Happy new years! Me, my wife, her sister, are getting ready for a big old house party. We invited Merril, but this is party might end with gay sex in the hot tub (not that non-gays have to take part) and that makes him a little uncomfortable. Plus, he wants to give the two of us our space, as I was nice enough to let them have the house last night. I went over to my Mom's, too see her and also say goodby to our gay republican native american friend Malcolm, who has been living with her and is kind of her adopted kid, which in his culture is fairly common. It being a matriarchal culture and him being first born male, it is kind of an accepted way for him to get away from his family.

He's moving in with his wife. From what I understand, they met in the army, in Korea. They got married for the pay and tax benefits. I think they really like each other, as friends, but I haven't met her yet. That's an even better way of getting away from your family amongst the Dine or Navajo as we call them. His family are all pretty messed up. His mom is a university professor with a gambling problem, and the rest of them are in and out of jail all the time.

Merril and Jenny and I had a great conversation the other night. We're on the same page. This next phase is the make or break phase, where the infatuation fades and you start to be real with each other. It's definitely more than just sexual between her and Merril at this point. And we are all starting to feel safe to contemplate what the medium and long term might look like.

Merril and I still have a great geek connection. I talked his ear off the other night and then apologized, saying I was in my manic phase and he confided that he's actually bipolar. Ouch. He's on good medication, but I had a friend who was bipolar, and that's serious. Not a deal breaker by any means, especially with modern treatments, but a hard road nonetheless.

I'm quitting smoking tomorrow. It's easy, I've done it a million times. Fortunately, my wife has pretty much already quit, her sister smokes three cigarettes a day, outside, and Merril doesn't smoke except when he's drinking and smokes are around. Me, I'm an addict. I did quit for two years once, and only started because I was around smokers all the time. Wish me strength of will, I'll need it.

Deep breaths. The cravings will pass. Cravings always do, because the present moment provides plenty of other stimuli to engage other seeking-circuits if you just wait. It's a good lesson that doesn't just apply to drugs.

It also applies to sex. I've been trying to be very conscious of my desires there. I'm very sexual, not destructively so, but way more than average. But I don't like feeling desperate. And if I don't get it every day, I feel desperate. I mentioned this to my therapist and said it would be one of my goals to turn it down sometimes between then and the next session. I have, and I don't feel guilty because I know my wife is getting some of the hottest sex she's ever had from Merril.

I came home today and he was still here. I'd specifically invited him to stay fro dinner, but he felt like he was taking advantage. Sadly, he had a dead battery and needed a jump. Unlike Mr. Y., Merril has a moral center telling him what's fair and what isn't.

I have to wrap this up, my lovely wife who is watching me right now has reminded me that we have a party to go to.

It's my birthday and everyone pooled their money and got me a Wii! I told them not to bother, they'd never find one, but they did, after much searching and calling and running about. First thing I'm getting is a Wi-Fi USB connector.

Now I need to figure out what games to get. I'd like to get some good multi player games that my wife, a non-gamer, might like. She like puzzle, rhythm, and party games. I'd also like some good games for me, on consoles I like action (side scroller, platform, etc.) and RPG games.

Any ideas?

Interesting post in an interesting discussion. The reading list and suggested exercises is also a keeper.

First, let me apologize for my near incoherence. I'm quite drunk, but I've had a great night with my wife, her lover, and her sister tonight, and I have to get this down before I forget.

It started last night, with our plans for tonight. Merril was eager to apply some of the cooking lessons he'd learned from me on our previous nights together. Unfortunately, he is living in the house he's flipping right now, and it's in a sorry state. Even if we could make use of the dysfunctional kitchen, he's got no furniture, so we would be sitting on the floor and eating.

Therefore, we planned to cook and eat here, and Merril would go home with Jenny. But two hours before dinner time, Tawni called Jenny saying she had a free moment. Tawni is one of Jenny's acting disciples. She's a brilliant writer on her own regard, but she learned everything she knows about acting from my wife. She is also a tall, gorgeous amazon who would make any fan of Wonder Woman get a full on stiffy.

Too bad she's off limits. I had to clue Merril in to that fact when we went out to buy groceries for tonight's meal. No fucking Jenny's friends, anyone else is okay. Jenny and I put together a perfect Thai green curry chicken menu from memory and first principles tonight. Merril and I hunted down the ingredients, going to two different stores to find everything Jenny and I had decided to include.

The recipe was 3 pounds of chicken breast; 1/2 pound each of cherry tomatoes, green peppers, onions, and green beens; two cans of coconut milk; one tablespoons each of coriander, fish sauce, and Thai green curry paste; 1/4 cup of basil; and 1/2 cup of cilantro added at the end. It turned out fucking phenomenal. And Merril learned a lot.

Not the least of which was the value of compromise in relationships. Damn it, I wish they weren't so much like she and I were when we are first going out. I try to offer them both short cuts based on what I've learned, but that only works when people know what the hell you're talking about in the first place.

After buying all the ingredients, Merril and I were walking to my car and talking about relationships. His failed ones and ours with Jenny. I told him he was lucky, because he has a relationship on training wheels. First, he doesn't have to worry about being partner material for Jenny, she has me. Second, he has me to give him advice. He took it well, for all the audacity involved.

The dinner turned out great, but the meal was marred by strife. Jenny, still feeling like she had to assert her place, was a little bossy towards me. That pushed Merril's buttons, and he told her if she ever talked to him that way, he would break up with her. I ended up the go between for my wife and her lover. Thankfully, I really like them both, so it's not hard for me to engage empathy and act thoughtfully towards them both, even caught in middle.

To Jenny, I presented the remembrance of what I was like when we first met, and how much I've learned since then. To him, I merely said, "You can fight a woman for control, and then you are just fighting each other all the time; or, you can give in and let her win, then she will share control with you. Be a man, show a little weakness. It will pay off."

He heard me. She was so pissed she didn't even want to go home with him tonight, even though it was their night tonight. He admitted a little weakness, she softened right up, they went home together, and her sister and I ended up having a very nice conversation about family, Christianity, and the holidays.

I still think Rachael is a demanding pain in the ass, but I know she knows what family means, and that is what Christmas is all about, to agnostic old me. It seams like we'll all be going to Christmas mass this year, even though half of us aren't really Christians.

Is it weird to think that Christ would be proud of that? I'd say "Merry Christmas!" but I just know I'm going to have a few more things to blog about between now and then.

Did I mention that Jenny and Rachael's parents are coming out for the holidays? And did I mention that we're going to try to sneak Merril in to the Christmas diner & then the Mass with all of us, as my friend?

"Oh yes, parental units, this is my dear geeky friend Merril who would be all alone for the holidays were it not for our festively cheerful inclusiveness."

We learned with the whole Mr. Y. Disaster not to mention this sort of thing to Jenny's parents. My mom knows, but I was born into a three way marriage so Jenny and my polyamory has never been something to hide from her. Merril was raised Mormon, so this isn't too much of a stretch for him, though it might be for his family if he talked to them. But Jenny's family are all proper Protestants, so the whole concept makes them uncomfortable.

We're going to see how things progress before announcing anything this time. They both push each other's buttons like crazy, even as they turn each other on like crazy. Merril needs to shit or get off the pot. If he wants a fuck buddy, he doesn't have much time left. If he wants a relationship (on training wheels) then he needs to show some vulnerability, step up, and be real with her. Please, he can do it with me, girls are not THAT much more scary.

Oh brother. We've got our major in house application running on HP-UX. Apparently, the security team has port scanned this behemoth before, and crashed it. Port scans shouldn't crash a decent server, I know. It's behind multiple firewalls, so it never even gets seen by outsiders. Anyway, today the security team asked me for permission to port scan our IBM Bladecenter environment. I know there's nothing there they can crash with Nessus, so I said, "Fire away!"

The HP-UX server isn't even on that network segment, but we gave them a list of 'off limits' IP addresses anyway. Here's a tip: don't give scan monkeys a list in two columns, such as "primary interface" and "secondary interface." They may not look at the second column. They scanned the secondary interface, which all 2,500 fricken' clients in the state connect through, and crashed it, hosing the IP stack. And bringing a big Sybase server down and back up is not quick. We're talking an hour, multiplied by 2,500 people. And they lost everything they were working on at the moment.

Between 9 Ultrium-3 tapes going bad all at the same time (maybe heat stress from the cooling failure a month ago) and this, it's been a stressful week.

Merril and I have really hit it off. We just started learning Ruby together. I want to do some scripting of Sketchup, maybe make a program to generate random town and village maps for RPGs. He wants to get up to speed fast and then we'd write a book about it. It's so new, there aren't really that many books out yet.

Jenny is a little miffed at him. He's a little misogynistic. Or rather, he's afraid of women and a bit insecure. He can't stand the fact that she can beat him at games like Rummikub. I think smart women attract but frighten him at the same time. He's also a little bit bigoted. We had to let him know that he can't go around assuming people are less intelligent based on their race, at least not if he wants to hang out with us.

Jenny is at the point where she wants the relationship to be about more than just sex. He's still getting his mind blown every time. She really is the best I've ever had. It's very rewarding having sex with a girl who can have internal vaginal orgasms in less than ten minutes, pretty much every time. Plus, she knows how to move, how to show you that she really, really likes it. And she's a screamer, which is great if you like aural sex.

But she's at the point where she wants him to open up to her a little bit, or at least give some token that he likes her for more than just sex. I tried to tell him that he's on a little bit shaky ground on Monday. I didn't tell her, just went over at lunch and said, "You know, she's a little sad. Maybe It's just PMS, but she could use some cheering up. I think she'd like to know that you like her for more than just sex. Maybe some flowers? $5.99 at Albertson's, it's on the way."

Did he show up with flowers? Of course not. If he had, I wouldn't have told her, but we were processing the next day and she brought up her fears and insecurities again, so I felt I had to give her that additional data point. Now, if it was me, I'd be in big trouble for treating her like he does. But he's got a big dick, and evidently that is a "get out of the doghouse, free" card. Sigh.

So, a little bigoted, a little misogynistic, and scared of real intimacy. Another fixer-upper. A friend of ours told us that some friends of his who had started up a polyamory group here were trying to get it back together. We're definitely going to check that out. Sure, there are messed up people in poly circles, too. But in the ones I've been involved with, there was always a core group of really solid, open, honest, and fun people without too many problems or hangups.

But Merril is definitely worth a little effort. You can't change other people, but you can give them both incentive and help in changing themselves. I think Merril wants to change, I mean, who really wants to be scared of intimacy? Connecting with other humans on a heart to heart level is, to me, one of the very best things in life.

I'm working on a GURPS fantasy campaign set in an alternate Earth, Elizabethan era. I've done quite a bit of cartography with the Profantasy suite. It's quite nice, I've got the Fractal Terrains program, and the Campaign Cartographer with dungeon and city add ons. Some months ago I discovered Google Sketchup, a great free version of the Sketchup 3D modeling program used to create buildings in Google Earth. I've got a bunch of models uploaded to the 3D Warehouse site, including some very nice ship and castle models with detailed interiors.

The gist of the campaign is Harry Potter meets Master and Commander. I think the background I've developed is quite ingenious. Basically, Elves, who are more like the Tuatha De Danann than Tolkien's friendly, helpful Elves, invaded from faerie around 1400 years previously; conquered all the advanced races on the planet; instituted religious reform saying that all Gods were mere reflections of the Real, elven Gods; and taught a new system of magic while demonizing the old, spirit based magic. Then they mysteriously disappeared about four hundred years after their conquest was complete, leaving the world to fall into a dark age.

Now, it's a time of enlightenment. A new age of exploration begins, and the people of the island nation of Ghent are determined to outdo their continental neighbors, who currently have more colonies overseas, and a bigger navy. But the Ghentians have a secret weapon: ancient Elven ship building techniques have recently been recovered, and a new type of ship is being built in secret.

The campaign covers three chapters, and in each, players can keep their old characters or play new ones. The first chapter details the finding of the plans in an ancient elven citadel, intrigue in the secret ship yard where the first small prototype is being constructed, exploration of a forbidden Elven island, defeating the guardians and reactivating the old Elven technology found there, and finally, the building of the ship that will be the first to carry humans around the world. The players are a band of adventurers hired by a high placed agent of the Crown to help carry out these endeavors. They go on to help the agent enact the desires of the Queen on the voyage of discovery.

The second chapter involves the voyage itself, discovering new lands and new races, and gradually piecing together the mystery of the elves. The players can keep playing their old characters, or take on the role of midshipmen, mage's apprentices, rangers, or marines. The final chapter begins when the first voyage is complete, as a small fleet is launched to carry out diplomacy and open up trade with the newly discovered civilizations, the mystery is solved at last, and a major excursion into faerie is undertaken to break the last hold the Elves have over the world.

As the Elves were androgynous, assuming whatever form they desired at a whim, they never understood sexual roles in humans or other races and treated them all the same. They tended to use other races more like domesticated animals and never showed empathy or remorse, though they did show lust and possessiveness. They used the other races as fireball fodder in their wars of conquest.

They did not understand other races emotions, and used them sexually, leading to some very great societal differences between our world and that one. For one thing, the sexes are still equal, even after the disappearance of the Elves. For another, sexuality is quite a bit more open, but some strange and disturbing attitudes remain from the days of Elven subjugation.

Anyway, if you are into either RPGs or naval history you might want to download some of the ship models I've made and take a look. Some are realistic, others more fantastical. There are also some nice models of castles and towns.

Sketchup is free, and one of the most intuitive modeling programs I've used. Definitely worth the download. Some of my later hulls were designed using the free version of Delftship, with only the interiors and details added in Sketchup. Delftship is amazing, using subdivision surfaces which allow you to define most hulls using only a few control points, and then subdivide it into as many or as few polygons as you like. And it calculates all the important hydrodynamics, so you can figure out how well your hull would function.

I'll be putting up a site with more world background, maps, models, and pictures a bit later.

Merril (that, I find out, is how it is spelled) was over again tonight, and I wanted to write about it, but then I reread Friday's entry, and this was a repeat of that. Except that Jenny tried much harder to give us our space to connect.

When I said that the geek connection is as powerful as a sexual connection, that wasn't hyperbole. I've felt it many times in my life. There's something very intense about finding another person with whom you can share certain intellectual parts of your self. Merril and my conversation tonight ranged over mathematics, quantum physics, game theory, Perl programming, object oriented programming, hydrodynamics, war history, and artificial intelligence. Among other things.

Whenever the conversation veered towards topics that Jenny couldn't take part in, she would excuse herself to let us talk. I could tell it was a strain on her. Sometimes she would sit and listen, but with her arms crossed, obviously feeling defensive.

Jenny is incredibly intelligent, but in a different way from Merril and I. Her intelligence is primarily social and emotional, and where it is logical, it encompasses a totally different knowledge base than ours. She can analyze the hell out of any artistic endeavor, in a way that makes the lit-crit pomo liberal arts types seem like the punters they really are.

The thing is, her emotional and social intelligence get short circuited when she feels threatened. She can look at any situation not involving herself, and break down everyone's true motivations in a way that seems obvious, but that most people never would have thought of if she hadn't mentioned it. She can do that with her own motivations, after the fact, and so can I. That has been the main thing that has kept our relationship working over the years.

Merril is a typical guy in that regard. Not nearly as hurt and dysfunctional as Mr. Y., but like most guys, uncomfortable with the illogical complexity of human feelings. He's divorced, and is obviously uncomfortable dealing with "women's issues." He had a strong, overbearing mother and a wife who "nagged the hell out of him." When Jenny and I brought up the fact that we were in couple's counseling, he said, "That's all I need, two bitches in the room yelling at me." Ouch.

Now, one of the things about the way Jenny and I do polyamory: we share everything. When she has a crush, I can be like a big sister to her. Well, maybe like an older cousin who has a crush on you. Anyway, we talk about things, including the emotional state of said crush.

You better be sharp if you get involved with us, because your mental, emotional, and situational state will be analyzed to the umpteenth degree. We may make mistakes, like we did with Mr. Y., but it isn't out of malice. We really want everyone in the world to be intimate with everyone else. That's our strength as a species, our ability to share our experiences with others. You can't share if you are too afraid to be honest, and after seven years and too many close calls to dwell on, I think we are finally there.

While Jenny was in the bathroom, I took the opportunity to tell Merril that he should engage Jenny where she is at, intellectually. There was an interesting Slashdot article recently on early attitudes towards intelligence recently. Basically, if you tie self worth to intelligence early on, you cripple it. If you teach that intelligence is malleable, and that anyone can become smarter through hard study, you enhance it.

All three of us got that bad first message, but Jenny got it far worse than Merril or I. The two of us can still approach intellectual challenges as an opportunity to broaden ourselves, while she sees them as an affront to her self worth. So she has a harder time discussing things that are new to her. So he should meet her where she is at, and talk about directing, acting, art history, cinematography, design, politics, sociology, philosophy, ethics, and human nature.

Now I personally am a true renaissance man. I can discuss mathematics and the intangibles of human feelings, the history of combat and the history of pacifism, art and science: my left and right brain are pretty well integrated. I've had a lot of positive experiences dealing with logical and intuitive types of thinking. So I can see both sides.

This is one reason that Jenny really loves me. It's one of the reasons I'm not afraid to let her have experiences where she is infatuated with another guy. We've been together for seven years, and we were partners above all else from almost the very beginning. Not counting our having sex within fifteen minutes of meeting at the Rainbow Gathering in Oregon, because we were barely ever in the same state for the next two years. But now, we trust each other, that we have each other's back.

Unless you were born rich and privileged, when you find someone that you know has your back, stick with that person. I discount the privileged because they are taught never to trust anyone and to take advantage wherever they can, so they need to work through that before they can be interdependent. I was raised middle class, and Jenny was raised working class, so at least we don't have that hanging over our heads.

Mr. Y. challenged us when we were at a real low point, but we made our peace with being apart and then came back together with a renewed sense of why we wanted to be partners in the first place. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

My story now is that, although Merril rocks her world sexually that is only one part of a complete relationship, and he is not capable of being a real partner. Honestly, if I thought that out of fear or malice, one would think I'd try to use it against him. Instead, I try to tell him what he needs to do to develop an even more intimate relationship with her. Because I want that for her, and I think he needs to experience a relationship with a woman who can be a real partner, not just a ball buster.

One of the many things Jenny and I have in common is that we look at the motivations, psyche, and situation of the people around us and try to figure out how to increase the net happiness of the world. Purely selfishly, I might add: we just happen to like looking at happy, free, and self actualized people more than we like looking at sad and desperate people.

So this is good. A rare win-win-win situation. She gets more affirmation that she is sexually attractive, and that she is desirable as a partner. He and I get a geek friend. He gets some positive experiences working though relationship issues, and a role model, nay advocate, to show him how it's done. I get another opportunity to see where I'm still weak.

Weak? Okay, I'm jealous. And envious. She's getting some of the best sex of her life! How can I not be a little of both envious and jealous? Yes, she and I have had whole weekends together where all we did was fuck, maybe ten or fifteen orgasms for me, and who knows how many dozens for her. And I have had numerous incredibly hot sexual experiences before we got married, unlike her. But the primal feelings are still there.

For all his six foot sevenish masculinity, and his impressive girth if not length (it's far more important!), he hasn't had nearly the depth and breadth of sexual experience I've had. Also, I'll admit that Jenny is the best fuck I've ever had, but some of the things he's impressed by just lead me to believe that he has been with some pretty boring girls, overall. So intellectually I don't begrudge them their fun. But on a primal level it challenges me more then her relationship with poor can't get hard, average sized Mr. Y. ever did.

However, I think I mentioned before that I thought Merril would make a great wingman? All three of us talked about it, and we may all go out soon and try to get me someone new. Last time we were out at a bar together, he was a little pissed off because Jenny was feeling in third place intellectually, so he started pointing out all the girls who were checking us out. "Oh, look at that one, she's totally looking at you, dude, and her friend has been scoping me out! What do you think?"

So he obviously has wingman skills, and if a girl asked about my ring I could say, yeah, ask my wife if it's okay. She's over there with her boyfriend.

P.S. I just reread this JE, and yes, I'm a little drunk and that's why it rambles as it does. Sorry.

So Merrel was over tonight. I don't think he would mind me using his real name, and it is less awkward than the whole "Mr. M." convention. He's not skittish and weird like Mr. Y. He and I hit it off great. In fact, that's the problem.

Jenny is jealous of our intellectual connection. There's more to it than just that, of course. She lived as a fag-hag in San Francisco for so long, and has had so many guys stolen from her by other guys, that she's a little wary when two guys she likes connect.

We were just geeking out, and I have been hit on by enough guys to know the difference, but she felt threatened. Part of it is the fact that, intelligent as she is, her main thrust of intelligence lies in areas different from those traditionally respected as such. You know. Liberal Arts. There, I said it. Get a liberal arts type in a group with science types and they are all like, "No really, my knowledge has relevance!" I tried to mollify the situation, but he's one of those guys who has obviously been hurt by women almost one too many times. So he's nervous because she is acting a little weird.

I say "almost" because if a guy has been hurt too many times by women, it really can turn him "gay." Some guys are born wanting cock. Some guys are thrust into it. Everyone is a little bi, I think, and just like in prison, if you can't get what you need from a preferred source for whatever reason, you'll get it from the next best place.

He's not gay at all. He likes the same things about Jenny that I like. She's got curves like a woman, not like a prepubescent boy. So he listens to Abba and likes musicals, he can't be the only straight guy to do so.

I have real reason to try to make all this work. I like Merrel. I don't know that many geeks who have a surfeit of other geeks in their lives and that kind of intellectual connection is as fun as sex. So I don't want to make my wife jealous of me and the 6'7", hung like a horse guy she's fucking. That's more ironic than a black fly in your chardonnay.

Well, everyone predicting this Mr. Y. thing wouldn't work out, you were right. He turned out to be a lost cause. But, wouldn't you know, something better turned up: Mr. M. Six foot six, built like a linebacker and hung like a horse. He and Jenny have GREAT sex, from what I hear. And he's not weird, in fact, he and I hit it off perfectly on first meeting. He's very respectful, not very needy, and potentially a great wingman for me getting some strange of my own. He's brilliant, and a great big nerd to boot, a mathematician to be exact. Funny coincidence, my first polyamorous experience was with my girlfriend of the time, Jenny (different Jenny) and a mathematician named Lee.

Jenny and I have been going to individual therapy and couples counseling. Our relationship has never been stronger, and our sex has never been better. Work is going great, got a great review and a raise. About the only thing stressing me out is Jenny's sister. She's still living with us and shows no signs of looking for another place. She's demanding and selfish and expects everyone around her to entertain her. And she is always there, so Jenny and I have a hard time finding the time or privacy to really connect. Well, it's time to have a talk with Rachael.

Okay, if I don't mention the whole polyamory thing, just assume it's going well. I've got a ton of other stuff I've been wanting to write here, so enough about all that for now.

Jenny's sister is getting in to town tonight. She's going to be living with us for a while. She just graduated college with a double major in Journalism and Political Science. Now Albuquerque may not be a hotbed of journalistic action, but it's better than Bloomington, Indiana.

I doubt she's going to get a very good journalism job here, but that's not the point. The point is she needs to get the hell out of Indiana and see some of the rest of the country. Jenny and I have been thinking about moving to Seattle in a year or two, and Rachel could actually do pretty well there, journalism-wise. For now, she's got some web design skills that can pay the bills, and she can do some freelance work.

It will be nice having another smart, free thinking, well educated person to talk to. Rachel used to be a bit of an annoying know-it-all, but she's calmed down a bit after graduating and having to live in the real world for a while.

I've said she should start blogging, but she's very old-school. I've tried to tell her that traditional journalism is dead, but of course being young, she thinks she'll be the one to single handedly rescue the field from ignominy. The problem is that there are no real outlets for investigative journalism these days. News is entertainment, a way to sell eyeballs to advertisers. It doesn't matter how good a journalist you are if the owners and editors are all bent on ladling out pablum to the masses.

Poor kid, I wish her luck.

What a great weekend! Mr. Y. and Jenny and I spent the entire weekend together. We hung out Friday night, just talking well into the next morning. It started out with some political discussion, and we are all very much on the same page politically. Then it got into some very deep philosophical discussion. I kinda blew his mind a little. But the best part is when the conversation turned to personal matters. Jenny and I started discussing some of the work I want to do on myself, anger issues, my family and things like that. My opening up like that, and talking about myself in such a non defensive way encouraged him to as well. Jenny said (with only a tinge of jealousy) that he had said things about himself that he'd never even shared with her. Funny thing, Mr. Y. and I have some very similar childhood experiences.

The more I connect with him, the more I like him. This feels so much more balanced. Even Jenny opened up and shared stories I'd never heard in seven years together. We really bonded emotionally. We'd only planned to hang out Friday night, as we had some chores to do Saturday, but we all had such a great time, we ended up just hanging out all weekend.

We fooled around some. This was the second time all three of us have been sexual together. The first time we were hanging out on the couch last weekend and somehow Jenny's skirt and panties disappeared and he was fingering her while I was kissing her, until she got off, and that was that. This time, we all went to the bedroom and it went quite a bit further.

I'd always wondered how he would react, if it would be scary or embarrassing for him because of his ED issues and the fact that he's never before been sexual with another man present. Well, earlier it had all come out that, yes, we all knew each others dirty little secrets, and we were really all okay with that. But in situations like these, ask if you aren't sure. Negotiation is key. So I asked him, "Mr. Y., I really want to have sex with her now, is that okay?" and he said yes, and it was very good.

Both Mr. Y. and I like being dominant during sex, and Jenny loves being submissive. One of the reasons that I've wanted this is that sharing a woman like that is very dominant. Saying what you're going to do to her, or telling the other guy what to do, that's very very hot. BDSM is all about control and power. Specifically, playing at loss of control and taking of someone else's power, when it is really sharing of control and power.

Well, I don't want to get into too many details here, suffice it to say that Saturday was a lot of fun on a different level than Friday night. Sunday we all just hung out and watched movies and didn't really talk much or fool around. It felt like being with old friends, just very comfortable and safe.

Mr. Y. said I was one of the most amazing person he'd ever met. He said he really liked me, and that he felt more connected to me than to his own family. Jenny was amazed, and I almost think I detected a hint of jealousy that he opened up to me like that when he was so closed and defensive with her.

I need a close platonic male friend, and he needs one even more. There's still plenty of opportunity for this all to go horribly, horribly wrong, but it is looking more and more like my initial assessment is right on the money. Things are going how I wanted them to in the beginning.

Jenny put my ring back on my finger today. It's her thirty second birthday today. She begged me not to get her anything so I got her a card that plays a clip from "Ain't No Woman (Like the One I've Got)." She loved it. Her real present, and the reason for the title of this JE: she and Mr. Y. are giving it a go as friends with privileges.

He's redeemed himself quite a bit, and restored my faith in my ability to asses character. He admitted that he'd sabotaged things with Jenny out of hurt and fear. He admitted to projecting about the alcoholism issue. He apologized for treating her poorly and acknowledged that he was not ready for a partnership. He agreed that it would be better if we all could be friends and hang out, and said he would try. He said he was comfortable with the fact that I would come first, and he and Jenny would see each other a couple times a week.

Now that's what I wanted from the get go. And he lives in the same apartment complex, but all the way over at the other side. In a much better apartment. With air conditioning. And he hasn't had time to bachelorize the place yet. So it's a place Jenny feels comfortable being and she can get there and back on her own, an issue as she doesn't drive. We could all hang out there and not have to shift piles of bachelor crap to sit.

He got some side work and can in theory almost double his income, which would put him in my income bracket. I do not mention this out of crass materialism, but because of the self esteem issue. And it helps Jenny too, again, not because she is a gold digger, but because she wants the people in her life to live up to their potential.

We paid for the moving, renting a truck and paying Malcolm's brothers $90 to help. We ate the cost of the first two weeks' rent on this apartment. We ate the deposit on his apartment. We gave him $200 for the inconvenience of luring him out of his rat hole, upturning his life, and then dumping him.

So, he gets a better apartment and better, more fulfilling work to pay for it, he makes out like a bandit, and gets a fuck buddy with no strings attached. Hell, she's pulling for him to get an actual girlfriend and won't be too sad if the sex has to stop. In fact, he's on a bit of thin ice in that department anyway. He may have redeemed himself, but he still has some work to do if he wants to stay in our lives as more than just a friend.

Really all he has to do is be the guy he fronted as in the first month of this whole cartoon train wreck. You know the train wreck where the train careens off of a broken track, barrel rolls, and ends up right back on the tracks again? That's the one I mean.

The Beatles "Because" just came up on my Winamp random shuffle. The line "love is old, love is new" played right as I wrote that last bit. I love my life. I just need to learn to trust a little more, and have a little, teeny-tiny bit more patience.

Now, lest you, dear reader, think we are deranged, moronic, or merely naive, I should explain that Jenny and I have a plan. We got a hotel room Wednesday night, I took Thursday off, and we hashed shit out. And had a lot of sex, but that's beside the point. We really analyzed where our relationship had gone off track. We apologized for old crap we really had never come completely clean about. We stated shit clearly, and listened without defensiveness.

We're going into couple's and individual therapy. Well, Jenny already is in therapy, though she hasn't been since we broke up as she didn't have the money to pay for it herself, and wouldn't put that onto Mr. Y. We both know our issues, both individually and what we have to work on together, and we both can open up to a paid therapist easily, so therapy should be very productive. We're basically going in with the attitude, this is what we think we have to work on, what do you think? And what are some concrete, productive behavior modification techniques we can use here?

She needs to work on forgiving and letting go. We both have some family issues to deal with, nothing horrendous, but neither of our families were the Cleavers. Hell, I haven't talked to my dad in several years. Neither of us can be bothered to try any more, I guess. I've got anger issues. It's something I was just starting to work on in re-evaluation counseling and with Meg when she broke up with me. Then Mark swept me off my feet and carried me off just to dump me in LA five moths later, and I never got back into RC. It's a bit cultish for my tastes, despite it's potent techniques and old school class war slant.

You know? I think four years without Rainbow Gatherings had something to do with my retreat from my self. A contributory influence, anyway. I still feel so good, so clear, focused, and in touch with myself. Looking back, I contributed a lot to the final jumping of the track. I became needy and demanding. Bitchy, even. It was harder for me than I let on. I knew better! I've been through infatuations. We talked about "New Relationship Energy" at Poly Paths in Hawaii all the time. I didn't give them enough space. Not that I blame myself completely.

Blame is a lame game, anyway. Four Agreements theory, developed millenia ago in the Americas by Smoky Mirror: a three part mental virus has invaded our minds through our childhood belief acceptance mechanisms. The Judge piece places judgment on every moment based on the Book of Law piece, and the Victim is punished whenever the universe, including the self (and vice versa, it's semantically equivalent anyway) fails to live up to the belief system encoded in the Book. The part of the Book that is the same across most viral belief systems is that blame is good. That's how most of them spread.

Judge not lest ye be judged, but we're all guilty of original sin, WTF? Bad virus. Bad, naughty virus. But I digress.

Anyone reading this far, I apologize, but that's just how my mind works: I go off on tangents all the frickin' time. I'm not writing this for you anyhow. What are you doing reading my journal anyway? Perverts. You know, I do try to rein it in a bit and not go all stream of consciousness on your asses, because I have a special fondness for perverts.

One problem in our relationship has been our sex life. And I'm a lot to blame. I never spent a lot of time around any positive male role models growing up. Moving around a lot as a kid, I picked up a kind of natural mimicry, taking on the vocal mannerisms and body language of the people around me. And the person I spent the most time around was my mom, soooo.....

I come across as gay. I just learned this, can you imagine? Now, I've tried it. Given it a fair go. I don't particularly like cock. I mean, it's nice for the kink factor, but it gets old for me. I especially don't like men's bodies. I like curves. But when I'm "being myself" I fall back on mannerisms I picked up from my mother, not my father, and I come across as gay. I wondered why gay men were always hitting on me. I guess no one's really had the courage to tell me up till now.

But the beauty part is that I'm not attached to any particular marker of self. Well, a few of the so-called better self judgments still, to my shame. Judging yourself as better is judging something in the universe as worse, and the only one you have to punish for that egregious fucking error on the universe's part is yourself. Oh fuck, let down by reality again, what a bummer. Why does that keep happening?

I'm a natural mimic and Jenny is a genius acting coach. We went over a few things in specifics in the hotel. I'm far too expressive, men are macho and stoic. I walk like a girl, I should walk without bouncing so much. I cuddle up to her, rather than grabbing her and pulling her to me. I'm too tentative in seducing her and too hurt by rejection. So I've got a few pointers now, and it seems to be working.

It was a nice thing, getting my self confidence and self direction back before getting that call from Jenny. The call was nice, too, what with the abject apology and all. She has been especially nice to me. I've been especially nice to her, in ways she likes. Communication has always been our strong suit. When we put our minds to it, and we don't let our hurt get in the way, we can really communicate openly and honestly about anything. Now we've talked about the things we'd never had the courage or presence of mind to talk about before, things built up over years, and we have a commitment to work on them with professional assistance. I'm cautiously optimistic. But then, I'm nearly always cautiously optimistic. Unless I get attached to outcomes, that's a big no-no.

It's Jenny's thirty-second birthday. We hooked up a little over seven years ago, right after the Rainbow Gathering in Montana. She is with Mr. Y tonight. They both had to ask many times if that was all right. The three of us appear to be communicating better. Well, baby steps in the right direction are still steps in the right direction.

It's the least I can do, I have been very lazy in recent years. I've put a lot on Jenny, made her my entire emotional support structure, which isn't very healthy. I need to branch out a bit. Breaking up with her and going to the Rainbow Gathering has done a lot to remind me of the man I used to be, but I'll still have to be vigilant of backsliding and actively seek out new behaviors and situations where I can get my needs met outside of my marriage.

It's not like I need a lot. I need to be involved in a group effort that motivates me, that I can feel good about. I need to connect with people on a heart to heart level. And I need a certain amount of physical affection. Not necessarily sex, quite frankly numerous hugs are enough to at least comfort and silence the adorable little animal part of my nature. At Rainbow, all these things are just right there, within easy reach.

But I've had that in Babylon, as we call the outside world at Gatherings. Almost always in a joking manner but, you know, it is a diverse group and for some people it is their entire life. It's not hard to find if you seek it out instead of obsessing over the problems in your relationship, many of which are directly caused by said obsessing.

Ah, who am I kidding with the cautiously optimistic. This is a high water mark in our relationship. We needed the break. She needed to remember what she was actually giving up, and what she was potentially getting. She's never ridden that roller-coaster before, all her crushes have been unrequited disasters with men of, how to put this? indecisive sexuality. Then me. Then Mr. Y., who does not only talk a good talk but can pull something remarkable out of a rather distressing set of life experiences now and then. She was a little naive, relationship-wise. Now she's much less so.

I needed to remember who I am. I don't blame myself for collapsing into her after the fucking unstoppable whirlwind roller-coaster of a life I've had. Security is for suckers, though. And so is believing any of your own ramblings.

Because it all has to mean something, doesn't it? Because if it doesn't mean anything at all outside of what it is and what we've arbitrarily made it in our minds, then what the hell is self for anyway? And then we'd have to just look at what it is and not what we think it means. That scares the hell out of most people. Not knowing means death to the ego self. It thinks it bears full responsibility for creating order out of the raw chaos of reality and thus ensuring the survival of the meatware. That is actually a dangerous vanity.

Well cheers! Here's to staring into the void. Amusing, entertaining, endlessly thrilling, where there is no definition, division or partition and therefore, there are all of those things because not-this is a definition too. In that raw undifferentiated state that is the root and the resting place of all conscious moments, all concerns of the self are as one with all else. Subject and object are one and all that nonsense. It's a fun place to visit but I still can't live there, what with the draftiness and all.

Okay, sorry for the cliffhanger! Jenny and I are giving it another shot. The last few days with her have been like old times: easy, fun and comfortable. Now, we aren't making any grand predictions on whether it will work or not, but we have a plan. Couples and individual therapy for both of us. We've mapped out specific issues that we need to work on. Our little break has also helped defuse some pent up crap we've both been holding on to. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic.

So what happened? Why the about face? Mr. Y. showed his true colors. He had come across as someone who had been through hell but come out the other side stronger and wiser. Truth is, he'd never come out the other side. He has absolutely no capacity for introspection, all he knows how to do is hide. As soon as he thought he had Jenny, all the hurt and neediness came pouring out. Plus, he has absolutely nothing to bring to the table. He makes about half what I make. He can't cook, he doesn't know how to clean, and he isn't handy. He's physically much weaker than I am. He oscillates between two modes, pent-up stoic and crying, raving loon. He won't consider therapy. Then there's the illness, turns out he's also bulimic. Plus the ED issues. And he won't do anything about any of it except take klonopin.

Now Jenny has been brutally honest about herself from the get go. She told him she gets emotional. She explained exactly what she wants from a partnership, and what she can bring to the table. He presented himself as someone who could meet her needs, and he simply can't. Jenny has never been through a requited infatuation before. I tried to warn her. Well, now she knows: when infatuated, don't trust what your heart is saying, and don't trust what the other person is saying. Give it time and the truth will come out.

The truth, in Mr. Y.'s case, is that he is a freaking mess. And prone to abuse. He told her that she liked getting in fights and being humiliated. He wouldn't let her set a safe word when they played rough, for fuck's sake. That's a deal breaker right there, in my book. He drinks like a fish and does stupid things while drunk. Jenny does not need to be around someone who drinks that much, she has enough trouble staying in control while drinking as it is, she doesn't need anyone egging her on. The funny part? He yells at her about being an alcoholic. He called her, drunk off his ass, and told her she had to stop drinking. How out of touch can you get?

He has extreme difficulty apologizing or admitting he is wrong. He claimed to be comfortable with her emotions, and he simply isn't. He has no drive, being essentially stuck in the same life situation for the last ten years. He has no friends. He doesn't know how to negotiate fairly. He can't honestly look at what he's feeling, what he's capable of giving, or what his real motivations are. In short, he's about as far away from partner material as it's possible to get and still function in the world.

Jenny admits to being too much of a princess. She's learned a lot about deescalating arguments, because she had vowed not to make the mistakes with him that she made with me. Even when I was furious with her during the break up, she stayed calm. She's vowed to make it a habit.

Jenny has also let go of her attachment to her emotions. She's identified with them all her life. Being an actress, she felt that being true to her feelings was crucial. Now she has figured out that being true to her feeling does not mean letting them control her. Feelings are like puppies. They need discipline to be secure, or they will run amok. We can acknowledge and respect our feelings while controlling them and letting them out in appropriate ways, in appropriate settings.

As for me, well, I need to let things go. I need to be more forthright and not bottle my feelings up trying to be the strong one. I need to assert myself more. Trying too hard to make this relationship work had turned me kind of girly, and that is a big turn off for Jenny. The same thing happened with Mr. Y. only much more quickly. Jenny realized that she needs certain things in order to be turned on.

We've talked about this a lot, and it's mostly subtle stuff. She'd like it if I wore cologne and deodorant. My 'sexy faces' aren't, at all. For her, sexy means stoic, manly. Not girly goo-goo eyes. I shouldn't snuggle up to her, I should pull her to me. During seduction, I need to touch her deliberately and slowly. I've been too grabby and unfocused. I also, and this is a very common complaint with women, need to spend more time on the build up and not go straight for the erogenous zones. In bed, my technique is top notch, but my seduction and foreplay techniques need work. No problem.

My mom is ecstatic about us giving it another shot. Her mom is happy if we're happy. Her dad is still mad at her. Her friends will probably secretly think she's an idiot. My friends will probably tell me I'm an idiot to my face. But at least I've always presented a balanced picture. I've asked her, and she's admitted she has a tendency to vent with her friends without putting things in perspective. Damn. I'd always wondered why they all were a bit stand-offish towards me. I told her, if they think you're an idiot, it's because you've never told them about the good side of our relationship.

Mr. Y. did not take the news well. He went on a two day bender and didn't go in to work. Actually, she broke up with him before she had any kind of confirmation from me that I would take her back. But in his mind, she's weak and cowardly and went back to me because of the money issue. Hah. She never wanted him to make more money, she just didn't want him coming home every night and crying like a baby because his job sucks so much.

We re-switched our leases yesterday. He couldn't even talk to us while we were signing papers. He wouldn't even take off his sun glasses. I feel sorry for him. The whole thing makes me so sad. I did not want things to go down this way. He tried to break Jenny and I up, telling her he couldn't take the polyamory thing. Not that he ever told ME that, of course. After I had made my peace with the situation, I tried to keep the two of them together, telling Jenny to go easy on him, to give him a chance. But in his mind, I'm an angry violent jerk and she's an idiot for going back to me. Sad.

People who have never been really don't understand the Rainbow Gathering. That's okay, plenty of people who have been don't understand it either. Folks think it's just hippies, it's not. For instance, there are two Jesus camps that come every year, the 'purity' Jesus camp, and the camp Jesus would actually want to hang out in if he came back. The Jews pack their strict and lax sects into one camp. The Baha'i only have one camp as well, while the Hare Krishnas have had up to three different camps some years. There's a twelve step camp, fer cryin' out loud. And Fairy Camp is not a bunch of happy hetero hippies with fairy wings on. So, you know, Rainbow is not all one thing.

There are two major types that come, though. Hippies and Crusty Punks. How to tell them apart? Hippies like The Dead (still!), String Cheese Incident, & Phish. Crusty Punks like The Misfits, The Dead Kennedy's, and Crass. Hippies have dreads. Crusties have shaved heads. Hippies have tattoos of Buddha. Crusties have tattoos of Rat Fink. Hippies say "We love you, brother!" Crusties reply, "We tolerate you."

Then there are the people like me, or Rob Savoy, or Hawker, or Calamity Jane, who don't really fit any category. Actually, we're in the "hardcore" category, people who go to Rainbow primarily as a form of service, who work our asses off, who don't have a big ego or an agenda to push. You can tell the hardcore kids because we don't have an official outfit, but we all have a ton of gear strapped all over, we generally look tired but happy, and we are often found discussing the finer points of duct taping people to trees.

There is one last type. The Rainbow Elders. There is no heirarchy at Rainbow, it's Anarchy. Only, there is a heirarchy at Rainbow, and everyone knows it. People who have been doing it for 35 years are in a class of their own. They generally don't do much of anything except sit around, smoke pot, tell us all what to do, bitch about the fact that we never do what they tell us to, and complain about "kids these days." They can often be found in our consensus decision making circles because they actually have the patience for it, and would rather sit around and make decisions that someone else will have to carry out than just getting off their asses and doing it. But we love them anyway.

The LEOs (Law Enforcement Officers: covers rangers, wildlife officers, sheriffs, ATF agents, and various other authority figures) were pretty bad this year. They were ticketing women for going topless on main trail. I'm sorry, but I think most everyone in that damn forest was in agreement that we like seeing topless hippie chicks. We really don't need to be protected from boobies. I don't believe I have ever felt in any kind of danger from a breast. They were also towing cars that weren't ALL the way off the road, and ticketing people for drug possession. It wasn't the worst I've seen, but it was pretty bad.

Now, I'm going to hand out a little TMI. I had the opposite problem that I usually do this year. I was constipated. Normally at Rainbow, what with the constant bleach water disinfection, the beans and rice diet, and the questionable water, I get a bit... loose. I think my bowels remembered Rainbow, and preemptively clenched up. So I didn't have to use the trench shitters as often as some years, thankfully.

It's not exactly fun. We dig them close, but not too close to kitchens, off in the woods with some privacy, but you will still find yourself squatting over an 8 inch wide trench with some crusty chick on one side and some hippie guy on the other. No privacy. So, you go, sprinkle on some ash or preferably lime to keep the flies out, a little dirt, then use the bleach hand wash hanging from a nearby tree. If you're squeamish, you may be able to find one or two shitters with tarp covers and seats, but you'll be waiting in line for half an hour with all the other squeamish types.

So where was I in my little narrative? The 3rd, the night we did the gong show. I headed over to G-Funk, even more intent on plugging in there now that my friends Jason and Jessica were there. Everyone was still pretty freaked about the meningitis. I'd gotten some more info from my contacts at CALM. That's when we learned it was bacterial, not viral, and thus a lot more transmissible, although easier to cure. But no one from either CALM camp had seen anyone with either of the major symptoms. And the incubation period is 4-72 hours, and the woman who had it had been out of the gathering for over 48 hours, so we were really almost past the crisis point.

Aaron presented a volunteer project he and the G-Funk crew had been coordinating, and I was impressed. You see, at Rainbow we've got the skills to go into a situation with no infrastructure, not knowing what kind of equipment or food is going to show up, or when, or even which people, and we make food happen in large quantities. We can handle complete chaos and lack of coordination without batting an eye. Now, there is another situation where those kind of skills are invaluable: disasters.

Aaron has been taking Rainbow know-how to disaster sites like New Orleans and Wavelands for several years now, and this last year he has been networking like crazy with local, State and Federal agencies. They know us now, and they know that we know how to get things done. He is trying to expand and looking for volunteers. Well, I've been looking to volunteer for something I believe in, so this could be a good fit for me.

After, we prepared for the next show: the Gong Show. That's our anti-talent show. You go on stage, you will be gonged whether you've got talent or not. So if you actually have talent, best to wait for the Fourth, when we do the real talent show. Aaron and the other regulars were still a little freaked about the meningitis, so they asked if anyone else wanted to MC the show, and I volunteered. It turned out to be a lot of fun, and I turned out to be very good at MCing a Gong Show and making snarky comments about the performances. The audience laughed a lot, anyhow. Whenever we'd run short on suckers^Wperformers I would whip out my worst cow and elephant jokes to torment the audience with until someone volunteered. "Ha HA! You can't gong me, I'm the MC! And I WILL keep telling bad jokes until someone gets down here and makes a fool of themselves."

On the Fourth, the way things are supposed to work anyway, we have silence in the morning. People assemble at main meadow around the peace pole and silently pray for peace. Around noon, the kids from Kiddie Village parade in, dressed in cute costumes they all made that morning. The kids give a shout, we do our om, then it's a wild crazy party with lots of drums.

Only, it never actually works that way. In all my years, I have only once seen the kids make it all the way into main meadow and give a shout before the om. This year we didn't even have a meadow, we a had a rocky peninsula in the middle of the overflowing creek. People were circled up in the water. The kids made it almost to the bridge before the om. The one nice thing was the fact that, after dancing up a storm, one could go jump in the creek to cool off.

I ate some, um, porcini mushrooms? Well, some kind of mushrooms anyhow, I'm trying to maintain a little deniability here. J & J stuffed them into my mouth after the om. They were on some 2CT7 someone had given them. We all headed off to set up a base camp near G-Funk. I ended up running down to dance several times, they were kind of a hippie puddle in their hammock, 2CT7 being a little more, ah, intense than the amount of fungi I ate, anyhow.

The castle had been trashed by a pack of miniature hippies and crusties who bore a resemblance to something out of "Lord of the Flies," so Aaron and I set about fixing it up. While we were busy working, a hot hippie chick showed up and demanded attention. Aaron and I kind of ignored her, and she said, "Well, if no one is going to talk to me, I'm leaving!" I said, "Hey, nothing personal but as you can see, we're actally working hard here trying to get this place ready for tonight." She stormed off anyway. You know? The majority of really hot people suck.

I had been fighting off the sniffles, I'd jammed my knee carrying a sixty pound pack down a 15% slope, my feet hurt, and the fungi was wearing off. I stayed and helped coordinate acts for an hour or so, then begged off for the night. The next day, J & J woke me up saying goodbye, so I was sad, then it started to rain in torrents again, and I basically said, "Fuck it. I've got water and power bars and a book to read. My knee still hurts and I still have the sniffles. I am not coming out of my tent today." And I didn't, but I finished Vernor Vinge's newest book, "Rainbows End."

Friday, I was feeling much better, it looked like the rain had let up again, and I had two tiny pieces of paper to munch, courtesy of J & J. I did so, and waited for the usual effects. An hour went by. Nothing. Then another, still nothing, and it started to rain like crazy. I went a little "Milton from Office Space" and started muttering, "That's the last straw, I told them. Burn it down!" I packed up my gear, this road punk asked if I needed my tent and I was so intent on getting out, I said "Take it!"

I wasn't angry or that bummed out: just really, really ready to be dry again. I found a pack of crusty punks on the trail out, trying to get to Santa Fe, so I said, "If you can be ready in half an hour, you've got a ride." I had to get a pack of hippies to help push my car out of the mud it had sunk into during all the rains, and it took the kids a while to get ready (I say kids because they were, I think, all under 21.) so I gave rides up and down the hill to folks packing stuff out.

Finally, as we hit the main road out, the damn little pieces of paper took effect, though three hours late and much weaker than advertised, probably from all the dampness diluting things. In the end, it turned out to be just enough to keep me awake and alert through the night, without actually making the road jump and swirl.

It was nice having company for the ride home. They were nice kids, but I felt a bit melancholy. I remember being a kid, on the road, no commitments, no security, perfect freedom. I miss it, and yet I don't. I felt the draw of that freedom, but at the same time, you know, one of them had a hernia and no medical insurance, and that's no fun. The 18 year old girl had lost her only pair of shoes at the gathering. They all had only what they could carry.

All that is fun and adventurous when you're 18, but it's kind of sad and pathetic if you're 36. We left around 9 at night, stopped at the "Ozone Burger Barn," which has the most delicious burgers and the most stereotypical back-woods cousin-lovin' Arkansas family I have ever seen running the place. None of the kids had a license so I ended up driving all night. We pulled into my mom's in Albuquerque around 9 the next morning, because I had to wait until the 14th to move into my new place. They got cleaned up, I drove them up to Santa Fe and dropped them off in a parking lot, seeing as they don't really have homes. I drove back home.

I was just about to fall asleep when I thought to plug in my phone and see if I had any messages. There was one. From Jenny. Saying, "I made a horrible, horrible mistake. I thought the problem was our relationship, but now I have the same issues with Mr. Y. The problem has been me all along! I'm so sorry, and I know you probably don't want me anymore, but I can't stay with him, and I want to give it a second try with you. I miss you so much. I'm going to work on my issues. Call me."

More on that later.