So We Escape to Our Mistakes

So I "broke up" with La Dispute Guy today--well, as much as someone could break up with someone who's not her boyfriend--a noyfriend*, so to speak--and I have to warn you this post is about to get super moody super fast. I'm totally about to feel sorry for myself, once again being way too open in a public space.

*Noyfriend: Not boyfriend; a term for a boy who spends time with a girl, treats her like his girlfriend, says girlfriend/boyfriend things to her, has sex with her, but denies being in a "relationship." I've had two of these: C, in 2009 and 2015, and La Dispute Guy until about 9:30 a.m. today

La Dispute Guy wanted to be casual--I knew that from the start--but I have to say, despite this declaration, it's not something I really grasped, mostly my fault, yes, a responsibility I'll accept, but his fault a little bit, too, for never really acting as if he and I were a casual thing. I hate to admit this because I feel so stupid, but I kinda sorta, just a tiny little bit, let myself start to fall in love. 

And that's why it had to end.

I know I was always vague with the details, but La Dispute Guy lives in Sebastian, which is about 120 miles away, and I'm pretty sure I didn't mention this, but despite my rule about not dating guys with kids, he has four of them--yes, I said four as in one, two, three, four children--that live in Miami, and well, what I became in our relationship is an on-the-way-to-Miami girl, which in some situations would be absolutely fine but seeing as how I was starting to fall in love with him, it became not at all okay. It became a be-sad-that-I-was-having-a-relationship-via-Snapchat type of thing (um...hello...pardon me...the current drunk me, in this proofread, has to interject here to say that we have a 77-day streak that's about to end and I'm getting really panicky and semi freaking out), and an omnipresent feeling of mopiness started settling in. Still, I didn't want to end it, and I wasn't going to. I was going to tough it out until he came to the realization that he was in love with me back because despite the bad parts, there were good parts, too--like the constant stream of snap banter we had all day most days and the fact that we have almost identical IQs and, well, the sex that was so amazing I don't even understand how it could have been so good--and I didn't want them to end.

But this morning when I asked him if we'd get to see each other when he came down later this week for his son's birthday and he responded that he thought he'd be able to swing it but he'd know better when he got the child sharing schedule, I was just like, no.

This cannot be.

I think if he'd said anything else, used any other diction, any other phrase in the world, I wouldn't have ended things, I would have waited it out, but, like, he thought he could swing it? Like I'm just this, I don't know, inconsequential plaything--inconsequential being the pivotal word since plaything? Actually good--he can entertain himself with when it's convenient? That is the opposite of okay. Like I told him, I don't want to be a convenience to anyone, least of all someone I'm kinda sorta, even if just a tiny little bit, starting to fall in love with. 

And so whatever La Dispute Guy and I were, it has come to an end.

And so I am absolutely miserable.

And so the feeling sorry for myself will now commence.

The Feeling Sorry for Myself

I just do not understand what's wrong with me. I can't understand what it is about me that makes it so difficult for people to love (I've also, in the time between the first section of this post and now, gotten myself drunk). 

There's this guy I talk to on Snapchat who says La Dispute Guy is stupid to throw me away (and I have to admit, I don't disagree), and Brian, when I asked him why I'm unlovable, said I'm very lovable and in a verbatim text that I'll transcribe for you here, said,  You're not some average piece of tail for average dicks to woo. You have depth; you speak your mind. You split the difference between wild, impish spirt, and responsible, pretty serious soul. Men with their shit together and their hearts ready for all that ain't exactly a dime a dozen. You're a rare breed and you need a saucy, rare stallion to match which is all fine and dandy but doesn't change the fact that I'm alone (or, I might add, that a year ago July Brian also threw me away) and if this past four years has been any indication, always will be.

I don't regret leaving my ex-husband for a second, but I have to admit I didn't think things would be this hard. I didn't think every time I started to care about a guy, he'd disappear--yes, I realize that this time I made him, but I had good reason--or that the only people who would love me--because, yes, if I'm honest, people have loved me--would be people I couldn't love back. I didn't fully comprehend life would be this lonely: I didn't think about having a really bad day or getting myself embroiled in a stressful situation and having nobody make me feel better by lying with me in bed and telling me things would be all right; I didn't think that I'd spend a great deal of my free time either lying on my kitchen counter listening to music that makes me want to cry or dancing around the house by myself; I didn't think about constant outings, whether they be to a coffeehouse, to a restaurant, or like right now, even to a bar, on my own; I didn't foresee the lonely act of climbing grocery store shelves. I don't know what I thought, what I foresaw, but it certainly wasn't guys trying to sleep with me left and right, and it wasn't any of this.

It wasn't "breaking up" with a guy that wasn't even my boyfriend--my noyfriend--who I'm way better  "on paper" than, who has four kids and an ex-wife that even though he hasn't said it, I know he still loves, who--while we're on the subject of on paper--I have to say that despite my being way better on paper than and his going against the "rules" of what I want, is seriously like the best, most decent guy I think ever I've met, with these eyes, these dark, dark brown Honduran, Guatemalan eyes that I could stare at for the rest of my life and these lips that I can't even explain and this voice that when he sends me voice snaps gives me actual chills and makes my stomach do this little flippy thing and this ability to say things that make my stomach lurch and get this deep-down-in-my-guts visceral feeling; on paper, I have to say because of all of these things, doesn't mean one goddamn motherfucking thing which is why I have no choice but to acknowledge that as emotionally unavailable as La Dispute Guy has always professed to be, as hurt as La Dispute Guys says he's been, if La Dispute Guy loved me, La Dispute guy would love me, and all of those things on his mental sheet of paper would cease.

But I'm rambling, and I digress; I need to get back on track. I need to tell you again that my post-divorce life isn't what I thought and that today while I was lying on my counter listening to Deadly Nightshade for One, a playlist I made a little over a month ago when La Dispute Guy cancelled his trip to Miami because his kids were sick, when Rivers Cuomo told me everything would be all right in the end, for pretty much the first time in my life, I realized that most likely wasn't the truth. 

Anyone Else but Him

The good news is that La Dispute Guy doesn't read my blog, so I don't have to worry about what I write.

The bad news is that La Dispute Guy doesn't read my blog, so I don't have to worry about write.

                                                                          

                                                  ***

Many times throughout my life I've come across a quote by Johnny Depp about love in which he says that if you fall in love with a second person when you're in love with a first that you should always choose the second person because if you loved the first person, you never would have fallen in love with the second. Having leaned heavily towards polyamory most of my life, I always took issue with that quote. When talking about why he was wrong, I'd use myself as an example and refer to the words of North Star that I latched onto when she talked to me about her open relationship exactly ten years ago: 

There's no limit to love

There's no limit to love, North Star said, and it made perfect sense. Just because you love one person, it doesn't mean you love another person less. Think about people who have more than one child. Do they stop loving the first one when the second comes along? Or the third? Not love the second because they already love the first? Clearly not. There's room in our hearts to love all kinds of people in all kinds of ways, so logically why does this not apply to the romantic relationships in our lives?

At least that's what I always said.

I said it, if not in those words, when at 19 years old I convinced my ex-Glenn that he should let me kiss his then drummer Keith.

I said it again, although still not with the mantra I'd eventually cling to, at 29 when I had such a big crush on Jean I thought that if I didn't kiss him I would die.

I practically screamed it at 34 and again at 35 and then at 36 and 37 and 38 when I loved C more than any other person I'd ever loved in my life.

But now? At almost 44? I'm kind of thinking Johnny Depp may actually have been right. 

Because here's the thing.

I think I'm not really polyamorous. I think I just wasn't ever really in love. 

I'm not saying I didn't love my ex-Glenn ever because that would be a lie, but in love?

Yeah. Not so much.

Another thing I'm not saying is that I love La Dispute Guy because not only is it way, way, way too soon for a statement like that but, well, I'll actually maybe save this info for another post, but I am saying that the thought of being with anyone else right now is the opposite of what I want; that the thought of kissing someone else right now is totally gross; that the thought of someone else touching me is just eww. I can say with absolute total conviction that the only person I currently want on me or in me or anywhere near me is La Dispute Guy and never in my life was there a time I could have said that about my ex-Glenn, not even at our start (because clearly the argument could be that this is a beginning, of course La Dispute Guy's lips and tongue and hands and eyes and voice are the only thing I ever think about but I know that's not it because not only was that not the case with my ex-Glenn but it also wasn't the case with A in March or with BTJ in May and a little bit of June. The right person is just...right). 

Was there a time when I didn't think about other people all the time, wasn't actively in the throes of one of my crushes, wasn't diabolically trying to convince my ex-Glenn that being with other people would be good for our relationship? Sure, especially near our totally-abrupt-came-out-of-completely-nowhere demise, but even then if C were to have come knocking on my door, I don't think I would have had it in me to say no, and that's whether the question was Do you want to get in my car and fuck?; Will you run away with me so we can live passionately and madly forever, eschewing societal ideals, caring about nothing but sex and love and us?; or Even though I know G and K are practically adults and you're dead set against having more kids, will you have a little partially Japanese baby with me that we'll call Kiko if she's a girl and work on names if it's a boy? (I didn't think about this in the past. Not once.) 

I don't know. Maybe this newfound monogamishness--okay, I'm in a different place, but I'm not a different person--is a sign of growth and maturity more than it's indicative of my relationship with my ex-Glenn, but I think that's wrong. I think for the vast majority of my life I was just lonely and sad and unfulfilled in so many ways that I was always falling in love with different boys--it just so happens, my ex-husband wasn't one. 

I Do What Boys Like

Have you seen that predictive text epitaph meme? If you haven't, here it is.

Well, being the lover of predictive text that I am, a few days ago when a friend of mine posted it, I was like, Ooh! That looks fun! and although I didn't post the results, I did figure my epitaph out.

Here lies Kelly McIntyre. She was really nice to him.

Here lies Kelly McIntyre. She was really nice to him.

Here lies Kelly McIntyre. She was really nice to him[!]

All I have to say is, does my phone really know me that well?

I know this is supposed to be funny and stuff, but that epitaph really does sum up my entire life.

Take tonight, for example.

In the long tradition of my baking things for boys that I like/covet/love, I just finished baking not one, but two desserts for La Dispute Guy who I'm going to see tomorrow for the first time in almost a month (it's a crazily long time, I know, but he lives over a hundred miles away, don't forget, and the last time he was in town, I was in North Dakota), two because I want him to try something with pumpkin, which he says he doesn't like, because I feel like he just hasn't had the right pumpkin thing, but just in case he really doesn't like pumpkin dessert, I made him another one, and, oh my god, could I be any more into this guy who wants to be casual and I never even see? I'm obviously insane.

And off topic. Let me go back.

You know what? Let's forget the epitaph for a minute and go back to that long tradition. Let's take a quick look at my past.

When I was 24 and married for a year, I made my ex-Glenn those chocolate-mousse filled chocolate bags that led to my being in hysterics and my mom and Erin eating mousse out of the garbage can. I also used to want to make him his favorite food, chicken parmesan, on special occasions, but he refused to let me cook it--because apparently I made it too wet. Fucking weirdo eats cereal without milk and doesn't like sauce. I promise the problem wasn't my cooking--and until about ten years into our marriage when he blindsided me with the admission that he hated the way I made eggs, I happily used to make him those. (You know, there was so much wrong with my marriage that I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty sure his not wanting me to cook anything for him ever contributed in some way to its demise).

I've baked for C twice, cookies from scratch nearly ten years ago when he got some really bad news and vegan brownies during The Summer of C when he complained that because he was lactose intolerant, he'd pretty much given up on dessert. I also once made my specialty, spaghetti and meatballs, for him and his friends (I've done this for stupid Louie who never wrote me back as well).

I even made brownies for one of Griffin's guitarists, who I used to really, really want.

Baking and cooking, of course, aren't the only way I've been nice to boys, and no, I'm not talking about that (I told you about that time I took that cute boy to buy heroin because I couldn't say no to him. Think things like that). I've just always had a horrible weakness for boys my entire life, and when I'm really into one, there's pretty much nothing I won't do, which sort of makes sense, but even if I'm not really into one, even if I just think a boy is cute, I do things for him too, I just can't say no even when I know I should and that, readers, is why I can't stop thinking about that predictive text.

Do I think that predictive textitaph was sort of supernatural and really had insight? Of course not. Okay, probably not. I mean, it's not very likely. But I do feel like, whether it's been my being nice to a boy, my coveting a boy, my talking about a boy, or my thinking about a boy, boys have been my entire life.

I remember when I was 23 telling Erin I wanted to write a memoir called Rocks in My Shoe with each chapter being about a different boy and her telling me that as a feminist she had a problem with my telling my life through the lens of my relationships with boys.

As a feminist, I know she's right.

I just like cute boys too much to care. 

If the Streets Don't Kill Him, I Will

*Name has not been changed to protect the innocent because there isn't one

About four weeks ago when Keifer asked me if his friend Jordan* could stay at our house, I said yes right away. Although I didn't know the details, I did know that someone who was a good enough friend of Keifer's for me to know some details about his life--he was a SoundCloud rapper, he'd been looking for a job for months and couldn't find one, he owed someone I know very well $50 for taking a class for him in order to graduate--needed help.

In the few days between Kei's asking and Jordan's showing up, I found out that Jordan got kicked out of his house after graduation for reasons Keifer didn't know but that a stepdad was involved and that he had lived with at least two friends' families since. Red flags maybe should have gone up or at least appeared--for instance, I might have wondered why this kid's parents kicked him out, why he kept having to leave everybody's house, or why he couldn't find a job--but they didn't. Lover of strays that I am, I just wanted to help.

Jordan "moved in" on August 26. I was out somewhere, I don't remember where, but I do remember that when I went to put my clothes in the washing machine it was absolutely stuffed to the brim with clothes of his, so many clothes that I had to run them through the dryer twice, and yes, I'm the one who had to run them through the dryer because the boys had gone out. When they came back, I introduced myself and told Jordan I had dried his clothes, he thanked me, I told him he could stay in Griffin's room, Keifer said he'd show him where it was, and they went upstairs.

I hoped he'd be comfortable, especially since the following day I found out that that night in Griffin's bed was his first time sleeping in a bed in over a month. Poor thing, I thought. That's so sad.

Well.

Can you guess what I'm going to say?

Is it that the only thing sad is my judgment and fear of confrontation?

Because that's pretty fucking close.

Poor, poor Jordan, it turns out, is an ungrateful, entitled piece of crap, and I exhibit no surprise whatsoever that nobody, including his own parents, wants him in their house, and lest you think I'm about to exaggerate my tale, I'll have you know that last week Keifer's girlfriend messaged me asking if we could throw a party when he leaves and even Keifer, who was pro Jordan for much more of his stay than he should have been, also wanted him out.

To make my life simpler, and I'm in dire need of simple after this ordeal, I'm going to give a tiny bit of info and then copy and paste lots and lots (Facebook friends, you can skip those parts).

Jordan, you may remember, didn't have a job. How then, you may wonder, could he afford to eat? Where was he getting food? It's not like some dumbass schmuck came along and went grocery shopping for him, even texting her son to find out what his friend wanted to eat.

Except it actually is.

So for twenty-one days, I fed and housed this kid; I drove him to the skate park; I included him on Wednesdays when we had family dinners with my nephew Ty; I listened to him make beats loud enough to drown my music out when he was upstairs and I was down, and while we're talking about him and his music, I might also mention I had to listen to him rap/record all the time; I scrubbed the toilet and underside of the toilet seat repeatedly because never in my life have I seen someone who is so unbelievably bad at directing his penis and its stream of pee--I'm talking pee, still wet when I'd wake up in the morning or when I'd come home from school, dripping down the toilet seat in little rivulets; I swept the floor day and night, an action made necessary by his constantly twisting the tiny dreads he was cultivating and the nauseating collection of hair he left wherever he would sit; I scrubbed the stove when I woke up because he left macaroni and cheese powder and other food particles on it overnight; I cleaned the counter constantly because it was crumb city all the way; and I went further and further into the abyss of insane.

On day eight, I posted this

Okay, so Keifer's friend has been here for eight days and shows no signs of leaving. He has no job or money, so I'm buying all his food. Is it all right for me to ask him to vacuum twice a week? Like, at this point he's no longer a guest, right?

prompted by his having done nothing but go to the skate park, record music, make a mess, and sleep until at least 4:00 in the afternoon every day (later that day I got up the nerve to ask him to vacuum twice a week and wash all his dishes; he vacuumed twice and if we all held a collective breath waiting for him to wash his dishes, we'd be collectively dead).

Two days later, on September 7, I commented on a post declaring the rapper had to leave

Okay, so two nights ago--Wednesday night--he woke me up rapping and blasting music at 3:30 in the morning. 3:30 in the morning! I messaged Keifer and was like, wtf, I have to be up at 5:30, and he apologized over and over and said he told him to be quiet. I couldn't fall back to sleep until almost 5, and I wake up at 5:30. So I was pissed. I said the next day, which was yesterday, we needed to establish rules. 

Well.

He was still asleep when I took Keifer to work at 4:30 last night and still nowhere to be seen when I went to bed at 11:30. I just got home from work and was in a perfectly good mood only to find a sink with dishes and crumbs, crumbs on the floor next to the garbage can when I mopped yesterday, the Brita pitcher empty, and the sponge smelly because he didn't wring it out. 

I can't be understanding anymore.

And later that day

Okay, so get this. I just talked to Keifer. He and his gf got the rapper an interview at their job today, which was just a formality, and he didn't even show up. He said he couldn't find it even though Keifer pulled up the location and showed it to him on his phone.

And

You guys! I just found his hair in my bed.

In. My. Bed.

A couple days later, I was sitting on the counter drinking an apple ale talking to Keifer when Jordan walked into the kitchen, open the fridge, and without so much as a word, just took out and opened a beer. I seriously think I almost dropped dead. Not long after that when he was cooking himself the vegan pizza I'd just bought for Kiefer the night before, I told him to please not eat Keifer's vegan food but to eat the stuff I bought for him instead and to wipe the toilet after he peed.

Then I went out of town.

And, well...a copied and pasted list from yesterday afternoon

Okay, so I was out of town from Tuesday to last night. Before I went, I sat both boys down--really to tell Jordan, not Keifer--and went over rules. I reiterated about cleaning up after themselves, not leaving dishes in the sink, things like that. Also, the day I left, I came home between work and the airport and Jordan was making Keifer's $8 Daiya vegan pizza, and I said to him that I want him to leave the vegan stuff for Keifer since he's a vegan and so picky that he's 5'10 and weighs 118 pounds (keep in mind that I grocery shop for Jordan, getting him stuff like macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese stuff, cereal, pasta). So:

1. Erica text me (unbeknownst to Keifer) to tell me Jordan was eating all Keifer's food
2. Keifer text me to tell me Jordan didn't do one dish the whole time I was gone and that he had to keep doing his dishes
3. Keifer had this collectible Monster shot that we bought on a road trip like three years ago, and it's $50 online now since they're unavailable. Jordan drank it.
4. Keifer said the counter was covered in stuff because Jordan didn't clean up after himself once
5. When I got home last night, I saw a cockroach--a cockroach!--on the dryer. That hasn't happened in 17 years of my living in this house.
6. He ate an entire pint of Keifer's vegan ice cream in Griffin's bedroom and left the empty pint and a dirty spoon on the shelf attached to his bed
7. The upstairs toilet actually had dried pee on the top of the toilet seat and dripping pee on the underside. I had to scrub it when I got home last night at about 1 a.m.
8. I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty sure he was in my bed. After scrubbing the toilet, I had to change my sheets.
9. The downstairs toilet doesn't have the pee issue, but the seat is just filthy--like black, like someone really dirty sat on it. Obviously I had to scrub that, too. 
10. Keifer just told me about half an hour ago that his gf bought him Bento and Jordan ate it from the fridge
11. I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but he took my good running/talking on the phone headphones from the counter (right in front of me while I was doing dishes!) and lost them
12. He's just a disgusting human and I can't have him in my house


Jordan is now gone. Keifer told him when he woke up at 9:00 last night--9:00 last night!--that I wanted him to go. Embarrassed and uncomfortable even though he wanted him gone as badly as I did, he initially said something about my not being able to afford food for both of them and the house being dirty, and for some strange reason, his detailed explanation of that was that I said something about crumbs.

Jordan's response?

[n word with an a] i been in here all day
how could there possibly be crumbs
lmao
its whatever tho

and Keifer told me that even though he told him today that it was more than just crumbs, whenever he DMed anyone, crumbs was the reason he gave for my kicking him out, and as if that's not bad enough, when that fucking piece of crap motherfucker left my house, he didn't say one word to me, he just walked out of the house like I wasn't even there.

In the 23 days that I made my house that absolute stranger's home, he said thank you once, and that's when I put his clothes in the dryer on day one--oh, and maybe when I drove him to the skate park two or three times.

I have never felt so used in my entire life.

And I'm a fucking slut. 

I Was Kinda Hoping You'd Stay

Well.

La Dispute Guy wants to keep it casual. After a lot of going back and forth about whether I should say something or not and consulting with a not obnoxiously huge, but not tiny, number of people, I decided to ask him what his intentions were with me, and keep it casual is the answer I got. Emotional wall...hurt many times...investing in things that disappear...all things that were mentioned that may as well have been me talking to him.

I have to tell you that at first that felt entirely fine. I told him before I asked that there wasn't a wrong answer, and that wasn't a trick. I honestly just wanted to know. Plus, BS--yes, the BS I was in love with last July--well, the July before the July that just passed--you know what? Since he's now my friend and no longer that other kind of  boy, let's just call him by his name. Brian he is--and I role played my asking him, and one of the scariest options was his saying he wanted to be serious and us see only each other, not because I don't like him enough for that but because after having been single for four years, the thought of having to worry about answering to someone in absolutely any way falls somewhere between mildly daunting and abysmally suffocating. While we were lying in bed, me between his legs, my head somewhere between his stomach and his chest, casual really didn't sound bad.

But then he left, and I'm thinking you probably know me well enough by now to know I got sad. Like, really sad. Like, sad enough that Keifer actually offered to get off his bunk bed and give me a hug (which for him is really saying a lot), sad enough to tell Griffin when I talked to him that I'm never dating again and that I had to go because I had to go cry and then go to bed. The next morning, which was yesterday, I woke up feeling just as bad. I changed the title of my Suspension playlist on Spotify, which I made when I started my fall for La Dispute Guy, to something along the lines of Happiness? Please. What Was I Even Thinking?, and felt mopey for most of the day.

My moping and sadness wasn't what it seems. It wasn't because I thought La Dispute Guy didn't like me the way I like him because I know that's not true, and it wasn't exactly because of the casual thing, at least not the way you probably think. I don't mind him seeing other people at all, and it's nice to know I can, too--even though when somebody kissed me last Saturday night, I realized there's nobody else I remotely want to kiss--but what I told Griffin and what I'm now going to tell you is if things continue the way they've been, I'm probably going to end up liking him even more. I also told him that despite that fear, I can't stop seeing him now because I said the casual thing was fine, a statement he refuted, telling me that yes, I can, or at least I can just not put in as much effort as I've been putting in, something that sounded plausible at the time. I'll just stop messaging back so much, I thought. When he's in the area, I won't always be around. I'll find a way to protect my heart.

Last night, though, like every night for the past 36 days, La Dispute Guy and I messaged; when I woke up this morning I had a message from him like I usually do; like always, we've been messaging since; and I realized that other than my perception, nothing has changed. I also realized that trepidation and reserve are not my things, and I care completely when I care. I also, for whatever reason, have a really, really hard time staying sad (a fact of life that prompted Curt to tell me I'm too happy to ever really be goth when goth meant something different back when I was seventeen). To deny those things would be to deny who I really am.

So I woke up this morning and changed the title of that playlist to Melodrama Much?, I listened to happy music, I danced around my house, and I sat down to write this blog. It's true that La Dispute Guy may make me sad in the future, but he makes me unreasonably happy now, and I refuse to let foreboding joy take that away. 

Stop Burning Bridges and Drive Off of Them

In the past three days, two people have said something to me about not having written in my blog for a long time, and believe me, it wasn't news. Almost every single day I think about how long it's been since I've written and tell myself I'm going to write, but as you know, the writing never comes. I'll make the same excuses for you that I made for them:

One, I told you during my thirty days o' blogs that I didn't want my blog to become a boy blog, and it just so happens--surprise surprise, people!--that the majority of what I want to write about is boys;

two, also as I mentioned in my thirty days o' blogs, I'm afraid I reveal the wrong things to the wrong people, those people namely being boys;

and three, anything I want to write about that isn't about boys is about people who might maybe possibly read my blog--or absolutely positively do--and that makes writing what I want not the best choice,

but, alas, here I am as a direct result of the you-haven't-updated-your-blog-in-a-really-long-time conversation I had yesterday and the urging to do so despite all of my complaints

and since I'd hate to break up the banality of my droning on and on about boys...

There's this boy--

okay, stop. Wait--

this boy I really like--

no, really, don't--

who I've been seeing for--

for the love of God, stop, Kel, stop!

The truth is, I haven't written a blog because I don't trust myself. Not one little bit.

Another truth is that I've written plenty of posts in my head and even stayed up late typing an entire one last night, but in an uncharacteristic bout of what may have been good sense inspired by conversations I had with Griffin and Keifer and a good friend named Ro, I read and reread and reread again and didn't hit the publish button.

During these separate conversations with Griffin and Keifer and Ro, what each of these people said pretty much came down to this: You know that big ball of radiation we call the sun? I find every excuse underneath it to stop liking someone. As you're all aware, I go out with a lot of guys--an overwhelming, dizzying number, to tell yet another truth--and if we don't count C because he's obviously a different kind of case, since my ex-Glenn and I split up in July of 2014, I've had real interest in maybe five--not counting La Dispute Guy, who I haven't introduced you to yet (readers, meet La Dispute Guy. He's guy number six)--and of those five, it didn't take me long to lose interest in all but one (two if we count BTJ, but remember, I barely liked him at all until he disappeared, and in news you don't know, we started talking again along with a little something more, and I was the one who disappeared that time around, and if you want to count A, I guess we're up to three, but you guys know as bad as I felt when we stopped seeing each other, I couldn't stand how much of a whiny, complainy baby he was).

According to Griffin and Keifer and Ro, finding reasons not to like someone is just my MO. After a date or two, I decide somebody is either too short or too fat or too dumb or too conservative or too quiet or too loud or too into me or not into me enough or has stupid tattoos or ridiculous hair or doesn't kiss right or doesn't have the right smell or has unappealing teeth or a disgustingly big beard and mustache that collects droplets of coffee with cream that makes me want to throw up.

La Dispute Guy is no exception to this rule. In the beginning I started to come up with some complaint--I don't remember what it was, but I'm thinking that his living over a hundred miles away could have been it--when I was talking about him to Ro, and she was like, Just stop! You always do this. You always try to find something wrong. And I actually did. I stopped looking for things that were wrong, and now that I've gotten where I am, I'm not going to discuss it for the same reason I deleted last night's blog, and that's because like the super gay butler says to the super old vampire in need of virginal blood to maintain her illusion of youth in Once Bitten, one of the funniest and most underrated movies of all time, there's more than one way to skin a cat, and finding something wrong with every person I ever meet in my life isn't the only way to self-sabotage.

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.