--- --- I will not deny my excitement for this upcoming visit. Neither, apparently, will my subconscious, for I have had not one but two dreams since our agreeing to visit, and given that it has only been three nights since then, this makes it a majority of my time spent thinking about her. The first dream was much like the one I wrote about a few weeks back. I was at her senior recital, it was unspeakably beautiful, and then when I tried to help her up onto the stage, I was pushed away by the crowd, unable to call out to her. In fact, it was so similar to the first dream that I nearly did not write about it here, but the very act of sitting down at the desk to write seems to have dredged up all of the subtle differences. Yes, the music was breathtaking, but in an almost hypnotic way. The audience wasn't simply listening to it, we were enchanted. Yes, the applause was uproarious, but it was outsized, for though the audience was perhaps a few dozen people in that intimate auditorium, the sound of the applause was of hundreds, thousands of people. And yes, the applause was well earned, but more than that, it sounded possessive, as though at the culmination of the concert, the audience wanted nothing more than to claim Kay for their own. And finally, yes, I did move to help her up onto the stage, but the act was one of desperation, as though that was not simply to help her take a bow, but to rescue her from the grabbing hands that wished to take her. I didn't just fall away out of weakness, I was actively pushed away, I was an impediment on the audience's way to claiming what was rightfully theirs. As with any such dream, this all felt astoundingly normal. It was not a nightmare, at the time. It was just a dream in which all of those things --- the enchanting music, the audience, the possessiveness --- were simply an inherent part of the universe. They were a core truth. They couldn't *not* have been present. And yet, two days on, the anxiety of having Kay taken away from me (such as it were) clings to me like scent-block. I can feel it as an oily residue in my fur, between my pads. The other dream is...I don't know. I have only been up a few minutes, now, and I am still struggling to internalize it. The part of me that is able to interpret is not yet functioning, though I have my coffee already, but the part of me that desires interpretation has been online since I crawled out of bed. I do not know *what* the dream was, certainly not what it means, but I suppose the least I can do is write it down. I dreamed that, during the visit, we were sitting down on a couch to watch a movie and that Kay surprised me with a kiss. The dream jumps from there to us in her bed, trying to...it is hazy. We were trying to make love, and it's not that anything was wrong or necessarily preventing us, not in the dream's universe, but my point of view kept rewinding back to the point where we had just lay down together. After a few of these "rewinds", I found myself --- not the me who was laying down, but the me who was dreaming, or perhaps observing the dream --- getting frustrated with the repetition, and I started to change up my approach. What if I put my paw *there* this time, instead? What if I kissed first instead of touching? What if I lay on my back? What if I lay her on hers? It was one of those fruitless dreams of struggling to find the *correct* way to engage with an idea. It was an erotic dream, but without the catharsis of orgasm. I don't know. I am just as sure that my feelings for Kay go far, far beyond sex as I am sure that I would not turn down sex, should the topic ever come up. If I'm honest with myself, given my current struggles over even telling her that I have these feelings for her, I think the idea that I actively pursue sex at any point soon is not just inadvisable but outside the realm of possibility. I just don't yet know what it means. ----- It's been a few hours, and I have decided that that dream was simply the process of anxiety over the trip combined with a spike in libido. In the other, yes, I could see the layers of meaning going on there, with the ideas of possession and being shut out, but when it comes to what amounted to a sex dream with little in the way of plot or inherent meaning, I don't think there's much one can draw from it. It all feels a little silly, being anxious and horny. I'm in my 30s, for goodness sake. ----- I have packed all I think I will need. Laptop in case of emergency appointments, books, steno pads, toiletries. I have clothes enough for a week, including my blazer and slacks for when nicer clothing is required. Kay did not specify the dress code for the concerts, but better safe than sorry. Also, perhaps we can head out to a nicer place to eat one night. Here are at least some of the things I've thought of as ideas for stuff to do, so that I can at least have them written down somewhere: * Concert --- Kay obviously already requested this. * Movie? I don't know what's out at the moment. * Nice dinner. Boise has to have a good place we can go. * Hiking. This will probably depend on whether we can find some way to get to a trail when neither of us drive. The maps shows a small nature reserve that's just on the edge of town. I imagine that will be fairly accessible. * Bookstore. This may be more for me than her. I do not need any more books, but that will never stop me from browsing. I think that this will at least give us a good number of options, and we can play the rest by ear. Even if we wind up doing what we do on the regular, just showing each other videos or watching movies together, only co-located rather than over the 'net, I will be happy. I stand by what I wrote before, that just being together, even if that's 'being bored together', is quite enough to look forward to on its own. It's weird, though. I find myself tiptoeing around these different ideas of what to do while I'm out there, thinking things like, "Is this a thing that just friends do? Is it weird for friends to suggest going to a nicer restaurant?" They are all lies. They are all protective actions. They are all me guarding my soft underbelly to keep from exposing my feelings to Kay. Of course friends go to nice restaurants together. Of course that's a thing that friends do. And even beyond that, trying to hide the fact that I desire more than friendship, at least on some level, is doing neither of us any favors. I am such a coward. Lord, give me the strength to be honest for once in my life. I know that the petty request of a petty coyote is far outside Your purview. What worth is an intercessionary prayer for something so trivial? I am responsible for my own growth, it's my own failing here. I never did decide whether or not I would be talking about my feelings with her while I'm out there, and I never did message Jeremy back. I can tell I am just going to keep fretting around in circles if I focus any more on this. It is so easy to find some way to fractally manage expectations, to forever refine what goes into making a plan, to find ever more layers of meaning in an action, and I will (apparently) do that for hours on end, so I am going to set all of this aside and go for one last walk before bed in an attempt to wear myself out. The bus leaves early tomorrow.