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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Borrowed Grief in the Fancy Garden

 

"It's too late to change your mind

you let loss

be your guide."--Broken Bells

By the Monday after Valentine's Day, the city had been frozen for weeks. Ice on top of snow on top of ice, and the temperature was seldom higher than 20 degrees. I've been through fifty-one Februaries, and most of them seemed like they would never, ever end. I'd been trapped here learning to love myself with varying success. My brain imagined Guy Next Door having the most lighthearted and casual adventures while I worked my steps and did my therapy sessions. It was time to thaw. It was time for colors and light and alive smells. 

So BFF-Formerly-Sweetie and I planned a day at the Fancy Gardens, almost as an emergency. We were both excited to look at colors and I planned to flood the entire internet with flower pictures.

But BFF's back was out! She had a brace on and was walking with two canes instead of two. It broke my heart the way it always did when she was hurting and it also made me remember times when she'd been hurting and I'd been unkind. When I'd been heartless and impatient. I don't think I could ever forgive myself for the ways I've let my BFF down. Here I am, lucky enough to have someone to stand by me, to be my Emergency Contact. It's been twenty-five years (That gum you like is back in style.) of the deepest and most meaningful relationship of my life, and I still couldn't figure out how to *save* her or to at least make up for all the pain and neglect.

Her version might just be that her back hurt and we had a really lovely thawing day looking at flowers. But OCD and codependency had different interpretations for me.

There was another memory of The Fancy Garden around the edges of my (Nonetheless taking SO many pictures of flowers, do not worry!) 

fraught-feeling soul: The Shy One. On February 6th it was three years since he broke up with me. The week before that, I'd taken myself to the garden for winter emergency reasons, yes, but also just to listen to myself.

Things had been off between us since he got back from his trip home. He was colder and more elusive and I was kinda going crazy because he came home with "a little malaria" and I couldn't come tend to him, couldn't help "fix" the situation. And I was scared, because I'd never encountered malaria outside of novels. My imagination ran wild and I thought he was going to die. I mean, everyone's going to, but I really was afraid I he was on his way out.

(One time he told me it was like I knew he was going away soon, like I was trying to have the whole relationship at once. I've wished for years I could go back and be more present, more patient, more accepting, but I was what I was, and so was he. I don't wish like I used to that I could turn back time and do right by him, but I am TERRIFIED of making the same mistakes.)

Anyway, back to 2023 Fancy Garden. Texting flowers had been our thing, Shy One and I, but though he had recovered he was still being snappish and uncommunicative. I remember looking at a shot I took, a semi-lewd close-up of a fiery orange amaryllis, with bitterness in my heart, like, if he's not going to say more than "good morning" with no emoji, I'm not sending him one more piece of art he doesn't care about.

Back in 2026, with the glass-warmed sun shining on me and so many different purples to look at,I was also in the middle of making third-date plans with Sweet Valentine and he was Not Texting Back. And OCD was telling me it was Shy One all over again, that I was making the same stupid mistake. I felt one of my deepest fears: What if I can ONLY be drawn to people who really aren't drawn to me,  who don't text me back, who don't need me for anything at all.

(They tell me in Codependents Anonymous that I can be loved without being needed, and I totally feel that sometimes! But not on this particular day.)

(I know from my OCD support groups that texting is one of the hardest things for those of us with Relationship OCD to handle. I'm definitely the only neurospicy hottie who regularly wants to fling her phone into the sea.)

(Back in 2001 when BFF-Formerly-Sweetie and I were getting together, it was the red light on the answering machine that used to vex me! But there weren't so many other things to check so the madness of it was less maddening.)

We had a beautiful day at the gardens. BFF was glad she came, if still hurty. I still very much wanted her hurt to stop. I've always been more emotionally fragile than she is, but her physical fragility is so hard to handle. I can't help but flash forward to a day when I'll be without her, when I'll SOMEHOW have to figure life out without her. I hope that's in a long, LONG time but sometimes, it seems like it's already here.

I cried a lot of the way home; good, productive tears.

It turns out I wasn't OCDing about Sweet Valentine's quiet, or not JUST OCDing. I was kinda reading the room. He'd been wondering if he couldn't live up to all his obligations and still be poly. He wanted us to slow down so he could listen to himself about what he really wants, what he's really capable of.

That is actually so lovely! But friends, I melted down. All the griefs of the day and of the years came out in a tangle to this already-overwhelmed-but-extremely lovely man with a life just as big and messy as mine. After two dates, I would like to have preserved more mystery, but he heard me about two-thirds of the way to my worst.

But he stayed in the conversation and had the conflict with me. I still felt a warm soul-connection to him and he SOMEHOW still liked me, even after I got so tangled. So that's why the month break, which has a little more than two weeks left. Most days, I feel carried and faithful about this, like I can trust both of us to listen to ourselves, to do what we really want. I trust, if he comes back to me, that it'll mean that's what he really wants. I think I already know what I really want, but who knows how two more weeks will change me?

That night when we were agreeing to the break, I told him I hope our respective Totoros will take us just where we need to go. He said he loves Totoro, because of course he does.

So if you want to know how this story will turn out, here's the only person who knows:

Meanwhile, In 2006

Between reading a history of indie rock with The King of Carrot Flowers and getting deep into my Portlandia rewatch, my ears have decided they need to be filled with The Flaming Lips almost all the time. I like the way the bleeps and bloops and bwowwwmps bounce back and forth in my headphones.

So now it's time to write about one of the most beautiful and sad and gorgeous nights of my life so far: a birthday-weekend Flaming Lips show!!! The openers were The Magic Numbers, Sonic Youth (!!!) and (I can't believe I forgot this until the King of Carrot Flowers reminded me!) Ween. I don't think it was too long before my crush/our friend-breakup, but that night, it all worked together perfectly somehow. I felt everything all the way. I was overwhelmed with love and wanting-to-be-loyal about Sweetie-Now-BFF and I was frustrated as heck that I couldn't heap love upon The King of Carrot Flowers as well.

The longing was such a presence at that show that I feel like I should've bought her a ticket. Two wives, one best friend, one longing please! I think that's who I'm always buying a just-in-case extra concert ticket for.

The longing is what the music is for. Like edibles or good speakers, it makes the songs more vivid.

There was a loooong time of sitting in the bleachers and being low-key, listening to Sonic Youth sing "What a waste...you're so chaste.." (They do that one on Gilmore Girls, too! I love the way Kim Gordon bounces and shakes when she sings. I try to imitate it every time I'm singing loud/doing dishes.) The Magic Numbers played Mornings Eleven: "Call me if you're on your own, maybe you can meet me in the morning."

I WANTED to meet The King of Carrot Flowers in the morning, then return to my cozy home with Then-Sweetie come evening time. Sometimes that DID happen, but not for illicit snuggles! We would go for a swim or for ice cream or one time, with a bunch of his grad-student friends, the zoo.

By the time The Flaming Lips came on, we'd migrated higher up the bleachers and a few of our poet friends and work friends joined us. I felt elated, but also urgent, like WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE THIS! How did we all get to be here, together?! How did we get loves and friends and friend-loves to all be in these bleachers with us!? As happy as I was, I was also a little mad--how could I possibly express this tsunami of affection? How could I be present hard enough to honor this unearned miracle?

Luckily, we were at a Flaming Lips show! Sparkles and confetti and martian girls and lifting up the sun and battling the pink robots (I strongly suspect that the Flaming Lips are Phish for hipsters. I'm trying to banish this thought but cannot! Now you have it too!) and singing along to Do You Realize?? under the stars in my hometown with my arms around my dear ones, it was a rare moment of being sure I was giving life the honor it deserves. A rare moment of loving exactly as hard as I wanted to.

Amends Tales: The King of Carrot Flowers

 

Now we're a two-person book club! :D

I promise I will eventually get back to the hotness, but I have a few platonic updates I want to share first!

Back when BFF Formerly Sweetie and I were first together, there was a third pal with us all the time. I'm naming him the King of Carrot Flowers because we were and are talking-about-music soulmates, and the early 2000s were a very Neutral Milk Hotel-y time for me. For us all!

King of Carrot Flowers was with us ALL the time! On Sundays, Sweetie and I would do the big New York Times crossword puzzle, and then head over to his place to watch The Simpsons and Malcolm in the Middle. We all went to see Rilo Kiley (Openers: Tilly and the Wall! Tapdancer as percussion!) in the dead of winter in a very subpar car. He was in our wedding.

He lived right by the nice pool in the park, we swam there and agreed that yes, it DID look like those Ice Mice candies inspired by the Harry Potter treat trolley. We drove weirdly far to get ice cream, and I got blissed out and swoony about the albums he played on his first-generation iPod, plugged in with the aux cord. He burned me my first and only copy of my favorite album, The Execution of All Things. It conked out in my car's CD player about 5 years ago.

Modest Mouse. Of Montreal. The first time I learned what a collective effervescence is, I was flirting with a religious studies grad student in King of Carrot Flowers's kitchen during a snowstorm disco party.

He used to housesit for us when we were away. He was our cat's favorite because he always brought sushi.

The song he kept on his MySpace page: 

Sometimes, when no one was looking, I would just hit refresh on his page over and over, just to feel connected to him.

We LOVED each other as friends and it's not at all surprising that I got a crush! Almost immediately upon marrying Sweetie, I fell into a WHAT IF I NEVER SEE A PENIS AGAIN panic so of course I would want to bi it up with this very romantic (to me) friendship.

I confessed the crush one night, walked over to his place after a spat with Sweetie and, to the soothing sounds of The Colbert Report, told him I was having feelings for him. He was very kind about it but said he wasn't interested in sharing with Sweetie. Polyamory was a few years away, I didn't even know the word yet.

If you've been a reader for any length of time, you can guess what happened: I felt sad and rejected and picked a fight to get space from him. That space lasted for about twenty years!

Then, the other month when I was babbling to BFF about how much I love dorking out about stuff with Guy Next Door, she said, "Why don't you call (King of Carrot Flowers)? You guys loved talking about music!"

So I did that thing where you send a friend request out into the universe and never expect to hear back. But I did! He accepted my apology and said "We're all better at giving each other grace these days."

It felt like I'd found a missing puzzle piece. We've been in touch ever since and I could not be more grateful.

Two Great Loves Is a LOT! And Relationship OCD

 

Irving on the train, knowing he's been loved.

I haven't wanted to post for a while, mostly I just don't want to keep repeating the same story--I continue to be amazed at how many people are out there not being the right one.

One thing that's new is OCD therapy! I've been getting treated since November, when I realized it's not superhealthy to think that my dating life is CURSED. (I still kinda think it is!)

The way they treat OCD sometimes is exposure therapy--just leaning in to whatever awful thing that compulsions are helping me avoid/make worse. The other day, I was telling the therapist all my deepest, darkest fears of what happens if I never find love again.

I could be alive another 40 or 50 years, and I have a hard time imagining those years without this quest, this longing. I can keep looking, but I also want to make sure I'm not missing my life while I'm focused on what's missing, who's missing. I want to keep living a full and lush and vivid life, no matter who comes along.

The other day, the 22nd, it was the three year anniversary of my first date with The Shy One. I decided to do my exposure therapy by writing him a letter in my journal, not one to send. I searched up a picture of him on that night. His face was the absolute pinnacle of post-quarantine cute: soft of face and fuzzy of hair. A peaceful and satisfied smile. Beatific! And of course there were the ropes pictures, the ropes that liked him so much and went on so easily.

OF COURSE it's hard to move past the magic of that night and the subsequent messy-beautiful of my ten months with The Shy One. I hold out hope that I will some day, but it's truly taking FOREVER.

But when I started the journaling, I found myself writing about my OTHER favorite first date, with BFF-Formerly-Sweetie. I'd given her an invitation (Sesame Street themed, with glitter inside) to come to the poetry reading I hosted. She'd told me she had something to tell me after the reading, so the whole day was anticipation. It was a two- reading day, and I stopped in between poetries to have some spicy blackbean soup at a neighborhood cafe. My tummy was so nervous that I couldn't eat much. After the reading, she told me she hadn't really dated anyone before, and she wanted to try dating me. It was a dream come true.

A decade of months and a decade of years. A messy love affair and a marriage/lifelong friendship. Some people are out there searching for their best friend, and here am I calling mine 2-3 times a day.

Unlike Irving, who could only sense deep within himself that he had been loved, I was present for every moment. Yes, I was a mess, and yes it's over, but it WAS. Relationship OCD makes me doubt everything, makes me think it couldn't possibly be real, but it was nice to visit that knowing for a few journal paragraphs, and it stuck with me.

Dating is boring and vexing and not the good kind of tedious. I'm lonely and pining and frustrated a lot of the time. My hormones are changing too, making the urgency less in a way I both welcome and fear.

What I'm practicing in OCD therapy is learning to live with uncertainty, and that certainly helps. But so does the knowing that I was and am thoroughly loved.

A Little Reset Adventure!

 

Although I’m proud of how well I’ve taken care of myself in the two weeks since The Shy One breakup (Two weeks ago yesterday. I can still hear him (Pretty understandably!) hissing It’s Monday morning to my latest round of tears and worries.) it’s been really, REALLY hard, maybe especially on my friendship with BFF-Formerly-Sweetie.

I couldn’t figure out how to get the tears out on my own, so I would call her and cry—pretty standard best friends stuff, except that we’re also ex-wives. Having tried so hard and, according to my Depression Brain, “failed” with The Shy One, the grief got tangled up with having “failed” to be Sweetie’s wife. The guilt and shame of letting go of these two big relationships that were/are so dear was overwhelming.

The way Depression Brain puts it: “Here are these two wonderful people who tried so hard to love me and I just couldn’t let them. Am I incapable of being loved?”

I felt like I was letting down BFF all over again. I felt like I was letting down all the friends and family I’d talked to about the relationship. It even felt like I’d let down my friendly next door neighbor, because she’s friends with Mrs. Shy One. Of course she is. That lady is everywhere.

Anyway, after HOURS of listening to me over the past two weeks and also twenty years, BFF let slip that she doesn’t believe polyamory exists at all. I was…done confiding. All of her years of polyphobia and biphobia came back and I thought (Pretty unfairly) “Oh of course I hate myself. This bitch has hated part of me for the last twenty years.”

It would be fun and easy to blame her and be mad, but I can’t. A pattern came back like an unwelcome friend and I was about to step into it for a self-hating kind of comfort.

Yes, it’s shitty of her to deny a whole way of being that brings so many people so much joy and fulfillment, but she was mostly just mad at The Shy Ones for hurting me so badly. And because it’s probably a lot of stress to keep fielding tearful calls. And probably also because of all the pain I caused her during our mono/poly marriage years. And because she’d hurt me so much then too.

I’ve spent ten months trying to be what The Shy One wanted me to be so I didn’t have to say goodbye. I can see the echo of my marriage in that (mostly unasked for) grim determination.

So instead of going another round with BFF, I just put it all down. I asked for a friendship break. No calling a million times a day. No relying on her to explain things I could easily Google for myself.

And huh. As soon as I made that decision, my loneliness felt halved! It feels liberating to act like I’m genuinely single instead of reenacting the role of Full Time Disappointer.

So yesterday I asked if we could make this pause into a more permanent friendship change! We’ll still hang once a week but the dependency needs to end. I’m curious and optimistic to see what the next phase of our friendship might look like! And I haven’t sobbed in like two days!

Unicorn Stuff, Part Two: New Hearts, Old Grief

 

As I’ve been going through some old unicorn and/or metamour stories (What a very nice assignment I gave myself!) two things became clear: 1. I’ve been a little reluctant to admit the kinds of closeness I wanted because 2. My early adventures are steeped in the confusion and grief of my divorce from BFF-Formerly-Sweetie.

Looking back at the story of The Steampunks (This gold-star breakup that didn’t really take is a good example: https://kittencalendar.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-girl-crush-wall-of-grief-and-gold.html?zx=592a17ae48503cbd ) I had forgotten I was drawn to both of them. I only pursued him, though, partly because I was hankering for dudes after all my time on Lesbian Island trying to fight the bi-ness, but partly because it’s easier for me to learn one person, at least at first.

But I also had this imagined binary in my head, a loyalty-like-thing to BFF-Formerly Sweetie—I felt like an attraction to a woman was extra-betraying her. Since I’d given attraction to men as my main reason for divorce, it didn’t feel fair to still be attracted to women too. Embarrassingly, I still sort of feel this way sometimes, like liking a woman would be the ultimate betrayal of Sweetie. Being a divorced bi lady who mostly likes men is really weird sometimes.

The couples aspect of being bi still feels too big and too out of reach, too outside the boundaries of what I’m allowed. This isn’t because of anything BFF-Formerly-Sweetie said then or now. Playing with a couple, the possibility of belonging to a couple, through any combination of romance and friendship, seems like asking for too much. Even boyfriend-and-beloved-friend-metamour(s) seems too much to hope for, but I hope to learn to let myself own that wish.

In my gratitude for The Steampunks and the perspective that’s come from the last nine years I forgot how painful the breakups from them (There were four different breakups from Steampunk Guy, I just couldn’t stay away. This is part of why I’ve gotten good at staying away now.) were, how much it hurt to be told I couldn’t play with him after I divorced--“We only play with partnered people.” is truly one of the cruelest poly rules I’ve encountered.

I can see why the tears poured out when I was worried about Mrs. Shy One vetoing me, about not truly fitting into The Shy One’s life—those fears were mixed up with divorce grief and shame at wanting so badly to be approved of and the losses and indignities that came from past couples.

But every dater, every human, is walking around with past griefs and indignities. Though I’ve been journaling about past constellations privately, I don’t want to spend too much time focusing on the losses of the past, on the bitternesses that bloom out of couple privilege and my own mistakes and garden-variety thoughtlessness. If I did that, I would truly never make it to the next snuggle.

Instead, if I should encounter another couple I’m wildly drawn to, I’d like to give myself the compassion and space to absorb those emotions, to acknowledge the monumental size and power of that particular want. I’d like to learn to believe that a loving couple or boyfriend-and-metamour(s) romance is something I deserve to hope for. Of course, that doesn’t guarantee that I’ll get it, but if I do, I’ll do my best to welcome it in with kindness and an expansive heart, and most of all, a deep and boundless care for my tender self.

Texts With Mrs. Shy One: A Burst of Uncomplicated Joy

 

The Fourth Date Tears happened last Tuesday night. I woke up the next morning at five, antsy and bereft—of course I called BFF-Formerly-Sweetie. She was kinder than I deserved about having her last hour of sleep stolen. BFFFS said it sounded pretty clear that I wanted to break things off with The Shy One, but she was wrong, I didn’t. I fell back asleep after we talked and woke up with a completely flipped perspective.

Why should I reject him for not being out as poly? Our lives are so vastly different. Yes, outness is a thing I’ve worked and cried and given up social capital for, but it’s also built out of privilege. I have so much more leeway to move around in the world with my (mostly) fuck-off-if-you-don’t-like-it attitude. It seemed mean and against my values to fault a Black, immigrant, religious family for not being as comfortably publicly slutty as I am.

Most importantly, I knew that even though he’d asked me to be untruthful about our relationship, he did care for me very much. He’d been one of the most generous, kind, and loving partners I’ve had, so why should I let this mismatched aspect, however important, decide the whole thing?

So, another few days of good mornings, pretty flower photos, and sweet-if-guarded-on-his-part attention. Another rope design.

And THEN. Oh choir of angels! Oh butterfly swarm of happiness, Mrs. Shy One reached out and we made friends over text! I felt a flood of sure, ecstatic well-being. I copied her and put a crown on my Bitmoji (Hers is fancy and regal, mine is flowers) We bonded about being on Team Bi and about the general difficulty of girlfriends.

I felt so situated and so welcomed into their lives just from that little while of texting. She told me that The Shy One was smitten with me, that I mattered to her because I mattered to him a lot.

I felt so shiny and lucky and tuned-into-the-universe after that. I apologized to both of them for being so defensive on Tuesday night. I felt hopeful and brave, even ready to put on a full Lady Mary amount of reserve if he wanted me to on public dates. The keep him safe. To serve them. To honor these connections that had miraculously appeared out of the cold internet in a harsh world.

(Ummm I wonder how much less fraught this all would’ve been if I hadn’t been so deep in the Downton Abbey the whole time. Or if I would have cut it off sooner without all the Abbey’s fetishization of reserve.)

There’s one more tearful installment to come, but I’m glad I spent even a little time with that perspective flip. I’m glad to have lived that shining hopeful day of home and welcome. Even though the connection still came undone, I’m glad I pushed myself to change and let them in.

A Momentous Knotty Thursday! And What Is This Called?!

 

The rope is orange because I had a really good first date last Friday! I asked the new possible guy what color he would like and ordered it before I even took my post-date afternoon nap. He's practicing tonight too, for brunch and unrestrainy beginner-ness tomorrow.

I could NOT remember what this one was called, so googling was pretty futile. Luckily, BFF-Formerly-Sweetie stopped by for unrelated reasons and was nice enough to teach it to me on the railing. I think it's possible that everyone in this post is pretty amazing at life. 

A Bad Date, A Good Hookup, and a Helpful Google, Part One

 

It’s been a long time since this many (mis)adventures happened in one day. I guess it was really only two, but yesterday felt 3-5 Sundays long.

I should probably be a better friend to myself. When recently-divorced Sunday Morning First Date started Bumble-texting me a couple of weeks ago, he mentioned being leery of my bi-ness because his wife had slept with his sister. (And like eight other people. Not, I don’t think, in an ENM kinda way.) (My only regret about this particular morning is that I didn’t get more details about that (sounds made-up) story.) If a friend had fielded such a conversation, I would have been livid, like WTF kind of bi-phobic bullshit is this?

Instead, I let tenderness and compassion take the wheel. I reassured him, giving a vague outline of my still-beginning dating life. Before a first date! This seems excessive in hindsight. I don’t even know anymore.

We met up at a local nature preserve on just the most beautifully paradigmatic fall morning you can imagine. I even packed us a picnic for after our mini-hike. I’d chosen him because he was sweet and artsy by text. I watched him take a beautiful photo of the trees’ reflection on the water. He had a lovely Georgia accent and a cute Ron-Funches-but-grumpy vibe. I liked the way he pronounced the Great Blue Heron’s name as we passed one from not too far away: herr-RON. I love it.

It was chilly so I was quick to slip my hand into his pocket with his. We didn’t get to hold hands for very long.

“There’s just too much feminism these days. Nobody can say ANYTHING.”

I pushed back in a measured way, but things only got worse. When I called BFF later (like five minutes later) she explained that a lot of what SMFD had to say came right out of Dave Chappelle’s latest standup special, which has apparently been making her Twitter feeds miserable lately. She recommended this article and I read it later in the car with lunch: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/opinion/dave-chappelle-netflix-trans.html

Anyway, back to the end of this short nightmare: SMFD and I were standing on a boardwalk platform in the middle of the wetland, next to a placard about an invasive species of turtles. He (the date, not the turtle) launched into an impassioned talk against “too much division,” saying the left and the right were equally to blame, equally hateful. (It’s this kind of false equivalency nonsense that makes me swipe left on every singly guy who identifies as “moderate,” in his profile even though many (WRONG) lefties would accuse me of the same.)

“Okay, we’re done.” I pointed to the other side of the bridge. “You go this way and I’ll go that way.”

As wrong as he was, I sort of understand the impulse he might’ve had. I know I’ve thrown my own conversational firebombs when I haven’t been ready or a match for someone. But it’s really not the same—never have I ever resorted to semi-quoting a famous transphobe/homophobe/misogynist as a Get Out of Date Free card. I guess Chappelle goes in the folder with the Bern and all of the other snuggle-wreckers.

It felt weirdly like a relief to be so clearly not a match, after a month or so of grey-areas, which aren’t my specialty. BFF was happy to join me on the rest of the hike by phone, debating with me about the categories of clouds in the pictures I sent. Lots and lots of pictures of water and leaves and clouds. I ate my half of the lovely picnic lunch in the car with the window open, catching up on Dear Prudence and How to Do It. I think this counts as reading outside, one of my most important (And most neglected!) fall goals checkmarks.

I was proud, slightly relieved, and ready for a nap. When I got home, there was an over-succinct “Hey” in my texts from Hookup Guy, who is so fucking beautiful I can’t even deal. I’ll tell you that part tomorrow.

Postscript: The Coach (Imaginary Asses Are SO Easy to Google!)

 

I guess it’s not a good sign that I’ve been feeling nostalgic for a breakup dinner from like eight years ago: I was looking for a hot story to send The Coach and I landed on part two of my Real Date/Car Sex story with Steampunk Guy. Here’s part one: https://kittencalendar.blogspot.com/2013/07/real-datecar-sex-with-steampunk-guy.html It’s not great that I refused to admit to myself that it WAS a breakup date until a couple weeks later, but looking at the story through my current pleasantly-poisoned-by-hookup-culture view, the dinner part of the story felt like a miracle. Steampunk Guy had like nine partners, including a wife, plus a kiddo to take care of, but he still took the time to break things off kindly. I felt, here in Slutty September of 2021, a burst of gladness that Steampunk Guy had, well, broken my heart, but in such a dignifying, humanized way.

The Coach didn’t break things off, he just finished getting vaccinated and still didn’t want to spend time with me in person. He still sexted a few late-nights a week, and I was still having fun with that until I wasn’t. But I can’t fathom, and I really wish someone would explain to me, how sexting could have been fun for him with someone he did not want to be in a room with. Why not just look up some porn or pay a cam girl (and tip her well!) instead of keeping someone he didn’t like on the line for longer than he wanted to?

When I responded to his messages/comments a month ago, I’d put a pin in the prob he and I had encountered long ago, the feeling of him having a fat fetish (rather than simply being attracted to whole hot fat people) or thinking I was just someone to be humiliated. I saw the physical mismatch of us—him twenty-nine and slight except in one particular way (I found out through unsolicited-but-not-entirely unwelcome dick pic, obvs.) (But is there such a thing as dick-catfishing? Probably.) and traditionally fit-looking, me 47, Amazonian and weighing in at 302 pounds. We WOULD have looked a little funny in public together, but someone who liked me as a person wouldn’t have cared.

What started as feeling appreciated, celebrated, overwhelmingly desired a month ago turned into hidden, erased, dirty-in-a-bad-way. Maybe he did feel attracted to me but ashamed about it, or maybe he just wanted me to be a sex-typing-bot whose feelings, bad days, and vulnerabilities he didn’t have to care about. Maybe he wasn’t brave or kind enough to turn me down directly. Maybe he was just a jerk. In fairness to him, I knew that trying to be casual would get me to this emotionally untenable place eventually. I just shouldn’t have let it go on until it hurt this bad.

This past few weeks have been a (not un-fun) scramble to find the things The Coach couldn’t provide in someone else, to distract me from the loneliness while I kept him in the mix. Not! A great! Strategy! As sad as I am to lose (and reblock) The Coach, I’m grateful to be done with that scramble. I’m so impatient with what I really want, it’s so annoyingly specific and (imaginary in this case) snuggle-prohibitive sometimes.

Yesterday, a car plowed into my side mirror and smashed it off on my way to work. I wasn’t hurt but I was heartbroken—I love my car so much, and the mirror metaphor was a little too on-the-nose. Sweetie-Now-BFF immediately sprung into action ordering a replacement mirror and rearranging her schedule to get me to work until it was fixed. And while that was happening, I was worrying that I would seem too needy when (okay IF) The Coach texted after ten. I know it’s not superfair to compare a TWO DECADES LONG friendship/love/friendship with a recent not-quite-a-fling, but BFF’s kindness and concern reminded me of what I’d like to have eventually with a guy. The Coach was not going to get me there.

So at quarter to ten, I said texted him the things I was feeling. He was was an entitled, bratty jackass about it. So ends my foolhardy foray into hookuptown. I can’t promise it’ll be the last, but I promise to keep trying to embrace wanting what I want. But first, wallowing.

 

BFF (Sweetie) Appreciation Post

First of all, it is LONG past time I changed her blog nickname. These days a “sweetie” only slips out if we’re under some kind of duress and forget ourselves. When we were divorcing (holy moly!) eight years ago I didn’t dare wish that we would still be this close. So close that I just texted her some concert info in case none of my more concert-enjoying friends want to go. It is our system and it works.

 Anyway, we were on the way to pick up our new glasses together (totes normal ex-wife activity) and I was reading her this post https://kittencalendar.blogspot.com/2021/07/wheres-all-my-body-positivity.html?zx=8607b6472509cebb about all of my recent/eternal fears and insecurities, and she just started to cry.

 I apologized immediately. It’s a real jerk move to read aloud paragraphs about feeling unlovable and unfuckable to someone who has loved me SO THOROUGHLY since just after 9/11 and who went every extra mile in the sexytimes department too. Since I made the shift to mostly preferring guys, I’ve always hated the way that preference could make her feel discounted, and could sometimes make me blind to the many, many kinds of love I’m steeped in every day. (Obvs I wouldn’t say any of that ever to someone ELSE who had a shift in gender-preference! In the words of Laci Mosley, I’m rude to me!)

 After a few minutes of me yammering my labyrinth of well-worn apologies, she sniffled and said “I just want you to get what you want!” 

That’s always been true. Even while jealousy, loss, and my own recklessness were tornado-ing through our marriage, she always rooted for me. If someone didn’t like me back, she was indignant like, how dare he! (Not TO him, of course.) If someone hurt me in a not-fun way, she could be relied upon to toy with the idea of Gorilla Gluing all of their car doors shut. If, say for instance, a venue broke my limits and I got stuck in a nightmare thread about it, she’d create a dummy FetLife account and argue with rapey Doms and victim-blamey, more-game-than-thou subs late into the night. 

Even in the fun, festive times, she wasn’t at ease out in the kink world. I mean, she sure tied knots like she was at ease! But she was often triggered and scared, often overwhelmed by the dicks and the screams and the bruises. But she did it all for me anyway, because love makes you brave. She just wanted me to have what I wanted! Maybe more than I did! 

I’ve always felt like kind of a dumbass, in the midst of all that love and still ACHING with longing, worrying I wasn’t lovable while I was so clearly being loved. In the now times, it’s a challenge to remember how to hang out with people besides BFF. We kept each other alive through Bernie and Trump and Covid and “stop the steal.”

But now, of course, the longing is back, my guy-crazy tendencies alternately coursing and cowering. I’m still struggling to accept my guy-liking self and muddle my way along to whatever snuggly future I might find. On the way, it’s good to remember how much I’ve been loved, in all the ways.

My White Supremacist Mom, The End

 

Seriously get this book!

 

“God.” She said defiantly.

 

Mom said that the reason the country was so far astray (besides, presumably, Socialism) was that we’re “no longer” a Christian nation. (I remember seeing this “One nation under God” idea in second-cousiny Facebook feeds before I blocked them, but the violence of the sentiment never truly hit me until I started writing this.) I wish I had said something coherent about the founders or the Liberty Bell or Catholicism under Hitler, but I did not. I wish I’d said that forcing everyone into the same religion was not only counter to the values of Christianity (well.) but part of the very definition of fascism.

 

So that was the conversation that finally propelled us out the door. On the way out, I told mom not to contact me, not to send cards or anything, a directive that she (vexingly and also sort of touchingly) has ignored. In the car, I horror-movie screamed. Back in the Nineties, I was in a housefire and the small comfort of that day was that I got the line “Screaming like a David Lynch movie” on the news. This wasn’t that, wasn’t any aesthetically tortured wail, it was full horror. It was a scream of a lifetime of religious oppression, of standing in front of police cars, of friends boxed into riots when the street-fires were starting. It was a scream for the then-200,000 dead and those who were vicious and scared and stupid enough to deny the loss. Because it was a scream, I’m embarrassed and ashamed, but I can’t actually think of a more rational response.

 

As Sweetie (Never, anymore, afraid of a panic) drove us down the country roads to my sister’s, I did that five senses thing to quell the panic: I see mailboxes, road, a sparrow, a yellow stripe, my purse. I hear the car, my voice, Sweetie’s voice, my breath. I can touch the door, my scarf, my jeans. I can smell coffee and peach-pear fizzy water. I can taste gum.

 

By some miracle of compartmentalization, a skill that has never come naturally to me, we spent a lovely day with the niece and nephews. Our regular comic shop was closed, but we did thoroughly enjoy our traditional thrift store run. I bought way too many random things.

 

By the time Sweetie and I were picking up road trip coffee in our nearby old hometown (SO many feelings of love and beauty and loss there) I was posting through my feelings and starting to make estrangement official. I told my sister, brother, and dad the next day that I would be avoiding all mom-related activities for the foreseeable future.

 

For now, it’s not so bad, except those nauseating prayer cards on which I need to remember to write “refused”. I run the family Zooms and the Liberal Cousins Side Convo has been great at keeping in touch. I’ll feel guilty adding extra logistics to the family routine, but I’ll figure it out as I go.

 

I’ve never understood how people with Trumpian relatives can feel safe around them, even pre-Covid. I don’t know how anyone avoids feeling the violence of their beliefs all the way in their bones. Do they think that the violence the seditionists marinate in won’t come for them? Do they interpret violent beliefs toward black and brown and queer bodies as somehow not a real threat?  Or are they just too scared to do something about it? At any rate, I’m glad of these miserable years of trying to do something about it, even when that something is only to try and get myself safe.

I Miss My White Supremacist Mom, Part Three

Since I started (glacially) writing this series, I’ve found out what it’s like to check the FBI’s terrorist photos to see if I find family members. (I didn’t. Just lots of reasons for my vagina to pack her bags and move away someplace safe.) Fascist Beach Aunt and Fascist Former Favorite Aunt, “Women for America First” that they are, had planned to be in DC on 1/6 to “save the country.” My brave and wonderful cousins talked Fascist Beach Aunt out of going (She and Worst Fascist Uncle have since renounced Trump, or at least taken their shrine down.) but I think Fascist Former Favorite Aunt did go. I would like to think that she was maybe further back in the crowd, but,to paraphrase that one attacked Capitol Police officer, fuck her for being there. I want to ask FFFA’s kids about this, but I’d like to keep our Liberal-to-Moderate Cousins’ Among Us night as cordial as possible.

 

Anyway, back to Fascist Mom. Last fall, Sweetie and I planned an apple picking trip up north so we could see my sister and her family before the cold made outdoor gatherings impossible. Because my sister and mom live in a very pretty leaf-ful tourist area, all the nearby hotels were booked up. So I, with crazy mixed-up hope, asked if we could stay at mom’s beautiful-but-politically terrifying rural home.

 

That choice seems INSANE now, given that my mom and stepdad are anti-maskers and fatness is a Covid-19 co-morbidity, but I really really wanted to have a normal visit. I didn’t want to admit how bad things had gotten, between us and in the country. I still kind of don’t. Mom and stepdad had plans during apple picking so we had a lovely time catching up with the niece and nephews, banking up hugs for the long winter.

 

The Sunday morning after apples, a few hours before Sweetie and I had planned to leave to take the kids on our traditional comic store and thrift store run, I was sitting at my mom’s dining room table playing Animal Crossing, collecting up star fragments from the previous night’s meteor shower. Mom and stepdad started grousing about some neighbors who had balked at their decision to hold a mask optional-meeting for their local beekeepers club. (I so hate that my bee siblings have to be roped into this story! No honey for fascists!)

 

I focused deeply on my Switch, making noncommittal noises as they gradually steered the conversation toward me. Mom has a “no politics rule” at her house but I’ve learned over the years that it’s really a “no politics unless nobody is looking and I can use world events to torment my oldest daughter for sport.”

 

“What do you think about masks?” she asked me “I’ve been doing my research

 

(PLEASE SPARE US FROM WHITE LADIES ONLINE DOING THEIR “RESEARCH”)

 

And I think they’re actually making things worse.”

 

Important to this story is that Sweetie’s sister, with whom she is close, had been admitted to the hospital with Covid-19 that weekend. Interspersed with the virtual island-visiting and apple-y adorableness were tense hours when Sweetie was waiting for updates from her family text chain and worrying that her sister might die. I didn’t know how to help except to be there for her and believe in science. Sweetie’s sister did recover within weeks, but until that point it was my closest and saddest brush with that stupid asshole virus.

 

I didn’t want to tell mom what I thought. I didn’t want to open the floodgates. But I did.

Quarantine Crush (Because of Course) Part Five

I feel like I need Liz Lemon to come in here and do a Twenty Year Wrap-Up (Wrap Wrap Wrap-Up) so I can someday finish this story. Let’s see how well I can summarize.

A lot happened in the fall of 2001. I turned twenty-seven, which I’d always thought of as the Cobain birthday, thereby fulfilling an arbitrary and teenage-dramatic goal I’d set for myself. When 9/11 happened, I was both glad to be with my family and fretting my heart out about my California friends. I remember Adorable Co-Host not-unkindly hanging up on me once I’d gone on too long about U.S. imperialism.

I met Sweetie about a month later, and we figured out that we’d been in the same peace vigil on Small East Coast City University’s campus in the days following the towers’ fall.  Fitting, since we’re still vigiling together. Well, not right now, but probably again before too long. (Big East Coast City where we live now is still a red-zone county, so who knows?)

I kept in touch with my CA friends as I started to set up my own poetry life at home. I admit that I was over the moon to be able to walk most places, and I soon was asked to co-host a venue myself, but I piiiiiiiiined for my first family of poets. I missed them so badly that it took a long while for me to like my poems at all, though I did keep writing them. A music, a spark, a sunbeam was missing, and it would take a long while to get that back.

QC and Adorable Co-Host both wrote poems for my and Sweetie’s wedding ceremony. I’m still bowled over that they would’ve come all this way, even if they did have some New England gigs just after. In maybe the most bi moment of my entire life, (Okay, aside from my actual unicorn adventures! Almost forgot!) QC (at my request) held up a boombox Say Anything style as Sweetie and I, with our parents and the bridal party, walked down the aisle of our hometown rose garden. (Though if anyone has ever been holding up the boombox in this story, it’s always, always been me.)

Twenty years with varying levels of keeping in touch. When my book of poetry came out in 2012, I featured at their venue over Skype, so I was oddly prepared for the there/not there of Zoom poetry—lonely and together all at once, talking to friends and reading into the void.

The first time I Zoomed in this spring, I’d been crying/panicking about Zoom every day because of work. I wanted to try something nice with it, a treat. I left the camera off, did my nails, and felt like an interloper, only piping up to applaud. But I got to hear him, beautiful and clear. His was a life and death poem that rumbled through me and overflowed my heart. What choice did I have but to start writing poems again?

Oh, Comedy Guy. (Part Four)

After a break and more episodes, I got attracted to him for another while. I put the makeout mix back on and went all in. I feel guilty about that since I think I knew it wasn’t going to work out, but it felt good to give in to my body’s leadership. I took him to bed for a bit, but after we both came, I just wanted him to be gone. (If a man wrote that sentence I’d think he was garbage. Sometimes I am a toxic bachelor.)

Not knowing how I would get him out of my apartment in the triggered early part of the visit, I’d offered him a ride home, 38 minutes according to Maps. (Okay, look. Cars are destructive and selfish and apocalyptic, but I really want my next guy to have a car. Or just live a few blocks away like Gilmore Guy did.) I was exhausted, not in the blissful, fizzy, satisfied way. I wished I was alone in the car, felt like it was falling apart under the weight of my sad heart.

(A big change since this blog first started: I used to not mind driving to the suburbs! I even kind of enjoyed it because it was always easy to park! Now I just get the sick, soul-rotten feeling of driving a car with ALL of the liberal bumper stickers through Trump territory. Another Twilight Zone-but-not-in-the-fun-way sensation.)

Outwardly, I stayed cheerfully in reference mode with him—reciting the opening disclaimers from My Brother, My Brother and Me for no reason, singing beautifully along with Wonderwall on my Oasis-heavy Happy Spring Mix.

“Said maybaaaaaaaay…you’re gonna be the one that saves maaaaaaaay…”

I’m not sure why it was such a heartbreaking moment, but the beauty of our singing voices together juxtaposed with the ugly sadness in my heart just made me wonder how anybody dates anyone ever.

After I dropped him off on an ominous, anonymous, winding street, my heart felt lighter. I thought maybe (maybaaaaaaaay) I should wait until morning to see if I still felt bad about him. But I knew what I knew, and as I drove along I composed in my head a break-off text and listed all the ways I needed to block him. At a stoplight, even thought it was almost midnight, I texted Sweetie to see if it was too late to call. I’m so, so grateful to have a loyal and very-judgmental-of-men best friend to call in the middle of the night.

The Boy Who Sewed Me a Pillow, Part Eight

I’ve read and thought so much about the ways that trauma gets stored in the body, the way that it lives and moves and gets processed in a way that is separate from time and the everyday. Why don’t I know very much about the way love is stored? I’m always pretty dazzled by the way that unexpected things can jostle it loose, can strike a gold vein and expose it, all sparkly and vulnerable and ready for mining.

After the first giddy rush of paintings and artifacts, we got some very strong coffee and sat outside the museum in the chilly sun, catching up. I honestly could have talked to him for five hundred and seventy-two more hours. I didn’t ask him enough about his last thirty years of adventures, I wish I’d talked less and asked more.

In the course of reminding me of my born-again-virginhood at the time we were together (It feels so cringy to even type, I’m sorry!) he said A Thing. It was A Thing that, I’m serious, rewired my entire brain. He was maybe just being campy and probably at least half joking but it hit me right down the middle anyway:

“You could’ve put out more.”

It set me free so much to hear this perfect angel I had idealized for so long just say a horny, jackassy man thing to me. The idea, even the little chance, that he had felt real desire for me shifted my perspective an embarrassing amount, really changed the way I saw myself in the past and present. It was unbalancing and delightful.

As you know if you’ve read this blog in past years, the story I can’t help telling myself about men is, they can (temporarily) want me, but they can’t love me. I believe this even though love has happened to me with men at least three times. I don’t know why the story is so embedded but no amount of paragraphs or therapy has ever dislodged it.

The story I’ve always told myself about The Boy Who Sewed Me a Pillow is that he was an innocent child whom I tried to corupt with my broken and slutty ways. I was a Bad Kid who hurt him. Seeing myself as a threat in general is one of the most annoying ways that rape culture has gotten under my skin, and I am happy to peel away another layer of it.

(Honestly though, writing this feels like I AM being a threat to him, like I’m still a bad influence on his lovely and put-together and situated life. I’m afraid I’m writing him right out of my life, that paragraphs are predatory in their own way, but I’m writing through it. Maybe I can be a good bad influence or maybe not I’m not even an influence at all, who knows.)

Exploring the rest of the museum felt like one of those dreams where you keep discovering new rooms in old and beloved homes. (Writing this feels like one of those dreams where I meet a man I’m fascinated with then spend the rest of sleep tangled up in dream logic trying to find him again. But not in an unpleasant way.) The time just flew by until he had to go meet his boyfriend for lunch. We made plans to hang out in my city next time, at my local museum.

Sweetie had driven me to visit the Boy, so she finished up her time at the local fancy garden and met us in front of the museum. We waved goodbye and then she and I spent the rest of the day exploring and catching Pokémons.

I was crushy, and giddy, and elated, and trying not to be embarrassed about all those things. I had to admit to myself that teenage me, like Rory Gilmore, had had a wonderful boyfriend. (But way better than Dean and without the Donna Reed cosplay.) More vexingly, I had to (for like the millionth time) admit to myself that I still believe in and long for love, that my erstwhile fantasy life of asexuality and spinsterhood might not actually be what I want. Ugh, longing. I guess I was lucky to avoid it for the few months that I did.

The next day, my whole body felt like spring and I made the super most of it. I got naked on the (very private) back patio and made myself a new chalk mural. I danced in the sun like a goof and then went to bed for a very good long time. I want to give you all the details, but it seems like somehow Favorite Aunt would know.

So I’m trying to think of ways to honor my slutty self this summer—I can’t make the Sparkly Festival, but shall I brave the nude beach? I’ve definitely gone back to swiping, and I’m letting myself think that snuggles might not be too far away. It’s nice to be back in the present tense, grateful and glowing.