We are in Houston! It is raining off and on here but no flooding in this area. We came in last night and went for a bbq dinner with my husband's family. It's crazy! They bring these paper-lined metal trays with meat and we just help ourselves. It was good and the sauce was this tangy pepper stuff. I had turkey and some grilled vegetables.
My time is off. Last night when we got to his parents' place I was sitting on the couch between husband and father-in-law with everyone talking in Farsi. I yawned and FIL put his arm around me and hugged me then I fell asleep against him. Turkey+warm couch+happy family+language-I-don't-speak = me passed out.
When I woke up, my husband was carrying me to our room and then I was wide awake until 1am! (11pm California time).
Luckily we got to sleep in. My guy was up late playing video games with his brother.
Today we are supposed to go see a museum! It is supposed to keep raining, but just lightly. His parents neighborhood is fine, no flooding. But just down the road...
On the Hayden front, I am close to finishing the next chapter. It will be the first chapter I have finished in over a month. Life has just been so busy lately.
The Lukas redo on Wattpad seems to be taking off! That's really cool, but now I am getting into the dirtier chapters so it needs a lot more editing and cleaning up before I can put it up there without having to label it as mature. I want to avoid that and make it more mainstream.
I am getting inspiration for a Houston-set story. This city has such a different vibe from SoCal. I like it. This area has tiny roads with huge homes on big, heavily wooded lots. It's a much shadier city than LA. Not so much blinding sunshine. The humidity though...
We are going to Texas next week to visit husband's family! Fun! It might rain! I can't wait to see some rain.
My father-in-law called me today on facetime on his lunch break. He loves facetime, so does my husband. Weird! :) We talked about the visit and then he mentioned Thanksgiving and Christmas and us going there with them.
I told him, "Well I want to, but I hate leaving my dad alone on holidays like that." My dad's family is all here, but he likes me to be a part of it and of course I want to spend holidays with him too.
The father-in-law looks thoughtful for a minute and then says, "Of course he is welcome here. He is family. My child is his and his child is mine. We are family."
He didn't sound so much like he meant it thought. I know my husband's parents both really like me and his father loves me like his own child, but they aren't too excited about my dad. I'm not sure that would be the best holiday for him.
I told him that my dad likes them and said they are very welcoming (that is kind of true, but I think my dad was just being polite). That made husband's dad smile. He said he should make more of an effort to get to know my father.
When I've talked to my husband about it, he said it's not that they don't like him, but they don't like the circumstance of my mom leaving. To them, that is a crazy concept. My parents should have married and stayed together. It's not that my dad didn't want that, but my mom didn't. She got pregnant young (with me) and they were kind of put together when she was not ready to be a wife and mother.
So I don't know. My husband said he would like to spend thanksgiving and christmas with his family, but that he will go where I go. He said if we want to spend thanksgiving here with my family then that would be an acceptable compromise, but in the past we spent all holidays with my family and his family was back in Iran. Now they are here so he thinks it would be ok for us to spend both with them.
I can see his point. My dad would kind of be a stranger in their house in Texas. He doesn't know people there or have friends there. So that might be weird for him.
I haven't even talked about this with my dad. He may not even want to go. Just some thoughts...
Lukas is taking off on wattpad! It started last week after a long lull in posting new chapters. It just kind of got discovered and I started getting new readers and messages about it! Crazy! Then I added the two latest chapters and they took off quickly. That's exciting!!
The crazy thing is that now females outnumber males 2 to 1 as Lukas readers. For some reason, it is taking off in Germany, Indonesia, and Egypt! New countries are Ghana, Guyana, Finland, and Saudi Arabia is still holding strong as well.
How crazy is that? My stories are getting read all over the world. That is incredibly humbling! So far all the comments are positive. I know that in the coming chapters I will get some flameback from people. That's the downside to getting a bigger audience, right?
Personal life is good. Husband is coming home soon and taking me out for dinner with some of the gay gamer crowd I have been hanging out with. It'll be fun! I had a good week, so busy but good. Husband is making a much better effort to take me out and do things. Only one day was I totally housebound.
I need to work on Hayden! I finally know where I want the story to go next, but life is so busy...
My husband is on this new kick where he takes my phone away at 9pm then we go get ready for bed and spend at least 20 minutes just talking about whatever I want. It's some parenting tip he read about teens with eating issues. haha. I know! Don't judge! He is trying.
He got some couple's topics and questions/prompts too. Last night's was "I know you love me when."
Mine was how I know he loves me because he never can walk pass me without some kind of touch.
Like some times he comes home and he's on the phone with a client, but he finds me right away and then puts his hand on my head and pushes his fingers through my hair. Or when he is working at the table and I walk by him he will reach out and grab my shirt or arm or whatever is close. Or he just walks by and kisses my neck or cheek or any part that is convenient.
He said he never thought about that. He sounded surprised. "I do this?" "Yes, sir. You do!" "I do not know this! I just get this urge when I see you."
From him, he said he knows I love him when I am so careful with taking care of him. He knows he will never not have a meal and never not have a suit ready for the day. He never has to think about packing for a trip or making sure he has enough clothes for whatever the trip will bring. He said he is blessed because he has a partner who will always plan for his needs and take care of the home so he can focus on providing for us.
Anyways!! The whole time we were talking he was holding my phone and spinning it. You know how dude guys do that? Like they toss something or spin it around. He can NOT sit still.
Well somehow he spun it too hard and it went up and he couldn't catch it. It went up in the air and then sailed down and bonked against the bedside table and then crashed to the hardwood floor. Screen was smashed and showing nothing.
He felt so bad!
We'd just had this loving moment sharing and then he smashes my phone. haha. I actually laughed. I love my phone. Now I will love a new phone I guess. I learned not to get attached to the gadgets he buys me because he replaces them whenever something better comes out. He has to have the latest tech.
I asked him if I could get the new Samsung, but he is dead set on apple. he knows how to work it and has all the apps that link us together so he can find me and see what I'm up to. I guess that doesn't carry across platforms so well... But it's ok. So new phone it is...
We had a great weekend!
My husband invited the gay student group guys over today for game day and he also invited his friends over. It was awesome. I made food and he grilled burgers for everyone then his friends watched a game in the living room and my friends played games in the dining room.
It was weird having the two groups together. His friends are bulky handsome middle eastern guys and mine are more guys like me. They got along ok though, but no love connections were made. I think my friends were fascinated by his and his were on good behavior. I'm sure he told the how important it is that I make a group down here. He is awesome like that. I love him. :)
My friends stayed until 5ish and then went home. Husband took me and his friends to a sports grill place for dinner. Two of them are staying the night down here since tomorrow is a holiday. They are playing video games with my husband in the living room now and I am chilling in the bedroom. It was a really great day! I am so glad we have a house where his friends can come down and stay. They are liking it down here. It's so much nicer and quieter than LA.
My friends loved our house. Most of them live at home and are from down here. It's kinda cool. I am starting to be ok with Orange County.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
