Don Juan

Okay…so…I met him at Schmome Schmeepo.  He was working there as a second job just like I was in order to supplement the old income.  He was technically my subordinate for months but there was just something about him.  I was drawn to him. He is Mexican and swarthy and clean cut but I could see a snippet of a tattoo on his chest when at times a button was undone.  We must name him and one of my besties calls him my Latin Lovah but we’ll call him Don Juan for a myriad of reasons.

I would check the schedule to see if he was my loader for the night.  I would try to chat him up whenever possible and he smelled so fucking good all the time.  I was still dating TBone when he started so it was nothing more than distance flirting at first and then….then I found his profile on OKCupid.

I thought ok, well he’s not seeing anyone then and by that time I was not seeing TBone anymore either so I can sort of hook this up maybe??? Could I? Do I chase men? Not usually, but let’s see how this shit goes. I had gotten his number under the guise of needing it for work but one night when I was not the head cashier and had been sent to garden to cover a break, I texted him. 

I told him he needed to come out so I could smell him.  It was about 3 ½ minutes later that he appeared.  We chit chatted and he asked if I was going to smell him and we leaned toward each other. Goddamn, he smelled so good. He always did.  We were inches from each other as I sniffed his neck and when I glanced up, our eyes met and it was electric and sexy and close and hot and there were a million things said without saying anything…and right then the bitch on break came walking back out.  FUCK!! So we popped apart and headed back into the store talking and grinning.

Later that night, I was manning self-checkout and got my courage up and I texted….”Whattya say we go make out in the parking lot after we close this dump?”

I pressed send with feelings of terror and exhilaration. Then I watched as he came in the store and went back out of the store, pushing carts and laughing with the lumber guys.  No answer.  No eye contact.  So me being me, I tried to lighten the mood with a joke because that’s the sort of idiot I am and texted, “I have gum.”

Still, just nothing.  Omg, he read that and now he thinks I’m a whore and OMG I’m technically his boss most nights and holy shit WTF, he doesn’t even know what to say to me, he won’t look at me, omg, omg, omg, omg.  How can I get out of here without having to talk to him?

Because self-doubt and panic…that’s my jam.  Then I heard him laugh.  Quite loudly.  I looked over and he had his phone in his hand and he was texting back.  My phone beeped and I pulled it out of my pocket to read, “I’m parked right next to you,,,,I’ll see you there.” He puts commas in everything he texts and I decided it was charming.

We got into my truck and started laughing at how ridiculous we were.  Then proceeded to do the whole this is my life talk…for about an hour.  It finally got quiet between us and he said, “When do we get to the kissing part?”

I smiled and pushed the console up and slid over next to him.  It was sublime.  The first kiss can be awkward but it was warm and soft and perfect.  We kissed and talked and kissed until the windows were fogged up.  He told me I was beautiful, that he’d been watching me, that he had wanted me. He told me all sorts of romantic, dashing fabulous things. I started getting sleepy and we realized it was 12:30 in the morning.  We texted each other good night after I got home and I drifted to sleep that night on a cloud.

We repeated the same sort of thing several more times over the next 3 weeks.  It got very heated but he told me there was no way he was taking me in that truck, that he wanted all of me and we would do it right or not at all.  We did more talking and the lay of the land was that he was a year out of a divorce that had left him struggling after he’d made some poor choices.  He lived in a mother in law suite at his aunt’s house and so there was no going back there for us.  I had the girl child at my house and so unless she was out for the night, he wasn’t spending the night with me.   

The Last Love of Don Juan - Daniel C. Chiriac

Third week, lo and behold there was a free night and he could come over…and of course motherfucking shark week shows up.  We talked it over and he was going to come for dinner and we rented a movie.  Just a nice little date and more making out.  I cooked us a casual dinner and did the fun part.  The makeup and hair and the omg we’re not going anywhere so what do I wear and then he was there.  We ate supper, we watched Man of Steel and we made out on my couch like teenagers.  He whipped off his shirt and I almost fainted… there it was, a strong perfect chest with a tattoo of his son’s infant footprints. He kissed the breath out of me and we finally stopped and finished the movie and I sent him home with blue balls. What’s the lady version of blue balls?? Motherfucking shark week.  

It took another week before he didn’t have his son and I had an empty house.  I cooked a meal, I primped and powdered and lotioned and stockings and lingerie and a little black dress.  He showed up smelling and looking so good and we ate dinner but the tension and longing was thick.  We talked and I began to put the dishes in the sink.  He came up behind me and started kissing my neck. I turned and sank into his arms and we made love.  You would think after more than a month of heavy petting and anticipation it would have been animal and it was…a little, but it was more sweet and passionate and wonderful than I’d experienced in a long time.  There was feeling and adoration and he whispered Spanish in my ear.  He could have been telling me directions to the library and I wouldn’t have known or cared. 

The discussions that followed soon after had snippets of things that told of his intentions for a relationship and not just messing about.  I had the same feelings and couldn’t believe I was experiencing them.  We talked about our future plans and he spoke of rebuilding his life and being proud of his choices and I talked of many things and remember him telling me, “Don’t talk like you’ll have to do it all alone.” We fell in love over Christmas. I sewed matching PJ’s for him and his 6 year old.  I bought him presents and made him cookies and we spent every minute that we weren’t working or busy trying to be together.  There was not as much sex as there was kissing and hugging and talking.  It was a real grown up relationship and he treated me like no one has ever treated me.  He called me his Queen.  I felt as if I were floating on air so much of the time. 

The other side of this coin is that he is 21 years clean and sober and attends meetings and counsels others. He takes phone calls at all hours to help people and I loved this about him but this all leads to a lot of self-reflection and all that sensitivity and caring means that though he had a bit of swagger with everyone else…almost a bit of a dickhead sometimes, he was conflicted. A lot.  He was conflicted when things went badly and he got behind with his bills.  He was conflicted about whether he was ready for our commitment. He was conflicted when he was offered a management position. He was conflicted over everything.  All the time.  At first, I felt like a wise calming influence to him. I felt useful and like we were part of a partnership where we were helping each other but I soon realized he could justify anything and talk himself into the choice he wanted in the first place most times. I felt like I was useful and part of something great.  I felt like this big, strong man that no one saw a weak link in needed ME.  I was special enough for him to show his weaknesses and to wise enough for him to bring his burdens. We talked about a home together and our future.

But…those times that we talked and I felt like I’d talked him off the ledge and he would text me later and tell me how grateful he was for me in his life.  I clung to those.  I clung to the moments that we stole kisses in parking lots, the times that we finally got my house to ourselves and had sweet, quiet time together, the times he looked at me and said, “Why are you so beautiful?”

I would find out soon enough though that I should have listened to the voice in my head that said, “Can you spend your whole life supporting and building someone up that needs this much validation? Of course you can. You love him.” I quieted that bitch. She’s a smart bitch, though.

Being Kalinda

Does anyone watch The Good Wife? I just started a binge watch of the first season as part of the March 2014 Mediocrates Depression Tour.  I’ve watched all 8 seasons of Weeds, 2 seasons of House of Cards and now The Good Wife. I’ve currently made my way to season 2. I normally don’t like a weekly episodic that wraps up neatly at the end of the hour.  I like character studies.  The Good Wife as it so happens out is a veritable cornucopia of character studies. I catch myself sort of ignoring the weekly legal drama and focusing on the soapy operatic deliciousness. I adore Josh Charles and have ever since Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.  His unrequited love for Alicia didn’t quite fly with me at first but it became a matter of course as I sank deeper into my covers with the small screen churning out the theatre. 

Alicia is long suffering and quiet and as I watch, I find myself screaming at her to be angry, to stand up for herself, to say something instead of just standing there being silent through any and all outrages. As much as I love Chris Noth, (who doesn’t love Mr. Big or the plaid tie wearing Mike Logan?) I hear myself thinking loudly…Why are you letting that motherfucker back in your house after what he’s done? When her brother tells her that she’s like the person on the Titanic that drowns because she’s too polite to leave her room, I just cringe and think holy sheep shit, YES!!!! Then I wonder why I’m so irritated at her until I realize how much she reminds me of myself.

I often tell myself that staying silent will show my quiet strength, only it’s not strength that keeps me quiet most times.  It’s fear.  I slowly began to grasp that she’s handling her fears by internalizing and trying to deal as best she knows how; navigating uncharted waters with all the skill of Gilligan.  Just like me.  Reactive not proactive.  I have been spending hours lying covered with the heavy blanket of nothing only rising when required to work, visit the powder room, throw some food down my throat or sporadically shower. I had been in the midst of much worse but was dealing with boyfriend problems that were throwing my future into shadow and my certainty with my peace askew. I was handling it with much less aplomb than she and that was sort of pissing me off.

Then there’s Kalinda.  I love me some Kalinda.  When asked if she’s gay, her answer is, “Why does it matter?” That’s a great response and one I should utilize more often when asked questions I don’t want to answer.  She’s fearless and bitchy and everyone loves her for it. The moment that she told Alicia that flipping someone off was good for the soul, I had to wholeheartedly agree with her.  It IS good for you when the recipient has been deemed worthy. And so what if your answer or demeanor might possibly sting another sometimes? There are times that people deserve a sting and you don’t have to be hateful to deliver it as I was learning from good old Kalinda. Yeah! I should be more like hard assed Kalinda.

So, I got up.  I haven’t watched any more Netflix.  Well, not compulsively anyway.  I have laid out a tentative plan for my future that may or may not include my boo. I had hoped that this sensitive, caring, passionate man would be in my future but it’s gotten lost in the mist of neuroses and curiously, not my own.  I finally met someone more neurotic than I, it seems.  I have so many other things to take care of and look after.  A teenaged daughter about to be driving, a father with cancer, a mom who is caring for a man with cancer, a teenaged son that desperately needs guidance and refuses to take it, a career that needs nurturing.

I have to keep my head down and work this shit out and if he falls into place then that will be wonderful.  If he doesn’t, it’ll hurt but we’ll all make it. I don’t need anyone else to fix me; I can “fix” myself.   Don’t get me wrong, the nothing is there.  It’s jumping up and down and rubbing its hands together in dark anticipation but I will keep it at bay.  I’ve got things to do. I’ve got me to do.   

Aging

I have linked aging to my maturity level my whole life as if the two were supposed to run parallel.  You get older, you get more mature but the two have run in very skewed manner since I have rarely accepted my lot in life, not gracefully anyway.  Unless, like a very quiet doormat translates to gracefully.  I suffered with massive, turbulent, churning inner turmoil and barely contained mental illness but only rarely handled any of it with any grace.  

For instance, when I was 10, I tried to commit suicide.  Months before that, my biological mother had abandoned me. Literally.  She worked nights and I got up and got myself ready for school every day.  I would see her getting ready for work when I got in from school in the afternoons and we would have perfunctory conversation only because my real mother just wasn’t very motherly.  Sometimes, I wouldn’t see her for a couple of days but I never worried; she usually popped up sooner or later and there was always food to prepare for myself. One time, after about 4 days, I thought maybe something was off. I was not allowed to use the phone, ever. So great was my mother’s tyranny that even in what I imagined was an absence fraught with foul play, I would still dare not to defy her orders.  So, after school, I walked to my grandparents’ house across town.

My mother and my Nana are English and I remember my Nana opening the front door of her house, looking down at me and saying, “Hello, Love. What’s this?”

I stared up and simply said, “My mom hasn’t been home for a long time.”

She backed up and ushered me past, “Come in, then.  Let’s sort it out over a cup of tea darling.” Her accent and the years she’d been in Texas always made darling sound like dullin and I loved it when she called me dullin.

My Nana constantly had the kettle on and she made me a cup just like hers which never failed to make me feel special and grown.

She indeed poured two cups and went to dial the phone.  I heard snippets of conversation.

“…Little one is here …. Where is she?...no she says …How many days dullin??” she yelled across the room.

“3, I think, maybe 4.” I was nursing my tea and feeling super special.

I could hear her say, “Oh no reason, just checking in.”

Nana made so many phone calls her tea was cold when she came to sit and she had to warm it up. 

She sat down and made a sort of a squeaky, chirpy noise with her mouth and said, “Well, why don’t you head back to the house and get your clothes all together and you might have to stay here tonight.  Papa will come by and get you before bed.”

I looked at her and thought, Wow. Maybe my mom is dead and that would be so great. I didn’t feel badly at all and I didn’t feel badly that I didn’t feel badly either.  I wasn’t explained to any further. I did as I was told, went home, got my shit together, made a sandwich and some Kool-Aid, fed the cat and turned on the TV.  I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get in trouble for it because my mother most assuredly was not coming home and hopefully had been grabbed and stabbed by some landlubbing pirates or something.  I fell asleep on the couch and was woken by a loud noise outside.  I opened the front door to see my Dad pulled up bobtailed in a big ass Kenworth.  He opened the truck door and my little brother scrambled over his lap and came running across the front yard toward me.  He hurtled into my arms and we hugged and hugged.  My dad had a huge smile on his face and told me to get my stuff.

I was ecstatic.  I loaded all my stuff in the truck and off we went, hundreds of miles away and away from my horrible mother.

Eventually, though, in a world surrounded by testosterone, I sank into a slight dark princess, Lydia Deets-ish place.  There were nothing but boys about all the time.  I felt all put upon having these men all over the place and then the boys in the countryside that flocked to play with my brother were ever present and always taunting.  I was shot with their BB guns, I was forced to kiss one of them at BB gunpoint once.  I was pushed, prodded and picked on mercilessly. 

One day I’d had enough. 

I cleaned my room. Put on the nicest dress I had and wrote a very moving suicide note.  I say that because I don’t remember what it said but I know that I was very sure it was devastating.  I went to the medicine cabinet and checked myself in the mirror before I pulled it open to do myself in in the only way I’d ever heard of…with a bottle of pills. I sat down on the edge of the tub and proceeded to gnaw up every last one of the chewable, fruit flavored Tums in the family sized bottle. I went then and placed the suicide note on the yellow frilly pillow sham next to me and laid upon the bed…crucifixion pose, like any good martyr, and waited. I waited for the sweet release that only about 15-20 fruit flavored antacids could bring.

After what seemed longer but was probably 10 minutes or so, my brother burst in the front door and into my room and asked what the hell I was doing. 

I bolted upright and grabbed the suicide note. I hadn’t figured on having to explain myself. I was going to let my beautiful, lifeless corpse do the explaining.  He grabbed the note from me and after reading it, he paused and looked at me with a furrowed brow and then he just hugged me.  He said, “Let’s get rid of this and me and you will play in here. Away from everyone outside.”

So the nature with which I handled being abandoned earlier was practically heroic compared to being picked on and the ensuing botched suicide attempt. Turns out though, all that abandonment shit ages, and not well.  It sits and ferments and comes back to haunt you.

The decade that followed was confusing and full of more chaos brought on by spotty parenting and oppression. Mother blew back into town and Dad let her back. By the time I turned 20 I was marrying a virtual stranger, thousands of miles from home in order to feel as if I belonged to someone. My dad had driven me to upstate New York on a run to Canada. When he met the beau I’d been corresponding with for a mere 6 months on a snowy, bone-chilling night outside a barracks on Fort Drum, he was not thrilled…in the least.  The last thing he said before he loaded up to leave the next day was, “Whatever you do, don’t get married.  I’ll come from wherever I am and get you if you need me…just call.”

I agreed and sent him on his way.  Two weeks later, I called him to tell him I’d wed the aforementioned near stranger. He blew a heavy sigh, “I knew that was gonna happen.”

Aging 10 years hadn’t improved my thought processes or injected any maturity or wisdom.  Aging – 10, Maturity – negative 20.

Fast forward another 10 years to the second husband and I turned 30 and I was feeling as if I had it.  I had two babies and a child groom (5 years younger than me) who was devastatingly handsome and equally as devastatingly simple.  I had accepted that lot and was fairly secure in the feeling that I had “grown up”. I liked turning 30.  I had hitherto held the design that things would be better when I got older; that as I aged, magical insight would settle about my shoulders like I was a Disney princess being attended by benevolent woodland creatures. I felt as if this were happening when I turned 30. The thing I had always waited for had arrived.  The 10 years between 30 and 40 pretty much dashed that all to hell.

When I turned 40, I was so miserable and dealing with inner crazy that I often dreamed for an amorphous blanket of nothing to swallow me whole.  The aging process had not, in fact, conspired with the universe to turn me into an astute, happy sage. I waited and waited for everything to get better but as I looked in the mirror, I noticed that I was getting older and for the first time, I noticed the wrinkles. I noticed the not as smooth skin, the stray hairs growing in weird places, the flesh that did not snap back, the hair that was oh so slightly thinning. The fact that my world was completely spinning out of control behind me as I examined my many flaws compounded every last one of them.

I hated that my body was betraying me. It was all I’d ever had when my mind was constantly on the blink.  Big boobs can get you through a lot, don’t kid yourself. Now though, they were turning into 38 longs instead of DDD’s.   It was all so terrible and I cried.  I was old.  I had to face it.  I was my mother.  I was chunky and old.  I couldn’t be anyone’s real fantasy any longer because I was practically geriatric. The only thing that any man had found interesting about me up to that point was gone. My looks had just disappeared.  I cried.  I cried a lot.  I avoided mirrors. What little self-esteem I had vanished. Aging had finally caught up to me.

It is a mere 4 years later.  I will turn 44 in two weeks and I feel fabulous.  I look like a 40 something woman and I’m okay with that. I have wrinkles, I am doing a thousand pushups to help curb the southbound journey of my boobs, I’m poofing my hair with outrageously priced products, I drink a lot of water and take a lot of supplements. I am, indeed, trying to look as good as I possibly can…

BUT I have found that feeling love and peace inside shines love and beauty to the outside. The person I love, who loves me, watched me act like a complete happy, doofus moron for months before we got together.  Just like I do with every friend I have. I was myself.  My real true self.  The one that breaks into song for no reason and whose feelings would best be expressed in a monologue from TV’s Portrait of a Teenage Centerfold. The person that has for the first time really, truly found joy in living every day. Don’t get me wrong, shark week rears its ugly head and the hormones rage occasionally, but I don’t cry every day anymore. I suppose mostly that is because I realize with age comes aging. I won’t have every day forever and for the time I have here, I want the most out of every last second. I don’t want to be crippled with worry or anger or self-doubt or self-loathing. It’s a waste of precious time and I want to live before I die. 


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Ima Eat

I love to eat and I’m really good at it too. I’ve spent most of this year not eating as much though because when you get older, all those late night fried burrito binges catch up with your ass. They make things jiggle that aren’t supposed to shake. The first time I had a back fat wobble, I almost had to be prescribed a sedative and then I had a cheeseburger, which was my sedative of choice at the time.

So, I have been learning to like new things through the magic of low and no carb eating.  Last night after working my regular 9-5 and then another 4 at Home Depot, I was friggin starving. I hate eating late but the only snack choices available to me at Home Depot are cookies, crackers, candy or meat sticks. I stuck it out and waited til I got home and opened the fridge to peruse my choices. I settled on lettuce leaves smeared with hummus, topped with roasted chicken and a slice of cheddar all rolled up.  It was delicious and I didn’t have to feel bad about it. I’ve spent a lot of years feeling horrible about almost every bite I put in my mouth because when everything else is shitty, Ima eat.  However, now I’ve become a veritable white trash maestro of low carb snacks.

The only cracker, cookie or bread like substance that has zero carbs….pork rinds. You can turn these crunchy little fried pieces of pork skin that I would NEVER have previously eaten into all kinds of things. Smash them and make breading or use them for dipping. You can cover them with taco meat and cheese and jalapenos and have some pretty decent nachos.  All without having to feel guilty about it. Well I mean I haven’t had my cholesterol checked in a while but let’s pretend that’s not a problem right now.

Also hummus.  Omfg.  Hummus.  Who knew this shit was so delicious.  I mean I’ve eaten chickpeas in a salad as a child when held at fork point by my mother and yuck! But mash those fuckers up and throw in some tahini and lemon, garlic, roasted peppers and holy garbanzo beans, Batman! Deeelish.

I don’t feel deprived because I eat at least one cheat meal a week and there are weeks that I have an entire cheat day.  Thanksgiving was about 5 days of binging and cheating and I paid dearly. My digestive system went off the rails and I started retaining water and feeling all around terrible.  I didn’t gain any serious weight back though and two days back on no carbs and I felt all better.

This does not mean that I will abstain from Christmas binging.  It’s gonna happen.  The Gurl Child and I only have one tradition really at Christmas and that’s ball shaped food.  Ala’ Schweddy Balls. You’ve got your sausageballs, your rum balls, your orange balls, your cheese balls, your popcorn balls, your meat balls. Ever had a mashed potato ball? I have and it is baby jeebus in a ball shaped manger delightful. Whopper cake? 

Because malted milk ball scrumptiousness.

No matter what life changes I’ve made to lose weight or be healthier or just to feel better, I will never deprive myself completely of the things that I love.  Quite simply, Ima eat. 

Pride

Yesterday, I had a mostly great day.  It was long and punishing but I felt good. Everyone telling me my new hair is fabulous and I was wearing the Girl Child’s jeans and sweater and they both fit famously. I have been seeing a sweetheart of a man for 23 days now and got to steal kisses with him in the parking lot between jobs.  I worked a long hard day, headed home and pulled in to check my mail. I looked at my brand new car as I got out of it to walk to the mail box and I was actually….proud… proud of myself.

I have quashed that emotion my entire life. It was taught in Sunday school that pride goeth before the fall and so I took it to heart lest I burn in hell for basking in my own glory.  I also had the hubris squeezed from my little body by an unyielding mother and was forever behind her arm so my brother could pass first. We went to every football game he played but my regional track meets were just something that happened and scholarships and accomplishments were expected from me but lauded when my brother gained them. So I learned.  Do what you’re supposed to do and you won’t draw attention, good or bad.  I learned my whole life to not be proud of a fucking thing I did because that was presumptuous and just who the hell did I think I was?? I still fight the inclination today to not be proud; so last night, standing next to my mailbox, looking at my shiny car, wearing my teenager’s jeans and sweater with my fabulous hair…I felt pride and contentment. I was happy.

When I opened the mailbox I saw handwriting and without even reading it, I knew. Then I pulled out 5 envelopes, all from him, all thick and heavy. The pride. The happy. They slowly evaporated, lifting into the ice-cold night air as I stood there staring.  I said out loud, “Awww shit.” I looked up to see if any neighbors were out and about at close to 11PM. Not a soul but me and a stray cat. I carried my burden back to the car got to the house and threw all of it on the table and took a hot shower.

I came out and stared at the pile of mail and thought, Do I open it? Do I care? What the fuck can he possibly say in all that?  Maybe it’s drawings or something.

I separated all the mail and then proceeded to open it all. What I found were 71 front and back handwritten pages. Seventy…..One.  I poured a glass of wine, put on some fuzzy socks and jammies and pulled out a kitchen chair and started to read.  The first line was a double-barrel fully loaded guilt trip.

I’m not doing good, baby.

What followed was a listing of supplications for my attention, support, love and time. He apparently had corresponded with his parents who told him they saw me at his daughter’s wedding and that I looked great and he started in on that.

Why did you lose weight baby? You didn't need to lose a pound for me to think you were gorgeous. I love you, I've always loved you. Please don’t tell me you’re with someone else. I can’t bear to think of that.

He followed with worries about all the kids and more about how he loved me and at page 10, I put it down. I pictured the moment that he realized it really was going to be over.  Would he be mad or resigned? Would he quit trying? I know that in his mind all he has to do is get one tiny toe back in the door and he’s got it licked. There was a time after he was gone, that was probably true. I knew right that second that it was no longer.  I had spent the day thinking about my future and what I could do to make mine and my kids’ lives better, whether I’d find or had found that someone to get old with or whether it really would be me by myself forever and either way, I had a sense of hope and optimism about it.  Looking down at the letter on the table made me feel anxious and dirty and sad.

I didn’t finish it. When I got to work this morning I called the Department of Corrections and asked that he not be allowed to send me any more mail.  The woman cheerfully told me she’d take care of it and that was that. When I hung up the phone, I felt good and awful at the same time.  Relieved that I was never again going to open up my mailbox and find the sucker punch waiting to steal my happy but sad that I’d more than likely done the worst thing I could possibly do to another human being…erased his hope.

I know he doesn’t deserve me.  I know he DOES deserve to be where he is but I just don’t have the desire to be the cause of anyone’s pain. My best friend asked me how I felt when I told her I’d made the call and I said, “I feel a bit like I've just pissed on a burning kitten.” I got to feeling just actually like I was going to cry because I knew how badly it was going to kill him when he found out. It makes me feel like a shitty human being on a fundamental level to hurt someone and guess what? You better fucking believe he knows it.  So fuck him and his happy stealing. Fuck him and all his manipulative machinations.

I’m now shopping for seat covers for my new car…leopard or zebra???

Batter Up!!

TBone did make me realize that I enjoy having a warm body next to me and that I’m at least marginally loveable.  Rationally of course I realize that I am loveable but feeling it in your bones is something else entirely. The absolute best moments of the four months I spent with TBone happened when I got home from work one evening and kicked off my heels and began cooking dinner. TBone was on his way and I was making him a manly meal.  When he came in he looked just as lovely as always and he sat down at the bar to watch me cook. I came around the bar and sat in his lap where we began to make out like teenagers. 

Whatever was on the stove started to bubble and I jumped up to stir it. When I turned around he was standing right behind me and leaned over me and turned off the burner and said, “I’m not hungry for food right now.” He leaned in and kissed me and I felt the swell inside me that is described in every bodice ripping romance novel that my feverish little brain had ever devoured.  That moment made me feel alive. It made me realize my life wasn’t over.  It made me feel and even after all the not so fun stuff during our breaking up; I still want that feeling again.

Oh, there are the odd Murder Tanks about and if all I wanted was a roll in the hay, I could find plenty of FWB’s.  I want more than that but less than an all-consuming involvement. I did go back to that store by the way and he molested me by the Mrs. Baird’s. It was lovely and terrifying and exciting but he’s never going to cuddle up on the couch with pizza and a Shiner and watch a movie with me on a Saturday night.  He’s still so very many years younger and out partying every weekend. Murder Tank is good for feeding the ego but my soul would likely starve.

I stayed off POF because that’s where I met TBone and I didn’t want the cocksucking algorithms telling me he was my soul mate since I had already fucked him off. I thought what better way to boost the old ego than to get on a dating site and have hundreds of men tell me they love me.  Okay, so whatever. I set up the profile on a different site.  It was quirky and adorable and slightly flip.  I wanted to just cast the line without looking like I was on a husband hunt because the only thing I am crystal clear about is that husband #3 almost killed me and I don’t want a #4.

I apparently forgot to change the age settings to post-pubescent because within 30 minutes of posting it, there were about 5 messages from twenty-somethings wanting an older woman.  Most of them said I like an older “women” which made me shudder and dream of braining them with a grammar primer. I told them all I had T-shirts older than them and moved the age to an appropriate range on my profile.

I started an interchange with one gentleman who was very persistent.  His picture didn’t make me swoon or anything but I didn’t throw up in my mouth either.  I thought, you know, you gotta start somewhere, just talk to him. He didn’t offend me and he didn’t make overt sex talk right off the bat so we exchanged numbers and began to text intermittently for several days.

 

No reason except it goes with the whole baseball theme.

Meanwhile, somehow I was still fielding messages from youngsters and I had listed myself as a sapiophile so when I got a message from someone with a PhD in their username I was very pleased although I couldn’t figure out what discipline Thonology was and didn’t stop to Google it because I had a Dr on the line here for fuck’s sake.  We talked and exchanged usernames on Kik.  If you don’t know about how delightful that caca is, you should try it.  We exchanged usernames and I sent a message and it didn’t work.  I sent him a message back on the dating site and he sent, “Oh yeah, I forgot.  Take the PhD off.” When I do this I have the biggest facepalm moment ever.  It wasn’t Thonology he was a doctor in, it was THONGology.  Yeah. I’m a dumbass.  I blocked that shit directly and haven’t heard from the underwear doctor again.

In the interim, I’m still talking to starter date man.  We’re casually texting back and forth and yadda yadda and

I text, “Okay I gotta go to bed. I have to open the store in the morning and be there at 7:30.”

He sends, “I’ll be waiting in the parking lot for you in the morning.”

Me: Um that’s not creepy at all.

SDM: I’m just kidding but I can be there you know if you’ll give me a kiss.

WTF!?!

Me: Well motherfucker, show up with a taco and some hot coffee and we’ll see.

SDM: I’ll be there.

I went to bed fully thinking this man was fully full of shit.

I overslept the next morning and was racing to work when my phone went off.  I picked it up and read…”I’m here. Where are you?”

Ohhhhhhhhh…….fuuuuuudddgggggeeeeee. Only I didn’t say fudge.

I voice texted back that I was late and had to go straight into the store and couldn’t dally in the parking lot.

He sent back, “I’ll wait.”

Terrific.

I went in and opened the store and got all the cashiers lined out and then texted him and told him to meet me by the garden gate. And here he came, carrying coffee and a bag.  He was better looking in person. Still didn’t make me gaga but I thought he was sweet/stalkery/desperate for doing what he did and waiting like he did.  He gave me my breakfast and I apologized for his having to wait.  He leaned in close to me and I knew he was waiting and I kamikaze pecked his mouth and said, “Thanks! I gotta get back to work.”

I ran inside to microwave my coffee and breakfast taco. I had a text before I was through saying he thought I was a hot piece of ass or something equally offensive. I said thanks and he said,

“Well what did you think of me?”

I said, “You’re better looking than your pictures.”

His gentlemanly behavior deteriorated after that. The texting became progressively raunchier and more suggestive and when I just didn’t respond, he sent pouty texts as if I’d made a commitment to him and should answer to him; all of this in the space of about a week.  Long story longer, I was supposed to have a date with him tonight. The thought of it came in way behind a mani/pedi and taking the Girl Child to the mall with one of her friends, which is exactly what I did. My nails look fabulous and my panties and my dignity are still intact.  

Bachelors – 0. M - 1.  

Potpourri for $1,000, Alex.

So we’ve reached the point in our story that I actually started this blog in the first place.  About a month after I moved in to my tiny little house with the Gurl Child, two dogs and a pregnant cat in tow. I was still taking calls from Tucker but less and less frequently and still figuring out the “master plan”.  If you go back to Today, you can see that about a month afterwards, I was still hurting but couldn’t really explain why.

If you see Ripping the Bandaid Off a mere two weeks later, I was ready to be done with him….all the way done, I just hadn’t steeled myself as of yet. By three months further on down the line, I had decided to get the divorce done and you’ll see how that conversation went if you read Sugar Doll.

In the interim, I didn’t do much except work, try to get better jobs and eat. A lot. I’ve since decided to not wallow but dating hasn’t been super kind to me either.  I suppose I must learn my lesson from Starfish and TBone. Starfish was three weeks’ worth of I love you’s from a dude that seemed too good to be true and then turned out to be a batshit crazy motherfucker that had drugs literally mailed to my house.

Sweet, hunh?

We all know the ballad of TBone.  I am still having trouble trying to figure out why that’s bothering me so much except for the fact that I hurt him like I did.  I am a smartass, mouthy bitch but I still don’t like hurting people’s feelings and truthfully, I was still on the edge of “maybe this can work out.”  I was on the brink of “You ain’t getting any younger or better lookin and maybe you should just quit while you’re ahead.”  I’m thinking I would have pulled out of that particular death spiral before I crash landed but my MO usually entails absolutely hating a sumbitch before I get rid of him so… probably not.

I shall keep updates inserted regarding Tucker because I still get them from time to time from random and unexpected sources.  Just today, in fact, a Facebook message from someone long forgotten…

I’ve been talking to Tucker every day and he has been asking me to message and make sure everything is going well and that he loves you.  I understand if you don’t want to talk to him but I am just doing him a favor.

I mean he can sell nuggets to a chicken and get random people to do all kinds of things.  He’s good at it.  I’m sure we’ll hear more and he’s scheduled for release in November so I may be moving, who knows?

In any case, I hope you continue to visit while I sign up for stupid dating sites and go on awkward dates and raise the world’s most awesome Gurl Child.