A Light That Never Goes Out

A few weeks ago, a dog bit me. I was walking around my neighborhood at night, as I often do, talking to my mom on the phone, also as I often do, when the bite occurred. The dog, a stupid little Shih Tzu/Lhasa Apso type thing, calmly walked away from the little girl who was walking it without a leash, approached me, stood up on its hind legs and, putting its paws somewhere around my knee, leaned in and--chomp--sank its teeth into my calf hard enough to draw blood and leave a bruise. Since it was a small dog and totally calm and not frantic or enraged, I can't say it was the worst pain I ever felt, but I can say since it was a small dog and totally calm and not frantic or enraged yet still it bit me with absolutely no warning at all, it made me something I never thought I'd be: nervous around dogs. 

I love dogs so much. Like, so so much. I know people say that all the time, and I'm not claiming to love dogs more than other people who say they love them, but when I say I love dogs, it's like, you know how people will turn and look at a boy or girl they thing is cute when they're driving or walking or somehow passing by? That's me with dogs. Truly, dogs are one of my greatest loves, and I could go on and on, but I won't. I'll just say that for forty-five years and ten-and-a-half months, I never felt scared or nervous around any dog at all. Last week, though, when my Virgo and I were walking home from Trader Joe's and another tiny little thing calmly approached me, this time on a leash, I froze. 

He's really nice, his owner said. He just wants to say hi to everyone because he's so friendly. 

It didn't matter what the dog's owner said, though, or that for forty-five years and ten-and-a-half months, no dog had bothered me or scared me at all, or even that this dog was even smaller than the one that only drew a little blood. When that dog came over, I got all panicky inside. 

Talk about crazy. One small incident with minimal blood affected me so much that it undid the way I'd been my entire life. Not just crazy, but upsetting, too, because of course I still love dogs the way I always have, but now that love is no longer unfettered. Now that love comes with strings attached; it's been altered to come with baggage, with fear. 

I hate that I was afraid of that dog, I said to my Virgo when we walked away. 

I know, I saw you freeze up when it came over, he replied. But it's understandable after what just happened to you. 

Understandable or not, I hate feeling that way inside. 

***

One thing I was absolutely positive of when I was married was that my ex-husband would never cheat on me. He loved me so much, and he was such a loyal guy, I knew there was no way that would ever happen. Not in a million. Plus, when I started seeing C after my ex and I agreed on an open marriage, he got so upset and for so many years not only couldn't forgive me but used it as a weapon in any and every fight, I knew there was no way he'd ever do or have done the same to me. I knew that in my marriage, I was the one branded with the big scarlet A while my ex-husband sported shiny, unblemished skin

except

there was that morning I found out my ex-husband used to fuck my best friend and that time I found out he started making out with my sister when I was pregnant with my second son and even that time just a year or so in when I woke up to find him having cybersex with some girl on AOL who, after I confronted her, told me he'd gone to her house and kissed her, and now that I know those things, maybe the time when I found out he went out to lunch with some girl from work after he lied about doing something else, and, really, who could ever be sure of what else other than the fact that after loving dogs unfettered and unafraid for forty-five years and ten-and-a-half months, a small stupid dog calmly sank its teeth into my leg and now when I'm near a dog, I'm genuinely afraid? 

Happy Holiday, You Bastard! 2020

Thanksgiving Day. By now, you all know how this goes: I sit around typing on and off all day, coming up with thirty things I'm thankful for, one for every day of the month. In the spirit of Capricornian routine, I really want to do exactly that, but in the spirit of growth and defiance of the boundaries I've set upon myself, I'm doing things differently today. Today instead of thinking and searching just to show how truly "thankful" I am and prove that even in a world smothered in darkness (and I'm not talking This Year's Covid World (this year's been great for me!), I'm talking Kismet's Every Year World), there's always light, I'm doing the biggies and the biggies alone aka the things for which I'm truly thankful. It's going to be a shorter list, for sure, but it's going to be more meaningful. At least to me. 

Here we go.

Things I'm Thankful For, 2020

1. La Dispute Guy. It's a shock even to me, but this year top billing goes to him. Once upon a time, I had a list of criteria for things I wanted in a boy, an exact picture or at least concept in my head (I wanted a smart, not-at-all fat, tall, 25-to-35-year-old indie/emo atheist with no kids). Then I met LDG, a short, little-bit-past chubby bald guy who I initially found so unattractive without a hat, the word monstrosity  actually crossed my mind when it fell off the first time we kissed, who not only missed the criteria in the looks department but also had not one or two or three, but four kids. And I semi fell in love with him. After that experience, I realized I'd been being stupid and rigid with my list, and I loosened up, and thank everything in this world and every other world that exists that I did because if I didn't I wouldn't be with 

2. My Virgo. I know what you're thinking. I swear, I know. Of course Kismet's going to talk about a boy, and yes, of course I am, but I'm not talking about a boy because it's my MO, I'm talking about a boy because I couldn't possibly make a list of the things I'm thankful for this year without mentioning him. He is by far what I'm most thankful for, today on Thanksgiving, yes, but also every single day that's not. 

3. Quarantine. Oh, quarantine, you dichotomous son-of-a bitch. When you first started mid-March, I hated your guts. I could do nothing but sit in the house, bored and terrified of catching Covid from my then-roommate/nephew Ty, but as time went by, what a great thing you turned out to be (for me, anyway; I realize for a lot of the rest of the world, this isn't the case). Thanks to you, I finally became one-hundred percent vegan, I renovated my house, and most significantly, I stopped the pattern I'd become entrenched in regarding men. Because I couldn't leave the house, I couldn't go meet someone, end up in bed with him, and then either not be able to stand or completely fall for him. Instead, I was forced to actually talk to people, to get to know them slowly with my Achilles' heel erased from the equation, and as a result, well, see number 2. Also a result of quarantine? 

4. Yoga. Sure, I'd done yoga sporadically through the years, but with all the time I had to do nothing, I started practicing daily, and I cannot begin to tell you how much I feel like it's helped my life, both body and mind. Now that I'm back at work, it's harder to practice as consistently, and whenever it's been too long that I've gone without, I see a significant difference. 

5. Going back to work. I know what I said two numbers ago, but hear me out. Yes, quarantine was (is) great, but sitting in the house with Keifer and Erica all day every day? Not so much. Going back to work gives me a reason to get up, get cute, and get out. 

6. Still, as thankful as I am that I get to leave these four walls, I wouldn't be nearly as happy if kids actually came to school, and so the number six thing I'm thankful for is that I have exactly one student on black days and either three or four on gold days. 

7. And speaking of work, not only am I thankful it makes me leave the house and I don't have students, but I'm also thankful I have a work to go to at all. So many people have suffered so much economically because of this pandemic, and I'm exponentially grateful that that hasn't happened to me. I guess while I'm talking about things I'm grateful for in relation to this pandemic, I also have to mention 

8. My health. Not only have people suffered economically, but as everyone knows, a vast number have suffered in a much graver way. I consider myself very lucky neither I nor anyone I love has been affected like this.

9. The modified AP exam. Another byproduct of quarantine, or I suppose Covid (I just hate to thank Covid because it's done so many bad things to so many people), is that the AP exam, instead of being three essays and a multiple choice section, was one essay, and not only was it one essay, it was a rhetorical analysis essay at that. Why am I thankful for this? I may question my ability to do a lot of things, but teaching kids how to write a rhetorical analysis essay is not one of them, and as a result of the modified test, eighty-seven percent of my students passed the AP exam, the highest pass rate for AP Lang in the history of my high school. If the exam had been the normal one, that never would have happened. 

10. Weed. No, I didn't start doing drugs; however, I happen to live with two drug addicts, one who had dental work done and couldn't do any drugs for a couple weeks, and let me tell you, talk about a nightmare. I hate that I think like this, but a sober Keifer is not a Keifer I want to be around. 

11. Joe Biden winning the election. No need to elaborate here.

12. My voice. I started to lose it a little in this relationship--imagine that, right? Me shutting the fuck up--through no fault of anyone's but mine, but I'm finally getting it back. Sometimes the effect of it might not be so good, but to quote Tegan and Sara, This thing that I'm saying, is it better than keeping my mouth shut? That goes without saying.

You know what? Since 12 is my favorite number, we're going to stop here. I'm not a fan of long outros, so Happy Thanksgiving, people who read my blog, and as always, I'll wish you the same thing I wish for me, which is a life of love and peace. 

A Place of My Own

Lose seven pounds in seven days!

It was a cover line I noticed on some housewife-oriented magazine that may or may not have been Good Housekeeping while I waited in line at Publix one day last week. It obviously wasn't the only cover line in front of me, but weight-centric person that I am, it's the only one I saw. My natural instinct is to scoff at those grandiose weight-loss claims, and I guess I did for about 1/27 of a second, but as soon as that initial semisecond of a scoff ceased, it was replaced by the thought that not only did I have no interest in losing seven pounds but that I didn't need to, and then that thought was replaced with the realization that for the first time ever in my life I'm happy with my weight and how I look. 

And it was a crazy thing.

Before I go any further, let me clarify a little bit:

I've had moments, sure, fleeting moments, sometimes hours, even days, where I've been like Wow, I look skinny today or My butt really is very nice. I've also had discussions with myself and other people about weight acceptance and the idea that maybe I'm not as fat as I think, but no matter what I've thought in the short term or what I've said, I've never ever felt like my weight loss journey was done. There's this book that I read probably twenty-five years ago, Blood Sucking Fiends, and I remember the main character, when she gets turned into a vampire, freaks out a little bit when she realizes she'll be chubby for her entire afterlife because she'd perpetually been trying to lose five pounds when she was alive, and once she became a vampire, her weight was fixed, and I can't tell you how many times I've thought about that over the years, how well I can relate. I've always felt like I was this close, and again, I've felt like that even during the short periods when I was really thin, like in 2009 and 2015. I mean, I knew I was thin but weight and the idea of either losing more or keeping it off still ruled my life. I thought about every single thing I ate - will this make me gain a pound? Will one pound turn into two and then three? If I eat this, will I wake up fat? - even when I wasn't eating. It was not a fun way to live. 

I'm fatter today than I was during those times (134-136 depending on the day (maybe 133 when I weigh myself in the morning if I had a lot of sex and little food the previous night)  vs. 131-133 in the past), but the fear of getting fat or idea that I am no longer rules my life. After forty something years and a pandemic that gave me time to stop and restructure my life, I feel like I finally figured some weight-related/body-related/eating-related things out.

This is the point where you think I'm going to go on and on about those things, right? Well, people who read my blog, I'm actually not. You don't care about how I exercise or what I eat which is why a few paragraphs up on the page I said, Before I go any further. 

This post isn't about my weight at all. 

It's also not about that outing to Publix despite the fact that the next thing I'm going to tell you is about the cute guy I saw earlier at that same trip to the grocery store. My interest was piqued for about the same amount of time I scoffed at that weight-loss cover line, long enough for me to think, Ooh! Is that a cute guy? and then much like what was soon to come at the checkout counter about twenty minutes down the road, realize that I didn't care. For the first time in I-don't-know-how-many years, a cute guy in my vicinity didn't matter. Like, at all. I didn't want to walk faster to get a better look, I didn't want to pass him so he could smell my hair or appreciate how I looked from behind. All I wanted to do was buy hamburger buns so I could get home in time to make vegan turkey burgers before my boyfriend got home from work, and just like my lack of interest in weight loss caught me off guard, so did my lack of interest in anything to do with that guy.

I was just about to address you, people who read my blog, to say if anybody knows about my obsession with boys, surely it's you, but talk about an underplay. Anyone who's ever met me virtually or in real life knows about my obsession with boys. Just like with anything related to weight, anything that has to do with boys has always ruled my life, and I suppose you could say that's still the case since the reason I have no interest in boys is because of one specific boy, but regardless of how you look at it, talk about a departure from my norm. For the first time in probably forever, I want nothing else. No trying to convince him we should date or kiss other people like I did with my high school boyfriend and ex-husband both, no googling noyfriends from the past, no wishing our relationship could be this or could be that. 

Welcome to boring, my Virgo joked when I told him how foreign this new life felt, and I have to admit, I had a little bit of an internal freakout. Drama and heartbreak and tumult have ruled my life for so long, boy related or not, I feel like I'm ill-equipped to exist in another norm, but a few minutes later when he started a fake fight with me for the rest of the night so I wouldn't feel bored and a couple days ago when he cleaned my glasses for me with the microfiber cloth he put in his center console specifically to keep them clean and then when later that night he took them out of my hand in my kitchen and cleaned them again for me because we got rained on and I hate when my glasses get wet, I realized I didn't want that other life. I'm, dare I say, satisfied? More than satisfied, actually, more than content. More than happy. 

I'm home. That may not make sense to you, but that's what my Virgo is. 

He's home. 

And that conveniently brings me to the last thing I want to talk about which is my literal home, the one in which I live. That's another area where I've never been satisfied but again, thanks to a pandemic that forced me to stop and restructure my life, now I am. I've taken the time to do, if not every single thing I've always wanted to do, a lot of them, and now instead of anxiety and dissatisfaction, being here makes me feel at peace. To add to my list of firsts, for the first time in years and years, I'm not searching Zillow or Realtor for a new place to live, I'm not wishing I were someplace else, I'm not ruing the day I bought this house. Like with my weight and with my Virgo, I finally feel, well, at home, and look at that - 

I've stumbled across a theme -

made another realization as I've rambled on.

For the first time in my life, I finally feel like I'm home.

Stand in the Place Where You Live

The first thing I have to say is that I don't believe happiness is a choice. I think people who purport that, especially to someone sad, are not only condescending but assholes as well (well-meaning assholes--maybe--but assholes nevertheless). I mean, sure, sometimes it could be a choice like for instance when something merely annoying happens, say like someone cuts you off and you're in a bad mood for the rest of the day or the barista made your drink too cold and the entire day is now unsalvageable. I tend to agree with the assholes in cases like that. To stew about something inconvenient or, in the grand scheme of things, inconsequential is just silly and, yes, in my opinion, a choice.

But real unhappiness--that's a different cosa entirely: losing-a-friend unhappiness, going-through-a-breakup unhappiness, chronic-illness/pain unhappiness, the-death-of-a-pet unhappiness, clinical-depression unhappiness. These cosas are like house-burning-down unhappiness, and when your house burns to the ground, if you're unhappy, I don't think you're making a choice. If someone weren't unhappy whilst experiencing one of these things plus a host of other tragic situations, I'd think something were incredibly wrong, and if I were experiencing one of these things and someone were to tell me I should buck up because happiness is a choice, I'd want to punch them in the face twelve thousand times.

That first thing being said, I'll say the second now -

I'm choosing happiness today.

Let me tell you, though, it wasn't an easy choice because, well, can we please talk about foreboding joy? I first heard the term a little over a year ago from North Star when I was particularly happy about who remembers what (or, I'm sure, whom) and told her I was afraid to be happy because I knew something bad was sure to show up soon. What foreboding joy is, if you haven't heard of it or haven't figured it out based on my previous statement or don't want to click on my link, is a term coined by Brene Brown. According to Brown, "joy is the most terrifying, difficult emotion we feel as humans," and I have to say, she's not wrong. It sounds dumb at first because who doesn't want to feel joy? but think about it for a sec. How many times in your life has something good happened, but you didn't want to tell anyone in case it went bad? Or been afraid to acknowledge something good because you didn't want to jinx it? Or, like I'm so wont to do, refused to count your chickens and declared yourself chickenless until you were physically surrounded by baby chicks?

Brown calls this "catastrophizing," and the problem with it is that "worrying about things that haven't happened doesn't protect us from pain" because as "anyone who has experienced a tragedy [will] tell you there is no way to prepare." In short, we're so afraid if we embrace happiness, we'll feel worse than we would have if we ignored the happiness when the happiness disappears, so we don't ever truly let ourselves feel happy.

(I know. Confusing much?)

Well, I'm here to say, no more. You know what I am? Naturally? But I fight it all the time?

A chicken counter. I hate to say it, but it's true. I count my chickens. I count my chickens all the time, and not only do I count them, but forget before they've hatched, I count them when they've barely been laid. I gather them, and I count them, and goddammit, those barely laid, unhatched chickens make me happy. They make me happy, but I pretend that they don't. I pretend that they don't to other people, and because of goddamn motherfucking foreboding joy, I pretend that they don't to me, but you know what? Brene and her research subjects are absolutely right. No matter how afraid I am of letting myself be happy, when the thing I pretend isn't making me happy disappears, I feel no better than I would have if I'd just embraced the happiness out and out. Even worse? I didn't get to experience the full amount of happiness I could have because I was too busy being ready for a fiasco.

So I'll say it again. No more. I try to be blasé, but I can't. I'm just not a blasé human being. I'm excitable. I'm excitable by nature, and from here on out, that's what I'll allow myself to be: the excitable person the universe made me. I'll be excited about things even when there's no evidence that these things should excite me. If something makes me happy, the way something just happens to be making me happy right now, a feeling I've been trying so hard to fight in an effort to be realistic and responsible, I'm going to let it.

I'm going to let myself smile my stupid smile and get that happy excited feeling I get in the pit of my stomach, that visceral feeling that has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with my perception of the way things are. From here on out, I choose to be as happy as I can whenever I can, and I also choose to be thankful for that happiness whenever I have it because if I'm aware of anything in this life, it's how volatile it can be.

So, yes--I totally know that tomorrow or overmorrow or the day after that or the day after that, I might be crying over a pineapple jalapeño habañero margarita, but today? Today I choose to not.

When It Comes to Men Like You, I Know the Score, I've Heard It All Before

Today, for your reading pleasure, brought to you courtesy of communication with three men but specifically with a total creep who messaged me on Snapchat last night, is the discussion of something I've talked about here in the past, something I think about often because it's something I, like the rest of the world, can't escape, and that something, people who read my blog, is the entitlement of cis men.

I actually started writing a post sort of about it in May when after six weeks of being bored in my house, I made a Tinder account, my first in over two years. Because the last time I had a Tinder, I would match with people and then we'd just sit there not talking for absolutely ever, I didn't expect it to be anything other than a way to pass the time by reading bios, looking at photos, and swiping while I was bored. Boy was I wrong. I guess I wasn't the only one with nothing to do because as soon as the matches started coming, the messages did, too. I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but it was one of the most daunting things I'd experienced in a long time (which is one of the reasons I ixnayed that nonsense fast). It felt like this

Anyway, when I initially started writing this post on May 12, it was prompted by this exchange,

an exchange which started quite the debate when I posted it on Facebook for my friends and me to ridicule which is one of my - and it seems like their - favorite things to do. On one side was the side of people who agreed with Justin, saying they wouldn't be okay with their girlfriend or boyfriend being a stripper or having an OnlyFans, and on the other side was the side of people who said men needed to stop thinking they were entitled to a woman's body. I wasn't in either camp. I mean, yes, I am absolutely in the latter camp, but that wasn't exactly what I saw going on in this exchange because of course it comes down to personal preference and what one feels comfortable with. What I saw going on in this exchange and what bothered me so much is summed up in Griffin's comment copied and pasted here:

It’s okay to be comfortable/uncomfortable w a (potential) partner’s work/views on sex, and that comfort level should be a big factor on whether to maintain a relationship with that person. The real problem is how he judges another couple for their values as well as his sense of entitlement toward a partner. He’s talking like a relationship is a contract deal.

I don't remember what happened, why I abandoned my post about a quarter of the way in, I only know that I did and that not long after, George Floyd was killed for no reason other than he was black and this world is a disgusting place filled with racism and hate, and now that I think about it, more male entitlement as demonstrated through the entitlement of police, a predominantly male field, who believe it's okay to brutalize whomever they want and kill people because they fit a certain profile (that profile being nothing other than that the people are black).

I also know that right around that time when this guy Rich, who happens to be the son of a bassist from a famous 80s band whose name I won't disclose although I'm super tempted, asked me what I wanted to talk about, the following conversation occurred

Dude.

Dude.

What the fuck?

I won't even mention the racism here because one, I don't know there's much more for me to say other than what's already in the texts, and two, is there really anything I can add to the race conversation that hasn't already been said by people much more eloquent and, in this case of entitlement, much more entitled to speak about it than I am? What I will mention again is the, in this case, entitlement of the completely inappropriate kind, the kind that makes a not-black man think it's perfectly fine for him to use a word with racist overtones, undertones, and any kind of tones that exist. I'll also mention that my friends on Facebook were unanimously outraged over this one and that reactions ranged from people doubting he has black friends at all to doubting that his black friends are actually okay with it.

I'll also mention Rich's accusation that I push my political agenda and pass judgment on people, have a "moral high ground" and talk down to him "about crap that really isn't [my] business anyway." To that I have to say, yes, I pass judgment and believe I have the moral high ground - because I do. I won't repeat what you already read in the texts, but just like in the case of Justin, his opinions and words aren't harmless you-say-tomato, I-say-tomahhto-type things. In both cases, the entitlement of these men is perpetuating a slew of negative things, racism and misogyny being the most overt, internalized loathing, feelings of inferiority, and discord between races and genders perhaps not as much but present nonetheless.

And, finally, we come to the last man, a guy named Giancarlo that I matched with on Hinge in April sometime. Giancarlo and I talked for maybe three days, but he follows me on Snapchat, and last night, he--this guy who I have expressed no interest in and who I've exchanged maybe twenty words with since May 1--sent me this

I hate to repeat myself, but dude.

Dude.

What the fuck?

What makes any person in the world think he's entitled to talk to somebody he barely knows like this? I'm seriously flummoxed. What did he hope to accomplish? Did he think I was going to be like, Omg, Giancarlo, rock my world? That I'd tell him I get hot at the thought of his big bushy beard and want it between my legs?

God, talk about repugnant.
Repulsive.
Gross.

And worst of all? It made me feel repugnant, repulsive, and gross. It made me feel the same kind of repugnant, repulsive, and gross as I felt two years or so ago when one of my closest friends whom I used to mess around with from time to time but had no desire to go all the way with felt entitled enough to make me do so despite my repeatedly saying no and telling him to stop. It made me feel the same kind of repugnant, repulsive, and gross as I felt when instead of listening when I said no, he felt entitled enough to ignore me, instead saying the three words I think about all the time: I'm going in. It made me feel the same kind of repugnant, repulsive, and gross as I felt when, after I tweeted about it last year, he felt entitled enough to actually like my tweet before acknowledging it was harassment in a text.

Wow--
I'll tell you what. I had no idea that was about to come out.

I guess this post isn't actually about three entitled men, it's about

four

The First Thing That I Do When I Walk in Is Find a Way Out for When Shit Gets Bad

Faith: Say it. You think you're better than me.
Buffy: I am.
       
          "Enemies," Buffy the Vampire Slayer

As has happened so many other times, this blog was supposed to be about one thing, but as it turns out,  it's really about something else. This time, though, the epiphany came before I even started writing and was instead a result of my research, and by research, I mean . . . well, you'll see what I mean.

A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine posted a status on Facebook about people who date multiple people and asked how one would end things with the not-chosen people upon choosing which person to exclusively date. I'm a reader of comments, and one comment in particular got my attention. I go ghost, a guy said, and when she commented something about it being better to let the person know, he said it definitely wasn't because that would hurt someone's ego. In my usual reserved fashion, I commented that the guy was either a pussy or dumber than dirt because, come on. Who really, truly thinks it would hurt someone's ego less being treated like they didn't even exist?  Who really thinks ghosting is okay?

Well, actually, a lot of people, disgusting as that might be.

Whenever I'm complaining about a guy, which, admittedly, happens a lot, the first thing that comes out of someone's mouth is block him--even if the person in question didn't do anything wrong. If I mention I think I'm losing interest or I'm not sure how I feel, block him is the first thing I hear. I could say someone is really nice but I just don't like him like that and block him is about half the people's advice. People I know are also often talking about or posting about the people they've ghosted/blocked/ignored. It's becoming a socially accepted norm, and honestly, no matter how hard I try to put myself in the ghoster's place, I just can't understand.

I can't understand how anybody could truly think it's better to just up and end communication with someone they've dated or been seeing or even only regularly communicated with, with no explanation at all, and I think that it's one of the biggest indicators of weakness in character. I also think that the spineless, chickenshit, avoidant people who do it are lesser human beings.

If you're sitting here reading this, and you're one of those people and you're like, I think that uppity bitch is saying she's been better than me! Let me assure you right now: You're absolutely right. I am exactly saying that.

I am stronger than you.
I have more integrity than you.
I am more compassionate than you.

I am a better human being.

You could try to justify your actions by saying you don't owe anybody an explanation. I've seen the notion a million times. Nobody owes anybody an explanation for anything. You don't anyone anything except yourself.

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit a million times.

People absolutely owe people the decency of treating them like human beings. To not even acknowledge someone is just so horrendous that typing this is making me mad.

I saw this on Twitter tonight, and I was like, I need to screenshot this for my blog! Since when did communication become such an insurmountable task? 

Other things people claim is that it's just easier or they don't know how people will react. Well, to the latter, no, you don't know how somebody will react, but most of the time, the person will just accept it and move on. They may feel bad--they'll probably feel bad--but they'll be okay. For the people who are going to react badly, believe me, being ghosted isn't going to make them react in a better way. To the former, again, that's just another excuse. Telling someone you're not interested isn't that hard, and here comes my aforementioned research. I'm going to show you how much "effort" it takes.

That last photo, the one on the left? That, in conjunction with the Facebook comment about ghosting people, is what prompted this post. When D, a guy who I've seen very casually since a year ago January (actually, you've heard of him--he's the D from my diagram o' sex), texted me asking how I was doing, I wanted nothing more than to not answer back. As you can see from our earlier texts, communication isn't his thing, and truly, if anybody deserves to be ignored, it's probably him, and I wanted so badly to just ignore him as is the way-to-end-things d'jour. But I couldn't. No matter how much I wanted to and no matter how bad he had been at communicating with me, I just couldn't not answer back.

A few days later as I lay in bed in the middle of the night unable to sleep, I started looking through my old texts. I don't remember if I was looking for anything in particular, but looking for or not, I started seeing a common thread. After seeing a few end-things-in-a-nice, yet-direct-way texts, I started to deliberately look for them; once I had finished all the texts still on my phone, I looked in Instagram and on Facebook as well. And then came the screenshots.

See? I said to myself. This is what people should do. And I thought about how even though sometimes it's hard--take, for instance, that last one to a guy I was seeing for a little over a month who I knew liked me so much. That was an extremely hard one to send--it's easier than taking what some would call the easy way out because then I wouldn't be able to stand myself. The "easy way out," for me, wouldn't be easy at all.

Now, this whole process of reading my old messages and taking screenshots took about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. I didn't just read the little snippets you see. I read whole threads. Because it took so long, it wasn't until I was done, when I was looking at all the screenshots, that I thought to myself, Wow, this is kind of a lot of instances me ending things and, deciding to count, realized my "kind of a lot" equals 17.

17!

(*We're transitioning into the epiphany here*)

And that's only the conversations I still have or I'm showing you or the people I talked to long enough to be relevant to mention. Since they disappear, I don't have any conversations that were had on dating apps before I unmatched someone. There's also the text I sent when I ended things with the motherfucker I wrote about in my last post, the one I sent in December before I even had any idea he was seeing someone else, but that one is way too personal to show.

Add those to the 17 and we're at maybe 20 I could think of for sure, but I feel pretty comfortable in saying it's probably more. Oh! Dly. 21 for sure. Plus I was seeing someone from the beginning of December to right after my birthday--like seeing someone, seeing someone, not just talking, not just having sex (in fact, it was the lack of chemistry when we finally did have sex which caused my interest in that one to wane)--who I also ended things with although with him there was no direct telling just sort of a (thankfully) circumstantial petering out.

Obviously (at least, I think it's obvious), I didn't have actual relationships with all of those people, and for the sake of organization, I separated them into lists. We've got Only Spoke To, Met/Knew, and Dated/Was Seeing.

Of those 21 guys who I "ended things with" since the summer of 2018, 8 fall into the Only Spoke To category. Either we matched on a dating app or they added me on Facebook and slid into my DMs. Some I only talked to for a few days, but a few of them I talked to pretty regularly for a few weeks. The commonality among them is at some point I decided none of them were for me.

The next category is Met/Knew. This category, which has 7 people, consists of a varying range of people, from a guy I worked with at Miramar who started coming into my room every day which is totally reminding me of another guy who worked at Miramar who did the same thing, eating lunch with me and my friends and coming in during my planning period to talk, so I guess that bumps this category up to 8 and the overall number 22, to a guy who started talking to me at Publix to another one I met walking across a street and goddammit, that reminds me of the guy I worked with at Red Chair who I hung out with once and then wouldn't leave me alone, so I guess now we're at 9 and 23, and oh, shit, there's the guy with the humongous beard despite not having one in his photos who, after I went to lunch with once, offered to shave it for me when I said it was a deal breaker, and honestly, if anything is a deal breaker more than a big, bushy beard that looks like it belongs on a lumberjack, it's some guy offering to shave off that beard for someone he barely knows.

Some of the people in the Met/Knew category I knew pretty well, like the two from MHS and perhaps surprisingly, the guy who I met crossing the street who happens to live in my complex and I became friends with, and some, like the car salesman who got my number when I was looking for a car for Griffin or the weirdo I met in the grocery store who still texts me, who, in fact, texted me earlier this week despite my telling him over a year ago I wasn't interested and wouldn't answer any of his texts, I barely knew at all. Again, the biggest thing these guys have in common is that they were irl interested but I really had no interest in any of them at all.

Our last category is Dated/Was Seeing, and except for the motherfucker from my last post who I stopped seeing because I liked him too much and I knew it wasn't good for me, these are all guys that, for the most part, I actually liked until something happened to make me not like them anymore. I can pinpoint most of the causes--shitty communication, shitty sex, lost momentum--but some were just me.

Or maybe, actually, all were just me.

I just discussed 24 people--24!--who in the last not even two years I decided I didn't want, and of the two I did want in that time period, La Dispute Guy and M, one of them told me the first week that after being "wifed up" for all of his 20s, he was very happy being single as he approached 31, and the other one was an emotionally unavailable overgrown emo/scene dude who lived in Sebastian, which is almost 150 miles away. Also since it's relevant to the conversation, now is probably the time to admit to you, and in admitting it to you, to really truly acknowledge and admit something to me, that other than a guy I went to high school with who I've dated off and on since 2015 in such a casual way on both our ends that I feel like he doesn't really count, the only other guy who's held my interest and continues to do so is a 23-year-old guy I taught about eight years ago who lives several states away and DMs me when he's drunk.

Griffin says I'm picky, but after seeing all those screenshots, one next to the other, after writing this post, after thinking about the people I fell for and the people I didn't, and after spending more than a month in my house entirely alone (with the exception of a nephew who goes back and forth from here to his grandma's and who, when he's here, is confined to his room), I don't know that picky is the word.

I could think of a few possibilities--scared, damaged, broken, deranged--but honestly?

I'd rather not. 

So Is That What You Call a Getaway? Tell Me What You Got Away With

So I've decided that since life is a little different right now, I'm going to write a different type of post. Unlike my other posts, this post isn't going to have a point. It's just going to be a story about something that very recently happened in my life, something that I found so outrageous and bothersome, in true Kismet fashion, I want to tell everyone I know. What better time and place to do it than here on my blog while nobody is allowed to leave the house?

I don't know if I've mentioned it here or not, but in October I joined a rock climbing gym. The first night I went, almost the very first second I went, it was very obvious the super cute guy behind the counter--we'll call him Rock Gym Guy--was into me. When at first he struck up a conversation by complimenting the kitty cat tunnels in my ears, I was like, Okay!, but when not long into the conversation I found out he was only 23, I was like, No way. Like I said on my Snapchat story that night, even though I gave him my Instagram when he asked for it and later in the night when he stroked the inside of my arm and told me how soft I was, I didn't exactly pull away (because, let's admit it, there are worse things than having someone hot stroke the incredibly soft-skinned inside of your arm even if he's 21 years younger than you), nothing was ever going to happen between the two of us. I was flattered, but that was all.

Well.

Rock Gym Guy and I first had sex on October 12, and for the next two months, we saw each other kind of a lot. Twice in that time I tried to stop seeing him, the first time because of communication issues and the second time because of um, more personal things. The first time, which was November 27, he convinced me I was overreacting and communication is a two-way street (I definitely have an issue with being the person to initiate contact with guys I'm talking to or seeing due to a long history that we won't go into now). His exact words were, and I quote, I suck at this communication thing, so all I'm saying is to meet me halfway. It's never my intention to come off as distant, I just get wrapped up in things, and I transcribed that verbatim only so you could see I'm not imagining that he tried to save things. The second time, the more personal-things time (however, not so personal that if you're friends with me on Facebook you don't know what issue was afoot) was only a few days later. We didn't talk for a few days that time, but on December 6 he was at my house and until I ended things with him for good on December 16 with a text that he never responded to, everything was back to how it was. 

Although far from devastated, I definitely felt bad, and although I didn't realistically expect to hear from him again after that last text I sent, for maybe a few weeks' time, whenever I felt the vibration from a text or heard the ding, part of me hoped it was him. It wasn't. At the beginning of January I found out that M--you remember M, the guy who had me crafting magnetic poetry, the one who abruptly stopped seeing me in early September after four months, he of the April 30 Day of the Happy officially named by me and my friends--got married, and well, if you ever want to completely forget about someone who you lukewarm liked, have someone you scaldingly-hot liked get married two days less than four months after saying he doesn't want to see you anymore. Lukewarm person will be out of your head so fast, it'll be like he didn't even exist--until he texts you again two-and-a-half months after your last communication, that is.

February 28 I was in my sister's rental car on my way to my nephew's birthday brunch when RGG's name popped up in my texts. Hey Kismet, I know I'm definitely the last person you wanna hear from. Just hope everything is going well on your side of things is all is how things began; I didn't hit you up w ulterior motives or anything but I'm getting hot just thinking about our nights is how they progressed. Can I see you? came after not too long, and idiot that you know I am, I said yes.

After seeing each other that night, RGG and I texted a few times over the next week and a half but didn't see each other again. On March 11, his birthday, we sent a few texts, and although my last one was one that should have gotten a response and by should have gotten a response I mean it clearly wasn't a this-conversation-is-done sort of thing, it was an it's-your-turn-to-go-next sort of thing, he didn't. I was annoyed for sure, but because of our history, I wasn't super surprised. After acknowledging that I had a not-uncharacteristic lapse in judgment, I wrote him off one more time.

You know what's coming, though. Of course the motherfucker texted me again.

Four days later I woke up at 2 in the morning when Keifer and his girlfriend, who were visiting from Jacksonville, came in the house. Like I always do when I wake up in the middle of the night, I looked at my phone, and it just so happened that RGG texted me four minutes before. You up? the motherfucker asked. You should come see me, the motherfucker said.

Really?

Really??

Dude. This was just - no.

I texted back that he completely ignored me after our last texts. I told him that all that happens when I talk to him is I end up feeling stupid. Feeling stupid and maybe a little horny splashed on top? the motherfucker wrote. If you can send a pic or two for lil ol me that would be very nice of you. 'Bats eyelashes,' the motherfucker sent.

I know, the nerve, right? And I told him that along with an are you kidding in regards to sending him pictures. But, please. That's nothing compared to what came next.

Sigh, truth is I have gf so I can't hit you up most of the time. But I get where your [sic] coming from so I'll leave you be

Motherfucker, what? I'm sorry, motherfucking what?

Naturally, this information made me, to put it mildly, a little upset, prompting the motherfucker to say, I probably shouldn't have hit you with all this, this late. I feel rising tension >_>

Rising tension? Rising tension? Motherfucker, come again?

RGG and I had some words. I can't post his because they're too publicly inappropriate, even by my standards, but I can tell you instead of showing any type of remorse, whether fake or not, they graphically detailed exact things he would miss. Sorry about the late night drama, night ✨, the motherfucker wrote, and that was that.

Between the rising tension text and the peace out one, I asked RGG when he got the girlfriend. He said around the last time we stopped seeing each other, but my mind had already begun working, and I knew that wasn't true. In my mind's workings, it worked itself to two Instagram posts he was tagged in on Halloween, one from his really good friend's account and one from a girl's account, a girl who, in the photos, his arm was around. Not too long after Halloween, the tagged photo from the girl's account disappeared, something that I didn't think anything of because it's Instagram and things like that happen all the time; I also didn't think anything of his having his arm around her because he could put his arm around whomever he wanted; he could do whatever he wanted. It's not like he was my boyfriend; little did I know, though: He was hers.

How did I find out for sure? I went to Instagram, looked at RGG's tagged photos, clicked on the Halloween photo that still remained, clicked on that photo, got the girl's name, typed it into search, and would you fucking believe that I was blocked?

That's right, I was blocked by the account of a girl who didn't know I even exist which means that at some point, RGG took her phone and blocked my account, I imagine to prevent exactly this. Ironically, though, it was his blocking my account that confirmed my suspicions. If the photo had never gone away, his girlfriend could have been anyone; however, due to his devious, underhanded, premeditated actions, that was no longer the case.

Now, normally, I let things like this go. If RGG hadn't, one, had such a flippant, peace-out attitude, and two, gone through so much trouble to make sure his real girlfriend and I didn't find out about one another, that's probably what I would have done. I would have been outraged and angry, I would have talked about it nonstop, and I would have gone on and on about how much I hate boys.

Basura, I would say. All boys are basura. I can't stand them at all. 

But because of my one and my two, I just couldn't let this one go, and so in the middle of the night after all my investigative work was complete, I created a new Instagram account, and with pounding heart and shaking hands sent screenshots of the night's entire conversation to RGG's girlfriend and told her how sorry I was.

The next day, I swear I must have checked that DM a hundred times looking for the little seen, and finally around maybe noon, I got a message back. The girlfriend asked me a few questions, I clarified some things, sent a few older screenshots, and she thanked me for letting her know. Almost immediately after, my phone rang.

Hello? I said pleasantly as if nothing in the world were wrong.

Kismet. Kismet. Kismet. It was almost all he could say. Why? Why would you do that? Kismet, what were you thinking? 

Then that motherfucker actually said he never lied about having a girlfriend because I never asked (which isn't entirely true because the first time we hung out, he mentioned not having a relationship since high school, so ummm) and added that he was right not to tell me because as soon as he told me, look what I went and did. He then told me he hoped I had a horrible day and hung up. A few minutes later, the texts came.

I fucking hate you so much, you really just fucked me up. I hate I hate you I FUCKING HATE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm a fucking bitch and a vile creature, said the motherfucker who made me unknowingly complicit in the fucking over of another woman, something I would never, ever intentionally do, and he hopes I never find love. I destroyed him. I could have just given him the speech about him being an ass but instead went behind his back sabotaging him on purpose. He wished me a shitty life--I deserve it--and that was the end of RGG.

Basura, I say.

All boys are basura, and I  can't stand them at all. 

This Year Did Just End, and I Think We'll All Be Okay

I was all set to write an end-of-2019 post chock full o' reflection and lessons that either I learned or am impervious to learning and express immense relief that this hellish year is finally over and bid it goodbye, but then I decided that was stupid and cliché. I decided that what I really want to write about is something I've written about many times before which I guess means I'm cliché anyway, but to paraphrase one of my favorite quotes, I contain fucking multitudes, motherfucker; if I contradict myself then that's what I do. With that in mind and without further adieu to 2019, let's talk about the thing that has recently, and once again, taken over my life: running.

Remember what I said about three lines ago about contradicting myself? Well, despite adamantly insisting over the last twelve years since the first time I did it that I would never ever under any circumstances do it again, I'm running a half marathon again. I'd say I don't know how it happened, but I do. I work with a woman who also runs, and we often talk about running while we wait in the kitchen for the bathroom or a microwave. This woman, Kelly, runs halves all the time. When we first started talking and she told me that, I gave her my spiel about how the one half marathon I ran was one of the worst experiences of my life: I felt like somebody beat me with a bat, I lay around with frozen veggies on my legs, I needed orthotics and a boot. I told her that after that race I decided there was no reason I ever had to run more than three-and-a-half miles at the same time again in my life. None.

I told her all these things. Adamantly, I told her. And I meant what I told her, and yet . . . and yet . . . since the week of Thanksgiving I've been following the Runner's World half marathon training plan scrupulously, which so far has increased my long run from three to seven miles, training for a half marathon I still haven't signed up for due to the commitment issues that encroach on every part of my life.

It was the weekend after Thanksgiving that I made my noncommittal decision. I'd run the Turkey Trot on a whim, registering after 9:00 the night before, and despite having my wisdom tooth pulled on Tuesday after school, barely running at all the entire month (my total monthly miles for November were 12.39 including the 3.1 I ran on Thanksgiving), and having sex until almost 1 am, I did a fairly decent job, averaging a 9:43 mile and placing 27/153 women in my age group and 191/1148 women overall. Until about five years ago, even with careful preparation, my 5k times hovered in the 32-to-34 minute range, and now, even unprepared, I wasn't far off from the 29:42 PR I got after training like an Olympian for the 5k I ran on my 40th birthday. Clearly my running and overall fitness level had improved, and as a result, against my better judgment and previous declarations to the contrary, I decided a half marathon had to be run. Also, I was plumping up. Scheduled running would put a stop to that, I thought. (Spoiler: this was incorrect.)

Okay, so all the stuff I just wrote? Backstory. Means nothing. What's really important here are the realizations I've made while training for this stupid thing, the most recent actually hitting me while I was typing about my commitment issues two paragraphs up. Before I started this training schedule, when I ran, I ran between two and three miles but two-mile runs were much more common than three. Once I started, my first long run was four. Since long runs are supposed to be easy runs, I set the treadmill at 5 mph, a lot slower than the +/- 6 mph pace that's my norm, and it was so slow, I practically felt like I was walking. A few minutes in, I was like, oh my God, I can run like this forever. Fast forward to 36 minutes into my run, and that ridiculously easy 5 mph I scoffed at? It became 4.9.

It hit me once I slowed down that even things that seem effortless at first can become seemingly nearly impossible if we do them long enough. Then either the next week or maybe the week after that when my Tuesday two-mile easy run--the same distance that a few weeks prior was my norm and while maybe the word difficult wouldn't be right, the word easy wouldn't be, either--was truly that, so easy that I couldn't stay at the recommended 5 mph pace, and I was left with boundless energy when I was done, I realized how quickly people can adapt to things whether those things are bad or good. I'm not saying running is bad because clearly I don't think it is, but this realization works for both. I also realized, after doing some five-mile runs, then some six, and then having to run only two and four--yes, I said only four--how perspective can change. What once was so daunting was now a welcomed reprieve (also, the two-mile run? It felt like it was over a second after its start). Every time I was running and one of these realizations hit, I applied them to every aspect of my life, but because I'm me, I especially applied each one to the most prevalent thing which is such an overarching motif, instead of going all broken record on you, I'll just stop now

however I'll start again here, but this time talking about the last run I ran when I almost quit. Last Sunday I ran seven miles, and when I say I felt like I was going to die, I felt like I was going to drop dead. I'd had too much tequila and not enough water the night before, and I thought there was no way I was going to finish, but I did. I didn't finish the way I wanted to--I slowed down a little and took a few walk breaks which I hadn't done on any other runs--but goddammit I finished that seven-fucking-mile run. But that's not the run I'm talking about. This Thursday that just passed I did another six-mile run, with four miles at race pace instead of easy the whole time, and I guess all the running has taken its toll because after three miles, I was ready to give up, and I don't mean just on that particular run, I mean on the whole half marathon idea. As I got to about three and a quarter, I rationalized quitting by telling myself that I'm always doing this, this being doing things I don't really want to do just because I said I would do them and that there's nothing wrong with someone changing their mind (I can now use that singular their thanks to Merriam-Webster and APA, and I am so obviously comfortable with that). I'm too rigid, I told myself, and it needs to stop now. Why should I do something I really don't want to do? And I decided right then and there I was done. I was going to stop.

But I couldn't, and I don't mean that I couldn't because I couldn't bring myself to give up, I mean I couldn't because my Nike+ isn't calibrated correctly for inside runs, and at that moment, though I had only run about 3.3 miles, the measurement read 4.61, and if I stopped, my run history would be false. When I'm inside, what I always do is get to my desired distance and then put my phone down so the clock runs but the miles don't, so I had no choice but to run at least the already-measured 4.61. A little more than a mile, I told myself, and I'd be done.

A little more than a mile later? I wasn't done.

During that little more than a mile, I did something I may have never done at any other time in my life. I thought rationally. Like, truly rationally, not faux rationally as is my thing. I realized that giving up on something I'd been working toward and had made so much progress on in the middle of a particularly difficult run was a rash decision and that maybe, just maybe, I shouldn't be making such a drastic decision then and there. I told myself I had to just get through that one stupid run and then if I still wanted to quit once I really gave it some thought--some levelheaded, reasonable thought not influenced by momentary pain--I could quit, and that would be absolutely fine. After I told myself that and resigned myself to the fact that I had to finish that run, I had an epiphany: this impulsivity that I talked myself down from affects the fuck out of my life in many areas but it especially affects the most prevalent thing which is such an overarching motif, instead of going all broken record on you, I'll just stop now

however I'll start again here but this time just long enough to tell you what I also realized, and that's that I, despite being very smart, am not very smart at all.