Knotty Thursday: Thigh Roses and Shiny Sheets!

 

Yesterday I had a podiatrist appointment for my lil bone spur and got the best news a 51-year-old who has walked A LOT can get--there are exercises that might make it not hurt! Time to celebrate!

I've been thinking lately about how cute my legs and feet are. This thigh rose tie is inspired by a Rory's Brainworks design, really easy and calming!

 

Just simple ropes on top! My lingerie collection is getting a little out of control but there keep being more pretty bras!

When I ordered these sheets, I didn't realize they were shiny! I've never had shiny sheets! The sensation is so smooth and cool and slippery. I hugged my pillowcase instead of a stuffy last night!

Autistic Euphoria and The Guy Next Door, Part Six

I really wanted, as I always do, to fast-forward to friendtown. I didn't want to give myself space to let the rejection-hurt pass, I just wanted to keep being around him. But my OCD therapist gently pointed out that if I kept being around him, the feelings would just get bigger. (What happened to "maybe, maybe not," lady?!) I got really mad at her but I knew she was right. 

I texted to tell him about the spark, about needing space, about how sitting around listening to The National was not going to help me find perspective about him. He responded so kindly and so rightly! He said he'd look forward to being friends when the time is right and that he was still always up for catsitting whenever we needed him.

This was the night I was trying the mermaid wrap over and over, getting nothing but slipped loops and tangles. I HATED being called a friend and I wanted him to have seen me as desirable. OCD fired up and told me it's because I'm fat, and old, and not normal enough. OCD told me he couldn't see me, though I think in some ways he saw a me nobody else knows yet!

I texted and asked: Like, why not me? Why just friends? I retracted the question immediately, how could there ever be a satisfying answer?! I tried to call to try and smooth things over (If I'd just gone over there, would it have been more or less humiliating? The world may never know.) but just ended up leaving a short and bitchy voicemail. Not horrible, but definitely uncalled for.

I was HORRIFIED with myself. Ever since I saw Baby Reindeer  and probably before that too, I've been scared to death that I might be, deep down, a stalker. Two texts and a voicemail do not a Martha make, but I was scared RIGHT to death. I called BFF-Formerly-Sweetie to come over and mind me for the evening, to make sure I didn't do more. Definitely a little bit overkill, but having her here calmed me down.

There was more mortifying back and forth the next day, including the mistreatment of our respective artwork. (Nobody puts Ribbons in the recycle bin! That's how the Dirty Dancing line goes, right?) 

Blessedly, he'll be away for a couple weeks at a yoga retreat, and I'm so relieved to be temporarily offstage from that crush. I don't know what will come next, but I think, just like with Summer Princess, I took bad care of this connection. The time being his friend went by so fast and I wish it wasn't over already. 

I miss him and I feel afraid of him and afraid of myself. But the Autistic Euphoria was real, and I hope I can someday share it with someone in a healthier way. I've been browsing apartments to make myself feel less trapped, but this in-between feeling is sad, and there's nothing except time that can fix it.

Knotty Thursday: Yay Mermaid Wrap!

Guess what! I had a cute date Tuesday night, and it was made magical by a mistake! The bar I'd picked was closed, so the cutie and I walked a little ways--and found a little beer garden with no one in it but us! Songs were played, Hidden Folder was shown off. Not sure where it will lead but there's no better cure for tunnel vision!

I'm really proud of this tie! The last time I tried it, I was so wrecked by the (thoroughly unsurprising!) proximity of and rejection by The Guy Next Door that I couldn't find my connection to my ropes or myself. Last night was the opposite. As soon as I crated Younger Cat and tied two thirty-foot strands together, I sank into concentration in such a beautiful way. Yayyy!

Autistic Euphoria and the Guy Next Door: Part Five

 

Even though I was on edge about how to talk about (Or not talk about? Who can say?) Girlfriend Next Door, the second Art Night went even further into the magical realm of Autistic Euphoria. It's not too different from the joy of meeting someone the ropes really like! It felt so profoundly liberating to have someone to play with! He bought over his music (some complicated situation with a private server) and we played songs back and forth.

If I'm playing songs back and forth, my heart is 100% in the mix. I try to tell myself it's no big deal, but that's a lie.

I was hypervigilant for Signs He Might Like Me Back. He talked a little about Girlfriend Next Door and it didn't sound like they were that serious of a thing, but he was definitely not as touchy-feely as he'd been the previous visit. A couple of times I touched his arm for emphasis and he looked apprehensive. I can read signals from time to time, and it's concerning to me that sometimes I just want to ignore or counteract them. Maybe everybody feels like that sometimes but it makes me wonder if I'm a predator. I don't think so, but I could do better.

No polite "thanks for having me" text this time. He'd offered to watch the cats for an upcoming trip, but he didn't write back or acknowledge when I sent him the trip dates. So my brain did what it does for inscrutable texting rhythms--made it about me. Was he Backing Off or just busy.

Why, at any point, didn't I just tell him what I was feeling or ask him anything about what he wanted this connection to be? Things I could have asked if I was being true to myself at any point during our sadly abbreviated friendship:

After the first hangout: "Hey I felt a spark last night, what do you think? Any potential there?"

At any point: "Am I texting you too much or do we just have different rhythms?"

After I found out about GFNS: "Are you two poly or exclusive?"

I have these skills! I've been poly or poly-adjacent for nearly my whole adult life! But, when The Guy Next Door first came onto my radar back in August, my OCD therapist suggested I wait and let him say something if he liked me in a romantic way. This had a certain logic to it, especially since we live so close together.

So, as if the work of this blog had never existed, I'd accepted the don't-tell-him challenge. And it brought me so much pain. Probably caused him some pain too.

Autistic Euphoria and The Guy Next Door: Part Four

 

I was so busy bouncing, listening, interrupting, and picking out songs that I didn't realize he'd drawn Happy Eraserhead Baby! A moment of pure garmanbozialessness,

So after I found out about Girlfriend Next Door, I told The Guy Next Door there wouldn't be any Art Nights for a little while, but that I was happy to be friendly neighbs and wouldn't rule out hangouts in the future. I started Operation Mind My Business. I was genuinely friendly and welcoming to Girlfriend Next Door when she was housesitting, and there seemed a chance that all the crushiness might be over, that my ever-elusive dignity might stand a chance.

(Wait is the idea of dignity kind of a pain in the butt? I think maybe it is!)

But by the time he was on his way back from his trip, I just missed him. So I texted, "It's lonely here without anyone making me tea." and reinstated art night.

(Later on, a Codependents Anonymous friend would identify this choice as "abandoning myself." Maybe it was but I can't quite regret it all the way.)

Three Thursdays ago was our last Art Night. There were only two between us, not sure why my brain made it into such a ritual that it might as well be an institution! Except! Oh yeah, OCD, autism, and an acute case of twitterpatedness! I worked so hard getting the apartment ready! I agonized so hard about what to wear! Strangely, I don't remember what I did end up wearing! So weird! So rare!

(OCD Versus) Autistic Euphoria and The Guy Next Door: Part Three

Meanwhile

 After our first Art Night, The Guy Next Door texted a gentlemanly note thanking me for the evening, just like someone would do after a promising first date. Or a lovely first friend hangout! I should have just asked.

It didn't take long for OCD/trauma to take over for the euphoria feeling. I didn't WANT to devote so much of my consciousness of whether he was texting me at any given moment, but that's the illness. That 15-to-20-percent of my brain could have been used for lesson planning, for learning my knots, or literally anything else, but my brain remained fixed on the little green messages square, hoping a red number would appear. If I could have one aspect of my gorgeous neurodivergence just zapped right out, I would.

We talked in the yard sometimes, so I tried to gauge how much he would want to talk and how much he wanted to be left alone. I tried to do the insane math of how much he would want me to be out in my own yard. I'm doing a thing lately where I weed 10 minutes a day (Trying to avoid the dreaded weedwhacker!) so that kept me from hiding in my apartment and avoiding the yard entirely.

At one point, I sat in one of my Adirondack chairs to read and it broken underneath me. I have no idea if he saw, but in my head, I might as well have been onstage.

Both our sets of front windows are so big! But I felt exposed even with the blackout curtains drawn, even in the privacy of my own bed. It was hard to ever feel truly alone. I felt his presence when he was home and I missed it when he was out. I got entrained to his rhythms. I still am.

No more texts came for a few days. He missed saying happy birthday, even though I'd mentioned the date like a million times. Signals! The day after my birthday, when I was feeling satisfied but spent from my birthday adventures, news arrived.

"So it turns out that (Girlfriend Next Door) and I got back together, lol. She'll be housesitting for me this week. I hope you'll get to do some chatting, she's a delightful human being."

Things just change so fast. Sometimes I can't keep up, and this really felt like the rug being pulled out from under me.

He'd mentioned being poly, and this seemed like some poly bullshit, all of a sudden being expected to bond with her because he liked her. Or! Just some friendly neighbor stuff. I did meet her and we DID kinda bond, over his love of making hot drinks in overly complicated ways. She's curvy, chatty, femme brunette, it's possible he had a type. Or it's possible he just needed a stopgap until she came back to him. Or! Courtesy of Occam's Razor--friendship!

I didn't know what he wanted me to do or want or be, but I knew one thing--I didn't want to get tangled up with these two.

So I told him I needed to pause art nights for a bit, hunkered down to be sad about this mismatch. I truly wish I'd left it there.

Knotty Thursday: Cards Instead

 

I'm still feeling a little trapped from the Guy Next Door situation, so I don't feel ready to try the mermaid tie again. So I did what I always do when I need a little inspiration: read seven different Tarot decks!

Autistic Euphoria and the Guy Next Door: Part Two

 On Thursday evenings during the busy part of the year, I try to stop everything and make some art. Whenever I want to get to know somebody, friend or date, I invite them to join.

The Guy Next Door came across the yard to my door with a gardening book he'd picked out from one of the VERY numerous Little Free Libraries on our surrounding blocks. He showed me an illustration of a wall garden he wanted to create "for us both to enjoy."

(Ladies and gentlehumans of the kitten jury, I submit this as evidence that I wasn't crazy for thinking he might like me back! Not that you asked to see evidence!)

He sat down at my table. I played my summer camp playlist, skipping the songs that felt too emo or too harsh for the occasion. We were doing watercolors and it was just...it was so easy. He talked so freely and I felt so comforted by how open he was about his life. Divorce, love, disappointment, sobriety (of the California sort). It felt so easy to share my own stuff back without feeling like it was too much, like I was too much.

All that sharing made me powerfully smitten, so fast! I knew I couldn't fling myself at him because I wasn't ready and he's LITERALLY my next door neighbor. (In retrospect, flinging might have been the safer choice.) Instead I made plans like this:

"If I knew you better, I'd scoop you up and take you to the beach with me on Sunday. Let's stay friends for at least a year so we can have a beach day next summer. You drive so I can be high on the way home. We'll listen to Atavista by Childish Gambino."

"Okay, I can do that!" He seemed happy to be included in my weirdly specific daydream. Art night dream.

I had tickets to a little-bit-out-of-town showing of Fire Walk With Me, my favorite David Lynch movie and maybe the second-scariest movie ever. (First place goes to The Blair Witch Project.) "If I knew you better, " I said, "I'd give you my extra ticket because (BFF Formerly Sweetie) does NOT care. I see us at a David Lynch event someday, you as the Log Lady and me as... I don't know, I'll have to pick a less obscure character than I usually do."

Typing these visions of the future, they feel more than a little nutso, but I promise, he looked so happy about these plans. He was, as they say on My Brother, My Brother, and Me, playing in the space with me.

I forgot to feel embarrassment or shame for being so enthusiastic and nakedly fascinated by him. (If there had been real nakedness, I think things might have gone better. OR worse! Who knows.)

He seemed nakedly fascinated by me too. (I wonder if that was just the fact that he was higher than me. As OCD therapy would say, maybe, maybe not.) Under his gaze, I bounced. I rocked. I fell into special interest holes and he said he was happy to fall down in there with me. I was giddy with unmasking, and he seemed to be in a giggly joyful state as well. Maybe he was. Maybe it was real, at least this part.

Mostly he sat across the table from me, but sometimes he came over next to me and we sat stonedly shoulder to shoulder. When he was leaving, he gave me a hug that just crossed the boundary over to sensual--his fingers moved over my shoulders in a desire way? Or just it was that over-familiar weedy hippie-boy hug that used to send me into an anti-Platonic tizzy in my college hometown in the mid-Nineties.

Maybe my evidence isn't incontrovertible, but I really want to convince you this wasn't just me fooling myself for the millionth time.

Yet.