The Meh and the Grrr of it

"I don't love him. Winter just wasn't my season."

And it really never has been. The fear of the resent polar vortexes was a huge reason I spent much of my adult life in the west. Hiding from it in the open air and swimming pools.

People keep trying to start conversations with me right now, and all I can say is "I'm cold. It's... just colllld." It's not exactly a promising conversation direction to take, but it's the only place I know to lead. I resent the cold more so for ripping the sparks out of my lively conversation mechanism.

I got to give the most stellar advice today to a photographer who was working with another girl's photo. (He was mostly adjusting lighting and such, not changing her appearance to make her more ...whatever.)
"When touching up girls pictures, we don't necessarily want you to make us look thinner or different than we really look. Just make us look like we really look mid-June, not the way we really look in early February."

Right now I'm just full of meh and grrr and more meh. I want something to Happen, but I'm not sure what. Something exciting! But not drama filled.
Nothing I'm doing is exciting to me these days, though I'm not sure the events and involvements I'm part of wouldn't be far more exciting were it early summer. Early summer, when everything is so promising, and not so desperate and cold and empty.

I lost two potential romantic entanglements that I was running more or less at once, neither being truly mine. While not being the ultimate in fulfilling connections, both warmed me on the inside in their very different ways and in their absences are missed both in a meh and a grrrr sort of way.
But... I don't have the faith to push deep enough into the grrr, so I wallow in the meh of it...
And sometimes try to re-spark the worse fitting of the two.
Because I take some perverse joy is sleeping with republicans and then berating myself for it? I don't know. There's something about it so ..alien. Maybe it gives it that dirty edge that sex is missing now that so little is really taboo for me?
If all involved (and of age) parties enjoy it, nothing is 'wrong' these days.
So maybe the only taboo is to do it with someone whose values completely clash with your own?? Does it just appeal as a space to release the grrr that the cold has placed in me?

Winter: When I look for something to light on fire to push back the gray.

I must remember now that have a fireplace and wood for it.
And keep talking myself into enjoying every aspect of life as much as I can through the brrrr.

I'm Cool. No, really.

Last night, having done something I thought was 'cool' I started to spout my usual "Cause your mama's cool" at my little one. Instead I stopped and said "Is your mama cool?"

He smiled and said "No. Pretty."
Ugh. Out of the mouths of babes. But seriously, at 6 shouldn't he still think I'm both?

This morning I asked the question again. He laughed and said "You heard."

I tend to think that I'm more cool than pretty. I'm not putting myself down on appearance. I take care of myself (mostly) and do put some effort into my appearance.
I know it's mostly in my head, but I feel more powerful with eyeliner on and I can't concentrate without lip gloss generously applied.
I got some nice cheekbones from the Cherokees and a sweet look from my mother. I have more than anyone would ever want in boobs.

But I think I'm realllly cool. Like I'm really impressed with my own taste and stuff.

A fine example of me thinking I'm being cool.

Evidence to the contrary: Whenever I pick up a book at the used book store to read and find it interesting it usually ends up on the dollar clearance shelf. I am sort of getting a complex about my taste in books. 








One particular story always pops into my head when I am confronted with my cool vs pretty levels, which I obviously have no clear grasp of.

Years ago, when I was hanging out a lot with this girl with issues, even more issues than I had at the time (a feet in and of itself), she was freaking out on me about something and the conversation took this (out of context) turn:
"When we meet guys together 95% of them are attracted to you and 40% of them are attracted to me. Once they talk to us for a while 50% of them are attracted to you and 70% of them are attracted to me. HOW DO YOU THINK THAT MAKES ME FEEL?!"

I'm sure that her point was something about how difficult it is to have friends who always wore clean clothes and took the time to put on a bra. Or something like that.
Her side of that issue was kind of lost on me as my first bit of awareness that I was actually losing 45% of men by talking to them.
Not that I need 95% of men to be attracted to me. That's not the point. The point is I lost them. They started out that way, then I lost them by talking?


Anyway, I was really hoping that I would have this kid on my side a while longer.
I'm going to start pointing out more often all the ways I am cool. And he, who is already much cooler than me, will just laugh at me. And maybe tell me I'm pretty.

Missing Coast

And so you say
Why don't you get away
Then you pull me back and want me to stay

And from now on
Time will go much faster
You'll forget you left her there

And I'm lining up
All my bridges
I know I can't walk back on ashes
And this is my time

To fall into this
New wave of life's limits
And to crawl onto
Each new day
Without You

-Ember Coast
From The Mood Room

I miss that music. I would play it on the CD player outside at my pool in Scottsdale while I swam laps.
It wasn't really lap swimming music, but then again my lap swimming included a margarita or a bloody mary at each end of the pool, which I rewarded myself with a drink from at every pass.

Today I saw the universe getting back at one of it's transgressors. As a one time victim, it felt like universal irony that this man who had treated girls in very questionable ways would now be raising his daughters who he would have to perpetually be worried about meeting men like him. I hope those girls never do meet a man like him, but I hope it keeps him awake worrying about it even more often than his actions kept me awake nights.

I lost my personal piece of California last night. The last of the three non-removable toe rings I had put on in a place on the beach near LA finally broke off and disappeared.
These rings were not the kind of pieces you could take off without cutting nor were they the kind you could put on yourself. A man with a bottle of spray-on, oily soap fitted me for size, then pushed, pulled, and screwed them onto my toes while I buried my head into my best friend's shoulder. They were stuck there until they were cut off or broke. It was much like getting a piercing. Two of them made it through my pregnancy. The final one disappeared yesterday, after being a part of me for about 12 years. I noticed at 1am. It's kind of a bad time to notice something depressing like losing some Cali.



Once upon a time there was this young, hot drummer. I met him while picking up promotional materials for an awards show. He handed me some posters, offered to buy me an iced coffee, and suddenly I liked his band a hell of a lot more than I had when I woke up that morning. They really weren't that good, nor were they bad. Good enough to get on a small label, not really exciting though. Or maybe it was me. I didn't find anything they did 'catchy' or memorable, but I made it through shows by simply staring directly past the rest of the band and eye-fucking him. While the band was well practiced but rather unremarkable, he was a vision of sexy and talent.
For a few months after, we had the perfect non-relationship.
He holds the title for being the only guy I got the friends with benefits thing totally right with. Like Ever.
We have compared notes over the years, now several states away. Neither of us have really found anyone else we were strongly attracted to who could be attentive and passionate lovers with true affection and ease while maintaining no commitment, jealousy, or plans for a future together.  No one ever asked for too much attention, texted too much, got their feelings hurt. We drank too much; sometimes slept over; sometimes arrived together and left separately, other times arrived separately and left together. We talked about work stuff and band stuff and stuff you talk about with your friends. It was this easy mutual flow. I keep thinking I can find another him, but I prove to myself over and over that I can't.
I think it's programming and, for my generation at least, it's almost inescapable. Whatever they know in their heads, something that is so ingrained via society doesn't easily allow men, or possibly anyone, to accept sexual 'benefits' without either suspicion or judgement. Suspicion that every kindness or show of affection from the woman is a sign she wants more of a relationship. Judgement that if she doesn't expect more from them it must be a self worth issue, so they unintentionally assign her less value.
Or maybe most of the time it does evolve to more for one or the other and no one can help that.
I should ask him someday why he hasn't ever been able to find another me.
Maybe I'm a precious snowflake unicorn after all.

Which is good, because I need the pick-me-up after losing California to a sock somewhere.