Category Archives: Summer 13

by

Love and Gratitude

I am 39 today.  That seems like an important birthday.

I’m going to try to call her and see if my Dad will cook dinner for me.  He really wants me to see his old professor friend who is in town only tonight–this guy teaches at American.  I will make an effort to drive over there; although, I don’t have much gas and don’t know if I have any money in my account.  It would help me get my son fed too, and because my Dad is stable, and has been for four-years, my son has a wonderful relationship with him that I am glad to get to see.

My father called me twice yesterday when we were meeting with large team regarding a hold that was put on a child who was unsafe.  I had to work really late as a result, and my cold took over my body.  That meant that I had little energy, so I took my son out to eat quick Chinese and then we traipsed around a used book store that we like.  I’m still on the prowl for a Disney anthology from the early 60s that has an abstracted version of “Old Yeller” and “Toby Tyler” in it.  I couldn’t find it last night, and I still have no idea why my aunt won’t let me have the copy that I read all the time that my grandmother had.  Who knows?  Now, I still need to meet with my Boss (I was way too sick last night), as I was supposed to last night, but couldn’t because I felt really sick.  I need to get that scheduled in the next five days so I can keep up with my dissertation.

My artist is a good difference and contrast to any of these things.  My son embraced her so tightly in church on Sunday when he came back to us and left Sunday school.  I miss her.  I know that I saw her Sunday, but I really miss her and last Thursday was such a powerful date.

She has admitted to me that she has not made it 7-years with anyone.  I have not had anything approximating serious less those two different relationships that I had during the years of 2009 through 2012.  Those were short though.  Both were about two-years, but had break-ups in them, so they don’t feel sustained enough to actually call them longterm relationships.  I can’t imagine where I’ll be in 7-years.  I’m just setting weekly goals right now.

My goal today is to get ahold of her for a few minutes on the phone.  I’d like to ask a boring question regarding her custody arrangement with her little boys.  Mine is basic.  I have him always less every other weekend.  She knows that.  She also knows that I have love and gratitude for her.  I sent her a CD and wrote a love letter in it.  I didn’t say, “I love you,” because I want to say that someday in the future, in person and unplanned.  I did say many things that I love about who she is though.  I also wrote a paragraph about my gratitude for her opening this door for us, because I know that with a woman this beautiful, that I may have not been able to do so even with the knowledge that she is bi.  She was touched by the letter and CD.  I’m glad, because my workout partner cautioned against this effort and gesture.  I’m just doing what is in my heart right now, and following my passion.

by

Truly new

My ex finally removed me (and for the fourth time) off of FB.  She also took off my cousin and my close friends.  I may at some point take off the three women from the bday trip that we took last fall, but it’s nice to know that she won’t look at anything related to me.  She didn’t block me this time around, but maybe she can leave it alone.  I hope that she does understand that you can’t treat anyone like complete shit and say horrible things to her and expect that you’ll be friends.  I have no interest in a big shot who thinks that she is better than everyone and really seems to have an entourage of minions.

So, I’m starting something new and it’s going slowly.  We cuddled in church–my son was in Sunday school–and then my son sat between us when he came out during prayers.  They are teaching him The Lord’s Prayer.  He had a workbook when he came out that my artist looked through.  She is so great with boys and has a way of listening to children that is enviable.  She’s kind and gentle in addition to being so striking.  She almost made me turn red saying something a little dirty to me, and then I was struck that she would make reference to something kinky in church.  I am going to have to get my brain around a lot of things before I make love to her.  She’s genuinely intimidating.

I don’t know when I’ll see her.  I don’t even want to go out of town to climb mountains this weekend for my birthday, because it has really gotten cold.  If I don’t have an audience in my office today, I’ll call the B & B over the lunch hour and ask how much snow they got.  I’d rather see my artist a couple of times, and write and clean.

That’s what I think happened.  I think that I got on top of some of the highest points in North America starting in July, and then I put out my intentions into the mountain air.  I also think that since February of 2012, when I kept saying that I wanted a kind and gentle girlfriend, that began what I would seek.  Should I read through previous entries, I know that there are other things that I put “out into the universe” as they say.  Now, I am scared and should have a friend say to me, “Be careful what you wish for.”

by

Did I ever

It’s difficult to put into words; although, the words shall unfold as I write.  I went over with skewers of halibut buttressed between purple onions, zucchini, summer squash, and asparagus spears, and grilled caramelized apples with pineapple on the sweet skewers.  Then, of course, I made my salad.  She was simply thrilled with the food.  We talked easily and about everything, and then she looked over at me with her huge hazel eyes and said, “We have time, and when I’m with you, I want the time to slow and I just want you to know everything.  But, we really have all the time in the world.”  But, then the bomb in my soul dropped through when she said, “Two big things.  First, you know that I’m bi, right?”  I told her that until Saturday, I didn’t and that I would have been talking to her in an entirely different way had I known, and she threw back her head and laughed hard from her tummy.  I couldn’t have a table corner between us anymore.

She gave me the tour of her half of the converted school house that she lives in and I felt my body come alive on the deck.  So, we sat there in this ridiculous rain as she told me more of her story and we noticed the lines between the sides of the old school house, and she told me about the renovations.  I felt like being outside there with her was a gift, and we talked easily and openly about everything.  There was a simply huge sumac tree in front of our view separating the sides of the home–one side had industrial siding and the other was softer dark blue stucco, while much of our surroundings was natural.  We admired and looked at the end of her garden on one of the final days of summer, and took in the other trees in the background while we talked and I stroked her legs that she had laid across my lap.  We talked for an hour out there and then when she was completely vulnerable, I told her that I wanted so badly to just hold her, and not in a lawn chair.

We went into the largest room in the house and cuddled on the couch in front of the fire.  That is when awhile later she asked if I was going to kiss her.  My lips fit under hers and we have magical kissing.  After some heavy kissing wherein I kissed and bit her neck, and lay my mouth in the notch at the base of her throat, she laughed again and said, “We have sooooo much fun ahead of us.”  And we do.

I really did wait for her.  I know that we can start small and be mindful, but she is more than my girlfriend.  I waited and have found my one.

by

Bam

I just don’t have those slow, organic developments.  I don’t.  Girls and I just tend to know what we would like.  The big difference now is that after the girl from last summer and I had our thing for a second in July of 2012, and then all her lies started unraveling, I realized that I need to know someone’s friends and they have to know mine before we hook up.  That was my mistake with her, but I also think that I didn’t feel that mutual chemical bam also means something.

My artist told me via email that the only time that she saw herself looking the way she does once before, as she in the picture that was snapped by one of my hs friends at the wedding Saturday.  It was apparently when she knew that she was in love with a man who she later married and had two kids with after she could no longer hide her affection for him.  Wow.  I haven’t ever been that flattered.

Now I’ve got two days to pretend like I can easily sleep and feel stable driving dinner over to her house.  She writes like I do.  She loves music and reading.  I think that I kinda could feel that.  I have obviously looked at and been impressed with her paintings, but when my workout partner asked what I wanted, I said, “I want to snuggle under a huge, fuzzy blanket and watch movies.”  That is how I feel about her.  She is so beautiful, and definitely funny and cracks jokes, but I just want some time to share with her.

I get that chance on Thursday.  I don’t want to ask stupid things like, “What are you looking for?”  I’d rather reflect on our energy.  There is a lot of sexual energy there, but I also liked when we were laughing and joking on the back deck too.  I didn’t think that this year would end with no connection, but I had no idea that it would end with a chance to quickly fall in love.  I am ever-amazed with the beauty and the seeming lack of predictability in life.  I’ll write again on Friday morning.

by

You haven’t got it so figured out

I had a wonderful day Saturday completing the summit with the woman with whom I had an emotional affair.  She and I talked incredibly easy regardless of elevation gain, and she is the most suited climbing companion that I’ve ever had.  That’s sad.  We talked through the pointed flirtation at several intervals after the summit.  I held her twice when I dropped her off and told her that I wouldn’t mess with her and that she needs to get her shit together.  We are super compatible.  We talk, joke, laugh, are both inappropriate–especially in terms of our sense of humor, both love kids and working with them as our primary clients, we are both highly energetic, have good vocabularies and think that being outside and then following it up with a beers and a burger is one of the best things that there is.  We talked more about the lack of us on the way back down.  I told her that it didn’t matter how compatible we were, and if we made this–whatever-the-hell it is–into physical that it would not only be immoral, but it would wind up fucking both of us up big time and diminish the level of connection that we have and what could be.

Then, I came home and made a cool mountain album to put up on FB and got ready, because I was going to a wedding.  It was the coolest wedding that I had ever attended as well.  It’s not because the Governor officiated it, it was because it was short, sweet, simple, and outside the couple’s home with the block sectioned off so that street performers could perform and we could eat BBQ and drink microbrews.  There were probably 300 people there.  One of my best friends who is like a sister to me has a friend who is a talented artist.  I had been to one of her art shows last year.  I guess that she said to my friend, “Are you with ______ ?” and she said, “Don’t you think I would have told you if I started seeing a WOMAN?  No, we have been friends for years.”  She said, “Oh, well, I think she is really hot.”  That was so flattering.  She is magazine quality beautiful.  She pulled me out to dance, which I hate, but she eventually let me off the hook.

We didn’t flirt overtly or out-of-control, but we had an intensity.  One of my friends from high school who knows both the bride and groom as well asked me yesterday morning if this woman was in love with me.  I told her flatly and easily, “No, but I am not sure who I will wind up actually dating next.”  She texted more and eluded to the level of sexual chemistry that could be felt when we were sitting with each other.  So, what am I going to do?  I’m going to email her this morning.  She has four boys.  She is a talented artist.  She has had pain in her past.  She looks like the child of Jane Seymour and Audrey Hepburn, and it was highly flattering to have her express interest in me.  It made yesterday very interesting too!  At least I won’t skip any workouts anymore 😉

After my friend from the swings got out of church, she called me.  We had a wonderful and good conversation.  However, the breakup with her gf does not even approximate clean.  They did an open relationship before ending their relationship, and the woman with whom she had the polyamorous connection is now pursuing her exclusively, but indirectly has shared that she will likely sleep with her ex for always.  I haven’t been down that exact road, but I know that I am not cut out for open.  I like stability in relationship and not wondering why I don’t give someone enough.  I’m smart enough and have been in enough classes to understand that sexual experiences and intimacy vary for everyone, but when she said, “We will have to be different now,” I did tell her “I don’t think that is possible.  You started off with only a sexual foundation and found each other seeking an open experience.  Also, the intention that you put out in the universe was that you a wanted polyamorous connection.  That was your intention.  I don’t think that it can convert.”

The sad thing is that this girl wants to continue an intense relationship with her ex.  My friend is done with her ex.  For right now, I’m done thinking about my friend in any other way than that she needs good friends, who like my climbing partner from Saturday, does not need to be fucked with visa vi a potential love interest.  She has a load of stuff to figure out completely independent of me.  Her mother and mother’s bf loved me.  I’m pretty good with parents in general, and it was nice to meet her mother finally and be part of their home.  I am going to write a Thank You Note to send this am after I have woken up with my coffee.

I can’t believe the wrinkles that get thrown up.  I kept saying that I would prefer not to date another mother if I didn’t have to.  I get that you choose who you date.  But, honestly being on the receiving end of that much attention from a completely beautiful woman was encouraging.  I’m going to email her and I would like to bring her dinner one evening next week before I leave town for my bday.  She doesn’t drink at all, which would probably be a good break for me too.  I am very much looking forward to seeing what is there.

by

Hold the phone

I spent time on the swings last March with a beautiful woman.  The activity was sweet and innocent and lovely.  It was such a contrast to things that my ex and I would do.  You know walk her sweet dog while she screamed at her.  Anyway, that whole Sunday fucked me up.  I thought she was beautiful when I met her nine-months earlier, and then time with her was just so easy and she is so good with my son.  She wants kids.  She is four-years younger than me.  Perfect.  I also am very close with one of her best friends from hs, so my knowing her for 15-mos feels like longer.

She is coming over on Sunday.  She is coming over being newly single on Sunday.  I can’t wait to hug her and have dinner and conversation.  I want to get to know her better.  When she came to my church when I spoke, I was so excited.  I thanked her over and over.  I think that she is interested in going to church with me too.  I suppose given that she has spent time with my son, and the fact that I know that she will need some time to get through her relationship ending, it’s probably ok that she continues to spend some time with my son.  I have a natural barrier with that next weekend because we are in the mountains in a cabin with friends next weekend.  I’m just so excited.  It makes Saturday a walk in the park…  Or up a mountain.

by

Tests

I had decided that because the woman who I’d met was flirting with me openly on FB, I’d ask her for a drink.  Just a drink too, because I think that she is mostly a jock and I don’t know except for loving Ani, if we have a single thing in common, but I did it.  I was a little pissed that I didn’t hear from her for a day and some change.  Last night we talked about the quality of one of the mountains that she had done.  (I’d done it this past July.)  When I met her at the end of July, she was on again off again with her ex, which I have certainly done, and now she is dating someone new who she had just climbed a mountain with this weekend.  Wow.

I moved that fast once.  I didn’t want to be with my partner anymore after the Christmas of 2010.  She drank the entire time, refused to have sex with me, and had an episode of PTSD, which I had to piece together slowly over the course of the next three-months because she kept her military history from me.  Instead of flatly putting my foot down, I flew several more times to see her.  I almost didn’t go to my bday trip two years ago, but ultimately I did, and it was scary at times.  I figured that I owed her a f2f breakup convo.  You really don’t owe anybody anything.  I know that now.

Sure, I met my ex three-weeks later.  Of course, I was clouded.  She seemed so different than my ex-partner.  I jumped into an intense relationship.  The most intense that I had ever had, which included my kid, because I loved her kid.  Too much too soon is what they say, and that is what we never recovered from, and I know that now.

It had been about six-weeks since I slept with her the summer of 2012.  This other woman was old school pursuing me.  The whole thing.  Flowers.  “How are you” texts.  She laid across my legs one night and I got up.  I didn’t ever want to sleep with her.  I got loaded at karaoke one night and had hung out with her for 6-weeks solid, and when she knew all of the lyrics to every song including shit kickin’ ones, I decided that I would sleep with her.  So, I did that night.  In the morning, I told her that it was a one time thing.  I didn’t even have a dopamine hit that was required for feelings, namely because she didn’t kiss worth shit, and physically, she had one good feature.  She is tiny like a kid is, and doesn’t even weigh 100.  She is silly.  When she started dropping bombs that next week about what she really did for a living and analyzing how I live my life, so I bounced.  When I talked to her a few weeks ago via text, I found out that she is in school to finish.  That’s good, but it’s independent of me.

What this woman who I had an emotional affair with is doing with her life is also independent of me.  I hope that she hates dogs.  That will be the only companion who I have when I spend 10-hours with her on Saturday.  I wanted a buffer in the mountain woman.  I only asked her for a beer so I could look like someone who dates.  I don’t date anymore.  It will be 9-months for anything physical for me in twelve days.  Now, I will be tested with an unhappily married woman.

by

Women

It has been a long, long time.  I’ve gone slightly longer one time, and hope not to go again.  I’ve had these moments seeing calves, the backs of arms, the swell of the top of an ass in a skirt, or the nape of the neck wherein I am barely able to not run my finger tips across the skin.  Because it is not connected to a particular person, but is what happens visually when some women walk by, it’s a bit objectifying.  I really love everything about women’s bodies.

Our site coordinator on my Wednesday gig is a guy.  He is brilliant and hilarious.  I had a pretty good day, but can’t wait to be able to do things as a team, because both of the other women on it who are still there from last year are completely cool and talented.  We have an intern as well, but I don’t know her well yet.

Last night, the girl who I had a two-day completely emotional affair with emailed me.  I’m more inclined to develop a purely professional relationship with her and see if she can get hired where I work as she is a mental health provider too, and where she works doesn’t pay shit and requires waaaay more hours.  Last night she said that she sent me a non-professional and light email.  The only thing is that it had sexual content.  Not from her, but from what one of the really talented male musicians was pretending to do to her.  Gay males I know are shameless.  Not shocking.  Then I do note that I have  response, which I thinly veil as saying that I just need to date a reasonable girl or that I wish I could just stomach sleeping with Peter Pan.

I can’t.  I was never attracted to her.  She would, but most of me wants to just hold out for something good.  I am going to grab a couple of beverages tonight, because I have a driver.  My former intern and my workout partner are coming over tonight and wanted to make me dinner.  I want to get back to my house by 10:30, so I’m refusing to let them cook.  One time we ate at nine when they did.

I’m climbing with my intern from two years ago tomorrow morning.  Then I’m taking my cycling partner out for her birthday, which was actually at the beginning of the month.  I have to be at church for a long time on Sunday, and then I can clean, weed, and write.  I want to ensure that I have a dinner companion on Sunday, and if I don’t, I have been thinking lately about kicking around the bookstore near downtown by one of the high schools.  I know that I need to be more visible.  You hardly are when you’re on a trail ascending a peak.

by

Connection

To really connect is to be vulnerable and say it.  This concept does not mean that you tear somebody down, criticize, or make comments that are really designed either to 1) hurt, or 2) offer no way to have conversation.  I realize that I was caught up in a really good sales pitch for awhile, and it had nothing to do with actually knowing me.  Because I really wanted to work on it and push through, and because the intimacy was so hot, and well, intimate, I let myself be a doormat.  It was a wonderful experience, because it has brought me to where I am, and that is not dating again.

I could have slept with Scrubs.  I think that she likes flings.  I don’t, because they don’t personally work for me, and I’m seeking connection.  I could have been flirtatious with either one of one the girls who I met through the girl from the interior design store.  Having mentioned that, it’s also accurate that I could have picked up on her advances and could have said, “I’ll wait until you breakup with your partner.”  No thanks.  I suppose that many would have gotten a charge that she is 13.5-years younger than I am. That was some good non-dating information though, because it likely means that younger girls are into me.  If she was a totally different type of girl, meaning that she was mature, and stable, I would consider that after a long period of getting-to-know-you, because I probably don’t have any business carrying another kid, but I’d love one.

The girl from church, not Church Girl, but the one with the partner and kids has stopped flirting with me, I think.  She explained that she has cheated in every relationship that she has been in and won’t again, but that sounds like an interesting way to put it.  I told her that I had never cheated and that I would not start now.  One it isn’t something that wouldn’t haunt me, and two you’d break hearts.  I’m not that girl.

My sermon moved people.  I had people come up to me and cry in my arms.  I have a viral FB Wall and status where I wrote thanks.  I know that many will watch the YouTube recording too, and I decided to connect intimately with my church community when I spoke.  It was from the heart and was completely honest.  Although, it’s really easy for me to speak in public, and I do share personal experiences interacting with children and families, I have never told the story that I did from start to finish, and I know that no one ever heard it in that fashion because I have never even told my therapist.  It was good for me to personally connect with my audience, which included my own cousin who knew my brother well, and it helped me on my path of growth.

I don’t believe in doing anything without passion.  I now don’t believe in doing something in which you can’t really connect with another person.  That is why empty sex is not going to work for me anymore.  I don’t think that my process or opinion has any bearing on what other people should do, but I know where I am, and where I am going.

by

Contemplation

It’s good.  It took nearly seven-months, but I am really over my ex and don’t want to seek out anything at all.  My workout partner asked if she knows that my sermon is tomorrow.  I said, “I think so.”  I would be really shocked if she came.  It’s too vulnerable for her to do so, and I’m sure that she knows that many of my good friends will be there.  It’s also not on her terms or is it something that she can control.  She started our relationship with a power differential based on a phrase in an email that wasn’t there.  So, she would make mean or simply teasingly sarcastic comments about it and who it made me out to be, so when I finally fell out of love with her, that kind of stuff was all that remained.

We had a handful of fun and funny moments and that was it.  She doesn’t even make me laugh when we do talk now, and things that I have written about her or even to her involved an energy shift that made it so I could detail why we just didn’t work and don’t show up the same in this world.  I don’t want to control or criticize anyone, and I don’t care who does something better than me.  Talents and strengths are as individual as anything else that make up a human.

I have gone over my sermon about five-times.  Tomorrow morning, I need to sit with the guy who does all the visuals for the service so I can underline my cues in my script that I wrote.  I don’t want to have a missed cue for him.  I added a picture of my brother to the slides yesterday, so I already feel badly about changing that.  It’s one that should be there though, because he is standing alone on a porch and looks contemplative.

The only thing that I’d really like to ensure before Boot Camp today is to have what I’m going to say after the pop song is sung is completely memorized.  I don’t want to have my notes around for that.  I’d rather just take them up when I start my message.  It’s not much information and I added some stuff that is more mindful than it is religious to mine.  I will just get that committed to memory, so I can look at the congregation while I say it.  I think that I don’t really look too much at my notes anyway while I’m speaking, so it shouldn’t be a problem.

A friend of mine from church who is transgendered and I met at a park n ride in the foothills before sunrise on Wednesday morning.  It was obvious when we got close to the trailhead that we 1) travel well together, and 2) are probably going to be friends.  We couldn’t find the road to get to the trail.  I think that it turned out that we didn’t drive far enough west initially, but she knew the roads fairly well there, so we started bumping around forrest roads until we ran into a locked gate.  We got out and hiked the forrest road and shortly thereafter found a tree over the road.  That explained the gate.

After a few miles, we found the section of the trail system, which connects the mountain ranges in our state with over 500-miles of trails.  Someday it would be neat to backpack and camp sections of it with my son.  I’d like that.  It was good to be on trail, but it was steep.  Finally after some huge grade scaling, we saw a sign that said the mountain name on it with the height and pointed a directional arrow.  We embraced.  We wound up summiting three times total, because we hiked the south ridge line and some loose scree drove me nuts and caused me to cancel my rock climbing lesson.  I just think that I’m less of a climber, because I’m not an extreme person.  The summit was beautiful.  My friend is a professional photographer, so she posted incredible pictures.

That’s where I am.  I get there, but I don’t often follow the trail and there are times in which I simply can’t find it.  It doesn’t matter, because it’s those bumps that really involve the learning and confidence-building for me.

by

More danger

There is something so scary when a woman who you enjoy talking to, and have lots of things in common with, tells you all about her horrible relationship with her partner.  It gets more terrible when you realize that the conversation chemistry that you’ve always known that you’ve had is real chemistry too.  Dammit.

Why do you marry when you don’t have passion?  Why do you raise kids with a woman who is dissimilar to you?  I don’t understand.  I’m holding out for someone who is a companion, but sometimes, even a few years down the road, with enough laughter and novelty, I just want to, and make a plan to later after kids are sleep, to tear off her clothes.

She was also talking about how beautiful my son is.  I told her that I really appreciated her saying that.  She said, “Sometimes, I just keep staring at him.  He is gorgeous.”  I thanked her again, and then she said, “Well, ______ , he looks exactly like you.”  Had to look away on that one.

Seems like I am overly adept at eliminating contact with people.  When did I just start putting out the “I am your rebound girl,” vibe?  That’s not me.  I want a girl to want to be with me, not want to leave her girl or cheat.  That’s sucky.  After I walk my dog with my friend, I am going to go out.  I need to meet some girls to hike and bike with who are not in a relationship.

I just want to make some new connections.  Exciting companionship opportunities must be around the corner for me.  There is an energy shifting, and I’m open to seeing what it means.