Perfect Emo Night With The King of Carrot Flowers, Part Two

 

We went to Favorite Diner (As opposed to Neutral First Date Diner) to catch our breath and make this extraordinary moment a little more down to earth. It helped that he was in a work text chain putting out work fires as we sat down- somehow that took the pressure off. In between fielding texts, we didn't so much catch up as immediately launch into 20-year-old inside jokes, mostly Simpsons related. Between that an an exceptional turkey club, life was a perfect dream.

I don't think it's giving away the city by saying the sky was full of ashes that night. Sorry to be glib about disaster, but the fire sky really added to the overall emo of the situation. We brought out the KN-95s, with all their attendant grief. Our eyes stung and the coral/pink sun was world-endy, but my heart was full of joy and grace anyway. I don't know what's better in this world than parking on grass and moseying toward the gates with strangers of at least three generations, probably four.

BFF Formerly Sweetie walked slow with her walking stick and this was the first time we had to rent chairs instead of sitting our old butts on the grass, but other than those things, the three of us were the three of us again. We picked up our chairs, cocktails to go with the gummies in our tummies, and three matching T-shirts. (Which we did NOT put on! My symmetry brain really wishes I'd made that photo op happen!) KOCF got the new album on vinyl and I got it on CD- I should put it in the car and let it play all fall.

The opening band was Japanese Breakfast! They were dreamy and vibe-y and I liked how their gong was outlined in blue lights.

One of the first songs Death Cab played was This Is the New Year, which made me sob so openly and productively. Partly because I associate it with The Guy Next Door, but mostly because yes, YES! It's not the past. KOCF isn't lost anymore, and long-suffering Sweetie is now relievedly BFF. And we were at a concert, the home-est home you can get while surrounded by strangers. (Oh, boy, do I love strangers sharing a thing. Collective effervescence!!!!)

I promise I wasn't super intoxicated, except maybe by friend love, when my favorite part happened. They were playing Different Names for the Same Thing, and I looked around and saw it- there wasn't really any separation between any of us. Not between us or the chairs or Ben Gibbard or Japanese Breakfast's gong. OMG the Unified Field braving the smoky sky to visit my head this beautiful night. Everything, even the obscured skyline, even all my bitchy mistakes over the years, became unseparated for a little while. Ahh.

When KOCF came to my place to spend the night, I felt a deep carefulness. I want to never not be friends again, want to make sure I don't slip into stupid limerence any more times. I never want him to be not in my life again. The next day, we did ordinary things like go to my neighborhood cafe. I loved having him here. The cats loved having him here. BFF Formerly Sweetie loved having him here. I would please like this friendship to last and last and last: It might just be the best kind of love.

The Perfect Emo Night With King of Carrot Flowers, Part One

 I was panicking in the car when BFF Formerly Sweetie and I were on the way to the train station to pick up King of Carrot Flowers, our best friend from when we were first married, whom we hadn't seen in about twenty years. The feelings were too much! One of the great loves of my twenties, whom I'd (on brand from way back) alienated with a crush. No, by feeling so much love for him that I went around woozy until he very kindly told me he wasn't a sharer. I couldn't accept it and picked a fight I feel very stupid about. It was in like 2006 or 2007 but I was as embarrassed as though no time had past.

"Why did I think this was a good idea?!" sobbed 2026 me. Seeing Death Cab for Cutie with a long lost friendlove?! It was too much, this was terrible, how was I ever gonna get through this? Twenty years of feelings, Snoqualmie Falls-ing out all at once, in a 7-11 parking lot on the way to the train station.

I got myself together and went in to meet his train. (At this train station, I also dropped off Perfectly 1993 guy, in 1994, after a post-breakup visit, bittersweet in a babydoll dress, longjohns, and thrifted combat boots. And these days, it's where I pick up my niece when she comes into town for a concert! I love this train station so much.)

King of Carrot Flowers, when I finally saw him, was exactly the same. The curly red/blonde hair. The striped white shirt he picked up in his travels, with a fish embroidered on the sleeve. A goofy grin promising all the inside jokes from both 20 years ago and recently--everything was there, not lost at all but strolling into my city a little late for lunch.

Bitterness and Giddiness, Part One

 

Throughout the whole one million years year that I’ve been broken up with The Shy One (Two months longer than we’d been together! I feel so impatient with this process!) I feel like I maintained some sort of dignity about the situation. At least, as much dignity as one can have while writing a million paragraphs and creating however-many art projects about a beloved ex a guy who dumped me right before Valentine’s Day.

I’ve been so strong, even with the Christmas mushroom gummies and the letters and the unblockings and reblockings and the endless wondering what to do with the just-not-my-style jewelry set he brought me back from his trip home. (Resolved: Even though if I wore it I would look like a deranged, appropriating haunt from the Island of the Well-Meaning-White Ladies, it’s beautiful and special and I’m keeping it. I’ll probably hang the earrings on the Christmas tree next year.) I’ve had, for the most part, willpower. Sometimes I was a bitch, sometimes just unbearably nakedly needy, but still, with some underlying dignity.

Until this year’s Valentine’s Day. I blame the movie Valentine’s Day—it’s a fave, but this Valentine’s lunch time, it really twisted the knife. Maybe it was a knife that needed twisting.

There’s this part where Bradley Cooper is telling Julia Roberts about his breakup and she says something like:

“Nothing to be done?”

And that just struck the saddest chord on the lobby piano in the overpopulated hotel that is my heart. I STILL think there’s something I could have done, some part of me I could have folded up and put away (Maybe in with the Christmas ornaments?) so that he wouldn’t have left me. In the background of all the love and joy and growth and vexation of time moving forward, my brain is still whirring away on that puzzle. I sincerely hope it will stop doing that someday.

I decided to be sad for a few minutes on the way to my evening job. I’d (Fit of well-being! Optimism! The life changing magic of tidying up my Spotify lists!) deleted my Grief Walk mix but, uh, luckily? There was this new single from Usher featuring Burna Boy, Coming Home. It devastated me all the way to my bones. It made me want to find The Shy One and just let him consume me until there was nothing left. I looked up the lyrics and it says “not just leave you for dead.” But metaphorically that’s what I wanted, to be so deep in shock and love and sex as to evaporate all the way to heaven and stay there this time, not drift back to reality and a Shy One QUICKLY getting his pants on to go, that last time.

It's fine, I can drive to work and self-immolate at the same time!

I knew there couldn’t be any seeking-out-and-being-consumed, so I did something maybe even less advisable—I looked at his Instagram in the few minutes before work started. There wasn’t much to see there, but there was this:

March 15, 2023, a little more than a month after we broke up. A stupid, generic meme saying “That feeling when everything’s just coming together.”

I know he wasn’t posting it AT me, but fuck you, dude. While I was raking the back terrace listening to fucking A Grief Observed, while I was going back to Unitarian Church to feel less isolated and alone, while I was planning to commemorate our first date/the first day of Ramadan with a street art project, his life had found exactly where it needed to be, at least in that moment of posting.

And I’m so mad at myself because the feeling he was having in that basic-as-fuck meme, it’s a feeling I wish for him! For everyone I love. It’s a great fucking feeling that everyone deserves. Resenting him for that moment of epiphany makes me seem so curdled and rotten, and in that moment, I was.

I reunlocked his WhatsApp thread and sent at desperate and devastated few questions, followed, not too long later, by an “Oops, please disregard.”

Frilly Friday: Oh, Thoughtful Guy!

 

I’m not sure why anyone wants to date a lady who is doing a whole art project based mostly on Christmas presents from a beloved ex, but sometimes they do! Hooray!

Thoughtful Guy is Cuuuute. We haven’t had our first date yet (Sunday!) and he’s already asked about the second one.

When I turned the apps back on a few weeks ago, one of the guidelines I came up with alongside Summer Therapist was: LOOK FOR THE BANTER.

Heck yeah! Thoughtful Guy earned his name by being a wonderful texter. He’s full of information about his days and he asks deep questions (and regular questions) about me. He’s reading The Kitten Calendar, which I find equal parts touching and mortifying: SO many feelings! Oh well. He has a podcast, so it’s kinda fair.

He was my text company for Lingerie Night on Wednesday. It wasn’t a sexting session, just getting to know each other. It was vulnerable and bittersweet.

These Rihanna undies are the most heartache-inducing member of the frillies collection. That Christmastime date to the Fancy Garden, coming home to open presents, the shocking feeling of so many pleasures and pretty things all at once.

It’s a little sad that I can feel the forward motion away from TOS, the long and shaky process of letting him be in the past. It’s scary and sometimes I worry that I’m headed right back into heartbreak, that one wrong move could stumble me into a new tearful relationship and six long months of grief.

Also, I’m happy! Life is so cool right now and I wish TSO was here to cheer me on. I guess he is, in my heart, as long as I keep leaving him where he belongs—six moons ago and counting.

Thoughtful Guy just kept being thoughtful until it was time to sleep. He sent a selfie of him and his nesting partner that made my heart overflow with joy.

It’s almost Virgo Season, friends, and it’s time to be hopeful.

Dear Ribbons! My Date Will Be Here in Ten Minutes Annnnnddddd…

 

Trust the Pink Haze of Horniness!

If you would like some heartfelt and experienced-but-nonexpert advice and love, etiquette, grief, self-compassion, and/ or what emojis to use, please write to me! Email thekittencalendar@gmail.com and put Dear Ribbons in the subject line. I promise to love you and your story, and to steer us both/all towards optimism, self-love, liberation, hope, and hotness!

Dear Ribbons,

I have a super exciting date coming up with a cutie I met while traveling who is coming to visit my town. I’m monogamous and they’re not, but we both are interested in casual but ongoing sex. I checked my date’s Feeld and it said they’re looking to hookup with people in [my city]. I know they’re poly but I was more hurt than I expected to be? Even though I’m also on this dating app! I am trying to get my emotions together and close down the tiny part of me that was like ‘it would be cool to really date someone like this.’

 

Help?

 

Love,

Can I Please Just Get (Safely!) Tied Up?

 

First and foremost!! No closing down any parts of you, no matter how tiny! I’m glad you listened to your heartful hesitance and sent me the question! It is, as my Gen-Z niece would say, extremely valid!

 

We’ll get back to the heartfelt hesitance in a bit, but first let’s get your ass out the door!

 

It’s so vexing, isn’t it, that the cuties in our lives would be attracted to ANYONE but us! Look at us! We’re so cute! But even if this weren’t a poly/casual date, we don’t get any claim on the rest of their weekend. I know! What the heck, right? There’ll be time to figure out what it all means, what you mean to each other, how often you’ll find “work trips” to take to their town, etc.

 

But this is not that time! Get your body near the cute person and see what you feel! Trust in the pink glow of horniness to guide you forward for now!

 

(If this were a situation where exclusivity might eventually be on the table, I’d say have that conversation about five to seven dates in, unless you get a strong intuition about it before that. If you’re me, you’d know faster probably!)

 

Back to the “it would be cool to really date someone like this.” part—pay attention to that information. Start making a mental collage about what a lovely relationship would look like. Learn by doing, by stepping into grey areas, by listening to what your mind, body and spirit tell you about this particular person and about partnerships in general. Trust yourself!

 

Whether this particular connection sparks or fizzles today or in six weeks or in ten years, try to remember that dating is something you’re doing for yourself, rather than an assessment of your worth or charm. It’s way easier said than done, but it’s a reframe that will ease the inevitable anxious moments of dating.

 

Somewhere, my Summer Therapist applauds the advice I’ve just given you and also myself.

 

Worth and Charm Forever,

Pretty Ribbons

Knotty Thursday: Heart Update and (Sort of) Hishi Karada

When The Shy One came over for our second date on Monday night (He brought Hershey Kisses and two kinds of wine. We painted watercolors together! What a dear.) I didn’t want to spend too much time on the ropes, gorgeous as we both looked in them. (He did such a good job putting a harness on me for the first time!) With The Shy One, it’s much less about the kink than about the CUDDLING. He’ll hurt me when I ask him to, and he doesn’t mind getting spanked (Oh! Just the cutest butt in the universe! Have I said that before? Are all the butts the cutest butt in the universe? Probably.) but mostly, it’s the CARESSES. He’s a very snuggly sweetheart, and that’s his pet name, Sweetheart—he is decidedly NOT a Boy.

The Shy One kisses, fucks, and communicates with the extremely welcome attention to detail of a happily married man. I want to send his wife a thank-you note for every one of his expert kisses. OH, the KISSES.

Today, I’m a little jangled because it’s sinking in that I *like* him just as he needs to disappear for a month. (Just physically disappear, he’ll still be able to send texts and adorable Bitmojis of the two of us and maybe even call sometimes.) I won’t see him for most-if-not-all of April because of Ramadan. I admire the commitment and tradition so much, but also I cried a little bit about it this morning.

Which is silly. Because this is all good news! I like a good man with a kind heart and a solid foundation—yay!

Back to his visit Monday night. For a tiny little while, after paintings and ropes and sex and me making nervous jokes about our music choices having too many feelings, he pulled my hand up over his heart and fell asleep. I’m not allowed to joke about the feelings-y music anymore because “All I Need Is a Miracle” came on my spring playlist. Because of course it did.

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.

 

 

 

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: 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.

A Brief Match with Gilmore Guy

After hearing it recommended on the How to Do It podcast, I gave Feeld a try and felt at home pretty much right away—leading with ropes brings a lot of joy and inspiration to the sometimes-demoralizing process of chatting/vetting/ flirting with strangers! I’m hoping I’ll have some adventures to report before too long. Wish me luck!

Anyway so they give you the premium thing for a little while when you first join, where you can see who liked you already. And there was Gilmore Guy! He had pressed like! Even though the last time I saw him I was full-on yelling at him for underestimating Kamala Harris and being pessimistic about 2018 midterms. (We were kind of both right, but have you seen the House of Representatives since then?!)

I felt incredulous, but curious too—had he meant to press like after that debacle? Was he one of those swipe-right-on-everybody-and-then-figure-out guys?

I really hoped his like was sincere, and my imagination/nostalgia kind of ran away with me. Seeing his picture, all swoony eyes and meticulous locs and proffering a definitely bespoke cocktail, I wanted to just tell him to come over here, watch some (Come on, it’s not that bad!) Season Seven, and get tangled up in his warmth and tenderness and attention to detail and overlook the mansplaining a little better this time.

So I wrote the first note, and the second, first just asking him how he was and then apologizing for being so harsh back in 2018. I felt off and longing-y when he didn’t write back, and when he unmatched the next day without saying anything, it will surprise no one that I felt wistful and hurt. An ache in my heart as if our four-or-five dates were last month instead of an utterly world-shifting four years.

And I was sad, yes, but also impressed with the way the connection still lives in my body, the warmth I still have for that relatively brief try back then. When I got the (His Name) has left the chat notification, it broke my heart just a little, and I’m honestly kind of glad it did.

 

Knotty Thursday: In the General Direction of Mermaidness

 

I had a post all ready to go about how I was too SAD to practice ropes again today (The loneliness of the past two years has really been walloping-me-not-in-the-good-way lately!) But then I got annoyed with myself and decided to finish untangling the purples before work. Something about the rhythm of working/unworking the knots in the tangles put me in more of a let's-give-it-a-try place, so the MINUTE I was done with work tonight I went upstairs, lit some candles, pressed play on the lo-fi mix, and made this.

I had another length of rope to add, but by the time I was making the larks head to attach it, I started to get a little loopy. So I used the rest of the purple to make a lovely harness (That picture is just for me!) that I eventually figured out I could loop to the bedpost. A nice. long self-ravishment ensued.

The lesson here, I guess, is when in doubt, untangle. 

Knotty Thursday: Untangling

 

I know letting go of the things that don’t work makes way for more awesomeness. That’s even one of my affirmations for this year! I have been doing a pretty good job moving forward, cheerfully doing my swiping and “Good morning”ing on the apps and smiling at most of the people I see out in the world. Of course, if I’m inside, I’m smiling with just my eyes because Omicron is a jerk.

But in my heart, I haven’t let go of This Charming Man. We haven’t had contact since day of the ill-fated Fancy Garden trip, but most of the time I low-key wish I could just go wait on his porch until he comes home. Or even-

He keeps an open cage with a blanket in it on his porch for when his favorite half-feral cat comes to visit. I don’t think cats need pseudonyms, his name is Hank. I sometimes want to shrink down to Hank-size and curl up in there for This Charming Man. Not to be any less wild myself, just to be near him. Even just to be near the idea of him.

The afternoon of the Winter Solstice, freshly un-quarantined from a blessedly mild breakthrough Covid infection, I went to the Fancy Gardens on my own to feel some awe at the Christmas lights and commune with the places along the way where that November 11^th seventh date fell apart. In those places, it wasn’t just heartbreak that filled me up, but also a solemn acknowledgement. Those places, even the Kohl’s parking lot on the way there where I cried because he told me he never thinks about people when they aren’t around, felt (annoyingly) important.

“You’re shaking” he said that day as he held me in the front seat of my car, close but already unreachable. I was shaking. My love and loss were profound.

“I was so careful this time,” But I really wasn’t. What even IS careful when there are ropes and bodies and pasts and politics and deadly diseases and painful scars and cultural gaslighting?

What even IS careful when I’d spent however-many months not touching or being touched at all? When elbow high-fives, even as mathematically inaccurate as they are, had become a normal and welcome thrill?

I wasn’t careful. I got tangled up and it was way too beautiful to regret.

But I hope it won’t be too long before I can leave the cozy open cage of love and venture openhearted into new adventures. Maybe I’ll swipe right on the right smile tomorrow or maybe it’ll be a long, longingful year—there’s only so much about my heart’s fate that I can control. For now, I’m just a little bit waiting for him all the time. Sometimes, a silent little prayer of “Please come back” reverberates inside my head. I know it shouldn’t, but it does.

I sent away for these ropes in an optimistic fit of pre-New-Years mise en place. They came with a weird industrial smell so I put them in a pillowcase and threw them in the washer. Of course they came out of their neat coils and got all inter-tangled.

So this Knotty Thursday, I’m untangling the new topes and melting the ends so they won’t unravel, or so they’ll unravel less. Next week I might be a mermaid, or my own bunny, or just a lady who is somewhat better at a particular knot. Happy New Year! <3 <3 <3

Actual Casual Sex Part Three: The Kinda Emo Part

I’ve been thinking a lot about what the word “romantic” actually means to me and in this particular case I think it means being all fizzy and lonesome from no-cuddling-but-very- competent stranger sex and getting a hankering to tell my hot unavailable friend all about it. I wanted to tell The Coach about the hookup in detail to get him off, but I also just wanted to confide and get his perspective. Plus, there’s a story between us, however mismatched, and I wanted some grounding.

I sent the text to The Coach at 11:11. (Didn’t time it that way on purpose.) I even checked this time if I was interrupting some other lady’s evening, and he said I wasn’t.

He was slutty/sweet/curious, instructive and encouraging. I opted not to get explicit, but I liked telling him this new adventure. After I was pretty sure he’d fallen asleep, I confessed that if I was gonna casual anyway, I wished I’d casualed more with him.

When I woke up the next day, I saw that The Coach had texted at 4:33 AM and offered, you know, some more casualing.

I asked about friends with benefits, and that was fine with him. I don’t know what that means, really, or if it’ll result in any more adventures with The Coach, but I like that door being left open, even as it also makes me want to jump out of my skin. If nothing else, it would be really nice to have somebody besides my ex-wife to talk about my sex-life with! (I don’t give her much info, but I’m pretty sure it’s more detail than she’d like!)

As for Casual Guy, I’m grateful. I liked his instructions, his sweet voice, his unequivocal fucking. I needed it so much.

With all this adventure in the past month or so, of course there are also triggers to care for. The line between arousal and anxiety has always been shifty for me. I would like to spend some time being extra kind to myself, give myself space to think and feel and crush and process. (And get back to learning my knots!) And then I would like MORE PLEASE, UNIVERSE, if you don’t mind.

 

 

 

Perfectly 1993 Guy Part Ten: The Long Goodbye

 

After I put him on that birthday afterglow bus, I lived in the glow for a few days or a few weeks. I sat in my post-high-school job at Burger King (I would pretty much do anything to avoid a challenging job interview. Plus I’ve always loved tedium and discounted snacks!) daydreaming about his warm skin and soft hair and to-be-continued mixtape, looking out the drive thru window in a happy haze between customers. But then, just as the word “temporary” had derailed a lovely afternoon of our visit, three little words out of my face closed off whatever I thought might come next with him.

 

“I need you,” I found myself saying into my yellow landline phone. I would very much like to go back and unsay it, even if the results would still have been the same.

 

“You need me?” he wasn’t being harsh, just a little incredulous. “I can’t be…needed right now.”

 

His reasons were sound and to be expected, but that didn’t make the conversation any less devastating. He had just started college. There were girls there with purple hair and he wanted to be free to live his college life. Totally valid! But my heart both deflated and exploded into a fine, sad, messy mist.

 

For some reason, his guilt or my sentiment or both or just love, we decided to keep my planned visit a couple weeks after the breakup. To say goodbye I guess. I met the purple-haired girl there—I remember her name being Sloane but it’s possible she had only recommended the BAND Sloane to him. (“She was underwhelmed if that’s a word, I know it’s not ‘cause I looked it up, that’s one of the skills I learned in my schoooooool.”) She left Perfectly 1993 Guy and me alone to lay in his tiny dorm room, on a pleasingly narrow twin bed.

 

We stayed spooned up in that bed for a long time. I looked out the window at the pretty campus feeling romantically achey. The Get Up Kids wouldn’t be invented for two more years, but it was maybe the most emo weekend of my life. That is REALLY saying something.

 

We decided to go see a Dead Milkmen show a couple of hours away from campus by train. The club was at the beach so things did NOT get less emo despite the very silly music. As we walked from train to club to beach, he got grumbly because I was walking too close and kept walking into him. Nonetheless, I put my head in his lap and rested on the train ride back. I wanted him to be hard beneath my sleepy cheek so I would know his desire for me had been real. I was vigilant for it but don’t remember the results being decisive. What a sign to look for.

 

In his dorm room he had a childhood teddy bear named Clyde and I decided to take him home with me for consolation. He was a pretty big bear, dark brown with one of those really sincere faces that stuffed animals sometimes have. Perfectly 1993 Guy told me years later that he hadn’t wanted me to take Clyde, he just hadn’t known what to say. I feel such a longing to know what happened to Clyde, to hug him tight. (Confession: For the past few months I’ve slept with a stuffed peacock named Nancy, a platonic I-was-having-a-hard-day-post-attempted-coup gift from Sweetie.)

 

We tried to be friends, especially when I came that winter to a school a few hours away from his. I knew every day of my short photography school life (With darkrooms! And chemicals! Glad I tried it while I still could.) how close Perfectly 1993 Guy was by train. My first night at school, I used a big handful of change to call and let him know I had arrived. After a couple of will-we-or-won’t-we visits (More chaste, longing spooning with a little wrestling thrown in? Odd.) things got too snitty and he stopped taking my calls.

 

I called him a truly reprehensible number of times for a couple of months, including on Valentine’s night surrounded by the mylar balloons of my roommates’ more successful relationships. I imagined the phone ringing and ringing and ringing in that tiny room, knowing purple-haired girl would think I was pathetic. I definitely was.

 

Aside from nicely saucy letters from Pagan Boy, (RIP) my loneliness that winter and spring was abject. Eventually, by some miracle, Perfectly 1993 Guy did pick up the phone and we went comfily to a fantastic King Missile show where I got to hug John S. Hall and accidentally poke him with my spiky bracelet. (Another object I’s just LOVE to have today. Wonder how it’s doing?) We saw each other a few more friendly times but he was one of the few old friends/flames who didn’t make the real-life-to-MySpace-etc transition. I looked him up on LinkedIn a couple years ago. Without his Eddie Vedder hair he looks like a regular person, a regular BEAUTIFUL person.

 

I never won’t miss him. I’ll never forget that Bee Girl moment of being loved by him, of being wanted. It both went by so fast and lasted my whole life, like so many of the stories I tell you here. Thanks for listening dears, I’m all wistful and grateful.

Quarantine Crush Part Seven

Just a few weeks of poems and songs. Writing with QC was amazing, a reunion with him and with California and with myself. I’d given up poetry for all kids of good and bad reasons, and it felt so good for my brain to start working in those patterns again. The joy of taking a heap of disparate images apart and putting them back together again into something that makes, if not sense, then its own version of sense.

With the poetry and the songs and the chitchat and the Zoom came the LONGING, powerful enough to make me sob, and the grief. The pain of leaving my friends twenty years ago felt fresh  and as I waited for the next text or poem, the missing him, the missing ALL of them but especially him, almost physically hurt. Okay, it did, a little bit, physically hurt.

I wanted us never to have been apart, or to catch up all at once, or for us to keep writing together forever (not just til quarantine ended and we went back to our lives) or to toss all of the metaphors out the window and just say stuff. Like Carly Rae, I wanted to cut to the feeling. I guess that’s what I’m doing now.

I thought, in those dreamy, jangled, waiting-for-the-phone-to-buzz nights (better than thinking about death tolls or presidential gaslighting or maternal gaslighting or the fact that I’m going to gave to canvass for Joe Biden or that there’s always a new how-many-fingers to know…) about dancing with QC at my wedding way back when. It was the only few minutes of my life I can honestly think of as getting “swept off my feet,” a surprise jolt of happiness as clear as any of the best naked adventures. QC was the only man every to truly LEAD me on the dance floor or anyplace, for that matter. The giddy delight of letting his arms guide me. Feeling like…whoa. I mean, WHOA and laughing in glittery delight. (Yep just gonna say delight too many times.)

Truly a moment that made me realize, both in 2003 and in 2020, what I’d missed in not at least having tried to claim him. Most of my Sliding-Doorsiness has worn off by now, but ohboy. I know (partly) missed out on someone so special and super, super hot. All of the Doms and Masters and Tops in this blog so far (Still so much thanks guys!) had a tenuous, theatrical command, just playacting compared to that dance. I wonder if I’ll ever feel led like that again, if I’ll ever let anyone. I hope so.

(The writing side of this being led, the part where my brain tried to make me think I needed his permission to write poems, that part wasn’t so fun. But that’s on me.)

The longing, the time-slip, the time-travel wishes were all too much after a while, but it felt too gorgeously life-affirming to give up. Mixed in with the dreaminess was the covid fear making everything so much more fraught—if he wasn’t writing back, did that mean he was dead? There wasn’t really any way for me to know, and I was sure no one would think to tell me. I wished I could ask for all of his emergency contacts, and all of THEIR emergency contacts, and so on. It wasn’t making the normal serotonin-drop of crushes any easier to navigate.

Sometimes I thought I knew what was going on for a second. Some of the songs that he sent were so explicitly romantic that I would hold out my phone to no one or to the cats and ask “Are you HEARING this?” Where is a slumber party when you need it?

Then, he wrote a very good poem wherein he was in a lot of danger, past and present, and I felt heart-wrenched and helpless toward those dangers. For some reason, that meant it was time to ask if he meant the songs. I told him I DID mean the songs, then tried to sleep while I waited to hear back.

Quarantine Crush (Because of Course) Part Six

By the time QC and I started chatting again, my Big East Coast City had been on lockdown for a month. I’d lost my morning job and (I hope temporarily) lost 2/3 of my client-hours from my own business. I was worried that all the work I’d put in building a life for myself would disappear forever, and like everybody else, I was worried that somebody I loved might die. I had Sweetie to hug, high five, and talk to, but having an ex-wife as a quarantine buddy has its own fears and strains.

My mom, a state away, wasn’t social distancing and my Trumpish Favorite Aunt had no problem trolling me about it. “Who dies, dies.” said Favorite Aunt in a text, presumably meaning herself, her grandkids, my mom, whoever. Meanwhile, mom shifted into full-tilt gaslighting mode, suggesting that I might be causing coronavirus or at least making it worse with my fear.

I wanted to be Helpful Science Person and try to stem the tide of disinformation, but a stop by a semi-estranged cousin’s facebook page convinced me that reaching out to most of my family was futile. I felt hurt and panicked and irresponsible to know that there are some places truth and science just can’t reach.

But, for all of those sad scared feelings, I knew I was safe. The flowering trees in the neighborhood were just going completely bonkers, I had books and funny podcasts and watercolors. In my neighborhood, people had been putting up rainbows everywhere for kids to find on their walks.

One Sunday afternoon, I’d just finished doing some melancholy/cheering work errands while driving around singing George Michael’s Faith at the top of my lungs, and I decided to take a nice fast walk. When guess what!! The friend who was soon to be QC texted and said he wanted to be writing more. I’d wanted to be in touch with him better for a good long while, and I wanted to keep writing too, so I suggested writing something together. By the time I got home from my walk, I had a poem!

Writing to/for/with him was easy and fun at first! It gave me such a joyful feeling of completeness, an oasis of oh! This makes sense! In a life that felt like helplessness and chaos a lot of the time, what a pleasure to just let something new sprout and exist! The first one I wrote wasn’t even really a poem so much as it was just listing off a series of things that made me feel grumpy, but he took it and ran with it, someplace good.

There was no reason this had to be about falling for him. Maybe if I hadn’t included a link to a (completely uncute, unflirty) song in one of the poem emails, (It was William Shatner covering “Common People,” seriously the un-woo-ing-est song) and he hadn’t mentioned that he was listening to an album with the most wildly sentimental first song (see above), then maybe I’d still be all cool and friendly and writing all the poems.

(But probably not.) (And not that I’ve ever been cool in any way.)

Nevertheless, songs were exchanged, and the time difference between us meant that he might have been offhandedly sending links between work tasks or palling around with other folks while I was in bed all swoony and cozy and susceptible. Not everything was sincere and moony, but he’s much more folky/songwritery than I am. It was easy, with his song choices, to slip into  mostly-chaste twenty-years-ago-love without (all-the-way) meaning to, but also not really minding.

It was only a few nights, really, of waiting for the buzz of my phone, listening a couple times, knowing exactly what to send next, then dozing with a warm, briefly untroubled heart. I forgot, I guess, that that kind of thing is like a nine-millionth-date to my emo self. I got my heart into a little bit of a tangle.

Quarantine Crush (Because of Course) Part Four

The couple of days I spent staying with QC before heading back east are two of my favorite days of ever—like a charmed bubble of time when I could love and be loved, be nowhere and everywhere. It was the distilled feeling of being perfectly free and perfectly cared for.

His arm around me that night as we sat on his front stoop looking up at the few stars we could see.

His hand warm on my shoulder.

Dozing in his bed next to him listening to bluesy songs.

It was perfect. It was perfect love. That I could only let myself love him all the way once my bags were packed and waiting in his living room, I guess that says something about me.

Like the Boy Who Sewed Me a Pillow story, that weekend means so much partly because it was so (in this case vexingly) chaste.

To be treated with such care.

To be given absolutely every heart thing by a man who expected nothing in return, who let me just lay there next to him and be. To have let myself do the same.

I have to believe that feeling can exist again out in the world for me, but with someone who isn’t just-friends or star-crossed or whatever. (And with constant kissing and him knowing all the knots.)

I would definitely ravish now-QC if it were possible, (It isn’t, for a variety of reasons.) but even if I had Sex Tardis technology I wouldn’t change any little thing about that weekend in 2001. I can’t think of a more perfect example of love-from-a-masculine-person—I’d never rewrite it.

And then QC and QC’s Adorable Co-Host took me to the train or the bus or whatever and said goodbye. I looked for signs and poems in the midnight lights as I rose away from unconditional love, and toward it, too.

In a few days, my brother would pick me up at the Small East Coast City bus station, lugging my life and a box of tomatoes from our Iowa Grandpa. I’d move into my sister’s old room at my mom and stepdad’s house, to live with the three of them until I figured out what to do next.

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.