The Best Life Yet

[Reverie]

Most things are good. Rider is freaking amazing, and I remain so happy every day to have him in my life.

Friday night's chemical experiment went swimmingly. I made Rider help me clean the apartment, which felt really good. We hadn't given it a good scrubbing in a while, and things were starting to look grimy. (I don't think the bathroom will EVER look totally clean—Rider went too many years without cleaning it at all, so the soap stains and grout-mold appear to be permanent—but I did the best I could.) Once all the chores were done and the pets fed, I succumbed to my chemically induced reverie.

Rider was so sweet to me the whole time, checking to see if I wanted or needed anything, cuddling and petting me, and even taking me to the beach so I could look at the water and the stars. Eventually it was too cold and windy so we had to return home, but I was bursting with love for him. Every time I looked at him, I thought he was just the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. This contrasted greatly with a lot of our drug experiments last fall, when I would look at him and get this deep feeling of sadness like something was terribly wrong and we were doomed. This time was bliss.

Afterwards, I decided that I will save the rest of it for Rider and Sam next weekend. It's not particularly that I don't WANT to repeat, but I kind of want to be able to dote on them and give them a similar experience to what Rider gave to me. Plus, it wasn't as strong as I'd thought (feared?) and they are big guys. The more they get into their systems, the better, probably.

I had all these revelations related to the idea of decay—how things left outside without moving them, exposed to the elements, will just disintegrate to nothing, and so when we humans live our lives in too sedentary a manner, in a way, the same thing starts to happen to us: things stop functioning at full capacity, breakdowns of systems begin. It gave me new insight into the idea of staying active for the purpose of living a long life of high quality. Chase away the decay!

I woke up Saturday morning feeling utterly refreshed and ready to practice what my brain had suggested. I went out for a run for the first time since I moved in with Rider. I got on the scale for the first time in almost a month and saw that I was down to BMI 21. I always feel that I look my best between 20–21, and I knew I'd been feeling like I looked better recently, so I was pleased by this. It only took two months (to the day!) of not drinking to accomplish it! I felt proud.

Rider and I went to a football party and I cuddled with my friend's dog the whole time, with my head in Rider's lap. I was sleepy. I guess the tradeoff for insight and fun was maybe a deterioration in quality of sleep the previous night. I still had a good time, though. It was good to see those people, since I'd had to sit the last game out for being sick.

The next day, my body was determined to make me pay for all of that activity on the heels of being so sedentary. I was sore in places that you wouldn't even associate with a run. I felt like I might be getting a UTI. My mystery skin issues were acting up; I have mild psoriasis in some inconvenient places, and it was itching me, plus I got hives in one armpit that I hope wasn't reacting to my new natural deodorant that I love, and I had a crack in one corner of my lips and a tiny blister on one of my lips that I suppose might be oral herpes.

I was tested via blood test in 2009 or 2010, and the doctor had expressed extreme surprise that I didn't even have HSV-1 (oral), saying that pretty much everyone had it by their late 20s, but I didn't. I've never had any sign of having contracted it since then until this weekend, and I haven't even kissed anyone new in MONTHS, and I didn't even kiss Sam on recent visits, only cuddled, so I'm not sure. I've not let Rider kiss me since then, even though the one tiny blister has disappeared. Rider said he's pretty sure that's not what herpes look like—he thinks I'm overreacting—but I intend not to let him kiss me until the crack on the corner of my mouth is gone, just to be on the safe side, and I will probably order the blood test the next time I go to the doctor. Better to know than to not know, y'know?

Even though I was extremely pissed off at my body, with its soreness and varied skin problems, Rider and I still decided to go to the beach yesterday. It is a local beach that is known as a nude beach, and that was a first for me. I've never been nude at the beach in daylight before! It was super fun! We even ran into a friend, and while it was a little odd getting introduced to his girlfriend while we were all naked, and hugging our hellos and goodbyes, it was not a BAD kind of odd.

Rider was definitely the palest person at the beach, and I made sure he was coated well with sunscreen. While I didn't look closely, it seemed from what I could see that he was the only firebush within eyesight as well. The only thing that was a little weird about the whole experience was that occasionally some older dudes would walk a little TOO close to where we were stretched out, presumably gandering at one or the other of our goodies. It was a small price to pay. Eventually we got cold and headed in. Maybe we'll come back again someday when it isn't practically winter!

When we got back to the house, I made a curry, and then we played some music. I ran out of steam pretty hard and got super-duper grumpy at one point because all of my ailments were, well, ailing me all at once. I abruptly told Rider that I was done playing bass and flopped down on the futon. We watched some TV and had a fun sexual encounter before sleeping. My libido is still rather asleep, but it is still fun to play along with him. I love how happy it makes him when I show him sexual attention.

Today was pretty uneventful. I got confirmation from my boss that a) I will be getting my moving money this week, so I can start making reservations for everything, and b) that when I work extra hours for a special project, even when I'm on salary, I will get paid for the extra time. That is good. Rider had feared that once I was salary, given the crazy hours I tend to work, that my employers might try to exploit me. I didn't believe that would be the case, but it was good to have my boss confirm it.

Rider brought me a chocolate bar, since I'd said I was craving one last night. That man is just so sweet! He didn't have to do that at all. It's one of the really good Ghirardelli ones with the toffee filling. He had to go to bed early tonight, so he did some yoga (apparently I inspired him with my exercise; I was still too darned sore to participate!) and then we watched some TV, had sex, and he went to bed.

I spent a while answering OKC messages. Since I have decided to give everyone a chance to put their best self forward for friendship or more, I am (not exaggerating) conducting 70 conversations right now. THAT MANY people are not douchebags, at least, not so far! I am not attracted to all of their pictures, but I promised myself I would give people a chance on more than shallow things. I think my tactic at this point is just to keep answering them all and the ones that are really interested will stick around through the next month and the move and everything. And if there are some that *I* am especially interested in who have fallen off, I'll make first re-contact once I get there.

Another thing I've done with my "while Rider is sleeping" time is check out alternative options for if it ends up being tough to find an apartment right away that would be suitable to stay in awhile. The alternatives (some suggested to me by OKC prospects and some brainstormed on my own) include finding a month-to-month place close to MY work while Rider waits to hear about his transfer; getting a room at a Motel 6 (which will accept pets); or getting a pet-friendy AirBnb or VRBO. The last options will require putting our little trailer-full of stuff in storage while we are checked in, so they are of course not ideal, but it's good to know that we have options.

Speaking of Motel 6s, I also looked into the rate to see if it's more expensive to have three people to a room than just two. It is, but only by like $3–4. So if Sam does come with us and wants to share a room, that's nothing. And we'll more than make that up in saving on Ubers by having a vehicle along without a trailer attached to it. (I was planning to Uber rather than having to parallel park a trailered car in going-out-types of areas.) So, woohoo on having some more planning stuff figured out! ONLY ONE MONTH TO GO!

 

[Reverie]

I was in touch with a few property managers yesterday, and it seems that they are open to doing a six-month lease for an additional $100/mo in rent. I found three buildings that look pretty ideal for us—perfect location, within our price range (even with the additional $100), hardwood floors, accepting of pets, and two even have dishwashers! The only drawback is really that two of the buildings don't come with any parking, and the other comes with only one spot so if we want guaranteed parking, we'd have to pay for a space in a nearby garage or lot. Truly that is not a huge deal, though, and it pays for itself in avoided parking tickets.

One of the property managers said that the apartment is coming available mid-December and wanted to know if we could start a lease then. I told her that that is three weeks before we are due to arrive, and I'd rather not start it quite that early, but that I'd be willing to start it on the 1st, a week before we arrive. I asked her if she had anything else coming available a little later if a delayed lease wouldn't work, and I am still waiting to hear back on that. Even if none of these buildings in particular works out, having found them leaves me hopeful that there are others just like them that will surface in the coming weeks. It seems like things are going pretty smoothly on all fronts so far, and better than expected.

I also spoke with Oona for a long time yesterday while I was getting a walk in for exercise and doing some chores. We were on the phone for nearly four and a half hours! She found out that her beloved little dog has liver cancer. The dog is about 11 or 12 years old, if my memory serves, so it is getting up into the golden years of its lifespan, but it is still very sad.

I finally heard from Sam this morning. He was able to get tested, so we are good to go for this weekend's visit. Rider was asking what the logistics of that would be, and I told him it'd probably be like it's been all the rest of the times: I'd spend some time with Sam after Rider goes to bed, and then I leave Sam alone to sleep (since he sleeps better alone) and join Rider in bed. He was cool with that. Sam said he's still undecided about whether he's going to quit his job at the end of the month and come with us on the road trip; he said we'll talk more about it when he visits.

Rider is (finally) hanging out with Pablo again tonight. He had a bit of an indecision conundrum about whether he wanted to do it. He doesn't really like how Pablo disappears and doesn't write him back for extended periods, and he said he felt weird about just "jumping to hang out" the first he hears from him. I reminded him that we have such a short time period here that the chances for them to see each other are limited, and if he still has feelings for him, he should probably make time for him while he can. He said he knows he would have fun with him, so I encouraged him to go for it.

Rider came home a little early and changed the sheets, and I told him to message me if he wants me to skedaddle for a while so they can have some time alone. They went out to an arcade bar for a little date.

I am finally feeling back to 100% health. In a flash of inspiration yesterday, I put some of the fancy cream that I use for my psoriasis onto the corner of my mouth where I was having that skin problem, and it healed almost instantly—I'm talking within hours, after it had plagued me refusing to heal for five days! That stuff is magic! So now I am wondering if the mouth thing was actually psoriasis-related instead of oral herpes, since I've definitely gotten patches of it on my face before.

Rider made me look up pictures of oral herpes, and it is true that what I had didn't look anything like the pictures. Also, the psoriasis does sometimes cause blisters on me, notably on the sides of my fingers, and I had a couple of those this week, so just because my lip had a little blister for a day doesn't mean it wasn't psoriasis. I won't know for sure until I get the blood test, of course, but it seems to make more sense after how it reacted to the cream. I will be relieved if I find out that it's not something contagious, because I felt terribly guilty thinking I might pass the painful annoyance on to Rider—and it DID hurt quite a bit. At least with psoriasis, *I* am the only one suffering. It does seem to be getting worse the older I get, though.

I also think I confirmed that the armpit hives were a reaction to the kickass natural deodorant I got. It has baking soda in it, which some people react to after a few weeks, and of course I would be one of them, since my skin is so effing sensitive. I swiped the area down with a Stridex pad (they're acidic, to neutralize the strong base of the baking soda) and patted it down with powder, and the problem went right away. I suppose I'll try using less and neutralizing the area with acid more often and see if I can still use the stuff. It worked so great against odor that I am loath to go back to the traditional kind.

And all of my cold and UTI-like symptoms have faded, and I am not sore from my run anymore (so I may go out for one tonight!)—it's good to be back in a healthy state. It's so distracting and grump-making to feel unwell.

Hmm...Rider just messaged me saying that Pablo brought up the idea of a threesome tonight, and asking me if I'd be interested. I guess I have to go shave my legs now, lol. I haven't tried to mess around with him since the springtime, really. Hmmmm.

 

[Reverie]

Well, that was really fun, actually! I usually don't ever come during threesomes, and I totally did that time. Pablo was the only one who didn't, which is not terribly surprising since he has issues with that in general. Rider obviously had an absolute blast. Pablo is good at oral. I would do that again sometime, if it happens to come up before we leave. While we were cuddled up afterward, I was thinking about how the only "line" missing between the three of us is that I don't have romantic feelings for Pablo. Pablo and Rider reciprocate sexual feelings and romantic feelings, as do Rider and I. Pablo has sexual and romantic feelings for me, but I am only attracted to him sexually. I don't feel that extra-special crushy something for him. It's kind of a shame, really, but it doesn't stop us all from having fun, at least.

 

[Reverie]

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday is that on Tuesday, Rider had his annual work party, and it's in a town a couple hours away that has a touristy gift shop sort of thing, and he brought me back WINE JELLY! I had never even heard of that. But it tastes just like wine and has no alcohol in it. Since I haven't been drinking, I have occasionally missed the taste of wine, and this is a perfect solution. I put it on a leftover biscuit he'd brought home, and it was so good! He is incredibly thoughtful.

This morning Rider took his car into the shop to try to figure out why sometimes it sputters and doesn't want to start. He's hoping that it will be less to fix than he will make if he sells it, therefore turning a profit. If it's going to be expensive to fix, he's just going to sell it scrap. It's from 1991, so it has had a good, long life. I guess we'll find out in the next day or so.

 

[Reverie]

Today I am struggling with trying not to be judgmental of the poor spelling and grammar that some people have in OKC messages. I know that there are lots of people whose strengths lie in places other than the written word. I have been being good about being less judgmental lately, but that particular one is really tough for me.

On the positive side, my boss told me in an email just now that he would like to start grooming me for an executive role. That sounds like I will eventually have quite a bit of power in the company, and quite possibly a higher standard of living someday than I had even hoped for. It feels affirming to the choices that I have made for my career so far. Maybe I will pay off those student loans before I am 50 after all.

 

[Reverie]

Tonight, kind of spur of the moment, we went over to Rider's friend Darla's house. I had never met her before, since she just moved back to our area after living far away for the entire time I've lived in this city. Now she is our neighbor! At least, for the next four weeks!

Rider had spoken of her before. The story is that she was a neighbor to Rider and Claire when they were living together 7 years ago, and they both became good friends with her. Then when Rider and Claire broke up that first time, Claire moved in with Darla as roommates. Claire did not remain friends with Rider, but they both stayed friends with Darla. A few years later, it was the yoga class that Darla teaches that was instrumental in rekindling a friendship between Rider and Claire that ultimately led to their getting back together. So there is a lot of history there, all tangled up in Rider and Claire's on and off connection over the years.

Darla was pretty awesome, actually. She congratulated us on our engagement and gave really good hugs. Over the course of the evening, she even gave me some tips on singing and on yoga, and we sat around her kitchen table nibbling and eating cheese and fruit, just chatting. She was intensely curious about poly, and she asked a bunch of questions right off the bat (like, while I was still slicing the cheese) about how our relationship works and whether we have a lot of rules and stuff like that. I'm an open book, and anyway, I'd been answering similar questions on OKC for the past couple of days, so I wasn't fazed.

She seemed to me to either have some notion already in her head, or to be pulling inferences from the stuff I told her that were slightly off and that I wouldn't have made from the same information. Stuff like rules must be necessary (even though I told her we really don't have much in the way of that) and that probably being poly is easier now that we are engaged, because being married implies a natural hierarchy, whereas if people are considered to be on an equal footing, there will be strife as they jockey for position and expect too much.

I was contradicting her here and there, trying to correct these assumptions she seemed to have about our relationship, but I didn't have time to get into the meat of my argument before her next door neighbor came over, drunk and in a happy party mood, and totally changed the tenor of the conversation. Later, once we were alone, Rider suggested that Darla had probably hung out with Claire at some point and gotten her take on things first, which I guess makes sense. If anyone would have a skewed perspective on the relationship that Rider and I have, it would be Claire.

Since Darla lives only five blocks from us, we will likely be seeing quite a bit more of her before we leave. I'm sure that, in that time frame, we'll get into another poly conversation, since Darla seemed so keen on discussing it. I kind of want to pick her brain about her notions on the topic. I feel like just because I am on the escalator with Rider, since it seems easier for two people to build a life than one, and he's the one I love and trust more than I ever have anyone, that doesn't mean that other people who come along don't have opportunities to be very important emotionally to us as well.

And just because Claire and I were once "co-primary" to Rider, without clear hierarchy, it doesn't mean that THAT was the source of the strife between us. I think it was the mismatch in our styles of poly, and a lot of entrenched poor communication habits between Rider and Claire, as well as Rider poorly handling his NRE with me, that caused the problems.

Of course, the whole concept of a primary relationship was a loaded thing for Claire, since she started their relationship with an UNSPOKEN assumption that the two of them would be primaries, and anyone else was a side piece not to be spoken of, and certainly not to fall in love with. It was so unspoken that Rider didn't even realize it until he and I had already been together and in love for five or six months, and she finally said it out loud to him. She felt like I pushed her out of that position that she had a right to, though they'd never discussed it. So being "co-primary," to her, felt like being demoted. Rider once told me that she needs to feel like she is the ruler in her own world, and that's why she wanted DADT—anything else would shatter the illusion that she was supreme queen bee.

I suppose if she brought that perspective to Darla, it would inform Darla's view of it, and it might make it difficult to see that co-primary is a totally valid thing. It just didn't happen to work for us given the personalities involved.

Anyway, all that aside, it was a good night, and I had a really fun time. I feel like I would become really good friends with Darla if we were not leaving. She's pretty cute, too. I was finding myself transiently attracted to her throughout the night. She made some joke about how it would be a date if she went out with us, since we're poly, but I'm not sure how serious it was. She's single right now...

 

[Reverie]

I saw a lot of poly-useful ideas in this neat comic that came up in my FB feed last night.

A lot of things in there (e.g. "assuming the worst about people" and "takes everything personally") are things that we talked about and worked through when we were trying to work the Claire situation out. And a lot of them (e.g., "thinking it's about age" and "focusing on differences") are related to stuff I've been processing on my own recently.

Pretty cool!

 

[Reverie]

There sure has been a lot of activity on the blogs this past week, my goodness! I think this is the first time I have come back after a few days of being busy and seen a full page's worth of thread updates. It's great to read about how everyone is doing. So much happened in a short timespan for me, too!

The weekend was quite excellent. Friday, Sam arrived, and we all stayed up for a long time. The boys were drinking, and I was just enjoying their company. I cooked some food at some point. Eventually, Rider went to bed, and Sam and I stayed up talking. Then Rider changed his mind and came back out to hang out some more. Then he went to bed again, and Sam and I were able to have sex for the first time in kind of a long while.

It was really good except for Sam couldn't get off (maybe too much beer?) and we tried for so long that I was incredibly sore by the end of it. There was lube in the bedroom, but I didn't want to creep in there and disturb Rider, so I just went without, and I kind of regretted it later when everything hurt a little. Until I met Rider, I was not much of a lube-user, but he and Sam are both big enough that if they are going to take a while, it is pretty necessary. I had a lot of fun, though—I was super turned on and came really hard!—and we got some high-quality cuddles in afterward. His scent and his fuzziness were things that I'd really missed since the last time I'd gotten to cuddle with him naked. I don't thing I'd even realized how much I'd missed it until it was happening.

Eventually, I had to get back to the bedroom and sleep, since it was almost morning, and Sam was really cute about saying he wished my butt could stay so he could continue to pet it until he fell asleep. LOL! I was surprised that he said that, though, since I know he usually sleeps better alone. He's a really light sleeper and anyone tossing or cuddling up too close disturbs his rest. And I'm a sleep-cuddler, so I always return to Rider at the end of the night.

Saturday we went out to a diner breakfast in the early afternoon. I enjoyed being between them at the diner bar, and I was still feeling all kinds of ramped up energy at finally having gotten to have sex with Sam again.

After breakfast, we went to hang out at the brewery for a moment because one of Rider's very good friends was there with his wife and kid. Rider doesn't get to see this friend very much at all, and hadn't even met the child yet (and the child is 3!) but they are very old and very good friends, so he wanted to see him one last time before we left town. We stuck around there only long enough for the boys to have a single beer because we had a football party to go to—the last one of the year!

The football party was pretty fun. We were kind of late, and the seating was divided up so that there were two seats available on one side of the room and one seat on the other, and Rider wanted to sit by his friend Henry, so Sam and I sat together and cuddled a little bit. Rider got pretty drunk during the course of the game. When the game was over, it was time for the boys to take their psychedelics and leave the party. Sam gave me his keys and I drove them around in his van for the rest of the night.

Sam wanted to go walk around in the going-out area down by the river, so that is where we went. It sprinkled a bit, so we ducked into a bar, and Rider ran into a couple more friends of his. Once the droplets let up, we went and walked by the river, pausing to look at ducks and play with some friendly cats and do outdoor yoga—or as close as you can get wearing boots! Sam seemed fine and put together, but I had to talk Rider out of a bad headspace a few times.

When we'd had enough of walking around outside and wanted to find a bathroom, we headed to one of our favorite bars, a gritty rock bar where Rider sometimes performs (and on his birthday this year, I even joined him). As it turned out, there were some psychedelic bands playing, so the music kept the boys enthralled. I cuddled with and nuzzled each of them in turn. One of my favorite parts of that whole day was how openly poly we were all day, no matter who was around.

After a time, the boys started to come down. Rider had heard that there was a birthday party for one of his former bandmates (also former coworker) at a dance club nearby, so we parked Sam in a barstool and went to say a brief hello. We did the whole business of saying the secret code word to get in and hunting through the dark club for our friends. When we finally found them, they told us that they were actually planning to move to the bar where we'd left Sam, so we headed back there.

The group of people who ended up migrating over were a lot of Rider's friends from the fetish scene. One of the girls, Amelia, the one who talked to me the most, turned out to be another domme at the dungeon where Claire works who is working on buying in to be part owner. She was really nice and really respectful, asking my permission to share her lip gloss with Rider and Sam, which I didn't expect, but it was a really nice gesture. There was something I liked a lot about that exchange—I'm guessing it was the domme thing, that she's used to permission being exchanged between women in order to make intimate gestures to their subservient men. Some little aspects of the domme thing call to me more than others, and I really liked that one. And I liked Amelia. She had a focus and a poise about her, though she seemed to like to tell stories with the intention of shock value, like how she spent most of the day giving enemas to bigger men. I'm pretty hard to shock in that way though.

On the exact opposite side of the spectrum was Amelia's date for the evening, Elise. Elise seemed all over the place—cute but maybe batshit crazy, brazen and wild. She was a coworker of Claire's at a different job, and Rider had actually performed her wedding some years ago (though she is now divorced).

She strolled right up to us and started flirting with Rider shamelessly, kind of acting like I wasn't there, even after we'd been introduced. When I told her we'd met before at an event, she said, "Oh, probably. I work that event," in a tone I found to be kind of dismissive, and then she turned back to Rider, leaning in and showing off cleavage and telling him how sexy he looked.

I was getting the strangest vibes off of her all night. Sometimes I was kind of attracted to her; I was watching her dance on the other side of a doorway, all lit up by a red neon sign, and she noticed me watching and did a little wiggle for me. But sometimes I felt like just underneath the cutesy and the sweet there was a danger—some barely concealed razor-sharp teeth. I liked her, but cautiously. Her vibe put me on edge a little. I had a feeling it'd be hard to tangle out what exactly I felt about her, but I decided it didn't really matter because I'd likely never see her again.

Eventually, I started to get tired and told the boys that since I was the one driving, it was time to go home. Once home, we stayed up a while longer, watching music videos in a cuddle pile. I went to bed with Rider and gave him a super-intense handjob, since my parts were still kinda shredded from the previous night.

We slept in, then went out for Mexican food and thrift shopping Sunday afternoon. Over lunch, we were talking about men's underwear, and I casually mentioned how both of them are big, not thinking about it, and the conversation didn't hitch. It occurred to me that being with them—the fact that I have sex with both of them—is just a matter of fact now. It is totally normalized and I talk to both of them together just as frankly and casually as I'd talk to a single lover alone. Pretty cool.

When we got back to our apartment, Rider wanted to sit in my desk chair for more back support, since we'd had the futon down for Sam all weekend. Sam and I stayed cuddled up on the futon. At one point, Rider leaned down to give me a kiss on his way to the bathroom, and Sam apologized for "hogging the Reverie," and Rider said he didn't mind because I see less of Sam. And I said that it makes it easier for me to LOOK AT Rider when he's across the room, anyway. Everyone grinned.

Sam was supposed to drive home that night, but he decided he'd rather stay another night and cop out of work today. We ended up going back to the brewery and to an arcade bar. I drank a coke while I played Dr. Mario and felt like I was a little kid again. The boys drank fancy beers. Sam stuck by my side the whole night, watching me play, while Rider hopped from game to game, always ricocheting back to us because he missed us. Finally we went back to the house.

I had some work to get done that I'd intended to wait to do until Sam left, but it couldn't wait any longer, so the boys flopped out on the futon and watched YouTube videos and dozed in and out of beer naps, while I worked. Eventually I got to a stopping point and corraled Rider to bed, after kissing Sam goodnight. I was still sore from Friday night, but I managed to have intercourse with Rider after all. It was a little painful, though, so I told him I'd be taking a couple days off after. We'd originally planned for me to do strap-on stuff with him that night, but with Sam in the next room and the bedroom door open (because the bathroom is off of the bedroom), I figured we'd best keep it simple and quiet. It was good, despite the sting.

(continued...)

 

[Reverie]

(...continued from previous)

Rider left for work Monday morning, and I woke up shortly after. Sam slept way in. He must have needed it. I worked from the bedroom so as not to disturb him. When he finally woke up, I made us some coffee, then came out to finish my work next to him. He said he should get back soon, so I decided to take a break from work to hang out a bit. I gave him a blowjob, in which I discovered a technique that seems to work on him without completely making me tear up and gag like the other way he likes does. It's still more vigorous than I really like, but it is a good middle ground that makes us slightly more sexually compatible. Afterward, we got some seriously good QT in, with naked cuddles and conversation that ranged from literature to motorcycles.

Sam and Rider had spoken about Sam taking some stuff in his van to store for Rider since we're moving, so we spent a while gathering that stuff together and loading the van: some guitars, some paintings that a college buddy of theirs had made, a bunch of records, some effects pedals for the guitars. It's really sweet of Sam to store that stuff for Rider. I think that out of everyone in the world, Sam and I love Rider the most. (Well, maybe not more than his parents...but maybe!)

After Sam left, I had an IM conversation with Rider, and Rider said, "There's something I should tell you." And then he told me that after Saturday night, he's remembered that he has a crush on Elise, and he wants to try to make some time to hang out with her before we go and see if she wants to hook up. "I could also invite her down to hang out with both of us if you think she's a cutie," he said.

I explained to him the weird mixed vibes I got off of her then followed it up with saying, "All that said, if you want to hang out with her, go for it. I trust your judgment and there's only so much damage that even a very crazy person could do in the span of a few weeks."

I then thought for a little while, and something dawned on me. Our subsequent exchange went like this:

Me: I was actually wondering if maybe part of the vibe I was getting off of her was her maybe sort of establishing by force the right to flirt with you so hard right in front of me the moment she walked up. I don't know how much she knows about our relationship and its structure, or about me, and her behavior would have probably seemed very brazen and discomfiting to someone in a mono situation. [Note: She arrived during a time when I was not anywhere near Sam, so she didn't see us being affectionate before this happened.]

Rider: Yeah, that would be pretty brazen if we were mono. I think she knows that I'm poly but not 100% sure. I feel like those kids know me well enough to know that, but they probably don't know the details about our structure or whatever our rules might be. I could maybe feel that out with her when I talk to her, or let her know what the setup is.

Me: Now that we are talking that out, I think that actually may be the behavior that triggered the uncertainty: the hunch that someone who very well may not know our situation but behaved in a way that suggested that it wouldn't matter to her either way might either be vicious or really selfish or just THAT crazy.

Rider: Well, if you are uncomfortable with that interaction and would rather me not, I would totally respect that and not try to make time for her.

Me: Nah, it's not that level of discomfort at all. I also felt kind of a strange spark with her. But it was tempered by the other stuff.

Rider: If you'd rather meet her and see if she's better in person, or outside of that bar environment, I could arrange for that, too. I do have a crush and I would like to have some fun with her, but you're the most important thing to me I want to make sure you're happy. <3

Me: It's kind of an if/then thing...IF she totally knows about our poly and that we're totally open, THEN her behavior did not necessarily speak of bad judgment. IF she doesn't know much or anything at all, THEN her behavior could have been kind of a dick move (source of dickishness—crazy, evil, selfish, stupid?—TBD).

I could suss that out pretty easily conversationally, I think (to find out what she knew at that moment), but I don't know if you feel that you could. I also don't know if it matters much to you, since I am not against you going for it either way.

They say "don't fuck crazy," but, as I said, there's only so much damage that could be done in three very busy and limited weeks. If I were you, I'd want to suss it out to know whether the person I liked had been trying to be a dick to the person I loved or not. Which would then inform how much I continued to like them.

Rider: Yeah, you're right.

Me: I would like to stress, however, that I am not trying to dissuade you. I am only presenting the facets and possibilities as I see them. I know you are working on limited time, and you may just want to let the detective work required to hold up the standard of "no sex for jerks" slide in this case.

Rider: Hmm. I'll think it over. I would say if she was disrespectful of you, that would disqualify her. The jury is out on that one, of course. I definitely appreciate you talking straight with me about everything. I'll talk to her a bit and see if I can suss it out. My guess is that she was drunk and acting wild but I doubt she was trying to be malicious. That's just a guess, though. I'll keep you in the loop if/when anything develops.

Me: I like how when I talk things out with you, it helps me to figure out what the roots are of weird feelings or vibes I get. I think I'm a pretty perceptive person but that it takes me some thinking and analysis to understand the things that I have perceived when it comes to social matters. Anyway, like I said, I trust your judgment and, beyond that, I understand if you'd want to make exceptions for your standards for a limited-time, low-risk opportunity.

How about this: if Elise is free some night, we can go hang out with her and take separate cars (easy if you're coming from work, no excuse needed), and if I'm not feeling it, I can split early and let you work your magic.

Rider: That sounds great to me. I'm into the inclusive thing whenever possible.

So that is where we left that. Maybe I'll be able to tell after a more intimate meeting what the situation is like and see what my instincts tell me. If they tell me to run, I'll run, but I'll leave Rider behind to have his fun, if that's what he wants to do. If we were going to be in town any longer, I'd be keener to figure out more about her.

Sometimes I think that Rider is completely blind to cattiness and digs and weird dynamics when it comes to women he finds attractive (I've seen it in action a few times); he just sees "pretty thing he would like to stick his dick into" and nuance escapes him. This one time, a gorgeous bartender at a restaurant where we were eating made a snide comment about my grown-out roots of my colored hair, and he didn't even hear it though it was right in front of him. When I mentioned it later, he was like "the pretty girl with the red lipstick?"—he'd SEEN her but not HEARD her at all.

And I'm not saying that Elise's behavior WAS cattiness, necessarily...only that more information is needed for me to make a decision.

(continued...)

 

[Reverie]

(continued from previous...)

Our conversation then moved on to finding an apartment. I found a place that seemed absolutely perfect, and I showed it to Rider online. He said it seemed great, and we decided we would put in an application when he got home from work. Within an hour of submitting our application, we got a call back saying that we were approved! So right now, we're just waiting to hear back from the leasing office about the best way to get our deposit to them so that they will hold the apartment for us.

I'm really excited, though. Provided nothing weird happens between now and then (since we haven't signed any paperwork yet), this was a relatively painless process—better than I expected. And the new apartment is right in the thick of a very fun, bustling area. It will be possible to walk to a great many things, and there will be a general sense of "happening," which will be good, given that we'll be on a limited budget right at first. It'll be possible to just walk around and look at stuff and people watch to have fun—to do some exploring with our home base nearby so that we won't have to spend a lot on expensive food and drink while out.

When I told Rider our application had been accepted, he was thrilled. He did, however, have a minor meltdown when I started bringing up a bunch of planning details. He ended up sort of curling up into a ball and withdrawing. It's amazing to me how overwhelmed he gets when it comes to planning. He said it "breaks his brain." He's endlessly thankful that I am good at it, but sometimes even my coming to him with details to confirm is too much. I'm trying to tweak my communication habits around that sort of thing so that I feed him information in the most bite-sized way possible. It does not come naturally to me, as I am used to everything being a giant web where this affects that and then that affects that over there and all possible paths and permutations must be taken into consideration and accounted for.

He was pretty down on himself about the whole thing. He said that it's "something wrong with [him]." I told him that planning is a skill, and like any other skill, some people might have more or less natural aptitude for it, but it can be learned. I reminded him that there are a great many areas in which his skill level surpasses mine. Coping is also a skill, and just because he has a hard time coping with the stress generated by planning, that does not mean anything is wrong with him, just like there's nothing wrong with me for not knowing how to play the variety of instruments that he does. His working memory for guitar chords is better, and my working memory for logistics is better. And we all do the best that we can, so there's no reason to beat ourselves up for it.

He was also stressed about selling his car, which will result in his being car-less for the first time pretty much ever. He knows that the plan is to share mine until he nails down a job (I can work from home or take the bus to work on the days he interviews), and then get something once we can be assured of steady income on his end. However, I think that plan makes him uncomfortable. He seems weirded out by the idea of my taking the bus, like he is inconveniencing me. I told him that this whole move is my "fault," so any inconvenience I may experience can be traced back to me, not to him. Also, I don't mind the bus; it gives me a way to spend my commute reading or writing rather than focusing on the road.

After I explained all of that, Rider seemed considerably more chilled out. I dispelled the rest of his stress sexually, and we got a good night's sleep.

Our calendar for our remaining time in town is filling up. Rider is playing three shows with his electric band, we're going to do one open mic, he's hosting one more wrestling party, and we're having a free-for-all where our friends come take our stuff one weekend day. I'm also scheduled to have coffee with Georgia.

In addition to all of that, I need to take my car into the shop to get some new shocks for it, get the power to the cigarette lighter fixed so that we can charge our devices on the road, and get everything all checked out to make sure it will be safe to tow the trailer. So much to do!

 

[JaneQSmythe]

Great update - thanks for sharing these details of life with us. I, too, love it when we are in a place/situation that I can be openly poly with my boys.

... and we tried for so long that I was incredibly sore by the end of it. There was lube in the bedroom, but I didn't want to creep in there and disturb Rider, so I just went without, and I kind of regretted it later when everything hurt a little...

This happened to Dude and I once - I actually had to call it quits - he vowed to hide a bottle of lube in every room and location it might ever be needed. The next day the boys went on a "soda run" to Walmart - they bought 20 or so cases of soda, Dude added a dozen or so bottles of lube..oh, and we needed lightbulbs - wonder what the clerk thought!

 

[Reverie]

The next day the boys went on a "soda run" to Walmart - they bought 20 or so cases of soda, Dude added a dozen or so bottles of lube..oh, and we needed lightbulbs - wonder what the clerk thought!

Q: How many bottles of lube does it take to change a light bulb?

A: It depends on what the bulb is screwed into!

LOLOL!

 

[Reverie]

Cast of characters update for 12/2015

Here's my updated cast of characters for this month. Ongoing partners bolded:

Ada: 32f/bi/mono/partnered. The friend that R&R originally met through. Rider's ex (dated 2004–2007) but now more like a sibling to him. Former best friends with The Ex. Has a penchant for pot stirring and drama.

Alex: 34m/bi/poly/married. An early Reverie date (6/2014) that quickly turned platonic due to no spark and jealousy on his partner’s part, and then fizzled to nothing. Still FB friends.

Al: 36m/straight/mono/partnered. One of R&R's platonic music buddies. Partnered with Shana.

Allie: 33f/bi/single. R&R’s FWB since 10/2014. The sweetest girl, but usually too busy to hang out.

Amelia: 29f/bi/single. R&R's friend. Domme at the dungeon where Claire works.

Anna: 30f/bi/mono/partnered. Reverie’s former roommate (10/2014–9/2015) and Rider’s former fling (3/2013).

Arturo: 30m/straight/polyflexible/partnered. An early Reverie date (7/2014) who was a nice guy but there was no spark. Since then, we have become friends, and he has become the cat-sitter.

Aurora: 24f/bi. Reverie's questionably too-young girlcrush who moved far away at the end of October.

Beckett: 36m/heteroflexible/mono/single. Reverie's now-faded megacrush. Connection ended (by him) after a month of dating (7/2015–8/2015) but remain Facebook friends. Bandmates with Caleb.

Brandon: 34m/straight/cheater. An early Reverie date (7/2014–9/2014) who was charming but turned out to be cheating on his girlfriend. Hooked up a few times but was ultimately too flaky and then discovered to be cheating. Had to tell him off in 11/2015 after he kept pushing the "why don't we hang out" issue.

Caleb: 38m/straight/partnered. Reverie’s former FWB (9/2014 to 11/2014)—good sex, not so great personality, as it turned out. Bandmates with Beckett.

Candace: 29f/bi/single. R&R’s elusive crush-girl who is impossible to pin down for plans.

Claire: 28f/bi/poly. Rider's ex-girlfriend (2007–2009, 2013–2015) and the person who introduced him to poly in 2013. They have not remained friends except for on FB. Occasionally she resurfaces to be a jerk about something despite supposedly wanting nothing to do with Rider.

Darla: 39f/single. R&R's neighbor. Former neighbor of Rider and Claire (2008) and former roommate of Claire (2009-?). Cute yoga instructor that R&R both harbor a degree of attraction to.

Desiree: 39f/straight/single. Rider’s former longtime crush (2011–2015) who he was just on the verge of hooking up with when she viciously bullied Reverie one night while blackout drunk, which changed his mind about her.

Elise: 27f/bi/single. Amelia's FWB. Rider's crush. Reverie's source of ambivalent attraction/wariness. Claire's former coworker.

Emily: 27f/bi/OPP/partnered. Reverie’s brief girl crush and now platonic friend. The crush part lasted only like a week.

Erica: 36f/bi/single. R&R’s friend who was married but had a falling out with her husband over a threesome-lite she had with us and all hell broke loose.

Evan: 39m/straight/single. Rider's friend from childhood and Kelly's current roommate. Lives in Football Town, about 4.5 hours away.

The Ex: 36m/straight/mono/single. Reverie's last relationship before Rider (2010–2014). Convinced Reverie to give mono/OPP another try after she tried to be poly in 2010. Relationship ended, in part, because Reverie-initiated talks of opening further made him paranoid, controlling, and convinced he was being cheated on. Recently re-friended on FB after a year and a half of no contact. Now lives on Opposite Coast.

Georgia: 36f/straight/married: Reverie’s platonic friend—sister-in-law to The Ex.

Gray: 30m. An early Reverie date that was the most boring date ever. Reverie’s avowed last internet date in this town.

Henry: 33m/straight/single. R&R's platonic friend—totally bromantic with Rider.

Jake: 35m/heteroflexible/poly. Reverie's high school crush and hometown lover, living about 1,000 miles away. Hooking up on and off since 7/2014, with lots of visits between 10/2014 and 3/2015. This has cooled off considerably due to distance and sexual incompatibility, but the love and friendship is still there.

Jared: mid-30s/straight/partnered. Rider's longtime friend and Reina's ex-husband. Recently rekindled bromance with Rider after being away for a couple of years getting famous. Lives in Opposite Coast City.

Jerry: 35m/straight/single. Rider's longtime friend and Reverie's new friend. Lives about 3 hours away.

Kelly: 26f/bi/polyflexible/partnered. Rider's former FWB+ (LDR, 10/2014–9/2015) and current good friend. Reverie’s friend since 1/2015. Has had threesome with R&R. Lives in Football Town about 4.5 hours away. Dating Man functionally monogamously.

Kitty: 34f/bi/polycurious/partnered. Rider's "one that got away" ex. They dated for 9 months in 2012 but she moved away to go to law school and their LDR didn't work out. He was still hung up on her when I met him, and they are still friends. She lives less than two hours from my Hometown.

Laura: 29f/bi/single. Hippie painter girl that Rider is crushing on and Reverie is "maybe" about.

Man: 46m/bi/partnered. Kelly's boyfriend since 9/2015.

Marie: 28f/lesbian/mono/partnered. R&R's platonic friend. Partnered with Tansy.

Molly: 36f/bi/single. R&R had a threesome with her once (7/2014) and hung out platonically a few more times. She’s fun but a little crazy and we tend to keep our options open with her but not get too close. Rider is more into her than Reverie is.

Moss: 40m/straight/mono/single. Reverie's ex-husband (together 2007–2010) and recent ex-boyfriend (2014–2015). Lives on Opposite Coast. Reconnected in a long-distance fashion until he decided he wanted to try to go monogamous with someone else. When that ended, this did not resume.

Oona: 38f/bi/monogamish/partnered. Reverie's BFF. Friends since 1999, on and off FWB since 2002. Has hooked up with R&R in a threesome before. Currently lives in Opposite Coast City, in the city where R&R will be moving come January. Has been dating Toby monogamously since 9/2014 but is currently trying to negotiate OPP.

Pablo: 35m/bi/single. Rider's boyfriend and Reverie's sometime FWB. Rider’s first M/M sexual experience, and they ended up falling in love. Has confessed being in love with Reverie as well, but the strength of feeling is not mutual, so the relationship remains as a V with Rider as the hinge. He is notoriously flaky to the point where their relationship is always on the brink of fading away.

Ramsey: Reina’s husband, and an old friend of Rider’s.

Reina: 38f/bi/OPP/married. An old friend of Rider’s and a long-distance FWB of Reverie’s since 11/2013. Married to Ramsey. Formerly married to Jared. Lives in a far corner of Opposite Coast so we don’t get to see her much.

Reverie: 34f/bi/poly. Me! Currently engaged to Rider and crushing hard on Beckett even though that's over. Additional loose connections of varying places on the FWB-to-romance spectrum with Sam, Jake, Allie, Oona, Reina, and Pablo.

Rider: 39m/bi/poly. Reverie's fiancé, together since 2/2014, friends since 6/2013. Also dating Pablo, is FWB with Allie, and has a seemingly infinite constellation of crushes and sparks with people.

Shana: 33f/heteroflexible/mono/partnered: One of R&R's platonic music buddies. Partnered with Al. Good friends with Claire.

Shane: An early Reverie date (11/2014) that went nowhere.

Sherry: 44f/mono. A former FWB (very long distance) of Rider’s (5/2013–5/2014), whose expectations that their relationship would eventually turn exclusive ended up breaking her heart.

Sam: 39m/straight/polyflexible/single. Rider's BFF since college in 1994. Reverie's sometime lover since 7/2014—a loose “it happens when it happens” connection that is mostly affectionate with some sex thrown in there every once in a while. He lives in College Town about 3.5 hours away, so it’s all long distance.

Tansy: 30f/lesbian/mono/partnered. R&R's platonic friend. Partnered with Marie.

Tasha: 33f/bi/open/married. Reverie’s FWB (since 2011) on Opposite Coast.

Toby: 38m/straight/mono/partnered. Oona’s boyfriend since 9/2014. Has been in a poly relationship before but is mono now.

------------------------

College Town: The city (which is a 3.5-hour drive away) where Rider went to college and where Sam lives.
Current City: The city where R&R live, soon to be known as Former City.
Football Town: The city (which is a 4.5-hour drive away) where Rider goes to watch football games, and where Kelly and Evan live.
Opposite Coast City: The city about 2,400 miles away where R&R are moving in three weeks. Soon to be known as Home City.
Hometown: Reverie's hometown (about 1,000 miles away), where Jake lives.

 

[Reverie]

Even after all I posted today, I realized that there were a couple of things that I forgot to mention!

1) Sam talked a bit about how he has kind of lost steam about quitting his job and coming with us on the road trip. At the time he said it, he had just had a very negative interaction with his boss and was ready to run out the door waving both middle fingers. Time cooled his anger, and now he sort of regrets not quitting while he still had a good reason to. I told him that if he still wants to quit, it's probably better that he not do it impulsively and with a hot head—giving a standard two weeks notice will stop those bridges from being burned, which will surely help with whatever he wants to do next.

He explained that his boss had been talking about sending him to Europe in the spring, and he's never left the country, so once his anger faded, sticking around for at least that long began to tempt him. I don't blame him. He said that there's still a chance he'll quit and come with us, but that we shouldn't plan for it; if it happens, he'll figure out making his own way. I do hope that he manages to take some vacation time and fly out and see us at some point, though. And it's only a few dollars cheaper to reserve the room for three people, so I'll go ahead and do that anyway just in case.

2) The other cool thing that I forgot to mention was that THE VERY DAY I submitted my application for that apartment, they'd dropped the price $100 in the listing. Since we're going to pay $100 extra in rent each month to get a six-month lease, that means it's like we're basically getting that for free instead, compared to what I'd originally planned! It saves us $600!

I'm not usually prone to magical thinking, but I almost feel like all these weird little strokes of luck are tiny pushes confirming that we're headed in the right direction: the reduced price rent; my boss giving me more moving money than I'd asked for; Rider's boss screwing up the date so that he gets an extra month of income working from home AND a chance to be still eligible for the transfer; Rider's company doing the buyout which will give him extra money and unemployment if he doesn't get the transfer...It is basically like every single thing that we planned keeps getting handed to us slightly better than we even planned for!

It's the best life yet!

 

[AutumnLeaves]

Way to make me late to work, Reverie. (This isn't the first time I've vowed to stop reading blogs during breakfast )

 

[Reverie]

Way to make me late to work, Reverie. (This isn't the first time I've vowed to stop reading blogs during breakfast )

Hahaha, well, I'm glad you enjoy them so much. It's crazy how much there was to say yesterday. All of it seemed important in some way!

 

[Reverie]

Today I mailed off the security deposit for our apartment. So I guess that's official. They said we'll sign the lease in person when we get there, and I'm not really sure how that will work. All the other times I've moved across the country, the lease stuff has been done electronically, and then the landlord has just left a key for me under the mat or somewhere in the unlocked apartment.

If we have to sign the paperwork upon arrival in order to gain access to the place, I guess that necessitates either driving straight to the leasing office (with pets and trailer) or having someone meet us at the apartment; I feel weird about that because knowing how driving long distance is, it seems like there is a good chance of missing the appointment or having to hang around waiting with the pets in the car and the trailer making it tough to park anywhere. Maybe they'd be willing to leave the key for that one day and have us come by in the morning when we've dropped off the pets and trailer. I don't know what the big deal is—electronic signatures are just as valid as ink ones are.

I raised these issues to the property manager, who is apparently beholden to the leasing office, and he said he'll get back to me with an answer as soon as he has one. Until then, I wait.

While I was at the post office, I ran into a friend. She's part of that whole fetish scene friends group. She's a model and very sweet, as well as being a former roommate of Rider's. It was actually her fiancé's birthday celebration that we went in search of last Saturday. It was funny bumping into her because she grabbed my ass before I saw who it was, and I was talking to a postal worker at the time! That was the first time she really has flirted with me. (Although, I guess it's possible that her telling me how much she likes girls Saturday night could have also been a flirt. I didn't read it that way at the time.) Too bad I'm running out of time!

Speaking of running out of time, Rider and I were looking at the calendar to see what dates he might be able to toss at Elise for a hangout, and pretty much there were only two—both Mondays. I thought he'd be more disappointed that there were so few options, but instead, he just thanked me for the calendar help.

Today, I dropped my car off at the shop to see what all it needs fixed before I tow a trailer 2800 miles. I like my mechanic a lot, but I'm a bit nervous about what the estimate will look like. At the very least, it needs new shocks and to have the cigarette lighter fixed so we can charge devices. I think I will end up putting that on credit, since the moving money is earmarked for specifics already. I've been making a good effort at paying down my debt, so it chaps my ass when I have to put a chunk on the card again.

This evening we went back out to the arcade bar to meet up with friends: one of Rider's exes and her fiancé. This was a girl he'd dated back in 2009–2011, and they'd broken up in large part because she wanted to have kids and he didn't. He was heartbroken at the time, but they have remained good friends. I've become friends with her as well, through the football parties, which she sometimes attends. There has been a long-running request from Rider to see the two of us battle in Dr. Mario because it is a game we both love and are good at, hence the arcade bar.

She trounced me pretty good! Although Rider was proud of me and said that I held my own. It was my first time meeting her fiancé, too. He apparently wants to buy Rider's car the day that we leave. Rider is stoked about this because it means he'll get to keep the car until the end, and also because it will be going to a friend.

While we were at the arcade and I was playing Dr. Mario or talking to our friends, Rider kept getting kidnapped by strangers every time he'd walk away from us. Two different times, he was lured off by strange girls into game or conversation. I know all the gazillion things I love about him, but the degree to which he is a chick magnet still seems outlandish, though it is fact. I've never hung around anyone else besides him where I have seen that in action so much. He doesn't even have to be doing anything or even particularly groomed. Ladies just want to be near him. Maybe part of it is a height fetish. It's a kryptonite for him too. He has a hard time passing up the chance to soak up female attention.

At one point, I had to actually go retrieve him because our friends were getting ready to go and seemed kind of annoyed that they came to hang out with him but he was off talking to someone else instead. I asked them to please pardon his rudeness and had to be the big bad girlfriend hauling him out of the conversation. It was awkward, but his friends had seemed like they were kind of expecting me to do something. After all, HE is the one who had invited THEM out. Everything worked out OK in the end, though. I brought him back and I didn't even grumble at him about it later, because whatever.

When we got home, he helped me clean up because the landlord is showing the apartment to someone tomorrow. It seems to me like that might be jumping the gun a bit; Rider's lived here for six years, and this place is not really in "showing shape" yet. It's not terribly dirty or messy anymore, but if *I* were the landlord, I'd want a chance to give the walls a fresh coat of paint and make sure everything had at least a veneer of newness on it after a six-year tenant moved out. Mystifying.

Then we finally got to have the strap-on sex we'd been wanting to for a while. It was super hot. I am currently on my period, so then I had to deal with arousal cramps, but it was worth it.

Tomorrow we have our last BBQ slash jam session at Shana and Al's. They've been a little weird lately. I don't know if it is related to the move or what. At least, Shana has been weird. Rider said she'd been short with him recently, and she started a group chat about the BBQ without including me, which kind of felt deliberate and weird. I wonder if maybe she's mad at me for taking Rider away. They've been friends for a really long time, and I could see the perspective that his no longer being a regular part of their lives is my fault. But he wanted to leave here before he met me, according to him; my situation just happens to be a handy escape pod.

I've considered the idea before that this all might be kind of unwelcome to a lot of people. Rider's been here for almost 13 years, and in that time, he has become deeply embedded in the local music scene, the fetish scene, the bar scene, and in a sporting group. Not to mention the core group of friends not in any scene that he was introduced to when he first moved here, who were all the people his ex-longtime-girlfriend grew up with. Everyone loves him. And here I waltzed into town two and a half years ago, not knowing anyone, and stole his heart, and I'm now whisking him away to where they won't have access to him anymore.

Such is life, I know, and most people seem genuinely excited for him. But it stands to reason that there might also be bitterness. And if for some reason we're unhappy over there, or if we fail, we can always come back. Somehow, though, I think we'll succeed.

 

[PinkPig]

And if for some reason we're unhappy over there, or if we fail, we can always come back. Somehow, though, I think we'll succeed.

FWIW, I think you'll succeed too! As for the chick magnet thing, Blue has a bit of that, too. Sure, part of it is how hot he is , but I think most of it is just how outgoing and friendly he is...people just naturally gravitate towards him.

As for your friends, I'm sorry they're focusing on the move and not on enjoying their last days with you both, before the move. It really is just shifting perspective....and realizing that no one can be 'stolen away' who doesn't want to be 'stolen away.'

 

[Reverie]

A brief digression on attraction and attractiveness:

Last night, after the arcade bar, we stopped at a diner on our way home because we hadn't eaten. We were talking about the topic of meeting people from OKC, and Rider brought up Alex (the guy who I went on a couple of almost-dates with about a year and a half ago) and his now-wife.

The situation, as I recall it, was that Alex's wife had a LDR boyfriend, and she had goaded him into dating to balance things out. I met up with them at a group event, and I hit it off well with him, while she went outside and sort of freaked out for a while. But subsequently, she friended both me and Rider on Facebook, and we had some IM chats. I went out with Alex a few more times, but in a friends capacity, as she wasn't feeling comfortable.

What she told me over IM at the time was that she felt threatened because, in her mind, I was the physically ideal woman. (For the record, I find this opinion pretty laughable.) Thus, she felt like I might take her man away by virtue of my looks. I was really confused by this.

First of all, she was totally gorgeous—curvier in a way that I have always envied, well dressed, a classically beautiful face. I don't think that ANYONE would say that she was not beautiful. Second of all, while I found her at-the-time fiancé to be extremely aesthetically pleasing, there was zero spark on my end. His beauty did not translate into sexual attraction for me.

So, anyway, Rider brought that whole thing up, and we were discussing it, and he said that he sort of understood—that if I started dating or was suddenly interested in a person who HE thought to be Mr. Perfect, looks-wise, he might feel weird too.

And I thought about it, and...it's like...Rider IS my perfect. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not under the illusion that the general populace would give him a supermodel rating if they were flipping through images and scoring people 1 to 10. But the things that make him HIM are the things that I love the most. And some of those things are the very same things that a critical stranger might judge to be an imperfection. They turn me on and thrill me. I know for a fact that he feels the same way about me—he's mentioned that he thinks I never really need to fix my crooked bottom teeth, and that he loves my smile line.

So any "perfect-looking guy" that I meet couldn't possibly be a threat to that. It's never an either/or question—if to be with someone else, I had to give up access to that Rider-perfection, I just wouldn't do it! And, of course, it's not like I'm not interested in other hot guys—Beckett's beauty drove me insane with crushiness—but I can't imagine that anyone's potential "flawlessness" could be any kind of threat to Rider.

It just seems like, when you love someone, that love is a thing that exists on its own terms, and is unshakeable by anyone else's beauty (or other qualities). And attraction is not tied to (perceived) perfection, I don't think. I think I'd be wary of someone who seemed to spend enough time aspiring to look physically perfect that s/he actually managed to achieve it!

And when I went out with Alex, I could see the love he had for his partner, and how nice of a guy he is. So it seems sad to me that that woman was threatened by the way that I look. I feel a sorrow for her that she didn't recognize that, surely, her partner felt a similar sort of love for every piece of her that I feel for every piece of Rider (and he feels for every piece of me).

We can all be so hard on ourselves sometimes. I used to do it too, after being with a series of men who were hypercritical of me. I would feel ashamed of the pieces of me that I deemed imperfect, but I had people actively making me feel that way. This is part of why I feel like it's so important to be picky—even pickier than I have been—about who I date. I would never put up with that now.

Digression over. It's just something that was on my mind.

 

[Reverie]

A few setbacks and annoyances today.

I just got a super apologetic call from the property manager saying that he messed up and that technically he was only supposed to hold the apartment for ten days after receiving the deposit, and wanting to know if he can start the lease ten days from yesterday which I guess would be 12/20.

I told him that's not what we agreed to or signed, and that the date of our arrival was in all of our emails to him. I told him I'd be willing to start it on the 1st and pay the rent in advance, if it's about making sure we have paid the money on time, but I don't want to pay for nearly three weeks of not living there, and I also don't want our lease to run out ten days before the end of the month which could make it harder to find a new place at the end.

So he's communicating with the office, and again, I wait.

The second thing is that I called about my car, and my mechanic was out sick today, so he's just getting to looking at the car today. This means it probably won't be fixed until tomorrow or Monday, because parts.

And the third thing is that one of my rabbits appears to have developed an eye infection, so I have to take him to the vet tomorrow. The earliest appointment I could get was 1 p.m., but with my car in the shop, and Rider having band practice at 2, that means that I'll have to Uber one or both ways—necessitating that I check in with the driver to make sure they'll let me in with a bunny carrier.

Added on top of that that one of my pet peeves was stirred up today, and I am in a bit of a grumpikins mood. The pet peeve is this:

So, for some reason, Rider has a number of friends who used to go by weird nicknames that sound like they should be names of pets. These aren't the exact ones, but imagine things like Doodles, Pumpkin, and Mogwai. In at least two out of these three cases (the cases of my former roommate Anna, and the girl Rider and I were crushing on, Candace), these friends have attempted to shed their silly nicknames as they've moved further into adulthood. Nearing 30, Anna and Candace don't want to be Doodles and Pumpkin anymore. They want their grown-up, pretty, feminine names back.

Problem is, Rider is hella stubborn about making the switch. He refuses to do it, saying, "Oh, well, then they shouldn't have introduced themselves to me that way to begin with. Now they're stuck with it." I find that a) disrespectful, b) confusing, because then I call them by one name and he calls them by another, and c) just downright grating—it's so stupid and unsexy to call grown-ass women by animal or toddler nicknames. He says it's preferable because then he doesn't confuse them in conversation with other people of the same name. I asked him, "At what price?"

So where that has reared its head today, is that Elise has a nickname—let's call it Mogwai—and Rider has been using it with me when talking about scheduling with her. And it is irritating the ever-loving shit out of me. I haven't spoken to her about it, not knowing her well at all, but I intend to ask her which name she prefers. If it is indeed Mogwai...well, score one point for Rider and one against her, I guess.

I know it is dumb for me to be getting irritated about this. After all, in a little while, we'll be nearly 3,000 miles from all of these people and their terrible, inescapable nicknames. But for now, whenever Rider says, "I'm talking to Mogwai about Monday; she's seeing if she might be free," I die a little inside. Whyyy? Just call her Elise. I'm trying to get into a mindset where I can decide if I'm attracted to her. Calling her a dog or cat's name in the third person is decidedly NOT HELPING. LOL

As for last night, it was kind of weird, too. We went to the BBQ at Shana and Al's, and we brought Allie. Allie met us at our place in advance, and she and Rider pre-gamed a little beforehand. I was really excited to finally spend some real time with Allie.

When we got there, it turned out that they have a new roommate and Shana said we couldn't play music in the house, only out back. This meant that I couldn't play my bass, as it is electric. So it was only Rider and Al on acoustic guitars and the rest of us singing along. That was a little disappointing.

But the main thing that made it weird was how much of a jerk Shana was being. Al was in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on a dish in the slow cooker, while Shana was outside with two girl friends while the one friend waited for her chicken to finish on the grill. Shana and Al's old roommate—a really, really sweet lesbian girl who is also quite young (maybe 23 or 24)—called Al and asked what he was doing since she was in the neighborhood, and he said they were having some people over and invited her to come by.

When she arrived, Shana didn't know he'd invited her, and she flew into a rage. She apparently had some sort of problem with the girl now, which no one can figure out what it is, and she was just being really rude, flouncing away from the table when the girl walked up, and getting into a screaming match with Al about inviting the girl in front of Rider and Allie and a couple of other friends (I was out back at the time). It was intensely awkward, and I had suggested that maybe we just pack the group up and head out to the brewery, but Rider was adamant that we stay and play music—if Al wanted us there, it didn't matter how pissed Shana was.

So the party kind of divided into factions. Shana and two friends hung out mostly in Shana's bedroom, and Rider and I hung out with Al and one other friend outside, while Allie consoled the former roommate in the dining room; she's apparently dealing with stuff at home as well. I guess she moved back into her parents' place but her mom is being terrible about her being gay and won't accept it, which is why she was looking for people to hang out with that night. And then only to get rejected by her (supposed) friend, as well, ugh!

At one point, I went to cross through the bedroom to access the bathroom, and Shana said (in a bitchy tone), "You know, you could use the other bathroom." Like she didn't want me in her room. To be honest, I hadn't even known there was another accessible bathroom. Of all the times I've been to their house, that was the one they showed me and the one I always used.

And then at a different point, Rider was talking about how much he was going to miss hanging out at their place with them, and Shana called out from the other side of the yard (where she and the two friends were hanging for a bit), "Don't go, then!"

I was really disappointed by the whole thing. I have known the entire time that Shana is a little crazy. Rider sort of holds her at arm's length after some of the stuff he's been through with her over the past ten years or however long they've been friends, but he has become very close with Al since Shana started dating him about two years ago. They all used to hang out pretty frequently—nearly weekly—when Rider and Claire were dating, since Shana is friends with Claire. It's been slightly less than that since they broke up, but the bromance remains strong.

I've always taken Shana on what she's shown me (and she was always nice to me) even though Rider told me not to trust her very far. I guess this is the moment that she has chosen to let her true colors shine through. I had been hoping that maybe her stable relationship with Al, who is a really nice guy, had helped her heal whatever issues she had, since I've been acquainted with her for nearly two years and had never seen her being a jerk like that before.

Despite all that drama, Rider still had a really good time. I decided to hang back and let him do his thing as late as he wanted to. It got quite late, and also quite cold outside. I fetched a throw blanket from the couch inside and wrapped it around me and the former roommate, who was waiting on a ride from another friend so she could crash his couch. I figured that if Shana threw a fit about the blanket, if it was my fault that it was out there, she couldn't be too mean to the other girl. She didn't say anything, at least.

Eventually, Al called it a night. I drove a drunk Rider home. On our way out, Shana seemed softened a little, and she said that hopefully we could do the brewery one last time before we leave town. Maybe the other friends (who are both very sweet) talked some sense into her.

On the plus side of things, though, as Allie was leaving, she told Rider and me that she wants to hang out tonight. Tonight was going to be our date night (dinner and a movie), but Allie is always welcome on our dates, especially since we have limited time left to see her. She's supposedly coming to Rider's show tomorrow night too! Three nights in a row of Allie? Unprecedented! I'm looking forward to it.

Another good thing was that yesterday we bought Rider's ticket to accompany me on my business trip to Chicago next month. We have friends there, so it should be fun. Cold, but fun! I used my airline miles so it cost next to nothing.