my boyfriend, but it should be fine.

The next week, we met up for Scrabble. And it was fine. I kicked his ass, like I knew I would. We grabbed pizza and talked. It wasn't awkward anymore, he wasn't hitting on me. It was okay.

That night, Darkeyes and I broke up.

A week or two later, he asked if I wanted to go see a movie.

I agreed, but then asked my best friend what was going on with this guy. He was creeping me out. Why did he like Ginger? It didn't make sense.

My friend tells me he barely knows Ginger, he just introduced him to be polite. That he's just an acquaintance that he talks to once every few months. And, by the way, did I hear that he bullied one of our mutual friends into sleeping with him just a few months ago?

Oh.

I decide that I don't want to go out with Ginger the next day, so I IM him to tell him I'm just not feeling up to it.

He throws a fit. He wants to know why. He needs that explanation. He demands it.

And I'm sitting there, staring at my screen.

You see, at this time of my life, I was a bit of a nobody. I could dance, but I was a zero on the social screen. In the club scene, I had very few friends. I'd go, I'd dance, I'd leave.

I desperately wanted to be one of the club kids again, like when I was younger. I wanted to fit in and be social and go to the parties. Have friends to talk to when I was cooling down from dancing.

I did not want to piss this guy off. He was a gateway into other people.

So I tried to tell him that I was not feeling comfortable going out so soon after a break up. That I wasn't looking to date right now, I just wanted friends, but I needed to get my life together.

It wasn't good enough. He kicked, he screamed, he demanded his pacifier.

He would not take no for an answer.

So, instead of telling him I thought he was a pushy, creepy douchebag with no respect for women and crazy bug eyes, I told him that his coloring was unattractive to me.

That all ginger coloring on men was unattractive to me.

Trying to exclude, rather than reject.

That wasn't good enough either.

He had to know what it was about his coloring. What right did I have to have such a reaction? What feelings did it instill in me? How dare I?

My explanation, which was honest and polite, just a gut reaction to something unusual (which, when he demanded an elaboration, I told him it was like when you first see a person born with only four toes on one foot- they can still walk, it just makes you double take for a second)... yeah, then he freaked out and accused me of calling him physically disabled and that I was prejudiced against the handicapped.

It was a weird conversation. I wish I had logged it.

In the end, when I called him by his nickname instead of his given name, he cut me off, saying that only acquaintances called him by his nickname, and that true friends called him by his real name. So I wasn't really a friend. And it needed to stay that way.

Which left me staring at my screen with a bemused "WTF?" expression on my face.

But his parting gift, the cherry on my sundae, was a link he sent me.

Not trusting it, I asked him what it was.

He told me it was a BDSM checklist, illustrating his various kinks, so that when I found myself a Dom, I'd know what I was missing.

Even now, looking back on that, my eyes glaze over.

I was so lost. We went from me having a boyfriend to no boyfriend to suddenly this man is passing me a list of how sexually great he is and how much I'm going to regret passing up an offer he never made.

This, this is not the worst example I could give about trying to compassionately reject a man and having it blow up in my face.

Not at all.

I called my friend and would-be lover, Wolfboy, after that. I told him that this ginger kid had creeped me out and I needed down time and cuddles to get back to my baseline. So, after work, I drove over there, told him the story, and he had yes watch the ginger kid episode from South Park. Which was amazing.

Fast forward a few months and I'm on a first date at a coffee shop on Sunset Boulevard with a guy I'm getting along with quite well. In the middle of the date, he gets a phone call.

From Ginger.

Yeah.

In one of a series of acts of revenge, Ginger got one of his friends who I had never met before to ask me out to see if he could sleep with me or at least get some sort of juicy gossip.

When neither happened, they made their own up.

I went out on another date with another guy from a completely different scene. We sat down at this restaurant in Manhattan Beach and this guy told me he had two motives for asking me out. One, purely sexual. The second, he had seen my picture before due to Ginger and wanted to let me know that Ginger and his friends had been spreading particular rumors about me around the club scene for several months.

Which explained some things.

So I'm sitting there, just staring at this guy because I can't believe that Ginger is still waging war against me.

Around this time was when I picked up my copy of The Game.

Which led into books on body language, seduction, social dynamics, and evo psych.

I was not going to let this happen again. I was going to use methods within these books, within my own intelligence, to get at a higher social level than this man and turn his rumors back on him.

And I did.

Seduction one-on-one, I had down okay.

It was the social net-making I was unsure on.

It took me about four months to get where I needed to be, slowly undermining his pillars by raising my own, meeting the right people, playing the right roles. Each time I went out, each phone call I made or email I sent was another stitch in what I was weaving.

It wasn't all mercenary. I enjoyed the people I was meeting, enjoyed the socialization, being out under the lime light, coming into my own. I was able to do it because I had a reason.

Our last extended encounter was at a birthday party. I was invited by a friend who was given permission to bring more girls if possible. You know, one of those invites.

When he walked in, I took one look and thought to myself, "I'm going to own him and he's going to know it."

I spent the entire party quite happily putting my newly acquired skills to use. He watched me, he knew what was going on, he just didn't know how to stop it. He knew I was doing something, that I was the reason he was wedged into a corner and either being ignored or glared at by the other twenty to thirty people there, some of which had been his friends.

But he couldn't do anything.

After near an hour of this, he left in disgust.

I've barely seen him out at clubs in the last six months, ever since I cleaved off the important half of his social group by befriending a particular man and making sure that I was not only my adorable, teasing self, but highly sexually desirable. With that man, a series of people dominoed away from Ginger, leaving him very high and dry.

People don't speak well of him.

But it doesn't matter anymore.

He's gone, and if he comes back, I'll make sure he's uncomfortable.

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.

Backstabber, backstabber, backstabber...

I'm not actually listening to the Dresden Dolls right now. But, somehow, that song is stuck in my head, and has been since yesterday. Maybe a sign?

I'm frustrated. I feel stoppered up, words just bottled inside me and I wish I had someone in my life that I could talk to without having to constantly explain myself or my though processes. I usually don't mind explaining things to my friends, my odd twists of logic, my survival/strength-based worldview. It allows me to clarify things for myself, communicating that to other people, and get feedback, input, general critique that I can toss around in my head for days.

But, as I've mentioned, I've been talked at. And talked at some more. And when I finally was able to talk a little, with C on the way up to the club on Saturday, I felt like I was only addressing surface issues.

I don't feel lonely, just, as per the usual, alone.

I do have great friends, wonderful, loyal friends that I love spending time with. But it doesn't take too long for me to wear out, for me to need so desperately to get away and get back to myself, be alone so I can relax. So I can be a little more me.

It's why I love driving so much. Racing along the freeways by myself, 90 miles an hour, listening to whatever suits my mood, thinking, enjoying the extension of myself in car form, knowing that I shouldn't take corners so hard, shouldn't whip myself around on onramps, but I do it anyhow and eat through my tires much too fast.

That was one of the things that attracted GV8 to me when we met. He followed me back to the place I was crashing at, and as soon as we parked, got out, "I love the way you drive... so confident."

And I am.

A few months ago, someone slammed into my driver's side going much too fast for the intersection we were in. I saw him coming, saw that his car would physically impact my body, adjusted quickly so that he would hit the backseat door instead of mine, and then controlled the spinout to avoid the traffic around me, finding a curb to slam into to stop my car.

No panic, no screaming, no pants-wetting.

You see the situation and you handle it.

$5100 later, my driver's side backseat door was no longer concave.

If I had freaked, if I had allowed myself any panic, things would have gone much more poorly.

I still remember feeling the spin, seeing the cars to my right, knowing that the man who hit me would drive me into them if I did not do something, gas the car, go into the 180, check over my right shoulder, hair flying, see the curb, bring the car around, nail it, not even bothering to think about what would happen if the speed of my car would tip me over and onto my passenger side. Just a knowledge that that curb had to stop me, and if it didn't, if I tipped, I'd handle it.

While scary, I was thrilled. Thrilled to know that my instincts, my ability to keep calm in emergencies, and my father's constantly drilling on driving manuevers when I was younger... it worked. It came together.

Mario Kart probably helped some. Just sayin'.

Anyhow, away from driving, back towards original goal.

Well, there's not a goal set. But back towards topic declared.

I'm lacking in people like me. There's the one girl, my friend, and I do need to visit her. And there's one or two people I've seen in the blogosphere where I blinked and said to myself, "Yeah, they got it."

It makes me remember that dream I had a few months back. I was hanging out with friends in someone's apartment, and Hardwood Floors walked in with some chick, some beautiful girl with my coloring, but different body, and so young and naive.

I was hurt but I didn't show it. I congratulated him on finding a girlfriend, he hugged me, and I went back to talking to people.

But then someone started fighting and I left.

I went down the stairs of their apartment, to the ground floor, and started walking. Directionless, whatever caught my eye, until I saw some yellow flowers on a large bush peeking out from behind someone's house. I walked up their driveway and found a wide dirt path, which I followed. The dirt path continued up a slight hill, and suddenly I was in the country, a few old southern-style houses around me, and so much plantlife. I walked under something resembling a willow, its lean branches hanging down in front of me, filtering the sunlight.

I felt so at peace.

And then I looked around.

There were people. There were these wonderful, bestial people. Men and women lounging about, all of them sorts of predators, people who engineer, people who hunt, who are wild and damaged. But the area we were in was a sort of peace zone, where none of them had to perform, had to attack, had to be doing anything other than rest, recharge, and stop hunting for whatever they sought.

I feel like I've started writing some hippie blog entry. Bah.

As I stood there, watching and at ease, Hardwood Floors came up the path behind me. Told me that he ditched the girl, that she would never understand him like I did, that he'd constantly have to hide his nature from her, that he'd never feel happy and complete, never feel accepted, never let down his guard in case he frightened her.

I believe I told him, "I know."

Heavy petting ensued.

And I woke up.

It's hard to... be with other people sometimes. It becomes this mismash of who you are, who people see you as, and who you want to be seen as. I try so hard to give people a more complete picture of me, but I keep getting pigeon-holed, I keep feeling as though only one side of me is there and that, as more and more people in life deny the other, maybe the other doesn't exist.

Maybe it's just in my head.

People who know me... I'm always this strong, confident, mildly confused woman, sexually confident to an extreme, comfortable in my skin, intelligent, and gentle. Introspective, introverted at times. Cautious until comfortable, it has been said.

But they weren't there when I played with Jake. They weren't there when I flaunted my other lover in front of him, when I played on his weak points and drove him into a frenzy of self-loathing and tears, until he was repeatedly slamming his skull into the hood of his car because he was not worthy of me, because I made him feel worthless with my words and actions. Because I could. Because I wanted to.

Even after that, he begged to be allowed to stay the night, just to cuddle with me, just to be with me.

Even after that, he proposed.

I was 17.

I got so high off of that night, off of hurting him, off of getting him to hurt himself.

I was an angry, disconnected child.

Now I'm a disconnected adult. I think that, maybe, I compensate now for all the damage I did to others in the past, by being so nice all the time. Atonement for an atheist, how amusing.

It's still there, though. That need to hurt, that need to self-destruct. It's no where near as strong as it used to be, not even close. But it's there.

I try to tell people this. Not the stories. But when someone tells me how wonderful and nice I am, when I overhear someone telling another how great I am, how low-drama and non-crazy I am... I have to stop. I have to wonder what they're missing. I have to wonder what makes it so when I see Wolfboy and he sees me, we recognize each other. That first night I met him, coming up on eight years, I knew him to his core. He still can't get away with lying to me and he hates that fact.

I'm going to try to get used to this. The alone. Not having a person I can sit down with and talk, compare notes, relax. Someone I don't have to pretend for.

The first step to all this is becoming alone.

A week ago, I started wearing what looks like a simple wedding ring. It was a gift from my parents, a small sapphire surrounded by smaller diamonds. Very minimal, just my style, should I have wanted a ring with jewels in it. I'm more a plain band kinda girl, but... eh.

But I've been wearing it. The nice guys who would never mess with a married or engaged woman keep their distance. The assholes who would... they're easy enough to deal with. The concern here is not the assholes, the ones who do not respect other's bonds, but the men who actually would. Someone with my retardly moral code, someone worth dating.

I'm distancing myself. Even thinking about stopping things with Ev. I am going to go see The Bassist's band play this week, and we're going to curl up and watch a movie on Sunday, but I've already resolved myself to a lack of interest.

September 5th. A year of singledom.

Once I am truly good being alone, able to control and discuss with myself my own internal drama, confident in myself, knowing that I need no one to make me happy, to validate me, then I'll know that I'm ready for a relationship.

Until then, this ring stays on and I continue to do what I am so good at: keep my heart out of the game.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Think, think, think.

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I also find it romantic.

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

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

Of course, then he tries to kill her.

Anyhow...

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

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

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

I'm straying a bit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sidetracked a little again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then they leave.

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

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

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

And I haven't.

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

And then they leave.

Only Rick understood.

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

Because he's not my kind.

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

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

The Players

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

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

But onto the people.

The girl I spend so much time with, C.

From The Players

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

From The Players

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

From The Players

Rick, my "major" ex.

From The Players

Wolfboy, the almost boyfriend.

From The Players

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

From The Players

And, well, me.

From The Players

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

July 19th 2009 Week

And now... shower time.

The world is your ashtray...

My father started going into one of his rages on Monday night. Typical. He's getting closer and closer to that breaking point he always approaches, speeding away like the Surfliner up the coast, looking for that other train to collide with.

As he built up his anger, I stood there, as usual, and took it. Accusations and manipulations I've become so accustomed to over the years mostly washed over me, things that I had no part in being flung in my face like I was the person masterminding it all. Unfairness flooded my being, as it always does, but in this house, it's not about fair or unfair, it's about maintaining, it's about making sacrifices of your own integrity for the status quo to be upkept.

Instead of my usual prodding in order to get him to blow up so we'd have a few weeks of relief, I kept him an at emotional simmer until he petered out. I just didn't want to deal with it, didn't want to be the person subject to his rage this time.

That's a first. Usually I leap him front of him before someone else can catch his attention.

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

I drove up to the loft last night, to meet with GV8. They're going to be starting construction in the next week or two, plan to have the basic stuff done by August 1st. Couple of extra bathrooms, bigger shower/spa, rework the ventilation, seal the floors, lay down some hardwood in the upstairs area, lay down some hardwood in the main part of the building for a dance floor, install some projectors, hook up a computer or two, install the bar, and other things I'm sure I'm not aware of.

On the drive up, I spoke with one of my guy friends on the phone. He's in the middle of breaking up his open relationship. He's also going to be moving, job hunting, and making himself happy again, as he's been miserable for quite some time. He's been dating C off and on over the last few months, but finally called an end to it because so much was going on in his life.

We talk a lot on the phone, even though we've only met twice (the first of which we ended the evening with him fingering C on one end of a couch while Wolfboy fingered me on the other end- the surround sound of wet noises was great). We have similiar enough outlooks that we get a lot of honest feedback from each other without duplicating our own views to justify behaviors. Last week, I went out to dinner with him and some friends, seeing him for the second time, and it was this odd situation where we knew each other's minds so well, but it was mildly disconcerting to actually be in each other's physical presence.

I got over it quickly. I'm a physical person, constantly touching, so I was sitting next to him, thighs pressed against each other, touching his hair, hugging him, etc. He didn't know what to do. He finds me attractive, but I put myself off-limits to him a few months ago for multiple reasons, and told him as such. He finds even casual touching an indicator of sexual interest, and he knows he does this and that it isn't always correct, so he was very offput by my physical contact with him, trying not to interpret it as interest, acting very awkward.

So I asked him about it, about his awkwardness, about his thoughts and the confusion, then explained my need for physical contact with people I'm comfortable with, and that, over the last few months, I had started finding him attractive.

I then further explained that even though I found him attractive, if I ever did act on it, it would not be anytime soon because I did not want to add any more complications to his already complicated situation, that he needed to focus on himself and for me to knowingly add a distraction to that would be very selfish of me and not be good for him in the long run.

Once the shock subsided, he agreed with me, we said our goodbyes, and I pulled up at the loft.

GV8 was a little late. He tends to be, as his office is in the Valley and traffic is never good coming from there.

We did our standard unloading of vehicles, then moved to the upstairs loft for fun and frolic.

The more I go down on him, the better I get with my technique. He's like a testing doll for oral, and he's quite happy with my experimenting. My learning curve is going through the roof. I can get his entire body to spasm whether or not he's orgasming, I can get him (and most guys) off without ever having to bob my head. I spent close to forty minutes with my face buried in his crotch, my face coated in saliva, finishing with him laying back going, "That was epic. Fucking epic."

It makes me happy to know that even with a man who has had so much experience, who has probably had close to 800+ girls go down on him, I'm still one of the best. I love to be so pleasing to him.

After the follow-up sex (which was, happily, me on my stomach, his hand on the back of my neck, pushing my face into the mattress as he pounded into me from behind), we went to Little Ethiopia on Fairfax for dinner, followed by ice cream at that place on Sunset and La Brea that I can't spell but is something like Mashti's or some such. He also took me down to Gower, just south of Sunset to show me the street full of awesome graffiti. I have pictures of all of this... just have to upload them.

Passed out, woke up to his hands sliding all over my body, his penis sliding inside me and a murmured, "Play with yourself."

Afterwards, he shoved fingers deep into me, making me squirt twice before heading downstairs to shower, leaving me in the wet spot. Typical male. I just rolled over and went back to bed, listening to the echo of his footsteps as he wandered around the loft, moving things around and taking measurements for the impending construction.

Stay wilder than the wind...

I don't dream at night.

My sleep has no images or constructed storylines intruding upon it.

I used to dream all the time. Every night guaranteed, I would wake from multiple dreams. Some good, some bad, some terrifying. My favorites always consisted of me as some lithe, four-legged animal running through cities at night, over fences, up walls, or being pursued by some faceless masculine entity, but more stimulating and exciting than causing of fear. The nightmares, I was always trapped, unable to move, unable to run, interrupted in mid-flight and grounded while a family member, usually my sister, was drowned or murdered by another faceless entity.

But I stopped dreaming in the last few years.

I close my eyes, I slide into unconsciousness, and then I open them to sunlight.

I don't know what happened.

I remember cartoons and random movies where the villian of the piece would attempt to steal children for their pleasant dreams because the villian was completely lacking in the ability to dream. Somehow, the dreams would enable them to rest for once, to be guiltless and free during their sleeping hours.

In City of Lost Children, the villian kidnaps children off of the streets in the hopes of stealing their dreams so he can somehow stop his body from aging.

I never quite followed the logic in that, but I loved the floating brain character.

It's becoming more noticable now, possibly because of the couchsurfing I engage in during the week. I get woken up at odd hours fairly often and there are no images interrupted in my brain, no matter of the time of night or morning.

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

I think I fought off my cold through flooding my system with water and exercise. It's there, but barely.

I went to see Lucha va Voom at The Mayan last night with some friends. Mexican wrestling and strippers. What else could a girl need? The variety of body-types the dancers had was pretty noticable. One very buxom and jiggly hispanic girl, one standard girl with average curves, a tall blonde that, even while wearing stilettos had no ass to speak of, a very petite latina, a girl with the total dancer's muscled body, and then, of course, a lithe male at the end who was absolutely fanastic.

We cheered, we booed, we shouted and made cat-calls.

Afterwards, I steered us down a few blocks to the Hotel Figueroa. I found this place while I was wandering around the Staples Center last summer. The little restaurant just inside the front door serves wonderful burgers, and the bar is killer. Well, not the alcohol. I have no idea about their stock. But the atmosphere, the music, sitting under the buildings with the searchlights going off to the west, clouds filling the sky and each table lit up with a single candle in various colored glass jars... it's perfect.

It's in those moments where I'm sitting in the cold air, thinking:

Let me be alone forever, if just so no one will disturb this perfect scene.

I can't imagine being with anyone that brings me the peace that such places bring me, those inner vibrations, the resonance that you experience when you step into a room and you know that part of you and part of it align on such a base frequency, you can't help but feel as though you found something that you had been missing.

When I met Wolfboy, almost eight years ago know, when I saw him, I knew. I knew that we could be meant for each other, that the wild vibrations screaming down my spine translated the potential, the intensity, we could have. Those vibrations never left us, even when years were spent apart or in the company of other lovers, when we reconnected, we both knew something more was there.

But I decided that I did not want the life he offered... and then someone else's fate took him out of my hands. I continue to miss him, in the way that I do, where most memories fade, glances exchanged become lost, and the world that was constructed around the two of you is resigned to a high shelf, far out of reach.

My friends and I sat around one of the tables by the pool, drinking, until C started nodding off. We walked back to my car, stopping for street meat on the way. The aromas of carmelized onions and peppers got to our companions and they could not say no to the mysterious potentially meat-based product.

The streets were empty and oddly clean. I never expect anything remotely near downtown to be clean. Traffic was minimal. It was apocalyptic... just without the requisite zombies. We spotted a bright red two-story tall electric sign declaring "JESUS SAVES" on our walk, something I had never noticed before. It gave the end of the evening this desolate feeling that I, as usual, enjoyed.

It leaves me wanting to be alone. I want to be up at 4AM, wandering the empty parts of LA. I want to see the city as few do. I want to be undisturbed, unmolested, and soak up the atmosphere that comes from being on an empty street that is only a few hours from being flooded with people.

I want to step outside of it. I want to be part of the gray. That time of the evening, time of the morning, when it is neither daylight or dark, the misty dusk. And when it is about to rain, but the clouds can't quite push it over the edge, so the world becomes monochrome, but dry.

These are my favorite moments, when something is caught between two opposites.

Possibly because I am, as always, caught between two opposites... but I can never resolve myself to just being that way, like the dusk. My need to define myself and my continuous failure to do so stabs at me, leaves me open to interpretation, open to other standards, to other ideas and influences.

It's good to be part of two worlds. It allows you to interact, allows viewpoints, allows friendships with people that you would not normally meet, to experience things that would normally pass by.

But then you never fit in.

Anywhere.

You always have one foot out the door, not because you're planning on leaving, but because you never fully came in.

I've been clubbing, been part of a particular scene for almost eight years now. I have many, many friends in the scene. I can dance. I can dress the part. I can do the make-up and the hair. I know the bands, I know the DJs, the venues, the promoters, the history. I've never quite belonged, and it has been commented on a few times over the years. Not in a negative way, but just as an observation by friends.

Neither masculine or feminine in personality, either, but this odd middle ground.

I suppose that I should be thankful that my body is decidedly female, or I might have developed an androgyny complex.

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

This weekend is the new club. I've poked a few people about going, but I'm not really driving it home like I should be. GV8 is coming with me, of course. I'm just looking forward to an evening of dancing to triphop. Portishead's Biscuit is, to me, pure sex. That song is how I love.

Also going to be spinning by the warehouse/loft for some pre-construction pictures. It's going to be cool to see how it all comes together. I'm sure I'll be posting the progress here.

Anyhow, places to go, people to see and all that. It's Friday, I've got demands on my time, a weekend to organize, and a man whose bones I must jump.

Tell me we both matter...

"So... what happened?"

"They were over at his house, drinking a few beers. He pulled out a .44 cal and shot himself in the head in front of her."

"Oh."

"I had to pick up the pieces of his brain... it really messed me up."

"Christ."

"This is all my fault. If we hadn't hooked up, it wouldn't have caused so many issues in their relationship. He wouldn't have been so upset, he wouldn't have killed himself."

"It is not your fault."

"She needs me now... I can't see you anymore."

"I know."

"Good-bye."

Kitchen.

We're cleaning up the dishes.

I lean over the counter, sponge in hand, wiping up the parmesan cheese scattered across the marble surface.

He's behind me.

"These jeans could have been painted on," he murmurs into my ear.

His hands run up my ass, following the curve to the base of my spine before slipping over to the front. He pulls me against him, using my hipbones as handles, and slowly grinds against me.

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

"Forget the party, we should go down to the beach."

He's sitting in my passenger seat.

I glance over, "I can't. I told them I'd be there at five-thirty and I'm already late."

"Take me to Sunken City."

"Another time. I really need to get going."

"We should go out to dinner soon."

I realize I've shown him too much affection. He translates my care for him and his well-being as love. As he tries to convince me to abandon my previous plans, I sit and kick myself for not being colder. I should have known better. He's at my feet like a puppy, waiting for me to feed him treats.

He interrupts my thoughts, "After the party, you should call me. We can go out."

"I'm already exhausted from clubbing last night and being up so early this morning for this event. I doubt I'll have the energy to go out after this."

"Drink some coffee."

"I've got another date tomorrow morning," I try to gently remind him of my lifestyle choice, the choice I made when I decided that he could not have a permanent place in my life, "I can't be up with you all night and then spend tomorrow with this guy all exhausted. That's rude."

"Well, think about it. Let me know."

"I will, but it's doubtful. Please don't get your hopes up." That last part is almost a laugh. It's too late. His hopes are up. His hopes are up for more than I'm willing to give. I know I'm going to have to cut him loose soon and I know that this may cost me his friendship.

We present a good picture.

Lounging down at the house in Long Beach, we socially intertwine. The girls are intimidated by him, by his height, his dress, his attitude. The men are intimidated by me, by my attitude and man-eating reputation. They see him fall for me and it's another feather in my cap. If this man curls up at my feet so easily, what chance do they have?

I'm always outside the group.

... ... ...

One of the girls mentions that they're talking about me down in south Orange County. Apparently, my writing is spreading. Me, a topic of conversation. Who knew?

When I was in San Francisco, the man I was visiting took me to three of his cross-fit classes. I did not understand why, during the classes, he kept looking at me and grinning. It was the oddest smile. I kept asking him what was so amusing, and finally he told me that he couldn't believe that I, of this particular section of internet fame, was doing these classes with him.

Like I wasn't a regular person.

That shocked me.

He was the first to do that.

Last weekend, a similiar situation happened.

Another man wanted me for the same reason. Because of the writing. Because of the stories. Because of the growing fan club. Like me sleeping with him would somehow make him special, like he would somehow become part of the stories.

I've put so little effort into that site, it's only been a few months.

I'm not sure what to think of it.

Tuesday

He places me on the curb, eliminating those several inches from between our lips.

We breathe together.

"You just want me to fall for you again," he tells me.

I lean back, trying to stop the look of horror from filling my features then, realizing it's too late, press my face into his chest.

"No. That would be awful."

Notes from a refugee

Trying to bring this all together, please don't mind the mess.

Last night, back porch, right side of the couch. Cats dancing around the four of us, launching themselves into space with kittenish mews. I'm in his arms. This shouldn't be happening. I'll simply hurt him again, but I can't pull myself away.

We're damaged creatures of desire, his hands, my lips. We roam together.

She uses him for sex, leaves her marks on his body. He's her secret, she's ashamed.

He's my joy. All six feet, seven inches of him. Leather jacket, army boots, cigarette dangling, constant scowl.

He said he didn't want me anymore, said he wouldn't touch me anymore, but I'm good at inciting lust, especially in him. Easily in him. His hand slid down the front of my pants, breath catching, thighs twitching, moans hidden between words. His fingers dance and glide. I pulse.

Afterwards, driving home, he tells me he feels nothing.

I nod and agree with him. I know he's lying. He's never been able to hide anything from me. His smiles and stolen kisses translate his words into truth; I don't listen to the syllables, just the meaning.

... ... ...

I'm on my back, corner of a parking lot in Venice Beach. It's Saturday night, almost Sunday morning. It's cold, but his body heat and my sleeping bag stops the wind.

He caught my eye when I was walking up the boardwalk, when I stopped to talk to the squatter kids. He was smooth. The few hours I spent with them, while the sun was going down, he alternately ignored me and wandered off, only to return later. I'd catch him looking at me, occasionally, eyes almost closed as he laid on his back in the sun.

While the dogs vied for my attention, he just watched. Their gropes, their attempts at stolen kisses, their antics involving helpless and clueless passersby. They were raucous hyenas, chaos under the influence. When it came time to leave, I asked him to walk me to my car. Double motive: Venice isn't safe at night.

We ended up walking to Washington Boulevard, ended up down the way at a Persian restaurant. He left his dog outside, leash tied to a table leg. We talked. He told me of his travels, of his lifestyle. I told him of my mental project, of recent events. He introduced me to people as we walked, he seemed to know the entire transient population.

Unsurprising, given that he's one of them as well.

He showed me his squat, such an unglamourous word for an unglamourous lifestyle. A tunnel in the canal system. He bent the metal bars of the gate with a towel and broomstick, lets people who need it share it with him. Lately, he says, it's been a girl named Dingo. Beautiful sixteen year old black chick, won't talk about why she's on the street. We both know what that means, though.

He's almost twenty-six. We're so close in age.

He takes care of the people around him, takes care of himself.

We get to my car, in which I drove over his tunnel earlier that day. There's a pause, one of those moments you see in movies where neither person is sure what the other one is thinking. My reasons are different than most, though.

And then we're there. My back is pressed against my trunk, lips and tongue playing with the bit of metal through his lip. He lifts me up, legs wrapping around his waist, hands running through his hair, over his neck, down his shoulders.

It's almost ten.

It was intimate. Pausing in between kisses to talk, to laugh, to exchange thoughts, with his dog resting at our feet. I mention I like things rough, and suddenly I'm spun around, face and stomach pressed against my cold car, bent over my trunk, and he's grinding into me. I can feel him so close, so warm. We're aligned.

He suggests lying down and, at first, I decline. He changes my mind, sleeping bag is dragged out of my backseat and tossed down. Then his weight is on me, pressing me into the asphalt, bruises will line my lower back in the morning.

I'm flipped over, pants slid down, his fingers pumping into me. I arch into him, then his fly is down, head of his penis rubbing over my clit. I've already told him no penetration- his choice of lifestyle is too risky for that- and he respects it. Doesn't even ask, doesn't even hint, but even this contact is more dangerous than I would like.

We wind down, lie down. Curling up close, sharing heat. His dog slides in beside us, I am sandwiched: Man-Woman-Dog. Talking, breathing together. He understands. Of all the people I have met, he understands. He knows that difference, between affection and love. I don't need to make my disclaimer to him. We can cuddle, tickle, roll, giggle, exchange light kisses... and he knows it means nothing other than the physical comfort and companionship the action provides. And he knows how to play the game, knows how to monitor people and subtly control. He knows how to direct desire, knows how to get attention. We compare notes, lying under a streetlight.

I'm comfortable with him. I'm able to let go enough so that I don't even notice I'm not monitoring what is going on around us until afterwards.

I leave.

... ... ...

Party Saturday night. I show up Sunday morning, almost 3AM.

Walking in the door, the few remaining people there shout my name. I smile, apologize for being late. They said they assumed I was getting laid, and actually had talked about it at some length.

It amazes me. In general, I'm astonished when people talk about me. I don't find myself too out of the ordinary. I do what I do, I keep dramatics to a minimum. I don't gossip, rarely lose my cool, and try to be supportive of my friends.

I don't think of how people view me on a long-term basis. Short-term, I know my actions may have impact on people. Long-term... I just don't look ahead that far. I probably should.

I am, I know, a source of entertainment for my friends. They live vicariously through my sex life, through my exploring and odd occurances. This has been told to me by so many people throughout my life. It's one of the reasons I continue to put my thoughts and adventures online. I know some of them wish they could do what I do, live like I do, think like I do. I know some of them just like it for the "reality tv" factor, since I rarely screen myself.

But, really, how do people see me overall?

I mentioned to a friend, yesterday, that I had purchased a new pair of glasses. His girlfriend asked me what they looked like and I tried to describe the style, failing miserably, lamely saying to her something along the lines of, "They're very much my style, very me."

"Brutal?"

This launched into a discussion of, again, my lifestyle.

I walk a very fine line.

I am a devoted daughter and a loving sister.
I have many widespread social groups, people I have been good friends with for years.
If someone, friend or new acquaintance needs me, I am there.

But I'm tangenting.

People call me when they need help. People come to me for advice, come to me to vent, come to me when they're depressed.
My long-term lovers are dedicated friends, even the ones I no longer sleep with.
I make friends with strangers constantly, help people whenever I see a need. Even when I'm wandering the streets of Los Angeles, certainly not the most friendly city, strangers will stop and talk to me repeatedly throughout the day.

My friends know this. My friends see how I interact with people, see how I interact with my family.

And then they see me go through men like popcorn. Some get to stay, some don't. Some of my friends actually get to see me when I shift from friendly conversation with them to "I want him, I'll have him" mode. They get to see that mood change, that shift in my hips, how my voice changes so slightly, how my posture takes on a different cast, and chin tilting a little to the side.

Sometimes they call me a man-eater. Sometimes a predator. Sometimes a shark.

Last night, two of them got to see me do a five hour long dance, turning someone I had lost a few months prior, who said he would never speak to me again, to someone who could not stop touching me.

How do they reconcile the two images?

... ... ...

When they talk about me in clubs, I know they watch me dance... I take joy in their words. So much hateful bile has been spewed about me in the last few months, simply because I refused to sleep with someone and he took offense, that I have become almost a pariah. I have now become, through no direct actions of my own, a slut of epic proportions.

Unfortunately for that group, my actions only scream "slut" to the uneducated and, since I try not to socialize at clubs anyhow, my social life there has been completely unaffected. They tried so hard to damage me, but they did it so it would hurt a normal girl. That must be so frustrating for them, seeing how it has done nothing for all the work they have put into it.

I love when they watch me dance, though. I love how they want me, love how they loathe me, love that they will never look as good as I do on the dance floor and they know it, god they know it. Even with everything they have said, I know I could crook one finger at them and they would come running. They would brag about how they "conquered" me to their friends.

Right.

... ... ...

Sunset and Vine, northwest corner is Borders, one street east is Amoeba Records. I go there, some weekends, to stock up on music and books. This weekend was music for the road, and some spoken word sets. I'll listen to them as I drive up to San Francisco.

Started off the day getting my eyes checked. My right is degrading so much due to my constant reading, my prescription is miles off. I found a pair of stainless steel glasses, black, elegant, and a bit severe. Just that edge I like so much in everything I wear.

Afterwards, I drove over to Little Tokyo. There is a mostly abandoned shopping center on Fourth and Alameda, on the third floor is a u-don house, Issen Joki. It's almost always empty. The classical Japanese music soothes me. I've been going there for about ten years. It's a secret spot, a cooling down spot, a place where I center myself. I can run through memories there, of people I have brought, of dates, of adventures, of late nights clubbing.

I curled up with Nabokov's Despair, and a pot of tea. The same old woman, never changing, has worked there as long as I have been going. I can disappear for two years, come back, and it is still as though nothing has changed. It's a place for breathing.

Then Amoeba, then Borders, then I'm on the corner of a roof of a parking lot, seven stories up, a cup of hot chocolate in my right hand, looking over all of Los Angeles and Hollywood. If the day had been clearer, the ocean would have been visable.

It was beautiful, though. You can see the entire city, and the wind is wonderful, whipping my hair up and around as I leaned against the cement wall. Hot chocolate soothes me, the wind soothes me, and being alone... happy as a clam. It was all I could have wanted. Moments of perfect peace.

... ... ...

Time ravaged.

Sitting on a counter, I suddenly remember.

I remember why I did what I did. I remember why I pushed myself until I was a pile of wreckage.

I remember driving myself into the ground, driving my friends and family away, injuring anyone who came close. I remember abusing relationships, abusing the good natures of others, of causing damage, of causing chaos.

Slowly it seeps back into mind, water under a doorway.

I remember the whys.

I needed to cross that boundary. I needed to be beyond redemption. I needed to be not worth life, not worth living, that I was causing so much pain by being that if I was gone, it would be a relief, not a sorrow. I needed to nose-dive past the point of caring, nose-dive past the place where anyone could love me.

Burning into the ground.

I was trying to detach from this life so I could leave it. So I could slice my wrists, bleed out, and no one would miss me. Standby for launch.

We're coming up on nine years since I started the course of events that led me to the now.

I will untangle this.

You've got your daddy's smile...

"Jesus, you're jaded."

This comes to me from the mouth of a would-have-been boyfriend.

He's known me for seven years. I shot him down last month.

This comes to me from a man who was raised in an abusive household, who had a girlfriend attempt to trap him into marriage via pregnancy, who has had at least one drug addiction I know of, who chain smokes, drinks like a fish, has been betrayed by most of his friends, who usually has his relationships end when the girl cheats on him, who has been tossed out by his family without thought, and is likely one of the most damaged and fucked over, yet still functioning, people I know.

And yet, when it came down to it, I startled him with my jaded outlook.

I had always protected him from that part of myself. Always let him see me as someone upbeat and, while not naive, always assuming things would turn out right. Not because of any game, but because he needed that sort of pick up. He didn't have anyone else to turn to for it.

So when he shoved me away, an expected result of my own actions, I let him go.

And when he came back, hurt and angry, lashing out, I let my mask slip. Not a lot, but enough to show him that whatever missiles he had to fling my way were going to do very little, and that I would welcome any damage he could do.

I still have some pieces of my worldview that are not covered with scar tissue, you see. I need to work on that.

It disturbed him. It would disturb anyone, really. I don't blame him for his shock.

It was just unexpected.

One of those moments, where you look at yourself, and ask... What exactly have I done to myself?

See how deep the bullet lies.

We circled each other like spitting cats, attempting to redefine boundaries.

He's still scarred from my claws, I let him set the terms of combat.

He lashes out, I acknowledge the damage. I show my belly.

As the words continue to fly, I rise up. Give me everything you have, I tell him, hurt me badly.

It'll refine my edges.

His attacks stop.

He retreats.