As Told by Kismet

Because if one thing defines me more than anything else, it's not being on time--okay, maybe that's not completely right. Never being on time would be if one of two things defines me more than anything else--the final installment of 30 days of blogging straight is late. I'm not trying to make excuses, but I drove from Fort Lauderdale to Chattanooga, Tennessee, yesterday where I had to first room hop and then hotel hop as a result of, in one hotel,  little flying bugs, dried poop on a toilet seat, and blood-spotted sheets, and in another hotel, the actual body of a bedbug dead on the sheet and then finally settle for sleeping in my car in a rest stop starting at four in the morning. I knew I had to write a blog, but because of the aforementioned along with the crack pipe wielding man at hotel number two,  it was not my top priority. To be honest, after sleeping a total of two hours in a Tennessee rest stop last night and driving today over twelve hours straight, it's still not exactly thing to do number one, but I really want to get it done. After having written every day except one for an entire month, I couldn't not debrief.

It's been so long, and I've written so much, you probably don't remember why I started this endeavor. Just a reminder in case you don't:  The entire purpose of this was to make myself want to write. Did it work? Eh. I definitely think of writing differently now, like for instance if something happens, I make mental notes as it's going on, thinking to myself, this can go in my blog (I've always come up with blog posts almost in their entirety while I run, but this is different. These ideas come no matter what), and I also feel like I don't know what I'm going to do with myself now that I don't have to write. As good as that maybe sounds, though, it's all not. I've touched on this before, but my rigidity makes writing something of a burden due to my feeling like I have to write, and that is the absolute opposite of my intent.

So what else? What else came from this thirty-days of write? Other than the self-explorations you've already seen in my posts, which I appreciate, I didn't learn anything about myself, but I think maybe you learned about me--but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you already knew I was an impatient, boy crazy, bumbling mass of awkwardness. Even if you did, I still feel like any semblance of normalcy I may have had is entirely gone. I definitely never played any kind of pretend, but when writing sporadically, it's just much more likely that only certain things will come out. When writing every day, you pretty much get everything I've got, at least where mental health is concerned. You've seen me super up and you've seen me super down. I don't think I'm much different from other people in that regard other than, as I've previously discussed, my tendency to have no guard. You also may have learned, even though this one probably isn't new, that I don't much care who knows what where I'm concerned. However, what you probably don't know is that despite how it may seem, there is a lot that goes on in my life--like, a lot a lot--that, people who read my blog, you still don't know.

I didn't lie when I said I was an open book, it was the gods' honest truth. But what open book reveals all its secrets in chapter one? Or two? Or three? Or even four, or five, or six? Good open books wait until near, if not the actual, close.

People who read my blog, I am not even close.

And to Think That I'm Somebody's Daughter

So in less than twelve hours--I'm hoping less than 10--the kid who leaves lube all over the house, the girl he uses the lube with, and I will be embarking on a trip to Milwaukee, Chicago, and Columbus. I should probably be a lot more excited, but the prospect of being the sole driver on an over 3,000 mile trip isn't exactly the most appealing thing plus I'm having BTJ issues again, and I have to say, regarding him, I need to be done. You know what? I thought I was going to write about my trip, but I'm going to say some things about BTJ instead which really are observations about myself and not about BTJ at all.

When I first met BTJ, I wasn't sure I liked him. After the second time we hung out--really, even after the third--I just wasn't sure. I knew I liked hanging out with him, but I really didn't love doing anything else. I mean, it was nice, but it wasn't wow. Two things to make you better understand: one, my good friend said he was convenient but my kitty didn't like BTJ (this would be a much wittier statement if you knew his real name) and two, I bought a maca chocolate bar on impulse while I was in line at Lucky's with the intent of eating it before he came over because I wanted to want what he wasn't making me want (does that make any sense?).

It wasn't until BTJ didn't text me back that I started to care. When I was trying to decide whether to text him or not, that same good friend asked, How did we get here? You didn't even like him at all, and let me tell you, she wasn't wrong. Also not wrong, which you already know, is that we're not compatible in the way that we kiss, and you don't know some other things because they're super personal, but they're also amiss. So every single sign screams WRONG WAY, yet what do I do? I continue to proceed, not even with any particular caution at all.

When my ex-Glenn and I first met, we couldn't stand each other. At all. After that first night, we bumped into each other at coffeehouses once or twice, and the hate was still there. Almost a year after that first night, he came into the CD store where I worked, and when he, our friend Marnie, and their friend Ben made plans to go out that night, I invited myself along. After a few drinks, my ex-Glenn and I ended up having sex in my car (because do I ever do anything else?), and not long after, Marnie relayed something about how much he still couldn't stand me. To be honest, I could never really stand him, but hearing that he couldn't stand me and there was no way in hell we'd ever go out? Guess what became the main mission of me.

I have a problem, I'm aware. I often only seem to care when the other person seems to not. I'm sitting here all upset and mopey about BTJ again despite the fact that practically nothing about him is right, despite the fact that after the other night while I was lying in bed not getting kissed, I was thinking, This is totally not okay and I will never do this again, words I need to apply not just to the other night, not just to BTJ, but to this pattern that has played out, that continues to play out for my entire life.

The Kid's Not All Right

There's lube all over my house.

This may not seem blog worthy, but it's annoying enough that it is to me.

I've always been super open about sex with Griffin and Keifer, it's the truth. Since forever I've tried to make sure it was completely normalized and no shame or embarrassment was attached. The only two rules I ever set for them regarding sex was that I wanted them both to wait to have it until they were 15, which they did (although I'm sure that has more to do with circumstance than rules), and then once they were having it, I didn't want them to have sex in the house while I was home. Pretty much anything other than that was left up to them, a common sense free for all, I guess, but when you leave sex discretion up to teenaged boys, can you guess what happens to the common sense?

Lube all over the house. That's what happens to common sense.

Not too long ago, I got in the shower, and there it was right next to my shampoo: a bottle of lube. I've also found lube on the futon in my back room in the not so distant past, and tonight Griffin found a bottle of it next to the couch.

Fucking lube.

I'm happy Keifer isn't weirdly sexually repressed, make no mistake, but there's definitely such a thing as too not repressed. Well, at least involving one's mom. The things I know about Kei and sex--I'm talking likes, I'm talking dislikes, I'm talking locations, I'm talking details--are things no mother needs to know, and yet, no matter how many times I say something, I still stumble upon almost empty bottles of lube, which actually as I type that right now makes me think of an argument Keifer and I got into last week when he said he can't wait to get his own apartment so he can freely have sex. Apparently, our living situation prevents him from just whipping it out and shtupping Erica whenever he wants, and that's not acceptable, which now that that's been said brings me unexpectedly to what I argued with Kei on my end.

An Overview of What I Argued with Kei on My End

So my sixteen-year-old son has the nerve to complain to me that he can't have sex in the house whenever he wants because I'm home too much, yet that motherfucker never goes anywhere other than school which of course is when I'm at work which means unlike him, I really can't have sex in my house ever, like at all (okay, since the argument that's no longer true because BTJ and I totally had sex in my house on Monday night while Keifer was downstairs, but that's the first time I've done that since I got divorced). The number of times I've had sex in my car in the last three years because Keifer is always home and I date guys who still live at their parents' house is insane, and Keifer has the nerve to complain about sex to me and tell me he can't wait to move out? And then tell me it's entirely my fault that I'm in this situation because I'm the one with kids?

Ramble. Ramble, ramble, ramble. Ramble some more. 

This post was rambling, I know, and didn't really seem to have a point--like did I want to write about Keifer's misguided comfort with sex where I'm concerned? About how maybe I don't like his "misguided" comfort with sex but being comfortable with sex is always something good? About how I might still be dating A if he ever could have come over when he had a chance? About how once when I complained to my ex-Glenn that I always have to have sex in my car because Keifer never goes to his house, he said, Here's a tip. Date an adult? About the irony that I'm the age I am with my own house but really can't have sex in it even though almost thirty years ago when I lived with my parents I had sex in my house all the time? To all these questions except the first, the answer started out as no and turned into a yes--but complete exhaustion coupled with 29 days' worth of posts has apparently made me incapable of writing with any type of focus and voila! You get a nearly incoherent mess (kind of like my entire life, but it is way too late to go into that).

Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me; Your Tongue Is Like Poison

I didn't blog last night.

Gasp.

It's awful, I'm aware, but I didn't even know. I had a super busy day, waiting to be released from scoring essays until almost 5 and then had to make an almost 300-mile drive that of course I got lost on because I'm the most incapable person in the world when it comes to directions, and I had no data, and, therefore, no gps. While going the wrong way on the expressway could have set me back only a half hour if even that because I called my guardian angel aka Griffin to look up a route for me from his laptop, it turned out to be way longer because it fortuitously brought me to Ybor City where I stopped for some vegan pho and an eiskaffe, which was one of the best coffee drinks I've ever had. I didn't even get on the road until almost 8, which means I didn't even get home until right around 11; I still had to run, and I don't think I've told you this, but BTJ and I have been talking since I sent my NC-17 text, and he was coming to my house which means I was going to be seeing him for the first time since that Sunday in the beginning of June, so blogging wasn't really on my mind.

Anyway. I'd like to talk making out.

For my entire life up until tonight sometime around 5:00, I considered French kissing to be making out. Like, to me the two things were exactly the same. I'm not sure my mind has completely changed, but I can say that I'm now aware this isn't necessarily what everyone thinks*.

*For the purpose of this post along with everything I ever say or do for the rest of my life, when I say kiss, I mean French kiss. If I mean something else, you'll know. 


I've mentioned before, people who read my blog, that I love to kiss. It's not something I ever thought I had to make clear, but when I say kiss, I mean what I've always thought of as making out, and while I'm aware not everyone loves kissing as much as me, I totally thought it was something almost everybody does. I have a friend who doesn't--saliva grosses her out--and I've always thought it was the craziest thing. Once when she said something jokingly about us getting married, I told her I could never do it because she doesn't like to kiss, and while there are a lot more reasons that marriage isn't in our cards, it's true. I could never have a happy sexual relationship with someone who doesn't like to kiss.

Which brings me to last night.

I told you BTJ came over when I got home. I also told you we kissed a lot the other times he came over, and I mean kissed kissed, like real kisses, not the pussy pop kind--for fuck's sake, he bruised my tongue. So imagine my surprise when after our first time having sex and I was all over him trying to make out, he laughed at me and said something about me searching for his tongue, prompting a conversation that led to his revealing that when he kisses, he doesn't like to use his tongue.

Dude.

But it literally said on my Bumble profile making out is one of my loves. 

Yeah, but making out doesn't have to be with tongue.

What? Yes, it does. It totally does.

I consider any kind of open mouth kissing to be making out.

What? No. If it's not French kissing, it's not making out. 

Tongues are just gross. They make me think of octopus tentacles crashing together. I can feel the bumps on a tongue. What are they called?

Taste buds?

Dude.

I feel like I've been duped.

Duped!

And maybe you think I'm being petulant and making an unnecessary big deal, but I swear I wouldn't have had sex with him if I'd known his kissing stance. There's also no way I'd have felt as into him as I did because there is no way I could ever be seriously into anyone if I knew beforehand my tongue was going to be forced to languish in the confines of my mouth when I want to make out.

Anyway.

Today I decided to look up making out. See if BTJ was wrong about what constitutes making out or if I was. You know what? It turns out we both were. According to a bunch of sites and public opinion, making out isn't just kissing, French or otherwise, but kissing plus beyond. Making out, according to the Internet, includes, in addition to kissing, some or all of the following things: petting, heavy petting (which differs from plain only petting because the former is above the waist and the latter is below it), dry humping, and really just about anything related to sex that isn't actual fucking.

Maybe BTJ and I were both wrong, but he was definitely more wrong. All the things above normally occur, I have no doubt, alongside the presence of a not-relegated-to-the-bottom-of-the-mouth, equated-to-a-mollusk fucking tongue.

Fucking duped. 

The Weight of the World Would Be Okay if It Would Pick a Shoulder to Lean On so I Could Stand Up Straight

Something I never thought I'd say: Holy Jesus, I wish that cute Korean doctor would leave me the fuck alone.

But looksie here, I'm saying it.

Since when I mentioned the Korean doctor to you once a few months ago I didn't tell you very much, let me give you the rundown super fast. We met on Tinder and started talking in February 2016, met in real life not long after, saw each other for a little over a month, text frequently and even (gasp!) talked on the phone, and then one day we were texting while he was at work in June (not being a real doctor. He was in medical school at the time), and both of us just stopped. I have no idea who text who last, I just know that he was the one who always initiated the texts and never sent me one again, and I wasn't interested enough to see what was going on.

On March 31 he messaged me out of the blue, and I swear he won't leave me alone. At first I felt like I had to be nice, so I entertained him when he made small talk, asking me about school and if I still run and telling me how much he enjoyed spending time with me when we were seeing each other. A few days in when he started getting overly flirty talking about when we used to have sex and pestering me to let him read my secret blog, I wasn't nice at all; in fact, on April 3 he said, "I'll leave you alone until we get comfortable again about being friends." I didn't respond.

He text again April 25 and was super strange and then on April 29 to apologize for the inappropriate text which was "unprofessional...and it was embarrassing." I didn't respond.

May 7 he text, just asking me how it's going. I didn't respond.

I shouldn't have responded when he text me on May 31, so in a way this is my fault, but I wasn't responding to be friends. He sent me a super long text asking for my opinion on school kid psychology for some research he was doing on school shootings. It seemed legitimate enough, so I answered back. No small talk, no okay, now we're friends, just my observations on students' mental health.

He text me again on Tuesday night, so that was what? June 12? I was in the middle of writing a blog and not thinking about what I was doing, so I answered him back. We didn't text for super long, just long enough for him to tell me he thinks about me from time to time, start reminiscing about my "sexual energy that borders almost predatory," ask me if I have a type, and tell me not to be a stranger and we'll grab coffee when I get back. I told him I had to go.

Last night, June 16, I'm texting someone else and he texts me again. This time all the sex talk is gone. He's majorly depressed. He's lonely and he's deflated and he's empty and he's sad and he can't focus. I tell him I feel sad and lonely all the time and he just has to learn how to cope so he asks me how to cope and he asks when it gets better and he says he wants it to get better soon and he sounds like a child but he's 28 or 29. So I tell him I lie down on the counter a lot and I listen to happy music and I run and I run and I run, and I tell him I tell myself that this is the life that I chose and sometimes it's really good, and when I'm telling him I'm asking myself how or why this is happening, I'm not even nice to him, how can I be the only person he has, how can he be desperately texting a girl he barely dated two years ago who clearly wants nothing to do with him, and then I realize he really must not have anyone so I have to be nice, and I know this is the opposite of nice but the Korean doctor I have no interest in at all is a responsibility I just do not want.

All She Wanted Was a Pepsi

I passed a taco place called Taco Bus on my way to Cafe Hey, that coffeehouse from the other night, and since tacos are one of my favorite things to put in my mouth, I got so excited, I almost didn't make it to the cafe. I did, though, as you know, but I told myself I'd eat there before going home, and tonight I made it back. While I did have some really amazing poblano pepper and mushroom tacos, I'm not here to talk about food. I'm here to talk about the homeless girl I bought dinner instead. 

I was sitting outside eating my tacos when she approached. As soon as she said, Excuse me, could you, I started to say no because I expected something about money to finish that question. It didn't, though. Can you buy me something to eat? she asked. I don't need money. Just food. My instinct was still to say no, but then I thought about it. This poor girl was hungry, and it's not like I'm poor. It's also not like she was asking for money to do who knows what with. She wanted food. How could I say no to buying the girl food?

Sure, I said. I'll buy you something to eat. Let's go in.  

I picked up my mostly eaten food, put my purse over my head, and walked into Taco Bus with the girl behind me. Do you know what you want? I asked. 

Shrimp quesadilla, no vegetables, she answered right away and then added that's what she always gets when people buy her food. Apparently it happens all the time. (That's not salt, by the way. Just facts.)

Shrimp quesadilla, no vegetables, I said to the guy behind the counter and then turned to the girl. Okay, I said. Here's your receipt. I handed it to her and went back outside to finish dinner.

You think my story's over but it's ready to begin.

She sat with me. 

Her names--one of her two "government names" that belonged to her daughters who were stolen from her so she uses their names--were Athena for sure and Alisha I'm pretty sure. She seemed normal enough if not horrifically challenged in the dientes at first, and at first, I guess I mean for about one minute flat. She just kept thanking me and telling me about how she usually gets food, and, well, if I wasn't the conversationalist that I am and didn't ask her so many questions, I'd never know that she's insane. 

The first thing I found out about Athena Alisha is that she just got back to Tampa after being in Wisconsin, California, and Louisiana not because she wanted to be but because she was taken by some very bad people and luckily escaped to Louisiana where she lived for what I found to be a confusing amount of time, maybe not as confusing as the fact that when I asked her how old she was she told me her reincarnated years were 31 but then later told me the people who took her to Wisconsin killed her and there are Polaroid pictures of it and everything yet there she was--I mean, if she was murdered just not too long ago in Wisconsin, how is her reincarnation age 31?--but confusing nevertheless.

I also found out that she has a brother/husband whose name is totally escaping me right now but I'm sure it will come back, and that he saved her in Wisconsin, and he saves her here all the time, and he comes before her looking different sometimes, just like Diablo, who's one of her stepfathers, and that she and her brother/husband have a son named Elijah who sexually molested them and people want them to sacrifice him but she can't do that to her son. She does, however, let angry things come out of her mouth sometimes, violent things, and she does violent things sometimes, but only when the bad people make her. She's sliced people in half, but only because she had no choice. Oh, she also showed me the spots where she recently had an IV when she was in the hospital after the police found her with half a bitten off toe.

After ten, maybe fifteen minutes of talking to Athena Ashley, I told her it was nice meeting her and I hoped she'd stay safe, and I went on my way.

While I was sitting there hearing her story, a lot of it which I haven't relayed (like, do you know she doesn't even know where she's from? And I'm pretty sure she thinks she's God), her story that I initially got out of her because I thought it would be good research for something I might one day write, I felt so sad. This girl seemed so genuinely nice and so genuinely believed the things she believed because she was so genuinely mentally ill, it was hard to take. 

How many people? How many people out there are just like her? You know, we see these homeless people and we harumph and we grumble and we say they should get jobs, but let me tell you, people who read my blog, there is no way on the gods' green earth that this girl could have a job. She was, to put it in not nice terms, batshit insane. 

I mean, I'm not making it up when I say I think she thought she was God. Well, except actually, that in contrast to the things she said that led me to that belief, she also said, after telling me she had leukemia, diabetes, and one other thing I can't remember, and I said I was sorry, not to be sorry, that she's not afraid at all because He'll take care of her. 

You know, because he's doing such a marvelous job so far. 

(Kirby! That's the brother/husband. It just came.)

Homewrecker

I've been thinking a lot about what I want to write tonight, and when I say thinking a lot about what I want to write tonight, I don't mean trying to figure out what I want to write, I mean I had an idea of something I want to write but have been going back and forth. It's a profession of sorts, of something that in no way needs to be said, something that no good could could come of if anything were to come at all.

I decided to not write the post; I'm just going to write about why I can't write it instead.

The problem, however, is that to write this post correctly, I have to reveal too much, so I'm sorry to inform you, people who read my blog, this one isn't going to make a lot of sense.

What I planned to do was to write about the guys who have been bothering me lately, to tell you how annoying they all are, not because I'm like ooh, everybody wants me because I promise you that's not going on, but because I wanted to tell you that there are only two guys I have any interest in at all. BTJ is obviously one, and the other one is the one who I was going to talk about tonight, to tell you how it's so weird that he's even on my mind and the reason why, but I decided that's not for this blog. I want to tell you, but if I do, he'll totally know who he is; I want to tell you why I can't let you know who he is, but if I do that, he'll also probably know, so admittedly there's very little I can tell you at all.

What I can tell you, though, is this: writing this blog the way I wanted to write it would do nothing but start trouble. It would start up something--or try to start up something because in all honesty that would be the primary reason for my writing it--that doesn't need to be started--that can't practically be started, thank God (thank God? Yes! thank God...I suppose)--that could ruin people's lives.

Why, then, if making this interest known could cause so much damage, is it something I remotely want to do? Why consider it at all?

Because I'm selfish, duh. Because I want what I want. Because I fail the marshmallow test miserably. Because I'm all about my id.

But

I've already ruined enough lives. It's a business I no longer want to be in.

I Know I'm Still the Shy Guy

I suppose I need to make a concession: I'm not as shy as I think or make myself out to be.

Except that's not true.

What I am, I guess, is circumstantially shy. Does that make sense?

I told you how I'm at this AP thing and the thought of mixing and mingling and talking to people makes me sick. That wasn't a lie. Like, I feel seriously anxious just thinking about socializing with just about anybody but my roommate and her sixty-something year old friends who I'll be eating out with tomorrow night, and even they make me uneasy to be honest. Tonight, however, I walked to a coffeehouse by myself (that's not the not shy part. I go places alone all the time), wandering unknowingly into the middle of an open mic. After the guy who was on when I came in finished, a comedian came on, a comedian who, in the middle of his thing--I mean, I guess it was his thing--looked at me and said something like, You! You look like you have that sexy pansexual vibe. 

Now, if that happened to me in a roomful of AP people, I'd get jittery and red and want to cry. At the coffeehouse, though, what I did instead was respond. You mean I look like I want to have sex with everyone in this room? I asked, and I felt totally fine. When the comedian finished and sat down next to me and started a conversation? Again, fine. When the singer of the band that went on after him finished and came over to us? Still fine, so fine in fact that I started talking to him about The Front Bottoms and didn't feel sick at all. When the girl behind the counter started talking about how creepy and weird Catholicism is? So fucking fine I chimed in all on my own.

Confession time: I do stuff like this all the time. I go places and have absolutely no problem at all being the center of attention or talking to people I don't know. Sometimes I even start the conversations myself. Sometimes (gasp!) even with a cute boy.

So, like, what's the what? How come I feel totally comfortable in a coffeehouse or restaurant with one hundred percent strangers but at a work function with people I kinda sorta know--colleagues, I guess they might be called--I feel like I have a phobia of being alive? Why do I look at meet ups and writer's groups longingly online but could never ever bring myself to go? Why--

wait. I'm grasping something. A thread. A light is turning on.

These events, the ones that strike fear in my heart, are organized. That's it. That's the thread. The things I'm afraid of, the places where I can't even comfortably think about being, are somehow, in some way, organized. I mean, it makes sense. My table leader was two people ahead of me in line at Publix tonight, and to be completely honest, I have an itty bitty crush on her, but I called her name nevertheless and felt more than less fine walking back to the hotel with her one on one. If I was at one of the organized College Board events, though, I don't think I'd have been able to say a word. I think...I think what it is, is...expectation.

I think that when I'm at one of these things (well, not when--if--because I almost never go) I feel like I have to play some sort of role. Scratch that. I don't feel like I have to play a role, I do. We all do. We all have different personas for the different areas of our lives, and my fulfill-an-expectation-of-anything-orchestrated-in-any-way persona seems to not work, which I guess when I think about it isn't that bad because while I might not comfortable playing pretend at least I'm comfortable playing myself.

When You Close Your Eyes

It's shocking, I know, but I had dinner with someone tonight. Less shocking, it was an actual friend of mine who happens to live in Tampa, not someone from the reading. While we were on our way back to the hotel, I was telling her about something I had forgotten about not in an actual forgetting about way but more in the not actively thinking about way, but still it's there way, and now that I remember it in the actual remember something way, I'm going to tell you.

When I was in high school I had one serious boyfriend: Louie, who I went out with from sophomore to senior year. Like most high school boyfriend/girlfriends (I think), we were completely in love, basically inseparable, pretty volatile, and completely insane. After a very long break up process that started in November when Louie called me another girl's name in bed and endured through my forgiving him; us getting back together; my soon after finding out he was cheating on me again, this time with a girl named Cricket who was new to our school; Louie, Cricket, and I for some crazy reason all roasting hot dogs together behind Fairway elementary one particularly surreal night; and some questionable actions with plastic vegetables once in Louie's sister's bunkbed, we finally went our separate ways some time around February or March when I was seventeen. After our final hurrah, I only saw him twice--once when I was with my new boyfriend James and his friends and we went to Denny's and because my life is my life, you know how every Denny's has at least one table with a leaf that can be two tables when it's down but is in one rounded booth? Well, James and his friends and I were seated there in the very same booth as Louie and Cricket, and once about a year later when Glenn and I were at a the same restaurant as he was, and I when I got out of the bathroom, he was at the door waiting to talk to me.

Over the years I've thought about him a lot, less in the more recent ones than in my twenties and the beginning of my thirties, and when Facebook became a thing, of course I looked him up. For years he wasn't there, but one day--October 10, 2014--he was. Well, I thought he was, but there was no picture and he's not the only one with his name, so I sent him a message with one word: Louie? and I never got a response. About six months ago--February 7 to be exact--I decided to look him up again and, lo and behold, there he was, picture and all, the same account I'd sent that message to almost four years before. Now, you know how shy I am, people who read my blog, or at least at this point you should, and when doing uncomfortable things like this involving boys, I'm a character-in-a-movie mess. If it had been any other boy I'd been into in the past, I probably couldn't have done it, but this was Louie for fuck's sake, the person who I'd been so super close to for so long, who I didn't feel intimidated by at all--I mean, by God, it's Louie--so I wrote to him again just basically saying it had been a really long time and it'd be great to catch up.

You know how when you're not friends with someone on Facebook the message goes into a kind of purgatory sometimes that isn't always seen or at least that's how it used to be? Well, that's where my message went. I checked a few times and he hadn't seen it but then one day when I checked, his little profile picture was next to it indicating he had. And he didn't write me back.

Yes, that's right. This motherfucker didn't write me back. Like, we went out for two years and went through some crazy, crazy shit, he's the one who cheated on me, the last time we had any communication--you know, after the time he ambushed me outside a restaurant bathroom--was him calling me, and he didn't write me back? After almost 25 years and a universe of time between anything bad that happened between us, he didn't write me back? I get friend requests from people I went to high school with that I've never even heard of and the guy I averaged having sex with about three times a day for two years didn't write me back?

And he's friends with Cricket?

I'm outraged. Outraged, I tell you! Like, I want to write to him again and be like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Are you seriously not going to answer me back? But I suppose that might be a little insane, maybe just slightly more than linking this blog to his profile, but then again, maybe not.

And I'm So Scared of Dying Alone That I'll Kill Myself Right Here Right Now

What I don't understand is how people just make friends. I'm here at the AP reading for the third time, having gone in 2015 and 2016, taking 2017 off, and now being here again. I come because it's good money and I like getting away from home, but in all honesty, I can't stand it at all. The work part is fine, but the nights...

All the people here either know each other from coming for years or are super friendly like my first roommate who had a crowd of her very own like the night after she got here. That first time wasn't so bad since we got along really well and did stuff together (and I totally mean that in more ways than one) plus my oldest friend Danielle drove over to Kansas City from St. Louis and stayed for a few nights, but last time and this time...talk about the pits. Everyone hangs out, going down to social hour and having drinks and eating food, like there are swarms of people milling about, while I sit in my room or wander the city alone looking for solo things to do.

(Full disclosure: My roommate is a super nice woman who I've roomed with before and she invited me down for drinks tonight and a guy (a really cute one!) who I met during lunch today, who told me to flag him down if I saw him again, was standing outside of my hotel today when I was coming in, and he said hi to me (by name. Who remembers somebody's name?), and I know if I wanted to stop and talk to him I totally could have had something to do, but just the thought of stopping and talking to someone I don't know makes me feel slightly sick.)

It's not that I don't want friends; I just don't know how to make them (see full disclosure above). You guys already know how awkward I am, and I'm also super shy. Well, initially I am. When I first started working at Miramar High seventeen years ago, I used to sit by myself for lunch in planning. One of the teachers in my department, Patty, kept inviting me to sit on the other side of the desks with everyone else, and too uncomfortable to say yes, I kept saying no and eating alone until one day she brought everyone to me. She brought her food and whatever coworkers were there at the time, I don't remember who--Anne? Emily?--every day until it just became the norm, and we became super good friends and are still friends today. If it had been left up to me, I have no doubt at all that we probably never would have been anything more than neighbors in the 150 corridor, not because I didn't want to be her friend but because I have an almost crippling fear of approaching people I don't know which pretty much means that unless some people at one of the readings takes an interest in me the way that Patty did, every June from now until who knows when, I'll be spending a week almost entirely alone which is probably good practice for the rest of my life now that I think about it so maybe I should just be grateful for the drill.

Last Year I Was a Train Wreck, Now I'm Just a Mess? (Nope. Still a Train Wreck)

I was texting with this guy yesterday who I met a couple years ago once and have text back and forth with very off and on ever since. I don't remember exactly what I said, but he text back, I wish I could see inside your brain, which was really funny because I had been thinking all day yesterday, maybe not in those words, that pretty much everybody can.

One of the things I wrote in yesterday's post when offering up texts that BTJ could have sent me when I asked if he wanted any pancakes was something about reading my blog and knowing I'm insane. I wrote that in jest, but is it not true? I mean, I have no idea if he read it or not, but the address used to be on my Instagram, so he could have. I do know for sure that you all read my blog, hundreds of you, and that I'm not much for pretend. If I think it, you know. If I did it, I tell. People who read my blog, after reading my nightly posts on top of my regular posts, do you really feel like you don't see inside my head? I feel like a science or psychology or sociology experiment, a fly wriggling on the wall, completely unguarded and open, a train wreck or car crash that's such a mess, people can't help but stare.

After I wrote that yesterday and was thinking about the spectacle that is my life, I thought about it in the context of relationships. Not even romantically speaking, my openness has always been an issue--my mom and I didn't talk for months and months over an essay I published that she stumbled across online and my dad didn't talk to me for more than a year over it; my ex-Glenn and I definitely had words about things I would write (I guess that's sort of in a romantic context, but after being married to someone for so many years, it seems more familial than romantic); Griffin told me he always has to worry about what I'm going to write in my blog; Keifer told me I have a real problem keeping private things private; and none of them are wrong.

So now let's look at my blogging--not just my openness and willingness to put anything and everything out there, but the craziness and anxiety and awkwardness and neurosis it exposes--through a relationship lens. Who in their right mind would want a relationship with this? I mean, I would--I find all of these things fascinating and endearing and who the fuck wants an uncomplicated, garden-variety significant other?--but I'm not in my right mind! (I will say, though, at least with me there's no surprise. Plenty of people are way crazier than I am, they just act like they're not.) And so I ask myself: Is the writing worth it? If it hurts my relationships, romantic and not, should I just stop?

The majority of you, I'm sure, are like, Kel, fucking duh, but I don't know that I can want to. Like, this is my thing. Just like some people have to make music and some people have to paint and some people have to draw, I have to write, and, yes, I have to write about me, and, yes, I have to write these totally uncomfortable, awkward, obnoxious things (we're an obnoxious people, we Weinstein descendants.  My mom used to chase people down the street with a ketchup-covered maxi pad pretending it was blood). I think if a condition of my being in a "happy" relationship is that I have to keep all this me inside, I wouldn't be happy at all. I'm not saying I'm happy now, but at least nobody who's supposed to be making me happy is holding me back.

Except, maybe--
myself. 

Chin Up and I'll Drown a Little Slower

In the never ending saga of Kel Is a Complete Fucking Idiot Who Fails at Everything Boy, I just got home from Trader Joe's. (Well, technically I'm at Starbucks but first I went home.) BTJ and I--I think--no longer talk. I know what you're thinking. How do I not know if someone and I talk? Did you see the name of my saga? Hello.

I tried to be laid back, relax and wait and see Kel like I said I would in Marshmallow, but laid back, relax and wait and see Kel just isn't me. Well, scratch that. I could relax and I could wait and see to a certain extent--and I totally did--but at some point that nonsense just stops.

Exhibit A: BTJ and I hung out at my house on Sunday night till like 2 and everything was good. Like, really good. He kissed me goodbye when he left, and I definitely didn't have any feelings of I wonder what's going on. I text him the next night at like midnight just to tell him he gave me a bruise on my tongue (which I think is a good reason to text. I mean, it's a crazy thing) and didn't necessarily need, or even expect, a response, which is good because I didn't get one. But then Tuesday went by and then Wednesday and then Thursday, and well, I'm sure you didn't see this coming at all, but still no text.

Thursday night is pancake night in my house and has been for years (hence the sex vs pancake conversation from the Thursday before). The night we met, BTJ told me he loves chocolate chip pancakes, so I was like, should I text him and ask if he wants pancakes or should I not? Because if he wanted me or my pancakes, I'm of the belief that he would have text me on his own. But I'm also of the belief that if we want things to happen, sometimes we have to make them. But I'm also of that other belief that I need to just relax and wait and see and be less extreme, but for how long? So I went back and forth and back and forth and asked almost every person I know and finally decided, against the advice of everyone except one person, it wouldn't hurt to text.

So I did. I text BTJ very breezily if I do say so myself, just asking if he wanted me to make him some pancakes, and well, as much as I hate to put it here for everyone who reads my blog to see, he didn't text back. Not a no thank you, not a nope, not a no--all things that would have let me know what was up--not a you know what? I think this isn't going to work, not a sorry I have to go right home to water my plants, not an I stumbled across your blog and you're insane leave me the fuck alone, not a pancakes are gross and so are you go away you gross gross human being. 

He just completely didn't respond.

Okay, so somebody telling me they're not interested or making an excuse or just not being nice, that I can handle fairly fine. But being completely ignored? I do not handle that well. So the rest of Thursday went by as did Friday day and Friday night, which of course a drunk like me on my first official day of summer vacation was, well, drunk, and so of course I did what I knew I shouldn't do. I text BTJ. What I said doesn't matter and is definitely not intended for general audiences or even the PG-13 crowd, but he did text me back shortly after I sent it, telling me he was "so sorry" and had meant to text but was busy and preoccupied all week and that he was out, and well, I never text back which is how I find myself in the position of not knowing if we're talking any more and my going away for eight days tomorrow to score AP exams and having to buy enough food for Keifer to eat for a week is how I found myself at Trader Joe's where BTJ was right in the front scanning groceries, the cutest grocery scanner I ever did see, and there I was, grocery shopping whilst fighting with Kei, already uncomfortable about being in the same place as BTJ and the fighting with Kei making it worse, and there I also was, not knowing what line to go through--like, should I have gone through his line? Or is that creepy and weird? The notion of it felt creepy and weird and also awkward and like something that would make me want to just disappear into an alternate dimension or die. But is deliberately not going through his line even creepier and weirder? Because that means I'm purposely avoiding him and what does that say? If I had a friend who worked somewhere I'd go through that person's line on purpose even if I had to wait, so if I'm trying to be normal, is that what I should have done? But I don't know if we're friends.

Obviously, I didn't go through his line.

Picture this instead: I'm standing five lines over but completely pretending he doesn't exist, not talking to Keifer because he's mad at me and doesn't want to talk, which gives me no choice but to stand there like a complete idiot, completely silent with nothing to do, wondering if BTJ even saw me--I have no idea--and on purpose trying not to look at him even though when I was standing there having my groceries scanned he was right there in front of me and impossible not to see. And then--and then!--when I was walking out, when I was about to walk right past him, these kids, these stupid fucking kids, stood there blocking me at the end of his register for at least a minute and I didn't want to say excuse me because then he'd hear my voice and plus excuse me is totally what you say to employees when you want their attention so Keifer and I just stood there, we just stood and stood and stood while I was panic stricken on the inside, we stood long enough for me to turn to Kei and ask him if this was really happening, which of course it was really happening because it's fucking me, and then finally the kids moved and I walked right by without turning my head and I swear to god, I shouldn't even be allowed to leave my house. I am the most awkward, unsure, uncomfortable person ever to walk the face of the earth and not only is it completely obvious why I'm alone but it's also an absolute wonder I ever date people at all. 

You're the Type of Girl

June 10, 2018. 2:12 a.m. Blog number 5447. The end is near.

Okay, so maybe I haven't written quite that number of blogs, but it sure feels like it.

Anyway.

Today someone whose name I shall not say and I talked about sex. I don't remember how it came up. Wait, I'm thinking about it...I'm getting a vague recollection...something was said, not related to sex at all, about punching people in the face, which segued to sex-related hitting people in the face, which segued to a statement by him about vanilla sex, which segued to his stating that he's one-hundred percent sure that I'm completely vanilla, which segued not to any type of detail about me and sex because, hello, this was a specific person whose name I will not say I was talking to, and even though I know so much about his sex life it's disturbing, I wholeheartedly believe he should know just about zero regarding mine. Even so, when he made his statement about being sure I'm vanilla, I got totally defensive and demanded to know why.

You just seem like it, he said.
I seem like it how? Why? I asked.
Just everything about you. The way you act. You seem very vanilla. 
Did you take the BDSM test? I asked.
Yes. I got [information withheld to protect this person whose name I shall not say]. 
Well, so did I, and I'll have you know vanilla was way at the bottom of my percentages. 

Believe it or not, this blog isn't to tell you about my proclivities when it comes to sex. We're close, people who read my blog, but we're not BFFs. It's more to look at how defensive I got when he said I seemed vanilla and why. Why was his opinion so bothersome?

Well, it's not just his opinion in question, and it's not just his opinion about me. About a month or so ago when people were taking the BDSM test, I overheard a girl in my study hall say, Imagine if someone got all vanilla. How horrible. Now, I wouldn't wager Hudson or Jazzy's life, but if I were one to bet, I'd have to say the chances of this girl ever having had (consensual. Because you really never know) sex with anyone are slim to holy shit there's no way in fucking hell. Yet, even she had an opinion about vanilla sex, and it was the same one as the person whose name I shall not say. I could never have sex with someone into vanilla sex, he said today, mirroring the statement he made when he first had deep cuts and bruises all over his torso and arms: Regular sex is just boring.

Regular sex is just boring.

Okay, let's follow this thought and the thought of the girl in my class.

Regular sex is boring--->regular sex = vanilla sex--->vanilla sex is boring/a horrible, sad thing to have--->people who like vanilla sex are boring and sad--->you (you being me) seem like you like vanilla sex. I'm sure of it from the way you act--->you are sad and you are a bore.

This chain above is evident not only in sex but in the commonly discussed notion of the basic bitch: Starbucks; yoga pants and track suits; Hollister, Abercrombie, and Pink; Uggs; romantic comedies; Sephora; weirdly abbreviated words; frozen yogurt; hashtags. Being basic includes but in no way is limited to these things, and in case you somehow aren't aware, being basic is bad af (example in action alert). I watched some silly video yesterday where the girl half of a couple in couples therapy was being diagnosed as being a basic bitch. She and the boy sat in horror as the doctor told her all the ways she'd gone awry. The boy, as awful as he found the basic bitch thing, swore never to leave her until she compared their relationship to one like in Love, Actually at which point he told her he never wanted to see her again.

Well, you know what? I fucking love Love, Actually, and I'll scream that in the streets. As soon as that video ended that's what I thought to myself, and my secondary thought was, not everybody can love Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, and Kevin Smith, and if they did, those things would be basic, too. I also, while I don't love it by any means, go to Starbucks because it's a three to four minute walk from my house. I don't eat frozen yogurt because I don't eat dairy, but if I did, I totally would. I ate it in the past. I can't say I'd ever be caught dead wearing most of the clothes that are considered basic bitch territory or maybe doing a lot of the other things but not because I want to be different, because that's just who I am, just like these "basic" things are just who these other people are, and why is it so bad?

Why is it so bad that when I was accused of being vanilla today--basically being basic in bed--I got so upset? If I am, then I am and why should I be ashamed? People could still have good sex without being "weird." And if I'm not, well then it doesn't matter what that person whose name I shall not say thinks because I know the truth, and I could secretly be laughing inside (yeah, that's what he thinks, silly boy, I say to myself as I run my finger over the make-up covered bruises and bite marks on my neck). But I'm not laughing (nor am I ashamed. This isn't an admission).

So why? 

(This one is all you, readers. 3:35 in the morning, I'm not going to further explain.)

Why is being normal now such a bad thing?

I Could Kiss Like Fire

Not only is my house causing me great anguish, but so is my mouth. If we go back, once again, to my diatribe from the other night, I think some of the things I mentioned are wisdom teeth and jaw surgery. This isn't something I advertise because why would I? but I have a totally open bite. It doesn't sound like a big deal, I know, and you probably don't even understand what I mean, but when my friend Curt was over about a month ago and I showed it to him, he said he was deeply disturbed.

What an open bite means is that, like, you know how when you bite down your teeth probably completely, or at least mostly, touch from the molars on one side to the front to the molars on the other side? Like, they pretty much touch all the way around? Well, my teeth don't touch. Like almost at all. My back two molars touch on each side and the others not only don't touch at all, but the space between my bottom teeth and my top teeth is big enough for me to slide my entire tongue through with no obstruction whatsoever. They've been open for a while--eating a sandwich or biting through a piece of pizza has never been the easiest feat--but in the past couple years they've gotten much worse, bad enough, in fact, that I've recently noticed that when I talk fast or read out loud I have a hard time making some sounds, most specifically Vs and Fs (I've always had a cute little lisp so it doesn't really affect my Ss) but occasionally also other ones. At first I thought if I practiced my sounds Eliza Doolittle style, I could correct the problem on my own, but I could only say so many the rain in Spains are mainly on the plains before I realized this is not a problem I could correct on my own. 

What could correct it, I found, is not just braces because that would be way too not invasive and not just jaw surgery because even the breaking of my jaw, metal that would be embedded in it, and subsequent swelling that would last for months and months would be not awful enough but braces for up to a year and then jaw surgery and then braces for another six or so months. If I want to fix my separated jaw that seems to keep separating and who knows how separated it will be next year and in five years and in ten years after that, that's what I have to endure. And what I have to pay? Let's not even talk about that.

Instead how about we talk about how, because my life, as usual, seems to consist of nothing but perpetual decisions punctuated with a lot of injuries caused by the inefficient way that I run, I have to decide if I want to fix this jaw? Do I take my chances and hope it doesn't get any worse? Because if it doesn't, I can definitely survive. Or do I get the braces, get the surgery, and get the braces again because if the past couple years are indicative of anything, soon I'll sound like I'm hearing impaired and, according to the ten million or so websites I've been on, possibly get headaches and jaw aches and have trouble swallowing and breathing and doing just about anything normal people do with their normally constructed mouths?

Or going back to not getting the surgery, and I know this is going to sound really bad in more ways than one, I love kissing, and I'm really good at it. Like, seriously, when people ask me my talents, hobbies, or skills, it's something I always feel I should profess, and I've gotten way too many compliments from way too many people to think I'm wrong. What if I get the surgery and I can't kiss the same? Like, what if my mouth doesn't work? Or what if, like I read is a possibility on some websites, it's permanently partially numb? I know this sounds awful, but the thought of not properly kissing or having the feeling of being kissed for the rest of my life makes me really hesitant where this surgery is concerned.

So, um, yeah.

Kissing vs sounds...

(Should this be easy? Because it's totally not.)

'Cause I'm Everything That You're Not

First I'd just like to say that I'm feeling way better than I was yesterday. I slept more than four hours for the first time on a school night in weeks, and I had time to run before work, and, well, what problem does a run, maybe if not fix, lessen at least?

Some of the things I mentioned in my diatribe against everything going on in my life had to do with my house. If I remember correctly (I'm not actually going to check), I think among the things I said I couldn't stand were honey covered walls, doors, and condo rules or something along those lines. If you're friends with me on Facebook, you know a little about my door, or at least the man who just decided to leave in the middle of fixing it, and if you have a really good memory you maybe remember the beehive in the wall that led to the (still) honey covered wall, but either way you probably don't know this: I absolutely, positively hate the place I live.

A few days ago when I was talking to a friend, we talked about someone we both know who has a terrible life. The phrase terrible life is thrown around a lot, I know, but when I tell you this woman's life is crappy with a capital C, maybe even the crappiest, I'm not overstating. In my conversation with my friend, though, the thing we kept coming back to is that it's all her fault. She's not happy with her life--her insanely horrific, miserable life--for various reasons, but for the most part, everything that's wrong is something she can fix. Maybe she can't change every bad thing so that it's perfect, but she can certainly change each thing so that it's good or if not good, say a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10 instead of a negative 46. Would it be easy? Not at all. Would it take time? I mean, duh. But would it be worth it? Eventually, yes.

All of this discussion where this woman is concerned was a moot point because she'll never change her life, not even the littlest bit, but in my conversation with my friend, we came to realize that while maybe not to the extreme of the woman in question, we're both in the same sitch. We both have things about our lives that make us super upset yet do nothing but kvetch. We talked about the similarities, we talked about our judgment of the woman's life, we talked about how neither of us is powerless to change that which we don't like, and we swore we would change our respective plights.

I can't talk about the plight of my friend because it's not a story I can tell--yet--so I'll talk about my plight instead.

I hate my house. Well, that's not actually right. I don't hate my house at all. I just hate the place I live. My house is actually really cute and, for me, absolutely perfect. A friend once said walking into my house is like walking into a myspace profile, and he really is right. Sadly, though, after a little over sixteen years, I think it's time to leave.

Last summer, the condo association at my development decided to make some new rules. Each unit, according to our bylaws, is assigned two parking spaces, which means they're only allowed two cars. Too many people, according to the association, had three, four, or five cars--because most of these houses are three bedrooms and kids grow up and need a way to get around--so they were hogging the guest parking, and by golly, it had to stop. People's guests had to--gasp!--walk great distances, sometimes a block or so, to get to their houses, and, well, this just couldn't be. In the quest to make parking fair for one and all, a new parking program was implemented. Unit owners had to show up to a specified place at a specified time with their car registration and driver's license  to register their car(s) at which time they got a sticker to be placed on the lower lefthand side of the windshield. Once a car was registered--and owners' cars HAD to be registered--parking in guest parking was forbidden. Any resident who parks in guest parking will immediately be towed.

Additionally, and this is part of the part that makes me outraged and sick, guests' cars have to be registered at night. Well, they're supposed to be registered at all times, but lot monitoring, which means roving tow trucks that take people's cars in about one minute flat, only pop up between 10 and 6. The other part of this part that makes me sick is that guests are only allowed to be registered 14 times in a month. At first, there was a by-the-hour option on the app which allowed us to register guests' cars for a certain number of hours and the 14-day rule was according to hours, not days, but when I was registering BTJ's car last week, I saw that option was gone and replaced with only days, which means if somebody wants to come over after 10:00 at night, they can only do it 14 times in a month.

Idk if I'm explaining this well because the collective gasp I should have heard from every person reading this post hasn't hit my ears, but basically what this means is Valencia Village is telling me how I could live. Valencia Village is telling me that Keifer's girlfriend, whose curfew is twelve and comes over whenever she can, can't be here past 10:00 more than 14 times. Valencia Village is telling me that if friends want to be here until 2 or 3 or 4 in the morning, which for a night person off during the summer is completely feasible, they can't do it more than 14 times. Valencia Village is telling me if I'm dating a guy and he wants to come over to fuck me every night from 1 to 3, he's not allowed to do it for more than two weeks' time.

And holy motherfucking fracking fricking Christ, that is not all right.

The idea that I'm 43 and own my own house yet the people in power at the association can tell me how I'm allowed to live my life, well, I don't even know what to say. The fact that I only have one car and an empty parking space and I'm not allowed to use it how I want, well, I don't know if that's worse because almost nothing tops being told how I'm allowed to live, but it's pretty damn bad. It's --just like this whole thing--abhorrent. And I can no longer allow it to happen.

For the past year since the parking program inception, I've wanted to move. Of course, instead of moving, I found all sorts of excuses, the main one being that there are things I have to fix before I can sell my house. I fixed some, yes, and tried to fix others, but things just keep going wrong--Snapchat friends will remember the Jesus toilet man--and it's so overwhelming, so much easier just to stay put. But I'm miserable. I feel like I'm in a police state, I have no autonomy, I may as well be a child living under a parent's rule. I couldn't stand my life being dictated when I lived in my parents' house, and I certainly can't stand it now that I live on my own.

And so I have no choice but to move.
To stop making excuses.
To stop being the woman my friend and I don't want to be.

Sunday I went to Home Depot because I need a new door and was told it would be seven to eight weeks because I need someone to measure, I need a permit, an engineer needs to be involved, children have to be sacrificed... So I thought to myself, omg, that's so long and why do kids have to die? and I decided I'd just use a handyman and I left.

Monday I had my discussion with my friend.

Yesterday I went back to Home Depot and put the deposit down for a new door.

Is This What It Feels Like with My Wings Clipped?

Today was the last day of school, and I have to tell you, it didn't come a second too soon. I don't think I realized how tired I was until tonight, not only of school but just of my entire existence, and I'm definitely in need of a break.

In one of my favorite episodes of Buffy ever, Beauty and the Beasts, Buffy, who's dating Scott, her first new guy after she had to kill Angel in order to close a portal to hell, kind of wigs and, after she mumbles something vague and walks away, Scott's friend says, Check out Scotty liking the manic-depressive chick. Right this second, that's what I feel like: Buffy's Beauty and the Beasts depiction of the manic-depressive chick. I feel like getting into bed without even washing my face or brushing my teeth--and if you had any idea of my bedtime routine, you'd know that's really saying something; I mean, I won't because plaque and gum disease and disgusting bacteria breeding in my mouth plus pimples and dull skin and acceleration of the aging process; but I really do want to--turning on a playlist full of sad emo songs, curling up into an itty bitty ball, and never moving again.

I just want to be in a cocoon where wisdom teeth and jaw surgery and CT scans and broken doors and hope and building permits and walls covered with honey and health insurance and security guards and expectations and condo rules and doggie vaccinations and boys who don't text and boys who do text and awkwardness and overused iliotibial bands and sinks with dishes that regenerate like hydra heads and calories and impending AP trips and loneliness don't exist.

***

Buffy, from the time she learns she's the chosen one at sixteen until she's fortunate enough to activate every potential slayer in a long line seven years later, slays vampires and demons and countless dark, scary things. In my first ever published essay, Breakdowns, I talk about Buffy's life, and I talk about mine. Throughout my life, I've never had to slay vampires or demons or countless dark things, but throughout my life, I've totally slain vampires and demons and countless dark things.   

Pieces of Me

The last time I tried to do it, it didn't work because I didn't know my password, but when I tried again today a password wasn't necessary, so it's finally been done: I deleted my Bumble account.

I deleted it for a few reasons. First, it was totally addictive and a huge waste of time. Whenever I was bored or lying in bed, I'd open up the app and peruse guys. The amount of time I wasted on it--not that I'd be doing anything else productive, don't get me wrong--is horrific. Second, for the most part, the type of guys on Bumble really aren't my type. Sure, BTJ is totally my type, but the majority of guys on there are either super professional looking or appear to be super douche. There isn't a whole lot of in between. Not a whole lot of in between, of course, does mean there's some in between which brings me to number three. Pretty much anytime I find a guy that interests me, we match. My match rate, I'd say, is a little upward of 90%. From those guys I match with, some I never talk to because upon closer inspection, I'm like, why? Some I talk to a tiny bit, and one of us never ends up talking to the other person again, some I talk to for what seems like forever--this guy, K, who I went out with two weeks ago and I had talked for probably about six months before meeting--and talk is all we ever do. And fourth, which is the real reason I got off of Bumble, is I need a break from boys. 

So despite numbers one through three from above, I've still been on a fair amount of Bumble dates, which equals going out with a fair amount of boys. Throw A in there even though we didn't meet on Bumble, and that's even more boys. A somehow opened up some kind of gate, and since our first date on March 30, off the top of my head, I know that I've gone out with him, BS, C  (not THAT C. You know what? For clarification, let's call C, G), Nick Who Lives in a Van, K, BTJ, kind of Bumble Gym Guy even though I wouldn't call us meeting at Starbucks the other night a date even though he did, and possibly BD although I never could tell his intentions. Those are the guys I've physically gone out with--let's see, that's what? Eight, possibly nine, depending on BD? Eight, possibly nine guys, four of them from Bumble, five of them not, in just over two months, and that doesn't include the guys I talk to or text. It's been kind of a whirlwind.

(And not that there's anything wrong with being a slut--I mean, I won't even pretend--I do feel the need to mention that A is the only one of out all those guys I slept with. The other ones--well, most of the other ones, not all--I just kissed. Wait. Maybe that seems like I did more stuff with the other ones other than kiss, which totally wasn't the intent. Let me try this again. While I did kiss some of those guys because how am I supposed to know if I like someone if I don't kiss him? Plus, making out is my favorite extracurricular thing to do, I didn't kiss them all. Okay. I think I've said way more than enough).

It's especially been a whirlwind since I'm not used to this. The last guy I dated was BS in July, and it was after our thing ended that I decided to take a step back from boys because I was so utterly depressed. When A and I met in March it wasn't because I went looking for someone. He came to me. And even though I was tired of him and his babyish, busy-all-the-time ways and tried breaking up with him twice before things stopped in the middle of May, when we really did stop, I was still really sad. Like really sad. Like mopey. Like wanting to text him. Like wanting to call. And somewhere in that time--not all since the middle of May. I was dating other people when A and I were dating, and yes, he knew. You can't never (double negative intentional) have time for me and expect me to just be like, fine, dear--I dated all these other guys, but since A and I ended, I went out with Nick Who Lives in a Van, K, BTJ, and kind of Bumble Gym Guy, but out of all of those post-A guys I've dated and been talking to, I've only actually liked one, and if you haven't been keeping track over the past few posts, it's BTJ, the guy who I sent his own texts, the guy who since it's the beginning, every single second of every day I don't know if it really is the beginning or if it's the end, and I hate this, like I absolutely, positively hate this not knowing part, but I'm supposed to be laidback and not jump-the-gun-Kel, so I'm--

well, I'm writing an entire post about it and deleted my Bumble account because I'm obviously insane. 

This is the thing. Keifer told me today that I get attached to guys too fast, and while that's definitely not the case because I don't feel like I ever feel comfortable enough to get attached, if I'm going to fall, I admittedly fall pretty fast. It takes a lot for it to happen, and by a lot, I mean a lot of random things coming together to create the perfect situation that blinds me to whatever it is I find wrong with almost every single guy I ever meet, but when it does--

you know a horcrux? (Shame on you if you don't. Shame. On. You.) Boys I like are my horcruxes, and that, people who read my blog, is why I had to delete my Bumble account. Enough horcruxes and we all know what happens.

Humanity Sits on Its Throne

In addition to Bumble Gym Guy being a lackadaisical ellipter (I'm coining that bitch), let me tell you what else he is: a software engineer. Doesn't sound that bad, right? That's what I thought until we were at Starbucks and he told me where he works.

You're going to be mad at me, he said.
Why? Where do you work? I asked.
Never mind, he answered.
No, where do you work?
I don't want to tell you, he said.
Seriously, where do you work? Like what is this guy, twelve? (Refrain from the jokes, please. He's 28.)

Finally he took my laptop and typed a website in, a website that I'm not allowed to tell you the name of lest he get in trouble (because I immediately told him I was going to have to blog about it), but I'm allowed to tell you what kind:

A puppy mill website.
A website that matches buyers with puppy mills.
In other words, a disgusting establishment for disgusting people who I can only hope have the same quality of life as the puppies, and the parents of the puppies, that they buy.

Shut up, I said. This is where you work?
It's not that bad, he told me. We place puppies in their dream homes, he said, or some shit akin to that. And look how much they cost. 

He then clicked on a picture of a dog that cost, I swear to God I'm telling the truth, $2,700. $2,700! For one dog. $2,700 for one dog while hundreds of thousands of dogs sit in shelters or roam the streets or head for euthanasia when their time is up. $2,700 and--get this--people fucking return them all the time.

This dog barks, he told me is a common complaint. This dog fucking barks, people say before returning them like a too-small pair of pants or sweater that's too tight. This dog barks, motherfucking irresponsible, selfish people who should never be allowed to buy a pet in the first place say before returning their almost $3000 designer dogs.

I hate to be repetitive, but fucking what? People ship back their dogs because they bark? Like, how? What? I mean, seriously. Fucking what?

I'd say far be it for me to offend people, but when it comes to people who are irresponsible with, or abusive to, animals, I really don't care. As an AP teacher, I understand that's counterproductive. Don't offend your audience is the number one rule. People are never going to listen if they're offended. The way I see it, though, is if someone is ignorant enough to spend the amount of money it would cost to buy 2700 shelter animals on one dog because they want a specific breed, they're too shallow to understand real reasoning anyway, and regarding those shallow people who return their dogs for whatever reason, whether it's that it eats things, it's too much responsibility, or yes, it fucking barks, they're obviously beyond redeeming.

He works for a company that facilitates the connection between puppy mills and people looking for dogs.

Is anyone else sick?

This Quicksand, It Pulls Me Under

It turns out that this blogging every single day thing is a lot harder than I thought it would be, not because I can't think of anything to write about or because I don't want to write but because I'm so bad with time. When I originally came up with the idea, I guess I had nothing to do; at least for now, though, things have unexpectedly changed. There's now BTJ who came over again last night and was over till 2 plus I'm doing the Runner's World Run Streak which entails running every day between Memorial Day and July 4, something that might not seem like it would take up that much time but between changing into running clothes, possibly driving to the gym depending on heat and humidity and rain, running, driving home if I've driven to the gym, taking a shower, and getting dressed, it takes a lot longer than the twenty to thirty minutes a day it would seem. I'm not saying I'm not going to post and publish every day, present blog excluded, until June 22 like I planned because I still intend to; I am saying something, though, and it's this:

On Saturday night I was talking to a guy (Bumble Gym Guy who scared me out of not going to the gym lest I run into him? Who for about two weeks I was snapping a ton with?) at Starbucks where, ironically, I'd gone to blog distraction free. The night before, I'd told him I couldn't talk to him because I had to write my nightly blog, and then while we were having coffee--well, he was having tea. Tea!--I mentioned how I never have time to do anything between writing and the run streak.

Why are you doing these things? he asked.

I didn't understand the question. I'd told him several times I committed to writing in my blog every single day for a month, and, well, Runner's World Run Streak...is the reason not implicit, maybe even explicit, in the name?

Because I have to, I answered. I made a declaration that I'd write every day for a month, and the run streak is every day from Memorial Day to the 4th of July. I don't have a choice.  

We then went back and forth in conversation a little bit about why I do these things that I do. I don't remember it verbatim, but I do remember being annoyed. In the end, he asked, But why? Why don't you just do things when you want to? and then proceeded to say something maybe about pressure/stress and about it not seeming like I was having much fun. (He also said when he goes to the gym he does the elliptical and the stair machine and doesn't understand why I love to run, so appeal to ethos? Not so fucking much.)

I was aghast. I didn't understand how someone could not understand that, one, when you make a declaration to do something, you fucking do it, and that, two, this regimented pressure and stress--have to write, have to run, no matter what's going on, I've got to get these things done--was fun, that setting goals and meeting them was the funnest, most fulfilling thing in the world--well, almost--and that his lackadaisical attitude made me cringe.

Which brings me to last night.

I totally planned to write and post my blog. Griffin popped up at my house right around nine, and not long after, BTJ text me that he'd just finished work and was hanging out at Starbucks, and right around ten, he came over unplanned. When he left at two, I walked my dogs and then immediately sat down at the table, opened up my laptop, and started to write this post. I still had to brush my teeth and wash my face, and it was about 2:20. I wake up at 5:42.

I wrote one paragraph and started in on number two. I deleted, copied, pasted, wrote, rewrote, went through the whole rigamarole I go through every time I write. I have to post a blog! I thought as I typed, typed, typed and revised. At about 2:30, going against everything I believe in, I decided not to finish. I thought to myself, I'll do it in the morning during exams. Feeling like a failure, I closed my laptop and went upstairs.

All right. Bumble Gym Guy was not right. I'd say he was actually a complete ass except that he really was extremely nice.

Butttt

as much as I think the rules and requirements I place upon myself make me thrive and the thought of living all willy nilly is a fright (Capricorn much? I know), I suppose I do have to admit I'm a little on the rigid side, and it maybe wouldn't hurt me to relax. I'm the one who makes my rules, after all, and while I'll never be one of those stupid rules-are-made-to-be-broken people, I suppose it won't kill me to bend the occasional one.

Heaven Isn't Just Like This

And now, as usual, I will write about something I am in no way qualified to write.

(Remember, kids, I'm not a professional. I just act like I am.)

I mentioned in an earlier post that one of the prettiest girls I know just started an affair specifically because of sex. To clarify, she absolutely adores her boyfriend. She often talks about how good he is to her, how nurturing he is, how caring, and how he meets her emotional needs, but if often is the word I'd use to describe how much she talks about those things, always is the word I'd use to describe how much she talks about another thing: their crappy sex.

For a long time--at least a year of their not very much longer than a yearlong relationship--this girl has bemoaned her sex with her boyfriend. A year ago she was so unsatisfied that she was seeing his best friend behind his back, two weeks ago she started having sex with a guy she met at her job, and although I have no idea what she did before or what she's done in between, suffice it to say it's commensurate to those two things. She's talked to her boyfriend about the issues multiple times, but no matter what she says, nothing changes. She's also asked to go to couples counseling but he refuses.

When we first talked about this a year ago, when she told me how much she absolutely loves her boyfriend, how much he's done for her, how safe and loved he makes her feel, how everything is absolutely perfect except for sex and said she didn't know what she should do, I didn't hesitate. Leave your boyfriend, I said. Things will always be the same.

Well, it's a year later, and just like I said, nothing has changed, and so the question, a question I asked myself for almost 19 years of a 20 year relationship is, Is being unhappy with sex really a valid reason to leave a relationship if everything else is okay?

And my resounding, earth-shatteringly loud, extremely emphatic answer is, Hell fucking yes. Not only is it okay, I recommend it. 

Okay, wait. Let me qualify that. If you're someone who sex is very important to, then yes, you should leave. If you're someone who really doesn't care about sex much at all, who can take it or leave it, who thinks it's nice and all but then again so is playing a video game or taking a walk, then by all means, stay, and I'm not saying that in a snarky or demeaning way. Different strokes, right? But if you're not one of those people, people who read my blog, for the love of God, run. Ignore all the excuses you come up with, and run:

I have kids. Run.
I don't make enough money. Run.
I don't want to be alone. Run.
I hate change. Run.
I'm afraid of the unknown. Run.
My significant other does so much for me. Run.
It's just sex. Run.
Things will change. Run, bitch. Run.

Run far and run fast before you spend one-and-a-half years of your life, like my friend, or almost twenty years of your life, like me, feeling bad.

To the people who think I'm horrible, that I'm selfish, that I'm cold, look. If you're a person who really cares about sex, and for whatever reason, the sex isn't working, you're going to be filled with negativity. You're going to be resentful, you're going to be angry, you're going to be lonely, you're going to be sad. If you're like my friend, you're going to have sex with other people because the person you're with can't give you what you want, and if you're like me, you're going to decide to get a divorce every year and repeatedly change your mind, and if you're like the however many other people there are out there who are in the same predicament, you're going to do the same thing as one of them (and I promise, not one of those things is good).

Sex is important. It's a basic need. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be in a relationship that meets your basic needs, especially if the person you're in your current relationship with refuses to meet them. Can't meet them, as in you're just not sexually compatible, while harder to condemn and while not necessarily the other person's fault, is still a reason to leave because both conditions lead to the same thing.

I may sound harsh, I'm completely aware, but I wish twenty years ago when I cried myself to sleep the night before my wedding someone would have said these exact same things to me.  

Marshmallow

Just as a quick follow up to yesterday's debacle, BTJ ended up texting me not long after I posted last night, saying that he'd stayed a little late at work to help and wanted to hang out if I still did. He ended up coming over for a few hours of neither pancakes nor sex but just talking and hanging out. The screenshots weren't mentioned for a couple hours, and while yes, I turned all red and got insanely embarrassed, it wasn't that bad.

Which actually, although not my original intention when I sat down to write this post, brought me to a realization I guess I have to write about now, and that's that I am an absolute and utter lunatic from time to time. I'm not saying I'm a lunatic for sending that screenshot--just a fool--nor am I saying that I just realized now or last night that I'm a part-time loonie (and did I just seriously use the word nor two times in one post?) but that I had a realization about a certain aspect of my lunacy.

I'm pretty sure I've never told you this, so if I'm being redundant I apologize, but one of the things that came up when I was seeing A is that I'm a bit extreme, like for example if somebody is supposed to text me at 3:00 and I haven't heard from the person by 6:00, I'm roughly ninety-five percent certain that they've decided they want nothing to do with me and are never going to talk to me again. I blame it all on C, who disappeared on me repeatedly for years (sometimes for good reason, sometimes not), and while we're on the subject of C, it's during the summer of 2015 that I started developing this particular type of lunacy (I mean, I've always been extreme, it's just that this particular type of extreme didn't come out until then). Every other weekend we'd hang out, text or snap for a day or so after, and then he'd be gone for the next 12 or 13 days during which I'd lament and kvetch to our friends asking why he wasn't talking to me and what I'd done wrong to which they'd respond that C didn't text anyone back during the week and it wasn't just me. Sometimes I'd be mollified by their responses, and sometimes I'd be sure he was again just done with me, which of course to an extreme person and sometimes lunatic like me led to many a text that could definitely be put in the category of extreme. I remember one particular time he hadn't text me back in what seemed like an acceptable time to text back--and just for clarification, normal text me back time for C was at least a day, sometimes several, so while I may be extreme and something of a lunatic, I'm not as crazy as I may be making myself seem--and I wrote this long, long, long text that went on about how I didn't understand what I'd done wrong and why wasn't he answering me and the last time we hung out this and that and blah blah blah, but I didn't send it, and thank God I didn't send it, because don't you just know, not long after I wrote the unsent text, he messaged me back.

When I was seeing A, while not nearly as bad, I jumped the gun definitely once, maybe twice. He was surprisingly patient with me because let me tell you, if I were him and he were me, I'd be like calm the fuck down, you crazy, crazy woman, and I probably wouldn't have talked to me again but he just said that he really likes me and isn't going anywhere but he thinks maybe I'm a bit too extreme.

Which brings me to BTJ. Last night when he didn't text me by a little after ten which was when he was supposed to get off, I was sure he was never going to talk to me again because of the screenshot thing. Like, there was no doubt in my mind. Part of me wanted to text him to explain/apologize, to say something like, I guess you're annoyed because of the screenshot thing... I even text a friend to ask her opinion--we decided if I did message it shouldn't be that night--which is good because he obviously wasn't annoyed and texting that text would have made a bigger deal of the whole thing and made me seem while maybe not crazy, seriously neurotic at the very least (which, yes, we all know is true, but does he really need to know?).

So that not-so-new realization that was reinforced last night with BTJ? I need to fucking stop. I need to relax. I need to wait, I need to see. I need to understand that not everything happens on my timeline, and that when it doesn't, it doesn't mean disaster has struck but rather by being sure that disaster has struck, I'm almost certain to make it strike.