Los Angeles - JK

J came by last night and picked up all the stuff he'd been storing at my place for the last 5-7 years or so.  He did so because I told him I needed him to get that stuff before I leave for my trip so I could use the space to store some other stuff which had piled up in my living area of my apartment.  I figured leaving that stuff out for J for when she sublets my place would be rude.  My place is messy enough without all that clutter.

With all that stuff gone I finally broke down all the boxes I had in my living room and put them in my storage closet (which now actually has some room in it).  Slowly but surely my place is starting to come together a bit.  I hope to have a bunch of my possessions pared down by the time J moves in, and she said she loves to clean, so hopefully my place will look pretty good by the time I get back.  Then I'll really begin getting rid of shit and hopefully reduce the amount of items I own to the absolute bare minimum.  I should have been doing that the last 2-3 months, but I'm fucking lazy.  The way to do it is in small portions, rather than thinking about it as all this shit I need to do.  It's easier to just say "today I'm going to address this small corner."

Yesterday K emailed me and it was the first contact I'd had from her in about two months or so.  A little backstory with K: we met online about 3 years ago and went out on one date, but even though it went mostly OK she said she didn't want to go out again, and that was that.  Then last summer I received an email from her which was spam, so I sent her a brief email saying just that it looked like someone had hacked her email account and was spamming from it.  She emailed back and asked how I was, and one thing led to another and we began emailing back and forth for a while, then talking on the phone again, and then finally we met up and went on another date last fall.  Things went better on the second date, so there was a third, then a fourth, fifth, I dunno. 

K is OK, she's pretty funny, but she's a tad racist and has a fairly quirky personality and sense of humor that probably ends up keeping almost everyone at arm's length from her.  I'm forgiving of her because her body is a 10 (or 9 at least), and very badly want to hook up with her.  However, on our dates the most that ever happened was just some rather brief making out, with her typically stopping things "before she got too worked up."  That shit is fine for a couple dates, but sooner or later I like to see a little progress or I begin to lose interest, and that's what began to happen in this case.  As a result I basically told her I was interested in more than us just being friends who kiss goodnight.  She told me that she knew I didn't want anything serious (this is true), and that if she did anything more with me she'd probably get attached and then end up heartbroken when I didn't want to get serious.  I didn't know if this was a brush off or if she was for real, but since she'd been up front when she'd rejected me years earlier, I gave her the benefit of the doubt.

Since I believed her, I kinda left things in her court, saying it wouldn't be honest of me to just pursue a friendship with her when I was more interested in getting in her pants.  I could tell this knocked her off her stance a bit, as she still wanted to keep talking to me, cause she does like me, but I basically drastically reduced the length of my emails to very short responses, and things of that nature.  I wanted to establish that I'm not interested in just being friends, and if that means we don't talk, then so be it, but she could contact me when she changed her mind. 

So we fell out of talking after that until about two months passed, when she contacted me again with a long email.  Naturally I wasn't going to just fall right back in, so I sent her a short email saying "let's catch up on the phone" so she called and we talked.  She asked how come I hadn't talked to her in a while, so rather than beat around the bush I asked her if things had changed with her.  She said she still had the same concerns, and I could tell that she didn't really want to launch right back into this conversation, but regardless I was letting her know this is how things stand and will continue to stand.  She said we should get together and hang out and see what happened, but both of us got flaky and it didn't happen.  So then another two months passed and she emailed me yesterday.

This time her email was short saying she didn't want to write out something long unless she knew I was still in town to write her back, so I said I was around, but why email back and forth and that we should just talk on the phone instead.  So last night she called and we talked for a bit.  I was once again quite forward that I'm very attracted to her and that I want to hook up with her.  I can tell she is wary of going down that path, but I think she's a bit tempted as well.  She said "don't rush things", to which I said "what rush things, we went on our first date over three years ago."  I was humorous about it though, I don't want to paint myself as being some super pushy, lecherous guy or something.  I just really do think it would be disingenuous of me to just try to be her friend when really the only reason I'd do that would be because I'd hope she'd let me get in her pants some day.  I'm not looking for the friend zone, after all.  Bad as it might be to admit this, I'd actually be OK with that if we had hooked up, but since we haven't, forget it.

Anyway, I asked her if she wanted to get together before I leave next week and she said yes, though she said no sex or anything yet, but we'd see what happens when I get back.  It may be harsh or blunt but I think I'm playing this just right.  I guess we'll see.

Los Angeles - M

M has been the source of much agita, frustration and questioning for me over the last month.  A bit of backstory is in order, I suppose.  We met in late January, hung out basically every weekend in February, and I basically have not seen her in March.  We still talk on occasion, but in February we talked almost daily.  Basically whatever we had going on in February came to an abrupt halt for some reason.  I asked her if she wanted to "just be friends" or even have nothing more to do with me (either of which I'm cool with), and she said no, she just changed priorities a bit and was focusing on herself now.  Fine, no problem (though it sucks I had to ask what happened).

After having that conversation with her, I resolved that any contact in the immediate future would have to be initiated by her, and this resulted in her calling me four times last week with me not calling her once.  In her second of those calls she reiterated (unprompted by me) that it was OK for me to call her and that she still wants to hang out.  After that I figured for me to not call her anymore would just be assholish, but I still was going to wait till after the weekend to do so, at the earliest. 

Well, I didn't get a chance cause she beat me to it by calling me as she was driving home (at least a little drunk, I might add) at about 3 am on Friday night.  I helped steer her in the right direction as she'd gotten a bit lost, and we just chatted till she got home.  During this talk she was fairly flirty with me, talking sexually and whatnot.  She hung up once she was naked in bed and about to fall asleep.  She'd said that the next day (Saturday) she wasn't sure if she was going to hang out with her family or if she was gonna go out clubbing; so the next evening when I was at a party at F's house I texted her to ask what she ended up doing.  She eventually responded that she'd gone out to a club, and when I texted her back 45 minutes later I asked what she was doing afterward. 

She never responded to my text, though she did call me about two hours later at about 4 am as she was once again on her way home.  Since the club closed at 2, I asked if she went out to eat or something afterward, but instead she told me about how she hooked up with some guy in the parking lot.  This didn't bug me, but I was beginning to get tired of her seeming to only call me when she's apparently bored driving somewhere or when she can't really talk for very long.  Nonetheless I talked to her till she got home, but when she got home her phone dropped the call.  I waited a few minutes for her to call me back, and when she didn't I texted her to say if she wanted to talk more that I'd be up for a bit, but if not then I'd talk to her later, and she never responded. 

It's now two days later and I've still not heard anything from her, and IMO that's just a rude way to end a conversation.  For me that's the proverbial straw.  Unfortunately she and I made tentative plans to hang out on Friday night, and I don't know how to get out of them without either picking a fight or passive-aggressively picking a fight (with the ensuing awkwardness and drama that comes when you do that).  I'm left hoping she either doesn't call, or waits till the last minute to call so I can say I forgot and now have other plans.  In any event, the next time she calls me I'm not going to answer the phone, and will only call her back after at least two days pass.  I'm totally done at this point.  If she wants to make a really big effort to get together in the future (or this Friday even), then I'll indulge her (although the effort must truly be large), but I'm guessing she won't and I'm totally fine with that.

Los Angeles - Blogging Again

I've finally decided to blog anonymously after essentially quitting blogging for a number of years due to the drama and trolling it invites when not done anonymously. I don't care if anyone has any interest in anything I write here, nor do I care if anyone reads this. This is for me, and me alone.

I've started this because I've been going through, and should continue going through, a very transitional phase in my life, and figured it might be good to document it. Back in the fall I was laid off after working in the same industry for a decade or so, and ever since I've been on the dole, collecting unemployment. My job had grown very stale and I hadn't been happy there in years, so getting the axe was probably a great thing for me. Since then I've done a lot of "soul searching" (fucking awful term) and tried to figure out what to do next. Currently after almost 6 months I still have no idea, and that is both frightening and exciting.

In the near future I'm setting off on a long road trip around North America for a few months, armed with whatever cash I've got in the bank, my car and some newly purchased camping gear. I hope to visit a few friends, some family members, and ultimately see this country I live in (and the one just above it). I'm open to finding a new place to call home if that should happen, and if not I'm hoping to at least have some fun on an interesting adventure.

But this blog isn't just going to be about my upcoming trip or whatever other external things are going on with my lifepath, career or whatever else. I also want to talk about what's going on internally with me, and with my relationships with others. I'll go into that a bit in my next entry though.