Things that make you go...

Joseph and I talked on the phone late last week - a rarity. Apparently the girlfriend and child were visiting at an aunt's place for two days, so the lucky boy had the house to himself. What does he do? Call me. Naturally.

I used to completely hate talking on the phone, and in fact would only talk with family, under threats of bodily harm from my mother. It's awkward. I'm a visual person, more than auditory, so without the body language, a lot of times I was adrift in a conversation. Since I've gotten older, I've gotten much, much better at it, and in fact will call up complete strangers and ask to buy their cars. But I still don't like talking on the phone, especially not to Joseph.

Joseph falls under the "guys who want to get in my pants" clause, which goes something like this:

If there is a guy, and he wants to get into my pants, I will have absolutely nothing to say to him in a one-on-one conversation. I will also be incapable of replying to any attempts he makes at conversation.

It's sucky. The worst of it is, Joseph and I are both wordy people. Dude is a goddamn writer, for fuck's sake. Me, well, I just have a big mouth. And yet, every time I talk to him, I look like a fucking idiot. Unlike Jay's and my silent dinners, I think in this case it is because I am trying too hard to be witty and entertaining, and failing miserably because I am too scared to try. Or too lazy to think anything up, one or the other. Email is fine though - probably because it's okay if I take fifteen minutes to compose a single sentence in reply.

Anyway, Joseph and I. We talked. Not much, since he called on Wednesday night when I had to get to sleep for my four-hour nap between shifts. We did talk a bit though. Two things stuck with me from the conversation (well, maybe three or four):

1. He is not into kink.
2. He is, in fact, amoral, and likes me because I don't bother to judge him for this.
3. He is not telling the girlfriend that he is spending a week with another woman.
4. "No matter what we wind up being to each other, I want you to know that I'll always love you, and consider you one of my closest friends, and I'll always be there for you and look out for you."

One of these things is not like the others. I didn't really know how to respond to the last - my silence was long enough that he started getting worried that I was getting emotional. Obviously he doesn't know me as well as he thinks, because I don't fucking cry. Certainly not for him. And it wasn't that I was emotional over it, but more like Hmmm. That's interesting. I wonder what exactly that means to him. I would not consider his plans 'looking out for me' in any way, shape, form, etc.

I also gleefully told him that if he were my significant other, and I found out that he'd spent a week out-of-state with another woman, trying to seduce her, and had told me instead that he was going to see a number of old friends and family, I would castrate him. He allowed as how that was probably true. Maybe he does know me. Maybe the word "girlfriend" means something different to him; in fact I'm almost sure it does. But if some dude were my boyfriend, that implies that I have the exclusive use of his cock, and I tend to be possessive about these things.

As for the not into kink, that is highly unfortunate, because I think he'd be really good at it. And I think I would like it a lot. But his loss. Me, I'll stay kinky, please and thank you.

So basically, I will never, ever date this man. He's an amoral, selfish and kinkless bastard, with some really interesting vocabulary. But he's fun to hang out with. There is certainly no sin in that.

All the things she said

Friday nights are tough for me. I work until at least 11:00, and then get to go home, sleep for a few hours, and be back at work at 8:00 the next morning. It's thrilling, I assure you.

Last night, I wound up working until 11:30 (why no, it's not acceptable to parade around the house in your underwear! And no, I don't think it's too much to ask you to follow the rules; why do you ask?) and not going to sleep until nearly 3:00. I had set my alarm soon after getting home, because ideally I wanted to be asleep shortly after midnight. My brain had other ideas, unfortunately.

As I was falling asleep, the little voice in my head said that I should set the alarm on my mobile, just to make sure that I woke up in the morning. As the mobile was right next to me, and the process is quick and doesn't involve me leaving bed, I did so, setting it for 7:00 am. That gives me forty minutes to shower and get dressed before having to leave for work.

I woke up this morning to my mobile's alarm, dazed and confused and wondering why the hell I was even hearing it. Turns out my power went out at some point during the night shortly after I went to sleep, and had but recently come back on. Awesome.

So now it's off to work. Getting woken up by the mobile alarm is certainly more pleasant than waking to the "work" ringtone, but not nearly as pleasant as staying in bed, fast asleep.

I hate everyone and everything

Apparently my car is invisible, because not once, not twice, but no less than SIX FUCKING TIMES did someone nearly make a right turn off of a side street into my car. Now, maybe I'm biased, but I do not have a small car. It is a big fat Ford ('cause I love me some big fat Fords). It has a big engine. Its engine likes to purr and be very responsive to the gas pedal. What is most fun is the hill by my house with the stoplight. It is the perfect hill, because while I am waiting for the light, I don't have to press the brakes. I am digressing.

People are fucking stupid. And they do not like to look when they are turning. And then they like to give me a dirty look, as if to say "HOW DARE YOU BE DRIVING ON THIS STREET AND GETTING IN MY WAY" so I yell "FUCK YOU RIGHT-OF-WAY DICKWEED DO YOU SPEAK IT" and this helps me a lot.

I hate other drivers. They suck.

So after posting that long entry last night, I wake up to this in my inbox.

Dear french,
Here is your horoscope
for Wednesday, June 28:

It's time to make sense of those recurring fantasies. No matter what your loved ones say, you're the only person who has the final say about your true desires. Listen to that inner voice. It's telling you the truth.

Fuck.

Emotional echo

I'm one of those people that has at least a half-a-dozen projects in the works at any given time. I've always got these great ideas, and I'll enthusiastically start them - which means I give up on the last great idea or three, putting it aside.

But today, I am going back and tying up a few of those loose ends, blog-wise.

About three months ago, I had a draft of an entry, filled with big huge things that had happened that day. There were too many, so instead I just focused on one of them. But anyway, going back to that, the first three "big things" had to do with my relationship with Jay, such as it is.

Wait, no, she's blogging about that? Quelle surprise. Maybe we should call someone.

I'd decided that I wasn't ready to be in a relationship with Jay again. That verdict still stands, as does the qualifier - "I get the feeling that at some point I will be, but this is definitely not that point."

The reasons are varied and myriad. Yes, he's become more mature in his personal life, but I don't think he's quite caught up yet. It's still too easy to fall back into old patterns, positive and negative. My parents do not approve.

That last may seem strange - after all, I'm an adult, living on my own, financially independent, etc. and so on. Why the hell should I care about my parents? Well, because they're smart people, and they love me, dammit. I got reminded of that today - I did a portion of a research study about childhood memories, and I got to talk about how wonderful my childhood was. It was far from perfect, but it was wonderful. And especially in my field, I've really gotten a chance to see what passes for parenting on the average, and have grown a huge appreciation for my parents, and the childhood they provided me.

So when Mom and Dad say that something isn't a good idea, I don't take it lightly. On the flip side, when they approve of something, it certainly weights my decision in favor of it - see also my car. If I had told my father about it, and he had said that I should run in the opposite direction, I likely would have. Instead, he said that it would be a good bargain, so that tipped the scales so that I bought it.

Same goes with Jay. Ultimately, it's my decision, and my parents will respect that. And they like him as a person - he's visited them before, and in fact my extended family likes him as well - but not as a person dating or otherwise involved with me in a romantic fashion. Their concerns mirror mine, which just validates them more strongly in my head.

Too bad it's only my head that is saying "Stay the hell away! What the hell is wrong with you." My body and heart are going "Yay! We like this." It. Sucks. How the hell am I supposed to be intelligent about this when every time we have sex, it feels like coming home.

Is it any wonder

"I'm hungry," he whines at me.

"What do you want me to do about it?"

"Well it's your house."

In response I roll over and grab his cock to distract him. As always, this works magnificently. He closes his eyes, and on his face, that little satisfied smile I know so well appears. I snuggle up closer, wrapping my body around his like ivy. My hand strays a bit lower, caressing and tugging his balls. This elicits a moan. Distraction fully engaged.

I kiss him, once, twice, gently, quick little smacks. It becomes something deeper, more open, faster, harder. His hands are on me now, tugging my nipples, sliding between my legs. I'm wet, ready, like I have been all day. He has a raider's grin, now.

I break off and take his cock into my mouth. His eyes roll back into his head, as do mine. No matter how many times I do this, no matter how often I dream about it, it is always intensely satisfying. And arousing. I lick and suck and drool and make satisfied noises all over his cock and sack, while he relaxes back and enjoys my efforts.

Soon, I pop back up and kiss him again, with a calculating gleam in my eye. The gleam stays as I lean back to caress him.

"I know that look," he says. "You're thinking."

I nod in acknowledgement; I have indeed been thinking. Lasciviously, of course.

"I like when you think."

"Oh?"

"You always think up such wonderful things."

My turn to grin now. I ask him to sit on the edge of the bed, so that I can kneel in front of him. He happily obliges, and I settle myself in between his legs. One hand cupping his balls, my mouth taking him deep. There is wetness everywhere - saliva and precum between his legs, and on my face. Cunt juices dripping from me and on his fingers. A cock in my mouth never fails to elicit this response, and he knows it. Kneeling, presenting myself to him, only heightens the sensations.

The further along he gets, the farther and farther he leans back, until I am on my knees on the floor and he is laying back on the bed again. I reach up and tweak his nipples while I suck, pinching and rolling them. He shoves his cock deeper into my mouth, groaning. He's getting close, now. I knead his thighs, taking his balls into my mouth, gently pulling. He fists his hands in my hair, pulling me back to his cock. I greedily take it in, determined to finish him. As I work my head back and forth, he bucks his hips, thrusting, panting, until finally I hear his shout and feel his cock twitch, spilling out his delicious cum, flooding my mouth.

I lick him clean, and with a satisfied smile on my face, crawl back up on to the bed to kiss him again. We curl up together, his hand on my cunt, and half-doze for a short while, sated, satisfied.

He turns to me and says "I'm still hungry though." I can do nothing but laugh.

Brought to you by the letter "D" and the number "250"

I found a potential airfare for Joseph much, much cheaper than anywhere else we've seen. I would email it to him, except I'm still not entirely sure I really want him coming out here. Then again, I may just be delaying the inevitable - I've had dreams where he shows up at my door, so I've known that he'll come visit me out here for years. Perhaps I should just get it over with. I would probably not be wrong in saying that my life would be much, much easier and less stressful if I could make a damn decision once in a while. And stick to it. Oh yes, and stick to it.

I can't help but look at other vacation options though. Skiing is far too expensive; with airfares to any country with snow well over $800 to start with, never mind accomodations and other travel, it's just not practical. Instead, I'll save up to go skiing in Canada this winter. It was the original plan, and besides, I love Quebec. I'm always looking for an excuse to go back there, and skiing is naturellement a perfect one.

Put on some make-up

Joseph emailed me this morning. I'd emailed him a link to a site where there was apparently a ticket to my place $50 than we'd found it anywhere else. However, it required an overnight flight. I emailed it to him anyway.

He's not thrilled about the overnight flight, and he's even less thrilled about the fact that he was out sick from work a few days the past week or two, and so does not have the extra cash he was banking on to buy the tickets. At this point, it's looking less and less likely that he'll actually make it out here - which is no surprise, really. Maybe I just have low expectations; maybe I just attract loser guys, but I would be much more surprised if he actually did make it out here.

It's hard to wish him luck as well, especially when I'm still so soured on the idea. There is only one man out there that gets to use the possessive on me (so far, I think I hope) and Joseph ain't him.

So instead I will make a contingency plan. If I don't roadtrip for a week this summer, I do not have plans to cry my eyes out. Instead, I will look into summer skiing options. Because dear god, I love skiing. And besides, Switzerland has always sounded nice to me.

Don't know when

I'm taking a train back to my house some time this afternoon, having spent the weekend out here with Vinnie and Mike. I've known Vinnie long enough that when he is over at my house, or I am over at his, we literally make ourselves at home. I know where things are, I help myself to what I need, I take what space I need, etc. and so on. It makes for a comfortable weekend - no worrying about being "on" in front of your hosts - being socially acceptable and whatnot.

Well, I wouldn't worry about being socially acceptable with Vinnie and Mike anyway. We're usually not. Vinnie and I are bad enough, with our snarky comments and horrible, horribly funny jokes. But Mike can really come up with some fucked-up shit. Usually in public. I feel that one day, the three of us are going to come up with something particularly fucked-up, and the wrong person will hear it. Hasn't happened yet, though, and it's not like we didn't try. So instead I'll just be happy with the being doubled-up with laughter that usually happens when I'm around them.

I also got to see Vinnie's parents, which is always a pleasure. Scattered around the country are the parents of my friends, most of whom I view as a sort of adopted parents. Luckily, they view me in a reciprocal fashion. We had a barbecue out at their house for Father's Day. In typical fashion, I forgot my swimsuit, so Vinnie's mom lent me one (hey, it was family, no need for high fashion here). His seven-year-old cousin was there as well. I remember when she was born, which is just a little bit scary for me. She's a cutie though. Thought that Mike and I were dating, which is just hilarious.

I was also the only woman around the entire weekend, including for the soiree on Saturday night. There were eight guys, and then me. I also loved that, because I wasn't there as a woman, I was there as one of the guys. We drank and played games and made stupid comments and witticisms and had a grand old time.

All in all, I needed this weekend desperately. Sure, I got to sleep in Vinnie's un-air-conditioned living room on a couch, but I got to sleep. And not use an alarm in the morning. And just relax and be me.

I'm a...

I keep mentioning my "class" that I have to take, but I haven't gone into any detail, so it's time to get that off my chest. Sure I'm on "vacation" down here with Vinnie and Mike, but they're still sleeping and I feel like blogging. I shouldn't be allowed to take my laptop on vacation EVER. Note to selves, I need a wireless card.

Anyway, as a prerequisite to my graduate studies, I have to take an introductory statistics course. I took an intro stats course as an undergrad, but it was six years ago, and the cutoff was five. So I dutifully signed up, figuring the review would be good for me, I'd get to meet some of the people in my incoming class, etc. and so on.

Now, I am by no means a stupid person (except when it comes to emotions, but we're talking academics and intellect here). I'm tooting my own horn, and I don't care, but I'm pretty fucking intelligent, and have the proof. That being said, this class is the most ridiculously pathetic I've ever taken.

There is no real math in this course. It's basically an introduction to statistical results you might see in a scholarly publication. In fact, one of the stated goals is to make people "more comfortable with reading journal articles." My instructor even asked "Have you ever seen an article, and then saw the diagrams in it, and put it aside because they were kind of scary?" and people nodded their heads. At this point, bitchy as it makes me, I nearly raised my hand and asked if I could bring in a few journal articles with my name in them and be exempt from the course.

We've had three class sessions so far. Coming in to the third, we were almost a week behind. We spent over an hour of our second class session going over the items in our first class session. Over. An hour. And then she gave us a quiz. And then, and then, one of the students, who is so frightfully ignorant that everyone hates him, was asked by the teacher to leave the class because he was asking too many questions during the quiz and apparently hadn't done the readings. He apparently did not understand that there were readings assigned, because he didn't hear her mention them the eight thousand times the week before, and hadn't seen them on the syllabus emailed out to everyone a month ago.

I actually like some of the people in the class though; they're not stupid, they're just not from the same background, so yes, this material is new and strange to them. And that's okay. They get it, once you explain it to them. And I've been doing a lot of explaining. I figure I'd rather go through five minutes of explaining now, than five hours of explaining once we all get to research methods. It's an ego boost to hear them say that I do a better job of teaching this stuff than our instructor. But this other guy, holy crap, I would never want to calculate the density of his head, because there is nothing in this world large enough to hold that number. It's pretty bad when you have social workers ragging on you.

I forsee a lot of hand-holding in my graduate studies though, which kind of irritates me. I'm fiercely independent (shocking, I know), and got used to doing things my way as an undergrad. I don't know how well I'm going to handle all this touchy-feely-ness I see coming up. Bah.

Excuse me, mister

Part of the plans for Joseph's visit were a road trip and gallivant through the part of the state where he used to live, before he moved away. In his message to me about this, he had said "You'd better have the car and the time, and if you don't have the car, you can ride a damn bus with me". So I admit, part of the reason I took the plunge of buying a car was so that I didn't have to ride a bus in July. What can I say; I am easily influenced.

When I bought the car, I called him up and informed him of this. He was on his way home from work, and we briefly talked, but he also spent time talking to one of his coworkers, who was giving him a ride. During the conversation he referred to me as "his slut" or something along those lines, a few times.

I absolutely bristled.

Honestly, I didn't quite understand my reaction at the time; all I knew was that it really put me off, and I got cranky with him, which he took as simply a reaction to the word. He tried to explain it as that he didn't mean to smash my dignity, etc. I replied that I said nothing about dignity whatsoever.

Having thought about it, I didn't mind the word so much, as the fact that it was him using it. It pissed me off. He doesn't get to call me that. I am not his. True, some of the things I've done with him can be construed as slutty, as can some of the things that I have considered doing with him. But since when does he get to call me a slut? That's right, he doesn't. Much less his. Fuck that, good sir, you do not own me.

And apparently I'm still a bit angry about it. I more or less hung up on him - although I continued to search for airline tickets for him for a bit. Maybe it's wrong of me, but I'm perversely happy that airline tickets are so gawdawful expensive for him to fly out here, because it decreases the chances that he will. And right now, that makes me happy.

Sweet jesus!

So, I'm buying a car tomorrow. I've been working up to doing it for a while, and I finally took the plunge. She's meeting me at my work to drop it off. It's pretty awesome. And it was pretty cheap. And I'm stupid excited.

That's pretty much all I have to say about that.

Stupid stupid stupid

It's stupid o'clock in the morning, and I'm awake because I have to be in at work shortly. Normally I work Thursday nights, but I'm doing the mornings all this month because of a class I have to take for grad school. That in and of itself could be the subject of an entirely different rant, but I think I'll see how this one goes before I post about it here.

Meanwhile, one of my acquaintances found a link to an online forum where apparently, bug-chasers are pussies. (If you don't know what a bug-chaser is, you probably don't want to read any further. Hell, you probably don't want to read further even if you do.) These are guys who get off on bare-backing guys who are HIV-, and intentionally trying to infect them. They lie to the guys, saying they're neg, or use condoms, but the condoms have holes poked or cut in them. There are guys who are trying to make a resistant strain of virus, by signing up for drug studies, taking the drugs the first few weeks, then completely throwing the protocol out the window. There are guys who deliberately try to get infected with as many strains of the virus as possible.

That, to put it succinctly, is some fucked up shit. And how am I allowed to say that? Because they are deliberately harming themselves and others by this behavior. Ergo, fuck them. Or rather, don't.

This hits doubly-close to home, as I've participated in an HIV vaccine trial. I can't understand the motivation of trying to fuck that shit up. HELLO, WE'RE TRYING TO SAVE PEOPLE HERE, MAYBE YOU COULD NOT FUCKING INTERFERE. Christ. When I was reading excerpts from the forum yesterday, I was starting to get physically ill. It was like the world was reminding me, oh yeah, there are some fucked-up things out there. And here I thought I was all internet-tough and thick-skinned. Obviously not.

The other tie-in is, well jesus fuck, who can you trust? Maybe I'm just a stupid girl, but I take a certain amount of pride in the fact that I am completely clean. I don't even have HPV. I got nothin'. I'd like to stay that way. And when I read stuff like this, it gets harder and harder to even think about having sex with people. How the hell am I supposed to trust them, when stuff like this happens in the world?

Anyway, now that I've ruined everyone else's day (including my own, again) by talking about this stuff, time to move on. Work calls, and then class. Hopefully this one will go better than the first; which had me so angry I was swearing on the phone with my mother, and I flipping never do that.

This is how you remind me

As I mentioned in my last entry, Joseph is flying out here for a week in July. When notified of this development, Vinnie had this to say:

Oh dear. Pills and condoms, girl. This man has previously successful sperm. And you know how I feel about sleeping with people with SO's... not your sin. Now, I'd suggest letting him make the first move (although flying out to spend a week with you is quite a first move, you know what I mean) and whatever you do, don't let yourself fall in love. If you're going to have sex with this loser, do it to resolve sexual tension. And remember, he's got a kid and a woman he should make honest, and he lives far, far away.

I love when he gets all pragmatic on my ass. And it truly is good advice, especially since I can't see myself in a relationship of any consequence with Joseph at all. Oh true, there's ye olde tonne of sexual tension there, but relationship sparks? Nah.

Then again, I do have high standards there.

Anyway, I haven't decided whether I'll fuck him or not. Probably will. Might not. Definitely dangerous.

panic!

Found out this morning that Joseph is flying out here on the 22nd July.

I asked for the week after off as well, because I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll need it before going back to work.

Predictability

Joseph naturally has dropped off the planet again. I desperately want the attention from him, but not enough to make a fool out of myself and message him or email him begging for it. If he wants to pay attention to me, fine and dandy, I would love it. I just know that I'll have to be patient for that to happen again.

On the positives side though, it does make me less crushingly-obsessed with him. It's a bit of a cool-off period so that things don't get too intense. And the thought that just occured to me is that he's doing it deliberately, so that he has the same time to cool off.

Interesting interesting.

As for me, it's back to working too much. I signed up for an evening at work today, so shortly I'll be out the door and on my way. I'm also taking a class this summer in preparation for grad school; it's shockingly easy and the people in it are shockingly slow on the uptake. I was so frustrated with it that when describing the class, I swore on the phone with my mother, which I never, ever do. It truly was that horrid on Thursday. I don't care if it makes me a stuck-up bitch, but come on, a handout entitled "How to Read a Journal Article"? Are you fucking serious.

Work calls. Damn them.

I am growing cilantro.

Jay spent last weekend over here. I'd been promising him for about a month that if he picked me up from work on a Saturday, we'd get to sleep in on Sunday, and I kept signing up for shifts on Sunday (in fact, I'm signed up for one this week as well). So finally, this was our chance.

He picked me up Saturday, and we decided to go to Ikea, because they were having a sale and I'd had my eye on some chairs there for a while, and I finally had enough disposable cash to get them. He immediately was impressed by the entire concept of affordable furniture packed to be easily transportable. I bought the chairs, some rugs, some excellent glass containers, a couple of other things. It was a good time.

While we were on our way out there, Elizabeth called me, to remind me that I'd said I was going out with her tonight. It was the birthday of one of the women in one of her grad classes, and she'd invited me along for moral support. "Mind if Jay tags along?" I asked, sure that I would get the affirmative reply that I did. So Jay stopped at his house for real clothes, and we went back to my place to get ready.

After Ikea, I kind of wanted to just curl up and sleep already, but instead I dolled up for the bar. I even wore a skirt. It was some impressive shit. Unfortunately the night was a bust, and I was home and in bed by 1.

Jay and I did sleep in on Sunday. And that's about all we did. I seriously think I was awake for all of three hours that day. And we slept in late on Monday, too. The two important things to note: that was the best, most refreshing and relaxing sleep I've had in a while, and I also had no desire to have sex with Jay. None.

Plenty of fantasies about Joseph though, hoo lord.

Anyway, on Monday night, after going back to Ikea to return some things and failing, Jay did tie me up and attempt to fist me. We came to the same conclusion as last time; namely that it likely won't work until I've popped out some kids. Unlike last time, I didn't feel the need to apologize, and the event was followed by a seriously excellent conversation and aftercare. Honestly, it's one of the most open, honest, and serious conversations I've ever had with Jay.

It was nice to be able to spend the weekend with him, and not feel guilty for being attracted to someone else, not feel torn about getting back together with him, not being unsure of where I stood. I more or less solidified some of my feelings about Jay - I care about and for him, deeply, but I am not in love with him, nor do I feel the need to be.

It's about time that got settled. It makes me a much happier person when I know at least a little bit of what's going on.

As for the title - I am growing an herb garden. I bought a kit, because I am lazy. But I am growing cilantro, even though I have no idea what I would use it for, just to get Joseph's goat. He fucking loathes cilantro. I can't wait to see his reaction when he finds it growing in my house.

This post is mainly to remind myself that having a crush on Joseph is a stupid idea of epic proportions.

Didn't stop me from spending twenty minutes googling him, though.

I am an idiot.

I've seen it before

Last night I wound up conking out for sleep by 11:30, which is rather early for me. Considering that normally I'm working until 11, that's wicked early. Still, I'd only gotten three hours of sleep the night before, and I had been up early, so nothing worrying.

I fell asleep with the full knowledge that I'd miss Joseph if he came online, and while that ensaddened me, I went to sleep anyway. I alluded in my last post to some history there, and what that was really about was that any time he and I get pseudo-eInvolved in any way, I get all crush-y and romantic. Well, as romantic as I get, anyway.

Now, I'm fully aware that he lives with his girlfriend (maybe ex? who knows) who happens to have borne his child. That, naturally, complicates things for me. I despise the thought of being "the other woman". But at the same time, it rather entertains me. He was attracted to me long before he met her, after all, and that attraction, as far as I can tell, has done nothing but intensify. Besides which, ultimately it's his problem if he runs in to trouble there; we're all adults, after all, and responsible for our own actions.

I am an awful, awful person. Except I don't feel that way.

Anyway, this morning my sleep cycle was all kinds of messed up, since I'd retired so early last night. Thankfully, I woke up around 6, to discover my power had gone out. I was wide awake, and decided to go back to sleep. I woke up three more times before my alarm at 10, and each time, it was from dreams of Joseph. Lovely dreams, really. The kind of dreams that make a woman smile and feel luxurious and langorious. And hopefully harbingers of what could happen this summer, if he flies out here to visit. I want them very much to come true. I'm back in the throes of my crush. Perhaps not as bad as it's been in the past (and it's been downright awful), but oh, it's there.

Still, I need to reassert the practicalities of the situation. He lives thousands of miles away, with the mother of his child (mother of his child, did I mention that? And that the kid is not even preschool-aged? Okay) and is older than me and blah blah blah. Right now I don't care. He's attractive anyway, and knowing that he's got the hots for me, as they say, just makes him more attractive. I think I'll spend my commute daydreaming.

Otis Redding Cover

I typically enjoy being non-stereotypical, so when I'm forced to admit that I'm a pretty standard female in some area, it's been known to irritate me.

One of my hangups, if you can even call it that, is that, in stereotypical female style, I very closely associate sex with intimacy. I'm self-aware enough to realize that they are not equivalent, and you can have one with the other. In fact, I've got a few examples up my sleeve of intimacy without sex. But none of sex without intimacy.

In fact, the entire thought of having "unattached" sex is... well, somewhat uncomfortable and abhorrent. Oh, I'm not condemning anyone who chooses to do so. After all, I'm a flaming liberal pagan social worker; so long as you're happy with your choice and it's not hurting anyone, rock yourself on. But for me? Uh... I'll pass?

The worst part is, fairly often I think to myself how much fun it would be to have gratuitous, non-emotional sex. Whether with strangers, or simply a fuckbuddy, whatever, I think it might be nice to have just some straight-up sex, without getting all those pesky emotions tangled up in it. I just think I'd feel desparingly guilty afterwards, which would rather defeat the purpose. And I also think I'd be stuck on trying to pursue a "relationship" with the male in question, which again, defeats the purpose. See also: history with Joseph. We haven't even had actual sex, but damn if I didn't catch myself acting like a jealous girlfriend once in a while with him.

Of course, I could be wrong. I'm rather hoping that I am, or else my plans for this summer involving Joseph are going to be a lot less enjoyable than they could be.

Until the daylight

As I was noodling around online, preparing to go to sleep around 1:30, Joseph pops online.

We chat a little, flirt a lot, and suddenly I'm sneaking into my living room, past the sleeping guest of Rabbit, to reset my modem so that I can use my webcam.

What?

It was probably a poor idea, as I only got three hours of sleep last night, but there's something intensely satisfying in knowing that somewhere, there is a male person who is not unattractive who is getting off to one's self.

Meanwhile, earlier in the night, I got this message from Jay:

So, this coming weekend I think I'd like to tie you up, stick the gag in your mouth, spread your legs, and slowly and gently introduce my entire hand into your vagina.

*blink*blink*

Well okay then.

she talks to angels

Lately I've been working six days out of seven. This past week, all but one of those days required me to get up at or near sunrise. Consequently, I fell asleep at 8:30 last night and didn't get up until 10:30 this morning. I also spent most of the day in my pajamas.

It was flipping glorious.

Unfortunately, it's back to the grind tomorrow; my work-week starts on Tuesday with a lovely bout of meetings from 9 am to 3 pm - but then I get to go home. Although tomorrow, instead of going home, I'll be heading over to buy a pair of skis - I found a pair on Craigslist for $50, which is impossible to pass up. Impossible, I tell you.

Sure, I should be saving money for a car, and definitely for grad school, but skis. For cheap. Which means no rental fees, which means more lift tickets.

Now to get that car with the roof rack so I can go skiing whenever I want.

Is it skiing season yet?

Impulse buys

Rabbit and I went back to the closing K-Mart today, to buy more cheap shampoo and girly products. We currently, between the two of us, have more personal hygeine products than our hated roommate. We did a little dance to celebrate, and then ragged on him some more.

On our way out, I noticed the condoms, and that the sign on them said "Family Planning 25% Off". I thought about buying a case, since I can just FSA them, but thought the better of it when I realized that between K-Mart and grad school tuition payments, I'd already spent more than half of my paycheck.

Still. 25% off condoms, that are then reimbursed from an FSA. About the only way they could get better would be if I had a coupon.

FUCK yarn.

No, seriously, fuck yarn. I will stick to tying knots in it and glueing it on to pages I've colored at this rate.

See, it's not enough for me that I can embroider. Nooo, I keep seeing people crocheting and knitting all the time, and all the time, I think to myself "hey, that would be fun and cool to do."

It started a few years ago with crochet. I was in Target one day and they were selling these little kits that touted themselves as "Crochet for Beginners! Crochet the project inside in hours, from start to finish! EASY EASY EASY OH GOD IT'S SO EASY" so naturally I bought it.

I excitedly opened the package when I got home, to find a little crochet hook, and instructions, and a ball of pretty gold yarn. I was thrilled, and immediately started learning how to crochet.

An hour later, I still hadn't gotten the hook of making a second row, so I put it away in disgust.

It took me four months and five more attempts to manage to actually get a second row started, and it looked bloody awful.

In frustration, I haven't touched it in six months. I always go back to embroidery - I'm fucking good at that shit. The results are immediate and recognizable, the movements aren't awkward, and it's more intimidating anyway.

So today I was shopping in the local K-Mart, because I didn't feel like waiting half an hour for a bus and they were having a store-wide clearance. I got some normally expensive shampoo for not-cheap-but-definitely-affordable prices, and wandered the rest of the store to hunt out bargains. I'm pretty sure the sale just started, so the prices weren't that low, but lo and behold, I came across the section with sewing notions.

I briefly thought about buying a rotary cutter and cutting mat, and realized that I have used my mother's and hated it, so I passed. Besides, the whole "making a quilt" thing is unrealistic. I'd love to sew more often, but I also know how lazy I am.

Anyway, I came across a little kit touted as "Knitting 101: Beginner's Knitting Kit - Learn to Knit in One Day! Clear Instructions with Pictures!" and I liked the color of the yarn, so of course I bought it.

How hard can it be, really? I'm an intelligent person. I'm relatively dextrous and coordinated. I'm a crafty bitch, damn you, I am learning how to fucking knit.

Fuck knitting though. Casting on is at least easy. I have that down. It's the actual knitting shit part that does not work. And gives me cramps in my hands. And keeps falling out of my hands and fucking up. And is making my eyes tired, looking so closely to make sure that I'm not fucking it up oh god was I supposed to do that it doesn't look like the picture (which isn't as clear as it damn well could be, ass) fuck this.

I am going to give it one more try before I pack it up and chuck it across the room in the direction of my sewing table, which is currently covered in books and bedsheets and curtains. Fuck yarn. Fuck it up it's wooly ass.

Do anything

One of the things I've noticed, now that I've been seeing Jay more often again, is that it's very, very easy to slip right back to where we once were.

When we were still dating, we, in large part, took each other for granted. I knew he'd be there when I got home from work; he knew I'd eventually go grocery shopping; we both knew that we'd fall asleep together and that there was always another night to have sex and be crazy again.

Now that we've been broken up for almost a year, I find that I really, really hate that.

The worst of it is, since it was such a habit before, I find myself doing it again. Perhaps more correctly, I find him doing it again. He came over a few weeks ago, I cooked him dinner, and he didn't try once to seduce me; instead we sat around, he was silent, and I more or less did nothing. When we only saw each other once a month, we couldn't keep our hands off of each other. It was thrilling, it was exciting, it was titillating. Now we're just kind of there.

I told Jay this, that I didn't want us to just be "there", and didn't really get a response from him. Or if I did, it was so unremarkable that I didn't bother to remember it. I don't want to be complacent. For that reason alone, I know that I am not ready to be in a relationship with him.

There's some half-remembered quotation floating about my brain, about repeating the same action and thinking the outcome will be different. I fear that it is far too applicable to this situation.

Waiting for me

The title is a typo, but I decided I liked it better than the actual lyrics that should go there.

Anyway, Jay picked me up from my volunteer position on Thursday evening to take me out to dinner. All week he'd been saying that he wanted to take me out to dinner and "do something", the something being anything but going back to my place and probably falling asleep. Me being me, I kept asking him what the something was. I wasn't too surprised when Thursday dawned and he didn't have anything.

We went out to a nicer Italian place, about twenty minutes from my house. Maybe my palate is just a philistine, but I was less than impressed. The breadsticks were good though? And the raspberry martini I had wasn't bad either. But for as much as he paid, I would have liked to enjoy my meal more. Seriously. I might be a schlub, but I like Bertucci's better.

While I was there, I was so completely the dominant female. It was interesting, really. Jay didn't do much of the talking; I was the one interacting with the hostess, the waitress, etc. I walked in before he did, I sat down before he did, I did the ordering for the most part, I made the decision to have dessert, and when the waitress came over, she asked me if everything was okay, not Jay. It was as if he were invisible, almost. I took over, and was the smooth, in-control adult woman. It was fun, if a bit shallow on my part. That part of my personality exists, sure, but the way I was doing it was a bit too smooth and black-cocktail-dress-and-diamonds-on-everything, if you know what I mean. And here I am saying that I want a guy to Dom me!

The other thing that struck me was that everyone else in the restaurant was talking, and we were silent. Jay and I said about ten words to each other during the course of our meal. Now, it's nice to have someone with whom you can be silent, sure. But it feels like we have nothing to say to each other. My friends (and anyone who reads this blog) know that I can be a wordy, chatty bitch. Hell, I go out to dinner with Elizabeth, and we don't shut up, ever. With Jay? Nada. I resorted to watching the mock NFL draft on ESPN that they had on, and god knows that was fucking ridiculously boring. I said a prayer of thanks when a baseball game came on instead.

It was the same after dinner. We got into his car, and started driving, and I again asked him what his plans were. All he could come up with was driving an hour south to where his parents' cottage was, to show it to me. Not inside, just the outside, as he didn't have a key. Yes, he was serious as he said this. I about smacked him, but restrained myself. Don't get me wrong, I like driving, but what the fuck. He then asked me where we should go, and I suggested that we go someplace that I wasn't familiar with driving - figuring we'd get lost in one of the suburbs, which I used to do when I had a car, to my great and never-ending entertainment. Instead he drives straight west on a highway I drive all the damn time, and we wound up going past where he works. He pulled into the parking lot to show me. I could barely contain my glee, let me tell you.

I was so irritated - well, not precisely irritated, but for lack of a better word, irritated - when we got back to my house that when we parked, I got out of the car and started walking without him. I took a certain amount of satisfaction in hearing him run to catch up to me (what good are long legs if you don't put them to use?) I was so intent on walking away that I nearly walked past my own house. Not a good sign. I really think that he takes my coming back to him at some point as a given. Sure, there are days when I think that too, but there's a lot of them when I don't, and I don't think he's gotten the memo yet - despite the multiple copies I stuffed in his mailbox.

He wound up falling asleep and not going back home; his parents called in a panic at 6:15 because his car wasn't there. He got up and went to work; I went back to sleep to avoid the world for a little longer, him included. He seemed pretty happy with life; I've been trying to change mine again, in spectacular fashion.

My life is boring

Pretty much all I've been doing for the past week is sleeping and working. This is different from my normal schedule of sleeping and working in the fact that I'm doing the working part longer, and on more days. This makes me tired, and not interested in much.

The other thing occupying my mind has been finding a car. See, taking public transportation to work is completely doable, and in fact, I have been doing so for well over a year. It just takes me an hour and a half, at least, each way. Plus, my graduate school is about forty-five minutes in the opposite direction... so taking public transport from work to school would probably take about two hours. This is not acceptable, so I am working on remedying the situation with a car.

Yes, yes, cars are expensive, blah blah, you can do homework on the bus, blah blah, but let's be realistic. As an undergraduate, I also took public transport, and I never, repeat, never did homework on the bus. I was always way too interested in my iPod, or in the emulated NES games on my laptop. Plus, that hour and a half home really cuts into my unwinding and sleeping time.

So right now I'm looking at a few beaters in the area; I don't have that much money to buy a car but I do have some. So I'm scouring the classifieds, online and off, for something cheap and reliable. I've got a few leads, so with any luck, by this time next week I'll be driving to work.

Other than that, I really don't have much going on. Jay is still trying to date me, Peter shot me an email apologizing for being so busy, and a few other guys have expressed interest in me, and I'm still in the middle, completely indecisive. About the only thing that's changed is that now I'm irritated and upset about my indecisiveness. That is a ridiculous amount of fun, let me assure you.

Bah, work calls. Time to stop sitting around and moping in my pajamas and get ready to head out for the day.

Got to have faith

Good news on the work front - well, mixed news, really. One of the supervisors is leaving, and it's the one with the most experience. It's time for her to move on, and I can't blame her for that, but she'll leave a huge hole.

Part of that huge hole is her schedule, which is weekdays, which is where I want to get back to working, which I just talked to the site scheduler about, and hooray! She says I get them. No more weekends for me after mid-May! This means free time that can actually be spent with people other than my roommate. Not that she's bad, but, you know.

All just a little bit of...

Ever notice how life tends to work in cycles? I'm listening to a song right now that I obsessively listened to in high school, and it's back to being extremely relevant to my life. For a while, it was on my playlist, I listened to it, I liked it, and it reminded me of the period of my life when I first heard it, but now, eight or so years later, it's back to being "Sweet Jesus, this IS my life right now".

Not that that's necessarily a bad thing; if I have to repeat my earlier life (and I can't manage college), high school is better than junior high. At least by high school I'd attained a degree of independence, as well as a good friend, so that I wasn't completely ostracized. Plus, high school was, in large part, a holding pattern before I could get to the awesomeness of college, so if I'm feeling some of the same things, this must just be the holding pattern before something similarly awesome.

I don't necessarily have lots of evidence for this, but I have decided that I would like it very much to be true.

Are you such

I woke up this morning still dreaming that I was at my high school reunion, I naturally looked fabulous, and the guy I had a crush on all through high school was miraculously divorced, dancing with me (quite well), and interested in dating me now that I'd moved back to the home state.

That was a little disconcerting. I haven't thought about him in years.

Please stand by

"Hey babe?" he says, looking up from his intense concentration in fingering me.

"mmmm" is all I'm capable of replying.

"I want to fuck you doggy-style, with your bra on, while I'm pulling your hair."

Good thing I don't feel like turning him down, because I'm not really capable of it at this point.

It started after dinner. Jay and I had cuddled on the couch for a while, but he was complaining of being tired, so we changed venues and headed to my bed. The bed is much nicer than what it was when he was still living with me. I bought a new mattress for my birthday, and so my bed is probably the most comfortable place in the house. I couldn't blame him for wanting to relocate.

For once I was hornier than Jay, and as I started kissing him I mentioned the fact that I think he's seeing me too much; he's been far too easily able to keep his hands off of me. He chuckled a bit and allowed as I might have a point, but didn't stop my attempts to entice him.

Soon enough, my clothes were being stripped off - first my jeans and underwear, then my shirt, but not my bra, to my great surprise. Jay has told me repeatedly that he loves playing with my tits, and indeed he was, through the bra, but he usually takes that off too. I asked him about it; he replied that he felt like leaving it on, and that was that. I didn't ask again.

Jay also has this near-obsession with making me cum at least once before he fucks me. Far be it from me to complain. This usually takes the form of fingering. He says that he likes my reaction to it, which usually involves the following: not being able to speak coherently, tensing of muscles, moaning, groaning, toe-curling, and an epileptic-style seizure upon orgasm. It was during this point of the process of foreplay that he made the opening remark to me.

He went over to my dresser to grab a condom, put it on, then flipped me over and informed me that I was to get on all fours. I complied, slowly; I was still a bit caught up in the earlier fun. I'm too tall for that position to be really comfortable for me - everything is too long, not just my legs. I hate to say it, but if you've seen the photos of that statue that's supposedly of Britney Spears giving birth, my position kind of looked like that - you know, with a bra on, and without the whole "pregnant and giving birth" option.

Jay reached up and grabbed a hunk of my hair, making me pull my head up and arch my back, and started trying to fuck me. I hissed a bit; the position was stretching my vulva in less-than-optimal ways, and so the insertion of a hard cock wasn't the most pleasureable thing at that point. Jay pulled harder on my hair and pulled out, and then I heard a soft "well fuck."

I swiveled my head around.

"I hate being a guy."

And why is that, Jay.

"Because orgasm and ejaculation aren't the same thing. My dick is stupid. I guess fulfilling that fantasy was a little too much for it."

The poor boy. He took the condom off and we both watched his deflating dick. I made a remark about having technical difficulties, and cuddled up next to him to reassure him that I was not put out about the matter. I was half-asleep when I felt Jay get up, come back to bed, flip me onto my back, and proceed to fuck me stupid. Apparently the technical difficulties were solved, because we were both rewarded for our patience with a simultaneous orgasm.

And in the morning, he did it again.

Turn to face the sun, let it warm you through

You know, I've always thought of myself as a winter person, but damn if I'm not happy it's spring. 70's and sunshine have done marvels for my mental health.

There's plenty to write about Jay, and in fact he's why I haven't written in two days. He doesn't know this exists, as far as I know, so I try to keep it that way.

Instead, I will write more about me, and other people that are not Jay.

Here's the deal. Back in February, I applied for graduate school. It's a long story as to why I only applied to one school, but I only applied to one school. The entire process nearly made me ill; I was convinced that I was not good enough for grad school for a variety of reasons, most of which were bullshit, as Vinnie often told me (as well as others). I have a history of thinking I'm not good enough - thanks Dad; it was really helpful for you to never congratulate me for bringing home straight A's for years.

Anyway, I finished the application at the last possible minute, because I like to avoid things that are unpleasant for me. It's one of my big character flaws. I turned in the application, and tried to forget about the entire thing. In the back of my head, I allowed for the possibility that I might get in anyway - I have excellent references, and tons of experience in the field - but more or less had decided that I wasn't getting in.

I got out of the shower today, before going to work, and my roomate had brought in the mail, including a large envelope from the school. I picked it up and there were multiple sheets, so I figured it wasn't a rejection letter. That enabled me to bite the bullet and open the damn thing, and I was correct, it was in fact an offer to attend the school starting this fall. I screeched in joy loud enough to let the entire metropolitan area know, and promptly called my parents to tell them the good news.

Once the initial excitement wore off, the practicalities started asseting themselves. I make a pitifully small amount of money. I live in an expensive area. Grad school ain't cheap. I work in a place that's an hour and a half from my house unless I have a car, which I don't have. The school is about an hour by public transport in the other direction, but again, much shorter time by car. I don't have the money to buy a car, and gas is wicked expensive. I also hate a lot of things about being a supervisor, but I'm not sure if that's just because I'm still more or less trying the role on. Thankfully, I'm only expected to come up with $7,000 per year towards this, but still, it's not like I've got $7,000 sitting around somewhere.

But back to excitement and positive things. This is so far beyond where anyone else in my family has gotten. I was the first person on my mom's side of the family to ever even go to college, much less graduate, and only the third on my dad's side. Hell, four generations ago, both families were still in Europe. Both of my parents ended their education after high school. My brother dropped out of college. This is going way beyond where anyone else has been, and what's great about it is that not only is it fulfilling a dream for me, it's making my parents so unbearably proud. I love that.

I also love that I got in on my own merit. I got in because I'm worthy of going to grad school. Me. Just me. I rock that much sock. It's a huge self-esteem boost. I can totally kick this shit's ass.

The other thing that's wicked exciting about today is that one of my good friends (and now play-hooky-and-ski buddies) from college rang me up today to tell me that she got engaged to her long-term boyfriend, which is amazingly exciting for them and I couldn't be happier. Sure, I still don't think I'm old enough to have friends getting married, but it's not like she's the first. I was the maid of honor for a friend's wedding when I was 19, and my closest friend in the world got married last year, but I am not old enough to have friends getting married (much less get married myself). But I want kids. A lot. But I don't want to get married. Bleah.

Anyway, happiness for friend. And happiness for me. This is so fucking awesome.

Long Cool Woman

For the winter and my singledom, I admit, I got lazy when it came to shaving my legs. I had no one to impress, and my work isn't the kind where I need to wear a skirt on a regular basis. So, by the time the beginning of this month hit, my mother was calling me saying they'd spotted a Yeti in my area, and was that me? Did I need some razors or something? Because she'd send me some. Or some of that Veet stuff. Or maybe I should come back home.

It can't have been me, Mom; I've been wearing pants all winter.

Anyway, last week I finally broke down and bought myself some of that Veet stuff, thank you very much I am an independent woman. And oh, the smoothness. The very smoothness. I'd nearly forgotten what it felt like.

So yesterday, when I was at the portion of my weekly activities that did require me to wear something other than blue jeans, I decided hey! I have the smoothness. And it's spring. Let's wear a skirt!

I had completely forgotten just how fucking awesome skirts can be. And how nice my legs look in hosiery and high heels - and how nice my butt and hips look in the skirt, especially now that I've lost around forty pounds. Hot damn, I may have to keep up with this girly shit, because damn if it doesn't get lots of appreciative looks from people.

What can I say? I'm an attention whore. I like when guys (and a few girls) check me out.

Who wouldn't stand inside your love?

For the past month or so, I've taken to seeing Jay pretty regularly. Since I unceremoniously dumped his ass (on his birthday! That still entertains me, in a very perverse sort of way), I've kept up with talking to him and whatnot, as I have mentioned. But since he was living half an hour away with his parents, I didn't see him very much.

Last month, Jay got himself a car, and as soon as he possibly could, offered to pick me up from work on a Friday night and spend some time with me. Not having to face the rigors of public transportation after midnight appeals to me, so I accepted his offer graciously and thankfully, and proceeded to spend my workday slightly gleeful that I was getting a ride home. Jay picked me up, took me home, and we proceeded to fuck each other senseless, repeatedly.

Did I mention that there's still plenty of sparks there? Okay, good.

Since then, I've seen him once or twice a week. Anyway, the point of this entry was a visit last week, on Tuesday. I wound up working until 6 in the evening, which is highly late for Tuesdays for me, so Jay picked me up directly from work. I was exhausted, and starving. We came home to my place, ordered up some food. I devoured a chicken caesar wrap, after unwrapping it and stating that it was far too large to ever be completely consumed. We ate on one of my couches in the living room, because at the time my dining room table was covered with assorted crap that I hadn't gotten around to cleaning up and putting away somewhere in the past nine months.

After we ate, we sat on the couch, me leaning my head on Jay's shoulder, his arms around me. I can only take so much silence, so after a while I asked "What are we doing?" Jay being a literalist with a sense of humor, answered "Sitting on the couch." "That's not what I meant and you know that."

More silence ensued. I had asked becuase I've been pretty adamant that I don't want to date Jay, at least not right now. When I broke up with him, it was with the understanding that I wasn't going to get back together with him like last time - or if I did, it would be years down the road, after he grew up and started matching my maturity and responsibility level. I've been wavering on that position. A lot. Jay's been reminding me of all the things I really do love about him, and now that he's got a job... well, it's hard, okay?

"Nothing," he answers.

"Nothing?"

"Well," he says, "I know you're not ready to date me right now. And that's okay. I'm ready to wait until you are. And in the meantime, do nothing."

I wouldn't exactly classify what we've been doing as nothing, although we have specifically said that it is without strings, and each of us is free to do whatever - which is part of the reason why I've been going out on dates with non-Jay people.

"Who's waiting for who?"

"What?" he asks.

"Well, I've been waiting for you to grow the hell up."

"So have I. I guess I'm waiting for both of us, then."

Terminated abnormally.

I realized the other day that my old template looked like it was from about 1999. Not that 1999 was a bad year (it was probably the last time I coded anything completely independently), but since I was back, I figured it was time for a new look.

Changing my template made me remember why I gave up and left it the way it was last time.

I am not doing that again any time soon.

Moving on to the fun stuff.

My beloved laptop is back, after an absence of nearly a week. It needed a new motherboard, despite being less than a year old.

See, my birthday was back in February, but I work with kids, and they have a week of vacation off in February, that just happened to coincide with the week of my birthday. Now that I'm a manager at work, I knew for damned sure that a time-off request for that week would never fly; considering that I worked twenty extra hours that week to make sure everything was covered. So I had planned from the start to take a week off in March to celebrate my birthday. This worked out much better for all concerned.

I did however take the actual day of my birthday off; my boss is nice enough to allow that at the least.

Anyway, I took a week off in March, and invited some people out to the homestead to celebrate with me. The guest list was pretty typical me: nearly all guys. It included Jay, Vinnie and Mike, Joseph, Lawrence (who lives in England and who I see every five years or so), Cecil, and my close friend Elizabeth and her boyfriend. I also invited my roommate Rabbit, who I like, and didn't invite my roommate Chris, who I hate. Naturally, those that had to travel (which was all but Jay and Elizabeth) couldn't make it. Well, no, Vinnie and Mike drove out, so it wasn't a complete loss. I wasn't expecting most of the rest to visit - which is probably for the better. An event with both Jay and Joseph at it would probably be a poor idea.

The entire month beforehand, I agonized over what I wanted to do. Back in December, I had become obsessed with downhill skiing, after trying it for the first time. I desperately wanted to go skiing again, which would make the sixth time in the season. Jay, who has been a skier since small times, and Elizabeth and boyfriend were on board with the idea, as was Rabbit (who snowboards). Vinnie told me in no uncertain terms that he would never, ever ski, and being me, I figured that left sking right out.

I had a long talk with Vinnie, and he finally told me, as he so often does, to stop fucking worrying about making everyone else happy, because he was coming up here to visit with me, and if I wanted to go skiing, that was just fine by him. He'd gleefully check out hot guys and get drunk in the lodge, and laugh at me if I broke something.

Once he said that, I immediately called up Elizabeth and we planned out a place to stay for everyone, and the game was on. Vinnie and Mike came up a day before we left for the mountain, to stay with me as they always do when they visit. We stayed up late the first night, drinking decent red wine and playing video games and gossiping.

When we finally went to bed, I put my laptop on the floor - right-side-up and mostly closed. Usually I just leave it open and set it on its side. I was pretty toasted, and I had a half a glass of red wine sitting on my bedside table. It was close to the edge, and in a position where it could fall on the laptop, and the thought occurred to me that it would probably do so at its earliest opportunity. Being lazy, I shoved it further back on the table and went to sleep, once again being stupid and ignoring that voice in the back of my head.

The morning dawned bright, warm and sunny, and having two extra male persons in the room made it way too toasty for me to sleep. My bed's close to my windows, so I reached over and shoved open the closest window, which just happened to be the one over my bedside table.

What I forgot was that a few months ago, I had stuck a bottle of soda in the window. Well, maybe in the window isn't the right term; I have double-hung windows, and it was sitting on the top of the lower sash. I had been sick, and I stuck it up there so it would stay cold. And promptly forgot about it, in typical french fashion. When I shoved open the sash, that fell into the wine glass, toppling it over, where it broke right next to my laptop, spilling some of its contents on the top and onto me.

I hurridly tried to sop up the wine, but still ended up with a fragrant laptop for my troubles. It had been on at the time, and once I got the wine off of it, it was still on, but there was no video. I turned it off and prayed that nothing had gotten inside - it didn't look like it, but I wasn't sure, 'cause the entire thing still smelled like the bags of empties my hated roommate likes to leave in the kitchen.

I waited a few minutes, turned it on, and again, no video. I turned it off, repeated, and this time got nothing. Since I don't have too much respect for the phrase "no user-serviceable parts inside", I set about taking apart my laptop to see what I could see.

A small amount had leaked inside, and gotten on part of the internal frame, but the motherboard looked clean. I wiped up the wine, checked out everything else, and put it back together to try starting it up again. It failed, I needed to leave for the mountain, so I left it to dry over the weekend, determined to figure it out when I got back.

When I got back, it still wouldn't even come close to booting. I called Jay and asked for advice, which is usually my plan when my computer woes outstrip my IT knowledge. After talking to him, I completely disassembled the thing, and sprayed down the motherboard with some water. I was horrified when the water running off of it was pink.

I left it to dry for a day or so, and tried again. FAILURE. I was pissed at this point. I could still smell wine from one of the vents on the side, so I sprayed some more water in there and waited a day. That must have gotten the last of it out, because the next time I tried starting up, I was greeted with my desktop, which is currently a night shot of my favorite skiing mountain in the world.

I was overjoyed.

Until the screen went completely black and the computer went unresponsive.

This prompted me to creatively swear, and restart. I also went through some of the troubleshooting stuff on Dell's website, and discovered that it was booting just fine. Great. So now who knew what the hell the problem was, because it was happening randomly, both inside and out of Windows.

I put up with this for a couple of weeks, and finally got fed up. This decision was in part influenced by the fact that the warranty expires the end of this month. Since I value my sanity and low blood pressure, I chose to not call Dell tech support, but instead email them, describing the problem and steps I had taken to fix it. By now, I figured something on the motherboard was fucked.

My suspicions were confirmed when I received an email a few hours later from Dell, without the usual "Have you tried this? What about this?", but instead, instructions on what to do with the box that would shortly show up on my doorstep so that I could ship the laptop to them for repair.

I put off sending it in for a few days, because I am pathetic and can't bear to part with my beloved laptop. It came back this morning, with a brand spanking new motherboard.

I am a happy motherfucker.

That really wasn't what you were asking, was it.

Monday night, I was home from work, and probably should have been asleep. No, scratch that, I should definitely have been. I was exhausted, and on Tuesdays, I have to get up at 6:30 to get to work by 9. But instead I stayed up having a long conversation via journal comments with a good friend of mine. Good for me.

In the meantime, I was checking email, and oh look! Here's a new one from Peter, asking if I'm free Tuesday evening. I was, although I was already planning on staying at work until around five or so to catch up on some things, so I promptly emailed him back saying "Sure! Let's get dinner. Seven-ish okay?"

Not five minutes later, Jay IMs me. Oh, hi Jay, how was work wait you want to come over tomorrow night? Couldn't you have asked me this about ten minutes earlier?

I sat on the decision for about five minutes, and of course talked to Vinnie about it. What are fags for, if not for advising their Queen. He said that I should make my own decision (he's saying that a lot lately; I think I am looking for too much advice).

Now, I was already exhausted, I was stressed over work - to the point where I was nearly in tears in supervision! - and knew that Tuesday wasn't likely to make me feel better. That right there made my decision. There was no way I was going to be up to looking nice and making nice with a near-stranger in a public place with lots of complete strangers. Being social is difficult. It's taxing, and drains my reserves even on a good day. Sure, going out for a few drinks with Peter would be fun, but I don't know him well enough to be stupid with him, if that makes sense.

So I told Jay "give me five minutes", and emailed Peter. Sure, it was a lie. I said "Or maybe I could be a COMPLETE IDIOT and look at the wrong date on my dayrunner. Tuesday's not good. Is there another day this week that works for you?" and then made plans with Jay to pick me up from work and come hang out with me.

This was, by far, the better of the two options. I fell asleep in Jay's car on the way to my house. He then proceeded to buy me food and solicitously put me to bed. After the mad monkey sex we had. And oh, it was mad, and it was monkey.

I'll go out with Peter next week. This week I needed a little TLC, and Jay was the perfect person to provide it.

I need some sleep.

Over the weekend I wound up working a double on Sunday, which, as I previously mentioned, probably wasn't a good idea. I got out of work late on Saturday, lost an hour of sleep that night, and then had to be at work at 8 am, which is about three hours before I normally think about getting up. A recipe for exhaustion, is what that is.

But, it did give me the opportunity to not only spend some quality one-on-one time with the kids, it gave me the opportunity to spend some time with the staff, too. Particularly Lee.

Lee is sort of an odd duck - she and I get along fabulously on a personal level, but we definitely clash on a professional one. She's a black dyke with dreads, who's studying some sort of therapy, and has been working at the house for a few years. We've always had great conversations about relationships, and naturally, I availed myself of the opportunity to bounce my current situation off of her.

It all started when I mentioned how Peter, the so-called "new guy" stood me up on Friday night. We'd been planning to meet after I got out of work, but he totally forgot and oops, there's me standing outside the bar looking like a schmuck. I wasn't too pissed though; I was tired and kind of just wanted to go home anyway, and it worked out well, because Saturday, well, shit. Let's just say that Saturday spawned another great "So this one time at work" story to tell over beers.

So I wound up telling her all about Peter - he's 29, lives in the city, works at a political action group, liberal as fuck like me, takes his martinis dirty and dry. He's definitely my type - tall and skinny and soft-spoken, and we'd had a marvelous time on our first date. Which reminds me - I need to write about me and dating some time.

Anyway, I then mentioned how I'm still talking to Jay, my ex, and how we'd remained friends. Regardless of what has or will happen, I will always be fond of Jay. Meanwhile, since we've broken up, he's mentioned to me that yes, he does want to get back together with me once he gets his shit in order, and right, that marriage thing? He'd like that as well. When I told him that I'd been out on a date with Peter, and had a good time, he was quite honest and told me that his reaction was happiness for me, but also a good helping of "OHSHIT".

Jay then proceeded to ask me out on a date, which I gleefully accepted, because I am not above using men for car rides, drinks, and dinners.

I've definitely been using Jay for the car rides lately; he's taken to picking me up from work one night a week, and usually staying over. When he does, we proceed to have lots of amazing, fantastic sex, which I think will be my downfall. I always attach tons of emotion to sex, but it's hard not to when you still feel guilty for losing your virginity before marriage, and when the thought of sleeping with anyone else usually makes you ill. I think it would psychologically break me to fuck someone else - although I might manage to get over that with JS, which is the story of an entirely different entry. It's also hard to detach yourself from sex when you feel home, you feel complete and so fantastically alive when you have it with someone in particular.

The crux of the problem is that there were no "sparks" with Peter, and there's still plenty with Jay. I still can't forget the first time I saw him - it was from across the room, I picked him out of a group, and said "Mine." And proceeded to make him so.

Lee and I discussed the entire thing, and one thing she said really stuck with me. I've been broken up with Jay for almost a year, but we've still talked, we've still sexed, we've still seen each other, and the previous five years are nothing to sneeze at. Despite all the things I hate about him, and hated in our relationship, he still makes me smile. She called my attention to that, pretty fiercely.

Most days, I'm pretty okay with the fact that I'm pretty much still in love with Jay.

I am dumb.

Why the fuck did I think it was a good idea to sign up for a double on the day after DST starts?

Oh, well shit.

Look at me, I haven't updated in over a year! Wheeeeee!!!

I don't really have any good reasons. Sorry. All I can say is that I did this with my other journal too, and now that I'm past that year of letting it languish on the vine, I'm much better about updating it. Hopefully that holds true over here, because there are somethings that my actual, real-life friends just don't need to read.

Probably the most important thing that happened was that in May of last year, I broke up with J. On his birthday, which was so unbelievably classy I don't even have the words to describe it. I had finally gotten fed up with the fact that he was still living with me, and hadn't worked in over a year. Over a year, people. This was a long time coming.

My least favorite thing about him has always been his irresponsibility. I'm one of those damned older children that is hyper-responsible, so someone who was an only child (an only child! Aren't they supposed to be hyper-oldests?) who was completely irresponsible and unmotivated drove me completely nuts. I was turning into a shrew of the highest order, and quite frankly, I didn't like it. So for the both of us, I ended it.

I actually cried, which is highly unusual. He didn't, but I didn't really expect him to. It's been at least six years since I've met him, and he hasn't cried once. And I tried a lot when we were together.

He lived with me until the end of August, when the lease was up. I shamelessly still had sex with him. Lots of it. Lots of very, very good sex. Which was probably my worst idea to date, but it was fun, and it drove my other roommate up the wall. I have a healthy streak of schadenfreude, it seems. My other roommate, who still hates J very much so.

Anyway, J moved out in August, taking his huge desk with him, and went back to his parents' house, because, oh right, he still didn't have a job, nor did he have any money left to pay rent. We talked once in a while, because despite everything, I still can't bring myself to hate him and cut him out of my life. Some days, I get really angry with myself about that.

Which brings us to the present moment. In the past month and a half, J has suddenly turned into, well, an adult. He has a job - salaried, no less! - where he does actual work, which could actually be, you know, career-related. And he's leasing a car. A brand-spanking-new car. It's pretty hot. I'm jealous of the car.

I'm disconcerted by the change. Is it what I wanted? Oh, absolutely. But it was a little sudden, and it's a big adjustment. It's still a little weird, although I can pull off "so how was work today?" much easier now. Not really sure how I feel about the whole issue, though. I'm stuck in a position of "wait and see", which I damn well hate.

I'm also still gainfully employed, with the kids, except that I got myself promoted, so now my hours are completely different, I have way too much more responsibility, and still not enough pay. Some days I like my job. Some days it makes me physically ill. And that's about all I can say about that.

Back to work. No rest for the wicked (okay that's a lie; wicked people rest all the time).

KIDS, people

I'm really not a big fan of doing a retrospective at the end of every year, although maybe I should be. It might actually give me a sense of closure and perspective on things. Then again, I haven't before, and my memory doesn't show signs of decaying anytime soon, so I'm sure I'll remember what I need to, when I need to.

To tie up the last story arc on here, JS has fallen off the face of the planet again, and really, that's for the best. I have enough to focus on here (ooh, look at me rationalize!) without focusing on that. Sure, ignoring your problems is healthy. Trust me, I'm a professional - and they let me work with kids, of all things.

That at least is going well - the working part, anyway. I highly enjoy what I do, and so, it seems, does everyone else. The problem is that it is a high-stress job, and my schedule is such that I work Sunday evening, Monday overnight, Tuesday day (just a meeting, though), Wednesday evening, then Friday evening. So I get two days off a week, just not in a row. This means that both of them are usually "I'm damn tired, so I'm staying in bed" days, and that means that shit and fuckall get done around the house. My table? Still not finished. Laundry? Large enough to have its own gravitational pull. Dusting? HAHAHAHA.

On the plus side though, today before work J and his mother and I went about an hour south of here to pick up a five-year-old portable dishwasher, for an amazing $75, from a woman I met online. It's a little loud, and it was bulky to move, but oh gods, it works, and now maybe dishes won't be a fight in this house anymore, because no one will have to actually physically wash them.

About all that's happened otherwise is that I couldn't fall asleep last night, so I was up for three hours in bed just thinking of things, and I think I thought of a side-business I could get started. If I ever, you know, get some capital to invest in start-up costs, and get off my ass. Basically, I'm a fairly good seamstress, and a pretty damn good embroiderer, and you can sell the products of both of those things. I could go one of two ways, I think. I could A: sell specialized embroidered pieces and other fabric pieces for the members of my sorority, or B: sell costuming and custom-made garments, with or without embroidery and other details. Both could be very nicely profitable, if done right. There's certainly a market in both of those places, but I'm unsure of how to tap into it, and also how to get off the ground. For now, I think I'll stick to cross-stitching for my own entertainment.

It's not even as if I don't make enough money to live on from my job - because I do, even though it's not as much as I made in the, quite frankly, more lucrative research field. But the thought of extra money coming in... ooh. Tempting.

Speaking of tempting, J is on the couch, playing video games, and he kicked my ass earlier in two-player Katamari Damacy (well, he does have the advantage of playing for the last three days straight, while I just started last night - still, dammit, I hate losing), so I think I'll go get him back for that.

Bother and damnation

Not that he actually was, just that I'd had a vision thereof. JS is still firmly ensconced on the opposite side of the country from me.

We talked on the phone only once - for about two hours. I'm not a huge phone person, but a plea of "I'd just like to hear your voice", and it being 2 am and having nothing better to do, was hard to resist.

The thing was, J and I were back together by that point. It was difficult to admit that I loved J, but was still attracted to JS. I didn't do much of either, really. JS tried to call me on a few times, which I can't blame him for. What I did with him after J and I got back together wasn't necessarily right, but it was certainly enjoyable.

Oh, we never had another naked webcam show, but we'd still flirt, trade sexual innuendos, even a few risque pictures and the like. We're still very, very attracted to each other.

After I moved, JS dropped out of sight for a while, but I wasn't worried - I tend to do the same. Then I started getting hints that he had a girlfriend, or at the very least a woman he was seeing semi-regularly. I honestly can say that I was happy for him, because I knew that for a good long time, nothing could come of the "romance", as it were, between us, and that he needed someone who actually lived near him.

I talked to him soon after. Sure enough, he did have a girlfriend. Who was supposed to be a fling, but was a month pregnant. Who has the same name as me.

Well isn't that just a delightful turn?

He's always wanted children, and I know he'll be an excellent father - he's too committed to the idea of raising children right for him to be anything else.

The thing of it is, it hasn't really changed our relationship much. He came right out and said that he fully expects that, all of our other relationships aside, he and I will wind up in bed together someday, and that's the very least we owe each other. He also said that he'll always have some love for me, no matter what, no matter when.

It was touching, and reaffirming - I'd more or less expected a good sweaty bout of sex with him in the future myself, and it was good to know that I was on the same page still. But the comment about love really got to me. Yes, I'll always feel fondly about him, and it doesn't surprise me that he feels the same. But at the same time, I can't help but think that I'm setting up his current relationship to fail - never mind my own. I certainly don't want to lose touch with him, but I don't want to talk to him too often, because I don't want to be that woman, and have another female with my name (and who I have a sneaking suspicion resembles me) after my ass for breaking up her relationship. I'd be pissed in her shoes.

I don't think she suspects what has gone before between JS and myself - I know that J doesn't know, and I want to keep it that way. There's nowhere that JS and I can go, so why should I have the argument and strife with J? Anyway, I don't think the anti-french - or is that other-french? - knows. Or, if she does, she's remarkably tolerant. I know she's seen some of the things I've said to him over IM since I found out about here, and while they weren't risque, they bespeak a familiarity I have with him. I get the impression that she and I would get along perhaps a little too well for the liking of any male in the vicinity.

Ah well. For now, JS has to be a dream - a lovely one, at that, and one I find myself having on a regular basis - but a dream nonetheless. The time isn't right, but someday it will be. Hopefully I'll figure out what's going on with J before then.

Visions

The story so far: french is, for all intents and purposes, having some kind of messed-up e-affair with Joseph.

Now, I wouldn't have even consented to set up the webcam in the first place if I weren't absolutely sure that Joseph wasn't on the other end, taking screencaps, and then proceeding to post them on the internet. The same went for him - we trusted each other to keep this personal and private.

That didn't mean that the entire time we were naked for each other, I wasn't in a constant state of disbelief - disbelief that I was actually doing this, disbelief that there were now two men on the planet who have seen me naked (and still find me bizarrely attractive), disbelief that there was a guy showing off his very naked, very delicious body to me.

By entire time, I mean, "entire time that I wasn't too aroused to be thinking about anything other than sex and sex-type things". I feel that's a distinction that needs to be made here. Especially since poor Joseph, who is very literate and very written-word-oriented, was trying to IM me, and I couldn't really respond in coherent fashion for a while. Luckily, he took it in stride, and was flattered.

At the time, Joseph was working nights, so he was at the end of his day, while I had just gotten up. Therefore, everything ended after an orgasm for him and when he needed to go to bed. I didn't even care that I hadn't so much masturbated as had a visual feast - I felt good that he'd quite obviously enjoyed himself, and that was okay.

Afterwards, I was almost in a state of shock. Did I just do what I think I did? I must have, because there were the IM logs (which I have sadly lost to a dead hard drive, which makes me want to cry). That was... that was depraved! And I did it! Holy fuck! And I was ridiculously happy about it. I reasoned that even if it were depraved, that it couldn't be too bad if both parties had enjoyed it as much as they did. That didn't mean that I told a single person about it - this blog is the first time I'm in any way talking about or admitting to this with anyone other than Joseph. I just told my friends that we were still hardcore flirting.

I didn't get the chance to talk to Joseph for a few days afterwards, which despite all his assurances, sent me into a minor panic. I couldn't bear to think that he was having second thoughts, or didn't want to speak to me anymore, or anything like that. Logically, I knew that he wasn't online because he was either at work or sleeping, and that he slept when I was awake, so it was okay.

It was, of course, or I wouldn't be in the state I am today. He IM'ed me a few days later, tentative. I'm sure we were both feeling out where the other stood. The impression I got was that he was just as overjoyed as I was that we didn't hate each other or have any regrets. That of course set us up for another, similar naked-webcam encounter within a month of the first, with much the same results - except that he was worried that I wasn't enjoying myself, which led to me masturbating on cam.

Time has robbed me of the reason that those two times are the only times we ever saw each other naked. Both of us, in later months, expressed happiness that we'd done so, though. Regardless. After I graduated and moved to a new apartment, Joseph and I kept up our correspondence. What drew us together was keeping us together - high intelligence, a love of the written word, an appreciation for humor and wit, and a general loathing for the majority of the population. We also had the same tendency to forget correspondence for a while, and be able to pick up where we left off a month or three later. I was the first one to see the draft of his new novel, he was the first one I told that I was fed up with biology and wanted to go into social work. We bitched about our jobs, about our lives, shared little joys and major sorrows, and bounced ideas off of each other. But there was always that little current of "sex" under the covers.

I knew that this was something I had to pay attention to when I had a vision of him getting off the local mode of public transportation in front of my house as I watched from the kitchen window.

Running through my head

My choices for this entry were either post a three-page novel, or split it up. Since I have the attention span of a gnat right now, you get a split.

Today's story: the backstory.

About, oh, January of 2003, perhaps, I broke up with J. At that point, we'd been going out for three and a half years, give or take, and I was fed up with his lackadaisical attitude towards responsibility and upward mobility. So, at the beginning of my last semester in college, I broke up with him. I'd threatened to do so at Halloween, but didn't work up the resolve until January.

He of course wanted to remain friends - and get me back, if he could. Our relationship was odd. I was so used to having few boundaries with him, and it was difficult to put some in there. But at the same time, I didn't want him around. I recall being surprised and sad that he showed up to my departmental graduation ceremony that spring, after we hadn't been dating for four months already.

During that time, though, that halcyon semester of freedom and complete disregard for studies (once I'd figured out that I could flunk everything and still graduate), a few weird things happened.

The most important for the purposes of this story has to do with the return of JS into my life. JS is a male 8 years older than I am, who I originally met on a very prominent and popular internet forum attached to a humor site. For the savvy, that narrows it down to two, really, and there's one that I won't even link to. Anyway, we met in person about a year after I started posting there. J and I drove out to where he lived - in the same state, but an hour or two away - picked him up from work, ate dinner, went to a diner, and then retreated to his apartment. We met his snakes and his cats, and I fell asleep on the floor with the cats as the menfolk played some game or other until sunrise.

We had a great time, and after that, I occasionally heard from him. I'd relegated him to the fringe of my mind for a while, until we were both tapped to be writers for a humor site run by our mutual friend, Cecil (another person I met from the internet). We traded barbs and the occasional private message on the forums attached to that site, and I usually got first crack at reading anything he wrote. We were close, in that not-close way. Deepest secrets weren't shared, but average stuff was. Eventually we moved to emails, so that we could express longer thoughts, as well as have an easier way for him to transmit his novel and short story attempts to me. Contact was still infrequent, but he still rated above some of the people I knew from school in terms of the close-friend hierarchy.

I didn't publicize my breakup with J in any way at all - in fact, most people thought we were still going out. We still had the same circle of friends, activities, etc. JS found out that I'd broken up with J from Cecil, whom he was visiting at the time.

Out of the blue, JS IMs me. The story is he's bored because Cecil is sleeping, and just wanted to say hi. Oh, and to let me know that he had always thought I was phenominally attractive and that he wished he still lived in my state because then he would really have a chance, now that I was free again.

I was flattered, of course, and taken aback as well. It wasn't that sexual tension had never been an element of our relationship before, it was that this was more than I was prepared for. I expected a bit of sexual undercurrent in my relationships with any straight male, from my closest friend right down to the guy in my biochem study group. It was odd to me, that men found me attractive - that didn't happen until college - but not bad. Just... interesting. Anyway, JS and I got into some hardcore flirting and sexualized conversation before I had to leave for class or something and cut it off.

Since men in general fascinate me - and men who are apparently interested in me are even more fascinating, of course - the next time I saw him online I took the opportunity to flirt a little bit. The conversation got to the point where I mentioned that I was still naked. "Still naked?" he asks, and it comes out that I sleep in the nude, and was sitting in front of my computer in such a state. All bets were then off, and we wound up setting up our webcams for a little naked show-off mutual masturbation show across a few thousand miles.

Tomorrow: fleshing out the relationship dynamics further: why I like JS, and why JS likes me. Also, what happened after that first little episode of web debauchery.

I need more Crystal Light

Is this blog about sex, or is it about anything but? Sometimes I wonder.

Then again, all of that "anything but" decidedly impacts the sex. God, sometimes it's just great to be a woman.

As of right now, I am the only gainfully employed resident of the house. That's absolutely stunning, and it makes me glad that we're only one week into October. V has an interview tomorrow, and is temping steadily for the next two weeks anyway, so I'm not worried about him.

J, now, J I am slightly worried about. You see, J lost his job today, which should have been obvious in the last paragraph. Mostly, I'm pretty happy about that, and no, it's just just my bad case of schadenfreude that makes me say that. It's also my "Queen of Tough Love" persona, who has been waiting for something to come along and kick J's ass like this for about three years now. I had to figure, if he didn't learn to get up like a responsible human being, and show up for work/class/rehearsal/meeting/whatever just by my prompting or other intervention methods, he needed to get kicked in the ass. To use a trite phrase, sometimes you have to hit the bottom before you can reach for the top, or something like that.

Naturally, when his supervisor called him today and told him not to bother showing up tomorrow, J went right into his usual depressive state, curling up on the couch underneath a fleece, eating some ice cream, and watching tv, neglecting to talk to anyone else. He's very good at avoiding things through these and other methods. Granted, I can't imagine I'd be too happy if I were fired, but at least if I were in his shoes, I'd have been expecting it. I'm kind of aware of the fact that repeatedly no-showing at work isn't acceptable behavior. Neither is showing up late three to five days a week, or "calling off" the rest - and by calling off, I mean the supervisor called me to see where I was, and someone shoved the phone in my face so I'd actually answer it for once.

I already know that tomorrow, he won't even be awake by the time I leave for work at 12:30, and that despite saying he will, he won't have even looked for, much less applied for, a new job. And what does it say about me that I'm not even willing to help him look? Besides that I don't even know how someone would go about getting a new job after getting fired, because it's not an experience I've ever had.

V and I are seriously discussing the finacial feasability of kicking J out, and each of us paying $900/month for this apartment. It's doable, although we'd have considerably less around for saving and spending. It would also mean, at this point, that J would go back to his parents', which I don't like as an option. I largely blame them for the state he's in right now - I highly disagree with most, if not all, of their parenting methods.

And that's another thing. J, as recently as yesterday, says that he still wants to marry me. But do I really want to marry him out of anything other than complacency? Do I really want to marry into a family where I would pretty much outright hate my parents-in-law? And do I really deserve to hitch myself to someone who, honestly, for all of the years I've been with him, is going in nearly the exact opposite direction of me?

Fweee!

The benefit to overtime, as I've mentioned, is that I get lots of extra money in the paycheck. That means that I have money left over after I pay rent.

Better yet, I also got a $500 bonus from work this week, so I have tons of money left after paying rent.

That means it was time to go shopping.

I've wanted to refinish my table for a long time. I got it for free from a close friend of mine, who absolutely did not have room for it in her apartment. It's pine - the top and seats of the chairs were shellacked, and the legs and chair backs were painted Wedgwood blue. Now, I like blue, but Wedgwood? I'm not so much in to that. And neither is the Mission furniture I have in my living room.

So, I've been planning to refinish it, well, since I got it. It also needs a little work; some of the legs are coming loose on the chairs. So finally I was able to buy the supplies I needed for it. Vinnie and I went to Home Depot, where he stood with the cart in confusion as I first picked out stains, then grabbed all of the supplies.

I'm planning on keeping the same style - stain and color - but it's going to be all stains, no paint. The original shellacked parts are going to be a light red oak, and the colored parts are going to be a navy water-based stain. It fits a lot better both with the decor and me - I don't so much do anything pastel-ish.

So tonight of course after I cooked dinner for the menfolk, I put down the dropcloths, took down the glasses from their racks, and started stripping the table. Honestly, I'd forgotten how much of a fucking pain in the ass this shit is. I'm trying to remind myself that after I'm done, I'll have a beautiful table. But I got most of the table top finished, and barely one of the legs, and I'm fucking tired. Admittedly, it's the end of the day, and really, I only worked for about an hour, but JEE-zus.
Scraping old finish and stripper off really works up a sweat, and I can think of many things I'd rather do to work up a sweat.

Perhaps I'll have to engage in some of them tonight. Sex raises endorphins, right? Maybe that'll help my sore back.