I'm snowed in. Kinda walking in circles thinking out loud in explanatory mode. It's an old habit of teaching, kind of pregaming a lecture/class, or for online, I often have to think out loud to get the right wording at a student. I'm always talking just to one of them, I just don't know which one it is. He mentioned that he remembers I never used PowerPoint, and of course never an overhead (lit ain't math), so I was just talking. A little standoffish but funny. He fantasized and thought about me, but only when he did his homework (the writing) - in class, he couldn't take his eyes off M's nipples, nobody could apparently. We were hippies, bra shma for her, I was more reserved but 👢. 

Aside: let me remind you that M married my Ex last summer, so he's going back 25 years with this shit. Detailed memory of what I was wearing. That's some Fudd mutant superpower hahaha

Then it occurred to me - it's not a SURVEY, I'm prepping an old school teach: a self-exploratory question, followed by discussion. And let me tell you what I was always thinking: how do I turn on my one student? The one who is really paying attention (and falling in love)? I wanted to seduce. And I did. All the time. Still do. Men, women, all kinds. And the better I understand the students (as a TYPE, like NUR students are a school of nursefish), the better I can do it. And I find out who that one is sometimes by what they write - if it sounds increasingly like it's TO ME, that's a one. Another one. And I write back. And so it goes as they stream by me. I never speared any of them, catch and release only. By that time that one fucker ran at me, he wasn't a fish, and he had been simmering a while, a good thing for tough meat, which all men are (or they're not the tasty kind). One might throw a dodge ball at me, out of the blue, after YEARS of just dicking around mostly. Getting stupidly engaged or whatever, like we all do. 

Or throw a torso photo.

I'm totally fucking this dude. I will. I am letting that sink in. 

I mean, you never know for sure until the first kiss. But. If he gets anywhere near me, which the torso shot (wow) (as friends, just comparing our 2024 stress related weight loss, him going first - still totally plausible deniabity, he can still back up) (but, wow - and he's right, for certain kinds of people [us] pressure forges us somehow and we get way hotter), I'm going to ask him that question, 1-5, and then we will have follow-up discussion. I'll remind him this is how we used to do it, maybe, but I bet he won't need reminding. He will remind me of things very long forgotten, and no matter what number he picks on the original "survey", he's going to be simmering harder. If he's a 3 going in, that would be perfect, I'd leave him be and I'd tell him why in the most straightforward (painfully delightfully detailed) way possible why I must not set his life on fire with MY superpowers. And he will be a good boy a while longer, simmer simmer. But maybe he's a reckless 4, in which case 💣

Once, I was wrong, only ONCE (Bale Dave) did a marriage stand up to me and I never did get with that guy, which no doubt saved me a HUGE headache (his wife is a saint). 

So I could be wrong. But this feels very fuckward bound. 10 younger and 10 steps ahead of me, from behind, 25 fucking years behind. Yes.

And as for Nebraska, I told him on our very first date, since he'd just come out of a poly relationship it was discussed, that I would not be into poly with women, only men. And I rarely like people (I barely like him, for instance, much of the time). So more men probably wouldn't come up, but if it did 🤷🏻‍♀️ and also that he was free to stick his dick wherever he wanted, I don't do jealousy anymore (hard No, never again), honesty is all I require, no extra women because too much drama and nothing in it for me, so I would respectfully decline but not lose my shit over it. I don't believe in owning other people anymore. "I don't believe in owning other people anymore", is word for word what I said. And that has been true this whole time. So if he expected engaged to mean that changed, No, I did not consent to any change in my contract language. Even if I did want to marry him, which my 🔥 at this coworker further proves I do not cz my virgo vagina only ever wants to imprint on one at the end of the day, I'd still strike at this guy if he keeps swimming right up to me. This one is a very rare illusive species that I'm really into and hardly ever spot. So. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I only ever say what I actually mean. Nebraska never says what he means unless "I think about your hair every minute" is a true statement 🤢. Give me a fucking break. It simply never occurs to him that I mean what I say. So he doesn't pay attention to it at all. 

My therapist, "HIS problem, you're getting the hang of this, slowly but surely." Yup, that's his problem, not mine. And I'll tell him straight up, and that he is free to decide he can't live with that. But I'm still poised to spear this dude, either a broiling sooner or a simmering later. And I'm still going to Phoenix in February. And that's that.

The only way those things don't happen is if, once I get to Phoenix and he hears "you are in time out, Buddy", Nebraska blows it all up, the whole academic program that came apx 90% out of my and another woman's head (the woman I am replacing, who quit), so if I walk out the door, the work he says he loves so much also goes. Then I come home that day, leaving him to teach the rest of it alone. I have not taken 1 cent yet, only a TITLE that I earned already by teaching for free, so I don't owe anybody anything, very purposefully so. That would leave me with far fewer options and angry as all fuck at drunk lifedrivers (I SAID no fucking trainwrecks, EVER motherfucker, on our first fucking date, REMEMBER??). And then he dies. Not because I hexed him (more) but because I can see that is what will happen to him, if that's what he chooses to do. He will panic, then drink, then die. Nebraska will die without me; I will not die without him. 

Nebraska isn't sober enough to drive, so yea I'm taking the fucking keys now. Or getting entirely out of the car. 

smib