i realized i've gotten away from what was the intended purpose of this diary, that is, to write down what's going on in my life and how i feel about it. this whole having an audience thing (and don't get me wrong, i love the audience. it makes me giddy when i see a new person has listed me as a favorite) has changed what i write about, and how i write about it. i think. i feel the need to be witty (not that i'm successful at it), and forego the life-documenting part for the (non)witty part.

so. getting back to it.

i'm mostly loving living with karl. i love slipping into bed with him each night, skin on skin. i love having him there to fuck whenever i want. i love him. last week we had a big conversation about cleaning. this has been the biggest/only thing that has gotten on my nerves about him. i clean regularly. you know how when the floor gets dirty, you have to brush your feet off before you get into bed? i hate that, so i sweep. karl just brushes off his feet. i like to empty the dishwasher when it's done, not after we've got a whole sinkful of dirty dishes again, so have a full dishwasher as soon as it's emptied. i like the rugs to be vacuumed (although that's as much a grossed-out-at-the-thought-of-all-the-stuff-living-in-the-rug thing as it is a neat-appearance thing). i hate piles of clothes on the floor (i know. i'm just going to have to close the door to my teenager's room one day. it's fine. i can do that. as long as there aren't bugs).

right when we moved in, karl told me to tell him when i wanted stuff done, because he recognized that i liked things cleaner. ok, so i was doing that. on saturdays, we'd clean some stuff together (i sweep, he vacuums, i do the toilet, he does the tub), then on sunday, i'd leave a list for him (laundry, empty the dishwasher, whatever) while i went off to work at the white dog. so. last weekend, he was all quiet and upset after i gave him a list of stuff i wanted done, and finally he brought it up. he felt like i was always telling him what to do. implying that he was a dirty bastard. so we talked. long, difficult, unpleasant. i don't think he's a dirty bastard. i just think that we have different standards. problem is, because my standard is cleaner, i end up doing all the work.

he is hurt by this claim, saying that he thinks he's been doing a better job (than before we lived together) of keeping the sink clear of dangerously high piles of dishes and putting away his things and generally being tidy. yes, yes, he is doing a better job at that stuff. he's putting away his stuff. it's the common stuff (sweeping, cleaning the bathroom) that i felt like i was doing alone. ahhhh. we had a revelation. so karl was thinking about this, wondering what to do about it, when i had an inspiration. hey, love, if you would just do it sooner, i wouldn't have to bug you about it. like, if you have to brush the grit off your feet at night before bed, that means the floor needs sweeping. so sweep it. not right then, of course, but next day when you get off work. sweep the floor. if you find the dishwasher clean when you want to put your glass in, don't just put the glass in the sink, unload the dishwasher. ahhhhhhhh. he said he'd try.

for a week, things were great. the apartment was cleaner, and we were happier. couldn't keep off each other (guys, take note: do not underestimate the aphrodisiac power men doing housework). i'm starting to think, though, that it's not going to last. i'm holding off judgment, but i spent all day saturday cleaning: sweeping, swiffering, toilet, sink, kitchen counters, dishwasher, baking bread, washing up after, tidying. he spent saturday listing to football (by which i mean soccer. everton played west brom, winning 1-0, and moving up to third in the premiership table). then he lounged around watching tv. and playing on the computer. i mean, that's a fine way to spend a saturday (neither of us got out of our bathrobes, except for an interrupted (by michael coming over to buy my cd writer) naked bit), but did he not notice that i was cleaning the whole time? so then on sunday, i asked him if he was planning on doing laundry (no, not in that passive-agressive sounding way--i needed to know because it affected which pair of trousers i wore to work: if he was washing, i'd leave him the dirtest pair to wash, but if he wasn't, i'd wear them one more time). actually, it might have been a bit passive-agressive, because i did mean for my question to prompt him to say, why yes, sure i'll do the laundry, honey. it's the least i can do after you cleaned yesterday. he actually answered "i don't know" but after i explained why i was asking, he said yes, he'd do it.

and he did do 4 loads. at our apartment, which has 2 washers and 2 dryers, this isn't as much work as 4 loads sounds like, but you also have to take into account that we have to go down 2 flights of stairs, out the front door, around the corner to the other entrance to our building, in their 2 front doors, and down their basement stairs (our side of the building doesn't have stairs leading down. i mean, it's supposed to. it has a door to the basement, but there are no actual steps there). so it's a pain. he did 4 loads, but there is still dirty laundry. there's probably 2 more loads. one more load of clothes and stuff, and one load of sheets. we just did the sheets last weekend, but have to do them again because i leaked. so i guess really *i* should do them again. i haven't leaked in a long time. (leak what? blood, if you must know. i leaked blood. during my period. it was heavier than usual, probably because i skipped one by taking 2 packs of pills right in a row without a break. which i do occasionally, and which usually doesn't cause this problem, so i don't know what's up.)

anyhow, he did the laundry, but not with the self-motivation that i had hoped for.

changing the topic slightly, living with karl brings up memories of living with john. comparisons are unavoidable. i think that overall, living with john was smoother. things ran smoother. because we had more similar ideas about how things should be cleaned/kept/done. actually, john mostly did all the laundry. i did most of the cooking (but not all). we split the dishes. i cleaned the bathroom, mostly. he did the guinea pig cage. he vacuumed. i dusted and tidied and gardened. it worked out well.

when we watched tv, i often laid my head in his lap, and he gave me a head rub (under the auspices of looking for head pimples to pop. i wrote that sentence and deleted it several times. not sure if i wanted to admit that to you, dear diarylanders. but, in my renewed quest to be honest, there it is. he popped my head pimples. which i don't think i'm getting anymore, by the way.) he really loved the piggies, in a way that karl doesn't. i mean, he talks to miss fergusson sometimes, and picks her up sometimes, but not like john did. john had this funny way of talking as if he were one of the piggies, giving them voices. it was so cute. karl definitely doesn't do that. the little cuter-than-woots, he'd call them. but what is woot, you ask? doesn't matter. all you need to know is that it's VERY cute. and the piggies are cuter than woot. so there. the piggies were hungry for veggies, and he'd announce that, in their voices. he also had little cute ways of talking about other things. like, "tired" became "t-red" and sometimes instead of saying he was tired, or even t-red, he'd make a 'T' with his hands, then point to something red.

does all of this sound inappropriate for a 26-year-old man? probably. but it was our private thing. it was him being a person with me that he wasn't with anyone else.

living with him was different than living with karl. i think karl and i are more suited, lifestyle-wise, than john and i were. i mean, that was part of the reason john and i broke up. but i still get twinges of what might-have-been. by now, john and i would have been married for over 2 years. we'd probably have recently moved to philadelphia, since he's got a post-doc here and i'm doing grad work here. i think we would have been happy. but i think i will be happier with karl. even if the going is sometimes not as smooth. i think karl will be a better father than john, if it ever comes to that. not that john would have been a bad father--i think he would have been great, too. just that karl likes kids, in general, better. he gets along great with laura's kids, for example. i think that karl is better with kids than i am. but i was better than john. i didn't find this out til after we broke up, but i think that john was more experimental sexually. but again, didn't find that out til after. and there's still time for karl. karl's worldviews fit mine, and he's more adventurous than john. i need to stop comparing now. i loved john. still do, as a friend. i love karl. dearly. fiercely. sometimes, overwhelmingly.