A Brief Gilmore Guy Revival: Part Two (Concern-Trolling Is Gentle Voter Suppression)

We didn’t talk much, at least not in the fun/deadening let’s-discuss-all-of-our-interlocking-relationship-dynamics poly way. After three hours of easy bliss, we lay in the afterglow. I was holding him tenderly as he started to talk, first about his day and then about the then-four-days-away Midterm Election:

“I want to believe there’s going to be this big, sweeping Blue Wave, but I just don’t think it’ll happen. I think we’ll pick up a few seats but…”

He went on to talk about how bleak things were going to be over the next few years. When he got to the part about how the Democrats didn’t have any strong candidates for 2020, my body went from being a sparkly cloud of bliss to being an angry spring. I disentangled from him as if I was disentangling from the entire last three years.

“Who do you want it to be then? BERNIE?!”

“No, actually I don’t really care for Senator Sanders…”

“WELL, you’ve got that going for you.” I hissed.

Part of my reaction, I have to admit, was good old-fashioned daddy issues. Gilmore Guy’s erasure of Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Corey Booker, et al felt too much like the anti-Gillibrand conversation I still felt trapped in with my dad. (OF COURSE dad didn’t acknowledge the letter I sent. OF COURSE he didn’t.)

It was also too much like the role-flipped therapy session I’d had earlier in the week, comforting a clearly-not-a-match therapist by trying to convince her that the Resistance does, in fact, exist and have an impact.

I’m so happy to have the election results to back me up as I continue to un-gaslight myself about this!

It frustrates me so much that they can’t see it, that they can’t see US or our work, even as it slowly but surely lifts the country out of our mess. I realize that as a member of the Resistance, it’s part of my task to HELP people see it, but having my own reality denied so often really hurts—it’s too much. The time theft is too much. The emotional labor is too much.

I’m not here to try and convince anybody of my existence, to convince anybody that the movements I love are not helpless or worthless or stupidly hysterical. (I’m all about reclaiming the word “hysterical” but that’s another post for another day.)

(My off-script textbanking exchanges with Republicans earlier in the Midterm process have really gotten to me as well, but the right is clearly not the only problem here.)

“I’m just worried about voter suppression,” He said. Of course! We all are. We were both up off the folded-out couch and I was angrily putting on my clothes.

“You’re DOING voter suppression when you tell us we can’t win!”

Concern-trolling is definitely not as evil or insidious as governors who purge voter rolls, exact-match laws, or Native Americans suddenly having to root out street addresses from obscure bureaucratic labyrinths, but it IS part of the problem and definitely should be voted most likely to keep me from snuggling.

I argued probably not very well. He said:

“Let me explain why Kamala Harris can’t…”

Perhaps realizing that I will be having some version of this conversation until she is elected, I fucking SNAPPED.

“I told you I don’t want to have this conversation. Do something about it or Shut. Up.”

(That may have been mostly for dad, sorry. But also yes, shut the fuck up.)

“Don’t scream at me in my own house.” He said, apparently out of arguments. My voice was raised, but screaming was an exaggeration.

The saddest thing about writing down that moment is realizing that he was happy to have me raise my voice in all of the sex-wails that I wanted, but not to stand up for myself, not even to defend my own worth.

“Have fun SITTING ON YOUR ASS and criticizing everybody who’s doing the WORK!” I hollered as I grabbed my purse and umbrella from the kitchen and headed for the door.

“Get. Out.” He said in that annoying I’m-the-reasonable-person tone that I know so well from back when I was married to Sweetie.

After I’d splashed through the rain to my car, the dash clock read 12:06. I’d aimed to turn myself into a pumpkin by midnight and he had (inadvertently, I hope) helped me along.

I wish I could say that I feel righteous and free after that, but I just miss him. I feel lonely about it, and sad. I’m glad I blocked his number and deleted his texts, because I keep wishing I could reach out, somehow repair the connection, somehow be in those arms again.

But even causally, I can’t be with someone who doesn’t live, at least mostly, in the same reality as I do. America has changed so deeply since 2016, and I’m one of the lucky many who can see the underlying positivity: The networks of activism, the interlocking movements full of loving, fiery momentum. Resistbot, Pantsuit Nation, Solidarity Sundays. THE MARCH FOR OUR LIVES KIDS, for god’s sake. The way PEOPLE ACTUALLY CARED about the Midterms!

I want a partner who, no matter how bleak and scary things get, can see the goodness and care that’s growing every day. I wish, in that afterglow moment, I’d mustered the empathy and strength to convince him, to bring him into that hopeful view and keep him safe there. I know I can’t keep him safe, can’t keep anyone safe no matter what. So I run when my body tells me to run, fight when it tells me to fight, and I hope for the best.

A Brief Gilmore Guy Revival: Part One

When I got his text, I was in a good mood. It was Friday and I’d just stopped at the bank to make my deposit, then took a rainy stroll in a nearby twinkle-light-filled, very window-shoppingy neighborhood. My life was just so perfectly my life. I got home, got in my PJs, lit all the scented candles, (hygge!) made some tea and settled in for some Gilmore episodes.

After a friendly back and forth about what episode I was on (Season 2, Episode 7: Rory gets Puffed because there’s no Reading and Walkman-Listening Club at Chilton.) (Lorelai and Emily mother-daughtering in the Booster Club fashion show is one of my favorite moments of the whole series.) Gilmore Guy asked, “How would you feel about seeing me?”

When I told him I wasn’t ready to be friends because I still had snuggly feeling for him (I did? I do? Honestly, I thought I’d moved on.) he made it clear that snuggles were what he was after. My body filled with hopeful light and heat. Okay, I said. A treat.

I brought him the painting above, it doesn’t really seem like street art anyway. He made me a gin and tonic, remembering that the fancy Bombay was my favorite from his collection. (“A gin-clear mind…” says The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina in my head for no reason.)

“Should we kiss?” he asked as we settled into Season 2, Episode 8. (Jess is the WORST. Team Wookie forever.)

“Should we? Probably not.” I said, already kissing him.

I’m fascinated and mystified by the way that our bodies were so SMART together. Making out on the couch, we fit together so smoothly, easily, power trading back and forth between us in such a seamless, joyful way. As we made our way horizontal, the closeness I felt to him was startling. Sometimes I held him so close to me like this was something romantic. I guess in my head, it always will be.

Hours later, when I asked him to hold me down, I felt such pure, uninterrupted happiness as I giggled and struggled. The instinct of our bodies together is a monument in my heart, a shiny obelisk of mystery. I know, I know, I KNOW it’s just sex, but I can’t understand how our bodies seemed to know each other so well. Creating such beauty together, and then not, I don’t think I’ll ever understand it. I’m more than happy to keep trying, though sadly not with him.

Snuggles in the Time of Kavanaugh, Part Four

            Part of the reason the Kavanaugh hearings were so painful and traumatizing was that Dr. Ford’s testimony recalled my own teenage rape so clearly. I felt protective of Gilmore Guy as he helped me navigate those feelings, mostly by being wonderful and adorable and nice-smelling and superhot.

            But when, after several increasingly tense attempts at PIV sex, it started to slide into place, I could feel his focus on his penis’s performance. His determination and fixation made me feel like I wasn’t there, like he wasn’t there either. I slipped back from this safe, celebratory moment to that decades-ago drugged, mouth-covered, trapped, lost teenage feeling. I lost the battle against panic and told him so. He stopped, of course, looked scared and concerned. I felt all of my OWN pressure to get back to cheerful so we could fuck, my own increasingly futile determination to not be so scary with all of my feelings.

            “What do you need?” He asked again and again, in a voice that was at once scared, caring, and businesslike. I apologized for panicking and he said something understanding about “emotional labor” which struck me as a sad phrase to have to use on a second-or-third date. Nonetheless, he cared for me and treated me kindly, to the point where I wanted to return the good-listener favor. I asked him what was on his mind and he said:

“I miss (Gilmore Lady).” I just couldn’t help it, I started to cry. It wasn’t cute crying by any stretch—lonely, hurt, sad tears, empty and heartbreaking. It was a moment of inescapable honesty and I lost all attempts at being I-love-sharing-modern-open-relationships lady.

I cried and cried and confessed and confessed. I told him how much I want to be someone’s sun and moon and stars (“Not YOURS. Not on the second date. I’m not CRAZY.”) how what I really wanted was romance, how I’d already told him in the woods that I’m not a secondary.

“Do you want me to go?” He asked delicately.

“No. You can think I’m crazy tomorrow. Just… don’t go.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” he said forcefully, climbing back into bed and wrapping me up in his arms. As kind as he was, and even as he didn’t mind me playing a guided meditation to try and get to sleep, I couldn’t settle in next to him. I went downstairs to the couch and almost immediately, exhausted and scared (not of him) I fell asleep in my own personal space.

When I woke up in the morning and, after my morning writing, meditation, and Spanish practice, went upstairs to him, I saw all over again what a gift he was. He was just lying there on his belly checking his phone, locks in a grey bandanna and fanned out over his naked back and shoulders, looking like a perfect treasure of a man, and I told him so. I really didn’t want to let him go, and we made the VERY most of the morning until it was time for me to get ready for work.

We made plans for the weekend. We texted and texted and texted. I sent him long, fretful, feminist paragraphs and he sent kind and thoughtful responses back. I could send him fraught texts in the middle of the night without scaring him away, that does not go unappreciated. He was a champion. He really tried, and so did I.

When it came time for our third-or-fourth date, a NO rose up in me so strong and goddessy that it felt like it was coming from the center of the earth. I said rather more than I meant to about unicorn hunters and the treatment of secondary partners how I might LOOK less-than, but wasn’t.

He looked regretful and sad as he left, and I was sad too. But more than sad, I was SURE. I was brave. I could see and admit what I wanted, even though poly norms and society in general would tell me to expect and accept less. I was embarrassed that I’d said so much, but mostly I just felt proud.

A week or so after that, Gilmore Guy and I exchanged kind goodbye/thank you texts, and I’m glad. I couldn’t be more grateful for his visit to my life, and I’m glad I got to tell him so directly instead of just hoping that he reads this.

I feel like I am a new and different person in a post-Dr.-Ford world. Her bravery is a new resource that empowers me to stand up for myself in the screaming-at-the-Supreme-Court way but also in the smaller, more daily, even in the more snuggly ways. I can’t say enough about my gratitude for Dr. Ford and for all of the women who came before her and with her. My childhood self had Anita Hill, my present day self has Christine Blasey Ford, and we both have Murphy Brown, so I think everything might be okay.

            After I said goodbye to Gilmore Guy, I changed my “Relationship Type” in OK Cupid to monogamous. I’m not sure that’s exactly right either, but there’s no “sun and moon and stars” option. So far, it has the same trials and indignities as it did before, but also the same hope. Steven and Gilmore Guy kindled a good flame in me, and I’m going to take care of it.

#metoo Letter: Dear Dad, STFU About Senator Gillibrand

Dear Dad,

            I’m going to need you to stop complaining to me about Kirsten Gillibrand. While I obviously agree with you about global warming being an important issue, your repetitive complaints which only target female politicians, echo your 2016 “I go easy on you about Hillary” comment. All these comments sound, at best, like low-key sexism and at worst, like a gentle continuation of a lifetime pattern of abuse, both on a national and personal scale.

            When you tell me, over and over, that the senator who is most vocally in support of the #metoo movement isn’t doing a good enough job (For YOU. After one donation and one survey response. Are you KIDDING ME WITH THIS!? I know you see how much work I do very day, why do you feel so entitled not to? And WORSE why do you expect ME to do your work FOR you? I pour countless hours into justice work and I have my own senators to nag!)

            ANYWAY, when you complain about Senator Gillibrand, you are also dismissing the work that I do, both personally and politically, Every. Single. Day. You are dismissing the power and courage of not just me but of every single rape survivor who perseveres although life feels like a constant attack on our bodies. When the sea levels rise, do you imagine we will somehow be LESS vulnerable? Less raped? Do you imagine WE are somehow the ones endangering the planet, by rising up and insisting that---GASP---we be treated as humans?

            But there are a couple of more insidious reasons you should not be low-key trolling me by running down female leaders, particularly Gillibrand.

            When I was in third or fourth grade, I overheard you at least try to rape Mom. You’d both been fighting about sex for weeks and I was WAY too up to date about what was going on in there. I heard Mom scream “No! Don’t! (his name!) Stop! Stop!” and it scared the shit out of me. I started to cry really loud and she said “See? Now you made (me) cry.” And then things seemed to calm down in your room. I don’t know how I understood what was going on, but I did.

            After that, the world changed for me. I became darker, less hopeful. Though Mom denied it to me when I asked a few years later, I know what I heard. You took something profound away from me that night—my trust for the world, my trust for love. I’ve been fighting like hell ever since to get those things back. (Senator Gillibrand?! Also fighting for those things.)

            Fast forward a few years to when I was drugged, raped, and beaten at a party. A few days later, you beat the shit out of me too—just pounding and pounding away and saying “You brought this into our house! You did this!” Meaning, I guess, that that I’d somehow made you and Mom violent by getting raped, even though you’d been that way my whole life.

            That night my friend Bethanne came and got me and I stayed with her family for the night, but I had never felt so deeply and horribly alone. Over the years, that feeling of abandonment and betrayal has come back to me over and over, causing me more panic than any of the original violence. “You are alone, the panic tells me, and the people who say they love you are only waiting to attack and blame you.” You taught my panic how to speak.

            And yet, here I am with the optimism you keep trying to undermine. I did not get this way by accident. It has taken me HUNDREDS of hours of therapy, writing, self-care, activism, and many other kinds of work. I am optimistic and productive by both sheer force of self-creation and as a tribute to the people who have helped me build, thread by thread, vote by vote, scream by scream, the person I am today.

            And not only can you not write ONE GODDAMNED LETTER to Congress, but you have the callousness, cruelty, and entitlement to give me a hard time about how YOUR SENATOR CARES TOO MUCH ABOUT WOMEN’S RIGHTS? PLEASE.

            I have loved you and done my best to forgive you for all of these years without asking you for anything in return. Now I’m asking for two things:

1.      Acknowledge that you got this letter.

2.      Stop retraumatizing me and trying to put me in my place by running down female politicians.

I am not going to give up the fight to own our own bodies. We are not going back and there is nothing you can do about it. If you EVER crap on Senator Gillibrand or any other female leader to me again I can’t promise I won’t FLIP THE FUCK OUT. And NO ONE will get an apology letter.

Love,

Me

Snuggles in the Time of Kavanaugh: Part Three

Once I had tied Gilmore Guy up, my self-consciousness about giving blow jobs faded a little. I started to remember the rhythm and taste, to settle back into those sensations. I felt like I could trust him to tell me if I was doing it wrong. He tentatively and gradually worked out how to be forceful with his untied hand, pulling my hair and pushing me to take him in deeper—gagging is a nice expression of affection sometimes.

(It’s hard not to think about porn when I’m doing this, though. I hardly ever indulge anymore, but the images of wide, overly-made-up, tear-streaked eyes are burned on my brain. I wish I could go back in time and rescue during-blowjob-eye-contact from its awful fate.)

Next, I decided I needed to be spanked, so I lay across his naked lap and untied his wrist. Oh. Yes. He’s such a natural at this: the smack, the giggle, the squirm, the relief.

“You can hold me down while you do that if you want…”

“Okay. Umm..how do I do that?”

(OH MY GOODNESS WHAT A GOOD QUESTION-SQUEE!)

“Just put your hand near the top of my back and press down.” I took his hand, put it into the right place, and let him take back over. He did as he was asked.

Oof. Aaah. What a relief to feel the submissive switch flip, to feel all of the tension leave my body and my soul, to be held and mastered and cared for.

But not too long after that delightfulness, the tension came back, and not just the good kind. P.I.V. sex wasn’t coming together, and I could see him getting nervous and frustrated about that. I think maybe he’d bought too-small condoms or maybe just the mood wasn’t right for that part. This was a problem for me ONLY inasmuch as it was clearly making him feel bad. As a queer kinky person, I see intercourse as one WONDERFUL medium in a vast palette, but it scares me how much meaning (and maybe even self-worth!) some guys attach to hardness.

I feel very hesitant to talk about this because I can only imagine how vulnerable this aspect of things is (I can hear Charlotte York going on and on about “We don’t want to upset the penis!” as I type. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXsNgkZCUs8 ) but I think it’s important to think about how objectifying this focus on performance is for both of us. I wouldn’t blame any individual man for this fixation—as with so many sex-troubles, I think it comes from the deep, rotten heart of heteronormativity.

For a while, the worry didn’t overtake the pleasure. We played, we snuggled. We layed around looking like a painting with our fancy wine glasses. He called me “Titianesque” and I was impressed with the art history reference.

But eventually, it wasn’t okay, and I’m going to give myself time to breathe before I write about that part. I’m okay, he did nothing wrong, but that fixation needs to go.

Snuggles in the Time of Kavanaugh: Part Two

I still consider it such a miracle that that Walkout Monday ended like this: Me leading Gilmore Guy upstairs to fresh sheets and fluffy pillows. My cat, the shyest little cat in the universe, letting him pet her and hold her before running away to her spot behind the dryer. Me trying to undress Gilmore Guy and finding out what shirtstays are—I told you, he’s a little dandyish.

It felt so comforting to welcome him into my bed, all kissing and warm and ready. His skin was so gorgeously soft and he had an earthy, minty smell like natural soap. Sooooothing.

And finally, I had the chance to do what I’d been fantasizing about the most.

“Get on your knees next to the bed,” I said, and he complied.

“How do you feel about calling someone Ma’am?” I asked. (A flash of fear went across his face in the middle of that sentence…)

“I feel…good.”

“You feel good…what?”

“Ma’am. Yes ma’am.”

            I spread my legs in front of his face and pressed him to me, pushing his shoulders down with my hands and then with my legs. I lay back in ecstasy and power, dissolving into joy. He did a very good job and I told him so as I pulled him up onto the bed and held him prone.

“It’s just…will I always be calling you ma’am?  I don’t think I would like that.”

“No. I don’t like anything all the time. That’s why I’m a pansexual switch.”

“Oh, okay, good.”

“Oh, okaaaaaaayyy…”

“Ma’am. Okay ma’am.”

(Writing this part down really makes me miss him and wish it had worked out. I really like the way it felt when he called me ma’am.)

Since he’s so new at kink and I’m sooooo far removed from any rope practice, I tied him up very gently (and pretty unconvincingly) with the pink fuzzy belt of my robe. I only tied him by one wrist, but it was such a thrill to be over him, his body warm and vital and delicious beneath me, playing this game and feeling my own strength against his. Though the title of this series might connote revenge on men, it could not be more opposite. This was a loving power, a kind exchange of equals. This night, I’ll say again, was such a gift and a miracle in the middle of so much bodily and national turmoil.

“What will I say if I need you to stop?” he asked.

“Just say stop.” I answered, in what felt like a new kind of commanding voice. I felt such power and peace, such connection. I felt grounded in my body and in my soul, in pleasure. He was so sweet and kind and such a gift, and in that moment, he was mine.

Snuggles in the Time of Kavanaugh* Part One

*Gabriel Garcia Marquez was also a rapey garbage person.

Before I write elsewhere about my adventures at the Supreme Court protests last Saturday, (Short recap: Screamed at a couple of Trump supporters, got in a cop’s face when he wouldn’t let me take my sign up the steps, screamed at a Franken apologist, helped take the steps of the Capitol, didn’t get arrested, went to the botanical garden) I want to keep honoring my time with Gilmore Guy, which is both related to and so sooooooooothing about the national misogynist mess.

After our wonderful time on the twenty-first night of September, Gilmore Guy and I set our next date for the following Monday. I was sooooo excited for the date that I even went shopping for cute new PJs, a lacy new bra, and underpants that were decidedly NOT the Bridget Jones kind. It felt wonderful to think about lace and ribbon and general girly adventurousness—I hadn’t felt that way in a long time!

Unfortunately and fortunately, that Monday was also the day of the National Walkout to Support Dr. Blasey Ford. It felt tricky to hold both that massively important moment and the wonder of this gorgeous, cuddly new man in my life at the same time.

I did NOT like wearing black. I would do anything for survivors, but in the future, I may not do that. Without my jewel tones and happy, sparkly jewelry, I felt armorless, marked as a victim for all to see.

I stopped at the library to pick up my holds, and the librarian complimented my NARAL pin that says “feminist” in six languages. She then felt moved to tell me that her brother had been molested by a man in the Sixties while hitchhiking. I felt equal parts sympathetic and annoyed, equal parts solidarity and irked by himpathy.

I text voters as often as I can to support the #bluewave, but I maybe should have skipped it on that day. Or maybe I’m glad I didn’t. Every time (okay it was only two times) somebody told me how undignified the Democrats were being at the Kavanaugh hearings, I came out as a rape survivor and told them why their support was important to me. It was good work, but also so discouraging and WILDLY triggering.

So after that, I was jangled. I was scared both physically and about the election. I also sometimes get a feeling from guys that once you’ve had sex with them once, it’s assumed for the rest of time. That’s maybe unfair, but it’s where I was at. I texted Gilmore Guy all this, and he understood, but wasn’t very wordy about it—taciturn. I felt like I had done something wrong, but I might have felt that no matter what.

Still, I liked the idea of just cuddles and episodes, and he even agreed to bring some Prosecco, my hero. (him AND the Prosecco) The idea of bubbly wine and introducing this cutie pie to Steven Universe got me back to myself and on with my day.

After work, even more of the fear and strain fell away. My job is very restorative these days, thank goodness.

So I got home, lit candles, got happily into my pretty new undies, awake and full of anticipation.  He was a few minutes late but when he got there and popped the cork, it felt like the moment was charmed. Plus, I got to use the fancy champagne flutes that Sweetie and I got at our wedding way back when. I gave him the pink glass and took the green, thinking (BUT DEFINITELY NOT SAYING) oh, heart chakra colors!

It’s a good thing Steven Universe episodes are only like fifteen minutes long, because Gilmore Guy’s arms were so warm around me, and this apartment sure as HECK has an available bed.

Gilmore Guy Part Four: Your Arms Make Me Wish I Was Still a Poet

I'm not saying this night was about love, oh wait, maybe I am. Not about couple-love, that still feels a million miles away, but the love of bodies, of luck, of my neighborhood, of the rhythm of Amy Sherman-Palladino's writing. It was a night about the love of LIFE, and I'm so glad I indulged in it. Gold stars all around.

            As we kissed on Gilmore Guy’s couch, the magic of desire took me over like a fluffy pink cloud. The comfort and pleasure of him was making me feel woozily submissive. (In my favorite book-I-didn’t-finish-because-it’s-too-triggering, The Body Keeps the Score, I learned that the impulse that makes us freeze when we’re scared is the same as the one that holds us still so we can bond with someone. This is my favorite romantic-but-horrifying brain fact!)

           

            Rather than totally succumb to the blissful frozenness, I remembered that he’d said he’d like to try a little submissiveness himself. I took a deep breath, grabbed him by the shoulders, and shoved him away from me, back against the couch. I straddled him (aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh like a horny homecoming) and immediately felt a Wonder Woman jolt of confidence. He tried to put his arms around me, but I pressed them back, held his wrists as tightly as I reasonably could with someone I JUST met.

            “How does that feel?” I gently growled into his ear.

            “Good.” He gasped, “It feels good.”

I reached to the nape of his neck and pulled his hair. I was worried it might be too much, and it was.

            “Don’t pull my hair,” he said a little reticently, and I let go.

            “Okay, thanks for telling me. Do you feel okay?”

            “I’m okay. Just…don’t pull my hair.”

            “Okay. Meanwhile, you are freeeee to pull mine!” I said, placing his hand in the right spot.

            Oh my GOODNESS I needed my hair pulled! It’s always such a relief. I arched my back, squirmed in his lap, and moaned, semi-realizing that I was giving the revelers downstairs on the sidewalk and earful. I hoped nobody I worked for was down there. Downside to geographic desirability, I guess. Totes worth it.

            He helpfully noted that the futon perpendicular to the couch was easy to fold out, and I was all “Yes please!”

            I was in such a happy haze (I feel like I should assure you that I only had half a drink, this haze was pure hormones) that I don’t really remember how my pajamas and sort-of-pretty underthings got strewn about the floor and coffee table. He took a moment to catch up with me in the nakedness department. Is there anything happier than meeting a new penis? This was a GOOD one, big and ready and delicious-looking.

            But no time for that yet, because his eager talented face was already between my thighs. I came easily and repeatedly, in giggling jolts until I pushed him away by the forehead.

            When it was my turn, though, I felt stunned with self-consciousness. It had been almost a year since I’d had a dick in my mouth (Season Two of Stranger Things with The Socialist—ah, fall.) and I suddenly felt like I’d written exactly NO paragraphs about blow jobs. It felt too big to manage, I was paranoid about teeth, I couldn’t get my head at the right angle

            No matter about my precarious blow-jobbing, he pulled me into a kiss, and our bodies wrapped back up into a snuggle. He ran his hand over my ass and I said “You know you want to smack it!” So he did, hooray!

            The intercourse part just…sigh…fit. It was as natural and as easy as the kissing. In concert with his strength, I found my own lovely rhythm, pausing to realize how transcendent this moment was—a near-stranger and me, making something lovely together. A glow as lovely and golden as the fall sun.

            There was this little dip between his shoulder blades that I could have spent weeks caressing. His body was glowing perfection to me, and so, in that happy haze, was my own.

            “Your arms make me wish I was still a poet,” I said. He’s yoga-strong, like a huggable sculpture.

            “Well, you could always put pen to paper…” he said.

            It’s helpful to have permission to wax poetic about the deep, glittery waves of release and joy I felt as we cuddled, then fucked, then cuddled some more. He spent a long lovely time with my left nipple that I will use (and have used many times already) during personal time. When I come from the inside, there’s rarely any big finale, just waves and waves and waves til we both get tired. I yelped and giggled. “Welcome!” I wanted to say. “THANK you!” I probably did say.

            Afterwards, until we eventually put back on the Gilmore Girls, we lay listening to a mix of silence and street noise, breathing and heartbeats. He put his hand on my heart, I lay my head on his chest. There’s just as much romance in short-lived flings as in more serious stuff, I think. Maybe that’s why I keep revisiting the casual—these brief sparkles of connection are no small thing. They’re important to me, and they give me hope.

            There was talk of sleeping over, but I wanted to go home. Not just because they have a no-other-partners-in-the-bed rule. (Though it did bring to mind a piece of Cunning Minx’s advice from years ago that still chimes like an old friend in my head: “You got all these rules? You don’t get me.”) (Also, in fairness, Sweetie and I had that rule as well. I was soooooooo happy when I got my own bed.) It was more that I wanted to go home and be with myself, to honor and process what had just happened.

            He put on his shoes to walk me out (It was around then that we finally exchanged last names. I wonder how/if he ever spelled my last name in his phone) and I thought he was walking me chivalrously to my car.  Instead, he gave me a quick peck at the door, looking around exactly like somebody who’d done something wrong. While I later wondered if he was being secretive or ashamed of me, I also do enough thinking about weaponized white womanhood to wonder if he just felt unsafe being seen with me at night.

            Whatever the reason, his furtiveness didn’t register until later. I went home well-fucked and starving, ate some night cereal, and slept the best I had in a long time. There are more Gilmore Guy paragraphs to come, and I’m so glad I gave us a chance.

Gilmore Guy Part Three: Please, Please, Please

Though Gilmore Guy lives on a busy block and it was Friday night, I did show up wearing pajamas. I wore my favorite old soft pair, the ones I usually wear after the beach when I want to feel femme-y and relaxed and posh—black with purple, line-drawn lilies, stretchy but with pretty, sheer trim. Underneath, I had on a regular good black bra and one of my few pairs of undies that doesn’t go all the way up. (Confession: Though it’s hard to imagine anybody reaching around inside them, I really like wearing briefs. I wish they weren’t so stigmatized! Darn you, Bridget Jones! Although come to think of it, they really didn’t hold Bridget back, did they?)

I didn’t know which bell to ring, so I texted and he came down. I’d broken a sandal-strap on the way from the car, so I had to awkward my way up the steps. His (their) apartment was impeccably clean, with a feeling of the midcentury about it, like Mrs. Maisel’s apartment but not so fancy. The walls were painted a warm, vivid orange, which should have been hideous but was not.

Though we’d talked all about sex already, including the awkward testing talk, there was a lovely tentativeness between us—it’s nice that no matter how worldly anyone gets, the time before a first kiss is so often fizz and jangle, innocent and silly and new. It’s a wonderful, excruciating feeling, and I wonder when it will happen again.

His alcohol selection rivals my pen collection (and my Instagram feed) in terms of pure (artistic, one hopes) obsession. I handed him the mint from my garden, which I had forgotten to wash. His mojito-ing process was LONG, and he got sidetracked a few times having me taste fancy things I hadn’t had before. I noticed the sprig of pink silk-flower butterflies in a vase on the table, the same dollar store ones I use in my street art. I took it as a good sign.

His living room was warm and full of pillows, festive with street noise from the bar downstairs. The room very clearly belonged to Gilmore Lady, but could have equally housed Max Medina. I scanned the bookshelves (mostly philosophy) wondering if their book collection was merged—I mean, of course it was, right? His DJ equipment was in there too, though he said he hadn’t used it in quite a while.

We watched the Demi September 21 videos (Seriously, google it, “electrolemon September”) and then settled in for the Gilmore Girls.

“Stars Hollow looks so different,” he said, and filled me in on facts I’d forgotten about how things changed after the pilot. I was soooo happy to be starting my yearly rewatch, next to this gorgeous man, with a bespoke mojito in my hand, proud of my mint and swoony with good luck.

            Unsurprisingly for two switches, it took a little effort to figure out who would put their arms around whom. I wanted to wrap him up, take him, cocoon him protectively, but he did that for me instead.

            Probably about ten minutes into the Stars-Hollow-is-so-different pilot, I looked up into his face and it was easy. It felt natural and right, as if we had been kissing for our entire lives. His mouth was soft, yielding but also insistent. Our faces, our mouths, we fit together and the night clicked into place. Our fate, at least for the next few hours, was sealed.

Gilmore Guy, Part Two: I Let My Pants Decide

This Lorelai quote isn't QUITE how I feel (the phrase "that couple life" kinda gives me the heebie jeebies) but this DOES become a story about what I really want. Just...not yet.

Gilmore Guy has a Gilmore Lady, a long distance but primary partner. Although I don’t fit the poly mold these days (if I ever have), I wouldn’t have ruled him out for having a partner, though the hierarchy in the word “primary” did raise a flag of hesitation. But the appeal of connecting with Gilmore Lady, whether in friendship or otherwise, was also a factor.

As Gilmore Guy and I walked along in the woods, we talked easily and flirted gently. He told me about the cocktails he’d designed based on Star Trek, (How is Deep Space Nine anyone’s favorite, BTW?!) I told him how much I’m loving my job these days, we talked about how much we both hate fascists, normal 2018 stuff. Things were so easy and fun and he looked so dapper, I was inspired to have him pose for a picture in front of a nice stretch of creek.

When I asked if I could post the picture, there was hesitation, and my heart dropped. Gilmore Lady is looking for a job, he explained, and they couldn’t be as out as I am. They’d agreed not to have other partners on their social media accounts, which just made me sad. I mean it’s kinda like, love me, love my Instagram, even though of course I respect people’s right not to have their pictures shared. Still, I hadn’t asked to tag him or anything, so the closety-ness didn’t sit right.

(I also realize that this is exactly what someone would say if they weren’t in fact IN an open relationship, at least not one the other partner knows about, but I’m doing my best to take him at his word.)

We kept happily walking along making plans for that evening, but I kind of knew it wouldn’t work. To have something intimate in my life I couldn’t document and share felt lonely and sad, felt like an artistic limitation, and I told him so. Maybe that’s not fair, but it just didn’t feel right.

“I’d better not come over tonight,” I said, much to my own chagrin. I told him I don’t feel comfortable in hierarchies, shared a little bit of the solo-poly chip I still have on my shoulder while trying not to sound bitter. I probably sounded bitter.

There were still 30 minutes of hike back to the car, and much of it was in painful silence. We walked in frozen awkwardness as I tried to buoy the conversation, talking even more candidly since it wasn’t going to work out.

I’m sure it was partly just me wanting to take care of his feelings, but there was something about him that still made me curious. As the conversation shifted to kink (always an ice-breaker when confronted with a taciturn man…) I could feel a playful power dynamic between us.

“I have to admit you’d be fun to boss around,” I said. The conversation and my body rallied to make me want to forget his closet-y stuff, made me wonder if taking pictures is really that important. (IT IS) As we (ostensibly about to say goodbye) talked about the things we like and I told him a little about my adventures (this consisted mostly of sighing about ropes) sex came into the conversation like a benevolent pink force that lifted and carried us along. I was happy to let it.

He told me some more of his submissive fantasies and between the woods and dropping him off at home, I had talked myself out of telling him no.

“Can I wear pajamas when I come over?” (Remember when this option was my requisite for going almost ANYWHERE?)

“Of course, wear whatever you want. Wear nothing!”

A few stoplights later, I harrumphed “Do I have to SHAVE anything? I mean, not that I would.”

“No, I actually prefer hair, though it’s none of my business.”

Gold star.

(Side note: I also stopped shaving my legs a couple of years ago and I hope to never go back. Hope there are guys out there who think fuzzy legs are cute, ‘cause that’s what I’ve got.)

By the time I dropped him off (I had some afternoon work to do, we agreed to meet up later) I was wet and glittery with anticipation. I wondered how I would concentrate all afternoon, with Gilmores, mojitos, and HIM to look forward to. I was glad I’d let my pants decide—I’ve gotta do that once in a while.

Welcome, Gilmore Guy: Part One, A Walk in the Woods

Friends, I love being single. I aspire to reach Kate Bolick heights of spinster fabulousness, and I think that I do. But this story starts where so many of them do—a gentle, long-fluttering crush. About a month ago, curiosity bubbled up and I (sort of) asked out a friendly acquaintance I’ll call Steven. (because Universe) He spent the better part of a day with me, painting watercolors and falling asleep in front of my favorite movie. (Slacker. I would blame exactly NO ONE for falling asleep in front of it.) At no point during that day did I find out if he liked girls or boys or both or neither, most importantly whether he liked me.

So, in the middle of the night, (I knew he’d be up, he’s not a morning person like me.) I texted to ask him if he’d mind snuggling. After I sent the text, my heart was pounding in that dizzying, vexing, nauseating way that I hadn’t felt in a while, and when he sent back a very kind no, I was SO MUCH SADDER than I’d expected to be. Even though it was late, I called Sweetie (ex-wife, now best friend, only call-in-the-middle-of-the-night person besides the hotline I use for panic) and SOBBED.

As unpleasant as that was, there was something healthy about it too. Irksome as an unrequited thing always is, I felt like I’d returned to a vital part of myself. I used to let my hoo-ha steer my life so much more, and it felt like a relief to have turned to that compass, even a little bit.

(Before we leave Steven, I want to report that he and I settled into friendship faster than I expected, because he’s a treasure and also probably because of the next part of the story.)

            I went back to regularly swiping through Ok Cupid, at least to remember to keep snuggles a priority. (I gave up on Tinder a long time ago because guys kept being mad at me for being a person.) Because it’s election season, my OKC profile picture is of me meeting Hillary Clinton. The picture (which I also keep by my front door for strength, along with the times I met John Lewis and Cecile Richards) served the dual purposes of both being a conversation starter and (presumably) weeding out most of the Trump monsters and Bernie bros. (Some trolls still get though, though, my OKC inbox is not THAT different than my textbanking-for-Democrats inbox.  Any opportunity to push back, I guess…)

            Every once in a while, though, somebody says Exactly. The. Right. Thing. And I have to resist the temptation to screenshot it so I can show ALL the men what the exactly right thing is. It’s a very nice bonus when the guy typing the right thing is a cute black guy with dreamy eyes and who lists Gilmore Girls as one of his interests!!!

Here is the exactly right thing to say to me on OK Cupid—or anywhere: “Wow, you got to meet Hillary Clinton! I think she is a majestic woman and I really wanted her to be our president.”

Majestic! *swoons*

            Plus! This guy lives right in my beloved neighborhood! So we made plans to spend a morning on my favorite local hiking trail. I had him meet me at the library, since my number one most exciting reserve had just come in. (Rich People Problems! CANNOT get enough of Kevin Kwan) I nervously caught Pokémon in one of the pretty chairs outside the library as I waited for him to arrive.

            When I saw him, I felt immediately special because he’d clearly dressed with care. (Now that I know him a little better I’ve realized that he probably ALWAYS dresses with care, but still.) He had on a vintage jacket and a yellow gingham shirt—picture-perfect for the woods.

            And cute. Long locks, those dreamy eyes, and yay! Close to my height. He’s fit in a way that made me worry I was too fat for him. (Sorry, no amount of feminism has banished that annoying thought.) Spoiler alert, I wasn’t. Despite my worries and jangled nerves, we felt like a match to me, a sort of “Yeah, this could work.” moment.

            As we walked through the woods on that beautifully cool grey early fall day, golden color just beginning to tinge the leaf-edges, I was delighted to find out that he was MAYBE MORE OBSESSED WITH GILMORE GIRLS THAN I AM. He even listens to the Gilmore Guys podcast. It dawned on me then—

            “Hey! It’s September 21^st! Have you seen Demi Adejuyigbe’s video about that?” (Google “electrolemon September,” you really need to know.)

            “No—what are you doing later? Why don’t you come over and we can watch it and some Gilmore episodes? I’ll make you a cocktail?”

            Um, yes. Wait, he watches Gilmore Girls AND makes fancy cocktails? Are you KIDDING me? I requested mojitos and he said he’d have to pick up some mint, but I happen to have plenty of mint in my yard. Clearly, part two of this date was mint to be.

Oops, I Accidentally Got a Crush on an MRA, Part Four

In a piece of administrative bad luck, both the Cute Pansexual Assistant Manager and I took sick days on the Monday that followed that Friday snit. The Store Manager was out again on Tuesday so there was no meeting, no resolution. CPAM had clearly been told not to talk to me about anything that wasn’t work related. Why would this be a solution? Barring me from small-talk could only serve to further separate me, not make me feel safe or included. I shouldn’t have to be ready to, for example, confront a rape apologist in order to rate a slot in the cheery work chitchat.

I was scared when I came in and in fact asked if I should leave, but CPAM became friendly again pretty quick., joking about his unicorn-ness and bonding over the music. I even wondered if Friday (and I guess the whole rest of his microagression-o-rama) had been a fluke, just a snit. I felt sheepish to have been so upset.

But then, while we were working happily together in the back room (that darn back room!) with a recently-back-from-vacation grad student, he asked, apropos of nothing, if she had ever heard of the documentary “The Red Pill.”

(FYI: https://dailyreview.com.au/red-pill-watched-dont/61240/)

            I hadn’t heard of the movie, but my hackles went up. I knew that “Red Pill” mentality was one of the Men’s Right’s Activist, deep-Reddit monstrosities that has become the part of the toxic misogynist soup we’ve all been swimming in. In their parlance, “taking the red pill” means realizing that (white) men are actually society’s most oppressed category and that one of the ways to correct this “imbalance” is…rape. I also knew that the Red Pill/ MRA movements are tied intimately with white supremacist movements.

            After a few minutes of him summarizing the “documentary” and me saying “that’s TERRIBLE” a lot of times, he continues to double down on men’s vulnerable status. (NOTE: Men ARE vulnerable and harmed, but he wasn’t realizing it’s heteropatriarchy, not rape survivors, who make the rules.)

            I asked him to change the subject, but he said “I’m not talking to YOU. This isn’t work related.” And stalked away. I walked right after him.

            “I thought we were going to get along,” I said calmly but forcefully, “But you CAN’T be sexist at work. The people you’re talking about are rape apologists.”

“No, they’re not. You’re just saying that because you disagree with them. No matter what I say, you’ll hear what you want to hear. Besides, it isn’t work related.”

            “It IS work related because I don’t feel safe at work. This is a microagression, no, a MACROaggression!”

(As if he would know what either word meant.)

I went back to working on the books, but my body didn’t want to be there. After he evoked the Men’s Rights Activists, the trauma of the 2016 election, the “Lock her up” mobs, the way Trump had recently threatened to forcibly take “Pocohontas” Elizabeth Warren’s DNA to test and mocked the #Metoo movement in the same sentence, it felt like all of that was in the room with me, and it was. The store was presided over by a giant photo of the college’s mascot, a white colonizer, rape and murder in his puppet eyes. How does any woman get through a day on that campus, or in America, or anywhere in all of history?

            I went home. I called the HR hotline, called my therapist, called (ex-wife, BFF) Sweetie. I felt helpless, scared, worthless, panicked, but more than anything else, I felt angry—for the time theft, the money theft, the ELECTION theft brought about by misogyny in general and the MRAs specifically. I felt like I would never be safe anywhere.

Earlier this week, I watched “To All the Little Girls: The Untold Stories of the Sixty-five Million”, https://www.toallthelittlegirlsdoc.com/watch Rebecca Morgan’s story of her work on the 2016 election and it’s aftermath. After the election, Becca was diagnosed with PTSD, and in some ways, I think the whole country has it. I know I do. It’s hard to shake the idea that I have to fight and scrap for survival, that we all do. I don’t know what healing looks like, but I do know that I’ll call out hate (and call HR) just as freely as I call Congress. My heart aches for whatever genuine friendship was there, for having left another thing I liked. I don’t know where we’re going, but I know whose side I’m on: mine.