Tag Archives: Changes

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Saturday

I took a class on the artificial wall again, and we used ice tools. Imagine a slanted hammer with a handle, and also some edges half up it and a movable leather loop. There isn’t a loyalty free simulated ice tool available so I drew it for you here and you must imagine trying to find ledge pieces on an artificial wall from which you attach the leather instead of using your hands. That meant that when I slung it onto a ledge piece on the wall and then stepped up and threw it to another piece I fell. Not gracefully. Boom. Hit my back, flail off and away. Simulated ice tools. Real fun.

I have drawn the simulated ice tool for you to view using the Paint App–you’re welcome

I had a ton of fun though. The instructor was the same main guy from the class that I took late summer and told the climber about. That means that since I’ve healed from my injuries, I have now had the same instructor for the same class and then this class with simulated ice tools from one of the instructors from the first outdoor class ever. When I retake his day and a half class this spring, I shall have come full circle. I should do well, and still want to try to climb weekly if possible. I like it and will likely get better. Just don’t know about simulated ice tools at this stage for me.

There were eventually three other students. I spent about an hour and half climbing and stayed there for 2.5 hours. The instructor is also a dancer and has mutual friends within the dance community with the climber. Small scene: dancing climbers. I told the instructor that she was my colleague and she is. I’ve just had three make-outs with this particular colleague.

I also redid my highlights and they’re legitimately red now and did two haircuts. Yes, two. Getting the undercut the way that I wanted it was a tall order. I’ll include a loyalty-free picture here for you of an undercut.

I have salt and pepper hair though

My new-to-me-salon-cosmetologist doesn’t have a barber’s license, so I had to go elsewhere to get my mountains. I have mountains in my undercut because I went to a Barber Shop and two guys worked on my mountains in the back of my hair in my undercut. The back of my hair is mostly dark brown while the front is pretty gray these days. I’ve actually been noticeably gray since 26, and my ex-wife “encouraged” me to go gray during COVID. The word is loose as it was more like, “I can’t believe that every three weeks you put plastic into the environment and rinse all that toxic shit down the drain. You have to dye it outside, because it’s giving me hives. Gray hair is sexy. You’re so rigid.” It’s highlighted now anyway and has been for two-months, and with the undercut, I think that I look badass.

I am fair to midland. I am super excited for dodgeball league that starts tomorrow night. Hopefully, it will be super social and improve my mood. Talking on the artificial wall today and to three different hair professionals was also fun.

On Thursday, I went to the bar and sat down at the bar. A girl asked to sit with me. She was cool and kind so I bought her GIGANTIC shot of Patron. I thought that she was Gen Z and she thought that was hilarious. I think that there are child millennials and just on the edge of Gen X millennials. She was on the child side. She wanted to buy me a drink and I declined. Anyone who reminds me of my son cannot buy me a drink. I owned “Hit me with Your Best Shot,” and then took myself out to sushi. It was fun.

I brought home takeout after my haircut and another errand. I am playing fortune cookie love life. Here is my closing:

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Snowed in

I hope that my group therapy isn’t cancelled tonight. It may be. All government and city entities are closed today. When I got up this morning, I thought it was overblown, but now it’s steadily snowing again. It’s actually beautiful. I’ll shovel some of it shortly.

I want to get a few groceries and pick up my son’s meds. I’m getting his SSRI stockpiled so he can I can taper it when he’s more stable. I’ll go get his stimulant out of the nurse’s office at school so he can take one when he takes the GED practice test and one more when he takes the real thing. Then he’ll have to get another job. I am still upset that he blew one of them, as he could have had two nights and a weekend day going for his coaching, but at least his boss let him keep one gig. The season changes in April, so maybe he can coach three teams, and do some other piece work.

I have still been playing and singing, and doing some with him. He is really good at strumming. I’ve not practiced classical which I took in high school, so hitting alternating notes is pretty difficult for me and I want to sing and chord, but strumming patterns are difficult. He drummed while I played and sang last night and I want to make sure that when he’s not doing a closing shift that we keep doing that when it’s night. So fun for us and he’s a really good drummer. He had toyed with getting a 5-year music degree for awhile and did a university visit. I don’t know what he’ll wind up doing and it could take him some time. I don’t want to chime in anymore. I’m actually relieved that he is dropping out because when your kid doesn’t go to class, it’s incredibly burdensome. Seems pointless.

The climber texted me a couple times yesterday. It will be nice to see her on Friday. I still won’t ask her out though. That’s her ball and not mine.

I’ll text the photographer Happy Birthday tomorrow. I’d be shocked if in the next two months that she texted me to plan a bike ride. I won’t ever touch her again though.

I kiss my best friend every time I see her. I kiss her goodbye too. Most of my other friends are not ones that I hug because they give out that don’t hug me vibe. One thing that I actually loathe is the shitty hug. Do you know what a shitty hug is? You get kinda close and turn your head and then put your arms around the shoulders of the person that you’re “hugging” and pat. I think that I’d rather scrape a plate over and over with a metal fork. Why even try?

This explanation brings me to my friend and my new rules for the Prowl. We’re not sitting with each other anymore, but will rather reconvene. We’ll work the room and talk to women and then touch bases at the bar and not on the couch. I’m going to scan too and talk to women and then settle. For our first two Prowls we sat with each other. We need to rove and talk about it. I sat alone Sunday night at a different bar, and then got hit on by men. Not sure why because I had on a beanie with a rainbow flower stitched on it. When that article of clothing also got complimented by a man who just kept staring at me from his table full of friends, I just took it off completely. Men are certainly emboldened when they are having some drinks.

I’m going to lift weights at home today. I’m going to do bench, some strategic bicep work, and forearms.

I really need to recycle mail too. Ugh. I’m missing a therapy manual too, and don’t have any clue where it is. I paid to have it printed because it’s somewhat scripted and it was better to have it in a binder to use. It cost me a ton to print, and I need to find it. I think that I may have brought it to the class that I taught in February, so I wouldn’t have left it at the University, as I’m good about getting everything into cloth book bags when I tear down the room. It’s definitely not in the building that is my main site because I worked on the file cabinet there yesterday waiting for a contentious meeting. I had my colleagues go through stuff in my other building because we’re all doubled-up now and they didn’t find it, but I want to take a peek too. Can I just tell you how glad that I’ll be when I have my own office again?

I’m starving. I try to wait to eat 12-hours after I ate. My son and I watched two episodes of “Supernatural” after we jammed, and I was eating swiss cheese. Hahahaha. So funny. I’d made a homemade pot pie for dinner, but he and I had some wine that our neighbors made so I was hungry. I have to hold out about half an hour more before I make some pumpkin pancakes so it’s 12-hours apart.

The last thread in my mind is that I’m mad again. I actually almost called my ex-wife this weekend and then mentally talked myself off that ledge. It’s weird to spend 9-years with someone (and married for 8), and then they’re poof. It wouldn’t do any good though. I remember one time that she moved out and sent me the video link to “Mirror” by Justin Timberlake and said that I was the love of her life and we have to try. So, we tried, and tried, and tried, and tried. Chapter is closed, but I wanted to talk to her this weekend. She’s moved out permanently this time and lives two states away. It would be great if she was more stable now that she lives with her Mom. That’s the energy I’ll send.

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Landed

On Friday night I taught and was done at 7, and I was really hungry. My son had been at the music studio and he had met his ex-girlfriend there. I really like her. I don’t like them together. She has poor health in all facets, so I think that he was drawn to her because of my ex-wife honestly who was also in poor health all around. Anyway, we went to dinner. The kids told me that they want to get back together and I said, “That’s not a good idea. You should be good friends, and _______, if you want to break up with ____ you should talk to her. It’s likely impulse and it’s comfortable seeing ___ again.” They listened and considered all of it. Her mother met us there and we hugged and chatted. She invited my son and I to family karaoke.

I did my walk Saturday. My colleague who tried to kill herself called me and we we talked awhile. I played guitar, I sent the required paperwork to the Bank Manager for the house, and cooked a bit. I took my car to get detailed because I want it very clean when women who are new to me go places with me, and then although it’s still pretty icy, I biked 7-miles to go shopping. I got some dog food, new jeans and finally found a red t-shirt. Why is it difficult to get a red t-shirt?

When I got home, I had really rough conversation with my son and found out that he had only been to a few classes in the last two weeks. His Calculus teacher reached out to me via text. He said that if I gave him $2 a day, he’d go to all his classes, and that sounded like a cheap way for me to preserve some sanity for what I call my jail sentence. I have just over a-year-and-half left with him here. He has to move out when he turns 18.5. He has a move out day. Then my son left to his current girlfriend’s house for her father’s birthday party. I fed my pets and did a little cleaning and took them on a nice walk. While playing guitar, I got a text from my son that he was coming home.

He’s dropping out. I think that he’ll pass the GED in his sleep. He’s so good at math and a good writer, and will just need to work off the study guide for Science and Social Studies, but for the latter he passed an Advanced Placement exam two school years ago doing nothing. It’s not that he isn’t bright. He can’t navigate social dynamics and now can’t go to class at all. It’s definitely upsetting. Not what you want for your child either. He has to get another job and doesn’t drive, so he’ll have to bike or walk to work. His ex-girlfriend messaged his current girlfriend during the birthday party and a mess ensued. Doors slammed, awkward whispering, and he came home. Suffice to say, I had shitty sleep Saturday night and Sunday was difficult.

I talked with my colleague who tried to kill herself–she’s a single mother too. I got a text from the wife of my ex who is dying, and she had to get two units of blood on Saturday night and they can’t find the bleed. I’m buying tickets for the end of March to NC, and am hoping to see her with my son. That may not be the timing and I’m distraught about it. And I drove to the Rec Center and added 15-20 lbs more than I’d been using on the machines. I was still in a hideous mood and tried two friends, and it went to VM. I walked a bit over a mile and drank my recovery drink. When I got back to the car his girlfriend texted me that my son had a “family iPhone.” I was shocked. I called my colleague who tried to kill herself. As I was driving back to my house, I kept her call in the pocket of my jacket. I went to his room and said, “_______, ____ texted me and I need the iPhone that she gave you.”

At the time, I never thought in a million years that parents would undermine MY parenting and not talk to me regarding a smart device as they knew that the flip phone was a consequence. I kept my colleague on the phone. I went to their house, put the phone on the porch and took a picture which I sent to the girlfriend’s Dad and Stepmother. He texted, “Thank u.” Are you kidding me? My son’s on a flip phone and subscription separate GPS! On what planet do you give a child a phone who’s had a phone for 7-years and doesn’t get to have technology in his room? Why is that your decision? I woke up my son, said it all made a lot of sense why it’s been easy for me to collect his district-provided laptop and flip phone at night, because he’s never had to stop using text and social media messaging. And what’s worse is that other parents made that decision for me.

Although my mood was only slightly less hideous, it was then horrific. I was vile. My son asked if he should move out and I told him no, but whenever his Dad can have him overnight that he should. I just need space. Not that a 17-year-old understands interfering in other people’s parenting, and her parents apparently handed over the phone to him “so it would be easier for him to text their daughter.” I told him that they have bizarre boundaries, and it’s not his girlfriend’s fault, but I have no trust in them and he’s not permitted to date her ever again while living with me. I got a text from his ex-gf’s mom saying that she would include me in the next family karaoke, but her daughter hasn’t been feeling well all day and she’s not going out with her friends. I thanked her. I hope that I do hear from her again, as she’s cool and that sounds so fun. Just before 7, my son’s Dad picked him up. I was in a hideous mood still. So, I went to a new karaoke bar and put my name in and sang. People at this venue were really good, so my first song was mid. My second song was wonderful. Too bad what was derivative of that was two guys hitting on me and one trying to buy me drinks. I was polite and declined, but then didn’t wait for my next rotation. I just went home. I slept like a rock last night. I feel so good today. I’ve landed.

I’ll text the climber happy birthday. She apparently wasn’t at work on Friday, so I’ll text her that I hope that meant that she wasn’t sick, but was rather extending her plans to add a day. I don’t think that she’ll text back. She’s been bad about that as of late. However, I do me and I’m conscientious and wish people Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday. I don’t chase, and won’t ask her out again. We shall see. She’s sexy and incredibly fun. She lives with five people though and they dance all the time and also do elite outdoor adventuring. Admirable for sure, but not something that someone can just simply join into and I wouldn’t want to do so. I’m up for a sing-a-long if that ever happens.

I’m NOT texting or calling the Photographer. After we get back from NC I’ll send her an email calendar notice for late afternoon some early April day so that we can walk through the house. That’s it.

I’ve had this situation happen before wherein things fizzle and then I have new experiences. The main difference now is that I’m not looking for an exclusive thing. Case in point is these two situations. One could be my crazy adventurer, and the other could be my coffee and hiking / biking companion. I would love to add a third too. Like a woman to traipse around a museum and go to live venues for music. I have what I want dialed in and won’t compromise anything.

  1. Honesty
  2. Independence
  3. Boundary
  4. Kindness
  5. Love big and with no limit

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Goals

How many people are writing about these today? Or tomorrow? Anyway. It’s really important for me to think about.

I went indoor climbing and finally got up a route because I watched my old work husband’s wife do it and studied her body for handholds and steps up, and then had lots of encouragement from them both. I was so proud. When we were at sushi afterward, I got a text from from the photographer ensuring me that she only wanted to be friends. I wrote back, “Want to play pickleball? We can definitely be friends.” Then weirdness ensued.

My old work colleague who had kids a year after I had my son actually reached out to me Monday and said that she wanted to hang out on Wednesday, so although I’d not heard from the photographer, I said that she and I would play pickleball with her in the morning. It usually is only about an hour. I thought that the photographer and I would hike afterward.

My old work colleague cancelled in the morning on Wednesday via text at 6:30 a.m. She had named noon as a start time. I was so irritated. Why call me and say that you want to hang out on Wednesday? She has an extra racket, so I needed her. I only have mine. The photographer has never played before and wants to learn. My old work colleague was also bringing another woman so that we could all play. Have no idea why she didn’t bother to look at her work schedule. The photographer said that it was cool and she was thinking a bike ride, but it’s going to rain. I sent her a picture that I’d sent the climber in November of my bike on a No Parking Sign at my main building that I work in with ice everywhere in the background. I ride almost no matter what. Almost. I just slowly said that I was sorry, and I hope that our paths cross sometime soon. I have to sell a house in the fall, so she’s the one that I want to do that. Also, I always do what I say I’ll do and if she contacts me, I’ll take her safely up a high peak.

I see my best friend tonight, so I want to when I hug her just say, “Hey, ___ wants to be friends and I’m totally fine with that.” I don’t want to talk about it much because they’re pretty decent friends. I’ve realized that when I meet people through my best friend that there is no way to keep much clean and she’s kinda in our relationship. Not really a big deal, because she doesn’t have too many single friends, so I don’t see it happening again.

One of my goals is to just stay calm and cool about everything with respect to woman who you want to date. You can’t control other people, and honestly you wouldn’t want to do so if you’re being honest with yourself.

I have to grade today and tomorrow. I haven’t graded.

Instead, I worked because I need the money because one of my checks was $400 less than it usually is and that job doesn’t start again in February like it usually does. Yikes. So I did two cases and got quite a bit of money, but had to pay my best friend $300 for rent and other things that I need for cases. I changed my disclosure statement to reflect administrative fees going forward that I’ll collect directly from clients for $150 per case. Doesn’t solve my problem of really needing money now though. The issue is that I’m still paying my ex wife every month until August, and then in the late summer or fall when I sell a house, the buyers can pay her directly through the title company the remainder that she and I decided upon. That is a burden externally and internally for me. I need to do my very best to keep spending down and also beg if I need to for a monthly case. Those will mean that I only have to come up with $70 extra to pay my ex wife.

Money won’t always be like this. In fact, I talked to my best friend from my first round of grad school last week, and I’ll go see her in Germany in November if I can get a passport quickly right after the house sells. Mine expired in 2014. I’ve only been to BC and Mexico. I will have quite a lot of money in the fall, and I do want to go to Europe. I want to see Rhineland, which is where my mother’s folks originated, and I want to see Bavaria and the Alps. Otherwise, I am open to whatever and so lucky to finally have actual money so I can travel abroad. It’s coming, but I have to be very careful right now.

A second goal is to think about all spending until the house that I can sell is sold.

I had wonderful prowl last night with my old friend. She fixed her makeup expertly and looked really pretty. I am very fit right now. I don’t think that my waistline has looked like this since probably 2013. My old friend kept saying that she needed to pull her shirt out because she didn’t want her belly to show. I think that some of it has to do that I don’t have any body fat in my waistline and really that has been a long time since I’ve been without love handles and the like. I think that the oblique work that I’ve been doing has been helpful. She is more than welcome to do circuits or anything with me!

That brings me to my next couple of goals. I really want to get bigger again. I used to have huge biceps. I had a weight day that you can do with 20-lb dumbells and then at least 30-lbs on a barbell–you can use more weight. I got freaked out because my orthopedic surgeon said that it might be best for me not to do anything over my head anymore. She didn’t say no. So, I want to do that routine once weekly and I can do that at home. It doesn’t require anything that I don’t have.

A third goal is to add back my A Weights day to my routines.

I took my old friend out to dinner last night and we drank sake with our food. I can’t believe how much I ate. I had done 6 machines for triceps, biceps and rhomboids, and did drink 32-ounces of whey protein and ate a sandwich, but I was still starving. Then at the bar for our prowl, I had two beers over the course of four-hours and drank three glasses of water. I feel tip top today.

My fourth goal is to monitor well drinking and never over indulge.

I bought myself a Christmas present. It’s beautiful. It’s a guitar with a built-in tuner that is 3/4 size. I want to get better. I’ve been playing and singing “A Little Bit of Love” and just started learning “One Sweet Love.” I have played, historically, classical guitar, so I do look stupid with a steel string acoustic up in the air on my left side, but I can’t play otherwise. I have been singing my ass off at home. I also sometimes play “Every Rose has it’s Thorn,” but the range is a bit on the low end. Anyway, because of this activity, last night when I could hear myself, I thought it sounded good. I sang “We Belong.” (It’s really hard to hear yourself in a bar on karaoke speakers.) Three people came up directly and said that I was amazing. A little, young blond woman talked to my friend and she motioned to me sitting on the couch and the girl beamed. Also, there was a hazel eyed dark haired woman who smiled at me several times afterward and also would come into the room where the stage was. At the end of the night, I went to the bar and tapped her shoulder. She didn’t talk to me. I said, “I just wanted to say ‘Happy New Year’ to you,” and she smiled so big. She thanked me. Then she hugged me and we hugged tight. It felt so good. It felt similar to hugging the climber.

My fifth goal is to be bold and approach women for a nice exchange and maybe a hug.

My sixth goal is to keep singing.

My seventh goal is to practice a bit of classical again, and get really good on my beautiful guitar with chords and singing simultaneously.

I was disappointed to not have a cycling and hiking partner anymore. I don’t think that the photographer really bikes all that much. I think she’s more into yoga. Also, she said that she wanted to do a less intense hike, so the 5-8 miles much have been a bit much for her baseline.

So, I’d like to meet a younger woman who is very driven to hike and bike. I only say younger because women in their mid and late forties don’t have the energy that I do with the exception of my best friend from work who wished me good luck when I’d not connected with the climber in a couple of weeks. She is badass. I am pretty sure that she turns 50 in May. However, she lives in TX. And she just bikes around on a cruiser.

My eighth goal is to find a pretty woman to hike and bike with during the week and for a couple of hours when it works on the weekend.

I’m bold, and direct. I have no need to dwell on what a woman is doing when she’s not around or making plans with me. I’ve always been able to support myself and my son. I have no desire to support a woman. I’m on a path to financial solvency. I’m fit and getting fitter. I care passionately about my health. I have a distinctive speaking voice and through a hobby am getting my singing voice to meet my deep and easy to listen to speaking voice. I love women. I love hugs with chemistry. I took guitar as an elective in high school and now have a beautiful instrument. I want to get really good. I love my bike. I love to hike.

  1. Calm and cool
  2. Spend less
  3. Do you
  4. Lift like a girl
  5. Healthy alcohol consumption
  6. Get big
  7. Love / Connect / Lead with Heart
  8. Sing
  9. Play guitar

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Drinking with the climber: Points of reflection

She had to go to a legal conflict resolution session with her ex yesterday because the person leading it couldn’t meet on Monday. When I got to my event, one of the other professors and her female partner left. It was really awkward. I made a joke about it, and they said it was their one-year anniversary, but it was odd. I told them that I would see them in March because they’re organizing cross country skiing. That’s something that I want to learn how to do, and all the classes that I tried to sign up for at the beginning of the month are now full, so I’m really glad that one of the professors with whom I work has organized a trip. The other professors and I hung out for about an hour and she finally texted that she was on her way! By that time, only the woman who is a mentor to me and did my post-doc for me was there, but I’ve known her years and she was a little lit, so she was being super fun when the climber got there.

She looked so tired. I put my arms around her and hugged her tight, but her energy was really low. She came back to be with us and I said, “I’m getting a beer!” I had drunk water for an-hour-and-a-half because of my baggage / experience. My ex who is dying would be loaded all the time.

I flew to Mexico in 2010 for Thanksgiving and she missed me at the airport and all the resorts there have the same name, so with my Spanish that is high school Spanish, I hailed a cab and drove around. Finally the cab driver said, “Do you think that this one is it?” I sat in the lobby. She hadn’t even bothered to give me her mother’s last name. I used the courtesy computer and emailed her and sat in the lobby for an hour (Does anyone reading this entry remember international roaming and being unable to text?). At that point, a woman who I believed to be her sister, and her nephew, and his girlfriend got off the elevator in swimsuits and towels. I ran toward them and introduced myself. If I remember correctly, they said that my ex was at the pool or in a cabana or something, or maybe she’d gone to the room? My ex did apologize, but she was really tipsy. When I flew into Key West for our last trip ever in September of 2011, I finally found her in a pool at a hotel wherein she’d texted me the name because at least that trip was in country. She was topless swimming in a pool and got out eventually when she saw me.

Don’t drink when your date isn’t there yet. Don’t even order a beer or glass of wine. Read the room, and energy. When she got there she had a Moscow Mule, I believe, and later had an Old Fashioned. I can’t drink hard alcohol, so I had two IPAs. I was definitely tipsy. She can hold alcohol way better than I can. I’ve now made a decision. No more solitary drinking. I have had a beer most nights for many, many years. But, I am done. I’ll have two beers with a friend or on a date when my date is drinking. I also will have beers when I cook for friends. It’s time for me to shift some habits and not mute things that are annoying through drinking when I’m home alone with my son. It’s dissociative. So is watching a movie on my phone. No more alone tactics like these.

My mentor puts everyone at ease and is extroverted, reads well dynamics, and the climber started getting acclimated and livened up a ton. The climber is so charming, funny and easy to talk to. She bantered with my mentor and they discussed grading in a post-COVID environment, living and teaching abroad, and also my mentor told stories from her youth and the climber engaged, was laughing and asking her questions, and was so easy and fun. What a contrast from my ex-wife who was so awkward all the time around my colleagues. She wouldn’t even let me have colleagues over for dinner and when my mentor came over after I turned 40 and had dinner with me, she buzzed around the kitchen. My mentor remarked again on how beautiful my ex-wife was. Although true, I don’t miss having to limit any social interactions and worry that when we were around people–particularly those who are educated–she would sometimes fight with me after they left. She’s not like that with her family, or two of her friends from high school, but isn’t comfortable around many people. I can’t believe that I convinced myself it was normal.

My mentor left around 8:30 or so, and the climber said, “Can I join you?” and snuggled up with me in the booth. I said, “I would love to take you out to dinner.” She said, it was probably around nine, “The hour for fine dining has passed.” I cracked up. I asked her about the conflict resolution and she said that there was some limited headway. I was so glad. We talked about how our vacations were going to shake out. She kissed me and I told her it was my lifetime quota for kissing in public. I said, “Quota is the wrong word. It’s that I’ve kissed you in public more than anyone who I have been with combined.” I said a few phrases in Spanish, and she got all fired up. Spanish just has some precision in phrasing that doesn’t translate well in English, so I use them. Check. Going forward will speak in Spanish for at least part of the night every time we’re connecting.

She ate some sweet potato fries, and I was no longer hungry at all. We talked and talked. She explained her impressions of people and not seeing gender in anyone. She talked about three days with her sister and Mom and Dad for Christmas. She talked about her camping plans. This time, she didn’t ask me about dates that I have (I have only one.) and generally seemed more confident about my not wanting exclusive. I did tell her that when I make plans, I would like to pay. I also told her that I want to go caving with her and do some hiking or climbing in the south. I think that we can do that this summer or spring. She is always game for an adventure.

We kissed, and I put my hands all over her arms and also was touching her left thigh. I always wind up touching the tops of her hands. They’re fascinating. I finally got to palm mine with hers. It’s remarkable because mine are so small for my height and hers are huge for hers. We talked about being the shortest and darkest in our families. She touched my right leg once and said, “You have on corduroys too!” We both like the sensory experience of wearing them and petting them. We talked about doing that when we are sitting or in meetings and love the feel of them. I used the word “basic.” She said that illustrates the only age difference. I guess I get it, but I am WYSIWYG. My son calls girls in white Adidas who have a certain look “basic,” so that must have been what the climber was referencing.

She got tired, hit a wall, and I put on my gear and she walked me out. When I put on my reflection straps and helmet, I felt like a dork. I apologized, and she said, “I’m waiting until you get that put away (my lock) and then I’m getting another kiss.” I remembered her her side comb, and said, “I have something for you.” She said that it was from her wedding. Besides her shoes, it was the only thing that she’d removed after the ballet when I was ultimately in a bra and underwear in my bed. I think that she was younger than me when she married the man who she’d ultimately been with for 17-years of her life. I got married to a man at 23, and was a child. I only have our album, and don’t have the garter or anything from my hair or the jewelry. I’m going to thrift my wedding dress from my second wedding over vacation. The climber talked about liking having something fancy from her wedding and I agreed. She looked so beautiful with her hair fixed last week for the ballet. I like her in a beanie, corduroys, and a down jacket too. I just like her.

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Chill

My best friend from work who I worked for 2001 through 2005 told me “Good luck today” via text and I texted back “Calm and Cool.” We rolled in roughly the same time and I beelined to my office and sat there for fifteen minutes going through 82 emails when the intercom with our Boss’ voice said “Meeting at 8:10.” I strolled in at 8:09 and they were already meeting. After a pause a colleague said, “Did you cut your hair? It looks great.” She swiveled around in her chair at the Conference Table and I looked straight ahead at our boss after saying thank you to the colleague. I could feel her looking at me. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t notice her clean, long, blond hair and the way she had it tied back with the purple highlights showing when I strolled in at 8:09. When the meeting ended, I was the first one out the door. 10-minutes later she came into the office with my office mate and they were catching up. I had materials that were delivered to this building that I had to put in my car, so I ducked out. My other workmate who has the adjacent office was kinda leering into the office so I said, “Be right back” to him, and put the materials in my car and came back to the office and she was gone as was my office mate.

Around 8:45 she was going into her office wherein I was doing my morning routine of trips to rid myself of coffee that I really need to work and met her gaze in the hallway. I said, “Hi,” and she gave me the best, large smile and said, “Hello.” She had faded makeup on her eyes and looked super hot. I’m sure that I smiled large back at her.

At 9:30, she came into the large room at the front of my office that I share and was talking to our colleague and then she came in. She sat down and when I turned, our legs were really close together like they were on Halloween. We talked and her vacation wasn’t great. Mine really was. I said, “You should have pinged me!” She said, “You could have… All my housemates were sick all at different times, and I didn’t want to expose anyone.” The beginning of her sentence didn’t elude me. Yay. I asked her if we could go to one of those smashing places or throwing axes and she said that she was down. My officemate came in shortly after that. She took her leave.

I eat lunch with a colleague most Mondays, and did so today, and when I got back to my desk I had two texts. They were from her! “Lunch?” Several minutes later, “Want to get pizza?’ DAMMIT. I usually try to be a little screen free here and there. I texted an apology and later that I was sorry to miss an opportunity to connect. After work was over, I walked down the hall and she was in her office. She asked if I wanted to go to the ballet and that made me so happy because I had asked her on the 11th if she’d go to play, ballet, or symphony with me sometime as I had a nice cocktail dress. Her commuting partner came in shortly afterward, so I texted her tonight. Stay tuned, ya’ll.

It’s good to 1) not be weird, 2) avoid reading into anybody’s behavior, and 3) to be chill after you’ve had little contact.

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Reflections

I like my cousin’s fiancé. Sure he makes fun of people, has lots of tools, and guns, but he loves her, and they’re actually good together. Before I was with the CEO, she had been dating him around a year, I think. She is what you might call a serial monogamist, which I guess is ok to say because “Ally McBeal” was a bunch of straight girls in NY, right? After 10 or 11 years, why not get married, right?

I’m not. I just read about when my best friend from work was here and we were climbing mountains and partying hard. She was dancing with this one girl at our club, and the girl’s best friend started dancing with me and then she kissed me. Well, if you kiss me, for some reason, I want to get more aggressive. I had pushed her up against a cattle tank full of beers eventually. We went on a legitimate date a few weeks later. After sushi and a long walk, I went to where she was parked and leaned in and she said, “We’ll have plenty of other chances.” I never kissed her again. Hmm…

I think I’m back in that cattle tank stage. My problem has been that I don’t say no to exclusive. Nancy Reagan would have a stern talkin’ to me. I can come out here as someone who says, “No.”

People, especially those who I have known who are genetically women, are super complex. I want to get to know lots of people on individual dates. It sucks a little to be introverted, because I really struggle with anxiety in groups. I get quiet, and then recently one of my Bosses called me “exclusive.” Or I crack lots of jokes due to tension. I am very funny, so that is probably ok, but if it’s noisy I can’t do that, and then I’m too direct due to discomfort.

Therefore, lots of different women in 1-1 settings.

No swiping. Do Gen X-ers like to swipe? Also, because I only select women-seeking-women, I’ll see women who I know. Small pond. Also, I find it distasteful for some reason to swipe a person away based on something static like a picture. Case in point is that my ex-wife is a real redhead and has blond eyebrows so some pictures are not great due to lighting. She is one of the most striking women in person that people have ever seen. I can’t count the number of people who have said, “She is so beautiful.” Really. Truly. Additionally, it’s fake like social media is. I have maybe taken three pictures of my son being an asshole or raging, but I haven’t posted them! I’ve sent them to a few people. Are folks with profiles on dating sites going to post themselves half a bottle of vodka into Thanksgiving? Not likely. Not probable. Finally, my experiences on Chemistry and OK, Cupid yielded the cowgirl (two weekends–lesbian one night stand) and the flute player (gamey / hot and cold). When I say that to friends, they say, “Sure that was before 2010! It’s changed so much.” I’m not arguing, but I have three reasons for my hard pass.

I’m going bowling this afternoon. I am going to beat one of my Bosses. He beat me at pool about two-weeks ago, so I need to beat him. If I can’t we’re going to the bar very soon and I will beat him at 301. His ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend are bowling with us. I have to put my road bike in the back of my SUV now, and go over to the place that rebuilt my engine brackets. My oil light is coming on and it’s also idling like shit sometimes in the cold because the box over the catalytic converter is shaking to hell. The alley is close, so I can combo walk / bike there.

I met my goal. This week mostly off from work was neither sad or trying. I expressed emotion, connected so much with my cousin and her kids, and went out to dinner for diner food with my son last night. Now, bring on the cattle tanks.

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Timeline

This entry represents how much I’ve shifted with desire in relationships. After much reading and much discussion in groups, I realize that I don’t ever want to break up with anyone again. I want to do my very best to communicate directly and negotiate adding and reducing relationship factors. An example is adding emotional intimacy and subtracting financial arrangements. I know that I won’t marry or cohabit ever again.

2012

I want to focus on what I want and what I’m looking for, but will start with a preface that it doesn’t mean that it’s not in my current relationship.  We are just new…  Eight-days shy of 7-months and both equally independent and busy.  I’d rather reflect on I want and as everyone seems to say these days, “Put it out into the universe,” which I think comes from that somewhat Eastern movement on the law of attraction and what one is interested in for focus. So, at least for today, I will blog about what I value.

  • That’s stupid.  Be what you want.  You’ll attract people who you want to spend time with, and don’t count dates.  There could be shitty dates and exciting dates.  I’m glad that I’ve not seen or heard from the CEO in YEARS.  Who cares that I spent 7-months exclusively dating her?  Shame on me for trying to force a long-term relationship with someone so mean.

I love being outside and feeling the sun on my skin.  I love the way that water sounds when it is unsettled either from the tide or when it is disturbed by a motor and laps against an embankment.  I also like the noise water makes when it is rushing when the table in a river is up. Being on top of a mountain and feeling the wind cover your body while you look literally at the world makes you feel small and like you don’t really have a single problem.  When you come down and laugh full of natural endocannabinoids from your summit and have a burger and a beer, you have never felt so happy. Snowshoeing up to a glacier lake and working your legs give me a whole feeling too, and again, I love afterward to share a meal with someone who I love and can laugh with about anything.

  • Yep, those things are still very, very good.  I have gaiters now too and know how to self-arrest with an ice axe, so I should bundle up and go soon.  Not solo though.  That’s stupid.  Love is expansive.  I love lots of people.

I love to cook when I come home, and if my day has been awful, I also open a beer and drink while I prepare a meal.  I love to throw dinner parties and hear my friends laughing in my kitchen and enjoy pieces of their conversations. Music is my soundtrack and I break out into song with good friends or make references to song lyrics all the time.  I want to get back into practicing guitar and can’t wait until my son picks up an instrument!  He is dancing now, and although I can’t, I love to watch him dance because his energy takes on a life of its own and he is expressing himself.  In a woman, I find dancing sensual and appealing because you can see things in her that you didn’t see before, and I love novelty.

  • Still love to cook.  Don’t have the need for a large dinner party, but my birthday party when I turned 48 was fun with my neighbors, my old work husband and his wife and my son.  I do need to practice guitar.  Teenagers don’t do anything.  At least he is dating a cheerleader now, so maybe he’ll dance again.  Been thinking about taking some dance lessons, actually.  I continue to have a thing for dancers and athletes.

Adventure is critical for me, and it can be simple adventures like the good memory that I have holding hands crunching through the snow and then naked hot tubbing under the stars–it’s like a pleasant surprise to have romantic things like that unfold and is the ultimate expression of one’s chemistry with another person.   I love to travel and see new places.  I love meals that are well prepared and looking at art.  It would be really cool to see a new city and rent a bike and race around on it to discover tons of it quickly and then be able go back on foot holding a woman’s hand and feel the air on our faces while we look over the scenery that we took in quickly and now want to take in more fully, and at a slower rate.  It could be a preview from the bike with a return on foot because walking and hiking are some things that I also value.

  • I can add to that walking on the beach and getting frisky.  That was fun too.  I went all over Mount Desert Island in June on a rented bike and it was phenomenal.  Gonna do that next June around the whole rim at Crater Lake, and I want to boat to Wizard Island.

I taught myself how to ride a bike when I was eight, and I still feel youthful when I ride my pos Mt Bike down the street, trails or on a singletrack. I can race it as hard as I want or just glide down hills.  I love the wind rushing on my face and going for hours.  I feel strong and alive when I watch the clouds and the afternoon wane on while I’m on my bike.

  • I bike to work everyday except for Mondays.  I have to drive on Mondays.  I have a police bike now and a road bike.  I donated that POS.  I LOVE cycling. I just bought my own mountain bike and want to get good at non-technical hill riding.

Quality of light is important for me too.  The moon casts a beautiful sheen across lakes, and the angle of the sun on a woman’s face at different times of day shows her beauty outdoors.  Seems that I value being outside, using my body, cooking and eating, and connecting and laughing–all of these things are made better if you share them with a beautiful woman.  I think that I do attract these things, so I must be lucky.

  • Still have fortuitous circumstances unfold in the dark. The climber held me on a climber under moonlight when I told her that my ex-partner is either dying or waiting for a transplant and that my son and I will have to motor to NC at some point because of that.

When I think of my son, I value that he is thriving, feeling well, and learning a lot.  Love of nature, being well and whole, and learning as much as he can from mentors should be his focus until he is ready to leave our house.  When one is balanced, he can give unto others, which is probably the only “Christian” value that makes sense to me.  In addition to being glad that he is enjoying sports, getting excellent grades in music, I am most grateful that he is regarded as the most kind and appreciative of diversity by his current teacher.  I hope that if I am lucky enough to add children to our family with a partner, that this virtual child is able to feel well, be outside, learn and truly share.

  • I don’t want any more children.  I hope that my son will be ok when he’s 25.  I drug test him weekly–it was hot today–and he gets a flip phone going as soon as the GPS that he has to carry that I’ll be subscribing to as a service is here and working.  Children are an active or psychic burden until they have a working brain.

I’m thinking that these desires and wants are what I value most, and my partner could make it more powerful.  When I imagine this partner, I am outside with her and we are having one night away.  It wouldn’t have to occur much, but I would value it when it did. She and I could maybe have a meal on a deck near Clear Creek in Buena Vista and have to sit very close together so that we would be able to hear each other and then we could hold hands while the sun sets. She’d make me laugh a lot and I would be taken in completely by her eyes.  We could leave the doors to the deck open so when we made love you could hear that deafening roar of the water in the bg.  That kind of connection while in nature is important to me and my meaning, as is going back to our kids and enjoying them after we had a night away like this one, because I think that meaning too, comes from raising a family together and meeting the challenges of parenting together as a concerted team.

  • I don’t want a partner.  I don’t want financial entanglements.  I am a complete sucker for green, hazel and blue eyes.  I love to laugh and will look forward to some fun sex when the time is right.  I don’t want to raise my son with anyone.  I want him to stabilize and get his act together.  My parents were not a concerted team, and I can’t think of an example of that with any of my friends.  I’m lucky that mine will be out of the house in July of 2024.  Then I can re-read this entry and see what’s shifted.  Love of parts of Colorado will never shift.
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Keeping some of it

I love having access to 14-years of my writing. Yay. I read about that orgy that a friend of mine hosted at my house. What a sentence. Wow. I was 34 maybe? She was pretty butch and had weird style. I can’t remember what state she was from–no one is from here–although I remember that she was a software engineer. She was smart, but not attractive. She wore an Indiana Jones Panama hat to my party that altered into an orgy because she also brought a bull whip. Her breasts were gorgeous though. Like a magazine. I’m a whole package person though and don’t like chunky, beefy, fat or out of shape for a hook-up or gf.

I wouldn’t want an orgy at my house anymore.

Also, I don’t think that I’m poly to the degree wherein if I was sleeping with one woman, I would be able to easily watch her kiss other women or men at a party. I think that when I was in college, cast parties would begin with body shots and then become group sex. I left with my college gf before that stage of the morning, but I’m almost positive that is what that crew engaged in. I actually think it’s about management.

Hahahaha. Seriously, I tend to have trouble talking in a group unless I’m facilitating group counseling. I like depth in conversation and need to tease more information out and it’s less deep when you’re navigating group contributions to conversation.

I HATE group lunches, baby or bridal showers, etc. Group sex would be that way too. Difficult to include everyone. Ha. Honestly, it’s like a connection and focus thing for me. Not that I don’t think that would be a good thing for other people though.

I slept in my bed with the software engineer after the orgy. I know that we cuddled a bit. I wore pjs and she was nude. I made it clear that I didn’t want any sex. I had kissed her breasts during the orgy and she referenced it and I said, “You have perfect breasts, and I still don’t want to have sex with you.” End of story. I think now that it would be difficult for me to sleep with someone actually. Since my son has revved up terrible / dangerous behavior, I am a light sleeper. I used to sleep like a rock. Also, my ex wife was a hideous sleeper–nightmares, waking nightmares, insomnia, bouts of manic episodes with needing to cut or dye her hair for hours in the middle of night or early morning–so I’m sure that has effected my sleep rhythms also. I don’t know what time I’d have to go to bed to be able to sleep a 6-hour stretch next to a woman and worry that I’d wake up at 5 or 6 anyway. I’ve simply worked too many years now. I wake up in the morning.

So, I want to keep dating. I don’t want to do wild group things that involve intimacy. I don’t want a relationship that is exclusive.

The sex thing. If you’re disconnected from someone who you used to be in love with, it takes a toll.

For example, my ex-wife would offer to top. Randomly too. Like use the bathroom in our bedroom right before I was turning in because I work (She stopped working.) and then leave for the spare room making her exit with a quick offer.

I was always like, “WTF?” I like to talk and connect and then have sex.

Some conversation has always been something that I require even when I’ve done lesbian one night stands. Do you know what those are?

You bring someone home from the bar, or you have a girl that you met on the Internet come to your house and share a bed and you have some sex. Sometimes several hours. So, you do that again once or twice.

I talked first with those girls. At least a little.

My previous partner who is incidentally dying or waiting for a transplant would sometimes come over while I was cooking, open a bottle of Chardonnay (Scratch that off the list for anything that I would keep. Fucking gross. Who the fuck actually drinks white wine by choice?), give me a kiss and then say, “Want some dessert and then we can eat dinner?” That was cute, and we still talked. With sex, I’ll need some kind of interaction connection to be frisky.

I love lists:

  1. Nothing that I find voyeuristic or is group oriented for intimacy
  2. Fit women who take care of their bodies
  3. Work on my sleep hygiene
  4. Date lots of women
  5. Connect and then have sex
  6. Never stoop to drinking any white wine

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It’s 4 am I must be processing

I woke up incredibly early today. I just got my emails for students who I supervise done–it’s 21 of them–and also wrote a few to my students in a class that I always teach every fall whom I won’t see again after the end of the month. I’ll miss this group. They’re cool. The other 21 will be around until the end of April, and then I have some time off from teaching and supervision. In terms of the latter, I don’t know when that will happen again.

My Mom died a year ago in two-weeks. Heavy as shit. It marked the end of my family of origin. I had lost my brother as an adolescent and that still is complete shit. Yesterday, I had group therapy and talked about my Mom.

My Dad died of COVID in April of 2020 and it was a blessing with the exception of the impact that its had on my son. I had a complicated relationship with my Dad until I did 5-years of analysis and then I tabled all my stuff, didn’t let it effect our interactions, and when he was being intense or strange, I just noted it, sometimes wrote about it (here), and other times said, “I’m heading out.” He sometimes would apologize after I left. I visited him every week alongside my mother when he finally moved out and into the same facility where my Mom was for 3-years, but he didn’t last because he wanted to die. Literally. He asked his doctor to kill him actually. Although we’re a right to death state, it’s not that simple, and you have to be terminal. He had dementia and significant impacts to his working memory so he couldn’t read anymore. He couldn’t even spit anymore. I tried to sample his DNA twice and he couldn’t coordinate it to fill the little tube. I did that because that was something that he was actually interested in. Mostly for about 2-years at home and in the home he said, “I have to go to the bathroom. I didn’t sleep last night.” This man was brilliant. What a way to spend your last few years.

My ex-wife didn’t really know either of them. They stopped being able to interact really probably around 2012. Ironically, what impacted them was that they stopped taking care of my son in 2009 for the most part, and then they declined. My Dad’s best friend moved to the South and they didn’t do much anymore. I was so busy with my kid and doctorate that I didn’t do much with them except cook them some nice meals. They got quieter and weirder.

I fell in love in 2013. Actual love. Like the one in which you cry when you fight and when you know it will never be anything anymore you weep and get pissed being handed a box of facial tissues. Fuck you for wanting my process to cease. Anyway, I don’t talk to her, will pay her off next fall, and don’t want anything to do with her. I was totally in love with her though and spent 8-years married to her and nearly 9 together, and she never knew my parents as whole beings.

My best friend and I went to “Wakanda Forever” with community members and some politicians on Tuesday. I liked it. My best friend asked, “What do you miss most about your Mom?” and I answered it, and then answered it fully in group last night with other people who’ve lost one or more parents. My Mom was introverted. When she did talk, it was always funny and sometimes cruel. She was a heavy smoker until probably 2012 or so. That and her bout with COVID in June of 2020 made her voice practically disappear. I told the folks in group last night that I have a VM from Thanksgiving 2020 and it’s cute and difficult to hear. I think, too, having had a stroke when she was 21, her vocal chords were slowly paralyzing. I feel like I watched my parents disappear. They were like Luke Skywalker, Yoda, Obi Wan and Luke’s Dad in “Return of the Jedi” when at the celebration they’re in light, but faded.

I don’t want this week off from most all work to be trying or incredibly sad. I teach Friday night. I booked a hike with a new group on Saturday. I have Book Club Sunday, and my male pickleball partner is going home next week, and my female pickleball partner got sick, so I will probably just go literally dink around at the court on Sunday to get some practice. We may have to forfeit. Sucks, because I’m competitve. It’s fun. Don’t knock it. It requires skill to do well. I kinda suck because I can’t finesse and hit it too hard due to softball. However, it’s not SCARY like my golf swing is.

I daydream about the climber. I’m not going to chat at work again though, and won’t text except to text back. I don’t want to be weird. I just want to see how things shake out. I was incredibly disappointed when she had to cancel our plans last Friday and she was too and apologized; I was concerned that she was slipping back or reinfected with the illness, but it turns out she just needed hours and hours of sleep. Sounded like in total like 15-hours. I’m glad she’s better and hope that she makes plans with me soon. I can wait though. I’ve developed so much patience. She has the hottest body. Taut lean muscle from the waist up.

The other two ladies have fizzled. I read all this shit that I wrote in 2009 – 2010 and that tends to happen from time to time. I can’t even remember who some of these women are when I read their job titles or mean, sarcastic names. When you’re dating, you do a lot of it. It will be interesting when I have sex with one and disclose that to another one. I wonder if some will bail and some will be fine with it. I don’t want an exclusive relationship.

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And… She’s back

I got divorced in September, and I am adjusting to dating again. I can honestly say that having a relationship which is exclusive would not be something that I would be interested in for the next couple of years and maybe won’t ever be interested in that again. I have an almost 17-year-old now and saying he’s a handful is super mild. That is laughable, actually. I don’t want to bring women in and out of his life either. Until today, I couldn’t login to this blog for years because I hadn’t remembered that just using an old email that I no longer can access with a couple of common passwords would help with me logging in, and now I’ve read some of it it’s interesting to me that I thought that remarrying would be fulfilling. It so wasn’t. Now, I’m 48, have been divorced twice and married for a total of 17-years. Been there, and won’t do that ever again, and super on the fence about a long-term thing. I want to date.

I have always been very active. That’s why although I have a mountain of papers right now, I had to blog, because I’m jacked up sitting here at my desk and at least freewriting is like a semi-activity. I’ll walk the dogs after I do two more of these grading projects. They’re way more than just a paper and require massive feedback.

I have been obsessed with climbing movies and climbers for 5-years. But, that shit is DIFFICULT. I’ve hiked many a mile and done a little bit of bouldering, but am not a climber. I’d like to be though. My ex-wife encouraged me to take a class at a recreational outfitter and I did it well then, but it was probably 2014 or 2015. So, I retook it in August and it was a night that I was exhausted, so I didn’t do it as well. Then I took an outdoor artificial wall class wherein the second-day was outdoor. Real rock is next level.

I told my colleague about that class and she asked me to have lunch with her and tell her more. Then she said that we should go after work. She said that she and I and one of our colleagues would go together. When we did go, she was the one who showed up. She gave me a great hug. (I thought, “Oh, we hug?”) She drove to the route. When we got out to pack up she said, “I don’t get naked with colleagues so I’m asking if our relationship is shifiting?” I said, “I’m sorry?” And she explained that she was changing now, and I asked her if I should hold up a blanket to which she quickly replied, “No this is a climber’s space.” Naked for climbers, but not with colleagues, maybe? She took me up a very exposed route and I started dumping adrenaline and having trouble breathing at all. She was so sweet and said that she was so familiar with this side of the creek and that we could take another route so we did. I was able to go up 20-feet, so I felt accomplished. Definitely want to do that again.

That’s not the theme though. I had on Mary Janes and it was dark and I was slipping everywhere. By the time we got midway down the route at dusk my hands were porcupine laden with prickly pear quills. She took her phone out and gingerly began taking out the quills. I pulled back after a few. (“We touch each other too? Like not just when you’re comforting my afraid-of-heights-ass?) She asked what we were doing next and I told her that I had a recipe kit and could open a bottle of wine for us. She and I engaged in a great conversation and I was sad to get back to the parking lot where I met her and determined that we do, indeed, hug now.

We caravaned in our cars back to my house from the lot. She is handy in the kitchen. So good and quick chopping even, perfect mushrooms. She draped her arm around my waist. Wow. I slunk away after awhile. Not sure why. After dinner she asked if we could sit in my living room and her thigh was against mine. Nice. Good hug by her car before the night was over.

My son said that if I start seeing her, that I’m behaving like a Rock Star. His words, “She’s attractive, Mom. How old is she? Wow. That’s pretty Rock Star, Mom.” I don’t think that I care, actually. I’ve also made a promise to myself to stop referencing my age. She held my hands when I was shitting my pants given exposure, she pulled out quills with care, she put her arm around my waist, she pressed her right thigh against mine on my loveseat. She also played a playlist and danced with me outside in a gazebo and we climbed a tree afterward when we saw each other 1-1 again. It was all prelude. The third time that we saw each other we took a two-mile walk three-weeks after she helped me and I watched her expert climbing. After our walk, we drank tea, snuggled a bit and then made out until past 3:30 am. She’s been sick so we’ve not gotten together in two weeks. I’ll see her Monday though at work if she’s better. I have a weird job and work in different places on different days.

I went to a party for a colleague who has been significantly promoted. I met a neuroscientist there and we had a nice conversation. I was really excited last Saturday when she came to a group function because I didn’t know that she belonged to the group. I’ve asked her out in the group app (coffee or wine). We shall see. We have a nice connection.

At the beginning of last month, I met up with another woman with my two dogs and hers at the dog park. She had a health thing and emergency surgery, but I would love to see her again soon too.

I’m pushing 50 and want to date a ton. I read through some of these entries and I think that I’ve typically wanted a relationship more than just enjoying a date. I want to do that now. Just date. I don’t want to live in anticipation of tomorrow. I can just see what I see when I’m on a date with a woman and not think about anything else but that moment, and that date.

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New Chapter

I worked through a lot of things in this blog, and so I am not going to write here any longer.  I’ll leave it up for another year, and then will take it down.  I’m going to start a brand-new blog as me.  I happily abandon dating, despair, pretending that I can work with women with whom I’m not compatible, and needing self-of-therapist activities nearly everyday.  I thank all of my readers and those who stopped by to Like a post.  I appreciate everything that you imparted to me over the last two-years.  It’s now time for me to write anything that I want to as myself.

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Engagement

I gave her a playlist on a CD, and a pink journal to write her dreams in and also things for our wedding.  I had taken what I remember from seeing her through my friend’s FB and then finally meeting her in July of 2012 for the words, and then songs that I listened to during the torturous part of 2013 before we finally got our timing together.  Before we left, we made love, and were able to reflect on the holiday season and the time that we had with her sister who surprised the family with a visit.  We had an incredible time with her listening to hair rock and playing Super Nintendo’s Super Mario World.  It was a retro fest of love.

Her sister drove home on Friday–which takes about 11-12 hours, and afterward we cleaned out our pantry after I had brought my dog back from the dog park.  We had to drive back to her kick-ass apartment and pack it.  Her mother and her mother’s boyfriend are in GA and left their SUV, so we were able to basically get everything down to our house.  I don’t think that there is much left, and we hung some shelving and got things into the pantry.  It was a really busy day before we left to get engaged.

We drove two-and-a-half hours, and then soaked in springs until night fall.  The first night was cloudy, but it was very nice.  The stars were phenomenal the second night.  We took a small hike today.  I love her.  I love being engaged.  I love starting my life on stable ground.

View from the trailhead

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Adjustments

We’ll be making them winter through the spring, I would imagine.  I’m excited to sleep with her every night and not just for physical reasons, but because I wake up a lot earlier when she is not here because I wonder what she’s doing.  It is nice that we both sleep well next to each other given our level of trust that we have for each other.

I had a long day yesterday.  I wasn’t done with work until 6 and then I had to drive to our church because my son had to learn his percussion part for the Christmas services.  The woman with whom I had that emotional affair was there and she looked tired given that she is going through a brutal divorce.  At the end of the night, I hugged her super tight and told her that I was sorry.  I’m not sure that she has been held like that.  It made me think that my partner and I have something really special.  We hold each other tight all the time, and I don’t think that is something that everyone gets.

Apparently, the woman who my partner had half-heartedly tried to date exclusively who she met when she was ending her relationship called her last night too.  I was thinking that it was probably around the time that I had hugged the woman at church.  She told me that she would have to call me back when I called her because this woman was really sick.  When I say that it’s not because she is having surgery, but it’s because she has a condition that is degenerative.  While that is really too bad, I was fuming.  I don’t want her calling my partner because she had every chance in the world to treat her right and was awful.

I told my partner that it was a weird boundary and was gamey.  I asked her to text her that I needed her tonight and that she should reach out to her friends.  I guess that she had told her that the news was so awful that she wanted to tell her instead, because they “weren’t in each other’s lives anymore.”  Whatever.  You had your chance, and you were a shit who wanted side relationships, so there you are.  You got nothing. And honestly, it’s because your foundation was nothing but some open stuff that my partner needed to get space between her and her serious girlfriend–who also called her last night.

I remember nights that I’ve had like this one.  You know when your exes would come out of the woodworks and try to connect with you, and typically it was when I was either dating someone new or having some shifts within myself that propelled me toward wake-ups within myself.  I think that when you’ve been physically intimate with someone more than once, you have a collective of energy between you that can result in universal shifts when you are having new experiences.  That is an adjustment as well.

Here is what I took away that was new:

  1. We honestly don’t fight
  2. My partner is the nicest person who I know
  3. She has fewer exes than me because girls would never want to let her go
  4. I’m looking forward to learning how to encourage her to make this relationship work for her
  5. Timing does it’s own thing and you cannot wield it directionally
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Reflections

I only have three-days of work left and then I go on a fairly long vacation.  It will be nice, given the disruptions to my doctoral process, and because I’m adjusting to my new life.  I’m thinking about how grateful I am again this morning, because I have begun my life with a woman who simply fits into mine by just moving into it.  She doesn’t ask me to defend the way that I do things, but gently comes forward and is accommodating rhythms that we had, yet she adds to them.  Enhancement and comfort is her way and I love it.

I read over my About page on WordPress and realized that it can’t be reworked.  I just need to rewrite it because everything that I’m doing is so new.  I have this amazing partner whose pictures still make me say, “My God, she is so hot,” and yet given our intimate connection when we talk, laugh, and make love, I know that I will not ever date again.  I’m glad too, because I was really sick of dating.

She’s mine.  I can’t believe that, but she is truly mine.  (These kind of assertions make me realize that I will never be Buddhist.)

Tomorrow night we will finally get our tree.  We didn’t sleep together last night, but of course we talked, and I was able to sleep well this time even without her with me last night.  I just sleep better with her there.  I never had a solid night of sleep with my ex.  I guess one time we slept late–until 8–in my bed, but she was so wound up all the time and also needed the tv on so that she could distract herself into falling asleep.  We were just incompatible.

When someone is as gentle as my partner is, you just relax, get warm and sleep.  After talking to me, she was able to get me where she can when we are in bed together.  I was just warm and drifting off to sleep.  I appreciate her way.  I’m lucky to bask in her light and love.

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My slow path to introversion

My Dad moved us all the time.  I went to five elementary schools.  I think that there were a total of 13 different rentals that we lived in prior to buying our house, and in a universal sick thing, my brother was killed after we had lived in the house that was bought just a bit over a year.  I think that everyone’s childhood is a bit messed up, so I don’t think that I have the corner market, but I sure have changed now that I’m middle aged.

My son asked me last night how many years I have left, and having seen a Vedic Astrologer in 2008, I just told him that number and then I realized that I have fewer left than I’ve had.  I have changed the basic structure of my personality too, which certainly gives me pause.  I’ve also become less dominant in general.

I had to make new friends all the time.  So, I talked to everyone, but I also listened.  I developed the persona that I could talk to anyone, and I did.  I think that this particular trait came in handy especially when I was selling software or CDs.  (I loved that job at the record store.)  I participated in class, I did forensics, I sought some leadership positions, and in college, I realized that I was only a mediocre actor, so I began *attending* the theater instead of trying out.  I figured, at the time, that was my litmus test.  I was truly an extrovert, because I wasn’t a good actor.  It was interesting to me that contrary to most popular beliefs, actors are introverted.

I was talking with my partner last weekend after I did the announcements at church.  I stumbled a bit in the earlier morning service and found the crowded 11:00 am service much easier.  She figured it was practice effects, and I told her that while that was true, much of it was crowd size.  Larger group, easier for me to feel less pressure and intimacy.

So, that’s it.  I was terrified of deep intimacy and being isolated.  I moved to a minuscule town in the midwest for my first grad degree and if I didn’t teach that day and participate in class, I heard no human voice, as those were the days of calling cards and land lines for long distance.  I got much better at being alone, and then I got really good at being alone when I booted out my ex-husband, had my coming out affair, and many friends stopped interacting with me.  These days, I talk to a new person if I have to, but mostly I work.  On nights like last night, I miss the lanky swell of my partner’s body in our bed.  I can connect deeply, openly, and honestly with her.  But, that’s about all that I want, because I don’t want an entourage, but seek things that help my family be solid and happy.

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Puzzle

I can be overly concrete.  Typically, I get fired up too, which could be part of my genetic make-up given that I’m Italian on my Dad’s side, but some of it too, probably comes from the nurture side of the house.  Experts in neurological research say that part is 40% of who we are (our experiences and social learning) is how we are raised and environmental influences.  My father flew off the handle all the time, and because I was terrified that I was that way too, I tend to seethe.  Could be because I’m a Virgo-Scorpio 😉

I haven’t screamed in a long time.  I did in October of last year.  My ex was fucking with me.  At that point, we hadn’t had sex in about three-weeks, so she was chatting with me on the phone like she did once or twice a week.  She said, “We are just not priorities in each other’s lives right now,” during our chat.  But, I heard, “We are just not a priority in your life right now.”  I lost it.  It was pent up stuff that she had always projected on to me regarding how I didn’t hustle for her, didn’t meet her needs, and wasn’t right for her.  That is the last time that I raised my voice and was irrational.

I talked with my partner last night on the phone.  So funny, because it’s rare for us to not be sleeping next to one another now, but I just had to talk to her before I went to bed, so I did.  I’m prone to worry.  We both tended to agree that we won’t fight actively, but will instead have spats and little tense moments of speaking in mean tones, etc.  I need to tell her that what works when we are under stress is quiet for both of us.  One time we wound up being in bed an entire day and ate very little.  We had to power eat two meals nearly back to back and were both slightly edgy.  We took turns cooking parts of it while the other was pretty quiet and either wrote or listened to music.  Adding down time when we are stressed is good.  I also told her that we need a fighting journal.  She can write down her impact of stuff that I do and say, and then I can read and validate it.  Seems good.

I dated a woman pretty recently at the end of summer and the beginning of fall.  She is a mess and not consistent.  Those girls are attracted to me.  I’m boring and stable.  When she got withdrawn and did some push-pull, I just disengaged from her.  She was pretty and all that, but I want a lot more than good-looking.  I didn’t understand well, being concrete, why she meant much of anything to me.  Much of her was the idea of her–four boys and into me.  My son doesn’t even mention her kids, because he saw them twice, I think.  Anyway, I’m actually getting things now as I piece stuff together.

In a couple of vivid dreams that I had, my partner was in them.  In one dream, she was riding a horse in a stall on a grainy video shot when she was a child.  I closed my phone–I thought because it was a film of my ex-although the video was my partner, and at that time, I was not ready to be with my partner.  In another dream the woman who I dated tried to give me a gingery brown cat, and one of my readers asked what the cat meant.  It didn’t mean what I thought that it did, because it was my partner.  I wasn’t ready to tend to her quite yet.  I tried to give her back.

I have a friend who introduced the woman who I dated a bit.  She kept telling me that I was in love with this woman; although, I knew that I wasn’t, I danced with the idea that somebody had my heart.  She has.  She always has.  But, it was not the woman who I was with.  It was my partner.

Looking at her pictures on FB five or more years ago with our friend caused me to wish that she would move back home.  It was a pull.  It was a draw.  When she got off of the couch to shake my hand and flash that gorgeous smile of hers in the summer of 2012, I felt it everywhere.  We became good friends.  Now, we are where we are supposed to be.

We put together the frame of the picture in June of 2012, and I had started with some corner pieces and edges.  She filled in pieces of unusual size while she let me into her heart as a good friend.  Then we put the whole thing together when I told her, “I need to see how this feels,” while taking her by the hand, pulling her against me and then nuzzling the nape of her neck and kissing the notch at the base of her throat.  Everything is together.  I can see the picture.  I had posted a real picture in reference to the wrong woman in this blog, and only now do I know exactly what was on that horizon.

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Pandora

I stream it all the time.  However, I do think that making love to her tonight will be like opening a lot of doors, windows, and perhaps breaking through walls.  She is going to come over very soon.  She is dog sitting though and can’t spend the night.  I have class first thing in the morning, which will be difficult because I didn’t sleep much this week.  Yesterday and today were also a complete wash at work, because all I could do was think about her.

Being able to delay it anymore was not an option anyway, because last night we made out for most of the night and lost where we were.  I could barely muster enough gumption to finally leave, and got home super late and as a result got very little sleep.  I know that you just can’t keep that up waiting for sex when you are kissing like we were and have that much chemistry.  Then there is this whole backdrop to our relationship wherein I had the love at first sight nearly a year-and-a-half ago, and she felt my energy even before I had fully entered the house then.  She remembered the month, what I had in my hands, and then the way that she felt.  I told her that a woman as beautiful as her who had a brand-new girlfriend was irritating to me.  The irritation grew as I realized how easily we talked and how compatible we were over the course of the next year.

Now, we have talked about what we both want, and that is building something with each other.  I’m not even scared, because she is so different than any woman who I have been with, and seems to be seeking laughter, being open, having a spiritual connection to the world and to want someone who is affirmative and attracted to who she is.  She is smoking hot and completely sexy.  We laughed so hard last night that the deepest muscles in our stomachs ached.  We talked about everything under the sun.  God and how journeys unfold was a topic that came up organically as we made a meal in her little kitchen.  From the minute we embraced in her living area and I could feel her against me, I felt more passion than I can remember.  I whispered in her ear, “The women who you have been with are completely crazy.  I would never have a moment when I didn’t want to have sex with you.”   She laughed and started kissing me.

I’m a little bit scared about the sexual intimacy.  I have to admit that.  I know that I’m good in bed, but it’s been forever–nearly 11-months–and these stakes are so high.  It shall also yield NEVER going back.  It also will solidify that we are falling in love.  We will have changed and I will crave her even more than I already do.

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Go, set, ready

I told her that I am into her.  I told her that when I was really used to these miserable dog walks with my ex, that her contrast of asking me to swing with her on a playground melted me.  It did.  She is sweet and light.  That just comes naturally from her.  I had a strong crush on her for two-months last spring, and now we can just date.  It’s just that the period for us started many months later.

She’s funny and sarcastic.  She understands the shit that I have been through with my last girlfriends and women who I have dated.  Much of this is because my friend has talked about me to her, and the rest is because she always had a girlfriend when we would talk or get together, and being lesbians, we would share stuff about our current relationships.  Something that she has told me more than once is that she wants to select a girl who wants to have sex with her.  That has historically not been a problem for me.  In fact, it often works in the other direction when I first start having sex with a girl, because it follows a pattern:

  1. I can’t sleep too well
  2. I wake up early
  3. I have a date or two with a girl
  4. I wonder when we will have a night together
  5. When we do, and because it has been so long since I have had sex, I wake up super early and…

Do you actually tell a girl that?!?  How would that work?  “Hey, listen, all of my girlfriends have given me a start time in the morning when I’m allowed to make sexual advances.  It has ranged from 7 – 10 am.”  I’m not going to tell her any of this tonight, but I do want her to know it.

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OK, Will Robinson

Damn.  I don’t think that I’m cut out for ten-months of celibacy.  I also think that the last woman who I dated is actually straight.  There is a guy who is a life friend of hers who she recently hooked up with who told her that she “needs a girl.”  I think that I was a point or rather a follow-through for her so she could tell a man whose opinion she respects highly, and thinks the world of.  I believe now that she wouldn’t have approached me at all had this lifetime friend who she had just been with not told her that she needs to be with a woman.

Anyway, I was talking with the woman who my son and I are having dinner with on Thursday tonight.  She offered a chat instead of an email, and I called her right away.  It’s crazy to me that six-weeks ago she and I were at a crossroads.  She was going to try to make an effort with the girl who she thought that she should now date exclusively since she and her girlfriend were completely done, and I was excited to have a possibility.  That was six weeks ago.  Now, we are both completely single and very clear.

That’s not a good place for me to begin.  I have all of this pent up attraction for her, and I also have a libido from hell right now.  I want to have sex.  I still run the risk of being a pig.

I asked her, “Can I say something completely arrogant?”  After I had apologized for it, I said, “How can you be feeling my arms and my shoulders and running your hands all over them, and then feel me up, but stop?  How can that happen?  I have some features that aren’t that great, but how can you be doing that to me and then that’s the end of it?  I really think that she is straight.  Seriously.  She should just go back to men.”  She laughed and it was that breathy kind when you know someone is blushing.

She talked about one of her exes who I know some stuff about.  She said that she called her “abusive” all of the time.  This woman is so sweet and kind.  She could never be abusive.  Then she said, “Something that you should know about me is that I’m abusive.”  I told her, “Well, I’m not too worried, because you’re taller, but I’m bigger and I can probably overpower you.”  She said, “I don’t know, I’ve gotten really into my morning practice [and then she names some martial arts strengthening practice].”  We laughed.  I said, “I think that I’d like that.  You could try to abuse me, but I’d really get something out of that.”

Well, I am not known for subtlety.  I also told her that it has been way too long since I have had sex.  I asked her if a six-week wait is long enough and she laughed and said, “Of course that is!”  So, six weeks from October 22, is right at my year mark.  If things feel good on Thursday, then I want to take her to a movie and make her dinner next weekend.  I would love that actually.  I don’t know if what I promised this morning with a slow, organic pace is something that we will be able to do easily.  I think that we both have some attraction, so we probably will just start dating.

It’s maybe not dangerous.  It’s just flowing, and the current is stronger.  Finally both of us are single and maybe we can see.  It will make our friend who lived in HI for sometime and has now moved to CA very happy.  I have always wondered about her, and felt a real wow the very first time that I saw her.  It’s never gone away, and I wonder if we can get together finally.

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Keep up this pace

I’m unsure if I will ever get to have a conversation with my former girlfriend.  I’m tending toward thinking that just reconnecting with our kids occasionally, and starting that after the first of the year is best.  One of my friends said it best, “I’m ready for a relationship–PSYCH!”  Although I laughed really hard and it made me feel better and like she got it, it’s actually really sad.  If you think that starting that conversation in any type of text is ok, then honestly, you are really a mess.  I have compassion for her.  That is bad judgment and lacks some empathy too.  Although I do love her, I wouldn’t want to talk to her at this point.  And, I’m not going to.  When she calls, I will listen the voicemail and when I can will text, “I don’t want to take your calls.  You initiated this topic of conversation in email, so it’s just as well that this thread ends there.  I’ll shoot you an email tonight.  Maybe we can connect in person with our kids in a few months.  _______ loves your boys.”

You may remember the-girl-next-door or my friend from the swings.  This is how I met her.  I was off with my ex, because that is what she would do, she would break up with me for months.  It was the summer of 2012.  One of my dearest friends was home from HI at that point, and I went to one of her friend’s houses who is kinda my friend too.  A woman who I had heard about for nearly ten-years was supposed to also come to her house because she had just moved back from the NW, and I had just met her sisters.  They were really cute.  All strawberry blonds, tall, and lanky.  Then, enter HER–she was chilling and resting when I got in the house.  In a sundress so her sleeve tatt was completely exposed.  Some moments actually are breathtaking.  We shook hands and then she smiled her sweet smile.  I kept thinking, “Why did you JUST have to have met a new girl?!?”

But, that was June of 2012.  Flashforward to February of this year when I had dinner with her and her same girlfriend who she had just met upon moving home. That night was pivotal for me.  I was still very attracted to her, but because I felt so at ease in her mother’s house (They were house sitting.) and around them, I just tabled it.  The night was incredible.  I posted the food, which is a little crazy as I blog incognito, but what was most salient was that I just had easy fun.  I never had times like that with my ex.  I don’t mean this six-week stint with the beautiful woman, but I mean the woman who has imparted so much to me, that I can’t be anything, but grateful.  Most times with her were miserable or she was on my ass.  This night with the-girl-next-door and her girlfriend was a blast.  It was fun and easy.  It fueled me.

Then we had that Sunday afternoon this past March.  The one in which her girlfriend was doing homework.  We actually played on the swings!  Then my crush began.  So, it started as a love at first sight thing, and then moved into a crush that I tabled.  However, we must also note that when I found out that she was single late this summer, I was THRILLED.  Then I found out that another woman was in that mix; although, it was that both of them had another woman who they slept with, those resulted in impacts.  I think that open is hard to do well, and that is the one thing that makes me jealous.  I’m not a jealous person, but sex and kissing is something that I don’t want my girlfriend to be doing with anyone else while she is with me.

Her relationship ended on Saturday, and I think that mine did too, but I was foolish, and didn’t know it until very late on Sunday night.  When we hung up on Saturday morning, she said, “I’ll text you later.”  She never contacted me again.  So, I just did what I had been doing over the last three-weeks and that was send her a well-wishing email.  I certainly received her perspective, but just can’t follow what she does.  I was only supposed to connect with her on Friday with our friend, and our boys, and then she told me her plans with them and the start time on Saturday, and I said, “Why don’t you just get that all settled there, and then text when you’re ready for another adult to join and I’ll just meet up with you?”  She liked that then.  That is the case with her, she likes some ideas on the fly, but then who knows what will still sound good to her.  That now includes me.  I’m worth way too much.

So, here I am.  I’m seeing a woman on Thursday for dinner who has always been my friend, but who I have had a crush on for over a year-and-a-half.  She needs some space.  She has not been with the woman who was in the middle of her breakup with her girlfriend in a month, but she has had some dates with another woman.  This particular woman is only friendship material though.

I just got out of something that had major potential from only my pov at the beginning of this week.  So, I am going to need a minute too.  I just want space from the woman who I was dating.

Dinner with the-girl-next-door.  I don’t need to kiss her.  I do want to get my arms around her and laugh with her.  She is also easy for me. My son will be there, because she has always known my son.  She is really good with him too.  My heart was about to burst watching her with him this past March.  (That entry is entitled, “A little danger,” or something to that effect, if you’re interested.)

He never fails to notice anything, so I’ll just bet that when we are driving back home that he will ask again and again if he will still get to see the boys.  That’s what I will preserve.  I don’t have any plans to begin those efforts for awhile.  She needs space to get through telling me that she doesn’t want to date.  I need some space from having the tablecloth pulled off the table, but then realizing that the stemware is unscathed.  I can thank my ex for that.  She has ensured that I am nearly formidable.

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That was a record

I sent her a little encouraging, well-wishing email yesterday, and I got back a corpse-like response right before bedtime.  It wasn’t even signed, “Love,” and was formal and business-like.  It’s saying that we are not working for her and that she knows some of what it is, but it’s not helpful to email.  I am leaning toward just leaving it at “Ouch,” and that I didn’t see it coming and feel foolish.  I’m not known for brevity, so it’s not like I didn’t write more, but I’m not inclined to having a conversation about it.  That’s where I am when I woke up.  I feel like if you write a Dear John email, it’s not only distasteful, but it is also slightly mean.  I was very kind to her and her family.

I texted the woman with whom I had that emotional affair and told her that the worst thing was that I have to tell my son.  I got some clarity while talking to her via text.  I don’t have to say much of anything.  I can keep saying that she is busy, because she is, and that I don’t know when he will see her little boys again.  And, I don’t.  When he pushes me, and he will, I will just say that she doesn’t have time to tend to a relationship.  Honestly, I think that she is either not gay enough, or not well enough with where she is on her journey to attend to a relationship.

I learned that I love being at ease with someone.  I do too.  It’s easy and pleasant, and I love to laugh.  I also am open to another mother, but would prefer that it is not one who I already know.  I have compassion for her and enjoyed my times with her.  I definitely love her, but had not fallen in love, so it’s unlikely that I will even shed a tear.  I will always have some love for her even if I don’t see her again or for a long time.  It’s not dramatic for me.  It’s just sad, weird, and not stable.

Here is what I dreamt.  It was another vivid one.

I was talking to her in her house, and she was mostly matter-of-fact.  It wasn’t sterile, because she still smiled and laughed a lot, but it was not warm or sexual at all.  I finally had to talk through what it did to me.  I told her that it was like a “brain scramble.”  Meaning that I thought one thing and then felt very fucked over and it happened so suddenly that I couldn’t make any sense of it.  She seemed to not be following what I was saying, so I used a gross metaphor, and motioned as if I had a wooden spoon above my head and was stirring my brain.  I said it basically to let her know that it was like mindfuck.  I also told her that her disconnection that seemed like a slow demise was like thin rock sheaths being stripped off of my heart in layers.  I told her it hurt.  That seemed more salient for her, but she didn’t apologize.  She seemed sympathetic, which just annoyed me.

Then I had to gather my son and say “Goodbye” to her boys.  I really love her baby boy, and he and I seem to have a bond.  It hurt too.  Then in the dream, she actually had four cats.  (She does have a couple.)  She was insistent that we take a ginger brown one who was docile and sweet.  I emphatically said, “No.”  I kept having to explain that I don’t want a cat and that I am not sure that I could take care of one well and that our dog bothers cats.  I got away from her and the cat in a towel, but she brought it to my house.  I told her that I didn’t have time or inclination to train my dog with a cat.  I told her that I would foster him for a little bit and then adopt him out.

I’m not going to push anything on her.  I’m not going to pursue her.  I’m not going to win her back over.  I don’t even care to hear her side of it.  I thought it a strange way to show up when she hadn’t emailed me back in over a week and texted me only a handful of times.  Then this is what I get in response to my innocuous and gentle one.  Fuck that.  It’s just not stable enough for me to seek out or invest energy investigating.  I didn’t like it.

I deserve good treatment.  I know that I am a helluva catch.  I’m glad that I had some ease with strikingly beautiful woman for 6-weeks.  Would have been nice to have slept more than 3-hours last night though 😦

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Nebulous and flowing

I talked with my friend who facilitated my being able to be with my girlfriend.  My artist.  She says that she is my sherpa, and I don’t get that.  I don’t know why she says that she is my nomadic, mountain woman.  I will tell you that I miss her eyes, touch and laugh right now sitting on my couch sipping a beer.

I was smoking pissed and hurt with this same friend when she cancelled on my artist and I a month ago and then sent me mean texts that remind me of my ex.  Explanation points and telling me to fuck off was not what I wanted.  That has faded.  But, I am still much more comfortable doing my own thing at my house.  I’m liking my house a lot and have cleaned up a lot of closets and the like.  I’m going to do that more today.  I don’t want to write.  I’m going to get up at 3:30 and do that tomorrow.

Right now, I want to write about what my friend (who connected my girl and I and also cancelled) said about my dreams.  She agreed that I was working through limits that I have set with friends who are on the periphery of my life, and she said something really interesting to me about the dream about my ex.  She thinks that I have finally “closed up shop” so to speak and she said that it is because I am in love with my girlfriend.  She didn’t use that metaphor, but it meant “done and done,” which is how I felt even before I hung out for a night with my artist.  She told me that the themes in the dream were of children, because my ex, if she did ever contact me again would want to appear carefree and childlike.  Well, she is NOT.  She is dark and angry.  She has passion, but the other side of that passion is fucking scary.  I can’t navigate her moods or her pawn making.  That was when I had the beginning of the emotional affair that I did.  Of course, I was talking outside and as I rounded the corner, there she was!  She was walking with her two kids.  Of course she was.

That is when I put my ex to bed.  That night, my son and I fought like crazy because he was hungry and we couldn’t find the restaurant.  While we fought, I confronted my ex on why she was forming a friendship with my cousin and her kids.  That was low, and weird.  While she would only say how it happened, I realized that there is no why with this woman.  There are only linear, sequential stories in which everyone wants to be close to her.  That’s her.  When I got to my car again, after my son and I ate, made up, wound up having a good night, and I was driving back home, I had heavy flirtation from this woman.  This interaction culminated in a two or three-day emotional affair.  That was the night that I got the goods who my ex is, laid her to rest, and realized that I could have heavy passion for another woman.

And I did.  That’s gone.  She has a beautiful voice and eyes, but I would never want anything with her.  It’s just not there.  She was my “closer” for the end of my ex.  And there she was when my friend was analyzing my dream, and telling me that I am in love with my girlfriend and that I am dreaming about her, because I was in love with her, and now my heart belongs to someone else.  Could that be true?

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Probably just a little weird

Vivid dreams are typically unsettling.  When I was little, and I mean really little, I dreamt about knives and assailants all of the time.  They were violent and graphic; although, I can remember them, they are not worth writing in here due to the gratuity of media.  Those are best for a conversation and like many, I don’t think that I’ve had those even with my psychologist who I saw for years.  I get that I work stuff out in my dreams.

The company had taken away my car insurance.  They had raised the amount to $1000 monthly if I wanted it, and then it would have to be underwritten and approved if I was ever to get it.  A lawyer called me and said that I could no longer drive, and if I did, I would be incarcerated.  My mother was there and was signing documents, and then my ex-husband came in and said that he wanted nothing to do with it.

There are financial issues.  They are not insurmountable, but I will have to see how my business launch for side work goes this summer.  I also need to teach every term in a blended class.  That seems to be the wave of the future, and although I prefer everything being f2f, that is not the way that the world works in the wake of this economy and social shifting as a result of computers and Internet.

I think that there are people who I just don’t want to engage with.  I think that shadow aspects were explicit in this first dream.  I don’t want to be leaned on so heavily that I lose myself or have no reciprocity.  I have told three friends over the last month that I don’t want to hang out right now.  I don’t.

The other dream was real too.  I woke up and at the top of my Droid there was an icon that is typically in the window of settings in an actual camera.  It was a video camera icon and it meant that someone had sent me a video recording.  I opened it like it was a message and it went into a video shot in a pasture with fences all around.  The film quality were those muted colors from the 70s.  A little, short-haired, blond, freckled girl was jumping onto a saddled horse.  There were men in stetsons all around her who were clapping and encouraging her, and then the shot got more macro and she was riding around, but I closed it and deleted it.

It’s a good thing to not hear from or be bothered by my ex.  However, there is something energetic that I feel right now.  I don’t know what it is, but I do know that she is more moody than usual around the holidays.  I would never reach out, because I don’t want her show.  That’s what she does.  It’s a well-orchestrated performance which includes everything that you’d ever want to hear, because she is an incredible listener and also a chessmaster.  It’s so different than standard manipulation.  It’s surrounding yourself with pawns who do your bidding because you have “goods” on them or know exactly how to motivate them.  I know her deal.  However, she showed up in my dreams.

It’s all time.  It’s just waiting and seeing.  I love my girlfriend, but I can tell that I’m not in love.  I don’t know if we are building anything.  I trust that we love each other and have positive feelings for each other, but I have no clue what the next several months will entail.  I suppose it doesn’t matter.  Right now, I love her, am hopeful, am not involved or overextended in anything, and can write and go to class because she is not possessive or does she expect much time with me.  We enjoy each other when it happens.  We shall see what the ceiling is on what could be.  That could take months, but I love being with her when I can.

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Balance 8.22.08

I can’t believe that I wrote this entry five-years ago.  Until I reached the age that I am right now, I had no idea what people meant when they talked about how quickly time passes.  Five-years…  This one is a re-blog, but I want to look at it, because I feel as if I am finally getting my balance with where I’m headed in my life.

Balance.  Do we even know what the hell this word means?  I cannot believe the way in which everything is overdone: work, activity, even the way in which we approach relationships.  I’m kinda sick–I sneezed and my nose ran all day to day, but it was a decided improvement upon the incessant headache and sinus pressure that I’ve had for over two weeks.  When colds finally hit me, I feel a sense of release that is foreign.  I think it’s because I don’t actually let go too well.  Americans even take Yoga about 3 times a week to practice “letting go.”  Isn’t that utterly ludicrous?!?  How the hell do you practice that?  People talk about moderation, but I’m sure that I have not mastered it.

I am going to hike with my son tomorrow.  Desiring grocery shopping is not what I would call part of my evening, but it is necessary.  I may hook up with my friend and her son, but am cool if I don’t.  I am cool with most things these days.  I have to be…

I would like to have some physical intimacy…  Would I overdo that?  I think that my goal is to actually ensure that I am varying my activities and letting things unfold as they should.  I’m sure that I’ve said these statements before, but they are starting to make increasingly more sense to me.  I think that I understand that I need to be patient with myself to fully listen to others who I truly love.

PS.  I get it.  I understand what balance is too, as I have let go of extremity and fervor.  It’s little smatterings of the things that I used to enjoy more than I do now, and connecting to those who have an energy level that matches mine.  Enjoying whatever unfolds without expectation is helping me too.  No poison.  I’m not anyone’s therapist who knows me either.

I am not overdoing sexual intimacy, and in fact, I am not able to overdo connecting with my current girlfriend either based on what she has going on in her life as she focuses on strengthening and balancing her energy.  I’m not overdoing anything right now, but I must embrace that as I have come to center, that I can connect with people only when it makes sense.