Smoke Starts Fires

Maybe just because I didn't take my sleeping pill, but I got up with my alarm, took care of the morning chores, and woke a very reluctant Julian. I thought about chugging coffee, but just saved the excess from his instead. Stayed up a bit longer for no real reason, then crashed after my phone died around 9ish. Woke up again when Julian came back for lunch, made his coffee and thought about what I was going to do with my afternoon He was concerned and I crashed again right after he left. When I woke up for real, I had a missed call from Tim and a message from a potential client requesting a date with both of us. Julian is still treating them like Grindr tricks. He declined because it was too late and he was tired from work, but then asked for pics of them, details, and to upsell. He went outside to drink and chat with Terry and Dean and I journaled on his laptop. Didn't get very far, just cleaned up a couple entries, but I made progress. I have no idea how he found the Party Train, but he came back inside to check in and talk to me before heading back out. It was thoughtful, but he was already tipsy enough that I could've been a cardboard cutout. He was giving a monologue and my talking at any point just reminded him to keep talking. It felt like if I wanted to spend time with Lady Miss Friday but woke her up by hitting her with a cat toy over and over. He was going to go back outside and use my busted folding chair but I convinced him to use his lawn chair instead. He remembered the chair at work and promised to bring it back, but I'm fine with the lawn chair and thanked him for letting me use it again. I made him a non-alcoholic Crystal Light to go and carried both that and the lawn chair for him. Terry said I lost weight, Julian commented how impressed he was that I'd been sober (from booze) . I started chatting with them but definitely wanted my pen with me if I did. When I got back inside, though, I stayed there. Figured all of them would be too tipsy to really pay much attention to my absence and I had things I needed to get done. Tim called again, I filled him in on the Fox Den event and he confirmed he'd been going to go largely to ensure I went, because he kind of knew I needed it. When I got to OJ and how grateful I was for MJ stopping it, he unfortunately took a page from MJ and interrupted every sentence, if not every word. When I finally got it all out, he was predictably happy with MJ's actions, and predictably surprised at feeling gratitude. But he also predicted my fall back into addiction with ketamine. Even though I haven't had anything remotely resembling a problem thus far, I'll still end up homeless on the street giving handjobs for smack. It reminded me of the night I made that godawful dip with vegenaise, threw it all up, and Tim insisted I was using. And then partly due to that insistence, I did. Some important differences there, mostly just that I was already abusing and addicted to GHB that time. I'm aware Tim's reflex when he's insecure is to call out problems in other people and very grateful for him saving me, I'd just rather he wait until there's a cloud before the blue sky makes him wonder. I smoked, but it was one of those days where nothing seemed to affect me.

When Julian came back for real, he talked about how hungry he was and started making burgers and fries. And his leftover mac and cheese, and buttered spinach, and bao. The banana bread, the orange slices, the cereal, the bowl of yogurt, the peanut butter sandwich, the pancakes with gooseberry jelly, the scrambled eggs with toast...He burnt the bao and spilled the coffee I saved, but he got it made. He initially tried to play Great News and blamed OJ for signing me out and messing up Netflix. I saw we were still logged in, we'd just finished Great News - it was only 2 seasons. He had no idea what to watch and I'm too aware of our narrow Venn Diagram of interests, but I had Daybreak, the post-apocalyptic high school dramedy on my list. We watched while we ate, and I think only the tray of appetizers were burnt. I'm a vegan garbage disposal so IDGAF what's in front of me, but his eyes were bigger than his stomach. I put everything away, missed a couple scenes while I was in the kitchen but I can always catch them later. Julian talked some about my birthday, planning what he's going to get me and suggested a board game night on Monday. I did agree that I'd take time off on his weekends if he wanted, so that he feels less pressure to go out on my weekends, but he's been far more influenced by Terry, et al, than me to stay up, stay out, and stay drunk on actual weekends. Also, since the hammer's going to fall on Monday, I might not be in much of a mood to host a Game Night. I think he was looking for reassurance that he's a good partner, but also for a guarantee the party would keep going. He joked instead about knowing his Monday would involve his mattress...sleeping. It was pretty funny the way he did it. He fell asleep on the couch, initially physically but not verbally requesting foot rubs, but I was still journaling and didn't have the time or patience to continue humoring my drunk husband. I put his mattress down and made the bed before crashing.