Making Out In Front of a Romcom, and Other Perfect Things! Part One

 For a surprising night, I was a go-with-the-flow gal. It wasn't an act, just where my head and heart were! A lovely night just came to me, and I let it happen! Things didn't turn out the way I wanted them to, but still, I'm proud and pleased!

It was a couple weeks ago now. Even before The Southern Charmer reached out, I was having the perfect Saturday night--I was surrounded by cats and snacks, watching Nobody Wants This on Netflix, and tending to my long-neglected Animal Crossing island.

The Southern Charmer had been reticent to try anything because of other relationship stuff, but on this day, he was feeling adventurous! (Or maybe, as it turned out, avoiding some feelings about other stuff, Why not both?) He invited himself over, and I said the easiest yes (Actually the easiest "Can I have a few hours to tidy up first?") in the universe. 

And then here he was! Two years after our second date. He had medical-grade weed gummies, and we split one. I could not believe my luck.

It shouldn't seem like a miracle to have somebody cute on my couch, catching up an watching a romcom, but it felt like a miracle and an oasis.

So many of my recent dates have been handsy, urgent, somewhat systemically understandably wanting to get me over with and get back to their gig work. But The Southern Charmer was looking at me without expectations, looking me like I was a whole person to him. Another thing that shouldn't feel like a miracle, but does.

Maybe he was a little in denial of the grief of a recent breakup, maybe he was trying to bandaid the pain with some cuddles, but I didn't see that. I don't know if I wish I had or if I'm glad I didn't.

From my perspective, a synchronicity. A gift. A chance to relax with/into someone beautiful, free of expectations. I wish I was clearer on what he felt, then and now, but all I felt was joy and playful relief.

For the first time in a long time, I was sharing my couch with someone who felt like a true friend, someone who saw us as equals. For the first time in a long time, a man who wasn't breathing impatiently for price-of-admission sex, pawing inexpertly at my boobs. 

 Instead, he was just smiling at me. I wanted to kiss him so badly, not just because I wanted to break my kiss curse, but because he was whole and beautiful and (I thought!) present and his eyes were sparkling.

When I asked him the dreaded HSV-1question, his answer was perfect, perfect, perfect: "Well, I've passed enough blunts in my day." And that was that! And then, cue the choir of angels, his mouth warmly and beautifully and emphatically on mine, his sculpted arms pulling me close. I liked when we paused sometimes to see what was going on with Kristin Bell and Adam Brody.

Friends. I've had so many beautiful, transcendent, daring, creative body adventures, but I don't think there's anything in the world better than making out in front of TV. That's how it was with This Charming Man watching Gremlins Two, and with Gilmore Guy watching Gilmore Girls. I guess feeling like ordinary dates are miracles is a pretty good way to go through life.

A Magical Movie Self-Date

 

Last Saturday when I was planning my self-date night to go see Downton Abbey: A New Era, I knew there were plenty of movie theaters with parking lots, with big cozy seats, with pretty good mojitos. But I wanted to go to The Artsy Theater, my favorite.

It was the one where I sobbed a whole lifetime at the end of Boyhood not long after one of my cats passed away. The one where I saw Her and decided I should break up with the boyfriend who existed only on Twitter, then put off doing that for a while longer. It was where I took comfort in the absurd romance of The French Dispatch while I was getting over The Good Boy.

(It was also where I was subjected to a Woody Allen trailer while awaiting The French Dispatch—why does such a thing even still exist? What the heck, Artsy Theater?!)

But! They keep the Junior Mints in the freezer there, and they have so many flavors of hot chocolate, which I never try, because let’s be honest I need coffee to stay up past 9:30, especially in the dark.

So I guess the main swoon in this story is for the theater itself, but when I walked in a little early for my 9:20 movie there was The Song Sender, looking exactly as he had in 2011 when he said goodbye.

“I’ve seen you on every dating app!” I blurted out, because if I’m going to live in a romcom I’m going to bring the awkward.

I had though. The last time I’d seen him, on Feeld, he was even in my “likes you” folder, with his girlfriend right there in the profile with him. The Song Sender, who’d dumped me ostensibly about monogamy, had been brought to the poly team, maybe by this nice lady I should’ve snooped more about before I sent him to the left. I thought he would probably be too rough for me these days, but the update and the “like” gave me a nonzero amount of joy.

Anyway, back to the movies, I went over and sat down next to him, and my body didn’t think he seemed too rough at all. I felt cozy and oriented, both like no time had passed and like forever had. I caught a little whiff of the smell of him and it gave me a sense of surety and happiness. I sure wasn’t woozy or helpless the way I’d been back in my 2011-and-headed-towards-divorce apartment with him.

It took me a few minutes of being fairly inappropriate before he told me he was at work and therefore couldn’t tell me every detail of his adventures like I’d asked. I still showed him my hidden photos folder with some of my rope creations, and he unsurprisingly liked them.

As I was going into the movie, he snapped a selfie of the two of us because his girlfriend wanted to know who this girl was who was showing him pictures. I gave him my number, which felt both like a crazy thing to do and the most natural thing in the world. Whether as a friend or as a…whatever, he was missing from me and now he isn’t.

The movie was perfect, of course, and so was the rest of my date with myself. I walked a dreamy few blocks through the historic district to my favorite bus route, which I love even more than I love The Artsy Theater. When I walked from my bus stop to home, the moon was almost full and big in the sky. The flowering trees were giving off their late-night smells. I saw my first lightning bug of the season.

That walk from the bus stop made me sure that whatever happens with any character, past, present, or future, it’s within my power to make this a Summer of Romance for myself. So in the name of the Dowager Countess and the first firefly of the season, that’s exactly what I resolve to do.

From The Museum of Bad Advice to The Library of Love (And Knots.)

Before I head-argue with BetterHelp lady any more, I just want to stop and celebrate the creative surge and series of breakthroughs I’ve been experiencing during and following my Quarantine Crush adventure! I’m never sure if its super-ethical to consider people muses, (Past and present muses, feel free to weigh in! Not here because the comments are turned off.) but QC is a powerful one anyway. Since Zooming with his poetry reading, I’ve written poetry I’m excited about for the first time in years, revived an old poetry series, made however many drawings and paintings, tried new drawing styles, gotten a new perspective on my business life, and written like a jillion paragraphs here.

I even signed up to read from the Kitten Calendar at an old-fave local reading so I’d have a way to re-experience rope adventures!

Miracle of miracles, I’ve even learned to love dressing up for Zoom events, including pretty shoes for no reason!

Whether or not I can justify the tears to a narrow-minded therapist, crushes fucking WORK for me, and they often lead to more friendships as well! (Angel Face is still one of my main inspirations—he invited me to Online Goth Night on Friday and I am TOTALLY going!)

Romantic lovewise, though. I know I can’t control if I ever find the requited version again. If I don’t, I think I can probably handle it, because I almost always feel completely full of all the kinds of love in my life: friend-love, family-love, work-love, talking-about-Gilmore-Girls-love, art love, book love, nature love, and of course good old fashioned self-love. Actually, I think I’m pretty amazing at love, even as I’m still missing a person or people.

It has really struck me in the past few days how simple, how ordinary, my romantic wishes/fantasies/hopes are. I don’t think it’s crazy or demanding to hope that someday before too long a masculine person will be sending me songs for smitten reasons, not for just-friendly reasons like QC or for opportunistic predatory reasons like Bill. And maybe, just maybe, that song-sender will know all the knots.

Because of my age and other particulars, it’s easy to see my romantic hopes as lightning-strike bonkers. I sure thought of it that way while I was divorcing, but I had to make room for that imaginary guy anyway, I had to try. Such an ordinary wish, to be like-liked. It happens to people all the time. I know that I deserve it as much as anybody, that no amount of self-as-project can make it come along any faster or slower. It comes when it comes. Until I get there, I fall, I get giddy, I cry, I make art. It’s a pretty good plan.

I am WILDLY underemployed this summer, so I need some CDC-friendly adventures. I need to be always writing paragraphs. So!

1.      Learn one knot a week. Think about how much the Republicans would resent me using stimulus (ha) money on a new set of shiny peacock-blue ropes.

2.      High Fidelity without the visits. I feel pretty resolved about all of my past loves, but it would be fun to visit them in my mind and heart. Since I already lavishly paid tribute to The Boy Who Sewed Me a Pillow, I’ll start with the guy after that. The guy who sang Rage Against the Machine on amusement park rides. The guy who looked like Eddie Vedder at just the right moment. The guy who was my first sex/love combination. Ohhhhh Full Name Guy, you’ll be a summer treat.

That way, until I find my next human true love(s) I’ll have all the rope-love and paragraph-love to keep me company. Thanks for reading, wish me luck!

For the Museum of Bad Advice, Part One (Hang Up)

Sometimes, I’m lucky enough to have paid someone to say exactly what depression itself would say, so I could hang up on them both.

Toward the beginning of quarantine, constant family contact, fear about my job, and general everyone-might-die-ness was making me worry that I might lose any of the mental health ground I’ve gained in the past few years. Insurance was in flux as I filled out every disaster relief form, so I took some of the extra money my brother had sent (He felt lucky to be able to work full time from home.) and subscribed to BetterHelp.

The first therapist I tried seemed insufficiently invested in science, letting slip some Trumpesque complaints about CDC guidelines. The second one was better, but I think she was mixing me up with another of her clients. Suffering from Quarantine Brain myself, I felt compassion for her, but didn’t think she would help with my growing sense of nonexistence.

The third one, I liked. She seemed sensible, grown-up, and (I’ve seldom in my life found this appealing, but in-these-times etc.) like she knew what I should do next.  She recommended The Four Agreements, one of the worst, victim-blamiest self-help books I’ve encountered, (By the Book sums it up pretty well: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/stitcher/by-the-book/e/59267477#/) but I decided to overlook that red flag. She sent me a so-detailed-as-to-be-sleep-PREVENTING Sleep Hygiene Diary, but she also seemed fine when I disregarded some of her advice and took other aspects to heart.

Last Tuesday during an early morning phone session, still weepy and off-balance from saying bye-sort-of to Quarantine Crush, I was sharing my pretty boilerplate 45-year-old-single-bi-woman worries when I heard (not for the first time in my may therapist lifetime.)  third therapist lady become audibly annoyed:

“Well, you have this air of desperation,” she said, and that can be really off-putting. If you really do what you need to do to love yourself, they’ll be more attracted.”

A.    Desperation seems like a TOTALLY REASONABLE EMOTION TO HAVE when:

1.      Tens of thousands of people are dying.

2.      My work life is fairly decimated.

AND

3.      I was relearning how to write poems with a friend I missed so, SO much.

B.     What did attracting anybody even have to do with it when I had:

1.      Fallen for someone who was both taken and

2.      A dear, important friend and

3.      2,500 miles away?!

“I just think you need to adjust what you’re looking for.” She said.

(Connection? Poetry? A creative spark? A window into meaning from the past? Hope? Songs? I know what she meant but it seems like she was oversimplifying.)

“What am I looking for?” I asked, joining her in irritated-voiceness.

“Well, romance might seem really nice in books, but in real life, you might be too sensitive for it.”

(Note: The Highly Sensitive Person book suggests this too, but it also suggests that communities with a lot of immigrants have fewer sensitive people, so I put it in the garbage. Not even good enough for the recycle bin.)

I tried a little bit to tell her how many different kinds of relationships I’d tried, certainly more than the average person.

“It’s just that I’m mostly happy being alone,” I said, “So I’d rather not keep trying casual stuff and then getting mad at partners for being too casual.” (Basically the theme for years of this blog.)

It really irked my soul that she was reading me as a commitment-hungry stereotype when I was willing to love someone I’m unlikely to even see any time soon—seems like maybe it was the opposite problem. I’m still arguing with this lady I unsubscribed to a week ago.

She told me that AT MY AGE (caps mine, she wasn’t yelling) I needed to start changing my expectations.

“Men don’t want commitment after they’re divorced, so you’re probably going to have to go with it and be grateful for the couple of weeks you might get.”

“Well, that is really…grim. I’m hanging up now.” And I did.

I called Sweetie and cried out the hurt and shock that someone who was supposed to be on my side, and also someone who was basically a stranger, could be that cruel.

Oh, Comedy Guy. (Postscript: Like Tights in Many Colors That Go All the Way Up)

Way back near the beginning of my Kitten Calendar adventures, in 2012, I went to see fabulous, gorgeous, famous submissive Mollena Williams (Now Williams-Haas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NK6CzRSufo)) do a book signing for Playing Well With Others (http://www.greenerypress.com/kink-titles/playing-well-with-others.html) at our local high-end sex shop.

“Your pussy doesn’t care about your politics, “she said, and as a fellow badass feminist submissive (This was before I headed to switchtown.) I loved that so, so much. I still do! But in my life, loving that sentiment strikes me as deeply pre-2016. Who could have guessed that seven years later, I’d have a very political hat named after my vagina, and would sometimes wear it to the grocery store?!

As much as I would still love to escape into the joy of that sentiment, my sex drive isn’t a separate part of me. It’s in my body and soul, and my body and soul ARE my politics. That definitely limits the snuggles, but for me it’s the only integrated and happy way to live, love, and get spanked. And yep, superyep, it gets lonely sometimes.

I’m not sure whether it was Comedy Guy’s weasely mishandling of his Twitter #metoo or just being a bad match that turned me off. I certainly don’t blame him for telling me the story, but I DO blame him for telling me the story and then expecting me to take care of him about it. That’s just gross.

Even after dates that don’t work out, I usually feel energized and inspired the next day—I tried! There was snuggling! I talked to someone new! Gold stars all around! But I didn’t feel that way after my date with Comedy Guy. I felt drained and a little flulike, unsure of how I would stay awake for Endgame with Sweetie. (My hot take: I liked it a bunch!)

But the movie cheered me up, and so did thinking about this: Clothes in my size, whether I was at an 18 or a 24, used to be really, really hard to find. Because of that, I often settled for things I didn’t really want. I hung onto a pair of black leggings that didn’t go all the way up, that fit so poorly that they cut they ass in half horizontally. I hung onto them for the longest time because I didn’t know when I would have another pair. Now there’s clothes my size in most stores, and not just dumb generic ones, but femme-tastic, really specific ones. Now I’m faced with having to learn how to see clothes with a sense of abundance, getting used to the sensation of actually choosing. There’s a reason the rebels in Dietland all wear jewel-toned leggings! In some ways, we are significantly more free.

I realize that my approach to dating has sometimes been like those dumb, ill-fitting leggings. Sex and love are not currently designed for people like me, and I felt like I had to take what I could get. It wasn’t hard to admit what I wanted, but I still struggle to believe it’s possible. I want to realize that I can wait for what I want, that I don’t have to stuff myself into things that don’t fit or dim the colors of my heart in any way. I’m straining the metaphor, but still. So here’s a little list of what I want:

1.      Romance

2.      Freedom

3.      Humor

4.      Consent

5.      Inspiration

That’s a good start, right?

Not a Comedy Guy text. I'm so, so, proud of this one but I'm a little bummed I might have to send a lot like it!!!

Snuggles in the Time of Kavanaugh, Part Four

            Part of the reason the Kavanaugh hearings were so painful and traumatizing was that Dr. Ford’s testimony recalled my own teenage rape so clearly. I felt protective of Gilmore Guy as he helped me navigate those feelings, mostly by being wonderful and adorable and nice-smelling and superhot.

            But when, after several increasingly tense attempts at PIV sex, it started to slide into place, I could feel his focus on his penis’s performance. His determination and fixation made me feel like I wasn’t there, like he wasn’t there either. I slipped back from this safe, celebratory moment to that decades-ago drugged, mouth-covered, trapped, lost teenage feeling. I lost the battle against panic and told him so. He stopped, of course, looked scared and concerned. I felt all of my OWN pressure to get back to cheerful so we could fuck, my own increasingly futile determination to not be so scary with all of my feelings.

            “What do you need?” He asked again and again, in a voice that was at once scared, caring, and businesslike. I apologized for panicking and he said something understanding about “emotional labor” which struck me as a sad phrase to have to use on a second-or-third date. Nonetheless, he cared for me and treated me kindly, to the point where I wanted to return the good-listener favor. I asked him what was on his mind and he said:

“I miss (Gilmore Lady).” I just couldn’t help it, I started to cry. It wasn’t cute crying by any stretch—lonely, hurt, sad tears, empty and heartbreaking. It was a moment of inescapable honesty and I lost all attempts at being I-love-sharing-modern-open-relationships lady.

I cried and cried and confessed and confessed. I told him how much I want to be someone’s sun and moon and stars (“Not YOURS. Not on the second date. I’m not CRAZY.”) how what I really wanted was romance, how I’d already told him in the woods that I’m not a secondary.

“Do you want me to go?” He asked delicately.

“No. You can think I’m crazy tomorrow. Just… don’t go.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” he said forcefully, climbing back into bed and wrapping me up in his arms. As kind as he was, and even as he didn’t mind me playing a guided meditation to try and get to sleep, I couldn’t settle in next to him. I went downstairs to the couch and almost immediately, exhausted and scared (not of him) I fell asleep in my own personal space.

When I woke up in the morning and, after my morning writing, meditation, and Spanish practice, went upstairs to him, I saw all over again what a gift he was. He was just lying there on his belly checking his phone, locks in a grey bandanna and fanned out over his naked back and shoulders, looking like a perfect treasure of a man, and I told him so. I really didn’t want to let him go, and we made the VERY most of the morning until it was time for me to get ready for work.

We made plans for the weekend. We texted and texted and texted. I sent him long, fretful, feminist paragraphs and he sent kind and thoughtful responses back. I could send him fraught texts in the middle of the night without scaring him away, that does not go unappreciated. He was a champion. He really tried, and so did I.

When it came time for our third-or-fourth date, a NO rose up in me so strong and goddessy that it felt like it was coming from the center of the earth. I said rather more than I meant to about unicorn hunters and the treatment of secondary partners how I might LOOK less-than, but wasn’t.

He looked regretful and sad as he left, and I was sad too. But more than sad, I was SURE. I was brave. I could see and admit what I wanted, even though poly norms and society in general would tell me to expect and accept less. I was embarrassed that I’d said so much, but mostly I just felt proud.

A week or so after that, Gilmore Guy and I exchanged kind goodbye/thank you texts, and I’m glad. I couldn’t be more grateful for his visit to my life, and I’m glad I got to tell him so directly instead of just hoping that he reads this.

I feel like I am a new and different person in a post-Dr.-Ford world. Her bravery is a new resource that empowers me to stand up for myself in the screaming-at-the-Supreme-Court way but also in the smaller, more daily, even in the more snuggly ways. I can’t say enough about my gratitude for Dr. Ford and for all of the women who came before her and with her. My childhood self had Anita Hill, my present day self has Christine Blasey Ford, and we both have Murphy Brown, so I think everything might be okay.

            After I said goodbye to Gilmore Guy, I changed my “Relationship Type” in OK Cupid to monogamous. I’m not sure that’s exactly right either, but there’s no “sun and moon and stars” option. So far, it has the same trials and indignities as it did before, but also the same hope. Steven and Gilmore Guy kindled a good flame in me, and I’m going to take care of it.

Did Bernie Ruin the Men of the Left?

            It like so many of my stories lately, it started out in the most rom-commy of ways. I took myself to lunch at a fancy sushi restaurant to celebrate a few different things, and after the twelve- dollar ramen and the four pieces of yellowtail I could afford, I said yes to a really elaborate dessert. Conditioned by years of Food Network to peer back into the kitchen, I watched the dreamy pastry chef execute the multistep process it took to construct the chocolate fever dream what was eventually set on fire before me. I liked how careful he seemed with his hands, so precise that I thought he just might know some knots.

            He stuck in my head so I sent him a card. (Outer envelope, restaurant address. Inner envelope: “To the chef who made my (name of dessert) at lunchtime on 4/3.”) On the back of a homemade card featuring a photo of last year’s azaleas, I gave him my number and suggested that he look me up if he was single or in an open relationship.

            It was a silly thing to do and it made me feel romantic and optimistic and happy, but I assumed I’d just give myself credit for trying and never hear from him—but he texted! And when I sent him my picture he sent back three heart-eye emojis.

            He was a great texter for a few days, all “good morning” and “beautiful” and “sleep well” so I was really excited for our first date. We met downtown and walked around the city at twilight, heading for a bench in our most cinematic park, where the tress were almost in full bloom and the fanciest people were walking their dogs.

            Because I am me and he is a guy that I picked, politics came up almost immediately. Though I’d hope to avoid the primaries conversation to at least give us a CHANCE to like each other, he went ahead and said the spell-breakingest, pants-wall-buildingest thing he could’ve said:

“I’m still upset about my man. I know he could’ve won in November.”

            In my heart was a Star-Wars-prequels cheesy NOOOOOOOOOOOO, and what I said aloud wasn’t much better. I think it would be spelled something like:

“GaaaaaaAUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHhhhh, NO!” I practically folded myself in half with anguish and disappointment. I punched him hard on the arm, not a fantastic move a half-hour into a first date, I know. It was a delicious, powerful, bread-baking arm, hard to forget.

            Trump is the very worst, of course, but Bernie has wrecked my love life way more, simply because his slightly subtler “nice guy” misogyny is something I much more likely to encounter in my daily liberal bubble of a life. While my being queer, poly, and fat probably helps ward off any wandering Trumpsters, The Bern is a persistent and pernicious irritation.

            We talked about lots of other things, and in some ways it was a really nice date, culminating with eating cheesecake in a really diner-ish diner, but he kept coming back to Hillary like a chime. What about the banks, he asked, as if Dodd-Frank had arisen from thin air, as if “his man” hadn’t taken money from the gun lobby. The gun lobby!

“That’s understandable, I guess,” said my getting-less-cute-by-the-minute date, pushing my voice up to a level of strident that only Gloria Steinem could hear.

These conversations feel like microagressions, like attempts to put me in my place. Is there anything more condescending than the “I don’t like Hillary, but here are some other women I would vote for” line? Imagine replacing “women” with any other category and it sounds even more tone deaf and creepy.

It’s been a year and I STILL don’t want to hear about how Elizabeth Warren is the kind of woman you could approve of, dude.

To me, Bernie-fervor and the she’s-a-liar disinformation campaign that sparked it was an outgrowth of trolling culture, which itself feels like an expression of rape culture. There might be an anxious-girl leap in there, but that doesn’t actually make it not true. Men who are susceptible to misogynist mob mentality on that scale may never feel safe for me to be around.

It didn’t work out with the pastry chef for a variety of reasons, but I’m happy to come away with hope, with the realization that I have the option to wait, glass-slipper style, for the Hillary-voter of my dreams. That doesn’t mean that I will, but it’s a relief to know that I can.

I know that it wasn’t really a case of Bernie ruining the men of the left. Last year’s primary only served to bring to light the misogyny that permeates all of American society, and it’s a bummer to know that Democrats (OR WHATEVER) aren’t exempt, but we aren’t. Whenever I’m having these annoying conversations with Bernie Bros, sometimes I’m comforted to stop and think “This is the work.” Activism doesn’t only live in pussy hats and marches, it’s in the little day-to-day pushbacks that can slowly move the conversation where we want to it be. I’d rather have snuggles, but for now, I’ll settle for evolution, even in the tiniest of ways.

In Which I Realize I Am Really Lucky to Have Had My Adventure Years, Part Six

Before I do all of the analyzing and narrating, I want to stop and say I miss him. I liked him so much. He was soft and warm and sweet and strong, and he gave me so much pleasure and inspiration. Whatever else was true during those weeks, there was a deep happiness that rang in me like a bell.

After the pool afternoon, my smittenness with J. had both good and bad effects. First and foremost, I was dizzy with joy because A. He was driving an hour each way that Thursday to have a campus on the pretty, Hogwarts-like campus where I work and. B. Our next date was going to include him not only going to my Unitarian church with me, but bringing water from his pool to add to our beginning-of-season water ceremony.

The joy I felt at the idea of him joining me at church cannot be overstated—I kinda lost my mind. Having been married to an atheist all those years, I longed for a partner I could go to church with, and even though none of the women in my family attend church, I knew it was part of my big, almost-too-scary-to-wish-for dream. Granted, he was also an atheist (Unitarians have those) who refused to call it church, but that did nothing to dim my enthusiasm.

Last Christmas Eve, I was sitting in the pew with The Cute Church Couple (on our friendaversary!)  and their beautiful baby girl. I joked that I was saving a spot for my boyfriend, in case this was actually a Hallmark movie. Later, when church started to fill up, I started to move over, but the Cute Church Husband said “No. Save that spot.” I was touched at his belief in my not-that-crazy church boyfriend dream, and I still take a lot of comfort in that story.

The bad part was, though, the more I liked J, the more I thought women would be lining up any minute to care for him and the boys. I felt like I had to be more grateful, to spoil him more so he wouldn’t go away. (And that I had to be creative about that, since he purported to not like blow jobs…) I also felt (I can’t believe I’m saying this!) slightly guilty for insisting on condoms when he clearly disliked them so much. To quell my anxiety on the whole question of them, I offered to provide them for our next date, since I was hosting. I had him send me a picture of the package we’d gotten together, since he said they were okay.

Also, I felt a great deal of worry wrapped up in making him a picnic—he mentioned food and health several times and was quite a lot more fit than I am, so I started to have a little trouble with food. (Sample comment: Me: “I always have a treat after therapy, and you’re better than a macaroon.” He: “And healthier for you.”)  (Um, no.)  I made salads with chicken breast and brought little teeeeensy slices of birthday cake. I worried that he would end up controlling my eating, and also that I was too fat for someone as fit as he. He’d only mentioned it in tiny ways, but it grew a furrow of anxiety in my mind.

Nonetheless, when the work day of the picnic came, I felt like a romance millionaire. It was raining when I got in, so I parked in an off-to-the-side spot and cleared my backseat in case we had to have a car picnic. I spent the morning packing up boxes of books for returns and gazing dreamily out the windows at the rain and the starlings in the tall trees. I didn’t want him to see me behind a register, but we’ll get to why in a later post.

Sweetie/the boss even said I could take a long lunch and promised to be on her best ex-wife/best-friend behavior. That made me a little nostalgic for the poly days, and I wondered if seeing her there with me would make him bolt the way some of my other not-poly suitors had. I wished I was further along in the moving-on process, so I guess I’m working on that now for the next guy.

When he got to the store, it wasn’t raining but it was still wet. I suggested my backseat but he said no, he wanted to walk across campus and get his family picnic basket; he had a present in there for me. The present was this: a glow stick. From the line in my poem that accidentally said I wanted kids. And I wish I could say that I didn’t let myself wish what I wished, which was: That he would be the one. That he would change his not-wanting-more-kids mind someday and give those boys a baby sister. I have a name picked out, it arrived in my consciousness one evening over the summer, as if from nowhere.

“I asked for a glow stick and got one!” I exclaimed with glee, “Should’ve wished for a million dollars.” (That’s what Sweetie always says to me whenever synchronicity brings me surprisingly apt gifts.)

The campus has these red, green and yellow Adirondack chairs strewn around and we tried sitting in those under a pine tree, at first. I felt princessy and cared for as he napkined the rain off of our chairs. As we settled in, though, it started to rain harder, so we made for the porch of the most castle-like building on campus.

“We were too far apart in the chairs anyway.” I said.

“We’re too far apart even when we’re on top of each other, so…” So romantic, but also…not.

There happened to be a table with two chairs on the porch, and he wondered aloud whether we should sit on opposite side or together. Judge John Hodgman disapproves of sitting on the same side of the table, but Judge John Hodgman was not there.

Lunch chat was mostly pleasant and sweet. We took a lovey-dovey my-head-on-his shoulder selfie that makes my heart ache just think about it. We kissed and cuddled a campus-appropriate amount. The STI testing conversation that I had kind of skipped over last date had been hanging over my head, but it was without trouble except that he sounded kind of naïve. I mentioned the possibility of someday going on birth control, which is a huge deal for me. (Just, I’m a delicate machine. And the side effects sound scary. I wish I were more easygoing about it, but not yet.)

He set off alarm bells, though, when he offered some very creepy Svengali-like help to my creative coachees, about whom he knew virtually nothing. It made me wonder again what I might be getting manipulated into.

Still, the rain and magic won out. He said he wished we’d seen a rainbow, and I said we were the rainbow. The rain stopped exactly when I had to walk back to the store, take that, Mr. Atheist. (I don’t really think that’s what god is, but also I felt like god wanted us to cuddle.) On my commute home was download-This-Is-Water miserable, but glances at our selfie gave me almost as much comfort as the 90210 recap podcast that is currently my favorite.

Coming up: Special underpants, hello/goodbye.

In Which I Realize How Lucky I Am to Have Had My Adventure Years: Part One

Well, friends, after a quiet and mostly happy-to-be-single year, I recently dipped my toe back into the treacherous waters of sexy times, and though I didn’t find a lasting connection, what I did find couldn’t be more illuminating.

Back in June, I got a crush on one of my coworkers at the college bookstore where I was part-timing. He talked to me about music. He recommended Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” and I found it excellent to type to. After all that time of not getting ridiculous over anybody, I could not stop flirting with him as we alphabetized the textbooks that got bought back at the end of the semester. Then I realized he was 23 and I could reasonably be his mom, so I went back to OKC to hit on guys my own age.

The one I found was tall and dorky-cute and of course beardy, and was especially attractive to me because he’s Unitarian and I have this dream of going to church with a boyfriend someday. On TOP of that, he’s a single dad (nothing hotter) with a SWIMMING POOL in his back yard. I’m too heartachey to make up a nickname, so I’ll just call him J.

He sent me his blog address before our first date and I found some red-flaggy things on there (Like a MILLION paragraphs about how the Cold Stone Creamery once accidentally put nuts in his sundae.) but thought it was best to give him a chance and get to know him in person. I’m so glad I did.

Rather than doing the supersensible thing and just meeting for gelato on our first date, he asked me out for the art museum AND dinner AND a movie—Trainwreck, which I’d been superexcited to see. He! Brought Me! A Mix CD! On! A! First! Date! A little heavy on the ethereal-voiced women, but still. After about an hour in the museum, I felt so powerfully drawn to him that I wanted to push him against the wall right there in the Dadaists.

He was the first guy to take me to see a rom-com on a date, and that was a snugglesome experience. We ended up making out by the river while a wedding down the way provided the cheesiest of accompaniment: “Aaaal of me, aaaaal of you.” It was beautiful and dreamy, but he was one of those guys who steals second base, and I kind of let him. I found myself in the back of his car in the art museum parking lot with my panties down before I remembered I mostly prefer privacy these days. We talked about our fantasies and his were a couple of more red flags: erotic hypnosis and being taken advantage of in his sleep. Not really boding well on the enthusiastic consent front, but that isn’t where this story is going.

Our second date was even more of a romance-bomb: A night time light show in a fancy flower garden. We kissed under a tree and I felt like I was one of the Impressionist paintings from our first date. As we walked down a magically-lit garden path, he sang “All I ever wanted, all I ever needed is here, in my arms…” As we approached a woodsy treehouse structure, we sang together: “Blue canary in the alley by the light switch, who watches over you…”  So what hope did I have of making rational decisions?

Next time: BDSM in the Flowers, Bitterness and Cake

About “I Love You”

It will come as a surprise to exactly no one that I regularly exchange “I love yous” with the Mystery Man and his Family, none of whom I’ve seen in person. At first I wondered if maybe this wasn’t going a little overboard, but as a reader and a writer I’m quite used to adoring people I’ve never physically met. The stakes are a little higher, but it feels natural nonetheless.

Back when my best friend Angel Face and I were almost a thing for five seconds, he admitted to feeling overwhelmed at the amount of affection I sent (Those who balk at “Call Me Maybe” may be glad you missed my Ke$ha-ful “Your Love is My Drug” phase…) but as friends we talk like that all the time. Getting to say it romantically to a guy, though,  is new, and every time I read it or say it, it’s like a little more of me gets repaired, like I’m a little closer to getting to express my true self.

In the movies, (and in last week’s New Girl episode) the trope is that the “I love you” should be withheld until the big reveal, some big dramatic moment, but that isn’t how it feels to me at all. I love easily, instantly, and thoroughly, and that’s always made me feel a little bit out of sync. But what if there’s actually a place in the world for people who see life that way, for whom love is like breathing, like weather?

“I love you” is both momentous and ordinary. Or COURSE I love you, why wouldn’t I? My time on this planet is limited and I’m choosing to spend some of it with you. It’s obvious, it’s easy, it’s who I am. If I wasn’t loving everyone wholeheartedly, my job would eat me alive, divorce would have kicked my ass, and nothing would ever get done. All of it is running on love, all of the time.

It wasn’t until that really terrible casual sex with a random OKC guy right after Christmas that I realized I hadn’t really been having any casual sex these past two years. In some way, I’ve loved every person I played with, and every person whose person I’ve played with. I loved Cute Master and Pretty Slave from the moment they walked into that Kinky Karaoke party glowing with good sex (and probably good weed.) I loved the Cutest Boy at the Party as soon as he sat down and started chatting me out of my party tears. I loved Old-Timey Guy from the moment he smacked my behind with that godawful hurty ceramic star. (As a side note, I think it’s the romance that attracted me to BDSM in the first place—all the outfits, special names, and secret whispers, how lucky are we that that’s real to us?)  I loved the Steampunks from the moment I sat down at their table, would have done absolutely anything for them. Fireguy’s paternal gaze, The Man’s first bus stop kiss, the rope-compersion I felt for the Boss of Me and Her Boy before I even met them—all of it, love.

Most of those folks wouldn’t say they’re in it for love, or they had enough love already when I came along, and that’s easier to accept now that I can just go ahead and admit to loving them. I did, and I always will, no matter how the story ended.

And the ones who’ll take the “I love yous” and give them back, too? You’re changing the way I see the world, the way I see my place in it. You’re helping me to settle into my real self and guess what? I love you for it.

Divorce Times: The Holidays Are Bearing Down

Full disclosure: This post was partly precipitated by a touching scene in the new Bridget Jones novel. That’s how girly I am.

Things are happy and friendly between me and Sweetie. I still call her at the end of most days as she’s leaving work. I still high-five her over smutty achievements. But it’s over soon, and I’ll be alone.

She’s supposed to be moved out by the end of November and I have no idea how we are going to get to there. Free and self-actualized as I’ve been in the past few months, I suddenly don’t want it to be over; I don’t want to let it go. She’s been my best friend and my love for all these years. She’s been my family.

And I don’t know how to make it on my own. I was hired this year to cover a maternity leave and though I’ve been told I’m keeping the same position when that teacher returns in December, I don’t feel like I’ve been earning it, so I really don’t know WHAT is going to happen. Even as I’ve grown more confident and person-like, everything in my life feels more fragile and more precarious. I wish I knew what to do to get through it.

I’m trying to bring dungeon-confidence into the rest of my life, to plant my feet and smile big and know I’m worthy, to ask for what I need and scroll past rejection with grace. But after a lifetime of being apologetic about existing at ALL, none of this comes naturally, and the stakes are much higher at work than at play. Learning to fight the reflex to apologize and make myself small is rewarding but taxing. Mostly I just have to go to bed early a lot to give myself time to grow.

In a few weeks, the holidays will start. I’ll do my yearly Black Friday shopping with my sister and come back to the house with my holiday-themed Real Simple and one eggnog latte, not two. When I made my goals for this year, this is not where I saw it all going.

I’ll probably still ask Sweetie to set up my Christmas tree, and I’ll help her with hers as well. It’s tempting to skip Christmas altogether, but after all the years of assuming we didn’t deserve one because we didn’t have children, I am never going to unperson myself like that again.

We split up the decorations months ago, but how could we really? For years, our hobby was birdwatching and so people bought us bird ornaments. None of those birds could be just mine or just hers. It will take so much more work than I’ve yet admitted to take it all apart.

I need to both find some serious inner resources and also just give myself a break. I feel the way my special-needs students must feel sometimes—I’m trying to give life what it’s asking me for, but I don’t have all of the tools I need yet. I’m getting all kinds of accommodations and modifications (My therapist makes housecalls, for crying out loud!) but everything’s just hard and slow. I think this is why I over-identify with my students.

For all I love the future I’m doing an awesome job of building, I’m slowly mourning the family I made with Sweetie, the household rituals that have left us one by one. In a few weeks, friends will start disappearing into their own families and I am afraid of how alone I will feel. It’s all part of learning to love myself, but I don’t know how to face it.

Happy Tenth Anniversary, Sweetie!

Ten years ago, in a rose garden in Upstate New York (before gay marriage was legal there) in a ceremony officiated by a poet, Sweetie and I said our vows in front of our family (even the most conservative members attended) and friends. It was a perfect day, exactly the way we’d envisioned it.

To celebrate her general state of wonderfulness, here are ten things I love about Sweetie:

1. She is beautiful. She has the most baby-deer sincere eyes, softsoft shoulders, spectacular bosoms and highly smoochable lips. My body fits perfectly with hers and the smell of her is the deepest of animal comforts.

2. She is smarter than anybody. She has absolutely no patience for nonsense except for (thank goodness!) mine.

3. She is my best friend. Sometimes, especially if we have a nice, leisurely Saturday afternoon ahead of us, we’ll lay down to have sex but seeing her face will make me just start yammering. She opens me all up, and though sometimes I know I have just a few more words than she’d prefer, she’s always, always there to talk with. I’m so very grateful.

4. I love the way she gets really worried if she sees a groundhog or some goslings about to cross the road. She’s protective of everything, especially me—once before we were even dating, it started to rain and she was worried that I’d left without a coat, so she went to my house to get me one.

5. I’m happy doing nothing with her. One of the best weeks recently was the week when the new Arrested Development season came out and we spent all kinds of time binge-watching episodes. Oh, Sweetie and me and our love affair with the couch. And the bed. And the garden. And the porch.

6. She’s so unbelievably generous! All week this week, even though she has her own full-time job, she’s been coming into school with me early every day to help pack up my classroom. She always takes care of me so well and I know I could never even BEGIN to make it up to her.

7. Strawberry waffles in bed every Saturday. Romantic trips to the Whole Foods for sushi and salted caramels. Broccoli soup in the wintertime. Getting like six fortune cookies with every Chinese food order. Morimoto for fancy ramen on really auspicious or really trying occasions. Beachside sundaes. Making dinner for her and sometimes for her and other sweeties too.

8. She listens to me cry when boys are mean to me and hardly ever gets frustrated with me for letting them. She roots for the dudes who make me happy (the whole cast of characters at the moment) but when times are tough she says the lesbians will always be willing to renew my membership. (She says she has an in with the committee…)

9. She joins me in so many adventures and happily sends me off on the ones that don’t interest her. She’s so good at knots that it makes it hard for the boys to measure up. (Yes that is a challenge, guys. Go practice!) She stands supportively by when nice men are helpful enough to hit me with stuff, and then is happy to hit me with more stuff. (Mostly her lovely hands.) She brings out the growly top in me but also can make me feel sosoothingly docile. She lets me draw elaborate doodles on her back because she likes the tickle of it.

10. She gets superpissed when I don’t love myself as much as she loves me. She is better at love than anybody I’ve ever known-she isn’t perfect but she never, ever lets me down. She never stops letting me know that I am the most important thing in the world to her. I would love to be as good at love as she is.

My Ass Is Smitten With Mister Hazel Eyes, Part 3: Die Antwoord and Romance

Aside from and annoying quasi-hip-hop preamble that inexplicably featured the six-letter f-word, Die Antwoord kicked my ass. I was sitting next to Mister Hazel Eyes, his arm protectively around me, feeling the strangest and most interesting aftercare sensation—it was like I was bottoming to the music. It reminded me of when I’d go to raves in the 90s, generally sober except for the occasional acid trip, I was almost always satisfied to get high on dancing, and this night reminded me of the fluffy, sparkly feeling I’d get during the fourth or fifth hour of dancing, when the music was part of my body and all I had to do was give in to it and keep going. It felt like surrender, and it was delicious then and now.

Between sets, I sat in MHE’s lap and made out with him obnoxiously. Why yes, we ARE in our LATE thirties, but it was so much fun to be all over each other like horny teenagers. When I went to get up from his lap, he said

“Did I tell you you could get up?”

My eyes got wide and I laughed my head off, so glad to stay put.

“What’s so funny?” He said it a little poutishly, but his pretty eyes were shining and not threatening in the least.

“I’m just happy. This is me being happy.”

Okay, so, as I said before, Jane’s Addiction was my favorite band as a teenager and they have a very special place in my heart, the lullaby songs especially: Classic Girl and Jane Says. I like the rollicking songs too, but the pretty songs have always made me feel so understood and loved.

He seemed to understand this. When they started to play Jane Says, he stopped being all grabby-sexy and just held me sort of…tenderly. I thought of all the different ways I’d heard this song, all of the different contexts, all of the many versions of myself, and I decided that this is the best version. I’m proud of how far I’ve come. When Perry Farrell sang “Jane says she ain’t never been in love, she don’t know what it is, she only knows if someone wants her.” (Which felt true in my teenage years but hasn’t been true for such a long time. Talk about an assessment.) he pulled me into a kiss that was sweet and emphatic, and I felt myself really give in to it, to him, to the romance of the moment, to whatever I might be with him. I grabbed the back of his neck and just pulled him as close as I could. The decades of want and need since the song came out felt, at least for that moment, fulfilled.

And then I thought: “Uh-oh. This is meaningful. I’m experiencing cathexis during this meaningful thing. I’m letting him in.” Recognizing that was scary, but I think that kind of metacognition (or meta-emotion?) is a good sign. In the past, I’ve formed attachments and not recognized them, reacting in a fight-or-flight way instead. So this is progress. Scary progress, but still.

I love the way that we played with each other during the rest of the concert. He held me in front of him and gave me bites gently down my neck and back. His hands meandered on the borders of inappropriate, but in kind of a sweet way. We sat down and I ran my hands over his thighs, grazing things I really wanted to grab.

After the show I climbed into his lap in the driver’s seat, cradled in his arms. I took out my pigtails so that he could get a good grip on the back of my hair. He gave me a few spanks but he didn’t have good leverage. We kissed and kissed and kissed and he said things like “I love your eyes.” (Afraid of that particular word, I said, I like yours too.”) and (!):

“You are so fucking beautiful.” I felt fucking beautiful, let me tell you.

I wanted him to kiss me all night but he wanted to get me back to Sweetie at a reasonable hour. As he drove me home, I plugged in my iPod (Who’s acting like they own the place now?) and played I Would for You the only lullaby favorite they hadn’t played. Then I played a whole bunch of dreamy covers.  I just can’t say how much I didn’t want that night to be over.

As we were saying goodbye, he got adorably/worryingly wistful: “Tell (Sweetie) she’s a lucky lady.”

I’m pretty lucky too. If I can just surrender to NRE like I surrendered to Die Antwoord, I think I’ll be fine.