spooning

There, between the books on making him come to you by ignoring him and books on having better relationship via communication and openness sat the book on Spooning.

In the section titled Self Help.

It was short, humorous, and probably the most accurate book on the shelf.

The most helpful thing for anything is often cuddling. A Spooning book to walk you through the rough moments of where to put that extra arm, who is in back, that's useful information.

Imagine, if you can get so much positive out of a hug that lasts at least 30 seconds, what you can get out of a spoon?

No White Flag

Whenever I have a romance collapse I play Dido's White Flag.
Over and over.
In the song she sings about how she will always be in love with this guy, even though it's hopeless, she will never give up on her love for him. There will be no white flag. Never would she stop feeling this love for this man. It's desperately depressing.
I played this song on repeat after one of the many times Harry hurt me.

Wait, who's Harry?
Exactly.

A few years ago I was driving down my street several weeks after a heartbreak had left me in a state of total emotional wreckage. I was spending another day with this dead thing laying in my stomach, the decaying corpse of my dreams rotting inside of me and making me sick.
White Flag came on the car radio.
I sang along... and it was a turning point.
For me this song was about Harry.
And anyone who knew me now, other than a few old friends and my mother, would have no idea who that person had been.
Who's Harry? Someone I would never get over.
Except that I did. Just like I would this one. And the next one.
The song I identified with the person I would never get over helped me see that someday I would this time too.

I have since then created a playlist of songs that make me think of guys I'm no longer heartbroken over. Songs that remind me of people I wanted so much to spend my life with, who suddenly don't even hold up to the current crush. It's a running list of "Our Song"s; songs that were on our "relationship soundtrack"; break up songs that remind me of someone "special".

I can remember a time, not so very long ago, that I couldn't even listen to Matt Nathanson's Higher without sobbing... let alone use it to feel better about my latest mistake. Now it graces my playlist sandwiched between Pink's I Don't Believe You from my turbulent and multiple break ups with Johnathan, and a song my one time fiance sang to me the night I fell in love with him.

As I let go yet again of something I thought was going to be something I'll put another song into heavy rotation.

Acts of God and stuff.

No one seemed to have noticed me holding the napkin on my wrist to stop the blood. We all think that we get away with more than we do when we are drinking, but I have to assume with  that if either of them had noticed they wouldn't have just let it pass without comment.



But before I tell you that story, I have to tell you this story.
What you have to understand about me for the full effect is that, even now that I don't get black out drunk anymore, and even before I ever drank at all, I wake up in the morning knowing pretty much nothing. Prior to opening my eyes and looking around I never know where I am, and it's not unusual to not have a firm grasp on Who I am. It's been that way since I was 11.

I wake with no sense of reality.

It's common now for me to remember who I am based on opening my eyes and seeing my child sleeping next to me and identify myself by knowing I am his mother. In the years of waking up alone, or worse yet, next to someone less familiar, it's been a different story.
Whether at home, a friend's, my parents (where I stay often), anywhere I wake up I have to give myself seconds to place the world around me. I often use the landmarks throughout the room to identify not only my location, but also myself. Those are my clothes, I'm Me.
There was an incident in my early 20's where I went to bed in borrowed PJs, in a room I had not been in before, after dark. I really didn't see much as I got into the guest bed.
Upon waking it took several minutes to remember anything at all, as I wasn't wearing my own clothes as identifiers. I had in fact gotten up to look around and touch some of the items around the room to try to place myself or anything at all.

Not until I stumbled upon my clothes from the night before did my name return to me.
Did I mention I've never been a drug user?

What that has to do with the story above, I've decided not to share after all. The consistent disorientation on waking is fantastic enough to stand on it's own, without the details of that particular episode of confusion I intended to share.

But back to the story of the blood, right?
It might not have been so awkward if we hadn't already 'broken up'. We called the brief story of us a failure on Tuesday, but decided that we would still spend the weekend together because we had all these fantastic plans. By fantastic plans, I mean I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to sleep with him a little longer.
The crux of the breakup had been a text message that read "Please be careful."
Just a week before we had the drunken talk that led to me asking if we were exclusive and him immediately and enthusiastically saying we were.
So here I was, merrily cruising along in a new relationship with a hot, flamboyant, sweetie when who would have suspected an Act Of God?
Now Acts Of God are so rare, that people tend to kind of cruise over without worry when they sign their insurance agreements that disclaim responsibility for Acts Of God.
But, here I was on this gloomy Tuesday looking out my window at a potential one. Not one that meant sprint or get eaten by a dinosaur, but a hazardous situation.
Having ascertained that I was in physical danger I had texted a few friends to plan my way out of the situation. One of those people was of course my new boyfriend, just three blocks away.
Each of the 5 friends I texted offered in one way or another to help me out.

He sent me a text that said "Please be careful."

I read this text several times over the next 6 hours before I finally texted him again. Having held out to see if he would check on me, I finally relented because we had plans that evening and I wanted to know if he intended to keep them, not knowing how my day turned out.
I'd spent those hours thinking about how rarely, in today's day and age, you might get the opportunity to save your (mostly responsible) girl from actual physical danger. Like, isn't the answer almost never?
I'd reached the conclusion easily enough that if you didn't jump on that rare opportunity, she isn't really your girl.
I was hurt and angry and disappointed by this realization and subsequent ending. Those things were not going to get in my way of great sex.

We met up and I ate all of this amazing pizza from the best pizza place in town.
I'm allergic to dairy and corn. I always get this bizarre sort of high when I eat food I'm allergic to and then mix it with alcohol. So, cheese...
Throw in some unavoidable sleep deprivation that week.
I took full advantage of the open bar.

So, I was not even a teeny tiny bit shy about the extravagant PDAs all over town that night. I flaunted this hot man at my side. We held hands, made out, acted like we were young and in love, instead of having a final weekend fling.
I'm sure that I stumbled into the kitchen of his house when we ducked in at midnight, giggling and playing up all the sexy.
Until that moment I got a glimpse of The Babysitter.
It's amazing how seeing one of your kid's school employees can make you wish you hadn't..
Hadn't told the bartender to just give you a couple of whatever shot he had closest. Hadn't come in with your makeup smeared to hell. Hadn't walked in with the obvious intent of staying. Hadn't considered that you would look like this guy's hook up now, since you wouldn't be seen together in the future.

The obvious move was to try to chat in a perfectly sober way.

I decided that I could pull that off more easily if I removed the Budweiser wristband from my arm. I tugged on it a few times casually (in my mind it was casual ok?)
It wouldn't budge.

In my head, removing this wristband was going to be the savior of my reputation.

So I grabbed a paring knife (again casually) out of the dish drainer and slid it between my wrist and this tight band that so glaringly labeled me as a playground hook up artist. (IDK. It was late and stuff.)
But.
I turned the knife the wrong way, and though the bracelet did snap, the sharp part of the knife put a (casual) slit in my wrist.

I wore a nice reminder of it in the form of a band-aid for only a week.
Neither of them noticed. Or so I assume.

So much for being careful.

I never write in this style. But, kisses.

He kissed like a high school boy.

No, he kissed like you wanted a high school boy to kiss
Like you imagined it would be.

These kisses felt like you thought they would in high school when you kissed a boy;
at that age when the clumsy efforts never really worked out like you imagined it in your naive fantasies

His kisses, right from the start plunged his entire tongue into my mouth,
reminiscent of make out sessions in your teens that often choked the receiver of the kiss.
And in these kisses there was always a receiver. Receiver of the mouth over full with two tongues

Rather than the darting, playing, back and forth and mutual exploration of each that often comes with grown up kisses

He did not give in to or adapt to the style of kissing adopted by men his age,
he had instead perfected the high school boy kiss
Time and experience had refined and enhanced the movements of his mouth
turning this invasive style into one that not only worked, but took you back to the feelings of expectation of youth

 

Perspective

I have writers block.

Partly because of the fantastic fallout from the last blog post, fallout which included the male phone tree; one ex-girlfriend who filled me in on all the reasons it would never work, including my lack of supermodel status (wait, what?); and some true learning moments about what happens when everyone reads about your life and comes to their own erroneous conclusion about what you meant and then run with it in a big (and loud) way.
It was a strange sensation, watching your story unravel into some other story with all of the new story's belongings unpacking themselves in your life.
Like strangers who have mistaken you for someone else and leave off where they left off with the person they think you are. Then, when you protest they think you are still upset about the tiff you had years ago in Thailand.

If you read the last episode, the follow up text from the subject (victim) was priceless: 'Of course I'll read your book when you write it.'
I've perfected the cringe-laugh over the years. You can be mildly mortified, but you can't not laugh at a response like that.

It was a few days after that text that the alternative reading of my story brought in it's luggage and started unpacking it in my life.
During much of it I felt like I was the new Bob Newhart.


Then a family emergency hit and tragedy started hovering about waiting for it's opportunity to strike. Watching someone you love in pain in the hospital and the square wheels of the medical system getting around to taking care of them, along with the waves of waiting for doctors to get around to telling you the chances we would all walk out of there, how much time we might have, what risks and what options, exhausts you and messes with your head like little else. The tension, worry, lack of normal sleep add up.

Whoever said that this kind of thing puts things in perspective was not talking about me.
For me the raw, worried, holding your breath time throws everything way out of perspective. The little things you can handle so well, or even kinda-sorta well on a regular day become excruciating.
The crevices that usually hold the little things are all already full from all the big things, and there is no room for rejection, difficult memories to run around in your feed, or even the blender not to work.
In my recent days of 'things in perspective' the car broke down and I ended up crying on the phone to the next person who called about the one time man of my dreams having a baby with his new wife, even though he ended it with me because he wanted to raise his children alone and never wanted to get married and thought someday I might.
Since about everything the man ever said to me he has since proved was slush, on a normal week I wouldn't be bothered with it anymore.

Who said near death puts things into perspective?
Not me. Not the girl who somehow felt hurt that the person she decided needed to be there for her right then wasn't. This reaction despite him not really ever saying he would be.

Not me, who allowed myself this time to confront a lost cause, forfeiting any attempt at grace to electronically batter someone for being a fake.

I'm far better at perspective when I've slept normally, without heart racing panic every time the phone rings, wondering how you could ever live without a loved one.
Sure, this was far more important than anything else going on, but it was all the emotional space allotted.
For the scared for my family version of me it meant that at any given moment... one sticky drip from crying over the ice-cream melting.

It's a damned good thing my new hair cut turned out so freaking cool.

Labels and Hugs.

Over a beer on the patio he commented on my blog. It’s always a kick to have someone who reads 'real' writers compliment my writing.  

Then he said “I’ll probably read about myself in it someday.”

I said yes and he laughed it off and said “You’ll never write about me.”

What I was thinking was No, by the time I write about someone they aren't reading my blog. Usually we are only on strained speaking terms by the time I get around to writing about them, so I don’t believe any of my formers read this blog, even out of morbid curiosity. Not just the ones I block either...

But perhaps he meant it was a goal? A warning? 

How do I get the most subtle foreshadowing in books, but clearly miss the most obvious instances in real life??

Since the night a few weeks back when he came around the table we stood at saying "I can't not do this any longer", put one hand one either side of my head and kissed me, I'd been firmly latched onto the plan that I wouldn't label anything.

Now lets pause for a minute for me to say, I don't really feel like I was properly dressed for such a Harlequin novel statement/moment. I'm sure I was wearing a skirt, as I almost always am, but it wasn't flowing (like in all the romance novels when that kind of sentence comes out) and my skirt was paired with cheap flip flops and a tank top. The scene really called for something with an empire waist, cinched with a velvet ribbon IMO. And heels. Most of my good scenes call for heels.

The night after that almost bashful sounding tease about ending up on my blog, he all but disappeared.

When I finally did see him it was in public and he acted like nothing was going on beyond being buddies. Then I got the friend hug. Not an awkward hug by any means, but not the kind that said "I should come over later...and make you coffee in the morning."

The friend hug can take many forms, but there are things missing from the friend hug that tell you it's not a gateway touch and that you aren't.  

You don't hold on that extra moment to take a breath together.

No possessive hand slides under your hair to the nape of your neck. 

As you step out of it, a hand doesn't run down the back of your arm to your fingers that may gently lace or linger there together. 

As you pull away you don't slide a publicly acceptable kiss on the cheek.

And you do not get the ever elusive fold out move - The one where you leave an arm around his waist and he drapes one across your shoulder and you remain latched from the hug.

This particular incident, er hug, may or may not have included the three pats on the back, the notorious signal for "We're just friends." 

I'm not sure if the pats came because by then my mind was rapidly putting the labels on us that I had avoided thus far. Shredding the romance labels and adhering labels like "friend who you are attracted to and you may or may not hook up with sometimes and will then still treat you like a friend and only a friend." 

Gosh. It's so rare to find quality applicants for that position that I almost forgot there was an opening in my friends with benefits department. 

And, not the least of importance, at this rate he will still read my book when I get around to it.

Googles with Friends

This morning I read the facebook post of a friend who claims to google pretty much everyone she meets. She explained her reasoning, which included making sure they are who they say they are, and having interesting things to talk with them about later.

I don't know about all that. It feels like it's a little... I know that sometimes conversations I have with people where they know all about me somehow but I don't them can be a little off kilter. It could feel really weird to know I had been researched.

I had my own little moment with google once that made me think twice about how I use it on people.

I had become enamored with a guy. I know, I know. He was special though... We were... Well, I thought so at the time...

We had just begun dabbling in a relationship of sorts and were in that giggly phase when you both text everything that you are doing from morning til bed, plus once in the middle of the night, and all of it seems either delightful enough to read it out loud to your friends (who only care because you do), or so sexy you simply blush and save it to re-read forever. 

Well, my bestie and I almost never, since high school, have lived in the same state even, so she had not met the recent fling. I was visiting her house during this particular high and she (very patiently) watched me beam off and on at my phone all day. Since I hadn't gushed about anyone like this in a while and he was obviously being regularly electronically attentive she understandably wanted all the details of this potentially long term addition to our lives. 

She may have been trying to figure out in advance who best to seat him next to at Thanksgiving and whether or not she would have to wear anything too formal and uncomfortable to the wedding. 

Or it could have been that my description was glowing, yet not all that flattering. It's hard to make certain descriptive words sound as sexy as you want them to. Like "comb over/mullet"; or "nose/ear hair"; or "speech impediments" (a frequent one for my men); or quaint and very demure neck tattoo. You can say some of these with all the lust in the world, but some descriptions lose something in the telling. 

This had undoubtedly been one of the times that I had not done a good job at relaying how lust-inspiring this fellow was because she was giving me that look when I tried to give some details. The one look she gives me that suggests that I might want to reconsider my position again sober.

So she suggests we look up his profile, knowing that the idea of looking at his pictures would be enough to get me passed the brief consideration that she would not be as impressed as I.

As I gazed at the adorable (again, at the time) photos of him looking everything from goofy to dignified and she humored me by saying how cute and smart he looked, we drifted in different directions... I was imagining our first trip to her house to sip wine and swap stories, holding hands on the beach... - she was noticing things on his profile I hadn't seen. Interesting things. Things which led her to google him.

Girl doesn't miss a beat. By that I mean how the hell did I not notice that laundry list of accomplishments? A quick google search brought up pages of glossy articles, photos in other lands... there might as well have been video of him giving a lecture to the united nations and/or/while conquering a dragon. 

I think very highly of myself. Almost every friend I have has some pretty amazing things they have done or are on their way to doing. I surround myself with the best and feel I belong there...

Now I was intimidated. I was freaked out. This could be my new boyfriend? Um... was that a picture of him with Bill Clinton?

As a long time bestie should, she was reminding me of all my best qualities while I tried to summon a single subject that I would now feel comfortable discussing with him. I pointed to yet another article and she says "It doesn't have to be about work."

The remainder of the evening I re-read and critiqued every text response I sent for spelling, creativity, wit. I really didn't think I could keep it up.

I was saved by a middle of the night phone call from him, stoned out of his mind and giggling at everything and gushing profusely. It's really hard to be intimidating while baked; not that intimidating me was his goal anyway, but my nervousness dissolved.

The google spell was broken. 

When the next guy came along we really did consider not googling him. 

I think we have settled comfortably into her googling them when I'm not around, then doing a little filtering for me. And then when the relationship does it's crash and burn, she tells me how terrible their last movie was, that their dissertation lacked substance, and that she isn't even sure that the FDA should have cleared their latest miracle drug for human use anyway.

Top 5: Things You Shouldn't Mix with Vodka:

Yes. I've tried them all. No, the terribleness of these experiments did NOT stop me from drinking them and make me waste (previously) perfectly good vodka; I still drank them, I'm just trying to stop you before you have to make that choice.

5. Tomato Sauce. It's tempting on a Sunday morning to think that if you wake up and sportsball is about to start, and there's no Bloody Mary mix around, that you could water down some tomato paste, sauce, maybe even a little Ragu...
It doesn't work that way.

4. Camamille Tea.
Sometimes you're just desperate to go to sleep. Someone might think that two relaxers in one might be brilliant. Someone might think that... Then that Someone would taste this concoction and come to the totally philosophical conclusion that you can't race into relaxing into sleep.

                                                                                   3. Merlot.
Look, just drink the wine then shoot the vodka with sugar and a lemon* and call it a lemon drop or whatever, but don't put the vodka in it, either with the idea of the wine as a mixer or with the thought that the vodka will give the wine that extra 'kick'.
* Any citrus fruit will do if lemon not available.

2. Pickle juice.
A couple of girlfriends who also liked pickle juice and I decided to pull out the special glasses and make 'pickle juice martinis' one evening. This is the closest I've come to dumping out a drink.

1. Pedialyte.
It sounds like such a solid plan: Flavored beverage that re-hydrates you while you drink so that you are less hung over. Just... Don't.

The posts you didn't.

2am and I'm still awake writing this song
If I get it all out on paper
It's no longer inside of me
Threatening the life it belongs to

And I feel like I'm naked in front of a crowd
Cause these words are my diary screaming out loud

And I know that you'll use them however you want to. 

Anna Nalick

If truer words of writing have been said, tell them to me. There are many books about writing, but for me, this nails it.

Despite the page views numbers for this blog nearing the 1000 mark, I still somewhat denied to myself that anyone but like 4 of my closest friends bothered to read these posts. Having little online reaction it was easy to think I was talking to myself and the two people I direct messaged when I posted -so they could tell me if it was funny or offensive or full of errors or simply dull - in case someday I used it as a writing sample for a gig. (Hi Melissa.)

A few days ago I got a message from a friend that said "You haven't blogged in three weeks."
Someone noticed that.
I can honestly say it is because I have been exceptionally busy. I have.
But that isn't all of it.

I was at a fundraiser last week and an attractive guy I barely knew came up to me and said he enjoyed my blog. "Sometimes I don't agree with you, but it's always interesting, and I'm not much of a blog person."

Yesterday I saw physical evidence that someone I didn't think was reading this did. Nothing had been said to me, but something had been changed for my inner peace.

Suddenly what I said here mattered more. This isn't some in your face facebook post that everyone on your friends list is subjected to. People come here intentionally to hear my stories.
And they will react to my stories, good or bad.

The draft I was working on last week was dark. It was too dark. The dark part was to get to the funny part, and it was meant by me to make the funny part more funny. I keep editing it to lighten up the dark parts because to make it work I needed the back stories, but I couldn't use them in a form that was so bloody awful that no one recovered enough for the laugh.
This isn't a Tarantino movie. I don't have Travolta or Pitt to carry me past the cover your eyes scenes.

Surely by now you know you can come to me for a mortifying moment you can identify with. If not, just wait. I have so many cringe-worthy experiences. I get stuck under desks; I get spider nests in my hair that I jump around beating on my head and ripping chunks of hair out to dislodge; my skirt was stuck up inside itself just last week at school.

But in this case, to get to the mortifying moment, the one where I go off remarkably on the clueless gentleman...
To get to that I had dragged readers through some pretty ugly memories.

I hadn't posted because knowing people are reading this led to consideration of how it makes them feel.
And how it makes me feel, to know they know.


Tomorrow I will decide that I have softened violations and verbal assaults as much as one can, and I'll put it out there in the world. It's better to just write it and move on. Once I hit the 'publish' button all will have it all out of me, and I'll have the next experience, which will probably be an absurd easy reader. Or another detail of the online dating experience, in which I finally get the pictures of the 55 year old man in a speedo thong, and I complain about all the guys who simply message me : Your hot. As if it would be a good way to introduce yourself even if you did have access to an apostrophe e.

They walk in the door, so accusing their eyes...

Cupid Freaks Me Out.

A few years ago, after the heart wrenching break up of a brief relationship, I swore off of dating people I knew, or were close to my inner circle.
Knowing the same people, enjoying the same places/activities might sound fantastic when you are seeing someone; it's easy, and you feel like you can trust them more, because people you like like them.

But when one evening in bed he tells you "this is not a serious relationship." and he doesn't even know if he wants a serious relationship, it all falls apart and you are struggling to hold your shit together. Then it becomes this nightmare of trying to decide if you still go to the same gatherings as they are invited to. You want to, to see them again; you shouldn't see them again because you leave emotionally crashed. You don't want to miss events, but you don't want to tell friends you need him not to be there. Maybe people think you are over it because you try to be.

A picture of the guy who accidentally devastated me hangs on the fridge of one of my family members. It's a picture of him with his kids and new wife. I can't look at it, but I can't not look at it.

After that agony I swore off becoming intimate with anyone I was friends with or would have to see regularly for any valid reason.
Then I shattered that plan and am back to dating then running into former lovers in places I like to go, and even places I have to go.
None have been as damaging as the wreck from years past: I don't spend a 3 day period eating salt and vinegar potato chips and downing pots of coffee while sobbing after a sighting.
But, the weird eye contact moments, the little waves/nods from a distance, social networking overlaps, or the times you have to chat in a group bring back memories. Sometimes these are sweet or sexy memories that make you miss them. Other times they are memories that make you angry that you are still required to live in the same dimension. Sometimes you are just fine with it in the moment, then spend far too much time analyzing the interaction later. Did I come off strong and witty, or clumsy and/or damaged? 

This is what led me to online dating. The plan to meet new people that I didn't know and, if I got really lucky, that my friends didn't know either.
One of my favorite couples met on an online dating site, so I jumped in with positive feelings for the activity. My town is full of fantastic people, I just needed a new avenue for meeting them and for them to know I was here.
I thought that the strangest part would be talking to strange men.

The strange part has turned out to be the people I know.
Within 2 hours of creating a portion of my profile and looking around a little the 'People I Might Like' section is sporting a familiar photo.
Yes computer, I might like him. In fact I liked him very much. But now that we are not dating and I've removed his number from my phone so I will never text him again, and it's 11:30pm, it's probably not a good time to bring up that we are a fantastic match.
I knew he was on the site, my friends run into him there, but I really had high hopes it would take the dating machine more than 2 hours to start introducing me to people I know.
To be totally unfair to both of us it honestly bothers me on some level the amount of time he can put into looking for/flirting with new girls online, as I (again unfairly) keep thinking that if he had put that much time or effort into me... Wasn't that exactly what more I had needed and asked for?
I clear this in my head by telling myself that in the short term this is a lot more work for him, but I suppose it's investment in finding someone without my high expectations or requirements. It still hurt though. Because what it really confirms is the obvious "Not that into you."

I finally chose to see this as a positive, this dating site thinking this guy was a good match for me. Yes computer, you are onto something. This is what I like. Someone like him. Only not him.

Turns out there is a super creepy button on the site that lets you find people like a profile of your choosing. You just pop in a user name and they give you the closest profiles to that person. 
So I guess that's always an option. A disturbing and possibly dysfunctional sort of option. 

Then I found more people I know. Thanks cupid.
There is a best friends baby daddy. The only thing at all outstanding about that is that I live in a city, not a small village in North Dakota. Day one one this site and they try to hook me up with someone I almost consider family. I'm getting suspicious of the user base numbers.
Then more people I kinda sorta know, including...
I thought that guy was in a relationship already. Wait, I think that guy is in a relationship already. That's gonna feel weird later...How do I bring that up? Oh. There's another one.
Their pictures and profile are very obvious, so I have to believe that their significant others are aware of these profiles, but it's still uncomfortable when the open aspect of the relationship has not been opened up to you in person and you aren't sure.
I've considered the casual 'Fancy meeting you here' message...

A week into it I haven't seen the profile of one new person I would want to meet, aside from a 62 year old man who I messaged that though we were in different parts of our lives and we wouldn't match up because of the stages we were in, that he had a great profile and was an attractive man. He wrote me back a lovely email which included that he had just started seeing someone special... and that he is pretty sure he recognizes me, maybe from farmers market.

Most of the other messages I've received, now that I'm seeing the messages roll in from some of those strange men I was bracing myself for, have been two lines or fewer. Most of them mention how sexy I am, but nothing about what's in my profile. Even the one liners have typos.

If a guy got on this site with any agility at flirting he could really clean up.

3 Men in 3 Days

It must have been something in the air. Maybe I was sending out the 'closure vibe' into the universe, but not being very good at that kind of thing I get it just slightly off and end up with something that wouldn't necessarily be considered 'closure' in most circles. Though I sure didn't intend to send out any such vibe I must have been doing something that weekend...

I'd had three relationship/flings/whatevers in a row, each beginning stepping over the corpse of another's ending.
*I think this only works if each one is more spectacular than the last, so that even if you are on any level mourning the old, you are even more excited about the new. Then you can tell yourself that the last ending happened because this new and better thing was going to happen.

Love is a Battlefield...

By the end of the triad of 'relationship-type-things' I was ... just think of three minor breakups in a row. I felt like that. Some things aren't break ups, they are 'endings', but there are aspects of a break up involved in each of these. While the rest of my life was running well enough, romantically I'd been feeling like I had one of those hang-overs where you have to wear sunglasses, even indoors.

Then they all hit me up at once. Differently. At the same time.

The first one, we hadn't spoken in... I was estimating almost 2 months. I thought 'He has finally accepted that neither of us need to be in this dysfunctional relationship. I'm so relieved that he was able to finally let go and so was I. This is the healthy thing for us both.'

BUT. NO.
This weekend of contacts starts with him calling me. Over and Over and Over all day and night with me not answering. I'm big on texting people if one can, rather than calling them without regard to their schedule or what might be going on; I've always, since texts were invented, thought they were much more polite than a call, as you can send when you want and they can answer when they want, not when you ring them. At any rate, he knows this, but keeps calling anyway. It's always been a control issue with us.
Sometime Saturday, tired of ignoring multiple calls, I text him and we end up talking on the phone. It goes something like this:
"I haven't talked to you in so long cause I've been in jaaaaiiiillll."
"What?!?! Wait. Jail? Why??"
"I got picked up for drinking and driving."
"You had to know this was coming."
"Oh, no, this wasn't one of those you have 48 hours to turn yourself in. This was one of those where they pick you up and take you straight in. I was wearing my..."
"While it speaks volumes that you know the difference, I meant you go to bars, drink, and drive home. You had to know you would get arrested for it sooner or later."
"Oh. Yeah. I was hoping for the Later on that one. Why aren't you on facebook anymore? Or did you unfriend me?"
"I blocked you months ago Jonathan. We've spoken since then. You just didn't notice because you only ever looked at it when you wanted to find something to bitch at me about."
"Well I didn't notice the last 6 weeks because I've been in Jaaaiiiiiel."...
The conversation kinda went on in that direction for a while... It might help if you read it in a drawl, it really tops it off.

...

The next guy on the contact path sent me a message saying he was sorry for any hurt or misunderstanding he might have caused and hoped we could be friends.
That's what he typed.
Sometimes I write to my government representatives. When they write me back they often say one thing, but I read another. For instance every time Blaine Luetkemeyer returns an email regarding my concerns I read "I can't believe you bothered to send me another email with your opinions. No, I'm not voting the way you want me to, you Ignorant Liberal Female." I'm pretty sure that isn't what ol Blaine wrote, but I'm just as sure that it's exactly what he means.
So, when I opened this message from this man what I read was: I'm tired of feeling like a dick when I look in your eyes. Also I'd like you to laugh at my jokes.
If I were one to put words in someone's mouth I might say I also read that my time limit for being mad was up now, but that would just be speculation.
While I wasn't in good humor with the fellow as it was, I think it was the word 'misunderstanding' that put me over the edge on that one. It was so invalidating. Like everything else that happened when that ended.

...
The final one to contact me was the only one who truly had any concern with my feelings. Even though it had been a mutual and amicable decision to stop dating, he recognized that it could still be hard and wanted to check in on me and say he was thinking of me.
Oh My Gosh, my favorite break up ever. I feel like this guy should give classes on how to break up gently and be a good person after. Not only that, it was so affirming. Acknowledging that we had something that can be hard to let go.
My heart went pitter patter. 
Then I remembered why we broke up; not because of a fight, but because of more legitimate reasons, like incompatibility and 'style differences'.
Then I hit on him again anyway. And he kindly ignored it - Yet still was cordial and considerate in a very platonic way.
This really should/could have been one of the most lovely endings ever. Neither of us wanted to get back to dating or thought it could work. We were both kind, considerate, like each other as people...

BUT. Sometimes (pretty much always) when I can use reason to convince myself something isn't right for me and another person I still struggle to give up the physical aspects of an involvement. Thus, when one night I text him after a couple of drinks with a girlfriend and ask about having that coffee he suggested we have... and push for a time we can do it... and..? Then I tell him I might behave inappropriately, and when he asks what I mean I figure (with all evidence to the contrary might I add) it's an invitation to detail what I'd like to do... (Insert Unsolicited Sext Here.)
His response? That we should get coffee in a public place.
I texted back not to worry if he didn't hear from me, as "I get really poor reception under the rock I'm currently climbing under."
I'm still here. Never got a return text on that one. Instead I'm going with avoiding eye contact as much as possible and consoling myself with promises that I will never try it again.

Not the dream ending - he gave it his best shot - but somehow it's befitting. It's me.

The 'Blessing Way'? What does that even Mean?

I sat on the floor with my skin stretched to the last place it could go before stretch marks would become inevitable.  This room smelled of things too natural for my mainstream nose to identify, but by this time I was grouping all of these ‘natural’ scents as either patchouli or herbal tea and calling it close enough.

They called this place The Womb Room and filled it with pillows and books on natural birth, breastfeeding, gentle child rearing and other concepts that were foreign to me then, but would become my life. I would know these ideals forward and backward and filter them as I saw fit one day, but this was far from what I could accept at the time.

This space sat atop a doctor’s office ran by a woman who my sole similarity with was that we had both conceived babies, though at different times and under different circumstances. So maybe I just mean we both had functional uteruses. Later we would find enough common ground for her to sway me from an unnecessary procedure, but for now we were aliens.

Having no idea what to do with pregnancy I had been influenced into attending a prenatal group there, comprised mainly of women who would have home births with this doctor or have her attend their natural births at a birthing center. I believe I was the only person in the group who had poured out a bottle of vodka after their positive pregnancy test to keep from drinking it. I’m sure I was the only one who took the test in a bathroom stall at a bar.

Later my rare visits to this place would include pictures where women pointed out ‘orbs’; talks of spirituality over religion; and the most sincere emotional support between women who carved toys out of wood found on nature paths and served one another hummus ground from beans at home with the varieties being determined by what had sprouted in their gardens that season.

Tonight I was here on the floor for my own ‘Blessing Way’, which my crunchier than thou sister had arranged for me and explained as a baby shower without the presents. Since I knew no one in town, she had invited every one of her friends who I had ever met, even once, casually on the street. The challenge of remembering everyone’s name was not one I was equal to, but these ladies rallied and strung sea shells onto fishing wire and folded origami fish and created a beautiful and shockingly meaningful mobile on a beautiful piece of drift wood.

Someone, possibly the person who would be my ‘doula’, a concept I barely grasped, gave me a small pink rock, vaguely the shape and size of a conversation heart. Another stranger who had been recruited to play the role of my support team exclaimed to the gift presenter “What a great heart shaped rock! You are the best person at finding heart shaped rocks!”

This would be the defining moment of the event. Who were these people?! I could tell you of my friends who could make the best martini; who had the best corsets or heels to borrow; who to borrow DVDs from; who threw the best dinner parties (me), and who could always introduce you to the hottest guys…

But who was the best at finding heart shaped rocks? NO.

Who were these people, and how would I ever fit in here?

Suddenly it’s 6 years later, this very week. That particular group of women never became my ‘crew’, but I have been back there a few times and can wing it, almost like a native speaker. When I go I don’t wear my black heels with the zippers up the back and they seem to assume I know what the benefits are of the particular root tea being served; or if they know I still don’t, they don’t let on.  We are kind to each other, if less than friends. 

And what do they think when they hear about the beautiful child that likes to whittle and craft and collect interesting rocks? 

The conditions of Unconditional Love

I'm tired of seeing the memes about love being something you give, without expectation - That if you expect something back, it's not love. 
I call bullshit. 
You can't continue to love without expectations. At least not if you respect yourself. Not if you are healthy. To give love, you need to receive it, in whatever form it is in. 

The best explanation of this I heard in the bathroom at a club. A girl was screaming at her man into a cell phone. They were back and forth a while when she over-road whatever he was saying with this:
"UNCONDITIONAL LOVE?!?!?! UNCONDITIONAL LOVE?!?!? DO NOT TALK TO ME ABOUT UNCONDITIONAL LOVE MUTHERFUCKER. UNCONDITIONAL LOVE IT WHAT A MAMA HAS FOR HER BABIES, NOT WHAT A WOMAN HAS FOR A MAN, NOW YOU BETTER STOP SCREWING AROUND..."

Maybe I'm wrong, and love really is just this free thing that the hippies like to act like they give; but even they fail remarkably. It gives them something to say when they are in altered states, or reason to get all over each other, but the likelihood that they mean it when they bequeath on you this free love? It's not stronger than the likelihood that anyone else will stand by that statement. I can't tell you the exact number of the unconditional love crew that have stabbed each other in the back, but it's exactly the same number as in any other group of people.

I give love to my friends; that love is not unconditional. I've let go of many a friend who has taken and taken when they needed it and not given back when I needed. Sometimes I've let them go more than once. I've stopped loving friends who have stolen from me, treated me poorly or abusively, used me. It's part of being a healthy individual. There are conditions to love, and a huge one should be Not Taking Advantage of That Love.  

In the other love, the love we most often think of when meme'ing all over the place, romantic love, we all should require something back. Respect. Kindness. Maybe even... Reciprocation. 

I know several people in beautiful loving relationships. People who would never leave each other in hard times. People who will take care of each other the rest of their lives. That isn't unconditional love. It's true love, it's mutual love. It is not unconditional love. 

On a related topic, Rihannah broke up with Chris Brown. Again. 

Maybe the only truely unconditional love is that given to a child. I think that drunk girl screaming into her cell phone may have nailed it. 
-Because the only one going to hit me ever, scream when I don't give in, make me late for work because of not being responsible, expect me to make all of the meals, never take me anywhere or ask what I want to do, not help me with my problems when I need help while expecting help for their own, person that I'm going to love- unconditionally - is a little one.
And when mine grows up I hope he gives kindness to the world, but his 'unconditional love' to the only ones who give it back.

Not all days/blogs are created equal.

Yesterday my babydaddy, who wandered into his son's life at age 4, just long enough to get his attention then disappear after the boy found him passed out on the front steps, emailed me to again ask for an address to send a gift for his 6th birthday next week.
It was similar to the request for an address in December to send the Christmas gift he didn't end up sending. Yet again I told him our address and that the child still wants to skype with him. Same request I've passed on for over a year. Same request he keeps ignoring. I swear I want to see his face over the computer far less than he wants to see ours, but I keep asking anyway, for my child, because I won't tell him anything bad about his father.
I tell him he has a great memory like his father; he is pretty like his father; an inventor like his father. I tell him the good things they have in common and things he can be proud of.
But it makes me sick every time I hear from the man. And scared. Always scared he will try to get involved again and bring the child into his dangerous life of alcoholism.




Then in the afternoon, this hot, sweet, sexy, kind, former lover (who I've been working hard to quit hitting on) messages me... while I'm still trying to figure out what the message means he sends another message, that message was meant for someone else.
Oh. Well. Sigh.

Then I go to donate blood and am sent away because my iron is too low, possibly because I donated exactly the limit of 56 days ago.

Not all blog posts are created equal; but not all days are either.

Stephen, Not Steve - Endings and Rebounds

He dressed and carried himself like German nobility while quoting Bukowski and listening to Black Flag, often while doing tricks on a skateboard in the living room; avidly professing his undying love for me, just 4 weeks into our relationship. 

My room mate at the time thought he was pretentious. 

Side note: I have a terrible predisposition for being wildly attracted to pretentious men. I don't know why. There's nothing in my background to clarify this further even to me. 

Stephen may have been fronting, posing, or a pretentious asshole, as my friends claimed, but all this time I’m still quoting him on both rebounds and relationship endings, so maybe he was as bright as I gave him credit for after all.

10 years later, still facing endings and rebounds and choices my friends might question, these two statements I attribute to Stephen not Steve, have always stuck with me:

In regards to my concern that our relationship End Well: “Nothing ends well. If it were going to end well, it wouldn’t End.”

I’ve found this to mostly be a truth in romance. While I have seen a few relationship that have evolved and the people aren’t together but are still close, they are few and far between and don’t count as endings, just changings. Most things don’t change smoothly either.

Second, I expressed my feelings that he was still somewhat hung up on his last girlfriend and I was a rebound. 

He said “Aren’t they all rebounds, after the first one?”

Yes, yes they are.

From that I have learned, if you wait for someone to be completely over the last relationship before you date them, they will already be with someone else.

As much as I try to move on and clear my mind of thoughts of the past on my own, someone almost always gets me over the last person. I always have these lingering memories of my last involvement until I meet someone to replace those spaces in my brain. I may not want the last guy back, but that space in my head is usually taken up in a way that says "They are all rebounds after the first one."
Ex: Justin got me over Aaron who got me over Stephen.

On rare occasion the person who gets me over someone is the person I need to get over.

Ex: Jonathan got me over Brian who finally got me over JW; but then Jonathan got me over Jonathan himself, because he was such an exhausting jerk that I started feeling like I was in a Taylor Swift song, for like Ever.

Then there is the occasion I get experience the uneasy sensation of getting caught up with one while still bouncing off the last. It's rough on the equilibrium - feeling hurt and angry one moment while having the just as real feelings of anticipation and delight the next. But on the rare occasions it works, it's Stephen's rebound rule at it's finest: It's getting caught in the air before you ever hit the ground.

Wat R U waring? To Sext or not to Sext... What to consider before you hit ‘Send’.

We’ve all done it. Taken a text from an innocent 140 characters into the wondrous realm of a ‘sext’.

He says ‘Wanna come over?” You say “I wanna c...” and you’re off into the world of keyboard lovin’.

According to Wiki: “Sexting is the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photographs, primarily between mobile phones. The term was first popularized around 2005, and is a portmanteau of sex and texting, where the latter is meant in the wide sense of sending a text possibly with images.”

Sexting’s popularity has grown so much that it’s hard to find a sext virgin over 15 and under 50. We do it from home, work, and in less advisable conditions, our cars. It requires little skill or experience to do well and is just too tempting to give up once you start.

The 4 types of sexting:

1. The Obvious: Having text sex because you aren't there to do it in person.

This is the newer, quieter, re-usable version of phone sex.

Staying somewhere with thin walls and can’t sweet talk your way to the sweet spot? This type of sexting can start out very creatively, with people who are often shy about dirty talk in person really opening up when they are 500 miles away. Things you never get to hear out loud come through the screen and are yours for future use long after the real live stuff is dating history.

Typically this kind of sexting session starts out creatively, but on one end or both becomes mostly a resending of the word “Yes” multiple times in a row.

2. The Prep: Sexting hot things to each other to set up a future encounter. Example, when I see you tomorrow morning I am going to... These are possibly the hottest sexts as they don’t just get you hot now, but the build up makes the next time you see one another even more explosive.

3. The Substitute: We can/will never have real sex, so this is it. You have this sext with the co-worker two desks down; your friend’s ex who you will never really touch, but have a curiosity about; that guy you think is hot, but suspect has a communicable disease.

4. The Favrian Sext: Unsolicited text 'flirting' that goes well over the line. And into flicker history. Sending photos of your various body parts to reporters is being taken into consideration as a hall of fame worthy ‘bad idea’. Not including your face in these body part photos is key, as then there is some room for doubt. Or at least hope.

I have had both hot and appalling experiences. By appalling I don't mean 'he said something weird'. I'm not judging what is said or typed in passion, we all say some pretty wonky things.

But.

Once I received a sext from a guy two seats down in a car full of people. On the way home from a memorial. His girlfriend was driving.

Another misfire was “I’m vacuuming the house with my shirt off right now and it’s very hot in here.”

I had no idea what to do with this. I could tell that it was meant to tease me into thinking about him sweaty and naked, but somehow I pictured smelly man pushing a vacuum cleaner and was not aroused. Maybe had it been my carpet I would have gotten some satisfaction out of it, but I hadn’t seen this guy in 6 months, so it would have been as creepy for it to have been my carpet as it would have been gratifying.

For fun I like to send suggestive texts to my more conservative friends, especially the girls who will invariably react with an ewwwww in response. I like to think it keeps their day interesting, though this might not really be the case.

Sexting lust filled messages is a simple way to spice things up with someone you trust enough to keep it private.

Of course, trust only lasts so far, but personally, if I can't trust someone with personal sext messages, I shouldn't be trusting them with my actually body.

There are down sides to sexting. Some people insist that no sexting is safe sexting, as a text is such a permanent record of the interaction, held in a small, hackable object with a tendency to get misplaced or stolen.

Phones do get lost, and a sext is more permanent than a relationship, often lasting the life of a phone. I have an intentionally mislabelled file folder of suggestive texts I’ve never erased. Similarly I can not imagine when or why a guy would delete an image of a naked hot babe from his phone. Ever.

There are always going to be accidents, like someone on the outside getting a hold of something they weren't meant to, but that doesn't stop couples from video taping themselves either.

Another hazard is that teen girls have phones and teen girls are brazen and dangerous. I was a teenage girl and can assure you I was brazen and dangerous, so this is hardly an unfair assessment. News headlines make us cringe as young men get arrested for exchanging photos with their similarly aged girlfriends and teachers get nailed for child porn for unsolicited photos sent to their phone by teen students who had access to their cell numbers for innocent reasons such as chaperoning class trips. Teens are just not being educated enough about the dangers of sexting, which include being mortified when the boy they sent a boob shot makes it his profile photo until he gets flagged for it.

For most, the risk is considered worth the reward.

Picture sexts seem to be the more perilous. Unless it’s your profession, it’s unlikely that everyone has seen if you have the Brazilian trim or the Sasquatch down there. Until you get just the right angle on it from your mobile that is.

On the other hand, sexting purely words? I consider myself highly creative when it comes to the erotic, but do I manage to sext much that would surprise anyone? What can you really say in under 160 characters (while holding the phone in one hand in some cases) that hasn’t already been said? Do I come up with sexts that consist of anything you couldn’t read in a chat room?

You’ll never know.

Unless my purse gets stolen again or I piss off an ex or I send it to the radio disc jockey instead of my man, or...

Then everyone will know.

Are Taylor Swift and Pink using me?

Don't get me wrong, I like these girls, even if Taylor Swift songs can get uber annoying, very quickly. But I'm starting to get this paranoid feeling that they are sometimes, just maybe, following me around to get materials.
How else would the F-you break up songs always get released as I was breaking up, and play as I was driving by the exit that I would no longer be turning off on? How else would the songs about being sober come out as I got that way; the songs about starting over become popular as I started over yet again, just like they say; and ...and...?
Probably because, as a friend told me, everything is cyclical. It all comes back around, and at some point most of the public will be in that exact same spot you are in. Thus is pop music.

I have this particular disgust right now with a Taylor Swift song in which she tells me that a disappointing relationship (or two) were My Fault. Why? Because I knew the guys were, each in their own way, cads. In this song, obviously written as an attack on me and using really grating affects by a producer who I must have wronged in a past life, she brings around the idea that if you Knew the guy was trouble then it's your (my) fault that he was not good to or for me.
At first I'm like "Look bitch, I totally thought I was special! I was different. You can't pin this on me." But she keeps at it and eventually I do wonder... If I chose to be with someone with a reputation am I asking to be treated badly?
Of course she does it in first person, as if she is the idiot, so it can't be proven it's a personal attack, but I hear it; I know.

Just to be nice she makes up for it with Begin Again, the rarer heard song that reminds me not of one guy, but of all of them, in their time. Each new person helps you begin again and know that (love)life goes on. And that whoever he was who didn't like it when I wore high heels (or didn't think I could write or that I dressed wrong, or whatever else) someone else would like that about me, just like I Do.

So I guess, even though they get a little invasive at times, I'm glad I have these girls who seam to know me somehow. I think I will head over to spotify and listen again to The Truth About Love and feel like I'm laughing with Pink the same way she does with Ellen.