I have floated home.  Okay, maybe not floated, but I am still beaming 3 hours after I last kissed LP.

LP works absurdly hard and right now, his schedule is insane.  He is working 7 days a week, often 18 hours a day.  Needless to say, we don’t have a lot of time to spend together.

This morning, I knew I’d be downtown tonight, so I texted to say that I will be downtown for a show, I will carve out 10 minutes to kiss you, and I will brook no refusal.

It was audacious, but our thing is to be vulnerable, open, expressive, honest.  I wanted it to happen, so I told him it will.  I heard nothing back.  5 hours later (2 hours before I was heading downtown) I texted him “Will be downtown at 730, when can you spare 10 minutes.”  I specifically asked him when, not if.  Again, I heard nothing.

My plans with my friends went a little sideways, so I decided to head down at 830 intead of 730.  At 745, I got a text “I am here.”  I told him about the delay, but he said he may go home since he’d been in the office since 330 am.  Yikes.

I told him I’d text when I was 10 minutes out, but that I understood if he went home and to bed.  I got ready assuming I’d not see him, but I still wanted to look kinda cute (black pencil skirt, bright 3/4 t-shirt, black cashmere v-neck, patent ballet flats).  On the bus, I texted him that I was 10 away and he replied back that he was “still here” and would go downstairs.  We text flirted until I disembarked.  Somehow, we missed each other, so he walked up to me still in full view of his lobby.  I waited to hug him until we were slightly obscured.

There is something so perfect about wrapping my arms around him.  He’s adorable and handsome and just present.  I hugged him tightly while I said, “you look terrible!”  Because he did — drawn, exhausted, grey.  He said, Oh, that’s awful!” He said I looked great, and “snazzy.” I kissed him and I held his hand and he said, “okay, let’s grab a drink,” which is odd since he really does not drink, nor do I.

As we walked across the street to a brand new bar next to the place where we met, he said, I have to tell you what’s happening . . .  [with growing excitement] and you’ll understand because you’re a lawyer!  I smiled at him, thinking, yeah, not bloody likely, but take your best shot.

The place was empty, except for a sole bartender, so we sat at the bar, ordered cocktails (which is unusual because neither of us really drink) and he started to tell me everything that was happening and why he’s working so much etc.  It was fascinating, actually, managing his work, managing the egos of his partners, etc.  He’s a big deal and it is hard because he’s still relatively young to have so much responsibility.  He also told me that he had another insane deadline after this one — and he’ll be traveling.  Grrrr.

He vented for 10 minutes straight about work, grateful that I understood him — both what the issues are and what he needed, which was was to vent his frustrations to someone who cares.  I kept my hand on his thigh as he spoke.  At one point, I asked if it was okay, and he grabbed my hand, squeeezed it, and moved it higher up his thigh.  From time to time, we kissed.

When he finished, he was so grateful that I care for him, that I held his hand, and stroked his thigh, and was present for him as he spoke.  He is himself with me — dramatic and quirky and arrogant, but very, very real. Because I know what he does, because he tells me his interactions with other people, I know he can be hard and demanding, but I know that like me, all he really wants is to be loved and accepted and understood. No matter the surface, that’s the reality.

He finished telling me how horrible everything is that work is so crazy that he’s not seen his kid, his therapist (and forgot to cancel — leading the therapist to freak out a little and call him “to make sure you’re not dead”), or remembered to call his father for his birthday.

Then he turned to me  and said okay, tell me about your horrible day, so I did. I told him I was editing it but that I cried in front of BFD because he was making me confront the horrible pressure I am under while I am trying to get things done and that he walked away from me while I cried.

I leaned in to LP and said, honey, I know we’re kinda narcissists, but our exes are hardcore narcissists and I know [BFD] was incapable of hearing what I was saying or comforting me and that while this was going on, all I knew was that “[LP] would NEVER have reacted that way.” He smiled and agreed and then told me an anecdote about his ex who, when he complained about work, told him to quit his job and then made it about her.

[BFD made the source of my pain about him, which separated him from me in my pain.  It's hard for me to describe how hardened I am towards BFD. His attitude yesterday -- pushing when I needed to be held, questioning when I needed encouragement -- I realized he could never be the man I need or want . . . and that the man I need and want was 10 blocks away in his office kicking ass and taking names.]

LP and I spoke about our spending the night together and how much we loved it and how much we can’t wait to do it again.  By this point, we were kissing a bit, not caring about the bartender, the table of people seated in a banquette behind us, or the strong lighting around us.  We needed to kiss each other, though we avoided a full-on make-out session.

He told me, whispered in my ear actually, when I stood and wrapped my arms around him that he’d had a very intense sex dream about me a couple of nights ago . . . and that I was amazing.  I laughed and said, I did not know if i would measure up to his amazing dream.

He told me toward the end of our time together that he’s glad we’re taking it slow, but he really wants to have sex with me.  Soon.

I am definitely with him on that.

[On Saturday, we started exchanging texts while he worked.  I am often provocative with him, which is something he loves and something I'd not been comfortable being since pre-A.  (With BP and BFD, I would be responsive, but they always initiated it.)  So we came up with a "reward" when he finishes his project.  Frankly, I don't know which one of us is looking forward to it more.]

As we walked outside and kissed on the patio, I told him I wanted to send him more photos.  He’s not on facebook, so his only pictures of me are ones I send him.  He sends me photos regularly, which is adorable, and lets me be a part of where he is and what he’s doing.  He was so happy, even though I let him know they were just pictures and nothing intimate, but he just loves to see my face.

I texted him again as I walked down the street to meet my friends and he returned to the office, to let him know how much I loved seeing him and how amazing it is to share with someone who understands: “That you’re hot and a great kisser is just bonus.”

He was on my mind as I had club soda with my friends before we went to a show.  I spent a lot of time talking about things semi-related to LP and his ex and I slipped and called him my boyfriend and then corrected myself.

But he feels like my boyfriend.  He is the only man I want to see, the only man I want to kiss, and the only man I want to sleep with.  (And at this point, I really want to sleep with him.)  We know enough of each other by this point to expect it will be great.  The passion we share for each other is overwhelming enough to ensure it.

He listened to me, he understood me, and he embraced me.  All of that underscored the horribleness from BFD earlier that afternoon.  LP is here for me, I am here for him, and we are making sacrifices and taking risks just to see each other.  He laughed that he’s not seen or done anything, but he made time to see me.  He said it full of import — he mentioned in the same breath that the kid has wanted to see him for the last 4 days and he has not been able to — but he made time to see me.

We are better together than either of us is apart.  It’s really beautiful so far.

It’s been under a month and I am crazy about LP. To the point of being slightly obsessed with him. When I am with him, I am happy. When I think about him, I am happy. When I see a picture of him, I am happy. (I have one open on my screen now, which he sent in response to our flurry of reconnection emails.)

He is a lovely man — warm, passionate, brilliant, sensitive. I think he’s handsome — I don’t know that he is, but he is to me. I am beautiful to him and when we are together, we are basking the the warmth and glow of a surprisingly wonderful connection on a physical and emotional level.

We have a physical connection that is stronger than sex, which we’re not yet having. When we are together — in the car or in a restaurant or wherever — I caress the back of his neck. And he melts. Every time. It is an obvious thing to me, a tender way to touch him. It’s completely nonsexual, but he just melts into me because it is incredibly loving and affectionate. I started doing it when he was driving, as a way of touching him that was not like his thigh or his hand that should be on the wheel. His reaction was so wonderful that I have kept doing it.

How people like to be touched (or not) says so much about them and he loves to be touched, loves to snuggle in to me, and loves to kiss me. Whenever we’re together, we are touching each other, turned toward each other, and ignoring the rest of the world.

We are trying to not fall hard to fast, to get to know each other first.

Plus, I have three lingering doubts/fears that he is not capable of being who I need him to be:
– that his warm openness is a feint to draw me in but that he’s actually cold
– that he is not ready to settle down again so soon after the end of his marriage
– that he might not want to have another child
None of them are unreasonable. We are older, we are damaged, and there are issues. His situation with his ex is difficult because of their child and the fact that he has a child means we have scheduling problems, but it also means he knows exactly who he is and exactly what he wants. So far, he wants and needs me, which is a little mind-blowing.

I am struggling to keep perspective, but he is more than I thought existed, more than I thought I wanted, more than I thought I could have.

He is passionate and manipulative and tender and dark and light and warm and obsessive and present and withdrawn and this amazing array of characteristics that make me want to spend the rest of my life with my hand stroking the back of his neck, snuggled into his body in bed, and kissing him.

It scares me to think of how easily I could slip into his life. I am already thinking of meals I want to cook for him. I can see mornings in his beautiful light-filled room, drinking coffee while he gets ready for work. Which is kinda cheating since we’ve done that.

He has issues. Big issues.

He also has challenges with his ex. I wish I could tell you who he is and who she is and why it’s all so potentially awful, but trust me here, if our relationship becomes serious (i.e., I meet the kid), there will be drama and it will be ugly and public. She’s famous in our world, an oversharer on twitter, a beautiful charismatic narcissist who is used to having her own way and having LP smooth her path, while denying him credit for the same. Having her be so public with everything adds a whole other layer. There is no easy move for us. I am not her, I don’t play on her field, but I am significantly younger than she (and 4 years younger than he), and there will be issues. His marriage with her was very public. It identifies him in a way, it’s a short-hand that indicates he’s a little more interesting than your average bear. Hell, even I reference her when describing him to my friends . . . literally everyone does it, even he did when I met him for the first time, although it was to offset the result when I googled him and saw a then-current magazine article (which he also mentioned) referencing what a loving wife she is to him and all these photos of their family together, though they’d split 5 months earlier. It has been an important part of her public persona to be successful in her field and have the perfect marriage to a younger man and a child. Everything written about her for the past 7 years talks about her wonderful husband and their whirlwind courtship and it’s disturbing to know all of these things from her perspective. My friends know about their courtship and marriage. I was chatting with one of my girlfriends from school who now lives here and when I mentioned what she did, my friend named her immediately, with an oh my god oh my god oh my god! Yeah, awesome.

So we do have this specter of his ex hanging over our heads and their kid and the fact I am not her, which probably makes him a little less interesting, but much much happier.

Plus, my ex and I are not completely over, and we, like, they, have an ongoing interaction thought it’s business and not personal, aside from the fact that BFD is re-wooing me. Then we have BP in the mix and I certainly bring my own weirdness to our new relationship.

I like to think we’re keeping it quiet but we’re not. We are publicly together in town, kissing in restaurants, holding hands on the street. We are not being discreet.

They are very much done, but they still have to interact nearly daily thanks to their bizarre custody situation which leaves the kid moving back and forth almost every other day, although LP’s been without her for days under the crushing weight of work he has to accomplish by next Thursday. (It’s not just him, it’s dozens of lawyers at his firm, but he’s lead counsel and it’s his deal.)

She wants him back. She tells everyone this. He left her after being miserable for years, for a chance to be happy. Knowing it would damage his kid, he still chose to leave. Because the kid is the most important thing in his life and being a great father to her is the most important thing in his life, that he left is a testament to how bad it was.

He told me his therapist said he could not have found anyone than her who was less perfectly suited to make him happy. She was everything wrong for him and he was miserable and bitter and angry.

I know all of this. I have known all of this since he approached me last February. Frankly, it scared me a bit when we met, this handsome, complicated man with all of this baggage.

It’s difficult because I know it’s not a simple matter to fall for him. He’s complicated. He’s complicating. My life with him will have weirdness and drama that has nothing to do with us, in addition to our own stuff.

I am going into this as I told him I would — eyes open, heart open, and arms open. He is amazing, and he is amazed by me, that I exist in the world — someone he cares for who cares for him, someone he can talk to who understands, someone who could love all the light and dark places, someone with whom he can be sensual and intellectual and playful.

We have acknowledged from the beginning that this is real and it is so real it’s scary.

On our actual first date, he told me horrific things, he scared me intentionally, to see if I would leave, to see if I would flinch. Instead, I do what I have done with him: I literally and figuratively embraced him. I have told him about my complications — my poverty, my ongoing business and personal relationships with my exes, who also want me back, but on their terms, and my damage.

We were both starved for attention and affection, having been with extremely narcissistic partners. We look at each other and see a depth of everything that we had been missing.

Since we reconnected, the song often playing in my head is an acoustic cover of Mario’s “Let Me Love You.” The chorus is:

You should let me love you
Let me be the one to give you everything you want and need
Baby good love and protection
Make me your selection
Show you the way love’s supposed to be
Baby you should let me love you, love you, love you

Yes, it’s completely on the nose, but it’s lovely, especially as sung by Charlotte Church, of all people.

So, I am standing on the precipice, knowing I am going to fall for him, afraid of the damage that awaits, by buoyed by the loving manner in which he embraces me. I am scared, but amazed he exists and that we found each other, that we persisted and never forgot each other, and that he is here in my life, holding my hand, and melting under my touch.

LP, who had been working like mad all week and weekend and moving and being a dad, wanted to pick me up at 9 after he’d wrapped up at the office on Sunday night to show me his new house.

He was delayed and it was starting to get late. Before he arrived, after confirming he’d be picking me up, he texted “Can you stay over?”

Well, that was unexpected, although I had mentioned to him when he was in his sick bed that I wished I had stayed. Still, it’s a school night and he goes to work ridiculously early, so I responded back, yes, I can, and threw a toothbrush and moisturizer into my purse, just in case.

We are taking the sex thing slowly, deliberately, so I knew he just wanted to spend the night wrapped around me, and, I agreed, knowing my period had just started, which took sex absolutely off the table.

He was visibly exhausted when he pulled up, and I slid into the car, and he held my hand on my lap. I told him quickly about my situation. He was disappointed, but recovered quickly. We would not have been having sex (this is only date 5, after all, and we’d agreed to slow slow slow), but it certainly limited the range of options.

His new house is about 15 blocks from my building, maybe fewer. It’s a straight shot from my neighborhood to his, so we held hands and talked a little in the car, and he told me that, in the spirit of full honesty which we have pledged [er, we did??? I think I pledged vulnerability and no games, which is a little different than full honesty, thinks the woman kinda-sorta-maybe still dating her ex boyfriend/potential business partner/owner of her once and perhaps future car], I would not be the first female in his bed in the new house. I told him as long as she was not over 8 years old, we’re fine. Otherwise, I laughed, we were going to have a problem.

He pulled up to his back gate and parked, telling me the first change he would make to the house. He walked me through the garden and the house looked so beautiful. He had clearly been home to change before he picked me up because our path was beautifully illuminated. It’s charming, an historic home that has been well remodeled and updated, and he loved showing me the very quick tour. The house contains nothing but his study and his bedroom at this point. Every other room is empty. When we reached his room, he started to kiss me passionately. I stopped him, so he could show me the bath and closet. He laughed, and said, you want me to finish the tour??? Yes, of course, as I’d already been kissing him in each room.

With the tour concluded, we kissed more passionately and got ready for bed. He stepped into the closet to change into pajamas and hang up my jacket and I just took off my clothes, leaving on my underwear and borrowed a big soft t-shirt from him. He climbed into “his side” of the bed, and I surprised him by climbing on top of him, and completely taking over the reins, kissing him, teasing him, etc. as we talked here and there. He said, you know, I know your secret . . . you are incredibly sweet. You are just incredibly sweet, and I know you don’t want people to know that about you. You have this hard surface, but you’re just an m & m. I reminded him that’s we’d agreed on the “first date” that he was an m & m encased in another m & m. I told him I expected him to keep my secret. He is right that I am far more open and loving than I want people to know. I prefer to feign indifference — see, for example, my relationship with BFD — rather than open myself up. So far, with LP, I am going open and vulnerable and it’s scary as hell.

Finally, after about an hour, he stopped me before anything got too far along, saying, “you’re amazing, but we know we’re good at sex, . . . let’s see how we do with snuggling.”

[The "we know we're good at sex" comes not from experience with each other. We know that we're very open and evolved sexually. We have shared a lot of things and we are very compatible. We have had relationships that replaced actual intimacy with sex, as he said last night as he held me tightly against him, and he is righter than he knows with BFD. So that is the primary reason we are both waiting. I drew a hard line because of my monogamy thing and he has listened carefully. I told him on our first date that I am only having "sex" with him if he is my boyfriend and he has respected that. As he considered the line I drew before our official first date, holding the line as I wavered a bit, he realized that we needed to postpone sex. No matter how challenging it is. And it is, especially when we're each barely dressed in bed.]

With that, he wrapped his arms around me, held my hand, kissed my neck, and we started talking in the dark. A few minutes in, I said, you know, I was very angry with you this week. I heard nothing from you at all for 5 days. I know you’re busy, but you should have shot me a text or something.

I stopped speaking. I think he started to apologize. I do know that I started to turn towards him to look at him and kiss it away and he stopped me. He said, this is important to you and I need to feel and process this. Then he was quiet. Finally, he said, “You’re right, you know. You’re asking me for a de minimus nothing response and I did not even do that. I am so very sorry.” I told him I know, but I knew that if I told him, he would do better. He pulled me even tighter to him. I also said to him, look, I am a very good Penelope, but I don’t want to live that life anymore. I mean, I can do it for a time, but that’s not what I want. [Meaning, I will wait for you while you conquer worlds, but I am unsatisfied doing it for long periods of time. Be here with me.]

We spoke a little more, mostly about light things. He told me that he loved our 4th date, our quick dinner downtown, and he loved the fun of being somewhere new that was better than we’d expected. It felt to the two of us, and I cannot remember if he said this, but this is what he meant and how I felt, the closest to real life of anything we’d done up until last night. It was a relationship date, with us out exploring a new place together, etc. It’s the kind of thing we both want to do, to be together sharing new experiences. That we both need and want that is telling.

Still embracing me and holding my hand, he fell soundly asleep.

I did not.

New bed, new place, new guy. It’s been years since I have slept in bed with someone, which I told him before he nodded off. It took me a couple of hours to fall asleep. I was in pain, having a bit of an allergic reaction, and it was hard to relax fully. He was tossing and turning a bit, but in his sleep, he sought me out no matter our positioning, held my hand or my arm or my thigh, kissed the top of my head. At times, I became his pillow, with his head on my back or resting on my shoulders. It was sweet and tender and wonderful.

I did not mind lying next to him in the dark, although I did get up at one point to check my purse and his bathroom and closet for a benadryl, tylenol pm, or even an aspirin. I had only excedrin, which would have been counter-productive. I did glance at his closet and saw his beautiful wardrobe. Unlike BFD’s closet or BP’s, LP’s closet is slightly messy and his elegant ties were slightly rumpled. (As he walked out, dressed, this morning, he acknowledged the same, while pointing out his “goth” look, which it was for a gorgeous Italian ensemble, but he said he figured, eh, I just moved and I worked all weekend.)

Still in the closet which is between the bedroom and the bathroom and still bored, I flipped his wallet open to check his birthday. I know that sounds strange and I could have just asked him when he awoke, but I wanted to know his astrological sign. Weird, right? We are a significantly better match than me and BFD. In fact, he’s the same as A and as W: “This is a most exhilarating combination. You both share the same likes and dislikes. You are both always on the go, craving excitement, love and fun. This is truly a link made in heaven. . . . Your common interests and lusty passionate nature bring about outrageous social and sexual encounters.” So far, so good.

He is a very solidly built man. He is not skinny like Q the model, nor muscular and cut like BFD, but he has a great shape and a little belly, a slightly shorter version of A — nice broad shoulders, but very solid, very manly, not unlike many of my relatives. I can easily wrap my arms around him, which I did when I needed to have him switch positions while asleep. Because I had a decent amount of time to look at him unobserved as he slept, I can say definitively that I think he’s handsome and, as I told him this morning, when I was resting my head on his shoulder, I am really crazy about him.

I awoke him before 5 am the next morning inadvertently. I needed to go to the bathroom. I also needed to remove, to the best of my ability, the mascara and eyeliner now migrated under my eyes. I went to bed in full makeup, but since I wear mineral stuff, I was not concerned about a transfer to the pillows or a desperate need to wash my face. Because I was i there for a while, he became a little concerned when he awoke. I climbed back in and he nodded off for a couple of minutes and we kissed and talked for a few minutes until he decided it was time for coffee. It was only 530. He told me to stay in bed and he made decent coffee. I like it a little stronger, but whatever. We talked and laughed (he’s really hilarious and wildly inappropriate and a performer, of course) and watched news and then mtv until he decided he had to take a shower and get ready for work. We talked about décor decisions and I gave him my opinion about something I thought would work even better than he was thinking and he liked it. He loves that I love his house.

I could see myself spending significant time there . . .

As I put back on my earrings, I mentioned that I’d been very careful to leave no evidence of my presence. (I’d worn minimal jewelry in the first place and I’d made sure there was nothing that said a woman had been present — unflushable wrappers went back into my bag because I did not want his kid to be aware that someone had been there. It’s up to him to tell her at some point and there is no reason for me to do that, and certainly not so soon.) He teased, okay, but you know, I would have just added it to the pile of earrings, panties, and [sex toys] other women leave behind.

Yes, very cute. I called him a brat, which he said no one ever says about him, which I find incredibly hard to believe.

I made the bed while he was showering, stretched a bit, and was getting dressed as he came back out, looking all kinds of hot in his very fabulous lawyer ensemble. As I was not fully dressed, this meant he needed to make out with me again for a couple of minutes.

He loved having me with him and he told me again and again how attracted to me he had been since the beginning. He thinks I am beautiful and he’d fantasized about me since the night we’d met, joking about his own ridiculousness that he could not stop thinking about a woman “living with some other dude.” He spends a lot of time talking about my overall hotness and how he cannot believe he has such a hot woman — in his bed, in his room, in his car, half-naked, etc. As he is an attractive man who is ridiculously well-paid, he could easily replace me with a younger, hotter, still appropriate woman, but I do appreciate the sentiment and I love that he loves my body and thinks I am very hot. I feel more attractive because I am more attractive to him. It’s a wonderful thing.

We really had a lovely morning and a quick, no traffic drive back to my place and he was still at his office before 7 am. As I sat here, in my own bed, contemplating the night, and writing this out, I could smell his cologne on my skin from when I had hugged him, and I loved it. I texted him the same, still before 6 am.

Other items of interest: he deleted his fb account because it was challenging when he was going through things with his ex, and apparently he had/has a stalker who also tracked him on fb (okay, so that we have in common); and he’s very obviously deeply engaged in therapy. He had three books that I saw that each related to issues with which he is dealing with his ex and his parents — narcissism, codependence, and recovery. A little scary, but he is dealing with them and I would much rather have LP as the open loving man he is confronting these issues than in deep denial about them. At some point, I will ask if his therapist is okay with him being in a relationship. I believe the answer is “no,” but I am a little fuzzy on BFD’s therapist vs LP’s. A too is in therapy. I do not drive them too it, but I do tend to have some enlightened men in my life. I think he said his therapist told him no relationships for a while, but again, that could have been BFD or A.

Last night, I was steeling myself to spend time alone, missing him, still a little angry. Now, I know we’re doing very well. Our big challenge is continuing to keep the physical/sexual side of our relationship in check while we get to know each other, which frankly is a great problem to have. He has to deal with his ex and his work and keeping everything in balance; while I continue to juggle the men in my life, but after spending our first night together, I am so excited about more nights to come.

I awoke before my alarm this morning. I don’t remember the last time I set an alarm for anything. My alarm clock was only on the correct time because A stayed here last month. For me, it had been flashing since the last time the power went out.

But I set an alarm for 630, since my visiting family was arriving at 7 am. I was determined to sleep in as long as possible before heading off on a 3 hour round trip journey to see something for 45 minutes. It was all about the quality time in the car.

At 622, I awoke and my cell phone was flashing. I checked it and it was a photo from LP, which he’d sent the night before around 930 and I had not seen. He was smiling and I could see in the darkness behind him that he was standing inside his new house. Well, that’s interesting.

I did not reply back. It was really early. I was still really annoyed. I had to get ready to see the family.

I have the best family. It’s big, it’s boisterous, and it’s lovely. We are all really crazy about each other and we’re each other’s biggest fans and rivals. It’s the best. I always assure my younger cousins (I am the oldest of more than a baker’s dozen) that anything you want to do or any mistake you’ve made, someone else has already done it and you will be fine. We have each other’s backs, we keep each other’s secrets. I am who I am because of my family. My aunts and uncles are in a couple of special cases, my brothers and sisters, and we have wonderful relationships with each other. My mother, though not the oldest, is the matriarch to her younger siblings, including my uncle J, and our bonds are very special.

Anyway, a cohort of 5 of my relatives J, his wife M, and three of their kids, arrived at my building with an enormous starbucks coffee for me and we headed off. It was so much fun. M, my aunt by marriage to J, and I have known each other for almost 20 years now, which is amazing, and we’ve always been close, so we chatted and caught up in the front, though it had only been a month since we’d seen each other.

She wanted to know of course, what happened to BFD and who the new guy was, so I filled her in on the gossip and told J the cool thing about LP’s ex and he agreed it was really cool, and we just had a blast.

It turns out I have an encyclopedic knowledge of this state, at least in the opinion of out of staters, so I filled them in on everything as we went. When we arrived at our destination, it was amazingly cool and they loved it. It’s important to the history of this state and I find it quite moving. Because it’s rather small, I was able to spend time talking to each of them separately at one point or another, hearing what they’re doing, pointing out things of interest, and reforging those important bonds. The teenagers are growing into such wonderful people and it was so great to be with them.

On our way back, we stopped and went shopping and I helped my aunt M find what she needed as a gift for the bride. When I walked along with J and three of the kids later, they were laughing at all of their dad’s stupid jokes and I reminded them that he tried all of them out on me first, tormenting me like the little sister he did not technically have. They love that we have that relationship because he’s the youngest of a large family and with me, they see a different role for him.

We finished the drive back to town and dropped J and the youngest off and then went to the mall for last minute things with the two older girls. Again, I got to spend time with my aunt and really enjoy her. I think we’re only 6 years apart. She was a prosecutor who went on to become a judge, and she is tough, but fair, which is all you could ever want from someone sitting on the bench. She manages her kids, her life, and her wonderful, goofy husband with amazing skill and grace. She’s really an inspiration, though she has no idea, no matter how often I tell her. To me and many of our other cousins, her marriage is the most functional we’ve ever seen.

Being with J, who I love dearly, and is now pictured with me on my fb profile photo, and his wife, and their kids was wonderful. It kept going all of the positive things we kicked off at the wedding last month and we made plans for me to visit them soon and for the next wedding in May.

After a wonderful day with BP, I needed this regrounding and reconnection. It was so special.

They dropped me off to head to the wedding and then to head off early the next morning for home, so we said our goodbyes on the curb.

After I got upstairs, I decided to text LP back, at whom I was still incensed. I sent him a mild “adorable photo. is that you in your new house?” he said that it was and then added “Sorry we both had such busy wretched weeks.” I corrected him that mine had been bad, but I have had a couple of really great days. He told me he had his kid tonight, but needed “need some serious adult time soon.” I asked if he meant debating issues of the day or playing bridge, but he asked if I wanted to see the new house, which, duh.

We exchanged messages for about 90 minutes straight and made tentative plans for Sunday night. Not holding my breath because I know why they are just tentative, but I really want to see him and he really wants to see me. He needs “serious adult time” so I asked if we would debate the issues of the day or play bridge. Instead, he wants to show me his new house, which I am delighted to see.

When things are going very, very well for me, I feel as though I can I see everything around me, and that I can see everyone else’s view of everything around me, too. I have not felt this way in a very long time — maybe 18 months, maybe longer.

Instead, I have been trapped inside my own head, unable to clearly see what’s happening around me, and certainly incapable of seeing how others are reacting to me.

So much of what I do has to occur in this heightened reality. I need to plan moves weeks, months, years ahead, so I have to know what everyone is thinking and feeling and planning all the time — what they say and what they mean. I have to discern their hidden agendas, play to their strengths, sidestep (or take advantage of ) their weaknesses, and often convince them of something the opposite of what they think they want, though it’s a better solution.

I had a conference with BP and some potential clients on Thursday and I felt a hint of that vision. It was a great conference. I felt strong and confident and I was able to persuade them that not only did I have a far better solution for them, but that it was their idea in the first place. By the end, they wanted to hire and date me.

On Friday, I was tasked with a rather complicated challenge — set a last-minute meeting with a high muckety-muck, to whom I was not connected. So, I took a shot. Made a cold call on my own. Set the meeting, aggressively, then moved it back because BP was late.

I wore a short-sleeved black sweater dress, black patent pumps, and my hair down rather than my usual chignon. It was a little sexy for a meeting because the dress is a little low, but it shows me off to good effect without looking as though I am trying. I changed 8 times in 45 minutes trying to convey an insouciance, while looking sexy as hell. I was convinced going in that the meeting would be a bust, so I was dressed for my date with BP.

Also, it’s sort of important that I look as though I’ve cracked an issue of a style magazine from time to time. In the meeting, I mentioned “casually,” that X is actually an important thing for fall. If you see the [month] issue, they had a huge spread featuring it.

I could feel BP smiling next to me. First, I was right. And second, I was in command. I said it because I saw they needed me to. They wanted to feel that I was who I purported to be, but somehow, better. They wanted to leave the conference and tell their coworkers, “casually,” you know X is an important thing for fall.

Was it true? Yes. Did it matter? Absolutely not.

As I realized I leaned forward from time to time in the meeting, so I reached into my bag and pulled out my go-to silk scarf and threw it around my shoulders, as though I were simply a little chilly. It looked effortlessly chic, and blocked my cleavage.

We kept them enthralled in this meeting for two hours, late on a Friday afternoon. By the end, we got exactly what we wanted, plus hints and tricks to work the system. It was an out of the park home run. BP was so happy, he started to express loudly his pleasure at how things had gone before the elevator doors closed. I shushed him, and as soon as they closed, embraced him. We were beaming, floating back to the parking garage as he said, in amazement, you did that. I can’t believe you just did that. You really pulled it off.

And I did.

I listened carefully, paid attention to everyone’s body language and did my motherfucking job, at which I’ve been really sucky for months.

I sold the hell out of who I am and who he is and who we are and what we do and it was perfect. No false notes. No weirdness. No facial expressions I wish I could take back. No fear that fear inadvertently undermined my overall message. No whiff of desperation. Just tight and controlled. It was smooth from start to finish and the parts that were actually rough, I smoothed as we went so no one was the wiser.

I helped resurrect our original plan, which had fallen victim to the global financial crisis. It’s not “fuck you” money — the walk away money BFD earned for example — but it is enough for my mother to retire and for me to live comfortably without having to constantly worry.

As we left the garage, we debated where to go for dinner. There were really only four options: his favorite 5 star restaurant, my favorite 5 star restaurant, a 4 star restaurant neither of us had been to yet, and a slightly more casual homey restaurant where we’d had many, many drunken dinners, lunches, and where I’d had many fabulous brunches. We opted for the homey restaurant.

It was perfect. Our food was outstanding — 2 appetizers (a fabulous crab cake he liked better than the famous one at his favorite place), 2 cocktails each, dinner, and then a ridiculous dessert. I was actually queasy by the end.

BP gave me dating advice — he thinks I should continue to date both BFD and LP and is wondering how long I can keep them both in stasis before one or the other decides that he is or should be the only man in my life. He genuinely likes BFD and sees why I like him, but he also likes the idea of LP and sees how happy he makes me.

He told me not to give up on LP yet.

We laughed for hours and truly enjoyed each other. We also kind of picked up our incredibly hot waiter. So, there’s that.

I got home still early and fell asleep by 10, awoke to set alarms for my early trip with my cousins, and went soundly back to sleep.

LP is gone, I guess. It’s been since Sunday since we’ve spoken and we have no plans for the weekend.

Over five days, I texted him twice and called him once and left a voice mail.

I am somewhat devastated that he went from hot to cold, even though he’d warned me this would happen with his schedule. Even though I know how hard his work is right now. I have less sympathy for him, even though he “has” to work (unlike BFD or BP or N). I don’t know why I feel that way since they all work like crazy all the time and he actually has to work to maintain his lifestyle. I think I am just hurt because it was so fucking abrupt to go from 75 texts a day to no response.

Zip.

Nada.

In contrast, BFD, who is a terrible boyfriend even under the best circumstances, never called much, so when he didn’t call, I did not feel his absence so acutely.

Last Friday, I was kissing him openly in an empty downtown restaurant, holding his hand as we walked down the street, and making out with him in his parking garage elevator, garage, car, and in front of my building.

I know he’s not really gone. Even if he were to disappear, there is no way that a man who has thought about me for months, who loves kissing me and wants to have sex with me very badly, would just abandon me so quickly before we’ve slept together . . . which we’re waiting on, for a while, if he reappears. Seriously, he wants to sleep with me, so I know he’s not gone-gone.

He mentioned this on our last date that his next relationship needs to respect his crazy work schedule and that he appreciated that I reached out, knowing he would not respond back. I am not certain I can do this again, though I am particularly well-suited for such a relationship.

This started last night as a very different post.

I was thinking about BFD and how it felt to reconnect with him again this week as his girlfriend, not his friend/business partner/workout buddy/lover for the first time in months. That’s what’s been happening. He is suddenly aware again that I am here, that he needs me to be involved in his life. He had been missing me and our connection. We have not seen each other — so much of our life together is over email and the phone — but it has felt very different all of a sudden.

I . . . felt really great about it, actually. I teased and cajoled and praised and criticized and reassumed the mantle as his girlfriend. He was sweet and kind and loving and affectionate and warm and supportive. Everything clicked back into place. We made (and canceled) plans for this week. We made plans for next week. He told me about his plans for this weekend, prepared for me to give him a hard time. Instead, I was enthusiastic and loving and allowed him to be him without making it about us.

BFD is very close to his young nieces/nephews. He sees them at least every 2-3 months, taking them to amusement parks and spoiling them completely. I believe the oldest is under 8. They play with him, they crawl into bed with him, and they make him a completely different person than he is normally. He just lets go and embraces that side of himself and just allows the love. As someone who loves him, I love that he has them in his life. He bought them a gift on our first date and I have known their names nearly as long as I have known his.

So, he told me, I am flying [here] for the weekend, and I said, oh? why? and he said, steeling himself, “To take them trick or treating . . . “

And I embraced him with love. I wanted to know first, what was he going to wear. He said they would be dressing him, so whatever they said, goes. I said, might you be in a dress? He said, laughing, whatever they want.

I know these multiple sides of him, but I’ve not seen this loving BFD in a while. It was clear, he’s not felt this in a while. When I mentioned I’d had an incredibly tough week, he countered, he’d had an incredibly tough three weeks. I smiled and said warmly, well, sweetheart, you’ve had a really tough five months . . .

Now, I was thinking, as I said it, you have know idea how tough my week is compared to yours. You are concerned about timelines and employees and finance [and very specific things related to his industry]. And I am worried about food and shelter. But, I rarely tell him how desperate my existence is because I don’t want him to save me (more than he already has). I want him to be with me because he wants to be with me and not out of a sense of obligation or to decide to not be with me because things are too chaotic.

But, he knows things are bad, which is why he said, softly, Plan, you need to get my deal closed.

Yep.

So, we made general plans for next week, involving “fabulous sex,” I teased him about what he was eating — asking if it were again that revolting broccoli cheese rice concoction — “I love that!” but no, this was something actually resembling food — a frozen indian dish — he’s shopping better, and paying more attention to nutrition, but I still expressed my strong disapproval for his overall eating habits. This is part of his life I have wanted to own, and part he wants to cede to me. And yet, we’ve never quite gotten there.

We spoke about the workout and I told him about parts of the conversation I’d had with the trainer and it was very clear that the trainer had not said anything to BFD about the “was” “dating” part, but it also seemed that they did speak of me, because BFD asked if I’d be working out on Saturday and could I give the trainer a message that he was gone for the weekend but would be back. When I told him I’d be with my young out of town relatives visiting a monument, he was charmed again, and said he’d shoot him an email.

It was hard to hang up.

But we did and I was warm and happy.

It’s hard to know what is in BFD’s head because he keeps his own counsel, but I felt very close to him, very involved and engaged, and it was clear he’d missed me when I stopped calling. He has been slowly reaching back. Cute email Monday morning, a couple of phone calls throughout the day, provocative email exchange in the late afternoon.

So, I am going to be dating BFD again. That does not mean I am not dating other people or that we will be exclusive, but I will be dating him again. I remember clearly how it felt before and I felt some of that again, but we are not there now and we have not been for a while.

BFD and I went on our break so he could deal with some significant issues — including the fact that he is not ready to have a family of his own. Were he to change his mind, then I might have to reconsider things. If not, he will continue to be my friend, he may continue to be my lover (though it’s been 5 weeks since we’ve been together and I can’t even remember the last time we kissed . . . 3 weeks ago maybe? 4? I do know I have gone out on dates with two other men since then, maybe 3).

So, he’s back in my life, but I am still holding him at arm’s length. I am not calling him, not inviting him to events, not engaging him on things. I miss the relationship we had and could have had. The fact that it feels really good does not mean it is really good, or that the last 8 weeks did not happen. He hurt me and that pain exists. Those scars are there. Could he overcome them? Sure. Has he? No. Does he know that? At this point, it’s unclear.

This week, he indicated he’s back and he wants to start making plans with me again. He still has a shot, but he also has competition. What I realized is that being with him as it had become made me deeply unhappy. I also realized I deserve to be happy and that there are certain things that are truly not negotiable.

At the end of a hideously bad day, I met W for a glass of wine at my neighborhood dive bar. It’s not a real dive bar. It’s a hipster dive bar, but I love love love it. They have excellent food (see, not a real dive bar) and I like the energy of the place.

We walked in and the place was packed, so we glanced around, saw no seats and walked out, standing on the rain-soaked patio, debating where to go next.

Then my beloved ex A walked out to say hello, pint glass in hand. We had a great chat, with my assuming he was there on a date, since he made no move to invite us back inside. He was not, he was sitting at the bar by himself, so W glanced back in, saw a table half had opened up, and we wandered back in with A.

I had the best time! I really loved it.

First, I love A. Everyone who knows A loves A. He’s a wonderful guy, especially in 20 minute increments. (An old joke for us, but not far from the truth . . . he makes an amazing first impression and he’s completely charming at cocktail parties, despite being “a barbarian,” his favorite way to describe himself. It’s not true, but he has chosen an interesting path through life and he’s someone I still view as a guru. So does everyone else who meets him. Also, adorably cute and impish.)

We were incompatible in a lot of ways (especially sexually), but we soldiered on for years regardless.

So, we had a blast.

On the day on which I had my eating disorder freakout with my weight dipping to 112, I had a glass of wine, about 1/2 of a basket of amazingly great tater tots, followed by the bun-less sliders I’ve been dreaming about for two weeks. The guys, who have been friends with each other for nearly a decade, drank beer.

A said, look, I am very disappointed you broke up with the rich guy [BFD], because I really want to buy our condo from you. He continued: “you need to get married and get the fuck out . . . You have a year, so make it happen.” W assured him I had another rich guy on deck, although W is not so sure that LP is still involved.

[W thinks LP is trying to power-play me, by ignoring me this week. I believe that LP is absurdly busy with work, and with a lot of drama going on with his ex. I am incapable of accepting that someone with whom I have gone out four times in two weeks, who loves kissing me, who has shared the most emotionally painful and sexually intimate things with me, who desperately wants to have sex with me, but who has respected my boundaries, would just drop me after we had agreed we'd be getting naked, although not yet doing the full-on sex thing. I mean, it's possible, but come on.]

A has had a girlfriend for so long he refuses to tell me when they started dating. They met while we were together, but he insists there was no overlap. I believe him. She does what he does and they met in school. That’s all I know. Oh, and her name. They’ve been dating for, I think, about two freaking years. Amazing. He seems happy, but is intellectually unsatisfied. It happens.

W has a girlfriend, the faux-hemian golddigger who is trying to get knocked up by him. W, for all of his wonderful qualities, picks truly horrible mates. Shrill, dumb, and often crazy. Seriously. I could tell you stories — death threats, suicide threats, intentional “accidents.” W is a successful professional, a prominent socially-connected donor, and he dates beautiful and incredibly immature women, who have an incredibly outable thing in common. All except me and the faux-hemian golddigger. She tells everyone she is desperate to get knocked up by him. He knows this. What he doesn’t really know is her. They’ve been dating for 3-4 months and they are getting ready to move in together, she’s redecorating his house, and she wants to be pregnant like now. It’s insane because he’s ambivalent. He wants a kid, but doesn’t know if he wants to be with her, and he has been incapable of processing that having a kid with her does not mean he will have any access to said kid. Anyway . . .

Regardless of the choices we make in our romantic lives, I am so fortunate to have really wonderful men who know me intimately on both an emotional and physical level and who still love me, despite knowing me as well as they do. They are not the only exes floating through my life, or still in orbit around me, as BP says. From the Alternate Reality, who remains passionate about me, though we never dated, and would do anything in the world for me — and means it, to BP, who tells me often that we will be together again in the future — even as he then tells me about his new girlfriendS, to E, who is still one of my best friends, to XP, these are men who are still my friends, who still love me, despite the fact we’re not together anymore, or in one case, never were. Even BFD and I are still friends . . . through everything, we’re still friends. We still talk constantly and we still love each other.

That is true among almost all of my exes. We still love each other. Our bond is still strong. We are still important in each other’s lives.

Knowing this makes it easier to endure some of my present trials — the break with BFD, the disappearance of LP. I know at the end of the day that I am loved. That I have been loved dearly. That I will love and be loved again.

All this from a fabulous couple of hours with my two favorite exes at the end of a long, painful day, during a long, painful week.

Thanks, guys!

I am under a tremendous amount of stress and pressure, much of it financial, some of it personal, and some of it a combination of the two (I owe my ex-ish BFD money, which sucks).

I don’t have much money right now, so I am being careful with what I am eating at home, and I skipped 2 workouts — it’s really something more suited for the SOs of the BFDs of the world as it’s very expensive (up to $20/session and I have sometimes gone 3x/week).

This disordered thinking is an escape for me, an obsession over which I have total control. I have always had body image issues. I have been a 2 and I have been a 12, but I never see how I really am. It first happened when I was 12 or 13 and I essentially refused to eat. For about 9 months. My parents did not notice, but my friends did and invited one of their fathers — a therapist specializing in eating disorders — in to speak to our biology class. I was offended. I was also 5′3″ and weighed 95 pounds. Many members of my family suffer from eating disorders of one kind or another. It’s all unhealthy, but makes us very good dieters. My cousin spent months in a hospital for anorexia when she was in high school and it’s just one of those things we know. We joke about it, a gallows humor, that we’re only fat between our ears, but we are all fat between our ears.

When life is good, I don’t obsess so so much. When things get sketchy, the obsession begins in earnest. When things spiral out of control, I reach for what I can control, which is what I eat and how I look.

Perhaps, in retrospect, blogging about my overall 58 pound weight loss journey (the last 45 on this blog), was not a great idea for someone prone to disordered thinking. But I have been real and unvarnished, though I do include amusing spins on things because I am writing for me and I enjoy making myself laugh about some of the absurdities and obsessions that flow through my mind. (Yes, Grumpy Young Lady, you are correct that I am often amusing myself.)

One thing I have noticed is that I focus on how I look with the man in my life, how we look together, how we fit. In part, it’s about how the world sees and treats us. I have dated many men of ethnicities far different from my own and people make implicit assumptions about who I am and who he is based solely on the shape of his eyes or color of his skin. But I am more interested in the shapes of our bodies. I like how I look with my partners and since I have tended to date thin, athletic men over the past year, I have gradually become even thinner.

On my own, I like to be dominated in a way I can control, if that makes sense. I am ridiculous and vain and self-involved and convinced of my overwhelming charm and grace, while I am also painfully aware of all of my shortcomings and fears. That balance is very endearing to a certain type of man, and it takes a discerning eye to detect the fear beneath the veneer. It’s all there, all the time, especially when I am unguarded. If you pay attention to me, you tend to fall in love with me because I look to the world one way, but I am very aware of and conscious of all of the bad stuff all the time. I know my flaws, from a small scar on my face to my tendency to take advantage of men who care for me. I know them all. And, if you are one of the people to whom I am very, very close, you may sincerely believe you’re the only one who knows the truth, that I don’t even recognize it. This makes you, implicitly, an idiot.

LP, on our first date, saw the real and the artifice, which is why I found him so compelling. I saw the same in him, which is why I found him so compelling. Everything is real and not real and hyper-projected and understated. It’s kabuki, but it’s also completely real and true.

So now, my world is falling apart and I am losing weight and freaking myself out. I have dropped three pounds in a week, while having pms.

BFD and I are apart, but not, which makes what I had hoped would be a new relationship with LP complicated, but that’s going sideways right now, which is also painful, and makes the BFD situation easier and yet painful because he cannot make me happy right now, or perhaps ever. Plus, I am having financial problems that are unmanageable and I cannot plan my way out. Nothing is helping, nothing is improving, and I am afraid I am on a path to utter and complete ruin. Or I will make a mill within then next two months. That’s how fucked up my life is, which I know is not that fucked up, but I feel like I am dying. (Yes, melodramatic much?)

Into that maelstrom, is food. Or lack of food. I eat more carefully than before. I contemplate french fries and the impact of rice in the nigiri. I do still eat them, at times, but I am watching my weight decline past my oh-my-god-fucking-get-a-grip-and-stop-it weight of 113, now knowing I am 3 pounds away from 109.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at “Cheers” and I joined a couple of men who were also regulars, though unknown to me, who had bought my dinner, without my knowledge. I was in workout clothes — yoga pants with a yoga tank and a fitted t-shirt, so I looked kinda cute for having just come from a workout. Anyway, one of the guys, the single one (fat, ugly) was paying particular attention to me and we really had a great chat. At one point he asked how much I weighed, while laughing at his own impertinence. Because weight is something I am so used to discussing I told him 115 and he thought I weighed 10 pounds less, and indeed, sort of made me feel bad about it. So, now, that I am at 112, I am tantalizingly close to 109.

I am already at the point where you can clearly see the bones in my arm, apparently. I don’t see them, but apparently you can, given a rather ugly discussion at a bar. I do know that crunches are absurdly painful, that my clavicle is prominent and you can easily see the bones in my chest. So, there’s that.

Oh, and did I mention I am here, at this weight, while bloated with pms. Scary.

I am dressed to meet W for a glass of wine. He is my bestie and just back in town. I am obviously not doing well.

I am happy with how I look, but I keep hearing “109 . . . 109 and float to 112 . . . what’s three more pounds . . .”

So, I am dressed in a pair of cute, slightly baggy true religion skinny jeans, a kelly green tunic style sweater and high-heeled oxford booties thinking, wow, I look really good. Because I am aware that I am inside this thing, I am afraid that means I look disturbingly thin.

I guess he’ll tell me soon. Seven pounds heavier, he began calling me eating disorder girl. He routinely points out how thin my arms are. (I have a small frame.)

I am writing all of this to remind me to be careful because it’s so easy to do this. It’s easy to lose myself within this, and I just have to remember that things will be okay and that I look good, no matter what I weigh. Really, I am only fat between my ears.