Postscript: The Southern Charmer and The Good Boy

Last week was kind of a rough week in Kitten Calendar land! *cry emoji* First, The Southern Charmer and I had a not-a-match second date. I miss him a bunch!

And then, to my sadness and also some relief, it was time to say goodbye to The Good Boy.

On Saturday night, I came home from a perfect-on-paper-but-no chemistry date with someone new, got a little emo, and gave TGB a call. He works late, so it wasn’t supercrazy to call him at 11:30 at night. When he didn’t pick up, I kind of knew there wasn’t any more hope. I left a message saying I missed him, called BFF to lament my lack of attraction to perfect-on-paper guy, and went to bed.

You know on Top Chef or whatever when the judges tell you you’re out of the competition, you have to be all gracious and say “Thank you for the opportunity”? (Unless you’re Jen from Philadelphia, a hero to one and all, who got superpissed and swore her way out! And thus is my second favorite! After Marcel, who said “You don’t fuck with someone else’s mise en place,” possibly the best sentence ever uttered!)

That ritual moment, in addition to a lack of people skills and also other skills, is why I could never be on a competition show. But in the case of responding to The Good Boy’s three very kind breakup texts the next morning, I did the gracious response. I genuinely AM grateful for the opportunity, so that made it easy. I untied from him via text without any grasping or hoping, just generosity and (Gasp!) dignity.

Afterwards, I felt numb and lonely, tired and sad. I wondered if there was some change in my search parameters, some rule I could make that would save me from the hurt and loss that sometimes (okay almost always) follows the best connections.

On a bright, clear, breathless hike with my pal Adorable Queer Librarian that afternoon, I asked zir if ze thought I could do anything about it. We walked up hills and around all the trees, saying hi to dogs and their humans, talking about every topic we had. Then, on the last hill, almost back to my car, ze said “To answer your question, no. I think you should just go ahead and be even more you.”

With friends like zir, it’s hard to be sad and pretty much impossible to give up hope. I miss The Good Boy, but I’m well on my way already to being my grateful, isn’t-it-a-miracle-we-met-at-all self. Yesterday, I gave myself two weeks off from flirting, but today I bargained it down to four days. See you Thursday, Maybes! Thanks for being there and being exactly you.

 

 

 

Knotty Thursday: Hot Self Date

 

The face-having version of this picture might be my favorite picture of myself ever. I feel a little guilty for not going out into the world much on self-dates, but this one was a real treat.  I lit all the candles Saturday night and settled into bed to watch a Lee Harrington talk on Spiritual Kink. I learned a lot, but it was mostly his soothing voice and dreamy green eyes that gave me the inspiration to pick up the ropes without a specific plan. Can vibes be transferred via recorded Zoom? If anyone could do it, it'd be him.

An Absolutely Beautiful Mess: Part Four

 

The most important part of the story: Lying still first thing with him sleeping on my shoulder, breath hitting my collarbone in sweet, soothing rhythm.

But also, two things that turned the next few days into a hurricane of anxiety:

1.     My period, which had only been gone for four stupid days, came back after some particularly transcendent sex. (Nice to meet you, Reverse Cowgirl, I love you forever.) Though he didn’t have any particular reaction about it, the Rogue Period’s return set off a series of alarm bells and triggers that I’m still trying to parse a week and a half later.

2.     WAY worse: First Poly Partner broke up with The Good Boy via text while I was halfheartedly writing my morning pages. I gave him space to call or process or freak, but I couldn’t figure out how to help. I also couldn’t figure out how to not be the asshole who’s pissed at how much our time got interrupted, not mad at him or her, just crabby at the circumstances and still trying (and succeeding, I think) to stay sweet.

I’d planned to make brunch, but the vibe was completely unbrunchlike. I don’t know how my neurotic, hurt caretaking and his kinetic grief could have even lived in the same universe as brunch.

My heart was broken for him and them and a little bit by them too. I have so much new empathy for BFF-Formerly-Sweetie who had NO END of happy days interrupted by heartbreak and why-doesn’t-he-text and metamour pains. (Later, after The Good Boy had gone home, I called to apologize to her and she said shush.)

The Good Boy and I held each other for a good long time before I sent him off into the beautiful snow. My heart physically hurts while I’m typing this. He didn’t feel able to make plans with me, and I was jangled by both the calendar upset and by my currently broken body clock. A couple of days later, we decided to take a pause, and that’s where we are now.

I’m so lonesome for him. In my head I’m so sure he’ll fall for somebody else or decide to be monogamous or just forget me. In my heart, which is wiser, I’m grateful that the universe (or just the internet) put us together for at least this little while. Love will help me untie him from me, if that’s what he decides he needs, but I’d rather bind him close.

 

 

An Absolutely Beautiful Mess: Part Three (I Win Fastest Heart Every Time)

 

I’ve been grumbling a little about The Good Boy’s not-out-ness, but I’ve got a little tangle of shame of my own to work on. I mean, I’ve got many, but let’s start with this one:

Love.

It’s not like I fall head-over-heels for everyone I’m attracted to, or that I don’t know what’s normal to say or feel after just a few dates, but my heart simply DOES NOT GIVE A FUCK what pace I would like it to move at. In the case of The Good Boy, the pieces slid into place before we even met, as soon as I felt him submitting to me by text, probably even before the app-to-texts promotion the best cuties get.

I’m sure there are plenty of explanations: It was my first time really trying to be a rope top, he’s superpretty and a little in need of rescue. We’re both teaching each other and learning from each other and that’s so so sweet. And you already know about the work-of-art cock.

I guess I’ve known it for a couple weeks at least, but yesterday when I told BFF-Formerly-Sweetie the actual “I love him” phrase, I started to cry a little and felt a gentle rush of relief. BFF and I agreed that I didn’t need to interrupt the pause to tell him how I feel. Then I interrupted the pause to tell him how I feel. When I heard back from him (Not love on his end, but the potential is there.) I felt the warm relief even more strongly, not just because it does, for now, really seem to be a pause and not a break-off. I felt all warm and full and settled into my skin because I told him how I felt. And it helped that he was very, VERY good about it.

But seriously friends, it would have felt less fraught if I’d been making an STI call. I feel so mad at myself sometimes for getting all-the-way smitten so fast, like I’m a crazy person or like I have something heavy and dangerous that I should have disclosed in advance. I would like to be less harsh with myself about it, to just name it when it arrives and let anyone who would flee, flee.

Now that I’ve said all that, let’s keep writing about this adorable Saturday-before-last.

Sex with the good boy is so pure and sweet. Not always gentle, he’s as rough and fast and pushy as I want him to be, but he fucks with his heart, every time. He held me in place like I like, but he did it by wrapping around me, pulling us all the way together like his limbs were the sweetest, softest, most lovingly sentient ropes. He was giving me his whole dear self and it felt so, SO good.

(In some alternate universe, this is also me-at-sixteen and The Boy Who Sewed Me a Pillow. This is how we may have intertwined in a 1992 world without Catholicism, without trauma, and of course with him being actually-bi and not just bi in my hopes.)

Afterwards, well-fucked and inspired, the praise flowed out, decorating him like the ropes had. I worry that I may have disappeared into the praise, but no matter, he deserves it.

The window was open, and he laughed at me for being so sure that I heard snow. (It was! Such pretty snow! And I really hate winter.) We laughed and talked for such a long time. Then I put on my sleep mask and, after another while, fell asleep on his shoulder.

An Absolutely Beautiful Mess, Part Two

 

After the snuggle-fog wore off a little, I started to wonder whether The Good Boy had ever been in a poly situation in the first place. Maybe I’ve just been bingeing Inventing Anna too hard, but I’m not sure which parts of this story are real, especially the shifting, slippery feelings. Is this just how young millennials cheat? Still, I’ll try to take him at face value for now, the story is fraught enough without anxiety-embellishments.

When we got home from the street art walk, we got into bed to warm up our frozen limbs and he…checked his phone. I want to be a Sweet Ma’am and not a scold, and this might be a generational thing. Except, it’s not. Most of my co-adventurers, partnered or not, have been able to stay present with me for all-or-most of a date. Even the ones with Apple Watches. (Which are handy (ha) if we need to change the music and it’s one of those rare occasions when his music is playing!) There are both some rotten and some sweet exceptions, and this one is kind of both.

First Poly Partner had asked him earlier to come over, since he’d ended up getting the night off. He’d said no, but without telling her we had a (rescheduled) date. He felt guilty for saying no and I felt hurt and kind of horrified he hadn’t told her where he was. (I HATE typing this part because it seems like the most dealbreakery part of the story, I don’t know where trust would come from again.) They had a few more text-back-and-forths before he coughed up the information.

Annoyed as I was, I felt tenderly toward them both, so I went into (gentle, I think) How to Poly 101 teaching mode.

To wildly paraphrase Rumi, somewhere between fuckboy and new-at-poly is a field, and we kind of got stuck there.

But also! He’s 29! Squarely in the prime fuckboy timeframe! Should I have let him go already, to run and play and figure out how to be a person with other twenty-somethings? Has he already made that choice for me? I feel naïve and a million years old, all at once.

If The Good Boy was supposed to be in a poly relationship, he was in a very pre-coming-out part of the process, and that was hard for me to take. As generous as he was being (SO GENEROUS) with the faceless pictures, he wouldn’t let me post regular pictures of us on my regular Instagram. He even made FPP hide pictures of her other boyfriend from his friends.

“I don’t know how to explain this.” He kept saying.

I know I shouldn’t take his learning curve or his shame personally. Most of the time I know that the hiding and obfuscating weren’t (necessarily) because I was too fat or too old or too kinky. I felt so sure that he liked me in a similar way to the way I liked him—under the skittishness I felt some kind of a…faith. A seedling of wholeheartedness just very tentatively approaching sunlight. Maybe it was just my own faith. Maybe it was the D/s vibes and a glitter-tornado of chemistry.

I got the ropes ready and tried to help him shift gears, tried to keep myself from emotionally (and maybe also physically) fleeing. Maybe I should have sent him on his way but this was my night, dammit. I hadn’t done anything to wreck it, I didn’t deserve to lose him to his own mess.

I tied a square knot between the dear, dear magenta ropes and placed them around his neck like a scarf. I took a deep breath and started to tie. As I wound the ropes around his jittery, half-here frame, the ropes wound us back together, at least for a little while.

An Absolutely Beautiful Mess, Part One

After three maybe too-intense dates, The Good Boy and I are on a pause so we both can figure out which end is up. (BFF says that’s what fizzy water is for because the bubbles go up. I don’t know why I find that observation so comforting.) Let the untangling begin:

On Wednesday the 9^th, The Good Boy and I were scheduled to have our third date—an actual go-someplace date! We were going to see the new J-Lo romcom—I’d originally planned it as a self-date but he suggested we go together before we’d even had our first couch date.

I think maybe the combination of Ma’am-ing and Valentine’s week made me lose my mind about our movie date a little bit. I was so, SO excited to get dressed up, for him to buy the snacks, to sit in the back row and hold hands, maybe make out a little. My anticipation was a little bit teen-girl-childlike, maybe bordering on unhinged.

So of course, OF COURSE it got cancelled, or, I thought, postponed. TGB was having issues with his other partner, and they needed the night to talk things through.

TGB had been together with his First Poly Partner for about six months and she was the reason he was trying nonmonogamy. Until this cancelled night, I hadn’t thought much about her except to respect her nights and be grateful she’d sent him out into the world so I could meet him. Grateful was my main emotion about FPP, and somehow, it still is.

I’d already bought tickets for the movie, and TGB paid me back double. I felt two ways about that! A little queasy, kinda I’d been bought off, but also, yay money. I bought a book I’d been wanting.

I pulled all the way back (Well, I mean, as far as a smitten kitten could.) from him that night, having no desire to become a factor in whatever they were resolving. When he gave me the all-clear the next morning, I asked if he’d like to come over after work on Saturday. He works from three to eleven, dealing blackjack. I really hope I get to see his professional-grade card-shuffle someday.

That Saturday night, I planned to do my yearly Valentine’s street art project. I’d saved up about six months of paintings and protest signs and doodles and was also planning to restore some of the watercolors that had been up for a while. It’s a love-gift for my neighborhood, which is truly one of my Great Loves. (Along with my apartment, my cats,  the Hope Diamond, and my new magenta ropes.) When it turned out the casino was overstaffed and he was getting the night off, I invited him to join me for the art.

This was a BIG DEAL—I’d only ever gone on street art walks with close friends or by myself. It felt like letting him in on a secret part of me. Maybe too intimate. Kinda like when I invited This Charming Man to the Fancy Garden, but this messy date turned out WAY better than that one.

I’m sure I’ve called many, MANY things THE CUTEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED but this was definitely in the running. He carried my bags of art and silk flowers. He handed me the staple gun when I needed it, goading me gently when he thought I was using too many staples. (Ha like that’s his business!) He reached up his nice long arms to add color to the paintings that had faded with time and weather.

I felt nervous hanging up political pieces in front of him—we hadn’t talked at all about politics since he’d passed my screening questions. But it went okay! We talked a little bit, very lightly, about empathy and growth.

In the moments when we weren’t working on the art, he held my hand like it was important to him, like it was a detail he’d looked forward to, a little like he was staking a claim. We took a short walk through the woods. I think I could be forgiven for thinking something romantic was happening between us, and maybe it was. Maybe (I hope not!) fleeting, maybe already on the way to over, but, on my end at least, definitely hearts-floating-up-around-my-head romance,

Knotty Thursday: His and Hers Hishi Karada

 

The day before yesterday, I was a hopelessly tangled knot of nerves. I had a doctor’s appointment Tuesday afternoon for the rogue periods I’ve had since mid-January. (Seriously like FOUR days of not bleeding. The RN calmed me down and prescribed something, mostly convinced me I’m not dying.) That morning, I’d had a messy text-exchange with The Good Boy, too—Valentine’s weekend dropped an anvil on his heart and mine got a little smushed in the process.

I thought for like a nanosecond about postponing my first date with The Southern Charmer and going to bed early or picking a fight with TGB, but there TSC was at my door with good wine, ready to learn the ropes. He had a new lip piercing and I had (cue Neverending Story theme song) the neverending period, so we’d agreed in advance that it would be a gentle night. And it (mostly!) was.

He got here at nine and all of a sudden it was ten and we’d been talking away for an hour. We had a gotta-get-up-early alarm set so I figured I’d better get him upstairs!

He had a deft touch with the ropes, patient and ready to learn. As I was getting us situated (Can ropes have mise en place?) I showed him how to make a square knot with the light pink ropes and put those aside for him to use on me.

Ohhhhhhhhh the magenta ropes that I got myself for Valentine’s Day. I think they must have magical powers. I’m surer with them, more easily careful, they just feel more mine than any other belongings do, and they seem to just exist a little extra, the way the Hope Diamond does.

Enough rhapsodizing about the ropes, time to rhapsodize about The Southern Charmer. He’s an easy and genial canvas, happy to stop every so often and ask how a knot is made. We eased into warm, gentle hugs and soft kisses as I wound the ropes. How did I EVER get this lucky?!

His careful attention while I was decorating him meant he easily got the steps to return the favor. I promptly evaporated into a cloud of queen-of-the-world bottomy joy.

Maybe there was still a TINY bit of the day’s stress left in my body as we cuddled and kissed into rope aftercare, but then I invited myself into his lap to get spanked. OH friends! Every little confetti-fragment of worry gusted out onto the pillows with each powerful strike, each hurt/pleasure gasp. The Southern Charmer is SO strong.

His dick (Pants still on, we were being so chaste!) was hard and exactly right underneath my wiggly, fake-struggling middle, yes, beautiful, but I need to say more about his arms. JESUS FUCK, those arms. He held me down so forcefully, pulled my hair so tender-and-rough-at-once, shoving and twisting and grasping out all my defenses.

I wound up dizzied, spaced, sprawled down the bed like a painting, holding a half-glass of wine I kept forgetting to drink.

I sent him on his way after one snooze of the bedtime alarm, vowing to absolutely TEAR HIM APART next time. Welcome, Southern Charmer, definitely don’t be a stranger.

OMG Mr. Shiny Eyes Called!!!

Hooray! Last night when I was finishing up a self-date (writing a Knotty Thursday draft and starting a painting, tonight's self date will be Emo Arts and Crafts), my phone buzzed and there was Mr. Shiny Eyes, calling while he was driving. We hadn't talked in...5 years? Sooooo exciting to catch up with one of the MVPs of the Kitten Calendar team!

He was excited to hear that I'd been slutting it up pretty well since post-vax (my words) and definitely asked for lots of details. I put away the dishes, folded the clothes, untangled the other night's ropes, and by the time we were done talking we agreed that, whenever he feels safe enough (He's got an immune-compromised partner, so that may be a long time!) he's gonna come visit and find out what kind of a rope top I've grown up into. A certain kind of switchiness has been eluding him, it turns out.

Whether or not any of THAT happens, it felt so grounding to talk to someone I've known for so long. Plus, he said he thinks of me every Valentine's Day.

It's not  a Valentine's Day story, but do stop by The Sparkly Festival of Awesomeness for some hot 2013 nostalgia: https://kittencalendar.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-sparkly-festival-of-awesomeness.html?zx=808afd52856e679

The Good Boy: Part Three (In Which I FAVORABLY Compare His Dick to Famous Works of Art)

Trying to write about him lying supine and not-quite-passive, in a harness and black briefs, obviously hard and temptingly huge, makes me flustered and so close to losing the actual use of words.

As I pulled the rope tightly/gently around his inner thigh, I asked if it felt okay. He smirked and said I better check again, so I did, lightly grazing the valley between his thigh and his dick. A jolt went through me, temporarily deleting my knowledge of knots and everything else, but I righted myself and kept laddering.

I felt powerful and benevolent sitting over him, turned on but super-focused on the ropes at hand. I rhythmically twined over and under his pretty legs, holding the square shape in place, winding on to the next rung. When I neared his left ankle he said, with the teensiest bit of irritation, “Can this be done now?”

So I tied off the rope and climbed on to kiss him. He had so many loose ends, ropes of different colors, strands I’d meant to weave in with the rest. He was a bed of soft vines.

We ended up in a delicious cuddle. As he spooned up sweetly I said “Hmmmmm, it doesn’t really seem like you’ve submitted.” His tenderness was urgent, emphatic. This was not a Helpless Boy.

“Do you think you could spank a person?” I asked, rolling onto my belly. My velvet pants had been discarded a while ago, and I was wearing raspberry-colored lacy soft briefs.

Friends, he CAN spank a person, each impact hitting at the exact right angle, the exact right strength. When he was ready to move on from spanking, he spread himself aaaaalllllll the way over me, arms over my arms, holding me down so kindly. He was grinding his huge, hard dick against my ass crack, hitting all the spots at once. The Good Boy had gone a little animalistic and I could NOT have been happier.

“Okay, I’m gonna need to turn over.” I said.

So. I’m a size queen, we kind of know that already. Recently I was even brazen enough to add that preference to my profile, even though it seems unfair to all the other dicks. The Good Boy’s dick IS unfair to all the other ones. Thick, long, and curving upwards, it is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my entire art history major LIFE. Starry Night? Please. Duchamp’s Large Glass—so pretty and thought provoking and also on the themes of energy and inspiration, but no. Yoko Ono’s Yes Painting? Okay, maybe that one compares.

Anyway, BEAUTIFUL. And about to be entirely mine.

Knotty Thursday: The Adorables (More Couples Please!!!)

 

I think The Adorables want to be just friends, I haven't heard from them since our date-or-whatever on Sunday, but I'm totally in crushtown about them. So much so that I added "I would like to snuggle with some couples please!" to my Feeld profile.

I'd been texting back and forth with Mr. Adorable for a few weeks--thoughtful questions and mini-paragraphs, the text version of writing letters! LOVE IT. I hadn't really been looking for couples, but if you could see these two faces, you'd understand that I kinda HAD to hit on them.

After a few snow-and-life-related postponements, they arrived at my door Sunday afternoon, not too long after the Good Boy left. (I really am supergreedy sometimes. Total bi stereotype over here.) They brought red wine and those question cards meant to rescue parties from small talk--big talk all the way. I had THE BEST TIME answering questions with them, until I was like "Okay, one more question, then I'm gonna teach you some ropes."

I really didn't teach them anything--Mrs. Adorable likes to self tie, and I'm in awe of her creation.

I tied up Mr. Adorable. I was nervous and protective--he was so sweet and this was his first time, plus his gorgeous wife was right there being gorgeous--I couldn't get out of self-consciousness even a little bit til they worked together to very gently tie me up.

I was sad and a little lost when they left--I'd been too shy to ask for snuggles or any other kind of aftercare, note to self for future not-sure-what-kinda-connection-this-is play.

Now they're just-friends or ghosts, and I miss them. If I did anything wrong, I hope they'd tell me! I hope we'll cross paths again some day.

The Good Boy, Part Two

 

How in the world did I end up this lucky, to have a pretty, shirtless man all well-behaved next to my bed, waiting patiently to be made into (even more of) a work of art? The first time I got close, to wind the rope around his lovely back, he felt radiant, vital, and entirely mine.

My brain didn’t float off into rope land right away but instead got a sharper focus. Quietly, step by step, I wound the ribcage harness around his beautiful chest, lark’s heading on to the middle when I needed to add more length. Whenever I looked into his face or kissed him, my inner world flipped upside down for a moment, but I came back into clarity as I reached and wound and knotted and structured, checking in to see if anything felt pinched, if everything was still circulating.

He was so good and so still, passive but not quite submitting, I could feel him ready to pounce, too. (It’s gonna be a while!) It wasn’t just power I was feeling (Oh boy I WAS feeling power though) but also a deep tenderness. This was my first real time trying out rope topness, and I wanted The Good Boy to feel as cozy and cared for as Fireguy and Steampunk Guy and all those other rope darlings had made me feel.

(Flash to lying restrained and prone on Fireguy’s basement floor, to feeling beautifully on display and chosen by Steampunk Guy at the Regular Dungeon.)

Wrapping someone sweet in a complicated and unending hug felt benevolent, queenly, and so, SO hot.

And! The Virgo version of hotness: it felt like a culmination of a good, long, leisurely semester of learning. As I laddered the thinner ropes onto his gorgeous long arms and figured out how to knot on new structures and colors, I didn’t think about all those (sometimes lonely, mostly blissful) Thursdays of learning, but now I want to stop in awe of all the times I untangled, overcame hopelessness, fear, or apathy, and just learned one little new thing. Here was a very sweet canvas letting me be new kind of artist. A very sweet canvas I really needed to fuck quite soon!

I messed up the back after a while, sort of spacing out winding and winding and winding. I like seeing now how simply it started out, especially how the ropes draped around the small of his beautiful back—don’t know if I’ve even been turned on by a waist before, besides my own!

Turned on as I was, I was determined to cover all of him, so I instructed him to take off his pants, leave underwear on for now, and lay down on the bed.

 

The Good Boy, Part One

 

This is the part where I’m afraid I’m gonna write a good thing out of existence. For me, there’s warm feelings. For him, there’s a bouquet of New Things and he’s not sure what it is, just that he likes it. This is the part where I want to RUN, either at him, or away. I asked BFF-Formerly-Sweetie if I should say goodbye now to keep my heart from getting broken, and she said “(My name) it’s too late.”

So let me make the paragraphs happen even though I might be heartbroken by the last installment. Otherwise, I’m just getting too far behind.

When I saw that we’d matched on Feeld, his sweet, sincere face, his shiny eyes, and the fact that he listed “sub” under his interests, all those factors meant I kinda had to say hello. After my now-boilerplate screening questions (Vaccinated? Allergic to cats? Smoke cigarettes? (Weed is fine.) Somewhere to the left of Joseph Robinette Biden?) I asked if he might like to try ropes, and that was pretty much that.

The Good Boy is a very sweet texter, and before we met in person, I started to float up towards a new kind of rope-top confidence. He felt proctectable, deferent, and dear. This exchange felt so much kinder, safer, and more sincere than the more rough, businesslike text negotiations I also sometimes enjoy. I slipped into cozy-Ma’amness in just a few days. We’d planned two dates before we even had one.

He's twenty-nine, brand-new to any kind of poly relationships (His main partner…onboarded? him not too long ago.) or kink. In spite of the inexperience, though, he’s very adept at the parts of dating that make partners feel like human beings. (Last night, (two dates in) I was feeling supersleepy and he text-reminded me to make sure I slept in bed and not the couch. Kind.)

The day of our first date (couch/ropes/pink wine), I realized I’d run out of Valentine chocolate and asked him to bring me some. Somehow, that ask was a million times more vulnerable than talking about ropes. But he did. He brought a pink heart full of pink heart chocolates.

After a nice long talk on the couch with our wine, it was time to take him upstairs for ropes. I’ll try to get that part into words soon, I promise.

 

Knotty Thursday! Oh My Goodness, I Can't Even

 I don't really have words for my first night with The Good Boy yet, but I am superproud about how far my rope skills have come. It's so wonderful to see a bunch of different short Thursday practices come together in such a beautiful way. A lot of credit must be given to my warm (and switchy!) canvas, but I think I'm having a little bit of an artistic breakthrough.