OMG a New Feeling: The Golden Loop

The Flaming Lips: Fight Test

I've been doing pretty well since last post, focusing on my Twelve Step stuff, enjoying work, getting situated for summer. The sadness of letting Sweet Valentine go is still with me, partly because I may never get to know his perspective on our two magical dates. He said he still liked me when he broke things off, and that may have to be enough. 

Hurt feelings and Symmetry OCD make it hard to talk about my own perspective, but something important happened to me and I want to try and get it into words.

Part if my unmasking autism process is, I feel emotions in new ways! With new physical sensations. Like, when I cry, I can physically feel it coming straight up from my heart, and that feels beautiful, like a real and healthy release instead of just a ripple in a river of unending sorrow. NBD.

Maybe it was yoga and not really SV at all, but on our first date, almost immediately after he sat down next to me, I felt a golden sparkly hula hoop light circling my lower waist, circling us both together. It wasn't moving hula-ish-ly, it was still, it was the stillest thing in the universe. I was the stillest thing in the universe, warmly and (it felt) permanently in god's grace with him.

I tried to think of a less-mystical way to type that sentence, but there isn't one.

This was different from my Pink Haze of Desire or the scattered giddy lunacy I felt towards The Guy Next Door. This was grounded and safe and exactly where I needed to be.

It feels wrong and unfair to think that Sweet Valentine didn't feel the same comfort and surety, and I don't know that he didn't, before reality sunk in.

I had the golden loop with me all through our break, it's what kept me strong and (I thought) kind in all that uncertainty. 

I can still feel it now, telling me I'm/we're safe, telling me that this is everything working itself out.

The next time I feel The Golden Loop with someone, I'll try to slow down and see what it's trying to tell me. I'd love to listen to that stillness instead of the urgency and ugliness of OCD. I would love, dear Golden Loop, for you to be in charge now. Don't let me chase any more treasures away, including the treasures that are me. 

My word for the year and my dating plan through June: Higher Power is my anchor partner, let's see where it goes.

 

A Helpful Mini-Adventure With a Lovely King

 

Last week, when I was deep in my angst about neighbor stuff, a very handsome and distinguished gentleman pinged my Feeld. He said he's a dom and would love to try for a rope thing with me! I fought the OCD that was telling me to NEVER LIKE ANYONE AGAIN and said hello. I'm so glad I did.

On the phone, there was instant chemistry, instant brainstorming of scenes. He called me his princess, he called me a Good Girl, and most importantly, he told me he thinks I have more agency than I think I have. Since I frequently feel helpless about compulsions and fate, agency lit a spark in my mind that's been lighting my way these snowy, sleepy days.

From the moment I took TGNS's hand and placed it on my head, my submissive side has been guiding me, and Lovely King felt like an extension of that energy that kindled in me back on Leftovers Night. Like a bright thread I can follow, telling me to bow down and recognize the vastness.

Lovely King and I planned a date, but it was a little further out than I would've liked. I asked him if he would help with my Bowing Down to Love Itself project, and he agreed. Each day after I got in my cozy floor-nest and did my Child's Pose with a hand on the back of my head, after I relaxed in the vastness of love and the stretches in my body, I'd text the Lovely King and tell him I'd submitted to love, tell him how I was feeling. Sent pretty pictures sometimes.

He responded each time with a "good girl" and was very dutiful with the "good mornings," though not with the goodnights. I knew he was only beginning his adventures, and we were only beginning ours, but without much friendly chitchat between praises, the situation started to feel cold.

Friends!! I told him how I was feeling! Without fleeing or panicking! Huzzah! I said I liked more chattiness from a potential dom, and I while I like sharing, I don't like the feeling of being one of many.

He confirmed the one-of-manyness and said he didn't have bandwidth for what I need, but wanted to keep in touch! Which was so nice! But not the right way to go. I am so, SO proud of myself for making this choice! For making choices like a person who believes in love. 

Self-respect is HARD y'all. But practicing submission by bowing down to Love Itself feels like something nobody else should be walking me through. It's a project to do with my own hurt and hopeful heart, with quiet and candles, Girl Scout cookies and nice lotions and all this miraculous snowday free time.

Love has me. It has scooped me up like my own personal Totoro. It's hard to keep that faith, but I can keep the ritual. That's enough for now.

The Heated Blankets (Love, Shame, and Bleeding All the Time, Part Two)

 

On Wednesday morning, I went in for surgery for my misbehaving hoo-ha. They were going to take pictures inside my uterus, clear out some tissue and send it for biopsy, and put in an IUD to hopefully regulate (Or even stop!) the rogue periods.

Pre-op was deep vulnerability practice. First, they have you take off all your clothes and get in your hospital gown, the classic butt-revealer. Mine was an off-sky-blue with an emotionally neutral geometric pattern that definitely did not stay in my brain. And then, I was chilly, and a nurse who called everyone “love” asked if I would like a heated blanket. Of course I would!

She put one heated blanket underneath my head and another over me. The tenderness, the warmth, and the kindness got me all undone, a pure Miranda July movie moment if there ever was one. The nurse dimmed the light above my head and I stared up at the bright rectangle of the light in front of the dimmed one. Relaxed by the warmth and care I guess, my spirit shifted to my first walk along the river with The Shy One, that moment of innocence and uncertainty, before we’d had the chance to break each other’s hearts twice. “We’re on your time,” he’d said, and I took his hand and turned us toward home.

I guess the heated blankets (I accidentally typed “hearted.”) got through all my layers of grief and hurt and loss-of-face and loss-of-hope and let me inhabit that moment more fully than I’ve inhabited any of our so-beautiful-I-don’t-know-what to-do-with-them memories. Fat drippy tears overflowed and I sniffed discreetly so no one in the pre-op room would worry.

These tears were different from all the other ones I’ve cried this past month-they weren’t the bottomless, howling, laying-on-the-floor grief of the first days post breakup or the let’s-listen-to-the-song-and-get-some-sorrow-out of the calmer next few weeks. These good, tender tears were a glimpse of what was real and good and blessedly, healthfully over.

The wait was long and the blankets cooled. My teary release turned to anxious boredom. I woke up from anesthesia to navigate a once-again bloody crotch, this time maybe productively so. My hands were covered in blood for the millionth time in these messy months, and I was glad I’d caught the nurse’s name so I could call out for a fresh pad. Someday, no more pads. Maybe soon.

As I recovered from surgery, more waves of emotion came in, darker and angrier and harder to write about. Trauma, drugs wearing off, new hormones, ongoing loneliness and hurt made me prickly and harsh for a few days, until the next wave of grace came, but that’s another story.

Supersweet Election Love Story: Part Three

After I found out that the thing was mutual, I felt nervous about going into work. I didn’t know how I was supposed to act, whether I was supposed to hug him hello and goodbye, etc. His desk was in a very male-occupied space and it always felt very vulnerable to visit him there.  Election Day, on the possible cusp of our first female president and with the fate of the world hanging in the balance, I was also fretting about whether I’d been too affectionate in my voting-morning text. I’m not superproud that my Call Me Maybeness helped get me through the day, but there was also poetry and canvassing and a general sense of patriotic/neighborhood love that made such a fraught day as bearable as possible.

Then, of course, the worst happened. After a year of hope and struggle and fighting misogynist trolls and as much canvassing and phone banking as I could handle, after a year of telling the library kids it would be okay, of telling Bernie Bros to fuck off, of boycotting conservative relatives, the worst happened and Trump won. Wednesday morning, at the college bookstore where we work together, Sweetie and I listened to Hillary’s beautiful concession speech and cried even as we tried to take courage. On my commute, I alternated between singing along with my upbeat playlist and sobbing. If I never hear Fight Song again, it’ll be too soon.

My plan when I got to my afternoon job at the library was to be strong and soothing for the kids, to help them feel as hopeful as possible, but when I got to the children’s department, my friend the Nice Genderqueer Librarian saw me and burst into tears so we held each other and I sobbed loudly and brokenheartedly in front of the kids and everyone. There was nothing else to be done at that moment.

One of the other security guards was down in our department showing concern and accepting a hug, so I was brave/needy enough to snivel “Can you get (Mr. Makeout Music) for me?” She smiled and radioed for him. He totally Muppeted out when he saw me, just reached his arms out as far as they could go and gave me the warmest, friendliest, most joyful hug imaginable. I got the chance to tell him “I’m sorry white people suck so bad!” which is a sentiment I’ll be expressing as often as possible for the foreseeable future. (Seriously, if you’re a white person reading this, get it the fuck together and stand up for people of color. And while I’m at it, if you’re a man reading this, get it the fuck together and stand up for women. It’s past time to inventory your privilege and start using it to help. We’re past life and death here.)

Oh pals, Mr. Makeout Music took such good care of me that day. He talked me through the good and evil factors at play in the election and helped me to articulate my silver lining, which was that good people were drawing together in anger and love. He also asked if he could come visit me at the bookstore that Friday, since the library was closed for Veteran’s Day. I was delighted at the prospect of him distracting me at both my jobs, so we made plans for a picnic on the Hogwarts-esque campus where I work. No one would begrudge me a long lunch on such a week.

That sad Wednesday was made much less sad by the fact that he spent almost my whole shift by my side. He brought his notebook down and worked on a paper so soothingly next to me, it was just such a comfortable family feeling. He joked with the kids and parents and watched me stave off apoplexy when a mean-girling parent tried to challenge my taste in music.  When he switched tables to play chess with my teen assistants, I drew flowers, stars, and tiny red hearts all over his homework while I had a Shine Bright Like a Diamond singalong with one of the little girls. I was totally singing to Mr. Makeout Music. When he turned around from chess to see how the homework-art was progressing, his eyes flashed something so beautiful and perfect and clear. I felt bathed in a glittery cloud of safety and strength, like I recognized someone so special and devoted and true. And, I hopehopehoped, mine.

Kinky Karaoke Part One: The Triumph of Light Over Darkness

“Going out to sing means you have to adopt a staunch pro-believin’ stance. But it also means you have to suspend your rational doubts. “Don’t Stop Believin’” isn’t about actually believing in anything, just as nobody in “Livin’ on a Prayer” prays for anything in particular. The belief is in belief itself; the prayer is just for more prayers.”

–Rob Sheffield, Turn Around Bright Eyes: The Rituals of Love and Karaoke

“Before you came into my life, I missed you so bad.”—Carly Rae Jepsen

Saturday was my church’s Diwali celebration (Unitarians feel entitled to any holiday we choose, that’s one of the things I like about us.) and I’d originally planned to go in early to help with the feast, but my day had been so fantastically indulgent and dawdly that I was nowhere near ready to leave at the appointed time. Sweetie and I heated up some frozen samosas and naan and had our own little Diwali feast at home, while watching Top Chef.

My suitcase was packed for Kinky Karaoke, so I hoped that the service wouldn’t be too long. When I got out of the car at church, most people were already inside and I was alone in the woodsy church parking lot with the brightest moon you’d ever see, peeking through clouds that were fluffily arranged in rows across the sky like the stuffing of a comforter. The path to the church was lined with star lanterns, and the walk in ended up to be the most transcendent part of the service.

Usually our Diwali is a joyful affair, with lots of singing and dancing and making art out of flower petals, but this year, the pastor began the service with an admonition that children should not be allowed to run around in the aisles, and it continued in that tone. In place of any religious experience, there was a lecture, complete with PowerPoint. One of the great joys of adulthood is that if you’re sitting in your church pew stifling yawns, you’re allowed to just get up and leave.

I was happy to venture back out into the clear, starry night. I got in the car and set the GPS for the out-of-the-way corner of the city where the Karaoke King and Queen live, turned up my Training Montage mix, and belted out every song along the way.

Pretty Slave has a wonderfully geeky bumper sticker on her car that reads:

And whenever I see it, I get all bubbly-over with joy. I was also excited that I’d see The Lady of the House, who was my main inspiration for showing up that night.  I walked in to many hugs and felt so excited that I’d recovered so quickly from last weekend’s triggers enough to come.

I’m so grateful that I am me, and that these are my friends. I don’t know what they were doing over at the Scary Party, but I’m pretty sure nobody was sitting in anybody’s lap dueting “Piano Man” at full force (high five, Cute Master!) or singing Cee-Lo in their underpants. (I didn’t arrive with much bitterness in my heart, but “Fuck You” really is the very best karaoke song ever.)

Pretty Slave told me I’m prettier than ribbons and Cute Master was sweet and sympathetic about the heart-hurts of last week. I was touched at his recalling that this house was where we met over the summer. “I fingered you right over there,” he said “It’s too bad they moved the couch!”

And then! Some people I didn’t know I’d been wanting to see! Remember the munch I cried at toward the end of the summer? Okay, doesn’t really narrow it down, but the night that I was soothed by the nice ladies goofing around and bringing Long Island iced teas, Mrs. Sweetface was one of the ladies doing the soothing. (Not to be confused with Ms. Sweetheart. The naming part’s not as easy as it looks.) We’d joked about me becoming Mr. Sweetface’s cuddle partner, since she’s not so into that part. I’d yet to meet him and I couldn’t believe she remembered that, but it was the first thing she said: “Your cuddle buddy’s upstairs.”

When she introduced him, he said “Oh, that was you?”

“Yep! If we’re gonna cuddle, we’d better start practicing!” I said, pulling this complete stranger into a hug. It was a hug with a little spark of energy, with potential. Clearly it was time to employ my “Talk to the cute couple until they’re doing stuff to me” strategy, which I devised the last time I was here.

But first, lots and lots of songs. Pretty Slave and I did our song, “Call Me Maybe,” of course, and then the young woman that CS and PM are dating (I don’t think she’d mind being named “Their Girl”) joined us for Nikki Minaj’s “Starships,” which is totally my top Training Montage hit. The Lady of the House seduced our hearts with some Steely Dan, and then teamed up with me on my song of the year, “I Just Can’t Get Enough.” This is how I was born to be, stripped down to my basic ridiculous histrionics and enjoying the fuck out of my friends.

Incidentally, I got a chance to talk with Their Girl and found out that she’d left that party a few weeks ago because she got jealous—of me! It was strange to be on the other side of that equation! I told her she should have joined in and we made plans to conspire against Pretty Slave and Cute Master at the earliest opportunity.

A couple of times during the evening, the Karaoke Queen took a break from her hostessing duties to bend over and get some spanks, and just like that, another sweet little bottom for me. Even though they were just playful party spanks, she got all melty in my arms afterwards and I loved the power of getting to make my friend so woozy-happy. Plus, the Lady of the House was watching and looked impressed—I like that.

Next: Eeeee! Yesyesyes I got tied to another girl!

The Sparkly Festival of Awesomeness, Part Two: A Shaman and a Kiss

So, learning to listen to myself is not just about knowing when to say the right “nos.” It’s about recognizing my ability to sometimes know exactly what floaty, sunny sticky fantasticness to put on the calendar. Go me. High-fiving myself.

When Sweetie dropped me off at the festival, I was a little late for the 10 am soul retrieval ceremony. I got there as the shaman lady was starting to call all the spirits to join us—the four directions, the animal spirits, the fairies, etc. She was dresses in white and sang a little like Nico.

I joined the group silently and sat in the sun getting oriented. There were five other people there, mostly ladies. The sky was ridiculously bright blue and there were all kinds of birds goofing around in the new-leafed trees.

I’m agnostic about all things spiritual (or I pretend to be…) but rituals just tend to work for me. Every week at church (Unitarian) I line up to put a stone in water, commemorating the week’s most important joy or sorrow. I write affirmations and gratitude lists. Once, I went on a shamanic journey and met my spirit animal, a black panther named Sheila. (She instructed me to “just love,” in case you’re wondering.) As much as I try to sometimes distance myself from the magic parts of faith, I also kind of believe in it.

As I watched the shaman lady shake her rattle over each person, banishing bad spirits and calling for their souls to return, the prettiest thing was watching the tears at the corner of the woman’s closed eyes sparkle in the sun. Between retrievals, she chatted with the crowd, saying a lot I couldn’t follow about wolves and fairies—pagan in-jokes, I guess. It made me want to be really careful not to get an ironic expression on my face. I also tried to find ways to spray sunscreen without disrupting the proceedings.

When it was my turn, I lay down on the sleeping bag and declined the shaman’s offer to shield my face from the bright sun with a blanket. She whispered “Are you struggling with depression?” Close enough, so yes. “I just want you to know, Freya is coming.” (Sweetie and I had a lot of fun Googling pictures of Freya the next day. Goddess of love, fertility, and war who rides a chariot driven by two cats, btw.) 

As she shook the rattle over me, I felt my lower back open up the way it sometimes does during yoga.

The lady seemed like she was, in fact, taking something out of me. At one point, she roared and shook, growling and fighting. I felt bad for having something that yucky inside of me. She sang to my maybe-wandering soul: “Return, return to yourself, return. Return, be at home, be at peace.”

When she was done singing, she whispered in my ear: “I don’t know who disappointed you, but it will be better now.” I almost laughed—even a shaman could see my Greenberg-ness.

Once I was finished with my part of the ritual, I felt like it was okay to strip down. Nobody was nude-beach naked, but one other lady was topless and that was enough to make me feel like it wouldn’t mess up ritual etiquette. After the ritual finished, I made some friends by spraying them with my SPF 70 and asking them to do the same to me. Everyone seemed nice.

The shaman lady told me that all of the growling had been because of a bear spirit who is apparently guarding over me. Which is funny because I’ve often remarked to Sweetie that we need a Helpful Polar Bear to live with us and top us so we could take a break from taking care of ourselves. This was a grizzly bear spirit, but still.

Chatting to some of the circle afterwards about the bear spirit and my penchant for bearlike dudes, one lady suggested that I meet her friend. Either she or fate sent him over to chat with me at lunch. I was shivering in the camp dining hall topless, as pants were required in there. For some reason, this nice huggable guy sat down and I just started yammering away—I love/hate when this happens, when I meet someone comfy and all of a sudden I’m telling them every little thing.

Everybody, I was totally not thinking about the fact that this was a sex festival too, that if you’re talking to someone nice, you might suddenly be kissing him. That’s exactly what happened when he found me after lunch, nude and sunning myself on my monkey blanket, waiting for it to be time to go on the nature walk. We talked some more first, me continuing to spill out secrets. When I got up to go, he asked if he could give me a hug. As often happens to me, he was clothed and I was naked. His hands were warm on my back, his beard soft on the curve of my neck. He held me tight in that giving-good-energy way. He kissed my neck and I said “Oh. Huh.” Then he kissed me pleasantly on the mouth.

It reminded me of the mosh pits of my teenage years, how one minute you’re smushing along with everyone to the music and the next, you’re making out with a stranger. It’s kind of the way I think life should be all the time.

I headed up the hill for the nature walk lead by my favorite magic-y rope guy. The stranger headed up the hill for a nap, a nap that I now realize I probably could have joined. I wouldn’t have missed the hike though. It was lovely and chatty and sweet, and I kept seeing the prettiest white swallowtail butterfly. Everyone kept saying it was following me.

Next time: “That cake flower isn’t going to feed itself to me…”

Fantasies of Lesbian Monogamy, Dreams of Men

I’ve been thinking a lot about those Fatal Attraction references that The Man made about me. I’ve never seen the movie, but I think maybe I identify more with the Michael Douglas character than with Glenn Close. I remember from somewhere (probably from an old episode of Siskel and Ebert) that (after focus groups demanded it) the story ends with the married couple safely back in bed, having vanquished the hostile outside force. In other words, the movie is an advertisement for monogamy, a cautionary tale that only nightmares lay outside the marriage bed.

(As a side note, I think that a lot of the couple-centric problems that outside partners run into (wall-building, rule-making, hierarchy, and a general atmosphere of fear) stem from the fact that the bunny-boiler trope is so pervasive that even honest attempts at non-monogamy evoke traces of her.)

Now that The Man and the Scary Party are behind me, it’s very tempting to wish that I could use the scariness of the experience to fortify myself for a life of monogamy—after all, Sweetie has nearly all of the things that I need in a partner, plus so much more: she is chivalrous, brave, smart, deeply loving, and as the icing on the cake, fantastic with knots. For the foreseeable future, until I learn how to actually listen to my intuition and treat myself as somebody valuable even in the midst of man-smell, I am only with her.

And yet, every morning this week, I’ve had the same dream: kissing a man. A real one, not the goth-boys-who-did-not-grow-up-to-be-goth-men than I’ve been drawn to lately. He is decisive, clear, desirous, and hot. Maybe he’s my own animus, or maybe he is real. Or both.

Likewise, when I look up porn (at least there’s not so much anhedonia this time), it’s always of the many-men-one-woman variety. There is the simple fact that I lovelovelove penises, even if my relationship with those who have them tends to be fraught.

Before the now-long-past thing with Bill, I believed in something simple. I thought I could find someone, make out, synch our calendars, fall in love. I thought that if I was open enough, my missing person would appear. It never occurred to me that I would be asked and tempted to give up my autonomy, my dignity, my voice. I don’t know what to make of this year, how much of it I’ll keep and how much I’ll shed, easy as deleting my Fet profile.

I still don’t know if what I want (two real, deep relationships, one with Sweetie and one with a man) is a real possibility or a dream to be let go. My need to be loved by a man is so warped by compromise and taboo that it seems like just a huge risk, but a life without it seems very sad. There aren’t any answers for it now, just a quiet, simplified life and a hope that someday soon I’ll feel well enough to socialize, that someday soon I’ll be on solid ground.

This Week in Fairly Basic Life Lessons

Well, the Man About Town was downgraded this week from hapless to creepy—in his last (or what I hope was his last) correspondence to me he insinuated that I was somehow being dishonest because I needed some space to process things without his input. He said he just didn’t take my boundary seriously—what girl doesn’t loooove hearing that her “no” meant nothing, huh? He’s all blocked/unfriended/marked as spam now, but I’m still kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

(Note to self—I believe in magic just enough that I should never mess around with someone who is in a coven—I keep imagining him sending me gross condescending healing vibes or something.)

What I realized was, I acted in bad faith. I didn’t like him. I was ambivalent after our first date, but I thought that might’ve been because I was all swirly about Mister Hazel eyes. On the second date, I was sure that I wasn’t attracted to him—his kisses just tasted wrong, the chemistry was off.

Yet I thought I should go forward with him because he looked good on paper—he had these nice, sensible girlfriends, he seemed stable and smart, he treated me very well. I thought that I should like him. So I asked to go forward as nonromantic play partners, just to see how that went.

In retrospect, it was a cynical move trying to make myself like someone just because he was appropriate. I had this idea in my head that I had to move on from the single boys, the bad boys, the inexperienced, unavailable boys to someone who was more suitable. I was trying to grow up, yes, but going about it in such a coldhearted way.

Being experienced at poly doesn’t make someone a mensch, and I should have followed my instincts—they obviously picked up something that I didn’t. So the fairly obvious lesson is: don’t play with people I am not attracted to. My body knows what it is doing and I need to listen to it. Otherwise, naked pictures of me will keep ending up in the hands of people I actively dislike—that is just not good.

There have been a few times that I’ve wondered if I have to make a choice between the adventures and the blog, but the main characters, the people in the story who mean the most to me, have never given me even a little bit of shit about it. The two guys who have caused me trouble about my writing were people I had reservations about anyway, and next time, I will listen to those reservations.

The holidays are a great time to put my quest for another partner on the back burner and turn my focus wholeheartedly to Sweetie and the rest of my family, to appreciating all of my friends, and to celebrating the fact that I am about to complete my student teaching. There is so much richness that I already have, and it needs my attention. When I return to dating, I will do my best to believe in attraction, in my body, maybe even in love. Just like I did a year ago!