More lockdown, more strange dreams

Although I think my working remotely prepared me for lockdown, it's still stressful at times. Two of my sources of freelance have stopped sending me work, although one promised to send work later this month. Although the remaining source is giving me extra work, it's still cut my income down by about 30%. 

April was a good month to visit cemeteries and take photos for the Findagrave site. This is a global collection of cemeteries for genealogists, and sometimes others will post a request for a gravesite photo. Many of the older ones aren't available, as the tombstones are either missing, or have become illegible through age and use of softer stones during the 1800s. I found out that if I apply flour to the older ones, I can read some of them.

The boyfriend situation has cooled, as getting together isn't really possible. Cincinnati* is up to his usual; sometimes he will talk about a weekend together with the lockdowns are over, sometimes he goes quiet. He did have the misfortune of a kidney stone in April. And Eric* is doing the same thing, although we still enjoy some hot chat now and again.

Stress does cause strange dreams, like this morning's dream. It began with my being back in Texas, visiting former work colleagues. One is in my former house (the one I sold in 2015) as it's been turned into a rental, although it's not in the same neighborhood. Later on I spot the actor Michael C. Hall (who's done nothing of note since the Dexter series). He seems to be interested in me from afar, when crowds are in the rental house, but nothing comes of it.

But just before my alarm goes off, things get weird. Michael C. Hall has turned into a podiatrist. He is working on my big toe with a scalpel, which is oddly painless as I'm wide awake. But eventually something goes wrong, as he dashes off and returns with a blood transfusion. He puts this in my arm and I sit on the floor, watching the transfusion and wondering what's going on as my toe is not bleeding. I'm still utterly perplexed.

And I had another with Cincinnati about a week ago. In this one, I'm visiting his family home in an unknown place. It has big rooms and the biggest room has a pool table, and certain male relatives (brothers, father, etc) are always playing.

I notice a riding stable next door and he mentions that when he was growing up, he would have liked to have run a stable. Later, I'm wandering around alone and find a large room, empty except for a huge snooker table (the UK version of a pool table; it's bigger than ours). Nobody is playing and it looks unused.

Later, I encounter Cincinnati in the bathroom where he's trimming his hair with scissors (he actually cuts his own hair in real life). I sneak in for some flirtation and things get a bit radical. I typed out this dream and sent it to him - they appear to turn him on quite a bit, although it may be spoiling my chances of an eventual real-time meeting. Which I have decided to never suggest to him. It would have to be his idea.

* See The Usual Suspects.

Life in the coronapocalypse

Although the Cheeto Benito dropped the ball big-time on COVID-19, I'm trying to not to fret about the situation. The nonstop rain here is bringing me down more than the various shutdowns, although I miss my Orangetheory classes. However, my aunt has composed a lengthy spring cleaning list for me and I still have billable work, although not as much as I'd like.

Shopping reminds me of my year in Manila. You never really know what you'll find at the stores. However, we don't lack anything so far except avocados.

The new beau Eric* has reappeared as his reconnect didn't work out (I knew he'd come crawling back to me). We're planning a hotel or Airbnb liaison. I think this relationship might have some future, although I have no problems establishing sexual attraction first. I have no interest in any type of LTR without it.

However, during Eric's two-week hiatus checking out Ms Reconnect, I met someone else online who I liked almost as much. But that is off to a running start as after a single coffee date, the new beau became ill. His doctor decided to test him for COVID-19 and he came up with a leukemia diagnosis. I feel helpless as he's in the hospital with no visitors, but we exchange sweet texts.

* See The Usual Suspects.

Crap. Dutchman grounded.

COVID-19 has ruined my plans for next week's opera, as the Met is closed until the end of the month. So is just about everything else.

I'm still making up mind about the coronavirus self-quarantine question. I haven't stayed at home 100% of the time, and went to exercise class just last Friday. I plan to join a cycling group for an after-work ride today. And my 87-year old aunt has decided to see her doctor this afternoon, although the doc said that if she wanted to cancel, he'd understand.

While everyone seems obsessed with disinfecting just about everything they touch, there's one major oversight. Anyone who ventures outside is going touch something that lots of other people touch. Elevator buttons are a big virus spreader; so are door knobs and gas pump handles. I haven't seen anyone disinfecting these, although I've always opened doors with my elbow during flu season.

Another oversight is that death figures are much higher in China and some parts of Europe because of smoking stats. People in China smoke much more than we do - so do Europeans and folks in the Middle East.  Currently, only about 15% of Americans smoke cigarettes. So that's one of several reasons why our fatality rate is lower.

So far, my county has seen just one case of coronavirus and he's already recovered, although we're all waiting to see if he infected anyone else. He didn't even catch it here in Tennessee. 

I'm undecided as to whether to go to exercise class tomorrow afternoon. I probably will.

Flying Dutchmen, men in holding patterns

After much hoping and planning, I think I have managed to secure the night at the opera that Ian* agreed to some months ago. Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer has just begun a month's run at the Met in New York and hopefully I'll be attending the March 24 performance. 

Ian has been transferred from the Buffalo airport to JFK, which seems to be a relief to him. We talk rather infrequently these days, as nothing has changed between us. I am hoping to spend a couple of days discussing this while at his new apartment in New Jersey.

What I won't be discussing with him is that I recently made the decision to seriously look for a Relationship, as in LTR. A couple of encouraging beginnings have hit speed bumps but I'm fine waiting them out.

Last December I met a man online. He is in his late 40s and a former mechanic turned elementary school teacher (let's call him Eric). Although I admit Eric initially caught my eye because of his similarity to Obscure Object of Desire*, we ended up on a couple of dates. The first was fairly chaste, but the second got as radical as two people can get in a Chevrolet diesel truck without actual penetrative sex.

But then things changed. While I was keen for the third date, Eric seemed to lose interest the day after the date. His daily texts disappeared. 

I finally decided to ask him what was going on, and he admitted that someone he met about six months ago - someone he liked, but who had ghosted him after a few dates - had reappeared and apologized. So he wanted to see how how the reconnect worked out.

I politely backed away, but after a few days, we got into an innocent text conversation that quickly turned into hot chat/text sex. While I enjoyed this thoroughly, I wasn't going to be second place with Eric. So I waited a day to tell him that I wasn't going to complicate his other relationship.

While he said little about her, I quickly realized that he was more interested in her than she was in him. Anyone who ghosts anyone is either juvenile, unkind, an emotional coward, or looking for control. (Or a combination of these.) Yesterday he admitted to me that he couldn't even tell if she were serious about him or not.

The ghosting bit bothered me - being on the receiving end sucks - so I mentioned that I didn't tolerate ghosting and why, without running down Eric's reconnection. I can wait for her to ghost him again and see what happens. 

One big fat irony of my anti-ghosting speech is that after I ghosted Cincinnati* for over two months, he sent me a message out of the blue last week, asking if I were okay. 

While I wondered why he'd reappeared, I decided I wasn't going to re-engage as I always had before. I wasn't going to do what we'd spent half of 2019 doing: plan a date, back out on the date, rinse and repeat. It's like Einstein saying that if you do the same thing over and over, yet expect a different result, you're crazy.

So I didn't reply to Cincinnati on Instagram. Instead, I waited a few days and then sent him an email.

I pointed out that limiting our communications to Instagram chat wasn't working, and that I'd decided that I wouldn't do it any more. But I also mentioned that it was obvious that neither of us were doing that well from walking away from the other one, and that some sort of resolution was worth considering. I signed off by asking him to share his thoughts.

He did write back two days later promising to reply later in the week, but nothing yet. It's pretty much what I expected.

In the meantime I'll keep doing what I'm doing, and looking for prospective males when I feel like it. The rest of the time it's job-hunting (more about that next time), cycling, and my new love of Orangetheory fitness classes.

* See The Usual Suspects.

Where the fork am I?

Perhaps the winter weather is getting me down more than it usually does - I haven't been able to get my bike out for almost two weeks - but I find myself in a career quandary, besides being pissed off that I turned 60 last month.

My freelance work has been thin on the ground for the past two months, and to make matters worse, my main source of revenue may go away in a month or two. This is because the manager (let's call her Sheila, she's from Australia) who hired me, likes me, and throws as much work at me as possible (around 20-25 hours per week) will resign soon.

Sheila is leaving as the new Marketing SVP has decided that he doesn't like remote staff, and has demanded all remote marketing management to move to the Texas headquarters or leave. She likes her Georgia home and her husband has a good business going. However, the person who currently works with Sheila will remain as she's already working at corporate HQ, and she really needs me as she can't write newsletters and can't manage her time, either. Sheila has promised to point this out to management upon departure. So we'll see.

I've considered looking for a full-time job, but I would have to move to a big city and I don't want to do that. Alas, the single employer that actually displayed interest in me last month was located in - you guessed it - Cincinnati. So I've begun searching for new sources of freelance, although 100% of my previous two years' work has been provided by people I used to work with.

My spare time hasn't gone to waste, especially as my aunt contracted a particularly bad case of the flu in early December. She required three weeks of feeding, doctoring, monitoring, and several chauffered visits to doctors, ERs and urgent care facilities.

If anyone is wondering about my passion for the flaky cyclist Cincinnati*, I shut him down permanently about a month ago. After another of his invitations, followed by much anticipatory chat until 3-4 days before the date, I realized that this depressing invite/chat/plan/disappear cycle would never change.

I freely admit I cut him tons of slack all last year, as all I wanted was an evening of fetish-driven passion - with or without sex. It's such an adventure, even if just happens once. And for months, I really thought he would eventually deliver. Men tend to like sex and so do I, although the chemistry factor is mandatory and frustratingly rare. But poor Cincinnati kept overthinking it, would become overwhelmed with performance anxiety, and make a fake excuse at the last minute.

The last spin cycle began in early December. He suggested we get together the week after Christmas as he'd be back home from his annual family visit, and would have plenty of PTO left. I agreed, even though I was careful not to get too excited about it. I doubted he'd keep his word. The usual weeks of anticipatory chat followed, and then his messages cooled. 

After asking him via Instagram (our only shared social media) if he'd like to do something New Year's Eve, followed by two days of his silence, I messaged him for the last time.

"Not to worry. I've made other plans."

He responded in a few hours. "Enjoy yourself and be careful."

After that, I ghosted him. I didn't think about it; I just did it. I never even signed into Instagram again, which he'll notice, as we both shared some favorite Instagrammers and always left comments.

It can take a long time to realize that a relationship is hopeless, but once the coin drops, it's like getting a bad tooth removed. One goes from serious to practically zero pain in days.

I rarely think about him, and when I do, I feel sorry for him. He'll never know what erotic adventures he missed out on, and I doubt he'll meet another woman who shares his retro lingerie fetish. 

I've made no real effort to replace Cincinnati except to join the local cycling club, but the weather has made group rides pretty much impossible. I decided to peek at match.com a couple of weeks ago to see if there were any local talent, but there isn't. The locals mostly look like extras from Moonshiners, or they're very, very religious.

(Frank Sinatra has just begun to sing "That's Life" on my Bose Soundtouch/Amazon Music app.)

But not all is bad here. I still love the scenery and I get on well with my aunt. I think I can fix my income problems. And I tried out the local Orangetheory fitness place a few weeks ago, and I liked it very much. If I can improve my finances, I'll be going more often.

* See The Usual Suspects.