update from sparkleup

writing/sawtooth/limerent-object/beats/06-bone-town.md

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-It is Pentecost Sunday. It's a Solemnity, of course, but after Holy Week and Lent, it lacks anywhere near to the same level of impact, so although the mass differs from a mass during Ordinary Time, it lacks the social impact of the other holidays.
+It is Pentecost Sunday. It's still a Solemnity, but after Holy Week and Lent, it lacks anywhere near to the same level of impact, so although the mass differs from a mass during Ordinary Time, it lacks the social impact of the other holidays.
 
-I always find myself using it as the marker of slipping back into Ordinary Time. It works well for me to treat it as a very deliberate marker. It is a relaxing of posture, perhaps. A time to switch from the tense contrition of lent and the jubilation of Eastertide into the, well, ordinary ritual and everyday faith.
+I always find myself using it as the marker of slipping back into Ordinary Time. It works well for me to treat it as a very deliberate point. It is a relaxing of posture, perhaps. A time to switch from the tense contrition of lent and the jubilation of Eastertide into the, well, ordinary ritual and everyday faith.
 
 Another interesting bit of news is that, as of last night, I appear to be taking the week after next off and heading up to Boise to visit Kay.
 
@@ -19,34 +19,34 @@ I emailed Jeremy, and he replied quite quickly from, I assume, his phone:
 > Wow! Big step there. I was going to caution you about putting yourself in a situation where you would be pining away all the harder but a. You're a big boy now and can certainly handle that, and b. It might actually do you good to be assertive about the things you want in life. Do you think you will talk to her about your feelings while out there?
 >
 > J
-> 
-> This electronic mail message and all attachments may contain confidential information belonging to the sender or the intended recipient. This information is intended ONLY for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distributing (electronic or otherwise), forwarding or taking any action in reliance on the contents of the information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please immediately notify the sender by telephone, facsimile or email and delete the information from your computer.
 
 I haven't yet replied, as I am stuck on what to provide as an answer. The question itself made my stomach tie itself in knots. We, Kay and I, interact so smoothly over text that the thought of saying "Hey, I think I really like you" face to face makes my anxiety spike.
 
 I mean, it also spikes when I think about telling her over PostFast, but certainly not as much.
 
-So I guess I have yet to decide what to do about that, and instead of trying to figure that out right now (or all at once, as I keep telling myself), I'm focusing instead on what we'll do. She says she's found a few good inexpensive restaurants around the area, and, as I suspect that I am more comfortable financially than her, I will perhaps take her to a nicer one. She's also promised to cook at least once and says that she's not bad at it.
+So I guess I have yet to decide what to do about that, and instead of trying to figure that out right now (or all at once, as I keep telling myself), I'm focusing instead on what we'll do. She says she's found a few good inexpensive restaurants around the area, and, as I suspect that I am more comfortable financially than her, I will perhaps take her to a nicer one, maybe on the night of that concert. She's also promised to cook at least once and says that she's not bad at it.
 
 There's also the percussion festival, which, on the surface sounds fun, if loud. I like drums well enough, though I imagine it won't simply be drum sets on a stage. Maybe we can fit in a hike or something?
 
 Weirdly, though, the thing that I'm most interested in out of all the ideas that have crossed my mind is just sitting in the same room with her. Even if we're just reading or relaxing on our phones or, as always, showing each other videos that we enjoy.
 
-Less than just doing *stuff* with her, I'm more excited about simply being around her and existing together. That feels like a friend thing to do.
+Less than just doing *stuff* with her, I'm more excited about simply being around her and existing together. That feels like a good 'friend' thing to do.
 
 It also feels like a couples thing to do, but on introspection, I feel like this particular desire may be more bound up in friendship than limerence. It has been a very long time since I have just hung out in person with someone whose company I enjoy.
 
-I have the bus ticket, I have a few room-rental options I am looking at (she made no mention of me staying with her, and even if I trusted myself to do so, she has shown me pictures of her place before, and a studio bedroom with a twin bed would be quite cramped).
+I have the bus ticket, I have a few room-rental options I am looking at.
 
 All I need is to make it until then.
 
 [^response]: A fact which I am striving not to think of as a big deal.
 
+[^studio]: She made no mention of me staying with her, and even if I trusted myself to do so, she has shown me pictures of her place before, and a studio bedroom with a twin bed would be quite cramped.
+
 -----
 
 I will not deny my excitement for this upcoming visit.
 
-Neither, apparently, will my subconscious, for I have had not one but two dreams since our agreeing to visit, and given that it has only been three nights since then, this is rather a majority of my time spent thinking about her.
+Neither, apparently, will my subconscious, for I have had not one but two dreams since our agreeing to visit, and given that it has only been three nights since then, this makes it a majority of my time spent thinking about her.
 
 The first dream was much like the one I wrote about a few weeks back. I was at her senior recital, it was unspeakably beautiful, and then when I tried to help her up onto the stage, I was pushed away by the crowd, unable to call out to her.
 
@@ -70,11 +70,11 @@ The other dream is...I don't know. I have only been up a few minutes, now, and I
 
 I dreamed that, during the visit, we were sitting down on a couch to watch a movie and that Kay surprised me with a kiss. The dream jumps from there to us in her bed, trying to...it is hazy. We were trying to make love, and it's not that anything was wrong or necessarily preventing us, not in the dream's universe, but my point of view kept rewinding back to the point where we had just lay down together. After a few of these "rewinds", I found myself --- not the me who was laying down, but the me who was dreaming, or perhaps observing the dream --- getting frustrated with the repetition, and I started to change up my approach. What if I put my paw *there* this time, instead? What if I kissed first instead of touching? What if I lay on my back? What if I lay her on hers?
 
-It was one of those fruitless dreams of struggling to find the *correct* way to engage with an idea. It was an erotic dream, but without the catharsis of orgasm (that was left to manual intervention after waking).
+It was one of those fruitless dreams of struggling to find the *correct* way to engage with an idea. It was an erotic dream, but without the catharsis of orgasm.
 
-I don't know. I am just as sure that my feelings for Kay go far, far beyond sex, as I am sure that I would not turn down sex, should the topic ever come up.
+I don't know. I am just as sure that my feelings for Kay go far, far beyond sex as I am sure that I would not turn down sex, should the topic ever come up.
 
-If I'm honest with myself, given my current struggles over even telling her that I have these feelings for her, I think the idea that I actively pursue sex at any point soon is outside the realm of possibility.
+If I'm honest with myself, given my current struggles over even telling her that I have these feelings for her, I think the idea that I actively pursue sex at any point soon is not just inadvisable but outside the realm of possibility.
 
 I just don't yet know what it means.
 
@@ -114,7 +114,7 @@ I did not miss it, and it seems indifferent to my return.
 
 Kay is still at work for a while yet[^work] and I cannot check into my rented room for another few hours, so I have camped out in a café in the neighborhood where I will be staying.
 
-I cannot put my finger on what exactly feels so different about this place from Sawtooth. There is a different tension in those around me. There is more exhaust in the air. The landscape is similar enough, but there are more buildings, and they are situated just a little too close together, compared to what I'm used to.
+I cannot put my finger on what exactly feels so different about this place from Sawtooth. There is a different tension in those around me. The landscape is similar enough, but there are more buildings, and they are situated just a little too close together, compared to what I'm used to. There is more exhaust in the air. 
 
 But it's still Idaho. We're only a hundred and change miles up the road from Sawtooth. The water tastes the same. The temperature is the same. It's all more of the same. Not just in the sense of the ongoing homogenization that is part of living in the west, but it really is no different than Sawtooth, other than it's bigger and more expensive.