Knotty Thursday! Chain Stitch Corset Kind of!

 

Yesterday was such a lovely day! Guess what! I went to yoga for the first time since pre-pandemic! And I can still sort of do most of the things! I took it as easy as possible and listened to my body's boundaries, it felt so good. The teacher pulled me an oracle card that told me to jump into adventure, but tiptoeing seems like a good strategy for now!

For tope night, chose this one to try, a pretty chain-stitch rope dress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTqfIEI-TXA I've done aspects of it before and I definitely want to try again. I know I can make an alpine loop but for some reason, I just got stuck! I watched and tried it so many times, looked it up in my rope book to see if that would help, but I just kept ending up with a handful of confusion. I had to move on or OCD would have swooped in and wrecked the occasion.

Instead, I made something pretty and got on with my night--I'm so proud. I love thinking of progress as a spiral, where things don't work and then sometimes, the next time around, they do! Just like those things I'm re-learning in yoga.

Perfectionism is always lurking, always here to stop me from moving the tiniest bit forward. But little steps forward in faith, I think that's the way to go.

Sex, Love, and The Shy One, Part Three

 

Sex, Love, and The Shy One, Part Three

I want to try and remember, the way our bodies loved each other so easily, traversed all the very real distances between us and bridged the gap. Together. The most possible together.

The warmth of him. The way he gave himself to me wholly and (almost) without reservation. When he held my hand, my hand felt home, it felt made to be there, folded into infinity, across ages, across universes, folded into whatever divine thing made him. The best possible hands, the best possible me, glowing with light and safety and hope and wholeness.

And the kisses, slipped together and seamless.

Last time I quoted Lottie, this time it’s Lettie. In the bonkers treasure that is Fast X, Michelle Rodrigues says to Vin Diesel something like “If you spend too much time looking in that rearview, there’s things you might miss…like eternity.” But eternity doesn’t work that way, Lettie! Eternity is everywhere and everything and always, you can’t face toward it or away from it, it wraps you up and winds you into the solidness of being, grounds you to the center of the universe and doesn’t let go. Eternity holds your hand. Is this the purple-est prose ever inspired by a The cars..they drift! Movie? I don’t know. All those big, big explosions.

The Shy One only slept over a handful of times, and each time, no matter how many times I’d gotten off (SO MANY) it was so hard to sleep next to him. I was wound up tight with excitement and wonder, not wanting to miss any chance to feel him breathing next to me. Mostly, I slept after he left in the early morning, exhausted and glowing. The sadness of him leaving so quick only occurred to me after I woke up. There should have been a way for him to stay and make me pancakes, but there was always the beautiful pull of home.

It wasn’t all a starfield of bliss. Once, he grabbed my hand to show me how he wanted his penis stroked, impatience and contempt glimmering through him in a way that made me wonder if I’d been doing it all wrong all along, if there was only one meant-for-him person in the world who knew how to do it right.

When I wrote the first draft of these paragraphs, my heart just melted and filled with peace: My darling just wanted to go home. I wish I’d found a way to be kinder about it, and kinder to myself about it. I wish, wish, wish I could have been a kind of home for him, that someday I’ll be that kind of home for somebody new. Somebody mine.

I got self-conscious sometimes about my blowjob skills. I worried aloud once that I was bad at it and I think he actually agreed. He could have meant “Yes, I know you’re self-conscious about it.” Or “Yes, you’re bad at sex.”

Given time, and maybe less judgement, I could have learned. I want to have that part of intimacy, where you take your time learning somebody’s body, letting him learn yours. Every pairing or constellation is a new beginning, and I hope for many more chances to learn.

This morning, I can see myself there in the middle of my biggest dream, maybe being bad at blowjobs, definitely fucking it up in other ways, and feel peace. Today, just for a little while, I’m tuned into my eternity wavelength, past present and future and never and nowhere all at once. Stillness and peace and ungrasping love. Something like acceptance.

OMG These Presents.

Please note that this box was sealed with red heart stickers.

The last time I had a boyfriend, (“Fiancé” actually, but that just seems bananas.) I’d just turned twenty-one. That’s twenty-six years ago and even then, it felt unreal. When girls-then-women liked me, that made sense, but I had a deep down understanding that a guy would never like me romantically. In fact, my mom, during my teenage years or maybe early adulthood told me “I guess no one will ever love us.” when I was fretting about some unrequited thing or other. I don’t know why my brain A. Took this pronouncement as irrefutably true and B. Decided she just meant men. Trauma? Abuse? Some warped loyalty to mom? Bi erasure? All of those things?

So it was easy to believe it when my first girlfriend and I got close, and my marriage to BFF-Formerly-Sweetie made all the sense in the world, except when it didn’t. The three young men who various-amounts-of-loved-me in my teen years felt a universe away almost immediately, framed in my mind as important but always destined to be lost. (Two of the three were very not gone, it turned out, until stupid jerk covid took Pagan Boy away last year.)

This persistent disbelief about male attraction wasn’t about fat. I’ve always (well, mostly always) seen myself as beautiful. It just felt like other women knew how to be with men, the secret code words or something. As you know by now, I’ve evolved unrequited affection into one of my most central art mediums, at least as formative to my soul as watercolors or photography.

In eighth grade, the school sold carnations for Valentine’s Day, pink, red, and white. (I am Tina Belcher, hear me roar.) I so much wanted to be a getter-of-flowers, to be seen by a crush or by anybody. I mooned and cried at the lunch table. Then a guy at the next table, an acquaintance’s big brother, gave me one pink carnation, stemless and clearly regifted. I don’t know if it was a kindness or a low-key prank, but either way he never talked to me again.

The Boy Who Sewed Me a Pillow was incredibly generous. Perfectly 1993 Guy and Pagan Boy sent mixtapes long after we weren’t together. Oh boy the late nights up late with the Stone Roses and that Jane’s Addiction b-side, like, how is this an EX’s mixtape, with all the “I wanna be adored” and “I would for you…”

Before I get derailed looking up more Nineties deep cuts, let me finally get to the point:

Last Monday, The Shy One showed up for our immediately-post-Ramadan date beautiful and a little nervous-seeming and still masked from the Uber-ride. With a gift bag that said “Enjoy every moment!” on it. Flowery lotions and perfume. Bright, perfectly-fruit-scented candles. An electric wine opener I absolutely did not need but will now keep forever. And this cup and spoon:

I can't even.

Seriously, DO YOU SEE THE SPOON?! That’s what I’ve been picturing this week as I gently guide my mind away from Gilead-themed draft opinion panic. That spoon just exists a little more than other objects do, like the Hope Diamond does, like my magenta ropes do.

It’s not just the presents, of course, that inspired me to ask him to be my boyfriend by the end of the night. I’m feeling private for now about all the superhot parts, but maybe I’ll get them down sometime soon. Like the meditation-inspiring spoon, all the gifts felt grounding, somehow both lavishly romantic and straightforwardly attuned to what’s real. Like him. There’s such a solidity to his affection, an uncomplicated generosity, an ease. The Shy One does for my spirit what the ropes do for my body. I don’t really know how to be a boyfriend’s girlfriend, but he makes me feel brave enough to try.

Knotty Thursday: Square Knot Harness

 

OMG sorry so blurry! I promise I'll do a better job next time!

This week was a LOT in both miraculous (boyfriend!) and devastating (Gilead!) ways so I was tempted to put up a TBT and skip the learning this week. But of course, as soon as I started scrolling around on Rory's Brainworks, the overwhelm cleared and I felt centered and purposeful. I did the top a little too tight so I couldn't leave it on as long as I wanted to, but even after I took the harness off and put the ropes away neatly, the stillness remained. 

Knotty Thursdays: Heart Link Harness! And Welcoming The Shy One!

 

Okay, I know he doesn't look shy in these pictures, but he SAYS he's shy, and he does have a sweet, giggly carefulness, which, combined with his ADORABLE Sierra Leone accent, charmed the literal pants off me, so The Shy One, it is.

There are some people the ropes just really like! I especially appreciated his patience when I had to refer back to You Tube to remember how to make the hearts! 

And as soon as I got one heart right, I literally jumped up and down with happiness. PLUS he's a good kisser, so I'd say this was a pretty successful first date! 

Knotty Thursday: Heart Knot!

 ...Did I sort of accidentally make this one last week?

Anyway, I hope to have something with a pretty human in it (Self and/or others! *ahem* to the universe!) next week, but I've been having fun with these flourishes while my heart gets its act together. Better a heart knot than a heart tangle! 

A Nice Break from Being TOO MUCH: Thinking Through the Ma’am Stuff, Part One

 

I am Love-Kaiju, hear me roar.

Trying to access the emotions of my first real time as a rope top is like trying to make a map of Narnia once you’re already back in Britain: It was so magical and I think it was real but I have no other witnesses, I don’t know where or when it is there now, and I might have to accidentally fall into a painting to ever visit again. I really, really need an oversized anthropomorphized lion to show up and tell me what’s what. Maybe I should put that on my Feeld profile.

Being my own Aslan is especially hard at this moment because my ego is bruised and I want to detach from the whole experience and outrun the heartbreak. Through the annoying magic of the stupid internet, I know he has already moved on. (In Feeld, someone who has previously deactivated their account will show back up in your inbox, there’s no way to unmatch until that unfortunate moment. Yes, I too am reactivated, but it still irks my entire soul. I unmatched right away before I could be tempted to check what he’s looking for post-me.)

It's hard to reach the warm, generous, expansive Ma’am emotions thorough my brain’s David Lynch roomtone of bitterness and self-recrimination (Like, fucking LOVE, really?! Fucking AGAIN? What is WRONG WITH ME?) but I think it’s important to honor the big feelings, and maybe to learn to love them. So I need to retrace my steps.

So. Back to six weeks or so ago. It only took a few Feeld messages to settle into a new kind of flirting for me; A conversation between a Very Sweet Ma’am and a Very Good Boy. To me, it didn’t feel like taking on roles so much as stepping into a space. When he typed to me that he was fantasizing about my ropes wrapped around him, I wrapped around him in some spiritual or metaphysical sense.

I felt fully myself in a new way. Being able to lavish affection on somebody so beautiful and (thus far) worthy, being able to bestow praise and pleasure and have them (I thought) be unreservedly received was such a relief, such a feeling of stepping into myself.

As with anyone, there’s a LOT of me that has to be held back in order to be a somewhat functional and productive member of society. If I didn’t hold back some of my affection, awe, and wonder, I would be constantly exploding into a cloud of glitter, gratitude, and unhinged, terrifying-to-many joy. I would be a kaiju of affection, maybe that’s why I identify so much with Godzilla. There are plenty of non-dating ways to let out the giddy world-love that don’t feel like I’m being superscary: art, activism, teaching, friendship just to name a few. But paired with attraction, all the glittering gratitude makes me feel just like a crazy person. Like glitter, a mess that clings to everything and is impossible to clean up.

Even now, as I try to convince myself to write about the shiny joy of being free to praise a receptive partner, I don’t want to let it out. Because I always seem to land back in the same place: I’m too much. I’m too intense. I’m too open. My transparency asks for too much in return without meaning to. My affection for attached but presumably available poly partners gets me vetoed. My love makes me terrifying. I’m too much, I’m too much, I’m too much.

“Sometimes it’s all just…too much.” said The Southern Charmer on our second and last date. Granted, he’d taken too many weed gummies before coming over, and he might have meant *gestures widely* and not my whole thing specifically, but I heard it as feedback and it hurt my heart. What’s the former Good Boy out in the goddamn field looking for now? Probably someone who is NOT TOO FUCKING MUCH.

The thing of it is, though, EVERYTHING is too much sometimes, especially right now. The guys who panic and flee or who turn into human lo-fi or who sabotage the whole thing, and I, when I flee too soon or too late, we’re all relearning things as simple as how to touch other human beings. Thinking back to the first time I had a man in my bed post-pandemic (Nearby Guy last August) I remember how much awe I felt just at the gift of just being NEXT TO another human being, being able to smell and kiss and cuddle someone besides myself. When I arrived at The Lovely Guy and This Charming Man, that awe and overwhelm continued.

It doesn’t excuse my bad behavior or anyone else’s (SHALLOW, BRATTY, SELF-CENTERED, ENTITLED) defensiveness, but it does make it easier to be compassionate with all of us: the big emotions of attraction are roller-coastery in the best of times, but alongside the need to relearn and reinvent being around other people, it. IS. A. LOT.

Next time I hope to get to the Ma’am emotions, but I’ll also welcome whatever paragraphs stand in the way.

Knotty Thursday: Not Quite a Heart Jumper!

 

One of my 2022 goals is to date myself, and it is going EXTREMELY well. Sometimes I manage to go out into the world (The local art cinema has like eight kinds of hot chocolate, and I aim to try them all!) but my rope nights have been especially wonderful. Even though this tie seemed (and partly was, so far!) impossible, I had the best time naked in front of a full length mirror, trying to puzzle it through. It goes all the way to the thighs, but I spaced out in the middle so only the top really ended up looking like anything. No matter, I had the BEST time.

Knotty Thursday: Easy Corset!

 

I am (very gradually) looking for some bunnies to practice on/with, but meanwhile I'm pretty excited about how this corset came out! I'm getting antsy to try something fancier, but I guess it's best to keep practicing my fundamentals! 

Knotty Thursday: Braided Cuff

 

This one felt a little uncomfortable, I might have to do it a little looser next time. Don't know when I'll get to try it on This Charming Man but soon I hope!!!

Here's the video I'll be using for the next couple of weeks:

Lo-Fi and Rope Highs (How It’s Going)

I can’t make myself write the play-by-play of sex with This Charming Man, as hot as those paragraphs would be. I’m still disentangling my feelings about him, mainly the feeling of being startled (and, because I’m me, a little alarmed) about how connected and grounded I feel when we’re together. Our bodies and our learning curves fit together like the pretty knots, unraveling and being re-tied. Just like it was on our first date, the other main feeling is laughing-while-kissing.

Last Thursday was our fifth date (though the fourth was more of a get-over-here) and I was ready to relax into almost-always coziness at home, so I invited him to come over and paint. But he had a real out-in-the-world date in mind, at a beer garden/barbeque that’s between our two neighbs. Just a simple little while of snacks, cocktails, and running into casual acquaintances of his, but it meant a lot. To get cute for him, to feel his proprietary arm casually draped around me, to make out in front of strangers and probably be a little nauseating. A perfectly ordinary dream come true—not sure if it’s a big deal because of post-quarantine or because my dates have been casual and couch/bed-specific for a while…probably both.

After I took him home for ropes and snuggles, (and before more snuggles) we stayed up all night talking. I kept checking to see if he wanted to go home, and he kept not wanting to go home. At one point, I turned my face away to spoon, and he said I “went away.” I was right there!

I asked him, at like three or four in the morning, what he wanted us to be. He volleyed the question back to me and I admitted that I saw him as boyfriend material, but I didn’t want him to feel constrained. Kind of a cop-out. Can I get Rory Gilmore in here to do this part for me? Anyway, I kept yammering: “Romantic, not casual. Not just friends, but also friends.”

“Friends with ropes?” he joked but then sort of sighed/settled in, saying “Romantic. Yes. Definitely.”

So Friday night while he was running one of his two D&D games, I was sitting here so tired writing a first draft of this post in my notebook, with candles lit and a very him lo-fi mix playing, (Extremely unsurprising take—it’s also so good for typing!) feeling dizzy and off-balance unsure of how to make whatever next plans. (We asked each other out/in for two separate dates the next day, is how.)

But. His eyes shining when he watched me “come like a Good Girl.” His arms submitting to my ropes. The way my throat often hurts from too much laughing/moaning/forgetting to drink water. His heart. Yikes.

There of course are still things that make me feel hesitant about him, about the combination of us, but I’m glad to spend occasional moments just going with it, just feeling quiet and still.

So There’s This Charming Man, Part Two

 

The day after our first date/first kisses/spontaneous rope-ordering, he texted to tell me he was out for coffee and looking for books on Shibari. (!!!) “My new hobby” is how he put it. I tried not to get toooooo excited—after all, The Lovely Guy had made noises about learning to make a mojito for me and a bottle of white rum is sitting lonely in my cabinet waiting for me to learn mojitos for myself. Guys get excited and they say stuff. It’s cute!

The night before my second date with This Charming Man, I was trying to learn a tie I could NOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME remember the name of, but which had been a fave during the adventure days. And then! BFF to the rescue! And/or she and I need maybe a little more with the boundaries! Either way, she taught me the tie (using the banister, not any of my own columns) and I felt like everyone involved, past and present, must be amazing at life. BFF even looked up the name: chainstitching.

This Charming Man arrived at may apartment for brunch looking out-of-my-league stylish and SO PRETTY that I wasn’t even sure if I could touch him. (Spoiler alert, I COULD.) It felt really right and natural to have him standing tall-ly next to me in my teensy kitchen, chopping up sausage for the omelets. I really messed up the first one and tried to keep it for myself, but he gallantly took the way-less-cute omelet.

After eggs and cinnamon rolls, I set about teaching him chainstitching on his gorgeous long arms. It’s so easy and cozy and I almost immediately (for the first time in YEARS) fell into a rope haze. Deliberate, patient, and still while both tying and being tied, he seemed right there in that pretty haze with me.

There’s this thing. It can happen even with the most tentative rope time. A cinch or a tighten just ***switch*** turns every anxiety off, every defense mechanism. As he worked and reworked the steps of the tie, as he unraveled his work and started again, his hands felt so kind. Being handled with such care and attention made my whole self sunny with happiness.

Work was in like three hours, plenty of time, but I couldn’t imagine in a million years that I might ever emerge from this glittery soft head-cloud. I couldn’t imagine how we might, as he put it two more dates later, unfurl from each other. I was the most still and present I’ve been in months, years, maybe ever.

Knotty Thursday: Handcuff Knot

I am SO PROUD OF MYSELF this morning! Technically I learned this one time in rope class like eight years ago, but it feels new all over again. Probably should practice it a bunch more times in case I ever get to put it on somebody cute. (Obviously I'll use it on myself (loosely, safely) a lot sooner.) Hooray! :D

Dating in the Upside-Down: A Like Story (Part Three)

            Thinking about the rest of this story, I had a saaaaaaad realization: I’ve lost a word since the last time I wrote about sex! Let’s have a moment of silence for the word “pussy,” which will never not remind me of the rapist-in-chief. I used to like using it sometimes, and now I’m kinda lost about what can replace it. It sounds a little clinical, I know, but I think for now I’ll just call body parts by their names and hope for the best.

Okay friends. If you’ve been keeping score, you’ll know that I haven’t had sex in a couple of years, not since blue-canary-nightlight guy, so I might not have the most perspective on what it was like with The Socialist, but it was good. Easy. Friendly. PIV sex has always been the big mystery to me, the hardest thing to settle into, even though it’s often what I want the most. This was a night where bodies just knew what to do, where everything just sort of took care of itself.

Soon after we got into bed, he got out of it. He knelt on the floor and pulled me to the side of the bed, put my legs over his shoulders, and BURIED his face in my vagina, like I was the most delicious thing in the universe. As assured as if this had been happening since the beginning of time, like he owned the place. Urgent and expert, he sucked my clit and thrust his tongue in as far as it could possibly go, and it felt so ridiculously good that I laughed between cries, apologized for laughing, then descended into giggles again.

All those years on lesbian island had made me sort of indifferent to receiving oral sex, but I guess that’s over now. I felt beautiful and silly and so, so happy. I kissed his slippery face gratefully, then set out to learn his lovely penis. It was friendly in my hand, sure of itself the way he is, and as affectionate. I felt self-conscious about my skills since it had been so long, but he assured me that there would be plenty of time to practice.

I was soooo grateful to have a box of condoms in my nightstand like a boss. They’ve mostly been used to make toy clean up easy, but what a joy for them to find a person.

There was something different about the sex this time, and as much as I want to collapse into giggles at the chemistry between us, I think what was different was me. In all my adventures, though so much good, dirty fun was had by all, I could never be fully present in my body. I struggled so hard to reduce sex with men to a transaction so that I wouldn’t be swept up in an inevitable wave of abandonment and hurt. But this? I was here for it, in every sense of the phrase.

He just fit so perfectly, bent me in all the right ways, filled me up in such a joyful, kind, friendly way. When I looked up into his face, he was with me, and when he held me down by my hair and insistently bent to kiss me, I felt the weight of the world lift. This is my bed. This is my body. This is my home, thanks for visiting. I felt grounded and pink, floaty and rooted, and the feeling hasn’t really left since.

Between snuggles, we chatted about music and fascism and other 2017 things. I looked into his deep green eyes a lot, felt silly, and did it some more.

            Since I started writing these posts, I’ve ruled him out and ruled him back in again. I haven’t lost my post-election fear of white men, the fear that somehow I’ll be swept away from The Struggle by the appeal of testosterone and playlists. I haven’t forgotten that he listens to Howard Stern, but I have to admit that The Socialist treated me 100% like a person. He treated my body with respect and admiration, and I can’t dismiss that.

So for now, I’m cautiously optimistic, thinking of an outfit for our next date, and Googling “Stranger Things Valentines.” I can’t ever really be anyone but myself, and I have faith that that will appeal to someone, even if it’s not this time. For now I’m willing to say, who knows?

A 2017 Heart Wish

I don’t hate 2016 as thoroughly as some, but it did so a lot of damage to my already-pretty-broken perception of men. The Bernie Bros seething misogyny was painful, but finding out during primaries which of my friends are more subtly sexist (or Stockholm Sydromey) was even worse. It was a tough year to fight the tide and hold onto the insistence that women are people, and of course it ended with the election of a child rapist. I’ve never been that awesome at trusting men, and during this time of election grief, it’s even harder.

My experience with Mr. Makeout Music made me realize that as much as I enjoyed the awesome spinster part of my life, I have a deep need for male friendship and affection that I don’t want to ignore anymore. Greeting them with defensiveness and fear, while it seems pretty reasonable most of the time, runs counter to my deep need to connect. Defensiveness has always been one of my worst qualities, and I know it’s partly responsible for the vast gulf I sometimes feel between myself and men. The gulf is heartbreaking because all separations-by-category feel heartbreaking, but also because I long for a male partner and my own family much more deeply than I’d like to admit.

But “fall in love and have him love me back” isn’t a goal one can reasonably work towards, so I decided to get closer to men in as many ways as I can think of. I’ve been scrolling though OK Cupid for 20 minutes every Friday evening, but more importantly, I’ve set the goal to call a guy friend once a week and catch up. I want to see men as themselves again, not just as The Patriarchy or as part of the Hillary-trolling nightmare. I want to remember how to be openhearted to the whole person, not just frustrated by the part of all of us that’s enslaved by gender.

The first time I tried calling was yesterday, and it felt very jangling, partly because the first voicemail I left was for Mr. Makeout Music, about whom I’m still hurty but hoping to let the friendship take care of things.  I left voicemails for three other (less fraught) guy friends, and even making those calls felt foolish, vulnerable, woozy. I felt like I was setting myself up for humiliation and loss. I’m still, after all these years of therapy and adventure, afraid of men. After I left those four voicemails for perfectly kind and lovable guys, I started to cry. I miss them. I miss all of them. (Okay, especially Mr. Makeout Music…)

The first to call me back was my dear and very lovey friend Angel Face, and then a poet pal I haven’t talked to in years. The poet told me about Marie Kondo-ing the kitchen with his wife over the holiday, about jobs and the silly day-to-day, about how awesome it is to make breakfast for dinner. Friendship is one of the most resilient and trustworthy forces in the world, and I’m happiest when I let myself depend on it.

If I’m honest, I know I’m still heartbroken about not being a thing with Mr. Makeout Music. I’m doing my best to take my time, not to push myself, to set aside time at night to miss him. I still love him so much, I still don’t quite understand why we’re not together, but we had a nice talk before Christmas and friendship doesn’t seem so far away.

Most of my other nine goals are about going places and doing things, about artistic indulgence. I’ve named it the Year of Sparkles and vowed to let in all of the queer, poly beautifulness that I can. Being generous with myself seems like the best way to heal, especially since part of that generosity will be finding a therapist and/or support group.

If you’re a man I used to know, send your number to thekittencalendar@gmail.com. Part of the joy of this year will be in your details.

A Quote and a Song for a Happy New Year!

“It doesn’t matter if we’ve been prepared or trained or certified or if we’ve been delayed for years. What matters is if we can listen to our own unmitigated possibility with our whole being. For this will enable us to begin, the way one day of rain and one day of sun will start the flower in its destiny to bloom. In deep and unexpected ways, saying yes is a form of listening that brings who we are and what we experience into true meeting. Saying yes is the beginning of all flowering.” Mark Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen

Here’s to everything new, loves. Midnight kisses to all.

Divorce Times Week Five: Jumping Out of My Skin and How We Got Here

Everyone, divorce is booooooring. Well, I guess actually it’s the job hunt accounting for the semi-weekly bouts of crushing ennui. Remind me never to take the summer off again unless I have a really riveting reason, like a more-than-two-person family to take care of or a tour of the French cathedrals. Sitting by myself and being a cover letter factory just ekes away at my soul sometimes-thank goodness there have been smutty blog posts to write!

I’m really worried that this process is not going FAST enough. We’ve been trying to think of ourselves as “living with a friend” to take some of the divorce stigma off our list of things to worry about, but I’m concerned that I’m still being much too dependent on her.

I’ve been financially and emotionally dependent on her since just a few months after we got together. When we got engaged, it was 2002. I may have been craving safety, but so was everybody in the country. Did I just blame my semi-failed marriage on 9/11? No, but it feels like it fits. She and I were actually at the same peace vigil a few weeks before we met. With even my most liberal friends spouting jingoistic threats, Sweetie’s proclivity for tie dye seemed forgivable, almost preferable.

I’d also just moved back to the East Coast from California, and I missed my poetry friends so badly—I really needed the move to have meant something, for the sacrifice to be worthwhile. In the end, of course it was.

It was six months before we moved in together, but we had the emotional equivalent of the old U-Haul joke even earlier on—on maybe our third date (On the couch, where so many of my good dates happen…) I let the phrase “soul mate” slip out. The first time she really opened her mouth and let me kiss her, it was one of my top five religious experiences.

I was literally in the middle of a panic about career and money when she produced a tiny sapphire engagement ring. She’d bought it very soon after we’d started dating. That “let me take care of you” situation is not usually the engagement story we tell—we officially proposed under a meteor shower on her birthday (coming up this Sunday, as a matter of fact) like any respectable poet/philosopher pair would.

So our relationship was definitely about love, but it was about security, too. I had a deep need to finally be taken care of. After my fucked up childhood and ten years of attempted adulthood, I felt like I deserved someone who would seek me out to bring a coat when it threatened rain, who would drive around talking for hours. (Often about boys, little did she know that’d be her life for a long time…) I felt bedraggled and spent, and there was something pure about her that I loved and aspired to—she seemed redemptive somehow, and I guess she sort of was, except I didn’t really need to be redeemed.

The fights started pretty soon after we got together, but she’s also deeply loyal and she supported me while I dawdled through my undergrad years and went on to be a full-time writer, supplementing our income a little with part time retail and teaching artist jobs. She’s worked millions of hours for us, making almost all the money for all but the last six months we were together. During fights, she would threaten me with homelessness from time to time. I felt like I contributed in the usual housewifely ways and I definitely provided us both with a social life, but I’m ashamed that I didn’t build more for myself over the years, that I let myself depend on her so much.

Fast forward to two nights ago, sobbing on the floor because it was one of those grief-sneaks-up-on-me days where I’ve lost hope of ever finding a job or moving ahead or ever being worthy of love. Those days only come about once a week, and they’re getting less intense so I am not worried about my mental health just yet. She helped me through it, telling me again and again that I wasn’t worthless, that our situation isn’t permanent, that it would all work out—all the things I believed so joyously when we first made the decision to split. I feel so guilty for still needing her help. I shouldn’t need her to tell me that it’s gonna be okay anymore. But twelve years is a long time to have been in the habit of needing her, and it’s proving trickier than I’d hoped to get out of the habit, but I am trying.

Eventually the tears subsided and we sat down to an episode of Project Runway. Nothing like an Unconventional Challenge to lift the spirits of two poor sad ladies.

Every dollar I save, every new thing I try, every time I write out the feelings instead of calling her at work or take the bus instead of calling her for a ride, I’m trying to create a more self-reliant version of me. I just feel like it’s taking way too long.

Rejection is Not an Assessment or a Humiliation…Right?

As a poet, I should be better-prepared to be rejected. Over the years, I have received hundreds of rejection slips for hundreds of poems, manuscripts, etc, and only very rarely did I feel that they had any bearing on the quality of my work. If only I could have that same confidence about myself!

Though it’s been mostly a very happy week over here, I’ve been laying awake with very jealous, hurty feelings about the Mayor of Kittentown. It’s isn’t so much that he belongs to her now; it’s that he officially no longer belongs to me. I’m bothered by the difference between being able to belong to multiple people and only belonging to one—instead of just having a different heart, I worry that I might have a deficient one. I think childlike thoughts like “How could he just throw me away?” in spite of the fact that I broke up with him about two and a half times. I knew we weren’t going to fall in love, I always encouraged him to keep looking (which looks, in retrospect, like its own kind of cruelty…) but the loss of our physical friendship is hitting me hard, it’s breaking my heart, making me feel a little bit dismantled.

Rejection bogs me down. For whatever reason, his rejection seems to negate everything good that he made me believe about myself: that I could trust a man, that I could have a happy bisexual life, that I’m can be beautiful and sexy to men. Somehow it feels like he took those things away just by not wanting me anymore, that I need him (and Bill, and Fireguy) just to have those hot feeling back, but I understand intellectually that that’s just not true.

These men so far, things have gone so wrong with them that I feel as if I have failed a series of entrance exams, that I failed to qualify for their gender. Losing each of them has been so exquisitely painful that it’s hard to feel connected to the good things that have happened, to all the real progress that I’ve made.

I tend to mistake rejection for facts: Bill said he couldn’t have a serious relationship with a poly woman, so I felt unlovable. Fireguy didn’t like being written about, so I thought the project itself made me unlovable. MKT’s simpler (?) idea of love makes me feel like I’m too hopelessly, messily complicated for men.

And I AM complicated, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be a guy who’ll love me for it—I believe those are called, uh,  polyamorous guys—who’ll be willing to share his life with me. Two of the men in the previous paragraph identified as monogamous, and the other was a heartbroken mess, so I don’t think I can make any generalizations about them, other than 1. Duh, date poly guys and 2. Don’t be a rebound redhead.

I would love to have back all of the good physical lessons I got from them, to not have the hot self-discoveries cancelled out by the fact that they’re gone. Not too long ago, in a Poly Weekly episode about minimizing scene drama, either Minx or her guest said something like “Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t make you less awesome.” I would LIKE to think that just because someone doesn’t want to fuck me and/or fall in love with me doesn’t make me any less lovable and/or hot.” No one can turn back time and take away those experiences—no one can take any of it away.

Of course this goes back to the heart of this project—learning to approve of myself so that I don’t have to wear myself down trying to gain approval from others, except in fun ways, of course. I started this quest for my inner Bettie Page because I wanted her confidence, the way the looks boldly into the camera, the way she returns the gaze. She is not going to shrink timidly into nothingness when the lens turns away from her, and neither am I.

Dear Divine Whatever,

Please help me to collect and feel whatever good they’ve all given me so far, to take it in as fuel to bravely move forward, believing in every glance and touch and step, having faith in whatever radiates out of me at my proudest, most joyful moments.

(To which I can imagine the Divine Whatever saying: “Good girl. So pretty.”)

37 Is A Fine Age at Which to Blossom (Against TNG Ageism)

“TNG is about having a comfortable place for younger folk in the lifestyle. There are a bunch of regional groups, but nothing for people from different places to get together to talk to each other and trade advice.

Please be aged 35 or younger. I won't stop you if you are not, but I will be peeved if anyone uses this as a place to troll for younger folk.”--From the TNG Global group on Fet Life

This week, I’ve been having somewhat of an age panic. Earlier this week, I was feeling like putting some mingling on the calendar, and the only thing I could make it to this weekend was the local TNG (the next generation) munch. Just like the global group above and most cities’ TNG groups, our local group has an age ceiling of 35. If you’re over 35, you have to get a younger friend to “chaperone” you to their munches.

I got interested in TNG events because I’d like a dom who doesn’t have, like, two decades of experience on me, but one the other hand, this “chaperone” business seems humiliating, and not in a good way. I also resent the implication that 35 is the age at which one automatically starts “trolling” for younger people to play with—predators and victims come in all ages and experience levels, and putting an arbitrary age limit on interaction just creates more possibility for alienation and miscommunication.

The age-35 cutoff for TNG groups stigmatizes age (even, I think, adulthood)  in a way that mirrors mainstream consumer culture. For a community of people who are so creative in their physical expression, I hate when kinky folks sure seem to exemplify and even exaggerate the limits which mainstream society places on us.

Its true that some cities’ communities may skew a bit old, so I can see the appeal of being able to get together with pals one’s own age. After all, I go bonkers over guys who are 37, they’re the dreamiest and hard to find in an available state. As I learned with Firguy, playing with someone who has so much more experience can create a scary power imbalance.

However, I would not want to restrict myself to only 37-year-old partners—I’d miss out on so much! A large part of what I’m learning here are the best practices for a sexed-up adulthood, so it’s very helpful for me to spend time with couples of all ages and categories.

Society so often sends us the message that sexuality is only to be explored by the young. I’m told in a million ways a day by pop culture that my age makes me less worthy of affection and love. (Think Barney’s constant ageist cracks of How I Met Your Mother.) Even though I’m a good sport with a lot to offer, I often worry that I took too long to blossom and now I’m just an undervalued resource. Everyone has stuff that might limit their dating capacity: size, disability, even just having really specific tastes. It seems really creepy to add arbitrary age limits on top of that!

Dear TNG, it isn’t my fault that this particular phase of my sexual awakening came at 37 instead of 20. I was doing worthy things with those years, making art, travelling, writing poetry, making friends. I’m so proud of everything those years meant to me, even if it meant that my kinky side didn’t emerge until later.

My perspective isn’t any les valuable because I’m 37, nor is my ass any less hot. I’m trying to keep reminding myself that age-fears are just that, fears, and I shouldn’t let them hold me back from my adventures. I don’t feel right about needing a chaperone to attend a public event, so for now, I won’t do it. I’ve learned by now not to dabble in things that offend my childlike sense of justice. If something’s not fair, it’s just not fair.

A Month After Fireguy: On Coming and Writing

A month ago, I had a basement-date with Fireguy that went (consensually) a lot further than it should’ve. It wouldn’t have occurred to me that I could end up restrained and at third base by the end of a first date. It was a LOT of fun buy it was also certainly too much for me.

The next day, I was feeling good but overwhelmed, a little shaky and unsure. I figured I’d give it a few days to let it sink in, then write it through and consider what I wanted to do about that budding relationship or acquaintanceship or playpal arrangement or whatever it was supposed to be. Fireguy, however, went into damage-control mode, quite unbidden and unnecessarily. He texted and said that if I wrote about it that day, it wouldn’t be the “one handed read” that he wanted it to be, but if I wrote about it the next week, then “that would be fine.”

It isn’t that I dislike being jerked off to, either in person or in written form—in fact, until that moment, turning people on had been one of the big joys of writing this. When Fireguy sent those texts, I felt the bottom drop out from under me, both because he was taking ownership of something that’s creatively mine and because he’d reduced this complex personal journey or whatever to something that existed just for his enjoyment. I wanted to handle it properly, so I called him up to talk about it, but I was so panicked that I ended up blubbering and unable to finish my sentences. He seemed irritated: “You just don’t understand what’s going on with me.”

What was going on with him was that he and Varga Girl broke up but were trying to continue as sub and dom, that’s a big deal, admittedly. But what he’d mentioned in the texts was, this guy had embarrassed him on FetLife, and he was very concerned about his reputation. It still makes me so disgusted that he was:

A. A grown man that concerned about his online reputation.

B. Willing to compromise my well-being about it.

C. A dominant man trying to squelch a submissive woman’s point of view.

What I kept asking him, and what I still keep wondering, is what about what’s going on with me? All of that stuff that happened was a big deal to me, and I still wish I could’ve gotten anybody to acknowledge it. I was completely unable to convince either Fireguy or Varga Girl that I was a person in the story, that, for better or worse, something had happened to me, and I had a right to write about it, I had a right to a point of view. I’ll never get them to acknowledge me as a human being, and that is really scary.

I eventually managed to get it through to him that trying to control me creatively was crossing a limit. He apologized for that and for breaking my trust. We had a pretty good conversation (even if he did try to rewrite the meaning of the phrase “one-handed read”) and I was relieved that I didn’t have to stay mad at him.

AND THEN HE DID IT AGAIN.

Paranoid and still trying to Smeagol his precious ex, he tried to convince me again to stop writing about our date, trying at first to shame me about the sex parts, but eventually admitting that he was afraid of his sub reading it. He tried to convince me to take out the sex scenes or “make it more anonymous” even though I already don’t use names or locations. He even suggested switching the entire blog to private. “Everyone knows it’s me,” he said, he said he didn’t want his family to read it.

I was beyond livid, I still am. First of all, I had made a clear limit about trying to control me creatively. Breaking a limit once can be seen as an accident, breaking it again is torture. He knew that what he was doing would have a triggering effect, and he kept doing it anyway. When I got upset and panicked, he told me I was too angry to be in his family.

What I heard in all those attempts to control my writing: “My point of view is more important than yours. Nobody in the scene knows who you are, so you don’t matter.”

So right now, I’m still scared. I’m having trouble getting back to the feeling I had before that night-the feeling of being free and loved and starting to accept myself. I really worry that I will never be able to trust a man again, that I can only find men who embody a secret inner wish to be erased.

Part of me want to jump up and down and say “Why don’t you see, what happened was important,” both the experience and the paragraphs he squelched. After all, he did succeed in fucking up the writing process—I was too disgusted and humiliated to finish telling the sex part of the story.

One part I didn’t get to was, toward the end of the scene that night, I did get to try the “Please, Sir, may I come” thing—he was playing with my boobs and I was finishing myself off down below, and I started to feel the wave crest, so I found just the right moment and asked: “Please sir, may I come.”

“Sure, go ahead,” he said, and I did.

Sometimes you don’t know that you don’t like something until it’s too late. There’s some connection there between his wanting a say in the deeply intimate rhythms of my own body and wanting a say in the way I write about the experience—to me, those things are not separate. If you’re keeping score, that’s “”Come for me, you greedy little brat,” yes and “Please Sir may I come?” no. It’s complicated.

As much as I enjoy the feeling of submitting, it seems very difficult to find a guy whose dominance does not spill over into everyday life. Both Bill and Fireguy refused to let me belong to myself after I left the couch or scene. Both experiences were about losing my point of view, and I am very scared of letting that happen again.