Worlds & Time

Monday, July 30, 2007

Looking Back

Ah, so a while ago I realized that I'm suddenly uncomfortable posting details about my sex life on this blog. Maybe it's the first hint of realization that people actually read this blog, or perhaps it was the Beaners making fun of me over on their blog.

Well screw that. I'll talk about what I want to talk about.

So, yeah, I had sex with Pablo. Probably too soon, so he pulled away and that's why we broke up. I'm starting to realize why people "take it slow," because that gives them a fairly good excuse to break it off with someone that they've slept with too soon.

I don't really like that explanation. It's dishonest almost to the point of stupidity. It's almost like someone has to prove that they aren't an adult before they'll be considered worthy of a long term relationship.

Right, so he ended up pulling away, and I was sort of ticked. I could have "taken a break" or something, but the fact that we didn't really talk about it ticked me off. Every time I saw him I . . . er . . . got worked up, and then nothing would happen.

I've mentioned this to a couple of people, but he broke up with me at Gay Pride which sucked. S. said that it was like breaking up with someone at prom, which I agree with, but I was about to deliver an ultimatum as well. Either he had to have a sex with me, or I was going to drop him. So he dropped me first, but it wasn't like I wasn't already mentally preparing for it.

And, er, yeah. I would have cheated on him. Either sooner or later. He just wasn't a physical person, and I haven't lived through my "slut phase" (as Thomas so quaintly put it) yet. I need a physical relationship, if I'm going to be in a relationship right now.

I really need more practice at this whole sex thing, and especially in the long term. Of course, I'm already 25. It feels like I'm already out of time to be learning new things. I'm worried that people are going to just expect me to know things that I have no way of knowing.

Labels: , ,

Monday, July 23, 2007

What's Happening

Yeah, I know I haven't updated recently, but then again, I know that those of you that read this aren't going to see it soon anyway.

What's been happening? In no particular order:

Well, I'm doing better. I'm mostly off of the neck brace now, but I'm still in physical therapy twice a week.

I'm worried about Viable Paradise. I don't really have the money to go, so it's going to be interesting paying off the debt that I'm going to have since I don't make enough money to cover my bills anyway.

The summer's beautiful. We've been getting some rain and some thunder storms, which are beautiful and stunning and everything that summer in NM typically is. Now that I'm thinking of leaving for good, I'm apparently going to miss this place something fierce.

The dogs are both getting very old. I'm worried about them. My dad's not doing too well either, and I'm worried about him too.

I have a crush on another cute internet boy. This one is straight, which fits right into my comfort zone. His name is Jamie Stroud, and he's a gymnast/martial artist from Cali. He's also a member of the Unification Church. Considering my interest in comparative religion, I find that awesomely cool, and I want to go ask him all sorts of questions about it.

Also, he's hotter than hell. *Cough* (<---Link removed due to brokenness, Feb 08)

I'm going to see Elliot in September when I go to Viable Paradise, which is going to be awesome. I'm going to finally bring him my "real" wedding present, which differs from the "from the heart" present that he already has.

Ah, right, I had a sort of mental breakdown about two weeks ago. I'm on prozac again, and I'm wondering about my mental health. I wish I didn't have problems. I wish I could be not-depressed like other people, so that I wouldn't have to be depressed about being depressed. Ah, the vicious circle.

There have been some interesting happenings on CF and IIDB. No promotion for me yet on IIDB, but they've allowed some non-Christian mods on CF for the first time. Raven got one of the positions and I'm rooting for her. Go Raven!

Oh, duh. I got the last Harry Potter book, and I saw the most recent movie. The movie was very good, the book was just good. Don't get me wrong, I liked the book, and I thought the ending was appropriate and in line with the entire theme of the series. However, the editing was poor. There were several internal contradictions that a careful editor should have fixed revisions ago.

(At this point, I'll warn you that there are spoilers in the next paragraph for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, although hopefully by the time its published you'll have read the book for yourself.)

Also, there's some interesting speculation on the religious nature of this last book. Yeah, there's the Calvary walk, the death, the resurrection, and even the crucifixion, but I still see lots of non-religious themes in the book. Some of the ones that strike me at this particular moment are Harry's reliance on his friends, the utter lack of betrayal that he suffered by someone close to him, and the fact that he lives through his "death" and goes on to live happily for a long time afterward.

Now that Rowling's done with the series, I hope she does the smart thing and allows others to expand on her intellectual property. Not me, per se, but I'm sure there are writers out there that will give their left nut to contribute to a series that will automatically guarantee that their works sells millions of copies.

All she'd have to do would be approve the plots, and let a new batch of writers take over. Even splitting the profits with the new writers, Rowling's sitting on a gold mine. Look at what Tolkien's son is doing with his father's old intellectual property (And Frank Herbert's son as well).

Some writers jealously guard their intellectual property, but sometimes they fail to recognize that sometimes letting it expand under their supervision but not their direct control can be just as effective.

Finally, there are frogs or toads croaking in the riverbed, which is not a usual sound for NM.

I think that's about it for now.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Lex and Lia: Unfinished Business

Lex relaxed back into the couch. It was so cushy that it almost swallowed him.

There was a television on in the background but Lex couldn't get invested in the story so he'd come over to the window. Why should he care what the morons on television would do to impress some stuck up bitch? It wasn't like they were going to suddenly fall in love as soon as the cameras went away.

The whole hotel room--no, the hotel suite--was loud. There was another television in the bedroom, and even one in the bathroom. Despite the soundproofing he could hear people moving around in the rooms around him.

It hadn't occurred to him that Soraperion's dumpy little apartment was so quiet, but compared with the hotel rooms that he'd been staying in recently it had been a silent paradise.

There was a knock on the door, and when Lex answered it he found a pizza guy standing there.

The guy's eyes automatically flickered past Lex and into the room, and his eyes widened. From the door he could see through the living room with the big fluffy couches and out through the floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the strip. A week ago, Lex would have been even more impressed than the pizza guy was.

Lex flicked out a wad of cash and handed the guy a fifty. He could have just stolen the pizza, or Sora could have taken over for a few moments and made the pizza guy forget he'd ever delivered it but Lex wanted to use some of the money he'd picked up. Why have it if you didn't use it?

The pizza guy handed him the pizza, and when he looked down at the money he started to object, but Lex just said, "Keep the change" and shut the door in the guy's face.

It had been surprisingly easy to get money with the suggestions that Sora's voice provided. With magic, he could make people see what they wanted to see, or sometimes what he wanted them to see. He could go around a casino and skim coins or even chips away from people without being noticed. He could walk through the walls into a bank vault, or just make people give him money. In only a few days he'd built up a few thousand dollars worth of spending money, and that was beyond the money that he'd paid for the hotel suite.

There was a stirring at the back of his head, and Sora's voice spoke up. Still awake? he asked.

"Yeah."

Something bothering you?

"I don't know. Yeah, I guess."

Tell me about it.

"There was this girl, back before I met Soraperion."

Reeeeeally, Sora said, and Lex blushed.

"Nothing like that. She was only fourteen. I . . . uh, well, I was taking care of her because she didn't have anyone else left. She disappeared from our apartment a few weeks after we arrived in Las Vegas."

Did she run away?

"She didn't seem like the kind of person that would just run away. I thought something bad had happened to her, but I searched around the neighborhood and I couldn't find her."

Soraperion was looking for his box, you are looking for your friend. What's her name anyway?

"Lia. Celia, actually."

We'll find her then. I'll show you a few simple locating spells first, and there are always non-magical options. Money talks.

Lex got up and got the book out of his suitcase. He'd originally bought it for clothes, but he hadn't bothered to really buy anything other than a a black shirt and a black pair of jeans in one of the stores on the main level of the hotel. He'd never really had money to fool around with before, and he'd spent more on the shirt and pants than he had per month for the apartment where he and Lia had lived in.

He laid the book out, and flipped it open. Like usual, the book opened to a set of blank pages in the middle. If you didn't ask it for anything specific, it always seemed to fall open to a blank page.

We're going to be doing a finding, Sora said.

"Findings," Lex said, and the pages of the book blurred until it had reached the right pages.

Most of this is specific stuff for whatever Soraperion was looking for, but we should be able to use it to find your friend as well. The voice seemed to be looking over the pages with him, and it nudged him.

That symbol is the basis for a finding spell. It looks like a web because that's what it does. It creates a web, and each strand goes off and looks in a different direction. If any of them touch your friend, or come near her, then it will send a message back to the middle of the web, where we'll be waiting for it.

A symbol appeared in his mind, and Lex dutifully copied the symbol out into the air in front of him, until a web formed in the air.

De ja vu, Sora said as the search spell begun to take form. Lex paused, remembering how single minded Soraperion had been as he pursued the box, and then shook off the feeling, and continued to follow Sora's directions.

Labels:

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Onward Toward Paradise

I seem to have forgotten to check my email for the last two days. I opened it this morning and was shocked to discover that I've been accepted into the Viable Paradise workshop on Martha's Vineyard.

I was absolutely blown away.

But now I'm going to have to spend tons of time on the Colony short story.

Uhg.

Labels: ,

Saturday, July 07, 2007

I Am Really Uncomfortable

When, or more accurately if, you see this post, you can be sure that it wasn't written on the listed date. It will either have been moved forward or backward to mask where and when I am and who the other person involved is.

I met this guy at work, and he seemed like a nice enough guy. We didn't really get to know each other right away, but a few weeks ago I had an opportunity to spend some time with him outside of the normal course of my job and so I did. I've always been too quite and shy, and I'm always talking about how I need to get out more.

So I ended up going over to his house and we watched a movie. He was just so amazingly nice although I wasn't all that physically attracted to him at first. Still, last week I went back again and we played video games, watched another movie, and talked until 3 a.m. about the stuff that two gay guys talk about until 3 a.m.

The next day I was thinking about it, and I decided I like him. Maybe not enough for a serious relationship, but definitely enough for some fooling around. Cause, let's face it, I don't have nearly enough sex.

So I mention this to him the next time and he's sort of happy and strangely muted at the same time. I knew that he liked me, but his previous relationships were all long term committed relationships (the shortest that I knew of was 1 1/2 years), and I wasn't sure he was the kind of guy that would be up for fooling around outside of a dating relationship. He basically told me that he had to consider it.

Yesterday, I went over again. We watched another movie, we played some video games, and after that it was about midnight but I still didn't want to leave so we went out to eat, came back, and watched another movie, during the ending of which we started making out. Okay, this seemed to be a consent. He was interested, he was willing to fool around without a relationship, and great, I really wanted it to happen.

Then he pulls away from me and tells me that he's HIV positive.

My first reaction was just confusion. I couldn't figure out if I'd heard him correctly but when I played it over and over in my head that's what he said. Straight out and clearly. So then I couldn't figure out what my reaction should be. There's this gut reaction when you've been swapping spit with someone with a communicative incurable disease to just run, but I couldn't do that. He shouldn't have to deal with my irrational fear.

Besides, I know this disease and letting my fear get the best of me is pointless. If I could catch it from kissing him, which is highly unlikely anyway, then the damage it done. I'll get a test in a few weeks, and another at the 3 month mark when the antibodies would have shown up.

So, at this point I'm quickly weighing massive amounts of probabilities in my head. What factors influence seroconversion? Do I have any cuts in my mouth or on my skin? Does he? How much exposure have I had and is there anything that I can do to further limit my chances of transmission?

Somewhere, something deep inside my head calculated the risk of protected sex with him despite the fact that I knew he was HIV positive.

I didn't have sex with him though. Thankfully something in my head was working properly. I didn't run either, which would have been something that I would have beaten myself up over later. I mean, he told me, and that's something that I have to respect. I can't imagine how hard it is to admit that you're HIV positive to a guy you like.

We sat around and talked about it, about how it happened, how he found out about it, and what it meant to his life. The thing that he was most scarred of was infecting someone else, and I can understand that. After all, one of the worst "sins" that can be committed in my own little personal version of secular humanism is harming others.

Eventually I told him that we'd still be friends, that I was coming back next week to play more video games, and that I was happy that he'd told me. Then I went home, and spent three hours shaking in my chair, freaking out which trying to take my mind off what had happened. Even now, the day afterward, my chest is painfully tight and my stomach is churning.

I don't think that I'm infected. I don't think so, and I hope so. If I was religious, I'd even pray so. I can't convince my body of that though.

Update: I took a few weeks for my stomach to settle down. At this point, whether I have had sex with this guy depends on what your definition of "is" is. Yeah, you all know that reference.

Safe? Absolutely. As safe as I can possibly be, but eventually when it came down to it I decided that I like him more than I'm afraid of him. That sort of freaks me out, but it's an undeniable compulsion as well.

Update: I got my test results back. I'm negative, which is a relief, but my body still isn't catching up to my intellectual awareness. I've got a headache. Where I am with him, though, I don't know. I think he's terrified more of the fact that I'd be willing to see him when I know he's positive, and I'm not sure he wants to see me any more.

This is a tough one, but this is the end of the story.

Labels: , , ,