F.I.N.E.

We've all heard the saying, "Rules are made to be broken." If that's true, then it would stand to reason that if I made the rules in the first place, they should, easily and without consequence, be subject to change at my slightest whim. One would think, anyway. But ... one would be wrong.
Alex was the first person I told when I broke my own rule (okay, or technically my own Brooke-inspired rule) and slept with John. Her reaction? "Welcome to hell, and please enjoy your stay." I took that with a grain of salt as classic Alex "the world is a terrible place and everyone in it sucks," negativity - she's a bit prone to that - and assured her that everything would be fine. Ha! Famous fucking last words. Unless you're going by my old friend Riley's* interpretation that "fine" is merely an acronym for "fucked up, insane, neurotic, and emotional."
I hadn't spoken to Riley in about four years, but he's on my mind today because according to yesterday's paper, he got blown up in Iraq this past Thursday. Fucking surreal. I had actually just been talking about him to Scarlette that afternoon ... in the context that he was kinda the reason I wound up doing my first "forced"-bi, even though I wasn't really aware that that was what I was doing at the time. I knew him during kind of a crazy experimental period in my life that I don't exactly look back on as my finest hour, but that boy was a truly beautiful soul and one of those people who just oozed charisma from every pore. It looked like he had found happiness before his tragic end, too, married for five months to a girl who was not the one who had given him boundless heartache when I knew him (little miss "I'm not a slut, I'm just a free spirit") and I was glad to see that at least ... he deserved it.
So let's go with that. Everything is Riley fine these days.
Nate gets another shout out for sitting on the phone with me 'til three AM and witnessing an extremely excessive display of humanity. Seriously, he's so sweet I just want to take a bite out of him ... and I plan to, just as soon as I fix my smile. In my opinion, he deserves a hell of a lot better than what he's been getting these days, too. Karma needs to return from its unannounced recent vacation.
In other news, I kinda want to adopt Scarlette as my BDSM big sister. The hanging out with her portion of yesterday was awesome. I love how she's got even less patience for John's bullshit than I do, even though I'm the one who's feeling its wonderful effects: "All's fair in love and war," and yeah, there are plenty of clever ways I could retaliate. But what it all boils down to is that, first off, I was certainly never under any ridiculous delusions that I was "in love" ... trust me, it ain't that easy. And secondly? Well ... I sure as shit don't want to be at war.
Tool, Matt, and John have all written an essay for me entitled, "What service means to me." I had come across John's when I was moving and stuck it in my wallet, so I let Scarlette read it yesterday. It was a really good essay, one that began with the line he had given me when I mentioned it to him over the phone (yes, once upon a time, he actually used to pick up a phone): "Ooh, can I try and just answer the question without writing the essay? Service is about making you smile." And sure, that was cute and all, but want to hear a couple things that don't make me smile? Meaningless daily flattery from random strangers paired with complete disregard from someone I actually care about. Or bullshit double standards where that aforementioned someone, by all appearances, seems to spend whatever little free time he has available utilizing the worldwide web to whore himself to every girl in the tri-state area ... and then gets all bent with me for doing a fucking play scene with someone else. Because in light of those two previously cited behaviors ... it should have occurred to me that you did, in fact, actually give a shit? Um ... my mistake. When he chose to make me aware of his displeasure, I had just finished a shoot with a pro-Domme who - while she's a lot of fun to work with - I've never exactly pictured as the warm, fuzzy, intuitive, compassionate sort ... but even she took one look at me when I got his messages and her immediate response was, "Oh my god, what's wrong?" I gave her the cliff notes version (or actually more like the little blurb on the inside of the bookjacket), leaving out names and identifying characteristics. "Um ... aren't play partners supposed to be fun?" she asked when I had finished. Ha. Excellent point.
Scarlette's advice was that I should use everything he said in his essay against him. At first, I thought the only problem with that idea was that the essay in question had been addressed to "Mistress Kay," and that now he sees me as just me. Which was cool in theory. Being able to be real with someone is good; being in "Mistress mode" twenty-four-seven is a little exhausting. But that begs the question: Why isn't "real me" deserving of the same respect as "Mistress Kay?" 'Cause, correct me if I'm wrong, but ... I'm actually pretty sure she is.
It's funny how the night I met Harrison, he specifically requested that I be "just me," and then right when I've been starting to do that, right when I'm about to get over that whole viewing my humanity as weakness that undermines my dominance thing ... this is the result.
Luckily, I generally manage to do a decent job of finding distractions for myself to help take my mind off these types of situations. But the part where I always seem to find a necessity to go looking for those distractions in the first place? I could really do without.