how to get in my pants (3)

Lesson 3.1

 Wait, those aren't my pants...

Pretty much RULE #1 of getting ANYWHERE with me is not to be one of my friends cast-offs.
I am okay with buying used books on Amazon, but I am not okay with getting 'used' men from my friends.
(Theoretically) I want a brand new, still-in-the-box man -- who doesn't like that 'new car' smell? I want to be the one to open him and play with him. If one of my friends already opened him first, then I pretty much don't want him. There are no exceptions.

If you tried to hook up with one of my friends and failed, that does not mean that you should move on to me.
I am not a last resort, I am a first choice and if you didn't chose me first, that means I don't choose you at all. Just sayin'.

Lesson 3.2

Personality

Have personality. If I've met doorknobs with a better personality than you, it's time to reevaluate things in your life.
Maybe it's just me but I prefer men with personality, with passion  -- with something to make them stand out. I enjoy characters and people who are different -- and I really love a man with a good personality. A good personality can make other things (shortness, etc) not even matter to me.

If you can't even hold up your end of the conversation, I get bored.
I get bored so easily, which I know is MY problem. But since I'm not looking for anything (boyfriend or otherwise), I can afford to be picky (well, I'd be picky anyway but still).
I just would like to meet someone interesting.

I'm not asking for magic.
Magic is an illusion that will eventually cause you disappointment.
I'm just asking for interesting.

Pull it together, guys! Pull it together.

OVERVIEW

What we learned in Lesson 3:

• if you've hooked up with my friend, I'm not hooking up with you
• don't be boring.

Pretty simple, people.

hindsight and absence

My relationship with my exhusband is so complicated.

There isn't anyone else in this world that knows me like he does. He knows me so well, it makes me sick. I think I've said that before.

I'm okay with cutting all these other 'men' out of my life -- even though, in actuality, there was only one or two who I casually talked to. Nothing was serious.
I'm okay with cutting all these guys out of my life in the name of my BITT goals, in the name of my future, in the name of my success.
I've said that I have enough man-drama with my exhusband.
I think a part of me hopes that he'll fall back in love with me and we'll work it out.
I think the other part of me -- the realistic part of me -- knows that won't happen.

He says I pine over him in my blog.
It's not true.
Okay, maybe it's a little true.
I spent a lot of time growing comfortable with him. I can't help it.
I'm sentimental, a romantic, a push-over AND I forgive people way way too easily.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about love and if it exists.
Obviously I know love exists -- I love my children -- unconditionally, my family.
Obviously I mean a different kind of love.
Some have said the feelings of breathlessness or unexplainable happiness is how one can tell it exists but even in the best of situations, after a few years, those things don't happen so easily anymore. That's more like a crush and/or lust.
Romantic love is more complicated than that.
I grew so comfortable with him -- even if I did try to be a different person sometimes because I didn't trust him to be fully myself.
I hate feeling like I'm hiding things from people -- and I don't do it on purpose. Not very many people have seen all the sides of me. I feel like I'm always hiding parts of myself from various people.

I think that's when I'll know if (romantic) love exists -- when I can be fully myself in front of someone and have them love me anyway. My exhusband might have loved me anyway but I didn't give him the chance.
We had a conversation the other day about how I needed something different in my life -- I needed something to break up the monotony, that's just who I am. I didn't trust him to explain those feelings to him, I didn't trust that he would take me seriously or care. I should have just been ME and saw how that worked out for me, for us.
That is partly his fault but also my fault too. I should have just told him what I needed. Then I could say, at least I told him and he failed me. He probably wouldn't have failed me though -- but I can't say anything for certain.

Is this pining? I don't think so. I think it's hindsight and absence -- my fonder heart is making my hindsight seem less like 50/50 and more like 20/40.
Maybe I am pining over him. Ha. Who knows?

Fictional Characters

My friend wanted to go out last night and I had planned on going -- but then I went to the library and got some books. I didn't want to tell my friend that I blew her off for fictional characters (sorry friend! I really can't help myself).

I will blow your ass off for a stack of books this high

I stayed up all night, reading the top book in that stack called Little Bee by Chris Cleave.

I realized, once I started reading, that Little Bee was going to be a character that stays with me.

She's a character that set up a little home inside me and that's where she'll stay.

Little Bee isn't the only fictional character I keep inside me -- nor are her words the only words that will play over in my head.

Little Bee lives next door to Francie Nolan (from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith) and her brother Neeley and their parents, Katie and Johnny.

Francie, sitting on the fire escape, eating her peppermint wafers and reading (and watching the girl across the street getting ready to go out because it's Saturday -- the day everyone gets paid) under the tree growing from the cement sidewalk stays with me. A tree that grows from the sidewalk in Brooklyn  -- the 'Tree of Heaven', the kind of tree that liked poor people.

So much of that story is inside me. Sometimes it feels like Francies stories are my memories from another life, or family stories passed down from ancestors.

Sometimes it doesn't feel like a book at all -- but like something that actually happened to someone I know.

Next door to Francie is Dolores (from She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb) -- I found that book at a yard sale for .10 cents and it was more than worth it. That book found me at a time when I really really needed it. I needed it because, at the time, I was as sad as Dolores is. I lost people like Dolores did but I didn't end up as sad as she did.

Dolores doesn't have much of a family and so she makes a family, her makeshift family. An old teacher, her neighbor, etc..

My mother had this old book -- I have no idea where she got it -- called, Bad Girls, Good Women (by Rosie Thomas) and it's so very long but I read it. I've read it more than once actually. It was the first time I encountered a gay man in literature - his name was Felix but the story isn't about him. It's about these two girls named Julie and Mattie in England. They run away from home, for different reasons and end up living with Felix and his mother. But the story is much more than that. It's their whole lives.

I have this desire to go to Italy and stay and work on a garden.  That's Julie -- she practically runs away to "Montebellate" in Italy and lives in some kind of nunnery and/or church and renovates the garden there.

The Bean Trees (Barbara Kindslover) is another one that stays with me.

Taylor from Kentucky who picks up a little (Native American) Indian baby (who she names Turtle because she's got some a tight little grasp) in the "Cherokee Nation" of Oklahoma and ends up adopting her. Taylor and Turtle and Mattie (Jesus is Lord used tires) and also LouAnn all stay with me. Mostly, Taylor though.

But it's not limited to literary characters.

'When Harry Met Sally' is a movie from 1989. It's one of my favorite movies and, like song lyrics, quotes/scenes from that movie replay in my head over and over again.

"Harry, I can't do this anymore. I am not your consolation prize."

"I will never want that wagon wheel coffee table..."

"Harry, you're going to have to try to find a way of not expressing every feeling you have every moment you have them..."

I am more 'Harry' than 'Sally' though.

Pablo Neruda reminded me of love.

I found him in a used bookstore on accident -- his cien sonatos de amor. I found love exactly when I needed to be reminded that it exists in an honest way.

"I like it when you're quiet, it's as if you weren't here now and you heard me from a distance, and my voice couldn't reach you..."

I really feel like books find you when you need them. At least that is how it happens for me.

'Little Bee' found me and I know parts of her will stay in me.

"In a few breaths' time I will speak some sad words to you. But you must hear them the same way we have agreed to see scars now. Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means, this storyteller is alive. The next thing you know, something fine will happen to her, something marvelous, and then she will turn around and smile." (from 'Little Bee')

Best and Worst 2011

On our way to Austin yesterday, Constance and I started a 'Best' and 'Worst' list of 2011. Some of these are really really personal -- and for some reason ('can't really say...'), I'm not comfortable disclosing super personal details of my life. BUT I am going to TRY for this list.


Best: Meeting Constance
Worst: in January of 2011, I did some really f*cked up things to my exhusband (NONE of which I'm proud of)

Best: receiving my 'trophy' at Dads (Karaoke bar)
Worst: during Sebadoh weekend, I wandered away from my friends and ended up missing some of the best parts of their night.

Best: spending so much time with JUST me and my daughters. I like doing things alone with them. I feel like we're a little team -- and it's really really hard to become a part of our exclusive group.
Worst: my exhusband going to Korea. For me, it wasn't a worst but the night he left and how much it hurts our children, it definitely makes it a worst.

Best: all the Austin weekends
Worst: Constance moving

Best: all of our Dads (karaoke bar) quality friend time.
Worst: crying on the sidewalk in Austin

Best: visiting Constance before Thanksgiving
Worst: waking up the next morning (from the night Constance and I went out when I was visiting) and staring at the disappointed-parent faces of her 9 & 10 year old sons.

Best (because it's still in my mind): getting into the movies for free for being cute.
Worst: getting lost in the legit ghetto of Dallas trying to find the bus station.

That was just a few things I jotted down before I ran out of envelope and before we arrived at Hobby Lobby.

I'm going to follow Constance's lead and put some of my Best and Worst of 2012.
Yes, it's Day ONE of 2012 and I already have a few Best and Worst.

Best: watching Constance lick the (hot) body of a sexy stranger.
Worst: losing Jenkins at the gay bar (and finding out the next day that he had been arrested!)

Best: telling some guy it was my 23rd birthday and having him believe me without question.
Worst: that guy proceeding to mouth-rape me to make my birthday even "better" (it didn't!)

Best: my new years kiss!
Worst: not finding a cab in downtown Austin at 3am.


It's been CRAZY but I love it.
I'm exhausted and ready to sleep in my bed but I've had so much fun this Christmas break.
A gay drunk man who told me that he feels energy informed me that my 2012 is going to be awesome. 
Either way, no regrets.