Netflix Eating Issues

I am back at home, but a little less bored these days since my classes started. I have written a little on the next chapter of Hayden's Shelter. It's coming along. I am trying to figure how to pivot this to bring it to an ending soon. 

We have a home gym setup and my husband put a TV in there!! What? Now there is no stopping my running every day. He hooked up the fire stick so I have netflix in there now!! 

The good news is I ran 5 miles (doing a slow run/walk/run/walk). The bad news is that I forgot to eat lunch and my husband got upset about that when he came home. 

Usually I take a picture of my lunch and send it to him. He gets busy all day, but he likes to see it and I thought he had kind of forgotten about this. Yesterday I forgot to send the pic, but he saw the empty bag of carrots I had with my sandwich. Today though he asked about it when he got home and I seriously had forgotten. He thought I was trying to be sneaky, so he made me a half peanut butter/banana sandwich before I started on making dinner. Then I wasn't hungry for dinner! But oh well. 

This means tomorrow he will call and I'll eat lunch in front of him on facetime. We have had way too many food arguments. No yelling, just little lectures and kisses and promises to do better. At this point, he doesn't even argue about it. He just says, "Enough" and carries me off to the kitchen. 

I'm sure a therapist would say this is my way of getting attention. I don't know. Maybe it's part of our co-dependency or another part of why we are trapped in the daddy/boy cycle. It is probably worse with me being left home alone all day without exposure to people. 

But we are who we are and luckily I have a man who looks out for me and doesn't mind it.

He never complains. He never tells me, "You promised to do better!" He never shames me or makes me feel bad for it. He just puts us back on the plan of me writing down my food, weighing me a few times each week so I don't go too low, and eating meals in front of him when he is away to make sure I am getting enough. 

Yeah we're probably messed up, but that's us.

Anyways! The real point of this post was my current netflix binge show and the reason I stayed on the treadmill so long. No Good Nick is a VERY good show! I am hooked. Season 2 gets very dark, but it's still good. The son is randomly gay midway through it. Like no discussion or acknowledgement. He just suddenly finds a cute boy and holds his hand. Weird!! haha. But it's good! 

Party Time, Yup

Birthday party was a huge success. His friends came down and he got to show off the new house. He is always the leader of his group and they look up to him. He was proud to be the first one of them to take the big step into adulthood with the big suburban home. They loved it! I had it sparkling clean for them and we ordered catering from the place he likes over in Little Arabia.

They watched some Persian movie with subtitles for me that didn't always make sense. Then they had a video game tournament late into the night. I fell asleep about 11 and I'm sure they went well after that because most of them were still out at 10am when he started waking them up for breakfast. 

He was so happy and so proud of me for taking care of his friends and making everything perfect. He told his parents all about it when they called today. 

For a reward, he took me shopping, gym, and lunch. Then he did a rare thing during our together time. Usually he is all about side B, but today he gave a good amount of attention to side A, which rarely happens other than my chest. Too much information. I know. 

It's been a good weekend so far though. Tomorrow we are going to meet up with the gay gamers group so I can hang out with them. I got a new boardgame to take!! I am excited! It's not a board game, more of a table game. Tokyo Highway. Has anyone played it? Ash and I tested it out this afternoon, but he gets so competitive. 

I don't know if they group will want to play, they kind of have their own games. But I'll take it with me. Husband said, "I will play with you if no one else will." 

I'm like "Oh thanks. Then I'll be the loser kid who only has his daddy to play with." haha. 

Wednesday... is it wednesday already??

Yesterday was my husband's birthday. I made him a strawberry cake because it's the one cake I have made that really made him nod his head and smile. I'm not super chefy. It was a box mix and I added strawberries and got the strawberry cream cheese icing that is crazy unhealthy but really good! 

Not much is going on with me. I am taking a break from writing and starting my fall classes. I am only taking a few. I could just push myself and finish my degree, but my husband wanted me to slow down and not be so stressed out so I can keep our house clean (I always accidentally type "his house") and keep up with my workouts. He wants us to travel a bit more this fall too so doing too many classes would not be good. 

Tomorrow I'm going back to meet up with the gay students game group again. They are pretty cool. Sunday we hung out with them and played games. I know it was boring for my husband, a group of six nerdy white gays. :) But he tried. He always tries when it comes to me. He says it is important he keeps me happy and building some community here. 

So Hayden will come back, soon. I already started on the next chapter. I am kind of thinking out where to go with it. 

School is starting again for Hayden and Tank. That will let them see each other more and without parental oversight. Could be a good thing, but Hayden might meet some other guys too. I'll see where the characters go. 

Also, how to end it! I need to end it and maybe 25 chapters would be a good solid number. 

A lot of stories on Wattpad have like 99 chapters or more, but the chapters are like 2-3 pages where Hayden is usually a solid 9-10 pages. 

Hayden vs. Lukas & Birthday & gays

My Hayden's Shelter series seems to attract a very different audience than my Lukas series. Hayden readers are a lot more balanced with only 40% male readers and the rest either female or undeclared. 

Also the maps look different. Hayden readers are mostly US and UK plus the Netherlands and Belgium. Why is that? Is there some Hayden fanclub that crosses the English channel to meet up? It's such a small part of the world! But overall, Haydens Shelter has a lot more readers. 

Lukas has readers from other parts of Europe, Africa, Asia and even Saudi Arabia! Plus Australia! How cool is that! I always love when I get an email from a Saudi or Persian reader. I worry I am going to offend them by not getting their culture right. I am married to a Persian, but he very much enjoys US-American culture and he has never tried to get me into Islam. It's like it is his religion and not for me. Strange! I know he will teach it to our children. I will make sure of it. I want them to have cultural roots there and not just be USA culture. 

+++

Next week is my husband's birthday. He will be 31. For 5 weeks every year we are only 8 years apart. The rest of the year we are 9 years apart. :) 

We did a little dinner in Texas with his parents, but it wasn't really a party. 

I am inviting his friends over. They can come down from LA and I even told them I will make up the guests rooms so they can sleep down here and have a fun night. I ordered a cake for him to be delivered and I'll order food from the Persian place he likes. 

He says he just wants a quiet night at home with me, but we do that most Friday nights. He deserves a night with everyone to celebrate with him. He's a good man and I want him to have a happy birthday. 

+++

I went to the gay meetup group today. My husband was anxious about it until he saw it was a small group of nerdy guys. That made him feel better. 

They meet on a college campus and even though I'm not a student there they said it was ok. They are somewhat affiliated with the group that was on the campus where I used to go before we left LA. That group was much bigger and had lots of hot guys. 

They were nice though! I didn't talk much. We played that HeadsUp game and then just talked. They invited me to come back next time and my husband said we can make it a priority and he will put it on his calendar. 

We are in Texas.

We are in Texas. It is hot, really hot. Look at that "feels like" of 111!!! 

Yesterday morning we went early to walk this trail. It was beautiful and so green! They have all kinds of art alongside it. I told my husband that if that trail was in California, there would be homeless people setting up tents all along it. It's pretty sad. But in Houston there wasn't much of that. Or maybe they are all in shelters with the heat. 

We couldn't walk too much of it because it started to heat up really quickly and he was not down for that. We ended up going for an early lunch in the area and then heading back to his parents' house. This city is really pretty. His parents area has huge homes covered in trees and shady small streets. 

Friday was the start of Hajj, which is a muslim holy time. His dad woke him up early to go and do prayers at a mosque the family goes to. He took his younger brother too, but they didn't invite me. Neither he nor his dad invited me. I thought that was kind of strange. I have gone before with them. I asked my husband about it and he said he worries that right now is not a safe time. That never occurred to me. I guess with all the bad things going on lately, they worried they might be a target. 

I stayed home with his mom and we had a small breakfast then I helped her get working on lunch for them for when they returned. We made a Persian feast. I mostly cut vegetables and stood there which made her happy. 

We are mostly doing indoor activities since it is so hot here. The grocery store they go to is INSANE. It is twice as big as anything we have back home. We got fresh made tortillas and they have cooking demonstrations. It was amazing! 

We were supposed to go home tomorrow, but my husband being the workaholic has found business here. One of his big clients has connections here and so he is meeting with some investor guy. Luckily I packed a nice suit for him. He was so happy. 

His dad wants him to get me a driver's license and car. Apparently my husband had told him he was working on it, which he is not. His dad got mad when he found out that my husband hasn't been doing that. I told him, "I really don't want to drive." Which is true. Living in suburbia though I can see where I might need to learn. I can't imagine just getting in a car by myself and driving somewhere without him. It has been a few years since I have gone anywhere on my own. That feels weird to say. 

My husband gets upset when his dad tries to give input about how he should be doing things with me. Husband does not like anyone's input, but his dad seems to offer it a lot. I stay out of it. I know they talk on the phone at least a few times a week, and my husband says his dad always asks how I am doing and gives him advice about being more open with me. 

I certainly didn't bring up my sadness last week from being trapped in the house all the time. I think my husband told him though, because he seemed a little extra attentive in asking how I am adjusting to living in such a secluded area. Their house is pretty secluded as well, but my husband's mom can drive. She goes to her women's groups with ladies from the mosque. She seems pretty busy. 

I have written some of the next Hayden chapter. I'm not sure how to work Evan in. He will bring problems. :) 

Things are looking Up.

Yesterday I vented on here and then last night when we got to bed I had a more clear arrangement of things in my head to present to my husband. 

Quick recap: Husband wanted a nice big house away from the city where we could have babies and be safe. His company, pleased with the crazy amount of business he does, agreed to give him two assistants to train who could do the running around the city that he has been doing. Because of this, the husband would then work from home a LOT more and spend time with me in our nice big house. 

I told him last night, in a more calm and non-tear-filled tone that this is not working. All my friends and everything I have always known are back in LA. I don't know people in Orange County and our house is on windy hillside roads without sidewalks so I can't even leave the house. Some days he comes home so tired that I can't ask him to take me to the gym. And the us having a baby thing is kind of on hold right now and we have to start over next year. 

He gets to be out and social and making deals happen all day while I am stuck here alone. When he comes home I just explode energy on him. For him, that's not a problem. He loves attention from me, but it's making me super sad and I am not a super sad person. You don't realize how much socializing is important until you find yourself on an island with one other person who is gone for 10 hours a day and working from home another 2-3. 

It's super beautiful up here and the weather is always nice since we're a lot closer to the ocean, but it's lonely and I told him that and he listened. He let me finish and he apologized and said it hurt him to see me sad. He said it takes time for his assistants to learn what they need to know, but he agreed to stop taking on extra business. I know how much he loves that. He is competitive and can charm people so easily. Plus he is very impressive when he is in business mode and people love him. 

Today he came home (he had said he'd be here at 1, but he got back at noon to surprise me). He took me to the restaurant I picked out (Fork&Salad) that serves super healthy Hawaiian food. It was so good. Their salads are so crazy and they have amazing bottled kombucha. 

Then we sat at a coffee place and talked about our plan. He talked to some of the friends we made in the gay parent group and they had some suggestions on groups. One of them is friends with a guy my age who has a friend group that gets together to play games. They sound like gay nerds, but it's something! I don't mind dressing up as a wizard or whatever they do. 

Husband also said he knows it is difficult for someone my age to be stuck in an isolated suburbia. This neighborhood doesn't really have people my age. There are a lot of older people and a surprising number of Arabs/Persians. Not like fun gay ones, but traditional ones with ladies wearing hijabs and I most definitely stand out in that crowd. 

But I feel good. He promised tomorrow he will come home earlier and start blocking out time in his calendar to take me places. 

We went to the gym after that. It was nice. He did a warm up with me and then went off to do his weights. The one we went to had the cardio area in clear sight of the weight machines so he could pop his head up and check on me every time he finished a set. 

Plus, when he gets hardcore into his weightlifting it ALWAYS means he is primed for the good play time, not the lazy play time where he's tired from a day of work, the good one... :) 

What if It's Us? & mini-pity-party

I just finished reading a book called What If It's Us? The author is the lady who wrote the book that became the Love Simon movie (that book was good too!) and Adam Silvera (I have another book in my stack that he wrote called They Both Die at the End. 

It is a classic love story with missed signals that features a hip NYC kid (Ben) who meets a smart Jewish boy (Arthur) from suburban Atlanta. You can immediately spot which chapters were written by which author because Adam Silvera is a hipster from the Bronx and Becky Albertalli is a jewish kid from Atlanta. 

There are some trigger warnings for this book including anti-gay assault and... ok maybe there's just one. It is disturbing, but the rest of the book is easier. 

They are making a movie out of it next year. I am in this phase where I read a bunch of the book and then go back and listen to the audiobook version then read more then listen again until I finish. 

You get different things from each version. Anwyays. The audio book is read by Froy Gutierrez and Noah Galvin. I sort of recognized Noah's voice. He was on that series the Real O'Neals and I actually spotted him in West Hollywood! He is not that cute in real life and he got in trouble for some things he said which led to the show going down. 

The LA public library had both the book and the audiobook available in the app for free! But after reading a few chapters I made my husband take me to Barnes and Noble to buy the real book. It's good enough to want to support the authors. 

Noah Galvin does a good job reading Arthur and he even adds little sounds so it feels like a theatrical performance. He is a great audio actor and brings Arthur to life. 

BUT FROY GUTIERREZ! His voice is beyond adorable! He has this playful flirty perfection that pairs so perfectly with Ben's character. 

So have you read this book? Thoughts? What should I read next? 

I'm a stay-at-home house boy with too much free time right now... This house is getting lonely and I don't have any friends down here... That will be another blog post. My husband says he will make time and help me find some people down here. All around us is mostly straight families and older people. 

So yeah. Reading and writing are my only friends right now. It sucks, but um... yeah... This is where I'm at right now. Hopefully it gets better. 

August is here and I need your input!

Woah, it's August! 

I am up to chapters 15 in both Hayden's Shelter and the Lukas story. It is getting increasingly crazy to rework the Lukas story to make it have more mass appeal and not be a porn story. BUT! I like where it is going. 

This week we will be getting ready to head to Texas on Thursday. It is going to be hot because... Texas. I have to pack hot weather clothes but then also some light long-sleeved shirts and light pants/jeans because he doesn't like me out and about uncovered. It's a muslim thing. He says in the middle east no one would even think of wearing shorts or tank tops in public. Which is weird because he will be in shorts probably the whole time. But I don't argue with that, it's just how it is. 

I have to pack for him too. My husband does not pack bags. He would totally do it if I told him to, but he'd end up with two t-shirts, three pairs of boxers, and a stack of gym shorts. He just doesn't have time to think like that, especially with all the work he is doing these days. It's ok though. I am not in classes right now so getting the house cleaned and getting us ready for Texas is kind of my only job this week. I can do it. 

Hopefully I'll be writing too. I am really undecided where to go with Hayden. I feel like they have gone back and forth enough. That needs to stop and they either need to be together or split up and have Hayden find someone else or find a supportive group of LGBTQ friends. 

Which would be better? Obviously the classic love story needs a happily ever after, but the trend right now in the gay teen romance books I have been reading this summer typically end with them just being friends and instead just learning to accept themselves. 

Should Hayden end up with Tank? How do I settle that with Tank's parents?