I'm very happy to report that Dave, (David Roy Walsh II), and I are still together! 

We just celebrated my birthday together, at his place. It was very low-key, and funnily enough, this year may be the most social year ever - Andre from work convinced me to do "birthday shots" somewhere here in the neighborhood.. Mom and Lillie Mae are probably coming down tomorrow.. and Dave and I may do a joint-birthday party at the end of the year.. (oh gawd)

I'm learning "boundaries" right now.. I got triggered something fierce, rolling from DC Smith ending the relationship out of nowhere in 2015, the house insecurity that started - not feeling comfortable/being crammed into a space/holding onto lots of stuff "for when..," all the way to current day, 2024! almost a whole decade, huh? That's some bullshit.. ugh. 

Well.. it seemed to compound build.. I meant to finally land somewhere. To have "a family" and take care of them. I'm 41 and renting a room in a flat in SF. No babies coming into this life, other than ones that aren't my own. 

Anyways. Steve asked mom for a divorce, and things just fell quickly from there. He bought a house, and so she needed to buy herself a house (to not stay in the house from two of her divorces).. and this means she went nuts, and I tried to help with the pieces, all while going through my own trauma of losing the house I grew up in. 

 She was not chill.. I could write more - it's on paper somewhere. 

Anyways, more "losing house" .. Asha turned out to be holding some weirdness against me - he blew up and tried strong arming a conversation that ended up with him telling me that I made him cry himself to sleep for a year because of that time he told me he didn't want me to visit anymore (it was the great solar eclipse, I had been over Gabriel's place, UGH).. but since Asha didn't mention that when we were discussing me moving in, it blew up when we just kept not having a smooth time living in the same house. (WTF) That was in a Sept, and I ended up finally moving out at the end of February 2022. 

I pushed myself into 849 Haight Street, with Jessica C. and Stephen Trull, and his cat Moufette. There's a redwood tree in the backyard, and I have a room facing the street. Now.. this room's mold killed my moss pretty much right away, and Stephen was pretty much defensive and deflective from the start about it. (I'm not currently in the mindset to list everything out, but, I think I would like to do that one day, since I feel I'm a bit more detached from it finally.) 

The other day I came to the conclusion that Stephen reminds me of Colin, the Energy Vampire from the tvshow "What We Do in the Shadows" - he likes to rile you up.. his humor is biting, and I think that wouldn't be a problem if he attempted to bridge the gap from the beginning, instead of being up his own ass. 

I feel I'm both attempting to recover from "masking" and "gaslighting" myself into 'passing for normal' in favor of actually caring for my needs, And attempting to learn how to have a fake mask on to protect myself from people I'm having harsh interactions with, like Stephen. Almost like I'm attempting to learn a poker face, or a 'customer service' persona. 

Doing these things at the same time feels insane, but also, I really can't trust certain people to care about being genuine in the moment with me/ to be honest in the moment with me (I'm still practicing this, sooooo..). 

Hm.. I don't want to think/write anymore. I feel I have things to do! Like figure out where to eat with Lillie Mae and my mom.. I wish I lived with someone who wasn't so icky to me.. I feel it would be the easiest to just bring them into the house.. but it feels like such a fucking ordeal to ask for privacy.. what a shit. 

 ~hugs~

 Looks like my numbers dont want to work??

55666

555

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This is a few days later.

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Richard seemed cool with meeting me to exchange for another laptop. This one was his for testing upgrades, so he's confident in it's performance. He's a really nice guy. I'm glad that Dave was able to feel well enough about driving me out to my old neighborhood to grab this gift.

Makes me curious about the coming year.. are we going to be social?

Dave's currently having someone over for the first time in years. A possible deeper connection to come, maybe. I'm interested in hearing about it.

Hmm.. me? This feels nice. I think I will attempt to use this again..? Maybe.. hah. 

Don't really feel like writing much.. I want to look at comics, that I haven't gotten to update myself on much! **excited!!**