The Best Life Yet

Yeah, I see what ya mean, Beckett is a cutie!

Well. I see two very pretty humans in that photo. ;)

I had a very similar moral quandary with a touring musician, myself. (Actually...no, not THAT similar, we didn't have a relationship like you & Beckett. But similar in the logistical structure of his present day stuff.) He was interested in BDSM and in poly, so we started hanging out and I got him a fire lesson with an amazing woman at a very cool space up in Denver last year. I bottomed for it, of course. Then he's like, "I know what you look like naked." Which was about the silliest thing I've ever heard, and I told him so. Told him he ought to go to a few parties, you stop caring about naked people pretty quick.

Later there were more opportunities for stuff, and more stuff happened... But I was uncomfortable then and now, because he has a girlfriend back home. He loves her dearly, she's a wonderful human, and I know he hasn't told her about me, nor about another woman who was actually his lover on the other side of the country for a good amount of time. He had an interest in poly but he wasn't brave enough to come clean to gf. She has depression, what if this devastates her? And what if she wants other partners, too, can I handle that? He couldn't get past that stuff.

I didn't go as far with him as I might have, but far enough to have some qualms, y'know? So yeah... Well, I've got pics on my FB of me doing the "photo op with musician guy" hug pic. No biggie, we all do it. His girlfriend, not long ago, friended me on Facebook, AND liked those pictures.

I'm not sure what to think. I just haven't been talking to either of them. But if she ever decides to ask me questions, I won't lie to her.

Sucks that so many folks can't just come clean and be poly. *sigh* I dunno.
 
I just bought presents for Oona's and Beckett's birthdays (they are within days of each other in the coming weeks). I got Oona a pretty designer necklace that was not too expensive, and I designed a t-shirt for Beckett with stylized versions of his two cats and the wording "CAT LIFE" on it. I love designing t-shirts for people. It's a fun, creative gift, and generally under $30 the place that I get them. I made a few for The Ex back in the day from the same place. I love giving gifts!
 
Wow, that was an intense story! I was at the edge of my seat reading it. Very interesting developments with Beckett. :) And having these intense feelings but also knowing that acting on them wouldn't be entirely ethical...man, that's hard. I love your writings always, but this story was particularly grasping!
 
Mya said:
Wow, that was an intense story! I was at the edge of my seat reading it. Very interesting developments with Beckett. :) And having these intense feelings but also knowing that acting on them wouldn't be entirely ethical...man, that's hard. I love your writings always, but this story was particularly grasping!
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Thanks! I was on the edge of my seat LIVING it, haha. Good to know that it came across in the writing.

I was thinking more about it, doing that thing that I do where I tweak parameters in my head and see how slight adjustments would make me feel and, it's like...if this were a NEW person I met and was attracted to who was in a questionable ethical situation, it would be TOTALLY different.

But it's not.

It's Beckett. Who I have history with from over a year ago, before there was any inkling of this boyfriend even being a thing. Who stopped me in my tracks the moment I saw him, like that "Dreamweaver" scene in Wayne's World and gave me the most memorable first-meeting encounter of my life.

Some new person willing to step right up to the line of cheating with me (who would also be a new person to them) I could easily write off as unethical and smarmy. But with Beckett, I can empathize, because I am in it too. I'm right there on the other side, feeling the same pull and chemistry, sharing the same compelling memories of our time spent together. So I can't cast a side-eye at him over it. I, too, want to get as close to that line as possible. Hell, I want to cross it. Even though I shouldn't. And regardless of whether or not I actually will. I want to.

It's ridiculous how intense it is. I've thought more than once about how it's a good thing that I was already with Rider and committed to poly when I met Beckett, because this thing with Beckett is the exact kind of thing that inspires me to do foolish things that I later regret—the total reshuffling of principles and life plans. There are certain areas where I am just weak.

For example, I can say with 100% certainty that, if I were single or just casually dating people when I met Beckett, and if he'd wanted monogamy—even knowing that monogamy doesn't work for me long-term and I'd be doomed later—I probably would have agreed to it. YES, even knowing it'd be doomed. YES, even knowing it was dumb.

I probably would have let the whole stupid thing derail my plans of moving and everything; I had a competing job prospect/offer in Beckett's city, actually, for more money than I'm making now, at the same time that I was negotiating this move west with my current company. It was only three days before I met Beckett that I'd been talking to my contact at the other company about the details. One of the things that tipped the balance in favor of my current company was that I loathed the thought of the commute from the city where I lived with Rider over to the nearby city where the job (and Beckett) resided. I contemplated moving to that city, but then Rider's commute would have been the hellish one, or we would have been that far apart from each other.

So, really, Rider is the only thing that "saved" me from that city and that job and, probably, making stupid mono-mistakes. I can very easily picture a much-different alternative present that would seem idyllic in its own right...right up until mono-expiration-date.

Yeah, I suppose I can excuse Beckett his decision of agreeing to mono when he's not actually fully mono. Because I know I'm capable of similar missteps. And I can excuse his pushing the line. Because I wanna push it too. I'm not sure that any of that makes anything better, but it really helps take some of the stress away to reserve judgment and just see us both as flawed-but-wonderful creatures who are still trying to figure out what is best for them.

And I will just leave this song here to illustrate my ongoing confusion.

Seapony – "Into the Sea"

When I was on the ground
and you looked upside down
the noise was all around
just like the rain falls down
falls down on me
falls down on me
into the sea
into the sea.
I wonder, if you...

We didn't make a sound.
No one could show me how.
We didn't make a sound.
I still can't figure out
what I have found
what I have found
when you're around
when you're around.
I wonder, if you...

I hope, I hope we never
feel so alone together.
There are still some things
some things that I can't see.
When we walk down the street
there is a part of me
where there's no light
where there's no light
Where it is night
Where it is night.
I wonder, if you...
 
Because NRE is making it impossible for me to actually focus today (stupid NRE), I dug up some old posts that tell the me+Beckett backstory. Re-reading that stuff felt CRAZY! And to be reminded of his exact wording of things last year. Linking here in case anyone else wants backstory...

Meeting

Unexpectedly awesome first date

Super-long story about second date - Pt. 1

Super-long story about second date - Pt. 2

Super-long story about second date - Pt. 3

Super-long story about second date - Pt. 4

Third date - the "falling"

The unexpected dumping

There, NRE, is that good enough? Can I get back to work now? LOL
 
I'm obsessing slightly less today, which is a good thing. I think the chemical disturbance of the weekend is finally wearing off a little. NRE is truly a mixed bag, and it's definitely close to all downside in the situation I'm in, after the person leaves town, and when there is actually not a real "R" in the NRE at all.

Rider and I had a good conversation about it all last night, on our way to and from dinner. (I just had to get Indian food after Mags mentioned it!) I was telling him that I feel like my brain is trying to solve an impossible Rubik's cube—it's just turning and turning and turning looking for configurations to make a thing work that will probably never work. There are so many "even if"s.

I, in my typical casting-too-far-into-the-future fashion, was agonizing aloud about Beckett. "OMG there's only next month's visit planned and then who even knows the next time I'll see him again!"

"Calm down," Rider said. "You're not even in a relationship with this guy. He's in a mono relationship with someone else!" And it's true.

It's also true that we live on opposite sides of the continent from each other. And that he doesn't even think he could do poly.

There is no Rubik's cubing my way out of those things. Shift-click-shift-click, when we are together, one side's colors are cohesive; to see only that side, you'd think this makes sense. Shift-click-shift-click, when we are apart, everything is impossible and all mixed up, shift-click-shift-click, nothing makes sense. There is no solution.

Say everything got as good as it even could—say he decides that he can handle poly after all, that it fits his non-monogamous actions better and he wants to be ethical. What then? He's rich but already has to travel too much. I'm not rich and have limited time off of work. Even under idyllic circumstances, it seems like the most reasonable frequency to travel that far would be less than half a dozen times a year. There is no solution.

So the question is not "how do I find a way to make this work?"; it is "how do I find a way to let it go?" when, like a stubborn child, I don't want to, and when there is still a month till the next time I see him? The solution is obviously going back to reading my meditation book again and to be in this moment rather than spinning myself out thinking of next month or what comes after. I'll pack the book for my business trip this weekend.

Still, there is something so rare there.

From the moment I saw him, he's been inside my very bones. That first lightning strike. Somehow dreaming of him in the two-month interim before we ever had our first date—dreaming of how it would be to kiss him and roll around with him. Bringing him into my bed on our first date, which I almost never do, and how it was so close to what I'd dreamed. The intensity of the brief fling that followed. How he said I was perfect for him and everything he'd been looking for. How my heart broke when he ended it because of that. How I'd dreamt of him repeatedly in the year after that, even when I barely spoke to him anymore—he'd surface as a dream-lover, a companion in unconsciousness. The seeming time-travel I experienced Friday night when he pulled me in and held me. The look in his eyes when he looks at mine.

I've never experienced anything like that combination of factors. Especially the lightning strike and the involuntary repeating dream-track. What the fuck IS it, even? It feels like fairy tales and legends. "Love at first sight" and black magic and other such malarkey. Things I don't believe in. Things that don't exist. I know that it's somehow the product of chemistry and circumstance—all an illusion, and a doomed one, at that—and it's just frustrating that it seems like there's nothing to be done about it.

Ugh, I'm being so dramatic! But it feels dramatic. Anyway, I'm actually going to get back to work now. Which is way better than I did yesterday...
 
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I didn't know the Oatmeal had an instagram! (I am a bit of a luddite and have never gotten into instagram, FB eats all my time...) Thank you!
 
So I spent some time processing with chick friends (Oona and Kelly) today before bringing up something to Rider that was bugging me, which is this:

It makes me feel feelings when I am over on Beckett's FB page, commenting on his posts, and Rider follows me over there and starts responding to my comments. Yes, they were acquainted (only in a "knows who this person is in the scene" way) before I met either of them, though they didn't become Facebook friends till Beckett and I were a thing. And it's not surprising that Rider wants to forge an independent friendship with Beckett. It doesn't bother me when they are talking on some thread that I'm not involved in.

But when I go to comment on something that Beckett has posted, and suddenly Rider is posting right behind me—sometimes multiple comments in a row before either Beckett or I has responded—I just feel cringey about it.

I suspect that it gives the impression that there is some impervious UNITED FRONT OF RIDER+REVERIE and that we, as a unit, are barreling down on Beckett. That is the last thing I want! Beckett is already poly-skittish. I don't want him to have reason to believe that he could never have some part of me that didn't come with Rider right there jumping all over it.

For all my kitchen-table leanings, I don't think I'd want to enter into a "situation" with a person where I couldn't think of or have a conversation with [potential partner] without [partner's partner] being like, "Hey, guys, what's up? Can I play too?!" So, extrapolating my own stance out to Beckett, and I just cringe when Rider does that. I don't want Beckett to feel like I just kind of come bundled with Rider attached at the hip. I don't want an overbearing "us" to spook him and scare him away.

I think of my "thing" with Beckett as this beautiful little baby plant (maybe a perennial, since it seems to re-grow from time to time) just emerging from the soil, still all tender and uncertain, and my relationship with Rider is this huge, towering established plant that is threatening to accidentally block out all the sunlight—not even on purpose, just because it wants to check out every section of the garden.

So, since I'm the gardener, I have to step in and be protective of the little plant and make sure it gets what it needs to survive. And I do FEEL protective as hell about that little plant. I don't want to have to prune the established plant for the little one to thrive, but I will if that's what it takes. My relationship with Rider is resilient and can handle a smaller share of sunlight, if that's what it takes to make sure the little plant gets enough.

So that was basically the conversation I had to have with Rider, just in the name of being 100% transparent with him about how I was feeling. I was sure to add the caveats that I didn't want him to feel like he had to act in a way that was not natural to him, and that I absolutely knew that it wasn't something that he was trying to do on purpose—I know him well, and he is just trying to be friendly. I also said that I could be totally wrong about how it comes across, but that it was just a possibility or suspicion that I had.

I might not have even been thinking about it or prickly about it if it hadn't been for a few small things that happened last night.

Rider and I were headed out to a showing of a touring indie film made by a guy Rider and Sam went to school with. Before the show, we'd walked by a candy shop, and I got really excited because, at Disney, I'd wanted to buy Beckett candy for his birthday (when I'd seen a candy shop there) but he'd told me not to—that it'd be too expensive. This seemed like a perfect opportunity!

The front of the shop was decked out all whimsically, so I wanted to photograph it (and send the photo to Beckett). Rider wanted to pose in front of it, so I got a couple with him in front, then let him go inside so I could keep shooting it without humans in it. But Rider kept photobombing it. I asked him to please stop, that I wanted a photo without him in it, and he joked that photos are better when he's photobombing them.

I hadn't said out loud that I wanted the photo for Beckett, but I was frustrated because I don't want ALL my photos (on social media or otherwise) to have Rider in them. Sometimes I just want to appreciate the aesthetic of the thing I'm photographing! I recalled that I'd had a problem last time I was corresponding a lot with Beckett, with Rider trying to jump into all of my selfies, too, so that it was hard to get a good one to send him that wasn't a "couple pic" with my other partner. Ugh! So I was mildly peeved by that—I want to send the message to Beckett "I am thinking of you!" not "I am out on cool adventures with my other partner and you don't get to be here!" But I let it go.

I ended up finding a really cool lunchbox inside the candy shop that had Beckett's favorite vintage show on it, so it felt like it was meant to be that I buy it and fill it with candy for him. I was super excited! I told Rider I'd buy him whatever he wanted, too. I'd been good about saving money lately and had a little extra to spend, and I loved the idea of spending it on candy for my loves.

But then when Rider and I were in the theater, before the lights went down, I wanted to text Beckett about finding the candy shop and send him the picture I'd finally managed to take. Rider was being...weird. I had grabbed my phone and politely asked him to excuse me for a moment, and he gave me a very strange look and asked if I was OK. I told him I just wanted to send Beckett this thing really fast and then I'd be back to real life.

He laid his head on my shoulder and sort of started head-snuggling me, and it seemed completely inappropriate during my trying to send a text to another interest. I don't like it when I feel like people can read over my shoulder when I'm writing, whether they are trying to or not. Whether it's even something private or not. Like, I'll TELL Rider a lot of times what I've said to Beckett, or what I've written here, or what I've said to Oona. But I don't like it to be up for scrutiny in real time!

I kind of felt like he was...I don't know the right way to put it...cock-blocking me with affection? Figuratively, of course, because Beckett and I aren't fucking. But a low-grade type of cock-blocking all the same. Even though Rider has always encouraged me+Beckett. And even though Rider later offered to run an errand for me to help get the lunchbox package to Beckett. It just felt like despite the fact that we live together and spend every night together and I am constantly hanging out with him and interacting with him, he was using affection and joking and playfulness to intervene in my directing some of my attention to someone else.

Which sucked because it made me feel a little smothered. I love Rider dearly and I want to associate his affection with only good things, not with it being a fire blanket thrown over my overtures toward someone else. I don't ever want his affection to be associated with negativity or cock-blocking.

I didn't say anything about that stuff at the time, though, for a few reasons. #1 is that I didn't want to put a damper on our indie-film adventure. #2 is that he really had been extremely tolerant about my upending my entire life all weekend to accommodate Beckett.

And #3 is that I figured there was a possibility that it was all just my perception; Rider is, in general, a very playful and affectionate person, and it's possible that he would have been doing that same stuff anyway and it was just coincidence that it was interfering with my Beckett stuff, and that I was hypersensitive to it only because of that interference. I didn't want to be wrong and have Rider feel self-conscious or persecuted just because I was being hypersensitive.

Also, none of that stuff actually affected anything on Beckett's end. I did eventually get the picture of the candy shop without Rider in it. I did eventually send the text. Beckett was none the wiser that there had been static on my end. But when the Facebook thing happened today, that other stuff had laid enough of a foundation of my feeling uncomfortable that I had to say something about it. Suddenly it was out into the realm where it could affect Beckett. So I had to step in.

(continued...)
 
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(...continued from previous)

Luckily, Rider was very understanding and said he sees my point about how the Facebook stuff could come across to Beckett, and how I thought that it might spook him. He said that, yes, he was just trying to build an independent friendship with Beckett because he knows how important Beckett is to me. He said that he will try to be more aware of these things and how his online interactions could be interpreted.

I dunno, maybe I am being hypersensitive and hypervigilant here. But I know that Rider and I, relationship-wise, are kind of a juggernaut. I would like to mitigate the negative effects of that on other partners as much as possible. I brought this up to Oona, and she said this:

I think you're bringing up a good point that might need more examining—you two live together in a one-bedroom, you're engaged to be married (even though you'll still have poly rules)...you spend more time together than most couples I know...I would IMAGINE it would be particularly hard for someone to ever feel like they could "get in" there or be AS important to you.
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So it made me feel like my concerns are valid. I don't want Beckett, or anyone, to feel like they are just some...easily disposable add-on to an existing rock-solid, impervious thing. I want Beckett to know that there are pieces of me that he can access that are just me and not some mutant me+Rider hybrid created over the course of the past three years. When I am with Beckett, I am completely with him. I text Rider only when I go to the bathroom, and, even then, I keep it brief.

(And lest that sound unfair to Rider, since I was texting Beckett while out with him, remember that I have had only 33 hours with Beckett in over a year. I have easily spent 33 HUNDRED hours with Rider in the past year. Not even kidding.)

I want Beckett to know that, if he wanted to, and if we could overcome the distance problems and the other issues, he could create something real with me. He's not just some beautiful plaything that I amuse myself with when one of us is on vacation. He's not just some optional bonus round in a game where the real levels that count for game advancement are the Rider levels. He's real and big and important to me. I love him.

So, yeah, I will stake out and defend that little plot where that plant may choose to grow. If that means being sensitive and vigilant while the plant is in its most tender stages of growth, then I will err on the side of too sensitive and too vigilant rather than risk the potential damage done by the opposite. It seems important.
 
I seem to remember that Rider had a hard time dealing with you interacting with Beckett on what Rider perceived as his time when you were officially dating Beckett (I could be wrong though). Since you and Rider spent pretty much all the time outside of work together, it created issues back then, also, if I'm remembering correctly. I wonder if something about Beckett brings out this reaction in Rider, because it doesn't seem like he does the same type of actions with other people, at least not from your blog. For what it's worth, while I was reading your post, I didn't think you were over-reacting. My first thought was that those behaviors, at least to me, would feel like Rider's way of asserting his presence in your life.
 
Hannahfluke said:
I seem to remember that Rider had a hard time dealing with you interacting with Beckett on what Rider perceived as his time when you were officially dating Beckett (I could be wrong though). Since you and Rider spent pretty much all the time outside of work together, it created issues back then, also, if I'm remembering correctly. I wonder if something about Beckett brings out this reaction in Rider, because it doesn't seem like he does the same type of actions with other people, at least not from your blog. For what it's worth, while I was reading your post, I didn't think you were over-reacting. My first thought was that those behaviors, at least to me, would feel like Rider's way of asserting his presence in your life.
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Yes, it's true that back when Beckett and I were dating, Rider and I had a couple of tense moments where I had to kind of remind Rider that my time was my time, and that if I were going to date someone other than Rider, since it couldn't be cut from work time and since Rider and I spent close to all our non-work time together, it would necessarily be cut from the time I spent with Rider.

Specifically, I remember him getting weird about my researching and then practicing roller skating in preparation for my roller skate date with Beckett. I asked him why my trying out a new skill in preparation for doing it with someone else bothered him any more than if I were to be doing it to satisfy my own independent curiosity, and he had done some introspection and admitted that he was worried that I'd like Beckett more than him—specifically that he was intimidated because Beckett is a lot wealthier than him and that Beckett is also very good-looking.

I can see how those things might trigger insecurities, especially back then when Beckett was only a 45-minute drive away, but these days, Beckett is an expensive 5-hour plane ride away AND Rider and I are engaged to be married in less than six months. It's not like Beckett poses any realistic threat to my relationship with Rider. It's not like he even did then, but certainly even less now!

It's true that Rider has nothing but compersion for my connections with other people. Beckett alone has ever given him the heebie jeebies. Of course, Beckett is also the one I've connected with on the most levels. With Jake, the emotional and intellectual connection was there, but the sex was lacking. With Sam, the emotional and sexual connections were good, but he's so quiet (and our strengths lie in such different areas) that our connection is not particularly intellectually stimulating. Beckett checks all the boxes, and when everything is connected like that I light up like the temple at the end of the Fifth Element, LOL.

I am sure that he's unused to seeing me in that state, since it is so rare for me to find in my insane level of pickiness.
 
That all makes sense. I would just keep in mind that while you know there's no way you'd leave Rider for Beckett and that, given the situation with the distance, he's not really a "threat" to your relationship with Rider, feelings aren't logical, so you might be dealing with this again, especially right after you see Beckett and are all excited about the connection again. I think Rider's emotions probably make it feel like Beckett is a threat to your relationship, even if logically he knows that isn't true, hence why threat is in quotes.
 
I am on a business trip and dead tired. I got to the airport near my home around sunrise yesterday. I got on my connecting flight (three time zones later) around sunset. It was dark by the time I landed.

Friday was Oona's birthday dinner and then packing, and I got only about four hours of sleep because of how early I had to get up. Last night I was jet-lagged and obsessing over Beckett and I got only four hours of sleep because I was creeping through his old pics on Facebook while I binge-listened to the Serial podcast.

Today was work from 11:30 to 6:00 and then my evening did not go as planned. Beckett had put me in touch with a chick friend of his who lives in the city I am working in. She recommended a punk/metal bar and I went to their website, which promised a ton of good vegetarian grub. I got super excited about that.

Beckett said she thought I was cute and if it weren't for her having a boyfriend she would probably be all over me. I told him it doesn't really work that way for me—I'm too picky and like almost no one (in that way). I mentioned that he was the last new guy I'd slept with actually. He did the thing that he does sometimes where he just vanishes from the conversation despite reading the messages. I sent him a photo of me in work clothes because he gets a kick out of my "regular person costume" (which includes a brown wig) and he looked at it but didn't respond. That planted the first seeds of my bummer evening.

I was due to call my mom, and I ended up staying on the phone with her for almost an hour. It was nice but things haven't been going that great for her, and I feel bad for her.

Then I took a shower and got all made up, figuring I could take some cute selfies at the bar to send to Rider (and maybe Beckett if he emerged again). When I got outside to call my Uber, it was really cold. Stupid places that have real seasons, LOL. Cold makes me grumpy.

It only got worse from there. I got to the bar and they had stopped serving food in May but hadn't updated their website. Having Ubered all the way there, I figured I'd hang out and order something, so I got a NA beer. The bartender told me I could order food to be delivered there, so I did.

I should have just gone back to the hotel.

I tried to take cute selfies but the lighting in the bar made me appear far more lined and haggard than I think I do in real life. It was depressing. The food I ordered arrived just as some patrons at the near-empty bar decided they wanted to watch The Walking Dead. I watch that with Rider and didn't want it spoiled, so I was trying not to pay attention but then they were discussing it during the first commercial break so I had no choice but to watch it or have it spoiled. The food was nothing special.

About 2/3 of the way through the episode, some more people came into the bar and started playing some metal on the jukebox, which totally drowned out the TV. So, I didn't even get to finish the stupid episode that I hadn't wanted to even start watching in the first place. I sighed and turned my attention back to my phone.

The process of ordering the food, waiting for it, and trying to finish the episode up until that point had all made me stay out far longer than I'd wanted to be. I'd intended to get some work done in my room but it didn't look like there would be time.

By the time I got back to the hotel, I was freezing, grumpy about the bar/food/show, feeling ugly, missing Rider, missing my cat, missing Beckett and feeling disgruntled about my whole situation with him, and totally exhausted. I think my inability to deal well with all of these small irritants is probably a combo of the exhaustion and the fact that I am about due to get hormonal.

I was still due to have sexy videochat with Rider though. Rider told me we didn't have to do it if I was feeling out of sorts, but I wanted to rally. I blowdried my entire body in order to get warm (it worked!), got naked, and read some erotica to amp myself up. Having Rider on the Skype screen improved my mood immeasurably, so now I am only tired and no longer grumpy.

I sent my boss an email saying the work I was going to do would have to wait until tomorrow, truthfully citing sleep deprivation and jet lag as major factors.

And now I am going the fuck to sleep. -_- zzz
 
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Still dead tired. About to get the last of some work done so that I can get what will probably be 5 or 6 piddly hours of sleep before a 22-hour day. Shoot me.

At least I got to Skype with Rider for about 15 minutes, and Beckett texted me back twice. And at least tomorrow I will sleep in my own bed, albeit not until very late.

Adulting is hard.
 
I am on a plane back home. I bought the in-flight wi-fi because I'm allowed, but it's HELLA expensive. I usually don't bother to buy it when it's this expensive ($34?!) just out of respect for my company, but this is, overall, a 22-hour day for me on what ended up being only four hours of sleep, so I fucking deserve it.

I thought I was going to sleep on this plane, but I actually caught a catnap on the last leg and now feel pretty alert. I was DEAD earlier, though—super delirious. It's been 3 out of the last 4 days with only 4 hours of sleep.

Despite being an EARLY, sleep-deprived, and jam-packed busy day, it's been a relatively all right one. I sampled some of the famous local cuisine on my lunch break, and then I hit the airport candy shop before the first flight and treated myself to some chocolate. I've been back and forth with Rider and Beckett all day. Beckett is being far more responsive by text than usual.

I am pretty excited to work from home tomorrow. It means I can go over to the post office on my break and mail Beckett's lunchbox full of candy. His birthday is next week and I want to make sure that everything gets to him slightly early so that he can open it on time or even early if he wants. I am super, SUPER excited for him to get the t-shirt I designed, and that's supposed to ship out on Thursday.

Speaking of birthdays, Rider is currently out at a birthday dinner for a girl he's befriended through an old friend of his who lives locally. He met her shortly after we moved and has been trying to get her to hang out ever since, but I guess she's super busy and also has health problems so she never takes him up on it. I was invited too, but obviously I am still in transit.

Rider has not mentioned this being an interest of his, but I would not be surprised if she actually was or ended up being because I don't think he tells me everyone that he thinks he could like. (Honestly, it is probably because it would take a huge chunk of each day, haha!)

Like, I recently found out that he'd offered to date the girl who runs that fan club for the band we recently went to see but hadn't mentioned it to me because she'd turned him down so he thought it wasn't worth mentioning. He said he didn't have an active crush on her but she's someone with whom he'd be willing to see where things went. She was asking if he knew anyone he could fix her up with and he offered himself! LOL. But she is self-described "old-fashioned and not into poly" so she said no.

I actually only found out about that exchange because I'd asked point-blank what his intentions with her were because they'd been exchanging playlists. I think Rider has a far bigger grey area than I do where possible interests are concerned. Like, we have an agreement to let each other know when we're interested in someone, and he said he actually wasn't until he found out she was looking, and then he remained not really interested when she wasn't, so he didn't break the agreement. It's just that there is a wide swath of people that may fall into that grey area of "I suppose I could..." for him.

So, anyway, it would not surprise me AT ALL if this chick fell into that same category of "neutral until inkling of possibility." There was a time not long ago when I might have been bothered by such ambiguity and the idea that any friendship of Rider's could suddenly take a turn toward more. The "not knowing" thing has historically been almost borderline a phobia of mine. But I feel completely peaceful and neutral right now.

To be honest, I think most of it is that I'm super distracted by Beckett right now. It's nice that NRE, or N(not-quite)RE or whatever the fuck it is can serve some kind of useful purpose aside from driving me actually insane. It seems to make me almost completely immune to unease on the Rider end of things. Like, "oh, yeah, Rider and I are just...together...nothing's gonna shake that so it doesn't matter so much what he does."

Maybe a perpetual distraction via Beckett is what I need in order to weather the uncertainty that is always hanging over my head as a condition of being with someone as attracted to everyone as Rider is. If I could just somehow set it up so that I could see Beckett often enough to keep that battery charged—this last trip has shown me that it doesn't even have to be sex, just closeness and connection—then maybe that would be some kind of elixir against fear.

Poly is weird, haha. And that's probably actually not going to happen (distance, expense, etc.) but it's a thought exercise.

Speaking of Beckett, I learned something new today on his Facebook page: THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO TATTOO THEIR FREAKING EYEBALLS! There's a girl he was in a photo with that I clicked on and her Instagram profile showed here with colored eyeballs. Like, the part that is usually white is a different color. And it was captioned that it was tattooed that way. Mind = blown! I looked up the procedure and saw that it is indeed permanent.

I really have to wonder at some people's life choices. That may seem like a good idea at 24, but she has pretty much doomed herself to a very limited selection of career paths and range of people who will find her attractive. Not to mention what if she gets sick of it? Regular tattoos you can get removed but these you can't. Craziness.

I've spent most of this flight talking to Rider's photographer friend who he watches wrestling with sometimes. He's wanted to shoot with me since we got to L.A., but I have been at a weight where I was not comfortable being photographed much until now. Since I'm feeling better, we've made plans to shoot on the 1st. I only hope that I did not gain anything back with all this traveling. I am a bit nervous since I haven't really done much modeling.

OK, my laptop is about to die so I had better wrap this up now.
 
I knew about the eyeballs thing. I cannot get far enough into the thought process to wonder about careers and attractiveness, because my initial "wall" to the notion is

OMG IF ANYONE CAME NEAR MY EYEBALL WITH A NEEDLE I WOULD PICK UP A CHAIR AND SMASH THEM FLAT AND THEN PUT THE CHAIR DOWN AND HIDE UNDERNEATH IT AND THEN RUN AWAY!!!

RUN AWAYYYY!!!

*imagine eyes peeking from under a bed and the sound of hyperventilating.*

I'm phobic about needles. Can ya tell? Oddly, actual normal tattoo needles used on skin, don't count. I have big tattoos on my ribs and one on my thigh. But the eyes? Oh, nope nope nope, screw that, uh uh...

Regarding Rider being attracted to lots of various people...

I wonder if that's a guy thing?

Like I have in my life got annoyed with a guy friend who commented on pretty much every female with a pulse that we saw on the street, to the point where it drove me nuts ("Yes dude, she is...symmetrical? I don't know what you want from me, here. Nothing about her interests me. She looks very mediocre.") And I've gotten annoyed at men for saying "I like redheads" or some such absurd generalization. Like, what about their PERSONALITY? What about other facets of them?? Body shape and skin tone, sense of humor, intelligence, overall life stability?? What about the 100 other checkboxes on the long form, damn it?? How can you be so indiscriminate!?

And after listening to guys talk about dating as a man...I can only figure that if they WERE as particular as we are, and narrowed their field from the get-go like we (women) tend to, then nobody would ever date anybody.

Men have to play the numbers game and be more open to anything up front, because women are so particular up front, gatekeepers if you will, wanting to analyze in detail and prepared to say no immediately at the faintest hint of a dealbreaker. I figure this gets balanced out by the relative ease that men have in preventing emotional attachment where they don't choose to bestow it. Once she says, "yes"...the power shifts into his hands.

Or something. It's a theory anyways? *shrug*
 
Ha. Knight has about the same level of phobia about eyes, to the point that even if we were watching TWD I'd probably tell him he needed to skip seeing the most recent episode because it'd probably make him ill, from everything I've heard.
 
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