I had a weekend. A real one. Like the kind you mightve used to have had when you were young. Except for the first part, where I had beers with 50 year olds to celebrate a former coworker starting his private practice. I never did that young. But all the rest of it, young stuff, in the sense that it was unplanned and involved very little thinking about things like getting divorced or pregnant. My favorite parts:
1.) Observing a handsome young gay man in a white smoking jacket offer a handsome young straight man a bluberry flavored cigarette while the latter man failed to blink and fat snowflakes fell all around.
2.) My platonic date’s very white shoes, my new heels, and the dress of our other platonic date.
3.) When I walked up to two strangers at another table and said, “I’m in an awkward social situation, may I sit with you for a moment?” Only to find out one of them used to be a roommate to the person with whom I was having an awkward social situation.
4.) Arriving at a queer dance party where they played lots of music I could dance to. (That’s hard in a town that listens to Rusted Root and Mumford and Sons. Not danceable. My hips are heavy. Need more bass.)
5.) This queer on a stripper pole positively sporting a pink lace fan.
6.) Then, the next place, it was a warehouse and it had immense metal puppets hanging from the ceiling. Of note: A 30 foot tall tyranosaurus rex operated by a system of pulleys. The lone gay man in my party operated the dinosaur while I danced with it and its huge jaws went “clank! clank!” echoing all around me.
7.) I played spin the bottle for the first time in 20 years, then kissed a boy for the first time in 13 years. I have to say, I was so totally nonplussed by the idea and fact of kissing a boy. It really made me empathize with people who dont want to kiss a whole other gender.
8.) Then, we took a friend home and she had a bear rug on her couch. Except it wasnt like, properly taxidermied, I dont think, and it’s face was distorted and I like things that are exotic and grotesque
9.) The next night, I went over to this girl’s house which was actually a double-wide trailer decked out in mid-century modern furniture and she made spring rolls and tom yum soup. I milked her mama goat and held the mama goat’s baby. The baby was a girl and looked like her daddy. She wagged her tail like a dog and darted her neck like a chicken and pranced like a gazelle.
10.) I spent time with children. The kind of time where you overhear them reading books to one another, or they crawl into bed with you in the morning. And I thought to myself that I will die if I can’t have two of them, if I can’t love them and watch them love eachother. And I thought to myself, “Don’t give up. Don’t, Don’t, Don’t.” [Baby-making post forthcoming].
11.) All of these activities were executed in the company of our friend, On Again Off Again; It now appears that she has a blog name — On Again Off Again. Leave it to me to make this big post about distance and then have a whole weekend with her. For the record, Mr Offy and I continue to not have sex. We didnt even make out. While I acknowledge that spending 48 hours with someone isnt exactly platonic, the thing by which I am so impressed, almost enchanted, is that perhaps we are really changing our relationship, maybe we are really breaking it off without all the slashing and burning I have become so accustomed to. Maybe we will find a connected place through which we can venture and voyage together without demands or expectations. I’m a sucker for experiments in unconditional love — for the maybe, maybe, maybe.
Throughout the weekend, I would find myself getting angry that our closeness was “fake”, that we were acting like lovers, but weren’t, really, and so the relationship is just an expression of our fear of being alone, but I would breathe myself through it. Or I would find myself angry that she can’t just do what I want her to do and be who I need her to be, but I would breathe myself through it. Or I would find myself angry that she wasnt coming on to me, but I would breathe myself through it. On a couple of occasions, I had to give myself a little talking to: “Sex doesnt make a relationship real, she is on her own path, jesus christ don’t be one of those girls who gets insulted when no actually means no.” And on a couple of occasions, she would check-in, or ask me what the sigh was for and I would tell her, mostly. The communication wasnt totally naked, wasnt totally honest — we were with people and goats and children all weekend — but it was honest enough to be a relief, to keep me from silence and sarcasm, to get me back to a logical, loving place so I could move on to the next fun thing. The talks were like operations whereby the doctor drills a hole in the heart to relieve swelling and pressure. Except she was the doctor, as anyone we love is.
A Post About Posts
June 7, 2012
Well, I am not dating my new friend anymore. Decorum requires that I refrain from explanation or elucidation that is of value to me, really. But, what I gained from the experience of realizing that I needed to end a relationship and then doing it is more of a sense of trust in myself. I have never done that before. Ended a relationship. When I knew I shouldnt be in it. You know that saying about how some people are their own worst enemy? Well, I wouldnt say that I have been my own worst enemy, but I can say that in the past I have not been able to trust myself with food, money or relationships. So, I’m trying to learn to trust myself by making decisions on my own behalf. I have a habit of just letting things happen. This post is rambling. Opaque rambling. Nobody likes opaque rambling. Or stilted.
I started a new part-time job. My part-time work environment features: vending machines that sell frozen dinners and accept debit cards, a policy about policies and a pneumatic tube system. Obviously, I am very happy there.
