I was never alone until I was 41. Now, much as I like the idea of partnership, I really, really like living my life alone.

I'm a little concerned that one of my exes might show up at the gaming event I'm co-hosting next week. While I was musing about him asking, "What happened to us?" it occurred to me that my answer would have to be, "You peed on the bathroom floor."

I'm shallow that way.

Another one I do is overly try to show whomever I'm interacting with that I can relate to them because I *know* things about them because of some small experience I havethat they might relate to. Like, Vortex ought to really like me and find me engaging because I have met other black women before! It's so incredibly stupid. And then I feel stupid for doing it and clam up and stop interacting.

I'm so guilty of this.

I also will get anxious and that will make me hyper and then I'll be this hyper mess of anxiety and social awkwardness. I also have trouble with conversations with people I like and want to know better.

I can do the chatty shoot the breeze kinda thing, but at various points I've been told I end up sounding like an interrogator and I ask too many questions. So then I don't really know what the line is.

Also I have problems with getting anxious about stuff other people don't even realize. Like when I wasn't able to work and lived with Dad and was taking dancing lessons - I was constantly in this panic that someone would ask me what I did or someone would figure out I was "mooching" off my dad. And nobody knew. But because it was such a huge issue for me, I couldn't see that know one really even knew to ask about that stuff.

Will (aka SLNRLBF) is really great at giving me space. It took some time and some explaining that it wasn't him, I just needed some time to myself. We'll both be on WoW or SL and doing different things , or sometimes have the headset on and not talk for the longest time. I have been worried that , because he's really good with people and way more social but he's more how Vortex described.

My BFF's husband is like that. Between him and the kids, she barely has time to pee by herself. I often offer her my place to come be alone. I tell her that I will leave, or she can just go into the bedroom and watch TV or whatever and I won't say a word :)

Back in the day, my ex-husband used to hand me the car keys and directions to the hotel he'd booked a weekend alone for me. He'd say, "Git."

When I arrived, there would be flowers in the room, sometimes chocolate, or a trashy novel.

The greatest gift though, was his respect for my need to be alone. Who knows, he might have been having affairs while I was away. Regardless, I got what I desperately needed.

I'm an introvert but an entertainer -- as long as I can make a little stage space for myself with jokes or stories I'm good for a while in a crowd.

Mosh pits are interesting. The giant shoving crowd aren't much focused on each other. It is somehow very soothing.

One thing that was so hard about my little sojourn in Florida was never having more than an hour a week to myself in the house. I BEGGED my cousin to have her grandmother over to dinner without me but gave up trying when she simply could not grasp WHY I would need to have no one else in the house with me for an afternoon.

(Though, frankly, since it wasn't much of a favor to ask I'm still not sure why the brat couldn't once, in four fucking months, just DO IT even if she didn't "get it".)

I am so very, very grateful I never had kids. I imagine having lived my life with Hubby's health issues while trying to wrangle adolescents, and I honestly fear I'd have done something felonious. Thank God Hubby's always been in good enough shape that he can sometimes say, "Go, I'll be OK for a day or two." I have such admiration for the people who do the job of heavy-duty personal care.

Mosh pits are interesting. The giant shoving crowd aren't much focused on each other. It is somehow very soothing.

Yes, this! The anonymous energy, the simple existing without having to be responsible for anything other than your own presence.

Sox, I'm sorry you mixed it up with my Auntie. I, of course, have more to say b/c we're family, but I'm on the iTouch and it is bathtime.

I'm currently emptying thousands of emails from my Yahoo mailbox 200 at a time. In the process I noticed what I thought was a buffista RL name asking to be added to my contacts list but when I went to my trash I couldn't find it and then I came here to post but in the meantime I comepletley spaced what the name was. So if you sent me an email like this waaaay back in June I apologize for missing it. Please feel free to contact me as Lagarat at gmail.

I love that Nate & Abby are so ridiculously independent these days. Even when I had them in D.C. with me for conference a couple of years ago, I was able to have them have dinner with me, Maria, & Vortex, then I sent them up to the room and was able to hang in the bar with Maria & Vortex for a few more hours without worrying.

Now, I'm getting ready to go to NYC with Nate, and the one evening I have a commitment, I'm going to be able to leave him in the hotel in midtown while I go down to my gig in the Village.

Which, btw, NYC-istas, I'm reading at the Lady Jane's Salon hosted at Madame X on Monday night, 7PM.