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.