Knotty Thursday: Ribcage Harness

 Well, it's supposed to look like a ribcage, but every harness just looks like fancy boobs on me. I remember doing this one on The Good Boy way back when, it was nice having that memory for company!

Happy Halloween dears! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADN90FVYty0

Making Out in Front of a Romcom and Other Perfect Things: Part Three

 

It took so much thinking about this night to realize that it's a classic body adventure, like way back at the beginning of this blog! I've never had sex all the way high before! Mostly it just gave me an excuse to be more lovey-dovey, more free, more ridiculously myself. And to have way too much fun listening to my two favorite albums.

Before I take us there though, this story will always be incomplete because I don't know ANYTHING about what it was like to be inside The Southern Charmer's head. He told me a few days afterwards that he felt like he'd moved too fast into sex after his breakup, but I don't have any more insight than that. I really really hope that, even though it was emotionally complicated, he had an equal amount of fun. Otherwise it's just not fair!

"Could we go cuddle upstairs?" I asked breathlessly after so SO many kisses. Finding out what happens to Adam Brody and Kristin Bell would have to wait until another day. I asked if it was okay to put on Frank Ocean's Blonde and SC said of course.

I became a puddle of warmth with him. It was the first time in SO LONG that I'd been allowed to take my time, to savor the before-sex things. As we kissed and cuddled and petted and our feet tickled and our legs intertwined, I thought "Wow, Frank Ocean uses the word "love" a lot. While love might not have been the story of this encounter, it was certainly the right name for this state of being.

I don't think love has to look like star-crossed romance. I think it can also be the exquisite joy of holding onto a friend's meticulously sculpted back, tangled up in his pretty arms. Loving the sensations. Loving him in a right now way, and loving myself for letting go of The Quest long enough to enjoy him, and let him enjoy me.

I was alert enough to skip the track where Frank Ocean's mom tells us not to do drugs. I didn't fully lose myself to the lovey-dovey atmosphere. I knew it was brain chemicals being magical and kind and benevolent and giving me a break for like five fucking seconds. This was my version of becoming human lofi, except hungrier for him.

Frank became a little too much and I switched to another favorite album, Childish Gambino's Atavista, which starts out sounding like the Stranger Things theme song but does eventually get dreamy. "Is this Donald Glover?" scoffed The Southern Charmer, but he let not-favorite-of-his record play, a sacrifice I could never make.

I was so happy when it was time to be naked! I'd never met The Southern Charmer's dick the first time around, wasn't even sure he was a penis-having person, until I was. When he stood up to get a condom from my drawer ("I LOVE my drawer so much!" is a thing I said aloud in front of this very cute human being.) his dick stuck straight forward, pointing out from his black briefs like a dowsing rod.

SC and I kept chatting about music, the eternal question of whether Childish Gambino was a bit or not. There were moments when I found him surprisingly like boyfriend material, like before when he'd told me he was reading How the Word is Passed, or when he told me his workout regimen was because he usually dates bigger girls and he wants to be able to help if there's an emergency. (Maybe this was bullshit or MAYBE some of these fit guys who match with me AREN'T trying to take me on a weight-loss journey?!)

Anyway, back to his dolphin/compass of a dick. He was sitting up while I lay back splayed out for him, warm as a day at the beach.

"What do you want to do?" I asked.

Made Out In Front of a Romcom, and Other Perfect Things: Part Two

Definitely watch Nobody Wants This, it's so cute!!!

 I never wrote about my second date with The Southern Charmer, way back in 2022, because it spooked me all to heck. There was a thing that happened sometimes post-quarantine where a date would just get here and get immediately so relaxed that they were like human lofi, so calm and self-contained as to be unreachable. 

The Southern Charmer had tried a new kind of gummy and it had just zapped him entirely! Now that I've spent a few Friday nights in a woozy D8 haze listen-dozing to the 99% Invisible breakdown of The Power Broker, I understand a little better, but that night, it was startling!

I lay with him chastely as he rode it out, scared and ashamed of how actually helpless this person in my bed was! Once he was alert enough, he went home. I thought he had taken an Uber, but it turned out that he drove.

So the next day, once I knew he was alright, I let him go with a few (I hope) gentle texts. His tuned-outness really freaked me out, and I felt ashamed and worried that I'd let him drive home in that state.

Since then, I've remembered him as beautiful and sweet and just not in the right place for me. Good job me, I guess? The eyes-on-the-prize recognition that he wasn't the one for me, amazing! Stars all around.

But a thing he said to me in his hazy time really stuck in my mind, probably unfairly. "This is all too much" he said, and he could have just meant *gestures widely* but it hit my heart as meaning that I was too much. I worried about that, not being too much physically but just being too intense or whatever to really be in relationships. I still worry about that all the time.

I wrote some blog posts about being part Kaiju, a regular refrain. "Too much" stuck with me like a splinter.

But when The Southern Charmer popped up again this year around my birthday, I had a different perspective--I'm a stoner now too! It was so appealing to bond over the 15-25 milligrams of peace I've been enjoying every night, and a nice fantasy to think about sharing that feeling with somebody pretty and kind.

And here we were! Making out on the couch without one single care in the world. My body, heart, mind, and soul were all aligned and ungrasping (except literally I mean), all together an open gate. I felt one wholehearted emotion and that was...welcome!

I felt so far outside the everyday concerns of dating, like all the baggage of these last thirteen years just clocked out for al little bit. I was innocent and free. I felt filled up with trust and happiness and ***friendship***. The Southern Charmer made me feel so safe and seen and embraced. It was a profound relief to rest in him. In us.

The kissing on the couch lasted so beautifully long. Kissing like nothing bad had ever happened to us. Kissing like we had all the time in the world, and we did.

Knotty Thursday: Spider Web Weave!

 Friends! The kitten hung out peacefully in her crate and I finished a whole rope tutorial! It's a joyful new start for our household. Once I decided it was a rope day yesterday, I lifted out of my post-Southern-Charmer gloom and got a little giddy.

It was so much fun getting the whole ritual ready--putting on a little makeup, lighting a rose incense, slathering on rose-scented lotion while I fired up Rory's Brainworks. The real version is so much prettier than mine, but I don't mind! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVN1iRcdJfI

It was supposed to be the same knot the whole way round, but I had a hard time being consistent. So it ended up alternating between a half-hitch, a Munter hitch, and a just-sort-of-figure-it-out hitch. But I'm so proud!

Also, I think it's time for some new rope colors, definitely need a light blue. A bright new palette would be lovely to try before too long!

Making Out In Front of a Romcom, and Other Perfect Things! Part One

 For a surprising night, I was a go-with-the-flow gal. It wasn't an act, just where my head and heart were! A lovely night just came to me, and I let it happen! Things didn't turn out the way I wanted them to, but still, I'm proud and pleased!

It was a couple weeks ago now. Even before The Southern Charmer reached out, I was having the perfect Saturday night--I was surrounded by cats and snacks, watching Nobody Wants This on Netflix, and tending to my long-neglected Animal Crossing island.

The Southern Charmer had been reticent to try anything because of other relationship stuff, but on this day, he was feeling adventurous! (Or maybe, as it turned out, avoiding some feelings about other stuff, Why not both?) He invited himself over, and I said the easiest yes (Actually the easiest "Can I have a few hours to tidy up first?") in the universe. 

And then here he was! Two years after our second date. He had medical-grade weed gummies, and we split one. I could not believe my luck.

It shouldn't seem like a miracle to have somebody cute on my couch, catching up an watching a romcom, but it felt like a miracle and an oasis.

So many of my recent dates have been handsy, urgent, somewhat systemically understandably wanting to get me over with and get back to their gig work. But The Southern Charmer was looking at me without expectations, looking me like I was a whole person to him. Another thing that shouldn't feel like a miracle, but does.

Maybe he was a little in denial of the grief of a recent breakup, maybe he was trying to bandaid the pain with some cuddles, but I didn't see that. I don't know if I wish I had or if I'm glad I didn't.

From my perspective, a synchronicity. A gift. A chance to relax with/into someone beautiful, free of expectations. I wish I was clearer on what he felt, then and now, but all I felt was joy and playful relief.

For the first time in a long time, I was sharing my couch with someone who felt like a true friend, someone who saw us as equals. For the first time in a long time, a man who wasn't breathing impatiently for price-of-admission sex, pawing inexpertly at my boobs. 

 Instead, he was just smiling at me. I wanted to kiss him so badly, not just because I wanted to break my kiss curse, but because he was whole and beautiful and (I thought!) present and his eyes were sparkling.

When I asked him the dreaded HSV-1question, his answer was perfect, perfect, perfect: "Well, I've passed enough blunts in my day." And that was that! And then, cue the choir of angels, his mouth warmly and beautifully and emphatically on mine, his sculpted arms pulling me close. I liked when we paused sometimes to see what was going on with Kristin Bell and Adam Brody.

Friends. I've had so many beautiful, transcendent, daring, creative body adventures, but I don't think there's anything in the world better than making out in front of TV. That's how it was with This Charming Man watching Gremlins Two, and with Gilmore Guy watching Gilmore Girls. I guess feeling like ordinary dates are miracles is a pretty good way to go through life.

Southern Charmer: The Satisfying Sequel, Part Two

 

First date ropes, winter of 2022

In the midst of the birthday gloom, a glimmer. The possibility, however remote, of somebody SO PRETTY to get stoned and snuggle and maybe play ropes with again lit a little fire in me. My HSV-1 thing is listed on my Feeld, so maybe it wouldn't even be an issue. Maybe I could get...dare I say it?! Kissed?! I remembered him being a good kisser--my mouth remembered him so vividly.

I felt a renewed drive to practice my ropes again, and it didn't feel nostalgic or pine-y or performative--the idea just felt like play.

But! Something even better happened--we texted like friends. Even the day after my emotionally stormy birthday, even with both of us processing grief about other people, my heart felt lighter talking to him. After I paragraphed my birthday existential fear, I apologized for the brick of text, and he scoffed. Hardly a brick by his standards.

He told me about his tangled heart too, and somewhere in there, we talked about the possibilities between us. The hope that I might be a Ma'am to him again was a warm little flame in my heart. A sweet and trusting Good Boy felt like such a vulnerable thing to wish for, but there was something about the angsty, friendy chats made me feel peaceful enough to imagine that kind of trust.

We put a date on the calendar, a coffee date to see if we still liked each other's vibe. But before we could get there, the mentionitis! Oh the poor dear could find any old way to mention one of his partners, he was melancholy-preoccupied with her, like something between them needed ALL of his attention, even as he was aiming to give some of it to me.

So I sent one of my all-time favorite texts:

I am so, SO proud of this text!!! Not only was I honest about what I'm really looking for, I sincerely meant it when I offered friendship! My heart felt so full of the entire situation. And he did want to stay in touch as friends! Hooray!

There's already a Part Three of this treatful story, but even if there weren't, the confiding and the breakthrough text would have been enough. Thank you, Southern Charmer, from the bottom of my searching heart.

Southern Charmer: The Satisfying Sequel, Part One

Now in our story we've made it to early September, my birthday week! Fifty, the first age I've been genuinely unnerved about. I was freaking and grieving. I had to stop writing in my six-year journal because of the on this day of it all. I always love my birthday, but it also brings up memories--the fancy dates with The Shy One, the falling out with my brother, the creeping fear that I'll never achieve any kind of closeness again. The newly arthritic knee that had kept me from swimming in the ocean all summer.

The one thing I wanted on my birthday was to walk along the beach.

Pause to let TS Elliot chime in:

Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each

The rest-stop peaches were sublime and the day was clear and cool enough, but my mood was definitely Prufrockian. My knee ached (The medication would come the next day.) and my tire light was on. I felt a million years old and I wanted to sleep forever instead of going home for friends and cake.

(No matter WHAT'S going on next summer, I need to not shirk the beach. At least 9 times in 2025, any season, any length of time.)

BUT ALSO, in the midst of all the pining and nostalgia and the knowledge that the arthritis is sending tiny bone particles everywhere: An easy light. A cute new old friend.

A week or two before the birthday waves, the Southern Charmer had pinged me on Feeld, and I didn't register at first that it was him. When I did realize, I felt a spark of yes run up my sternum and up to warm my ears and cheeks. Yes.