The Commonplace:

Work continues to be higher stress than anything really ought to be. I have more and more to do, with less and less time to do it. Half the tickets I get are things I have no experience with -- automount on a machine running AIX? No clue, dears. None at all. I spend a lot of time finding people who can do the work I'm supposed to be doing.

Earl has already started driving home, although even if he left right after I went to work (unlikely; he was still asleep when I went to work) he's not home quite yet. He'll call me tonight, after I get home from class & Ahrounquest, and we'll murmur sleepy somethings at each other and talk about how glad we'll be to see each other Friday. Late Friday -- well, early Saturday. Jeremy & Rachel are going down to LA for a wedding, so I'm riding with them and earning my keep by driving some of the twelve hours involved.

My exam last night was startlingly easy. I'm not sure if I understand what I'm doing really well, or if it was ... just easy. If we get the exams back tonight (which seems unlikely, but possible) I'll have a better idea of how I'm doing. I hope I did as well as I think I did.

Other Things:

I was having a really suckful day, as you might expect from the description of high-stress given above. I read Liralen's Journal and decided some tea might do me some good. So, as I turned around the corner on my way to make tea I run into two women smooching.

This pleased me. This really pleased me. Here I am, in corporate hell, and this women are kissing each other like they mean it in the hall. I made a mental note to put it into my journal entry, and then started thinking about why it made me happy...

I'm not straight. Not that you could tell, really. I've got a boyfriend who I'm happy with (I know you're all just surprised to pieces about that) and I may never date a woman again. But I'm bisexual, and I've known it since I was fifteen or so, and I've had a few relationships with women. Successful relationships, as these things go -- certainly as successful as I could expect from my maturity level at the time.

Before I tumbled so abruptly into Earl's arms I had planned to figure out how to meet women. I'm not sure why, but it felt like the right thing to do. I wanted to know if I could have a successful relationship with a woman, now that I have so many more tools for having relationships with. Dating women is different from dating men, but I think the tools would be applicable regardless.

Now, of course, I'm so stupidly happy with Earl that I don't regret not having had the chance.

Still. Being bisexual is part of who I am. I notice women and guys about equally while walking down the street. I find it difficult to understand people who have a preference for one gender over the other -- it just makes no emotional sense to me, and thus it tends to surprise me if I don't remind myself that most people have definite preferences. A lot of people I know seem surprised that I wouldn't rather be one way or another, as opposed to split so neatly down the middle. That, too, I find really odd; I consider myself lucky, really, that gender doesn't play a role in determining who I'm attracted to. Why would I want to change it? It doesn't compell me to go from lover to lover. Being bisexual doesn't mean I have to be in a relationship with someone of each gender at any given moment. It just means that my options are expanded.

I wonder, sometimes, if I should be more vocal. There's still so much violence and hatred in the world against queers, and it seems vaguely dishonest to let people assume I'm straight just because I have a boyfriend. Would being more out help anyone?

More things to think about.