theferrett, with attention to sithjawa: Iraqi Invasion: A Text Misadventure trdsf has created Superdickery: Superman, really being a dick! Some of the cover scans are very, very out-there. Goodness. Wednesday on the bus some random guy who was about 2 hours out of the Big House complimented me on the cape. At length. Social weirdness forgiven under the circumstances, because this is Arizona and it seems like everybody knows somebody who's been in for something, and it's quite evidently a different culture in there, and he'd been in for a while. So culture shock, a little.
The dude pointed out that there are a lot of people who would like to wear a screaming pink velvet cloak around. It's just that not very many people have the balls to do so. And he commended me for having the balls to do so. And on the one hand, courage and life compliments from someone who has made a mistake serious enough to get caught and locked up for it may be worth taking with a grain of salt, but it was an honest compliment, and I really did make his day. That was some genuine honest-to-Eris happiness that entered his life, not something based on the whatever-it-was at the bottom of his buddy's shopping bag that they were engaged in piling stuff on top of so that it wouldn't be easily seen should they encounter some of the Law for whatever reason.
I have temporary wheels for the next ten weeks or so. I was not at all expecting this, and so I got the Finance Crunch that happens when paying 2 1/2 months of insurance payments without preparation. I can and will muddle through somehow, but I will probably Grumble to myself (and perhaps bystanders). I'll try to cut & warn if I do so on here.
(The deal with the wheels: V goes out of town to pet-sit, house-sit, and do an assortment of very odd jobs. Her clients fly her places. She has a car. If she's leaving the car behind, it does not make sense to park it and still be paying insurance when she won't be using it for months at a time, and pay parking fees too. She has a very good insurance deal, and can allow others to use her car with her explicit permission. So in exchange for use of the car, an assortment of her friends pay her insurance while she's gone.)
I could have declined the offer, and she could have found someone else to carsit, but I had a nagging feeling that I'd need wheels, and the nagging feeling only intensified after a few of the things that have been popping up to stress me out.
There's nothing even close to definite yet, just a vague stirring and a determination, but I have fallen in love with San Francisco and fallen in love hard. It would be really nice if I could move to the Bay Area at some point during the next few years. Figuring out how to make that one work will be my next trick. The Figment asked me what was tying me to Phoenix. We'll see what.
It came up in conversation, so I explained to
trystan_laryssa the difference between the Wished-For Relationship and the Forever Relationship with Darkside. I hold as possible the thought that I could form a primary romantic relationship with someone who is not Darkside. Stop laughing. I could. It would just be damn hard to find someone who can get as close to me, get under my skin as much without making me go nuts in the bad way, as Darkside can. It could happen. I just won't settle for less. But I could date, or even marry, someone else. But it has to be someone else who can make me light up as bright and then some. Tall order. But I refuse to pledge myself long-term to someone who lifts me less high.
What's forever, and non-negotiable, with Darkside, is the friendship. I'm not entirely sure what exact sequence of events prompted it, but somewhere along the line I declared that Darkside was my best friend, the best friend I'd found in the universe, and I'd rather suffer all sorts of personal grief and/or inconvenience than let him go. I'd searched for a friend this good for twenty years, and if it would take me another twenty to find his equal, then I wasn't about to let go. And of the friendship, I shan't let go. Not ever. Not while he wants for me to be there. This is the thing that swearing 'til death do us part on it would shortchange us out of an eternity.
My rules come from a bizarre playbook, but there are some rules. One of them, one that's being highlighted and just started blinking at me now, is that if someone makes me come running back to Darkside in tears on anything even slightly approaching a regular basis, then that violates all sorts of rules, isn't fair to Darkside, and the situation definitely needs re-evaluation.
