Okay, I'm Completely Lost

 

Mulholland Drive helps me.

Okay, Christmas was very cute, but I've been living in a fantasy for a little while and it's time for me to do as the cowboy says. Hopefully with a happier ending than Naomi Watts gets.

Skipping ahead in the story, The Guy Next Door and I had our first date! That's what he said it was! We had so much fun! He said I was beautiful and said he wanted us to try putting ropes on each other!! I can't prove that this happened, but it did. I can't prove that he was ever attracted to me, and to be fair, no court of law is asking me to.

(He told me yesterday that he's not "traditionally attracted to me," but that he felt something. It sounded really close to calling me "not traditionally attractive" which, in fairness, I am not. I have other qualities!)

Jesus fuck though, is there anything worse to hear than "I'm not traditionally attracted to you?" Just tell me I'm ugly already, this is taking forever.

ANYWAY we got back from the date (Which I don't really think is what it was.) (He called our two apartments "our place" though.) we settled in for a cuddle, which we'd tried a couple times, but this time, we were in my bed.

It felt good, so, so good. I felt hopeful and safe and beautiful. My head was resting on his heart and the moment felt almost right.

I said "I'm gonna kiss you, I'm just waiting for the right song to come on."

And he made the saddest little sound. It was the same sad sound he made when I put my head on his shoulder for the first time, back when we were watching some post-Christmas Bob's Burgers. (He'd downloaded a bunch for us to watch when my Roku was out for a day. I thought that was so sweet because it was, in fact, SO SWEET.)

Anyway, saddest little sound, so I asked, is that okay? and he said

"Not yet." Which a very good and appropriate thing to say when you don't want to kiss someone. Technically a Good No even though I hated it.

He kept acting like this was the start of dating though! I even tried to plan our regular (never was really that regular) Thursday Art Night, and he said he thought we should see each other sooner, so we picked Tuesday, which is today, and for which time slot I've booked a somewhat-emergency therapy appointment.

After he left on Saturday, I was very close to panic. I didn't understand the not-kissing! And I didn't want to ask because, that's just not the thing to do! I didn't want him to feel like I was complaining when things had gone so well. I wanted to have space to understand Saturday before I tried to understand what was going on.

With OCD, reassurance is the addiction, I have to keep it to a minimum. But in a new thing, you need reassurance! I need to stop thinking about that contradiction or my brain will loop forever.

I gave myself space from the panic, and eventually I chilled out and was able to experience the warmth and promise of what had happened so far. So I reached out and told him how beautiful I felt, and how I did want to do the ropes with him if I could put them on him first, and how I hope he was understanding what's going on in the new season of Stranger Things, because I couldn't make heads or tails of it.

OF COURSE that cute and very nice text was met with a mini-radio-silence on his part, and I got triggered. I wanted to ask "Am I being too much?" and then was LIVID that he was making me feel like I was too much. I am SO MUCH but I like myself this way. Or I usually do when it's not yesterday!

I told him about the trigger and he seemed very understanding, he even offered to change a few things so I could feel a little more oriented. It seemed like I was talking with someone I could trust, so when he said "Any other questions?" I went ahead and asked:

"You said it was a date, but you didn't want to kiss me. Can you tell me some more about that?"

He said he was just figuring things out and needed to give it some thought.

So I asked the real question: "Are you attracted to me? I'm seeing about 40% attracted, 60% terrified. Am I getting the math right?"

And he said he needed to ponder that too! 

What in the world were we gonna talk over on Tuesday if on Monday he had to ponder whether he was attracted to me or not?!

I went over after work to ask about that, if there WAS anything to talk over, and it just kept getting worse and worse. I said things like "How come they're (Girl Next Door and Yoga Camp Hottie) kissable and I'm not?

Questions there are no answers to and shouldn't be answers to.

 Questions I know I'm not supposed to ask and still can't let go of yet:

Why them and not me?

Is it the fat?

What am I missing?

I'm trying so hard to do this right, what am I not doing?

I teared up with a little self-compassion typing those questions. The longing, the hurt, the loneliness. The everlasting torment that there exist more kissable girls with more  (TRADITIONALLY) yoga-y butts.

On my part, there's love here, even a little acceptance but I can't get to it through a wall of obsession.

I have a mental illness that makes me and my experiences feel unreal, and sometimes I choose people who help make us feel even more unreal. People who are shifting, mysterious, in flux, at sea. That's who I've chosen for my last two crushes and my most recent play partner.

It's hard to have any hope for love right now. I have to give up on him, but I don't want to give up on love. I'm glad I booked a therapy appointment instead of waiting for him to come talk to me tonight. 

I don't know how a person with a brain like mine can be loved, and I need my higher power to help me find faith in myself again. Probably not today, but soon.

Poly Feelings and Christmas Cute With the Guy Next Door: Part Two

 

Christmas Eve at my (Unitarian) church was SO good. I went with one of my closest friends, the music was gorgeous (Even when they messed with the chorus of "Go Tell It On the Mountain." Not the time!) and we did the thing where they turn off all the lights and we sang Silent Night and everything was absolutely perfect--I'm so glad I stayed in town for Christmas this year.

The pastor read a poem about how it was really kinda funny for the angels to say "Be not afraid"--like OMG an angel is talking to you and the whole sky is opening up and you're supposed to be...super chill about it?! I liked thinking about awe and it helped me understand why my connection to The Guy Next Door felt so overwhelming--miracles are big and overwhelming, but you have to deal with them anyway.

And that gave me courage! Or foolhardiness, time will tell I guess. I was going to put up some street art after church and I invited TGNS to go with me. And he did! Is the romcom a compulsion or just how things are sometimes?

Either way, it was Christmas Magic for sure. I felt so aglow, so in love with the world and my neighborhood, and, okay, him, and he seemed happy too! After we got the art done and made a few "Wait are you Banksy?" type jokes, he agreed to come home and watch Bob's Burgers on the couch with me. He'd never been on my couch before! 

But! The Roku was out! And we were both too sleepy-stoned to fix it, (plus troubleshooting makes me feel like I'm dying) and I didn't want to push my luck with the couch stuff, so we said a dreamy goodnight. He was coming over for Scrabble with me and Sweetie the next day! It kinda felt like things were coming together, like romance might be possible with him, like we would keep getting to know each other and maybe something sparkly would develop between us.

I'm glad I gave myself a moment to feel that! Christmas just kept getting better.

Poly Feelings and Christmas Cute With The Guy Next Door: Part One

Friends, I am FREAKING OUT. Yesterday was my first real date with The Guy Next Door, and it went well! And today OCD wants me to know ALLLLLL the possible things that could go wrong, or could prove it didn't happen at all. So it's past time to write about what happened over Christmas.

Ever since he helped me with my left-my-phone-in-the-Lyft emergency on Election Day, TGND and I have been hanging out pretty regularly, just friend time with the occasional flirty spark. I didn't know what was going on with the other two ladies, but my therapist gave me this treasure of an advice:

"Maybe you don't have to figure things out and you can focus on having an amazing holiday"

AND OMG I DID IT!

He came over the Thurs before Christmas to help me put up my decorations (Definitely counts as Art Night!) but instead of doing that, we talked for three hours. He'd told me he was poly before, but this time I actually HEARD him. As he filled me in on his relationships, I felt an old familiar golden emotion sparking up!

Compersion!

But more than that, I felt like "Oh yeah, this! I know how to do this." The generosity and lightness I've felt during the best parts of poly life--there they were!

AND

OMG

I CAN'T EVEN BELIEVE IT

The Guy Next Door is a rope top! Gentlekittens, start your engines! (400 scream emojis)

As we sat there, looking through each other's hot pictures, (Though I held off on sharing all but the most chaste rope pictures of me.) I felt like yes. This is The Thing. It's happening. The Pink Haze that takes over sometimes and leads me in the right direction, here it was decorating my apartment, which was good, because nary a Christmas light was hung.

The next night, he came back to actually put up the lights. I was making cookies for Angel Face's Solstice party, so I assigned TGNS to put the lights on the tree.

And I said

(because I am extremely me)

"I think I'm about to get very jealous of the tree!"

He looked shy and startled and said "You're making me blush." and all the bravery drained out of me at once. I felt an ice floe of fear and clammed up, focusing back on the cookies. We joked back and forth like "Oh haha we're such flirty people, of course we're flirting, no big deal."

But I knew that wasn't what I was doing, so I asked, "Do you think we'll get to snuggle someday?" 

And he stopped, thought for a sec, and said "Maybe!"

"Maybe's good!" I said, and for maybe the first time in my whole entire OCD life, I believed it.

Happy Knotty Thursday New Year!

 

Hope your 2026 is starting off cozy and cute! I think I've been doing an exceptional job loving myself lately! With a week of vacation after the job of Christmas is over, I'm just hanging out doing all the things I like.

Monday morning, first thing, I crated the cat and cozied up to my ropes, no particular design or agenda. I love how squishy-wet I got during the long and leisurely tying process. I put on my favorite album (Frank Ocean's Blonde, I never get tired of telling you.) and went to bed. Then after that, I picked another album--Love, Damini by Burna Boy. I burned rose incense and put on rose lotion and felt like the queen of my heart, which I am!

Here are my wishes for the new year: I hope my cute friendship with the Guy Next Door will keep blossoming into whatever it's meant to be. I hope I can keep letting go of things that don't work. I hope to re-embrace my poly identity and let the pain of losing the Shy Ones be a little more in the past. I hope for music and movies and friendship and flowers and trees and birds and art.

I hope too that America keeps rising up against tyranny, blowing sharp whistles til ICE is abolished, trans people are safe, women and girls are people, and men go to therapy. I hope for peace and freedom and plenty in Gaza and Ukraine. I hope the arc of justice gets back to bending forwards. I hope everyone can be fed and housed and warm and cared for.

For you, I'm sending warmth and brightness and grace. I love you, dear readers, hope you have the best year yet.

Three Good Nos!

 Friends, I'm dying to tell you what's going on with The Guy Next Door, but first, a series of very modest miracles. I feel like my Higher Power scooped me up a few weeks ago, like if I keep doing trust, I'm on my way to healingtown.

It started with Summer Princess. The week before Thanksgiving, she told me she had to leave town abruptly, and said she wanted to get together before she went. We planned a day-after-Thanksgiving brunch and I was excited to catch up, but I had trepidations. I thought the leaving wasn't the right move, and I could feel the urge to rescue her or get her to try to see the error of her ways.

Not knowing the whole story, I couldn't possibly have known if her ways even HAD an error, but leave it to a codependent to just think I know everything anyway! I thought about cancelling the brunch, but then I just...didn't. I thought I could probably get through pancakes without trying to rescue anybody.

But! I was just starting to get ready to go when I got her text--she'd already left. And I felt a whoosh of relief--She had known the right thing to do for herself and done it. I didn't need to weigh in or try to control the situation, it just was! I knew I would miss her and that she might not be okay, but I was so, so proud of her for doing what she needed to do. It gave me a whole new faith in other people, and hope for my own path too.

The second Good No came shortly before a planned second date with Dreamy Playlist Angel. I was excited to see him! He had even been practicing a harness for me, as far as I knew. His text came the morning of the date, saying he didn't want to do casual right now. He said I was wonderful but that he wanted to get his act together so he could hope for more serious relationships. The same whoosh! Such a very good boy! Once again I felt guided by the divine, like I was in a flow I didn't need to try and control.

WHAT IF EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT'S RIGHT FOR THEMSELVES and I can trust them to tell me?!

The third Good No was a concert date with Mr. Long Distance. I had an extra ticket to a show I knew he would like in a nearby city, so I asked out of the clear blue if he'd like to come join me, go to the concert, and share my cozy Airb! Kind of insane given that we'd only ever had a video date, but he said yes! We had a nice catch-up over video and I was soooo excited to see him! I remembered how gorgeous his dick was from our video date way back when! Woohoo!

There's a line from The New Pornographers that I think of sometimes when I'm doing too much to make something happen: "I've pencil-sketched the scene, it's feeling Byzantine." That's kind of how I felt the morning I was getting ready to go to the concert. I was excited but also! We don't know each other in person at all! I would have to figure out how to eat in front of him! My nervous system felt out of whack, but I wanted to see him. It was a lot of scary new things, but I could probably figure it out!

He was taking a Lyft to a bus to a train, and he missed the train. He said it gave him a bad feeling and he would have to cancel. Whoosh. We would have had so much fun, but I was just as deliriously happy to sit in the rafters and be a concert goof by myself. I transferred my extra ticket to my Airb host, who sent it to a friend of a friend.

I know I can't always flow through life with the universe deciding things for me, but I'm very grateful when it does. I feel brave for whatever comes next, and I'll tell you more soon. :)

Merry Merry Knotty Thursday! Thank you so much for reading me!

 

Dear readers, I love you so much! Thanks for being there for me when I don't know what the heck I'm doing, which is almost always. The world is harsh and we have to fight so hard all the time, I'm grateful I have such a cozy place to come and be a slut for you!

I might have some new stories to tell you soon, but for now, I'm just so grateful! Give yourself a hug, eat something yummy, watch your favorite movie, celebrate yourself in all the ways big and small.

Wishing us all our dearest dreams. May the Pink Haze of Desire take you exactly where you need to be. I'll see you there!

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.