stfu

Three years later. Am I really back? Really truly?

Your guess is as good as mine. But Noah Grey is back, which is something I never thought would happen, so in this day and age, I guess anything goes.

I've moved twice since the last entry here. The first time I moved, something shut down in me, and the second time I moved, something else also went dormant. So many other new things had popped into my life both times, though, so I don't think I really noticed the losses until it was late-- too late.

Those losses have undergone reversals in recent months, though, and as horribly cliche as it sounds, for the first time in a long time, I feel complete and alive again. I'm actually giving a shit again, which, yes, also means that I'm experiencing all the unhappiness and misery and fuck-everything moments that one successfully avoids when one successfully detaches from the world, but, hey, trade-offs, right? Right.

On a side note: goddamn, this 2007 site design is making me wince.

It's weird. I keep thinking that I'm falling back into depression, but at the same time, how I feel these days? What it really reminds me of is the period of time when I was on antidepressants.

Either way, the bottom line is that I've detached. It frightens me a little how abruptly I shut off. I didn't think I had it in me anymore to close everything down like that.

I wish I knew how to turn things back on.

I opened the door to the laundry room tonight (with the intention of doing laundry) and almost gagged (incidentally, I came home after a weekend-long absence some weeks back and had the same reaction upon walking into the kitchen, but that was the kitchen. Bad smells in a kitchen aren't *that* shocking). Turns out there were clothes in the washer that had been washed and then left to sit for-- fuck knows how long. It smelled something like a week.

Point 1: I could re-run the washer with the molding load to try and wash out the smell, then stick them in the dryer so I could do my own laundry.

Counterpoint: I'm not her mother and I am not doing her laundry for her.

Point 2: I could immediately deposit the molding clothes into the dryer so I could do my own laundry.

Counterpoint: See above, plus I had no intention whatsoever of touching those clothes. Seriously, they reeked.

Point 3: I could do nothing and wait for her to come home to take care of it herself and wait to do my laundry until she'd resolved the situation.

Counterpoint: Going this route might very well mean the washer won't be free for another few days.

As it turns out, I went with option/Point 3. As it turns out, she didn't come home tonight. As it will probably turn out, I will probably just go with option/Point 1 because I really, desperately need to do laundry soon, but doing so will annoy the shit out of me. And I'm feeling petty and irritable enough that I'm tempted to just take everything out of the washer and dump it on the floor. I honestly had no idea that an abandoned washer could produce those kinds of smells.

Feeling overwhelmingly vulnerable and wishing I could take it back. You there, girl: where has your pride gone?

Is it love? No.

Oh, it's something much, much more. "Love" doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what this is, this thing that we have between us, this thing we have unexpectedly found ourselves in. But for all other intents and purposes: yes. Yes, I'm in love with him, and miracle of miracles, he's in love with me, too.

So there's that.

It's not that I've never had someone care this much or want to see me this much, this badly. But no, I've never had someone make this kind of an effort for me.

*I'm* always the one doing the ridiculous things. Getting on a plane to fly somewhere for an hour before turning around and flying back home. Getting in a car (usually mine, sometimes not) at the drop of a hat to drive for hours and hours just to see someone and have lunch and then going home. Cutting a trip a few days early to jetset home in time for a birthday morning surprise. Et cetera.

But I've never been on this side of the fence. I've never been the one left to wait and wonder, to wonder if there's traffic on the freeways and that'll push back the arrival time, to wait for the phone call asking to be picked up from the airport.

It's... interesting.

I dreamed I was watching a parade of people riding llamas single-file down a suburban neighborhood street.

I'm so angry at myself right now.

It was silly and lame and horribly cheesy, but all the same. It's a memory and it's mine and I can't help but adore it.

We were in the car and he'd assigned music selection duties to me. After one or two musicals, I switched over to the "Aladdin" soundtrack. And eventually, "A Whole New World" started to play.

Yes. We sang. It was a duet.

What can I say? I'm a sucker in a lot of ways. It's something I'd wanted to happen for half my life, and all of a sudden, it was happening with the most random person. Disgustingly adorable, I know. But fuck, the harmony was spot-on. You can't beat that.

(Now to get someone to do "Light My Candle" with me. Ha.)

It's like fainting-goat syndrome, or opossum syndrome. Every time I simply think about thinking or writing about it, I can feel my brain start to shut down and I immediately have this pressing urge to curl up in a ball and take a nap. Stress overload. Times like these I wish I were a mere primitive beast with only five states of being: hungry(/thirsty), tired, sexual, fearful and content.

Confession: I still feel really, really weird whenever someone pays for me (even if it's just covering and I pay them back later; especially if they're just paying for me, period, no discussion about it whatsoever). Not because there's an implied sense of future entitlement or obligation or anything like that. I'm just not used to it, I guess.

No man is an island, but it seems I sure as shit do try.