[cw: self-harm mention/rumination about self-harm]
Shows have continued to be good; things being more spaced out means I'm not nearly as exhausted as last year (experience maybe also helps). I'd been so caught up in little dramas that I hadn't had time to hang much with Rory in awhile, so got some drinks with him after the gig. Bars are another place he shines! I get his sense of humor more, now, as well. It can still sometimes be a groan-fest, but I appreciate the wordplay. Nate joined in after awhile, and it was nice to be around him in a more relaxed way again. The two of them together is deadly, though... I just about died laughing a few times, I think.
All that sounds good, and it was. Then I found Greg. Which, again, sounds like it'd make things even better. ...He was with Lori, though. I wasn’t expecting that. He never told me she was going to be around for any of the dates. Did he tell anyone else? Besides Walt, I mean. Ugh, I don’t know. Asking any of ‘em would’ve sounded so stupid. I just sat next to them, my face in my drink half the time, listening to them talk, listening to her laugh, seeing Greg actively forget I was even there.
...I really thought things were going well between us again. I mean, he was the one to ask me to fuck him, you know? And it seemed so amazing at the time, and he seemed so into it, and laying there after was just so… I saw it in his eyes, too. I know it wasn’t just me. There was love there. --Maybe it was Lori’s choice to come up here. She missed him and he obliged her. I mean, he invited me to stay at his house so quickly; he can be such a nice, generous guy.
I wonder if I ever come up when they talk to each other alone. If Greg just calls me his ~friend~. No big deal. Easily shoved aside, just like tonight at the bar. Half of me wants to try even harder than I've already been trying, because clearly it hasn't been enough. I look at myself and I see a chubby boring loser with greasy hair and a little rat face. Not all of that can be fixed, but some of it can. --The rest of me thinks it’s already doomed. I’m trying not to listen to that half, at least not yet. I need to keep going. I need to keep singing with him, and if I’m singing with him, singing our songs with him, I need that love alive in my heart. We’re working too hard. I can’t disappoint him and I literally can’t lay in bed all day, regardless of how much I want to right now.
It was a mistake to top him. Wasn’t it. I mean. I thought I was so careful about it. I thought I made him so happy. It was so hot in the moment, so beautiful, he was so fucking into it at the time and I was so excited he was… if it was really that nice, though, if it was really what he wanted, why the fuck would Lori be here and why the fuck would I be relegated to third fiddle again? Second I can live with. Whatever. He has seniority over me and I can’t do anything about that and I’m generally fine with that. We work well together. But being actively shoved aside immediately after the show’s over… like I’m just some fucking toy he’s tired with.
Maybe me topping him was just one final novelty for him. Getting the one sexual thing Lori can’t give him (or at least, not quite so easily) out of the way and then deciding it wasn’t good enough to miss out on what she could give him. And fuck, I know I’m not nearly as big as he is. I have a decent enough dick, but can I really fucking blame him for not being ~immersed~ while some tiny chubby faggot grunts and ruts at him like a pig? Ugh, I probably disgusted him so much he walked back to his room and rung Lori up immediately. No, he took a shower first, scrubbed me off of him, and then asked Lori up so he could clean the rest from his mind.
G-d I want to-- fuck. I shouldn’t write it. I know I shouldn’t. It’ll just make me think about it even more. But I’m thinking it so much already. I hope the showers here are hot enough. Maybe that'll shut my brain up.
UGH, this could have gone so badly. So, so badly. I'm still upset, even though it didn't go badly at all. I don't think? I don't know??
But I couldn't help but sing the bar bimbo song tonight with a bit extra... fire to it. I mean, I DID write it because of him. ...And because of her. I thought writing it out, singing it, would be enough to get over it. Before she hopped along for the ride, literally, on our tour bus, it really was just a fun little audience participation number. The outro has such an easily sung section to it that we repeat for a few more bars than on the album-- more or less depending on how into it everyone is-- and as silly as the lyrics are, Greg does such a great job on those more honky-tonk keys and Nate has such a fun time with his solo that his joy is infectious. And then Rory does his silly little grooves, Sam makes things have just enough jazzy swing to them... ahhh, it's just one of those moments of on-stage bliss. And there's more and more of them now!
But yes, I couldn't help but be an idiot and rip that song right out of my heart, and my heart isn't the prettiest place right now. I sang it with a bit more obvious sex in my voice. I made sure I caught Greg's eye with some of the words-- the little admonishments. The part, quite close to the beginning, where I sing about how he makes me want to die. I could still feel the lines in my back I made with my nails last night and I wanted him to feel them, somehow. At least I wasn't staring into his eyes forever, or anything. Just a couple seconds each, a few times.
...The stupidest thing came right before Nate's big solo moment and outro, which I essentially cue with my final bridge line. I slid my way up Greg's keyboards, was just leaning on them at first, then lying on them closer to the way I daydreamed when I was writing the song. Caught Lori's eye-- who was side-stage gawking at "her" man-- with the "now it's your turn to cry".
The rest was normal. I hopped off Greg's rig and grooved around Sam's drumkit, drank up Nate's solo, got the audience to sing the rest n'wave their hands around enough. I felt GREAT at first, sexy as hell for some idiotic reason, like I proved a fucking point or something. I didn't feel stupid until the song was over, and even then, I didn't have time to dwell on it. There were three songs to go.
This is all to say that again, it could've gone worse: Greg could've confronted me, asked me what the hell my problem was. He didn't talk to me at all. Went right to Lori again. Ugh I just keep humiliating myself for him over and over again and they're probably laughing about how pathetic and desperate I am. I want to write stupid things again. I really really do. Maybe writing them really means I won't do them. I want to whack my head against a wall til I pass out. I want to tear my fucking skin off. I want to throw a toaster in the hotel bathtub with me. I'm such a fucking loser.
PS: Is it strange that I would have preferred the confrontation? But then I'd at least know he cared about me enough for that. Instead, I'm beneath his consideration.
Been hanging with Nate more lately-- needed desperately to get my mind off of things, especially the most recent humiliation, and he's largely gotten over the sulkiness from earlier in the tour (Maybe my explanation of things really did help). I guess I was also just worried that all he'd want to do is talk about one of three topics: guitars, cars, or girls. He did hit on all three of those topics! But he eventually got a little more vulnerable. Even apologetic! In a mumbled, awkward way; a sigh, scratch into his chia pet hair, "I know I was kinduvva dick earlier to you, man." Water under the bridge!
After the show tonight, he invited me on a walk to share a joint-- and who says no to pot? At some point, we both realized we'd been walking without keeping track of where we were, or how far we were from everything. ...Which we only noticed because a rain drop fell right on my nose. We thought we could run back before it really started coming down, but halfway through it got TORRENTIAL! He burst out laughing before I could get upset, grabbed my wrist and we kept running awhile 'til we found a tree that sheltered us decently enough. He had a velvet jacket on-- hopefully not REAL velvet, or the rain might've ruined it-- and he took it off, draped it over our heads with another big laugh.
...I forget, sometimes, how it feels to be able to be so... I dunno. So big with everything, so loud and real. But also so innocently physical. Touch makes me flinch so often, and I can tell it's not like that for Nate. He was close to holding me there, waiting for the rain to pass, and he probably didn't feel a thing about it. I like that. It's nice not having to worry or think about things too much. Anyway. All this has helped with the stress, and I am thankful to him for it.
Not to say it isn't still awful. It's difficult to get to sleep most nights. Greg n' Lori always have a room together, now. Walt understandably grumbled about it, and I hoped he'd cut all this short, but no. I've gone out n' found a guy, sometimes, but it doesn't feel very good. I'm not doing it for fun, I'm doing it to distract myself, and not all of them even provide THAT decently. ...Ugh, I hope I haven't been too rude to any of them. Like, whatever, they weren't perfect lays, but there's worse things to be. G-d I'm such a fucking asshole. Maybe there's nothing even G-d can do about it. It'd make sense if He already completely washed his hands of me by the time I got stuck with Lorenzo. What have I done to deserve otherwise?
--Ugh, I was trying to stay at least a little more positive. I need to get SOME sleep, or if not, I at least need something nicer to think about than all my awful inadequacies. If Nate was around, I'd ask him for another joint.
[fun author's note: yes, i did look up when chia pets were invented-- 1977. In San Francisco, in fact!]
I'm thankful for this tour being close to over for so many more reasons than last time. I was just physically exhausted last time... I didn't know how good I had it!! I was physically exhausted... around such a gorgeous, wonderful man. Who didn't have anyone else but me, yet. I could've done so much fucking more with that. Ugh, I still remember crashing in bed with each other the moment we got home. Sleeping all tangled up in each other... G-d I was so scared to love him but I obviously did. I didn't want to push him. It was so much more new for him. He showed me around touring so much and I wanted to show him around some of the little parts of MY world, as carefully as I could.
I still don't know what the hell to make of that night in the bathtub. I still don't know what to make of him asking for top from me. The former thing was the most confusing even in the moment; the latter was something I thought meant something so much more than it seemed to... how can you fake the way he looked at me, later? When we were laying next to each other, again? The way he stroked my hair and kissed me? And then he just dumped me fucking flat. WAS that too much?? But he was the one to ask for it to begin with! And I was so fucking careful, asked him every step of the way what he wanted, how he wanted it, if he was cool to keep going.
Married guys used to pay me to do shit like that with them. Some of 'em would come back to me over and over. I used to think that made me some kind of ~special~. I was giving them something their wives couldn't. Some of 'em paid me quite a bit extra than my usual rate for it, too. Especially the repeats. It wasn't anything to do with special, of course. I was just an idiot. And I guess I'm still the same fucking idiot, and this time, for free. Why not just jump off a fucking bridge.
PS: Rory saw me practicing the Wuthering Heights dance.... we just kinda gave each other a silent stare til he let me have my time and most of my dignity. Maybe I'll explain later... maybe.