Oh Quarantine Crush, Ugh Anniversary Effect

Maybe no more “On This Day” in the fb for me. I’ve been curious to see if the poems I wrote in last spring’s quar-madness/denial/crush mode were any good so I’ve been dipping into the OTD maybe more than I should.

 

The post that gets to me doesn’t seem like much. Just me having a whole face, dressed up in red for Zoom poetry, one pic of my face and one of my for-no-reason pretty shoes. But my face is full of love and hope (or at least full of having-showered-that-day!) and he is tagged. Of course, the link is broken because I blocked him in my heartbreak panic later on that fraught year.

 

It isn’t new to me that everyone who was ever dear to me is still dear—even my awful Q-a-mom is still in my dreams every night, trying to drive me crazy and/or give me virus hugs.

 

But the PANGS about Quarantine Crush. They’re probably not surprising at all. We were friends for 20 years before I had the following thought at the beginning of lockdown (COVID lockdown, not the police-are-terrorizing-our-cities curfew in the summer):

 

“Now seems like a good time to just go ahead and fall in love with (Quarantine Crush).”

 

He was my friend in my mid-twenties, a powerfully prolific few years, sunshine-filled and dramatic as the Pacific Coast Highway. I walked up hill by the beach with him belting out Ani DiFranco songs. He held me and I wondered why I couldn’t just fall for him, the best one.

 

And then he was there for me in those first COVID months, when everything was dark and impossible and I was crying into Zoom and wondering what life could even BE anymore.

 

My “Liked Songs” list on Spotify is still kind of a monument to those quick/forever 2020 months, though of course I’ve added songs since. The only solution to the pangs is to put the songs on and walk around looking at spring trees, or sit around doodling/perfecting my Animal Crossing island, letting the feelings just exist with me.

 

So many people live in my heart forever, there’s plenty of room for him to stay.

Epilogue: The Drummer

 

Once I like someone, I kind of assume they are going to evaporate into think air immediately. I guess that’s not such a weird conclusion to jump to these days, given that I did have a beloved longtime friend suddenly drop dead of Covid a few weeks ago. The Drummer didn’t evaporate, exactly, and I’m not sure if I made him disappear.

 

The Wednesday after our woods date was January Sixth. The Drummer, just texting every few hours or so, was a powerful comfort. I liked to picture his Nineties self, beating up the insurrectionists outside a hardcore show. “Bunch of clowns.” He texted, and I heard it in his adorably gruff regional accent. Bunch of clowns indeed.

 

Something unspecified happened with his family that following weekend. I knew he was caring for his mom who suffered from dementia and a brother on the spectrum, I hoped they were both/all okay! I imagined The Drummer having to bail out some lousy insurrectionist cousin or uncle, even though I was the one with the fascist aunts. I wondered if he secretly WAS one of the lousy insurrectionists! If he’d just been trolling me by playing liberal—he HAD mentioned still watching South Park… Things were very stressful and paranoid that weekend. I couldn’t physically relax.. My body knows the they’re coming for you feeling and I couldn’t shake it even though I was home and safe.

 

Not the best frame of mind to be trying to make plans for a date, but we did try. We were going to watch Wonder Woman 84, once I ascertained that we were NOT watching it as one of our bad movies. I looked forward to seeing the outfits again, to mediating upon Gal Gadot’s shiny hair. But we had to change plans a couple of times, he kept having to postpone, and it was one chaos, one vulnerability too many for me.

 

I told him I like to know my schedule, that he should reach out when things cleared up a bit, when things were less maybe-ish. He was so sweet and apologetic about the changes, but I never heard from him again. I regretted being (VERY GENTLY) sassy about the schedule. I worried that I hadn’t been compassionate enough. I worried that I was going to be alone with my schedule forever.

 

I texted one more time, to say I hoped he was okay, that I was here any time for comfort or distraction. I unmatched us on Bumble but I left his number unblocked, just so I can tell myself I’m open, I’m not too rigid, I’m here for imperfection and tumult and unspecified family stuff. Am I? I don’t know. The guys I’ve chatted with since are so BORING compared to him, I miss him a lot. It’s hard to be hopeful and hard to keep going, but I will, I am.

Fell in Like with The Drummer, Part Four: OMG Holding Hands!!!!!

 

 

The Saturday after New Years, we had our first in-person date. The Drummer was coming into town from the suburbs to meet me at my favorite gentle hiking spot in a nearby state park. I picked out a red lace dress to wear under my warm fuzzy black coat with black leggings and worn-out black Chuck-Taylor-like lowtop sneakers. (Those were DEFINTELY no match for the cold muddiness of the trails!)

 

It was weird to get ready for a date without lipstick, and my old safer-sex anxieties seemed minute compared to the fear that this so-called liberal might somehow show up without a mask like surprise! No science! I sent him a here’s what-I-look-like-with-half-a face pic and quickly got one back. We both prefer bandannas, very we’re-all-Antifa-now.

 

As I sat on a wooden fence rail waiting for him, I felt frozen with nervousness. Also, with cold, fretting about the fraught etiquette of maybe needing to blow my nose during the date without seeming like I was gonna breath-murder him. If I went in for a hug, would I seem wildly irresponsible? If I declined a kiss later, would he think I didn’t like him? I felt a little lost without my in-normal-times general sluttiness to rely on!

 

Because I am me, I already fully liked him before he came walking up the trail, but also, he was all the way cute. He was a little taller than me and not as fat, but very solidly built. I’m generally a little afraid of white dudes (I mean, have you seen America?) but his forty-something-ex-hardcore-kid-ness put me at ease, especially his vague and lovely tattoos. His dark green fedora, rather than making him look sketchy, made him look dapper and like he definitely cared about this date! (Scream emoji!)

 

He leaned in for a hug and I couldn’t help but say “You’re actual!”

 

We talked easily, especially for walking six feet apart! I snuck glances at his hands, big and warm-looking, open and relaxed at his side like an invitation, or at least not NOT an invitation! 

Fell in Like with The Drummer, Part Three: Hot Nap Pic

 

**********Incredibly sad synchronicity alert: Pagan Boy, who was next in line in my ersatz High Fidelity thread, my friend of 28 years and one of my most formative boyfriends, passed away of complications from Covid over the weekend. I found out while this draft was on the desk waiting to be typed. I say synchronicity because The Drummer woke up such a hankering for chatting through bad movies that I drafted Pagan Boy into the madness. Before he was gone, I got to mock Dear Christmas (my choice) and Five-Headed Shark (his) over messenger with him.

 

The Drummer has gently ghosted by now (Well I HOPE he ghosted and didn’t, you know, die.) but even aside from the copious cuteness he provided, I’m so, so grateful he led me to those good hours with Pagan Boy. I miss them both a bunch and I’m basically pining like Wonder Woman over here.***********

 

Back to December:

 

One of the side effects of being underemployed, traumatized by America, estranged from part of my family and also possibly being part bear is that I’ve really ramped up my nap-taking. With that comes a little bit of nap-guilt, especially while I was in touch with riskily not-underemployed The Drummer. Ask me about my NAPS FOR ALL platform.

 

Nap-guilt notwithstanding, I asked The Drummer one Friday afternoon if I should do something productive (I WAS, despite all of the above, nonetheless in full Virgo goalsetting/Tidying Up/budgeting mode) or take a nap.

 

“Nap! Nap! Nap!” he wrote back right away.

 

Inspired, I typed “Hot nap pic in the works”

 

I got into my longjohn-style, vaguely Christmas-themed pajamas, cocooned in the covers, then set about learning portrait mode. The blankets were pulled up over my head, you could only see a fraction of my face, but my vulnerably unglassesed eyes definitely said “Wish you were here.”

Possibly I also typed that.

 

It was a silly, cute, bundled-up picture, but as I noted his kiss emojis and headed toward snoozetown, I felt such a warm wave of joyful desire. It was as if I had just texted him all of the quadrants, naked outside in the sun. It felt new to be so easily and thoroughly turned on in such a time of scary touch-desert. It was an EXTREMELY good nap. Might have to stop writing and go take another.

…

 

Okay I’m back. That weekend, the weekend before Christmas, The Drummer and I had our second text-though-a-bad-movie date, this time with blue speech bubbles instead of Bumble yellow. I thought we had already agreed on Left Behind (Y’all! It’s so much like The Leftovers except really bad and boring and with disconcerting references to “globalism”!) but he seemed taken aback that I was actually willing to go there. This poor guy, he must’ve felt like dating me was a dare.

 

For all the fun and happiness and quipping, bad movies are REALLY LONG without eventually switching to making out. So when he asked me what my choice was for next time, I said a six-feet-apart walk in the woods. And so, after the holidays, that would be our plan.

Fell in Like with The Drummer, Part Two: Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas

 

 

It was the second weekend of December 2020. I had just pulled off my yearly Christmas gathering via Zoom so the place was decorated and full of beautiful cookies. I was really, really, REALLY excited to text through a bad movie with The Drummer, if a little concerned that I’d gone too far in the BAD direction. Maybe, I thought, not everyone would be entertained by the combination of Tiger Beat heartthrob and mocking Christianity. He’d been doing such a lovely job for a couple of weeks, praising (eee!) my photos of Christmas crafts and keeping me up to date on how cute his dog was being.

 

It was lovely not to feel the press towards sexting that so often comes with online dating. Once, when he said there should be a combination of all the holidays with an orgy post-vaccine, I briefly strayed into tinsel-bondage talk (Pretty image but really terrible idea I’ll bet!) but mostly there was this old-fashioned getting-to-know-each other that I really enjoyed.

 

I knew he deserved better than Saving Christmas but it seemed like good movies were a thing for in-person times.

 

When it was almost time to press play, I put on a pretty sweater and some red lipstick and took a selfie in front of Lenny Spruce, my Christmas tree. (Because of Mrs. Maisel, they’re always named that, but this year it was especially exciting to get an actual spruce!) He (The Drummer, not Lenny Spruce) pronounced the selfie adorable and it was time to start the movie.

 

In the past few weeks, it’s dawned on me that in the MST3K family of products, it’s extremely rare to see not-a-white-man doing the riffing. (S/o to Baron Vaughn the best Tom Servo though!) Sure Felicia Day is sometimes there being awesome and Gypsy got in a rare word or two, but the actual riffing part was something I never considered I might like to do. I may not be funny or clever, I might make too many Midsommar references, but mocking bad movies is the best quarantine hobby I’ve found so far.

 

The Drummer’s sense of humor matched very nicely with mine—a combination of present-day compassion and Gen X irritation. Every once in a while as the quips popped up in the Bumble yellow bubbles I had to just stop and say “OMG I AM SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW” before going back to ironytown. Cute artist drummer guy mocking a terrible movie with me while I drank wine and ate Christmas cookies?! Has ANYTHING ever been better? Perfect. Just such a silly respite and joy.

Even better, he ended the conversation by:

1.      Asking me to pick the next movie.

2.      Mentioning that Left Behind is a trilogy

And

3.      A kiss emoji.

 

I gave him my number and we joked that this could either lead to a Growing Pains podcast or a cult, or both. OH The Drummer, you are such a gift and a treat.

I Did Not Expect to Feel This Way When a Creepy Guy Invaded the Zoom!

 

These days, what even IS a body adventure? I know I should be working on my No-Contact High Fidelity proj and learning the knots on Thursdays, but the sense of hopelessness that’s pervaded my snuggle-outlook since Quarantine Crush is hard to shake. I think a lot about what quarantine-long lack of touch (Aside from some very special occasion exceptions (Like, say, friends are alive after being boxed in during a police-incited riot…) Sweetie and the cats are the only people I can hug or high-five. And the cats are TERRIBLE at high-fiving!) is doing to my brain and body. I’m not really sure what my psyche is up to, but I think it’s time to figure it out.

 

Yesterday, I was “at” my favorite Zoom book talk, sponsored by our local bookstore/coffeeshop. I like to go and mostly mute myself, hear what some local strangers are reading, occasionally unmuting to chime in about a book or invite everyone to a march. This week though: WHOA!

 

We were listening to a lady talk about the cool workbook that comes with Life Before Slavery when, OHNO! I looked up from my doodling to see: A naked, face-hidden white guy playing with his erect penis!

 

“It’s so small!” Exclaimed the lady who was trying to talk about her book. Though I’m resolutely against size-shaming, I so much admired her bravado and he definitely deserved worse! It was just kind of normal-sized, lovely even though it belonged to an invasive, rapey creep. They muted his video feed and we aimed to get back to books.

 

I felt awful for the moderator and for the rest of the group. After a little nervous laughter and dismay, we went back to our talk. I was a little more chatty than usual and was happy to make some new friends for the first time in a while and add some more books to my TBR.

 

What that guy did to our Zoom was evil, violent, hateful and invasive. I can’t believe anyone could be that callous, selfish and cruel to anyone, let alone a neighborhood bookstore!

 

Stepping back and looking at my own physical and emotional reaction, though, I am shocked, SHOCKED and a little alarmed. Though I guess a delayed reaction may come later, I felt no fear, no triggers, no jangled sense of helplessness. What my body felt about being subjected to this nonconsensual cam guy was:

 

…Yay?

 

It could be an adrenaline thing or a self-protective bravado, but I think my reaction is more base, if I can use that word in a non-judgmental way. What stayed in my body for the rest of the evening and a little bit still today was/is a clear, quiet physical happiness. It almost feels like…health.

 

Against all ethics and reason, I felt a sense of possibility and joy. Later, after the talk was done and I finished the dishes and played my phone games and caught up on the news, I had some very nice personal time, with a further-reaching, more hopeful imagination than I’d had in a long time.

 

There were some more sense-making things contributing to that healthy feeling, to be sure. An old friendship dragged itself up yesterday from the Bernie scrap-heap (Hi Pagan Boy! Welcome back if you’re reading!) and I spent a few hours at my own (not the same one) bookstore job for the first time since March. It was a generally good and progress-y day.

 

But. this invasive, creepy moment was the most personal sexual encounter I’d had since those nights taking Quarantine Crush’s songs the wrong way. It was the nearest I’d gotten to getting friendly with a penis since… when was Comedy Guy? Like a year ago at least! In spite of myself, something was fulfilled in me, a glowing little (yet regular-sized) puzzle piece of joy fitting neatly into my Sacral chakra. I have no excuse.

 

I think the take-away here is this: It’s time to stop neglecting my sex drive and my kink. As creative as I’ve gotten with working and socializing remotely, I think there’s a lot of room for improvement in my virtual sex life, which doesn’t currently exist beyond swiping through Bumble and Hinge. I want whatever I find to be consensual, private, and personal of course, but just as surprising and stimulating. I’ll let you know how it goes!