/dev/zero

Ugh. So much to write about. It’s been a busy couple of days and I’ve only now had free time to sit down and write about it.

I started my new job yesterday. OK, I said it before, I’ll say it again: the pay sucks. But there are compensating factors. It is, after all, Electronic Arts. And Electronic Arts is huge. You wouldn’t think a company who makes, let’s face it, video games would be so large. But $2BILLION in revenue a year is no small potatoes. They have the usual trappings of Silicon Valley behemoths: on campus cafeterias with 3 to 4 star quality food, on campus gym, lots of toys on the tech folks desks… But add to that: their own movie theater. Where they get premium movies before their official release dates. And trust the folks who MAKE games, to have one KICK-ASS game room.
In one part of the room, a pool table and 3 or 4 50″ plasma screen TV’s hanging from the ceiling, with leather couches to sit on while you watch whatever sports event you choose. In the other part of the room, separated by a velvet sound-dampening curtain, is the video game room. 4 Dell workstations with 2.5ghz Pentium IV processors, 512mb RAM and Nvidia GeForce 4Ti video cards, and all their latest games stacked neatly on a shelf next to each one. 21″ monitors, Aireon chairs, sweet sound systems, and you can adjust the lighting to your own comfort level. At the back of this part of the room leather couches in front of back-to-back big screen TVs, each of which has a Gamecube, Xbox and PS2, with the latest EA releases. Can we say “gamer’s paradise”?
Nothing like Playing Metal of Honor: Allied Assault at 1600×1280x32bit on that setup. I’m going to LIKE working for EA. And of course, once I get my own cube, I can do that without leaving my desk, at lunch or after hours. Apparently the guys in the EA Sports queue like to play Counter Strike.

For the rest of this post I will refer to “Friend” (my friend) and “Lover” (Friend’s lover). Actually Lover is my friend as well but for convenience sake and as I know her through Friend, I’ll call her Lover.

So after work I was in the above mentioned game room trying out MOH:AA when Friend called my cell phone and asked if I could pick her up at her parents place and drive her home, as she was feeling too ill to drive herself. I left right away to do just that.
When I picked her up, as we were driving home she asked permission to dump her emotions on me. I told her to be my guest. She then told me all about the weekend’s drama in her and Lover’s relationship. I won’t get into the nitty gritty here. Suffice it to say it involves polyamory and broken boundaries and a 3rd party who didn’t / doesn’t understand that “polyamory” != “open relationship” != “do whatever you want without regard to the other partner/s”. The stress of how she was feeling about the weekend did not combine well with her flu-like symptoms. I had to pull over by the side of the freeway so she could jump out and throw up in the bushes.

We got back to her place and she asked me to stick around and take care of her until Lover got home. She changed into comfy clothes and crawled into bed and we sat there on her bed while she told me more about what was going on and how she was feeling about it. Eventually Lover got home and they asked me if I minded being there with them while they talk it out in front of me. There was a lot of use of “I” statements and explanations of feelings though process. By the time they were done it was quite late, but everyone was feeling much better. It turned out Friend’s sickness was entirely a psychosomatic reaction to stress.
Owing to the lateness of the hour and how far I have to drive to get home from their place, only to make the trip back again very early this morning to get to work, they invited me to just stay the night at their place. I ended up wearing a pair of Lover’s underwear, which I found quite amusing (Hey, these flannel boxers are comfy!)
Lover: “So, do you mind sleeping in a bed with two women?”
Me: “Oh gee, let me think…”
Later…
Friend: “Just so you know, I’m feeling rather frisky now so you might have to watch me go down on (Lover).”
Lover (caught in the middle of brushing her teeth): “squawk! Wha?!? Uh, I’m not shaved!”
Friend: “Do you mind?”
Me: “Oh gee, let me think…”
Friend knows given a chance, I’d do her in a heartbeat. She SO loves to torture me.
Since there wasn’t room in the bed for all three of us while they have fun, they let me have the bed and they took the floor. It was cold enough (and a certain amount of modesty kicked in, I’m sure) that they ended up keeping covered while they went at it, so no free show for me. It was quite amusing to listen to though.
In the morning, Lover started to fix us breakfast, but Friend and I had to rush off to make it to work on time. She brought us some KILLER burritos for lunch though.