Merry month of

Times they are a changin'. Not a lot mind you, but a little. We're well into another lovely spring and for the most part life is pleasant, although...T's great uncle died yesterday morning. He was an elderly fellow who struggled with emphysema, and everyone saw it coming, but it was still sad. We stopped in at the hospital a couple days before he passed away and we said our good byes. I still really don't handle death well, it rattles me and I happened to like this particular soul quite well. I keep holding onto the hope that maybe consciousness isn't a happy accident and that maybe it has some kind of significance in a larger scale of reality than we're currently aware of, but that's all it is, hope. What I think is that the same thing will happen to me after I die as happened to me before I was born, nothing, and that it will not bother me in the slightest as a result of my not actually existing anymore. Of course, my current status as present and accounted for in the population of the verse sort of resents this probability. And now, of course, we'll have a funeral to attend with a bunch of religious drivel attendant, and even more delightful, both T's parents will probably feel compelled to attend and they are not delightful to have together at any event anymore. Ok, can't really bear to dwell on that mess any more just at present.
Things are changing at work too. My counterpart will not be with us much longer and they are converting my cushy part time position to a full time one. When they approached me with this development it was somewhat misrepresented as playing back up for both the business and sales department, the actuality is that I am being groomed as the de facto national assistant. My initial response was rebellion but as a shrewd individual here at work pointed out to me, eventually the whole office will belong to sales with everything else being run from corporate. I might just as well reconcile myself to it for the duration of my stay here. The irritating parts being that I dislike not knowing what I'm doing so there is going to be a frantic learning process, and I don't like the woman for whom I will primarily be working. This simply means that rather than retrenching myself here in a full time position I'm going to redouble my efforts to find employment elsewhere that i feel is better suited to my temperament. I should seriously just knuckle down and kick out a few romance novels. I'm sure i could do it and I suspect the money is tolerable.
On the social front everything is fine. I'm a little restricted just now as I finally went back into my cosmetic surgeon and got him to fix the results of last year's surgery. So far I am pleased with the outcome but I am also a bit sore and a mass of bruises once again. I'd had to cut out jogging so going to the park with Jake has been on hold for a bit. Between his recent illness and my convalescence it's going to be hot as hell by the time we get out there again. I have been walking very determinedly and I would venture I'm down about three pounds. Whether that's the result of the liposuction, or the activity, I frankly don't care so long as I don't get it back. I've also cut back on my alcohol consumption and been trying to drink more green tea.
Yesterday was Jake's mother's birthday and for the third time running I attended the festivities, which didn't involve mexican food for a change. We had a good time. His mother talked quite a bit and at some length, but the company was good and the stories were entertaining. Afterward I went over to his place and stirred some brownie batter with his private parts then proceeded to lick the offending utensil clean. That was fun and I got some action out of the deal. It does frustrate me that the sex with T used to be mediocre and very brief, now it's just non existent. The sex with Jake is prolonged, intense, and in all ways satisfying. I should be able to get that closer to home but I can't, and it aggravates me I can't have it anyway without the attendant social infractions. Yet I'm still so fond of T and very content in a relationship with him.
We're going out to AZ and then OR later this month. There's a conference I'm attending with him at a resort hotel, and then we're going to see my family for a bit. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm hoping to drop a few more pounds so I can casually and contentedly spend some time by the pool when I go out there. I bought myself a decent laptop for the occasion so I shouldn't go stir crazy for lack of access to WoW, and maybe I'll even get some writing done. I will miss Jake horrible though. This trip spans two weekends, the time I usually spend most of with him. And there is a good chance I'm not going to get laid the entire time I'm away. That just seems a little wrong to me.
But as I said, on the whole life is good. I'm going to be zen, and when I'm feeling my most zen, perhaps I'll write back to my irritating father in some kind of remotely appropriate way. Wish me luck world.

April Fools

Today is the 12 year anniversary of my arrival here in Norfolk Virginia. Just a couple more years and I'll have lived here longer than anywhere else in my life, sort of. I mean, I have moved around quite a bit since I moved into the area, but same general area, that counts right? I was 22, that seems so young now. If only I could make decisions for myself retroactively. My life would be so different. I think the trick is to find a way to be happy about the mistakes and I suppose after a fashion I am. I can't really imagine my life being much more practically convenient than it already is. I am comfortable and I like the cast of characters in my world.
It's pretty again this year. Spring has arrived. My lawn is begging for a haircut and my car really wants a bath. I plan to take care of both this week. Maybe I'll do a little gardening this year now that my interest in playing World of Warcraft has waned a bit. I don't really have a good functional mouse yesterday and I found that situation further hindering my interest in playing the game at all. Frustratingly I didn't really feel like doing anything else either though. I finally got organized and kicked myself into gear. We had the MIL over to watch a movie last night so I'd gone to the grocery store to get more food and I needed to clean the house. I did some laundry, all the dishes, cleaned the cat's room, vacuumed the stairs and other stuff, I generally tidied up. The results were good, also the weather was nice so I opened the door for a bit to air things out.
I think the MIL had a nice time. She brought over her favorite disaster flick, 2012, I bailed out of watching it about half way through and went upstairs where I got pulled into a raid. Got some nice upgrades for my hunter though.
Didn't hear much from Jake yesterday and I missed him. With luck I'll get to stay over at his place the week after next and maybe we can make plans that will allow us to enjoy the fresh spring weather...I could stand to get a bit more active.
Today I think I'll buy a new mouse for my computer after work, unless T's plans are on for this evening in which case I may go straight home and get the exercise thing out of the way. It's hard to not drink any alcohol, and once I've started it's hard to have only just a little, but I can't help but think how many calories a week I'd cut out if i'd just give the stuff up. It's easier to avoid when I'm gaming but harder to avoid when I'm just watching television. I will have to do more strategizing.
Anyway, off with me, I should be working on my book and I think the energy for it will be hard to find today.

this one

This morning I woke to a ceiling fan with five blades, whirling industriously around a gold chrome stem. The spot on the ceiling where the fan attaches has a circle of paint around it that is significantly darker than that of the rest of the ceiling. It makes a pleasantly continuous sound of rushing air, the sort of white noise that can lull me to sleep in the space of several heartbeats, at least once I can get far enough from the person lying beside me to reach a normal body temperature. He radiates heat like a nuclear reactor and no matter how cold the night I can feel the beads of perspiration forming on the surface of my skin whenever I'm in close proximity to his body. Of course, not all of it is the tangible heat, there is also still my body's response to him. After all this time the chemistry is still intensely compelling.
His bed is comfortable, though I suspect it of having begun to sag in the middle from being occupied primarily with a solitary individual. It's hard to tell as he has a habit of camping in the center of it even when he has company, I cannot help but roll toward him. It takes a bit of shifting to develop enough counter balance to make myself comfortable next to him. I sleep on my right shoulder too often, with my face turned outward toward the edge of the bed. As I get older that arm is almost perpetually a little sore. I try to lie on my back, but when my left elbow rests beside me, my forearm crooked across my torso the arm tends to fall asleep. So I shift a lot and feel badly for rousing him from his peaceful sleep because he usually does have his bed to himself.
I love it there, in that quiet neighborhood. He has a balcony outside his second floor bedroom, and I can see its outline through the beige linen curtains. His closet doors are almost always open so I can see his rainbow colored collection of quirky and vintage t shirts and the ironing board he seldom uses with its floral print cover and the iron hanging above it on the rack. He recently hung a picture of a dory on the south China sea on the wall opposite his bed, and it too is soothing.
He loves the water. He spent part of his childhood growing up on a boat and the lifestyle, while not perfect contextually, was one that seems to have stuck with him and continues to have appeal. He tells me if he had a boat he would probably leave and not come back. I could see him being happily and resourcefully itinerant but I am glad he is here and does not seem unhappy.
Tonight I will see him again. I don't know if I will get to his house before he does, if I'll need my rainbow colored key copy to get in. Maybe I will be curled up on his couch watching Caprica and munching on animal cookies, or perhaps he'll get there before me and be playing Modern Warfare. We'll probably watch something for a while, obscure or mainstream anime, something offbeat, and then one or the other of us will get sleepy. He sometimes reads in bed while waiting on me, or sometimes I go up first while he plays games until he's tired.
It is pleasant, and ordinary, and unique. It is a thing I always want and never take wholly for granted because it isn't mine and I value it. I think he's used to me now. There is more he wants and it isn't something I have, but I think he feels no sense of urgency about finding what it is he may be after. So there is me for now, and I am content for the most part.

Grand Scheme of Things

It's the end of another nice week with Jake. The man comes back tonight. I have mixed feelings. I've enjoyed my week but I've had small twinges of missing home here and there. I feel like I've been rushed a lot of the time, and substituting a less appealing activity for a more appealing one sometimes to appease Jake. The trade off persists in being worth it to me because of the value I continue to place on that relationship, but I can feel the compromise and wonder how it will develop. Maybe it never will, I mean, after all, it's been a while. My feelings haven't changed too very much. I am calmer and a little more able to take Jake for granted. Conversely, he also seems to take me for granted, something that continues to bother me a little. Perhaps I feel like he's always had that attitude toward me and I feel inferior to him in some way, or threatened. Even though I have spent all week with him and we've had a great time doing very little, rather than spend this evening with me he plans to go out with his coworkers, knowing that T is coming back tonight and it will be my last free evening for a while. I want him to want me more and I can never have that like J could. Bah, and I know that wouldn't have lasted and he would have seen through her and either been wounded, cynical or both. I just wish I could have ever generated that level of intensity from him the way he does from me. But in the end, what I do have is enough. He is incredibly rewarding to spend time with, and very thoughtful and courteous of me. This is a way I still like to spend my time and feel it is worthwhile. I've enjoyed cooking for him and making plans with him all week. I've loved sleeping in his bed and waking up next to him. He is gorgeous to look at, generous with his charms and resources, I would not trade him in for a night of raiding in WoW for certain, or even for another human. I am attached to this one. I just wish I didn't feel so at a disadvantage with him, like he really is out of my league.
We've been playing BioShock all week, and the other night we watched Tron. I wasn't feeling terribly ambitious as I had a murderous head cold sent from the bowels of purgatory to torment me. Jake was really accommodating about it, well, except when he wanted to make out with me and the idea of being horizontal was still anathema to me. I think my reluctance offends him deeply and personally so I usually try to mitigate my reaction and go along with him. I admit, it's worth it and I have never failed to enjoy myself but it's hard feeling so regularly subsumed by someone else.
So, T comes home today and I will go back to my more normal life. I have a Dr. appointment this afternoon to get the surgeon to look at my hips. I don't think he made my abdominoplasty incision quite long enough so the skin gathers a bit and looks asymmetrical. I'm trying to decide how combatitive to be about the issue because I'd prefer to not get stuck footing the bill for fixing something i consider his error, that's assuming he will be able to fix it, Gods above please let him be able to fix it. I'm so tired of feeling self conscious. I avoid being naked with an audience anymore because of this and I know it hurts me.
Monday I have another interview for a job I really thing I might actually like to have, at the airport. I like airports and it's a shorter commute from my home than this place. I like the hours and the pay sounds good. I am hopeful and delighted that they even called me back considering they had over 600 applications come in for the position. If I get it I may not be able to travel with T in May but he sounds like he may be reconciled to that.
Friday I have an appointment with a dermatologist and I need to remember to print out a body map like the NP I talked to recommended. I also need to remember to call my ObGyn to find out when my appointment last spring was so I can hunt down a replacement for her and schedule with her. And what I really need to do is tear myself away from this and go do the writing I keep telling myself I want to be doing despite my fear that I'll never get any kind of closure out of the damned story. The effort does not hurt me, I can do this.

Recording

T has been traveling again, just parts of weeks, a few nights here and there. He keeps talking about having a job or position where he doesn't have to travel, and I wonder to myself how that will affect me. Then I push the concern aside because who knows what the future actually holds for either of us. I assume at some point he will stop traveling and that will be that. It may or may not change my peripheral relationship. I think Jake likes having me stay over, I think he enjoys the game of lets pretend, without the need to manage an actual live in arrangement. I don't know, maybe he wouldn't mind being with me. I still labor under the notion that he can do better and knows he can and he's settling for now because it's easy, I'm good enough, I'm totally into him, and we get along. Good enough lubricant for this relationship for now I suppose. It's enough to have kept it trundling along for 2 and a half years now. It feels like cheating, in more ways than one. I know it's a construct but I do enjoy it, and it is its own reality.
I've liked the half weeks with Jake. I have yet to grow tired of waking up next to him and basking in the luxury of being there with him without the need to go home. These past couple weeks have been pleasant. Two or three nights a week is just enough break from my routine. Instead of playing on the computer I cook new things and watch interesting movies while Jake keeps me company. I get to have entertaining early morning conversations about which superhero would make the best U.S. president, and who his running mate should be. I get to play console games, though I do that more when he's not around and I'm camped out at his place. He tends to watch me play and make 'helpful' remarks. While he is legitimately helpful and has improved my game with some of his suggestions, it makes me self conscious and depending on my mood detracts from my ability to enjoy playing. So long as he doesn't get frustrated with me I'm ok, and he's usually good about that. Still....
I keep job hunting. I'm still hoping to hear back from a good prospect, but if I don't I think I'll suspend my efforts for a little while. T has made a big issue of me traveling to a conference with him that is coming up shortly and while he would deal with it if I couldn't go, he would be petulant about it and I find it is easier for me to just make arrangements to tag along. Plus it gives me more time to capitalize on my fear of joining the rat race. It served as at least a temporary catalyst to get me to start writing more regularly. I've actually been turning out a page a day for a couple of weeks now with only a minor hiccup. I still have trouble with ending a story, but I'm learning more about developing one and I'm keeping notes. I was talking to an amateur writer friend of mine the other day and he confessed that he too has trouble creating endings. I find this reassuring.
Anyway, that's me for now. T will be around for the next week, but he leaves the week after for a full 5 nights I believe. Fortunately Jake won't be dog sitting this time. My heart goes out to that poor pooch who no one but his owner seems to really be fond of. He's a bull in a china shop. Still, it's nice to go to Jake's and not deal with so many allergens too. I'll have to think of some fun things to cook and entertaining stuff to watch. Perhaps we can go out to the local funky video store again this coming week and pick out more eclectic stuff now that Jake has a membership. That was fun, an interesting crowd goes there and it's not so far from where I work that dropping stuff off afterward is any kind of problem.
But enough for now.

Tired already

I'm a little discouraged that my lifestyle doesn't already yield the results I want. Not that I didn't see some of this coming. I know that as I get older I have to work harder for smaller results. I also know that my education has been for my own edification and not to any practical purpose. I did always think that my aversion to fast food and the usual lack of excess in my diet would buffer me from some of the problems I am instead encountering. I also though my intelligence, flexibility, stability, and general experience would allow me to at least obtain employment whereby I could support myself. So yes, reality is disappointing by contrast. On the other hand, it could be much worse. I don't have any bad eating habits to break and since I knew in theory I was going to have to work harder as time went on, I merely have to reconcile myself to a slightly more labor intensive pattern of behavior. I'm already in good physical condition and this gives me an excellent platform to work from. And I like my rowing machine, I think I can work with it. As far as employment goes, I could put more effort into that as well as continue to take into account the fact that the economy is in fact rather poor right now and there is a lot of competition for the types of generic positions I am qualified for. I can either bide my time, which I very fortunately have the luxury of doing, or I can develop more technical expertise in some area. In any case, I am confident I will be able to bring about some change in my circumstances before too terribly long, it's just harder than I wanted it to be.
I don't really have any perspective on how things are with Jake right now. I feel like we are more friends than anything else at present, but that still comes with benefits. And I still get jealous when he talks about time he spends with his other female friends, whether they are attached or not. I know from experience that poses no barrier for him and often for them. He commented on why he likes taken women. They are already either unavailable, or not content, and if they are not content and predisposed to him it eliminates the element of competition. They are in a relationship they aren't happy with but they aren't playing the field, so really, there is just him to focus on. There is a logic to that line of though that speaks directly to a more than usually intense dislike of rejection and a less than usually intense interest in forming relationships with other humans.
This life and these things, they are all just a distraction. I was thinking the other day how inconvenient it would be if my life came to an abrupt end just now and how many things I would like to take care of before that happened, knowing full well that once I'm dead I won't care about any of it and there will no longer be consequences for me. But I am alive and I cannot help but participate in my own existence. Bah. I have the most irritating ennui because I've contextualized my existence such that in the grand scheme of things nothing I do or fail to do actually matters. This reduces life's purpose to my own entertainment or distraction. But what will I get the most satisfaction out of? In theory I know what I want, but I'm not certain which of those things I want enough to go out and make them happen. At some point I would like to come to some conclusion. For now I could probably benefit from a better grasp on my own behavior. I should take a more analytical approach and see what I can learn.

cat's away

I sent at least $500 worth of clothing out into the world today, I hope. It should have been picked up by now. I will check when I get home. I thought I'd feel better about it. I did a good deed for a worthy cause, and I got rid of a bunch of stuff, though while utilitarian, was not of particular use to me, and thus burdensome to own. I do feel good about it, just not that good. There is more stuff I'd like to get rid of. In enjoy the idea of downsizing and hope it's something I can make happen someday. I've always liked the idea of a cozy nest, where the exterior belied the interior. Some of my favorite children's books were those by Francis Burney, The Secret Garden, The Little Princess. Sometimes still I drive through rundown neighborhoods and think it would be fun to rent an apartment there, or buy a condo, and completely refurbish the interior. An inviting utopia in the midst of havoc. I like having stuff, but not too much stuff such that it gets in the way. I'd rather have experiences.
I went to see Avatar yesterday with Jake. We held out and saw it in 3D on the IMAX screen, and it was just as stunning as all the rave reviews had implied. I see what they are saying about the conventionality of the story line, but it was good enough, and reiterated things that were worth saying. I liked the idea of the planet/moon as one giant, interconnected mind with more neural connections than the human brain. A mind that the inhabitants could literally plug into and upload and download to and from. And it was an amazing visual experience. I am glad we went. I'm not sure how determined T is to see it. I will find out when he returns from his trip. While I liked Avatar, it is nearly three hours long and my butt did get a little numb.
I've kept slightly odd hours this week, staying up later than usual because of Jake mostly. I'm surprised at how well I have been sleeping when I do go to bed though. I wake up sporadically through the night, particularly if his neighbors are fighting again, or if he is feeling cuddly. He's so incredibly warm all the time that while it makes me smile when he spools himself around me, it also inevitably keeps me awake until such time as he goes back to his side of the bed. It is funny that I get lonely two feet away from him and like to have some part of my body in contact with his.
I've been more self conscious around him than usual and he's probably noticed. I've never weighed this much before for any length of time and while I know I still fit well within normal parameters, I don't really care for the dimpling in my thighs, or the width of my hips. Losing this weight is proving to be more of a challenge than I've been up for as well. Eating lightly and running three days a week isn't enough like it has been before. I am going to have to at least temporarily find a way to cut back on my calorie intake rather severely, and I need to find a way to start working out at least some 5 days a week.
And so goes my year thus far. I'm still failing in the writing department. I'm working on a religious context for my short story, and toying with lengthening it, but half way through January and I've done no more than a couple pages of writing. All the same infrastructures are still in place and I haven't found a successful way to do anything with them yet. My mind continues to work on the issue, but even this blog is growing harder to maintain. Still, I want to remember, I like my details, and enjoy having access to them.