I'm still alive, dear reader, and my assignment to Asia's been confirmed. My boyfriend's awesome, and work (domestically) is pretty good. Work with our new development team continues to be exhausting.
Stuck @ Christmas
I visited my parents over Christmas, and had a "normal" good time. Nothing extraordinarily good or bad happened, but it certainly felt like we were going through the motions. I was marking time, waiting for my return trip to Austin, and to DJ. In fact I spent about as much time worrying about which gift is best for him as I did for my parents.
"Staycation" with DJ
The night I flew in, he came over, and we exchanged gifts. I gave him some
socks, and a pair of center-stage tickets to a
play that intrigued both of us. He gave me some shirts, a nice bottle of cologne from one of my favorite brands, a scarf, and a mystery surprise gift that required that I pack an overnight bag. He gave way better gifts than I did. That usually doesn't happen.* :-)
The next day, his surprise kicked off. He showed up that afternoon, grabbed my dufflebag, and kicked off our "staycation" by checking us in a room at a historic Austin landmark. Our room was at the top of the hotel, and overlooked the Hill Country West of Austin. We spent the afternoon cuddling on the bed (they had a fur comforter!) and settled in to watch football.
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| Our Victorian-era hotel, set against the backdrop of modern Austin |
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| A room like ours. We found multiple uses for it. ;-) |
Just around halftime, a knock came at the door. DJ had ordered chocolate-dipped strawberries and champagne, to kick off our night. We spent the rest of the evening roaming downtown Austin, from bar to bar, and restaurant to restaurant watching football, enjoying excellent food, and each others company.**
This was one of the best gifts that I've received so far.
Work is... work.
I got a top 10% rating, which is unheard of after getting a promotion. I've earned multiple innovation bonuses (mostly writing patents), and realized just how remarkable the team my current team in Austin truly is.
Work in Asia continues to be stressful and frustrating. I feel like I need to redefine "success" for this job, to avoid being unhappy. Inc has an
interesting article on this very topic. It tends to mirror the same basic premise as "
The Paradox of Choice," which states that we can control our stress and happiness levels by changing our expectations as humans.
Off to Asia
I'll write more later (this has consumed much of my free time), but my assignment to Asia has actually been confirmed. For real. I managed to negotiate a househunting trip in four days. My management is still being cheap. They've nearly cancelled the assignment multiple times. They're still short-changing me. I'll still make money, but I'll be making about $20,000 less than the other assignees from our division.
DJ is excited for me, but I know that this will put stress on our relationship. We're planning to keep it going while I'm away, and I've already started looking for ways to come back to see him, and ways for him to fly out and see me.
Oddly-enough, I'm moving in 30 days, and KNOW I should be busy. Unfortunately I simply don't know what to do, or where to start, so each and every weekend has been lazy, and possibly wasted. I feel like I should get out and see my friends, or fix up my house, or sort through my possessions. I've tried to do all three simultaneously and failed, so far.
Sex
Would it surprise you to know that there's still one last closet that I need to come out of? When I became good at cybersex, I discovered that I like a certain kind of roleplay (I feel uncomfortable talking about it here, which is strange, since I know only two of you IRL). I need to tell DJ, since I'm not 100% giving myself to him when we roll around on the bed together. Combine this with the fact that I always "top," and I'm sometimes unfulfilled. He says that he won't top, because he's a physically smaller guy (in multiple ways) than I am. I don't want to bring his size up, because that makes him self-conscious.
How do you broach the subject of "kinky" sex?
* In my defense, before Christmas he basically told me (multiple times) that he was giving me a scarf, so I calibrated (and recalibrated again) my dollar figures to avoid giving him too much. It turns out he did the same thing, in the opposite direction.
** Vacation sex is fun.