Knotty Thursday! Messy Corset, VERY Neat Homework!

 

I'll have to go back and retry this corset sometime! It's meant to be a quick release design, but I just wasn't in a tutorial-watching mood. Still had a wonderful time of course!

And THIS treasure really aced his hishi karada homework! Today was a day of getting texted BEAUTIFUL photos. 

Knotty Thursday! A Stitch, A Loop, a Hitch!

 

Hooray for this tutorial! I've been starting a new round of (depression/anxiety/family insurrectionsists, etc) therapy work, and yesterday's session with a new therapist had me feeling productively drained and a little jangled--I wasn't sure if I was gonna get to the happy rope place! (So may of these posts start out that way, huh? why are Wednesdays always a LOT?) I thought I might just try the alpine loop and call it a day!

Getting it right was so satisfying, so I kept going with the cow hitch "clasp":

And by the time I got that one right, I was unsurprisingly ready to change into the pretty bra and give the whole thing a whirl! It's supposed to go all the way down, but I felt like I'd learned enough for one night! 

The Goodbye Boys

Connection and attraction are weird. The two times that Mr. Adorkable came over, I felt like we were almost supernaturally linked, not just the way our bodies fit together, but personality-wise as well. We chatted and laughed like friends and played so beautifully. And then he’d go back home and hardly ever text—I should have taken that signal and kept it moving, probably.

Not-texting wasn’t how it started though. The first weekend that he had my number, back at the end of August, he was attentive, flirty, infinitely selfie-able. He was my cute text company on my solo birthday trip, to the point where I missed him when my hotel room turned out to be a Wifi-hole. I sent him a picture of a sunset mountain, of my outfit matching a wall of Warhols. Company.

But after our first date, the textiness stopped, and I don’t know why I didn’t just admit that I HATED that. Anybody can text anybody every day or so! Still, I was mindful of bandwidth. And he was so lovely and present and playful in person.

Before our second date, I reached out to ask him if he’d ghosted, a really bad sign! But he said he hadn’t, and I got more attached. Again, a song came on at the right time like we were in a movie.

But then, the not-texting again. We made a third date, but it took some nagging.

(My work life is mostly nagging--it’s my superpower! I vow to not opt into any more of it in my free time.)

(And I also vow to just recognize the next case of He’s Just Not That into You when it comes along!)

Anyway, when Mr. Adorkable told me a few hours before the planned third date that he “wasn’t feeling connected.” I wanted to be like: Duh. You didn’t even try. But I know things don’t work that way.

My point is, besides BEING TEXTED BACK IS NICE, that I’m feeling burned out from the goodbye part of dating.

A partial list of goodbye boys since last fall:

The Coach, (didn’t want to be in person, possibly dick-catfishing me)

The Lovely Guy, (very lovely, it just ran its course)

Superhot hookup guy who looked like Finn from Star Wars, (Gave me a fake last name)

This Charming Man, (Love, heartbreak, Chappelle fan)

The very-not-a-match-hookup who probably gave me Christmas Covid,

The Good Boy, (Can’t really complain about that one)

The Shy One, (GLAD I UN-SAID THAT GOODBYE!)

The Southern Charmer, (“Sometimes it’s all just…too much.”)

The Adorables,

The boy with the Sonic the Hedgehog tattoo, (Also one that said “Keep it real”)

The high school principal who had First Corinthians tattooed on his arm, (I thought this was the most romantic thing ever.)

The goth boy who was delightfully dommy in the car, (Also a terrible texter)

The Song Sender Part Two (Electric Boogaloo),

and Mr. Adorkable.

No wonder I’m so tired. I’m not writing this to slut-shame myself, far from it! I just want to acknowledge that that’s a LOT of hope/hotness/goodbye for one year. Some disappeared, some ended in wrenching conversations, one re-ended in a sweet, healing way, one un-ended.

So it’s time for a little break from strangers, time for my body and heart to process all the sexiness and wonderfulness and sadness and shame and loss and phone-checking. This year of adventures was a busy, beautiful, ravishing gift, but Mr. Adorkable was one goodbye too many for now. Just for now though.

Knotty Thursday: Chain Stitch Harness! And! The Shy One Gets an A+!

 

First, a Knotty Thursday moment of sadness: Mr. Adorkable told me on Tuesday evening, a couple hours before our planned third date, that he wasn't feeling a connection. I declined his offer to be regular friends (Probably unfairly, my brain was like "Not trying to be this guy's Fat Friend.") and devoted a good chunk of the night to sobbing, asking pals for good vibes, and talking things through with The Shy One. So I guess it's really TWO A-pluses for The Shy One this post!

Pretty soon I'll write a post called "The Goodbye Boys," but til then, there are victories to report!

Because I'd assigned this tutorial to The Shy One for his chain stitch lesson, I decided to try it myself. I learned so much! Not only did I make a supercute harness, I also did a clove hitch correctly exactly once!

AND I learned how to do a one-strand braid! You can kind of see it mixed into the bottom middle of the harness. I had just the LOVELIEST night with myself.

In other loveliness news, I tested The Shy One on his square knot and overhand knot last weekend, and he did perfectly! I'm so proud!

Love.

 

We’re in a new phase of the Kitten Calendar adventure now, friends. It wasn’t an accident when the word snuck into some goodnight GIFs. The Shy One loves me back. We had deep, complicated conversations in the days following my Big Jealousy Weekend, and those eventually landed at him saying the phrase.

He loves me. I’m loved. It feels like a safety net and a bedrock and a sunny meadow and a beach day.

Being loved isn’t new of course. Though I couldn’t always be in touch with it, I’ve been surrounded by so many different kinds of love all along. Work love, art love, nature love, friend love, even the sometimes-impossible-seeming family kind of love. Sweetie-Now-BFF and I have loved each other since 2001, with no signs of dissipating. On the teetering cliffs of romance, I’ve had a strong foothold in love, maybe that’s how I grew into someone ready, or just, he was one of the very-right ones.

I’ve had so many (JEEZ so many!) connections with men that have felt fulfilling, sexy, exciting, and (from my end at least) loving, for a few weeks or a few months. Sometimes I told them I loved them after they were gone, after a this-girl-is-crazy-loving-me-after-just-a-few dates reaction was no longer a worry or concern. I’ve loved. I’ve been wanted, liked, and THOROUGHLY fucked. But this.

It feels, a rare thing in my shifting/fleeing/healing/losing heart, like the earth is steady beneath my feet. My life can be serene, or lovely, or a cyclone of emotions, or a mess, or a newly vacuumed apartment, but his love is holding still beneath it all. A harbor. A cove. A weighted blanket. I can mix as many metaphors as I want. I’m in love.

It's tempting to remind myself to stay vigilant, to wait for some imagined other shoe to drop, and it always could. But The Shy One has asked me over and over by now: Have faith. There are tricky parts, disconnects and differences to listen and squabble and evolve through. But I have a home in someone beautiful. A home in this moment.

I fell asleep with him the other night. It took several Tums and some melatonin and eventually I’m going to have to stop feeling too self-conscious to get up and have my night cereal, but for a couple of hours, I slept. Next to his beautiful, strong body, his soft hands petting me, his breath in my hair.

My cat is very shy. She usually sleeps with me, either right next to me or perched on my hip. When there’s company, she generally hides in the closet. Dates have only known her as a grey streak as she runs from the closet to her hiding place inside the couch.

But Saturday night, while I was laying blissful and awake next to The Shy One, I heard the grey cat’s claws kneeding the side of the mattress. I reached down to pet her, and she jumped up. She sat on my hip for a moment before she remembered there was a non-me person in the bed. She fled almost immediately, but still. It feels like progress.