It’s SXSW right now, so things for locals are kinda fucked.

My ex texted me that she turned out not to have her grandson for the weekend, and would I like to come up? Lyfts were vacillating by the minute … my first check, it was $100 (baseline is $50-60), then I got a notification that it had dropped to $70 after not booking. She checks what it would be in the other direction: $45 – and then implores me to check again. Now it’s $120.

At this point, I’ve given up on the idea, but I do check one more time, and it’s $60.

As I’d resigned myself to the fact that this wasn’t feasible, I’d not really done any packing ahead of ordering the ride. So I get down to that after booking, and when my phone dings for what should be the “here’s who your driver is” notification, it was instead the “your driver is already here.”

So, I’m frantically just throwing anything I can find for laundry into my suitcase. I made it out with a minute to spare before she took off.

On the plus side, I remembered my dentures this time.

Now, it may seem irresponsible to spend $60 to visit my ex, but the forecast wild temperature swings are hell in the van. It was in the low-90s today, which is barely survivable even with my fan. Tonight, we drop into the 30s, which would have required heat, and tomorrow’s high is 51.

Spring in Texas is fun!

Unlike prior visits, this one was left a bit … open-ended. Without her grandson needing to be here, there was no real deadline for when I’d leave. We addressed that this evening, and I said if I would stay until Tuesday, that would be ideal, given tomorrow’s low as well. After that, it’s back to May weather, so this is a fluke.

This has been a wildly different experience from my prior visits in some ways, while remarkably consistent in others. To address the elephant in the room, yes, we’re still physically compatible, but there may start to be contours forming on what we’re actually doing.

And I don’t know what to define it as.

Once I’d loaded my laundry, we settled in, as usual. I took a shower, as usual. I ended up in her clothes, as usual. She then ordered food delivery, as usual. That $60 is starting to look like a bargain.

We watched a fair amount of Young Sheldon, which I’d not seen before starting to come up here. As usual. Given a bumper crop of cardboard, we start burning it in the fireplace, as usual.

We decamp to her bed and continue watching in there after what I’ve sufficiently described in the past.

My sleep schedule has been inconsistent for months, so while she nods off around 2 a.m., I’m up until 5.

Every now and again, while I’m watching TV on her laptop over her shoulder, she shifts as she’s lying next to me, with the most popular surprises being a leg thrown over me and her grabbing my arm.

So it was with a fair amount of surprise that I awoke (well after her) to hear about how (we’d not yet covered my departure date) I was no longer welcome in her bed. Apparently, after I drifted off, I ended up putting my knees in the small of her back, and the snoring wasn’t a plus.

Over the course of the afternoon, this softened into using the giant sock monkey she usually sleeps with as essentially a chaperone. She’s already gone to bed, as she has a job, but I’m allowed to climb in after all.

Outside of intimate activity, we have barely touched. She’s apparently gone the Pretty Woman route and wants sex without kissing, which is a bit dejecting with one’s ex. She let me know that in the four years she was with her last fuck buddy, she only let him kiss her once – and that was in public just to piss off his ex.

I have never claimed this was a healthy relationship.

Still, even though we both still had plenty of leftovers, she decided to make (way too much) salmon with a couple of sides for dinner.

Most of today was us not interacting. She’s still a cigarette smoker, and thus frequently decamps to the porch. Add in the phones calls she had, which I have to be invisible for because of history, and it was pretty much me watching the show with occasional interruptions to talk.

We both have a couple of vices, so I’m sitting next to a bowl prepared before she retired. I’ll just self entertain for the next two days while she works from home in her room.

I do like her ultrasonic denture cleaner, though.

While it’s still unclear what we’re doing, I think I may have had rose-tinted glasses on possible outcomes. We’re not antagonistic or awkward in any way, and we do talk a fair amount, but it seems our goals come down to animalistic sex and just supporting the other warm body in the room.

Which is likely a good way to start framing the fact that I don’t be able to see her at all once she moves to be closer to her grandson’s mother.

She’s at least covering my ride home, as usual.