We are all just slurpees waiting to be consumed.

A (husband) got mad at me last night. If anyone else had seen it they would have said, "What are you talking about? He's not mad at all!" We don't argue like regular people, but I can tell when he's mad. He gets very soft with me and sits me down facing him and lays out what he wants from me in a calm and direct way. He talks to me like he's negotiating with someone who has a knife. It used to feel kind of insulting, but I prefer it to him blowing up and getting angry which he never does. I've seen his anger on other people, but he'd never use it with me. 

The issue is I have a friend I've had since 6th grade who is going through a breakup with another guy that I know from the lgbt group on campus so I'm friends with both of them. I went through a period where I dropped everyone when my guy and I were getting serious. When A got the townhouse and moved me in with him I disappeared completely from my friends and I got really sad. 

Being a houseboy isn't all like you read in stories. It can be really isolating and you feel like a pet. I used to jump on him when he came home from work like a puppy. He loved it, but then I started doing bad things and he got concerned. So now he makes it a priority for me to schedule time with my friends and even have them over for pizza and a movie at least once a month. 

But when they get into drama he wants me to stay completely out of it. He says I shouldn't get involved or take sides. He said, "It is best to leave them to find their own way. I do not wish for you to be in the middle." 

I know to him we seem like little kids. He doesn't deal with these things in his grown-up world. When his friends are sad about something he invites them over and they drink beer and play video games. I can't imagine him sitting on the phone for an hour talking his friend through sadness. 

He doesn't really understand boy drama even though I know way back he had some with a guy in the UK when he was a teenager. He only talked about it once and if I ask him now he says, "It doesn't matter. It prepared me to know what I really want and now I have it. Now nothing else matters." He says over the top love stuff like that and I always feel bad for not thinking of the perfect thing to say in return. I usually just blush and then let him kiss me. 

We agreed that I should not try to work things out between the two of them and just be a supportive friend. He promised I'll never know heartbreak like that so long as he is living. I told him it makes me glad that I'm not out there dating. I would be really weird about it. 

He always jokes about the guys I would be with if I weren't with him. I mostly attract really cute Asian guys with cool hair. I made the comment once to him that if I hadn't met him I would be with a guy like that, someone small like me but maybe a little taller. Whenever we see one who fits that he gives me a look and smile like, "Are you interested?" Sometimes I am... 

I don't know why, but that is the number one type of guy who will chat me up randomly. I have two extremes to my attraction scale. I like dominant Middle Eastern muscle guys and Asian guys my age and build. Now I've discovered dominant muscled Asian guys and that sparked my Tabula Colton series. The few I've gotten to know through A's clients have been really hot, but they seem to view smaller white boys like collectable action figures. One of them had this younger white guy who said he wasn't even gay until he met the older muscled Chinese guy (super wealthy). 

We hung out with them a few times last year when A was helping him invest, and the older guy treated the younger one like a pet (not in the nice way I get treated like a pet). He ordered him around and talked about how dumb he was. The younger one kind of brushed it off, but seemed fine with taking the older one's money and they traveled around the world. The last time I heard about it, the younger one had left him, sold stuff, and moved to NYC. 

I was happy for him, but A said the younger one was using the guy for money and if he had been interested in love he would have insisted on being treated better.

I reminded A that he makes all the money for us and I don't contribute much at all. 

He said that's not true, that I'm always begging him to slow down and making a nice home for him to come for relaxation. That I care more about spending time with him and turn down things when he takes me shopping because I don't like to waste money. He says I recharge him and he knows we would still be ok even if he worked at 7-Eleven. I do love 7-Eleven... Slurpees are dope.  

I have a clue about the birthday weekend. He says to pack for cooler weather. That either means we are going somewhere coastal or mountainous... or it means we are going somewhere with other guys and he wants me covered up to not expose my body. :) So maybe it's not a full clue. 

I'm working on Lukas some, but I've reached that point in a series where people stop writing me emails and commenting on it. They just expect more chapters will come. I don't like whining about that because as soon as you care more about the response to your art than in the act of creating something you love... things go downhill. I try to remind myself of that. I write for me. 

I write because these characters are in my head and they do crazy stuff and demand that I recall it on paper. I write because I love going to the gym, putting in my headphones, and listening to the autovoice read back to me what I created. I do that ten or more times with each chapter and then I go back and rewrite things and make it better, or explain things more clearly, or add descriptions because the picture is fuzzy. It's nice when someone likes my art, but art is about freeing the soul, getting out the animal inside that is restless and needs some air. 

Whatever your release, you have to do it for you. I like to create more than I consume. Whether its writing, food, working out, listening, being kind, I try to make a safe space for someone to come in and enjoy a moment. And I love 7-Eleven.