Holding Out

But not being stupid about it.

I have been looking for a ride share to Burning Man.

Everyone I know is going early, either in really early like they’re there now, or pretty much leaving prior to the start of the event since they will be helping build the city.

I love that I know so many folks who are such integral parts to the event.

I feel pretty lucky to know them.

And I am also damn lucky to be in my last year of my Masters of Counseling Psychology program, but it does throw a monkey wrench in my getting to the playa.

As it has done every year that I have been in school.

Last year I had to go up early and leave early.

But.

I got to go.

The previous year it was a similar situation, except that I was going to be coming back and rolling straight into school.

I went up with the family I was working for and came back with a playa boyfriend, the first time that every happened, who lasted all of two dates off playa, but hey, we had fun.

I remember looking at him and knowing, shit, I’m going to be “that girl he met at Burning Man.”

He’s never gone back to the event and he found a “real girlfriend” in the real world.

I don’t expect to find the love of my life out at the event, there was a time, and too fucking many of them, when I had this stupid idea that the one was out there.

The one is here.

I don’t need to go traipsing out in the desert to find the one, I am the one.

Fuck.

I remember when I realized that too, and yes, I was out in deep playa having a spiritual moment with the sky.

My favorite color.

The playa at sunset, the deepest midnight blue that fades into indigo violet and then a push of pink right at the edge of it all.

I have taken so many photographs of the playa at sunset, I can never quite do justice to the beauty of the sky with my words, but once in a while I do catch a glimmer of that bliss in the photos I have taken.

So.

Yeah.

This year my first weekend of classes is the 25th, 26th, and 27th.

The event opens at 12a.m. on the 27th.

Which means that everybody who isn’t already there, most of the people I know will already be there, will be queued up to get in as they open the gates Sunday “morning” at 12:01 a.m.

Me.

Nope.

I’ll still be in the city.

I have my last class on Sunday and it ends at noon.

I already have contemplated skipping it and maybe that happens.

But I can’t skip the whole weekend and I certainly can’t skip supervision for my internship that week either.

I can the week following and I will, by that time I will definitely be on playa.

So.

I won’t be able to leave San Francisco until 1p.m. on Sunday.

If I can get a ride.

If I can wrangle that up.

If not I’ll be leaving a little later than 1 p.m.

If I don’t find a ride, and believe you me, I am fucking trying I have been asking around since I found out I had been awarded the low-income ticket, so for months, I will be renting a car.

I have reserved a car at SFO.

I really don’t want to have to rent a car, first I’ll have to leave a gigantic deposit since I don’t have a credit card and then, well, there is the whole deal of driving it to Burning Man.

I’ll have to get it washed and very likely detailed.

I will probably lose all or most of my deposit.

Making it an $800 expenditure instead of a $384 expenditure.

That’s what I got the rental reserved for.

I have been hedging my bets that I would have to rent, and I have been putting aside little bits and pieces of money into my savings account so if I do have to rent the car I will transfer $1500 out of my savings three days before the rental happens, so basically the Thursday night before I start classes.

I have an online savings account, it takes three days to land in my regular bank account.

I will probably also have to move a bit more out than that as I won’t be getting a paycheck for my time off to go to Burning Man.

Which is fine, and that’s why I have a second savings account, also through the same online bank, which is my prudent reserve.

It’s rent and utilities and food for a month.

Eventually, one day I hope to have rent and food and utilities for at least three months, but you know, I start small and work my way there.

Ultimately I want a year’s prudent reserve.

But.

I tend not to go to that heavy into that particular savings account because all my other savings are earmarked for travel.

I would rather have travel than not have travel.

For instance I got paid today, yay, Friday!

And I put $68.24 into my savings.

$60 for travel and $8.24 for prudent reserve.

I know, its a silly system, but it’s my system and it works for me.

That being said, I can afford to eat up a lot of that travel money in savings for the event should I need to.

God.

I don’t want to.

But.

At this point I am pretty damn invested in going.

Plus.

It’s year 11.

Plus.

It’s Shadrach’s ten-year anniversary and I really need to be out there and have my own quiet time with him in the deep playa unload my heart, tell him how things have been, let him know I’ve been practicing being the ball.

It’s nice to be the ball.

And.

Well.

Fuck.

I have a ticket and I want to go.

I want to see friends I only see there, friends from Canada, London, Paris, friends from New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, friends from Toronto and Australia, shit friends from Alameda who you think I would see more often, but I end up almost only seeing out there.

So.

I am going.

And yes, I don’t want to rent the car but it’s a fall back, a net, if I have to, I will.

I haven’t paid anything for it, it’s reserved under my name, but I have the option to cancel at any time should I find a ride elsewhere.

Know anyone?

SERIOUSLY.

Let me know.

I’ll just be hanging out over here haunting the ride share board.

Ha.

What A Ride

In so many iterations I cannot fathom all of the ramifications right now.

I just got home from Los Angeles.

Although technically I just got home from a late night sushi dinner at Raw on 19th and Taraval.

Which was awesome, great company, fresh sushi, fast, good price, and hello, open at 10p.m. on a Sunday, and busy at that.

I know, you’re not supposed to eat sushi on a Sunday, or so the wives’ tale goes, but we were desperate, mostly me, despite not feeling all that hungry, I had a lot of iced coffee today, for food.

I knew better than to come home and not have some dinner in my body and the only other option would have been a late night run on Safeway and then cooking at my house.

I am not in the mood to cook.

I have so much on my mind, in my heart, in my soul, smeared across the windshield with golden light and thoughts and dreams and words, the touch of a hand, the constant conversation, the incessant pressing of love against my face as the sun set in the West as we drove up from the South, watching the roiling clouds of grey teeming over the San Francisco hills.

I have not had my cell phone off for so much time in years, nor, as you, my dear reader, may have notice, my computer.

There was no wifi at the Air BnB we were staying at.

I could catch some service on my iPhone, but sorry folks, there is no way in hell I’m going to write a blog on my phone.

Nope.

So.

Days without a blog.

Although not days without writing.

I did bring my notebook and I did do writing and as I was unpacking my go bag–I am damn skippy proud of how well I packed–I pulled out my new Claire Fontaine notebook, in deep sage green, with creamy lined paper, and taped the effects of the trip in the front page of my journal.

The first class ticket on American Airlines.

Man.

First class.

Thank you friend.

It was so nice.

Even for such a short trip, to have priority at the gate, to have faster check in, to scoot right through security, I felt spoiled and princess like.

So much so and so quickly did I get through that I actually had time to grab a manicure before I boarded.

I have never paid so much for a manicure in my life, but I thought, when someone you dearly adore says, let’s celebrate, I’m flying you down first class to LA, let’s go look at the Rothkos,

(OH MY GOD THE ROTHKO’S)

And I’ll put you up with me at my Air BnB in Santa Monica, it’s ok to splurge on a six-dollar cold pressed organic iced coffee from Equator Coffee and then go sit down and have your nails done.

You are officially on a celebration weekend.

The celebrating.

It was celebratory.

I danced up and down the steps of the Walt Disney Concert Hall designed by Gehry.

I lifted my face to the sky and marveled at the scoops and swoops and the neon lights bouncing off the building.

We walked around it and marveled at the symmetry of the building and talked and talked and talked.

There was much talking.

My friend and I had so much to talk about.

We could be talking right now.

Except.

Well, mama has to get up and go to work tomorrow and he’s got work to do too and the celebration will continue in my heart as I look at the other small pieces of paper taped next to that first class place ticket.

(OH MY GOD THE ROTHKO’S)

Should I ever have a child, a little boy, I would name him Rothko.

I was that overwhelmed, awed, blown away and just enamored with the pieces I saw.

I am speaking of the first day of my two-day party to celebrate (said celebration for the receiving the graduate school scholarships that I have been awarded over the past two weeks) and the trip to the MOCA.

The Museum of Contemporary Art.

It was just intense and overwhelming and amazing.

As before mentioned the Rothko’s were astounding, the humanness of the art, the luminosity of the paint, the spectrum of emotion I felt being in that gallery surrounded by the presence of such love and glory and art.

Art, love, God.

It’s all the same isn’t it?

I got to experience so much of that this weekend, I am still reeling with the love and kindness, the compassion of my friend, the utmost generosity.

I didn’t pay for anything.

I was spoiled and treated like a princess and ate lovely food and got driven all over the city and well, I even got to do that little girl thing that I most wanted to do but was also perhaps most resistant to ask for.

I got to go to the Santa Monica Boardwalk and go for a ride on the roller coaster and the Scrambler.

And.

The ferris wheel.

To be on the top of the circle, with some one so dear to me, to be swung high into the velvet of God’s deep indigo sky with the waves rolling in under the boardwalk and the smell of funnel cake and popcorn, or the happy screams of little kids on the roller coaster and the joy, the joy of being alive, present in the moment, so amazing.

I cannot quite even begin to comprehend all the ramifications of what this weekend has wrought for me.

Next to the MOCA ticket and the first class ticket and the postcard is my Zoltar fortune.

None your business.

Some things too sacred and special to share.

Some love you want to hold against your heart.

For fear that the bottom will drop out like it did that time you were kissed on the couch and you will never be the same again.

I will never be the same again.

And that is just alright with me.

I may have stepped off the ferris wheel, giddy and giggly and wobbly with my heart bouncy and bright and my smile so large it must have lit the sky a small bright star of love on the cusp of the ocean, the edge of the sea, the beginning of a new world view shimmers into sight.

But I am still riding high.

Still celebratory in my joy and the love I was able to bear witness to and receive, in the capacity for honest communication and appreciation of life, art, the heart, opening and breaking and making more space for more feelings and more.

Yes.

More.

And more.

Love.

I’ll buy that ticket any day of the week.

It’s a ride I never want to stop and regardless of what happens next.

I know that ferris wheel in my heart will continue to revolve.

And.

Evolve.

It will go the distance.

Hello Sunshine

Good bye fog.

I am actually going to where the sun is, where the clear skies are, where the weather is what most of the rest of the country thinks about when they ponder travel to California.

Not this cold, chilly, overcast, grey, did I mention cold?

Fog.

I tried to go swim suit shopping today.

Epic fail.

I bought a scarf.

Yeah.

I know, its June 20th and all I could do is buy a scarf.

And a bag, and a cute bag at that, I’m looking forward to using it for some travel time adventures.

But I could not muster it to get a swim suit.

I did manage to get my nails done and that was nice and relaxing and a treat, especially as there was no one else in the salon and I was getting all the pampering and attention.

I’m a good tipper and I usually get some solicitous treatment when I come in, and I engage with the woman, we like each other and talk about my hair color, which is rapidly becoming blonde and will likely be blonde for the next two weeks.

I am just not going to go pink again until after I know I won’t be in the pool for a while.

The last time I went swimming at UCSF with the family, the chlorine stripped just about all the Manic Panic Hot, Hot Pink, and Cleo Rose from my hair.

Although there are a few spots underneath the bed of hair that is on my head, that have licks of bright pink in them, I am assuming that a week of working in Glen Ellen and swimming with the boys will leach the rest of the color out.

Yup, that’s right, tomorrow I will head out to Sonoma, land of sunshine and temperatures in the mid 80s to low 90s, and there will be pool time.

I am going to head out to the airport tomorrow, late afternoon, and pick up the rental car from SFO then head back towards the city, I’ll have to go back through San Francisco and cross town to get to the Golden Gate Bridge and over to Sonoma.

I figure I will hit the Sports Basement in the Presidio.

I’ll take a quick detour and grab a real swim suit.

The one I have is more of a lounge by the pool and rub sunblock on yourself will sipping iced tea, swim suit.

Not a “I’m going to be nannying two rambunctious boys and their playmates (another family will be there for three days with their two boys and baby girl) in the pool for hours” swimsuit.

I figure I’ll get a competitive suit like I used to wear on swim team in high school.

I was relating some of my adventures in high school to my new friend last night in front of the fire in the back yard.

Yes.

That’s right, there’s a fire pit in the back yard and the old white-painted Adirondack chairs were pulled up and he started the fire on one wooden match and it burned merry and bright for hours as we talked.

And talked.

And talked.

And decided.

Wait for it.

To be friends.

Sigh.

I knew it was coming at some point.

It was too good to be true.

But.

And this is such a big pause, such huge rearrangement of my inner landscape, I am grateful and feel great joy at having gotten to a place where I can hold a man’s hand and be completely vulnerable, completely myself, and listen to what the other person is saying.

Really be present.

So present that you don’t realize how late it’s getting and it’s 3:30 in the morning and my feet are cold, but my heart, oh it is on fire.

I felt so tender today when I woke up, tender, smitten, sad, full of love, full of the feels.

I didn’t want to get out of bed, the weather was not helping, it may be summer everywhere else, but Ocean Beach, San Francisco?

No.

This is winter time and it’s grey and it reminds me of how I can slide into depression if I’m not cautious and aware.

My disease wanted to harangue me and poke me and for a moment, it might have gotten under my skin.

I picked up my phone and called a girl friend while still in bed, burrowed under the blankets and head snug down in the pillows.

I said my piece to her voicemail.

I sniffled.

I cried.

I felt sorry for myself.

I put on the self-pity party hat and asked to be passed a very small violin, or in my case a junior size cello.

I mean really, I’m not a violin type of girl.

Then I called my person and said some more stuff on the voicemail.

Then I looked at my room.

All the colors, the blues and corals and the postcards and the laughter and stories that I told about them last night, last week, the last few days as I have spun through a metamorphosis of becoming, yet again, a little more my authentic self.

I got up and drank some water and tossed myself in the shower.

What had happened?

We moved too fast.

And the best thing that happened?

We talked about it like grown ups with spiritual words and kindness and compassion and utter vulnerability.

I have not had all that many relationships in my life and I am full well aware as to the whys and whereof’s; however, I will say without much thought, as it is clear and true, that I shared more with this man about myself, how I feel, what I believe, what my dreams have been and where I am going, than I have with any other man (well, any other man other than one other man, who remains anonymous here and will only be alluded to) in my life.

And I dare say, he shared at the same level.

There are no mistakes in Gods world.

I read.

I prayed.

I got on my knees in front of my fresh made bed and felt grateful, felt joy, felt such an overwhelming field of love engulf me that I knew that nothing that happened last night or the days and nights previous had been wrong or hurtful or malicious.

Just warm, bright, as honest in each moment as a person can be with the other.

There is more to come.

It’s just going to be pulled back a bit.

“I can’t be your boyfriend right now,” he said.

I deign to say how it was said or with what emotion, the words suffice, the feeling is mine to have and to cherish inside my wide open heart.

But we can be friends.

So we move forward by backing up and seeing what a friendship looks like and as I look at the void left in my life by the changing of my friendships over the last few years, the loss of some, some to marriage and babies, new careers, new cities, new states, some to relapse into the horrors of drugs and alcohol, I see quite clearly how desperate I am for such a friend.

A companion.

Someone to stand in front of a Rothko and hold hands with while the luminous colors wash over our faces.

We’re still planning on going to LA.

Sonoma is not the only place where I will be getting my fill of sunshine.

The museum adventure is still a plan.

Just with a friend.

Rather than a boyfriend.

And that.

Surprise.

Is just right by me.

My heart grows ever bigger and I know that I am becoming ever more me.

Just one more step towards God’s, not mine, perfect image of me.

Unadulterated Auntie Bubba on tap at a foggy beach near you.

At least for the next 24 hours.

It’s Gonna Be A Lovely Day

It might be a damned tired day, but I suspect that I will be floating along three inches above the ground and won’t be feeling a thing other than elation.

I mean I am elated right now and I suppose it’s not the sort of feeling that will last night after night, day after day, but it feels right, right now and that’s the important thing.

Right.

The moment.

That one there when you get the message and he’s coming by and your entire body breaks out in a flush.

And no I’m not menopausal.

Just happy.

Excited.

Breathe.

Remember to breathe, that’s an important thing, that’s part of this too, being myself, utterly, with the heart on my sleeve or splayed across my chest, with my heart, there, just there.

And it’s ok.

It’s really ok.

I mean.

Fuck.

It’s better than ok.

It’s stupid.

I’m at a loss for words, who knew.

Come on lady pants, get the words out, you know a few, you have some at your command, it’s not like you haven’t written a blog before.

And I have written blogs in front of other people before.

Just not in my house with the man on my chaise who I want to spend as much possible time with, going slow, oh going slow, but spending time finding out about a person and also about myself.

What I stand for, who I am, how I show up.

I have to keep showing up, that’s the thing, I can’t stop the showing up and then the magic.

Oh hey.

It was like a curtain had been pulled up.

He was there.

In the corner of the room and I stopped, “do I know you,” and I touched his arm.

Was that just a few weeks ago?

How?

And then I think.

You know how, darling, you have always known how.

You were told years and years and years ago, but it take time and even when I say today, yes today, literally on the phone to my person who is working in New York and I won’t be meeting to do that thing that place there in the room over there in the basement/back room/nook of a church over there, on a folding chair with the smell of coffee char in your nose, which just means you’re home, it means comfort and ease and love and acceptance, to tell that person today on the phone.

“My principle is patience, patience for him, patience with myself, the patience to go slow and let things unfold, because there is no rush, there is no need to catch up to be anything other than myself.”

Here.

Now.

Complete.

I am always going to be growing I will always be seeking out the experience, the growth, I always want to be teachable, even when that means what I think is humiliation, the not knowing how to do something, the being a novice at a new thing, the falling down and stumbling and the looking stupid.

You know who was so ok with looking stupid?

Me.

Yeah.

That’s right.

I danced around my room to one of my favorite pop songs, and I don’t listen to pop songs, I don’t listen to popular music but there is a song or a series of songs that will get under my skin and Happy by Pharrell Williams is one of them, so yes, in front of this man, who is busy figuring out, on the chaise in the corner of my room if there is a way to get me down to LA next weekend to go to some museums with him.

(!!!)

Jesus.

Is that really happening.

It is.

Breathe.

There is nothing to do, but show up and write this blog and be me, and yes, dance around my room in front of a person that is a complete stranger, but then again, is not.

Is not.

How does that happen.

When you know.

And it fits and there’s that feeling.

Oh.

That’s a feeling that I cannot describe here, not fair to describe here and I get the scene in the Princess Bride when the grandfather is narrating the story to his grandson sick in bed and there’s the ellipses and suddenly the reunited scene with Buttercup and The Farm Boy, or now the fifteenth incarnation of the Dread Pirate Roberts, and the author drops the reunion scene.

How mad was I?

“Don’t ever tell about the first kiss,” he messaged me privately, “somethings are special, some things are sacred and when I think about what is in front of me I can see the sacred, the spiritual I can see how every step of the way from here to there was needed and necessary and every heart ache, break, and dent, and bloody vulnerable tear I shed in all those cafes in all those bedrooms, face pressed against the glass, the rain streaking the windows in the Victorian on Capp Street.

Or.

The top of the hill looking out over the bay and seeing the bridge and wondering where I was going and what I was doing and why.

Always the why.

“Why is not a spiritual question,” he said.

Silas said that.

Distracted.

I just got distracted and it’s nice.

I like this feeling.

I like that I am letting myself be seen.

It’s hard.

I’m hard.

I’m a walled little exuberant flippant, crazed, goof ball of a woman, I am over the top and I am ok with that, but I forget that it’s a device, it’s so that you can’t see how tender and vulnerable I am.

Which is why the blog, which is why the heart on the sleeve and the learning to wipe off the blood, sweat, and tears, and keep going, to let it all bleed out again, to be me.

To be me.

Exactly.

And yes.

I know this is a ramble Trollope of a blog.

But it’s so nice.

To be me.

To step fully forward, like the prow of a ship and be seen, flaws and all.

Imperfectly.

Perfectly me.

It’s all here.

And well.

I have to go.

I have things to be more vulnerable about.

Just not here in this forum.

But should you see me tomorrow.

I will be floating just a half-inch.

Or.

Three.

Off the ground.

That could be a problem since I’m already so freaking tall.

But fuck it.

When you’re happy.

Float.

Or

Dance.

But whatever you do.

Be you.

Pre-Emptive Blog

I am blogging early.

I have a dinner date.

And.

It’s freaking Sunday.

The Warriors are in the NBA finals and I have a dinner date.

Excellent.

I am a big pile of jello, however, I took the plunge, but not the cold plunge.

I went to Kabuki.

My employers surprised me with a gift card on Friday as I was leaving and I went to the spa today–I was treated to the “Radiance Spa.”

I do feel pretty radiant.

Although, truth be told, I’m not sure if it’s due to the spa time or the upcoming dinner time.

I’m happy.

I had a head and neck massage and hair oil treatment–seriously, the best thing ever is having my scalp rubbed, closely followed by hair brushing.  When people ask that question, what would buy with a million dollars or if you won the lottery, scalp massage, and lots of it.

I jest.

If I won the lottery.

I would pay off my student loan, and then your student loan and if you have any friends that have student loans, theirs too.

Then I would get some scalp massage.

It’s dreamy.

And she used a key lime oil.

Dude.

I smell like pie.

Hope my date likes that.

Then again, what man doesn’t want his date to smell like pie?

I’m not getting quite as gussied up as I did yesterday, it’s Sunday, I can’t stay out late, but I made sure I look cute and my hair, well, Christ on a stick, it looks fantastic.

All that scalp rubbing and hair oil.

Plus I got a short shiatsu and deep tissue massage–just 25 minutes–but enough to bliss out for a while.

Then a soak in the hot tub and a salt scrub followed by the steam room.

I tried to get into the cold plunge, I usually do hit it a couple of times, but I wasn’t feeling it today.  I decided to just take a nice long shower, shave the legs (not that I am expecting any kind of action tonight, the one thing I will let on about dating said gentleman is that he is a gentleman, we talked quite earnestly about going slow) and slather lotion all over myself.

Then a relaxing cup of tea on a lounge chair while I flipped awhile through a magazine.

Spa’d up and I took a car home.

I decided to splurge there too.

I wasn’t going to ride my bicycle to Kabuki and back.

I definitely feel that I have achieved celebration status for being awarded the scholarship.

An afternoon at the spa and a second date with a very handsome and.

Ugh.

Not writing about that.

I have a second date with someone whom I like very much.

There.

“You can write about me, just change my name,” he told me last night when I told him I was not going to write about him.

I explained that when it means something I don’t want to share.

So that’s it.

That’s all the share you get.

He means something.

This experience means something.

And I am excited.

Not nearly as anxious as I was yesterday before seeing him for our first date and hopefully the butterflies won’t come on too strong, but excited.

Not obsessed either.

That is nice.

My brain is not going 280 miles per hour.

It’s saying.

See what happens.

Let things unfold.

Let yourself be courted.

That’s really want I want.

I want to be courted and cherished.

I suppose everyone wants that.

I also want to provide that for the person I am with and this feels like a good fit.

Onto other news.

I checked out scooters yesterday at Scooter Centre and put down a deposit on a Buddy Italia in avocado with racing stripes.

Super cute.

Best scooter in the shop, 170, it can even go out not the highway.

I dropped five hundred for a deposit.

Filled out all the paperwork and then waited for the phone call back from the financing department.

And got my deposit refunded right back to my card.

I don’t have any credit history.

My credit score is high, but because there’s no record of me using a credit card for the last ten years I have no history of being a good or bad risk.

The company that Scooter Centre works with turned me down.

I had an inkling that may happen, so I was not upset when that turned out to be the case.

I can go to my bank and ask for a loan.

I can probably get a credit card, I get offers for them all the time.

I can not worry about getting a scooter right now and save my money.

I can keep riding my bicycle and use the money I do have towards paying for the fees and registration that I will have to cover for my school.  The scholarship I was awarded is solely tuition, but at $24,500 a year for two years, that’s nothing to sniff at.

However, a close inspection of the registration fees and the fee for the required week-long retreat at the beginning of the semester with my cohort in Petaluma at the Ions Institute, is going to cost about $2,500.

That’s nothing in comparison to the tuition, but it is something.

I am still assuming that I will have to take out some loans, just to cover cost of living, but the fewer I have to take out the better and the faster I can pay down my student loan debt, the easier it will be for me in the long run.

I mean, I’m still paying off my undergraduate degree.

Anyway.

I wasn’t upset and I believe something else will happen.

Maybe I don’t get a scooter.

Maybe I do.

I’m alright no matter what happens.

And I have a date in twenty minutes.

Gotta go!

See you tomorrow.

With bells on.

Best Date Ever

And why this blog will be short.

I am tired.

It was a six hour date.

It was fabulous and that’s all you get to know.

I didn’t blog last night or the night prior as it turns out I got a huge crop of viruses on my laptop and had to have it dealt with.

Two days, back to back of two-hour plus tech calls, but it got cleared up.

So sorry I missed blogging, I really did.

And sorry that this guy here, this wee little blog, is going to be short.

But sweet.

Oh.

It was sweet.

The date.

So much so that I can’t say anything else.

Rather, only,  that I feel celebrated and astounded.

And I must keep this short, I have things that need to be done tomorrow and it is well past my bedtime.

I will catch up with all of you soon.

Until then.

May your dreams be lovely and full of goodness.

You Need To Celebrate!

She told me tonight.

She hugged me hard.

“You show up, I just want to let you know how grateful I am that you do the work!” She shined up at me, she’s shorter than me.

I wiped away some tears, I was sharing about the past weekend and what it felt like to make amends and how sometimes I just feel like I’m not doing enough, and how I have worked really hard to sustain the abstinence I have and the 90 lb plus weight loss and how, nothing tastes as good as abstinence.

Also that it’s challenging repeating, again and again that I don’t eat sugar and flour and that it makes me sick.

I can’t just have one cookie.

If I could have just one fucking cookie I’d have one fucking cookie.

Or beer.

Or line of blow.

Or cigarette.

I can’t have just one.

That is not in my make up.

So to go and reconnect and make amends and walk into a new situation that I had heretofore ever had with my father’s side of the family and NOT eat the “better than sex cake” (which, I’m sorry, but after not having sex for the last six months, there is no cake that is fucking better than sex, bring on the sex! Damn it) is a big deal.

“It’s not about the food, though,” she said, quietly, sweetly.

“You show up, lady, you are amazing, you do a good job,” she hugged me again.

Oh yeah.

I do a good job.

I did good today at my job job.

And I do damn good at my other job, the more important one, the keeping it sober and together and real one.

Which allows for all the other work to happen.

So.

Yeah.

I need to celebrate.

Yes, yes I do.

So.

Um.

Yeah.

I signed up for Match.com.

Bahahahahaha.

Oh.

I kill myself.

But serious.

I did.

I am taking suggestions and as I have posited before I don’t have to know which ones are going to work, I really don’t, but I do have to take actions.

I can’t bemoan not going out on dates and being single if I’m not willing to take any actions.

Thus I took some actions.

I finished the profile last night and hooked up some photos and decided I would sit on it over night.  I’m still not a huge fan of the having to pay for the website.

When I was on my bike riding home, thinking about what I had shared and the feedback, and there was more, a bit more really, but nothing that is appropriate to put on the blog, some things I will share only face to face and what I talked about tonight in the back room of Our Lady of Safeway was really only for the ears within that space.

That being said, it made an impression on me how much grief I can still carry in my body over something that happened so long ago and despite having done a lot of work.

A LOT.

I still have grief there and there are still things to work out and let go of.

One of them is that I do not and will not ever have the body that I wish I had.

It does not matter that I have sustained the weight loss, although it really does, to my mind, when I have excess loose skin and like Caitlyn Jenner hiding her hands in that Vanity Fair cover, there is no amount of work that is going to cover it up when I am not wearing long sleeves and a sweatshirt.

I can’t just photo shop my sagging arm skin off my body.

It’s there.

“What’s that?” The eldest boy said to me tonight, feeling the soft folds of skin hanging loosely from my under arm, “it’s squishy.”

“That is what happens,” I said, after taking a deep breath (nobody wants their fat poked, or in my case, my sagging arm skin prodded) and knowing that he wasn’t being hurtful, he was just curios, “is what happens to your body when you lose a lot of weight.”  I continued, “my skin is not as supple and elastic as yours is and when I lost a bunch of weight, that’s what happened.”

“Oh,” he said and went back to eating his apple sauce.

Like it’s no big deal lady.

“I love you, Carmen,” he said, out of no where.

See.

It doesn’t matter how much excess skin you got, you’re loved.

This is the body God has given to me and when I criticize it I am criticizing the greatest artist ever.

I mean really.

Who am I to tell God how to make me look?

Not I.

And when my friend shared with me, when she thanked me for doing the work, taking the steps to do the amends, to go and show  up and be my authentic self (who happened to look very cute today in spite of upper arm skin sag, thank you very much), that she was so grateful for my example.

Well.

I am celebrating.

I paid for three months on Match.com.

And.

I bought two orchestra seats for “In Our Own Words” in Atlanta for myself and my darling friend who is coming with me to Atlanta in July.

Because sometimes I have to celebrate.

I’m also being treated to a dinner on Saturday by my friend, who confirmed with me that we were going early (to accommodate my dietary stuff) and bring on the raw fish!

We’re going to Liholiho Yaht Club on Sutter Street.

Hawaiian, how apropos, and contemporary Indian/Asian fare.

Bring me some Poke please.

And tomorrow is Friday.

Another reason to celebrate.

Besides the fact that I am seeing the promises in my life-like nobody’s business.

All that hard work praying off.

I mean.

Paying off.

Yeah.

That’s worth celebrating.

Indeed.

Hell Hath No Fury

Like a woman scorned.

And don’t I know it.

I had lots of things to  say tonight, lots of words, lots of engaging things that would lead me to make an amends to a certain person at some point.

What’s the point?

Self-righteous anger does not serve me.

Nor does taking anyone else’s inventory.

It’s always myself I have to look at, what’s might part?

I was a big old Charlie Brown.

I went for the Lucy, the ball got swiped, and I’m assed out looking at the sky.

Wait.

Didn’t I just go through this?

What the fuck?

Oh.

I responded.

I started back down that road again, I did.

No one else compelled me to revisit it.

I was riding my bicycle home through the gloaming, the park darkening quickly, the few joggers out with their headlamps on, a handful of hardcore frisbee golf kids hanging out around the first tee on the disc golf course, but mostly, just me, the wind, the chill, the thoughts in my head, and the sky above.

I was thinking about how I am the better person and how and what and when and this and that.

And whoa.

Slow down.

There is not a better person, there is his experience, and there is my experience and I have come out of the experience a better woman.

Not better than another.

I am not the better person, I am just.

A better person.

For having had the experience.

I realized as I was riding my bicycle a number of things that did not happen around the break up and how grateful I am for that, and how hard I worked to not let any of the following happen.

First and foremost, I didn’t drink.  I didn’t pick up a drug.  I did not start smoking again.  I did not do any kind of crazy risky behaviors that would land me in the hospital, I did not have a bunch of crazy wild one night stands.

Oh.

And I didn’t eat eighteen boxes of donuts and twenty-two pints of Hagen Daaz icecream.

I had all the feels.

ALL of them.

I wrote about them.

I inventoried those little fuckers.

I did work.

I discovered that I don’t like it when I lose my voice in a relationship, I don’t like being on a pedestal, I learned about how I want to date in the future, I learned about what I want from a partner I learned more about how I need to communicate with people in my life and with myself.

I deepened my spiritual life.

I renewed my vigor and commitment to doing my blog.

I tried some online dating.

I tried asking some guys out.

I tried not doing anything.

I paused when it was applicable.

I took action when it was applicable.

I resolutely turned my attention to others and their needs.

I didn’t check out.

And I am not about to act like the scorned woman now.

No.

I have some honor.

And the still quiet voice of a friend in my head.

I was riding past Lindley Meadows thinking about what it will look like when I get married.

Yes.

I went there.

Decorating out the park.

Where the lights would go.

Who I would invite.

Pure fantasy landia.

However.

It had been supplanted with an honest share from an uncomfortable chair that after the last time I did work around a sexual ideal what I really wanted was this: a sober, non-smoking, heterosexual, monogamous, spiritual, fully self-supporting, creative, sexy, passionate, kind, healthful, man.

Who I want to be married to.

The dirty secret is out.

I don’t need children.

But I want a marriage.

Old fashioned.

Strange to think about in this day in age.

But there it was, right at the heart of it.

And then when I reviewed my ideal, knowing, without having to be told, I have achieved al those things in my life.

I am sober.

I am monogamous.

I am heterosexual.

I am creative.

I am financially self-supporting.

I am sexy.

I am passionate.

I am spiritual.

I am enough.

Fuck.

I am more than enough.

Worthy of love and lovable.

So when I got the text, oh I almost wrote something else there, ah, restraint of pen and tongue, restraint of pen and tongue and blog, saying, in a nutshell, meeting up is not a good idea.

I just responded.

Yes.

I agree.

Deleted message from said ex.

I had already deleted his number and the Facebook and social media channels are clear.

I didn’t say anything else.

There was nothing left to say.

I did feel like, for a moment, it passed, that I had the break up twice, but with none of the fun stuff like having sex one more time or dramatic frothy emotional appeals in public.

Not that I need to have those things to know when to let go.

Baby won’t you let me go.

Let me go.

Let me go.

Let me go.

Baby, won’t you let me go.

There was a bit more to the text, but it’s not my place to pick apart here.

That voice I heard.

My friend’s voice.

Drifts back into my head, just like it did on my bike ride home.

And then I breathe and recall the sun on my face, we were at the beach, sitting and watching the waves, it was just a few weeks before I started seeing the ex and my friend said with complete candor, “oh, I could never date a woman who blogs, what if something happens?  All my foibles out on the web for anyone to see, I just couldn’t do that.”

And I knew.

I can’t write about the ex.

I can only write about myself.

My process.

My feelings.

My inventory.

The feeling now is.

It is definitely over and I won’t be seeing him any time soon.  No texting, no flirty messages on Facebook, nothing.

Moving on.

Letting go.

Again.

And again.

And again.

And then.

Just a little more for good measure.

Because I want an open heart and open arms for the wonderful person who wants to be with me, the me I am, with openness and candor and authenticity.

I won’t be distracted again.

Oops

I did it again.

Sigh.

I un-friended the ex once more on Facebook.

It was just taking up too much headspace.

And I really have more important things to do than look at any one’s news feed on Facebook.

So.

Bye bye friend.

I won’t be calling, texting, or Facebook messaging you anytime soon.

Have a great life, you’re a great guy.

I don’t want to know anymore.

Lesson learned and really, not too badly done at that.

I never saw him, we never met back up, there was no break up make up sex.

Just two ships passing, very closely, but never together, in the night.

Fare thee well my friend and should we see each other out and about I know it will be with no animosity.

Moving on.

I dealt with the things that needed to be dealt with today, some clothes shopping for basics–bras, socks, etc. and a visit to the Genius Bar at the Apple store down town to migrate all my old files from my previous laptop to my new MacBook Air.

Done and done.

Although it still took two and a half hours to do it.

I was grateful to have a library book with me!

Even though I finished the book an hour before the migration of files was finished, I wasn’t upset about the situation.

It was far faster than the 46+ hours the system had told me prior to going into the store and having them do it.

The WIFI here has never been great, although I am grateful to have it, yes, yes I am.  And at one time when I was attempting to migrate the files myself the wait to do so was 96 hours.  I gave up.

I left the house, I went to work, I came back from work, I slept on it over night, it still was not done.

So.

Better to do the direct to direct there in the store.

And it was good people watching.

Especially the young man who came in experiencing problems with his new Apple Watch.

You just settle down Mister Sexy Watch and stay awhile.

There was also a famous musician there, who sat across the table from me and kept catching my eye.

Not super famous, not like Kanye or something, but somebody Indy and just slightly older, maybe in his early 50s, but known.

I should have just said something, then I thought I may just know him from around, then I thought, maybe he was in Paris?  I met a few famous folks in Paris.

And when I next looked up, he was gone.

Bye bye mystery famous guy.

It made me think though, as everyone was bent over their laptop, MacBook, iPod, iPad, iPhone, and various other Apple devices, how much we all want to be connected and yet how separate everyone seemed.

It didn’t feel like two and a half hours.

And for that I am glad and I didn’t do much internet browsing, the little I did was only nettling my spiritual condition and when I gave it a thought, when I paused to flick a piece of hot pink hair out of my eye, I knew, life was too short for boring hair color and to obsess with anyone who has so obviously moved on.

So.

Move on.

I don’t know what that looks like.

Or how that works, although I do know how it works.

The actions I take will create space for what comes next.

When I think about all the things I have gotten to recently let go of I know that I am having my fingers gently pulled off the things that don’t work for me so that I could be free-handed to accept the things that will work for me.

Bye bye scooter (recycled to scooter heaven).

Bye bye old laptop (recycled to the store).

Bye bye ex-boyfriend and old ideas about dating.

I am going to recycle those too.

My experience will be used again, I am sure of it, to help another woman walk through whatever she needs to walk through.

For that, too, I am grateful.

And as I did some inventory this morning before setting out on my shopping and laptop adventures, I also realized, hey, self, forgive yourself.

You’re human.

So what you called to have a coffee with your ex?

Who hasn’t thought or done the same.

Rejection.

God’s protection.

I got the final rejection and it didn’t sting the way it did the first time around and I can be easy in my self again.

Just let it go.

It can be easy if you just let it.

Give me all your lovin/and I’ll give you all of mine.

I even thought about starting another profile on-line.

But I held off there too.

Ah.

Another thing I let go of that I forgot, online dating websites.

That’s right.

Ok.

So.

Free, clear, moving on.

I like it.

I got lost in the weird of my head and it’s not really a great place to be lost in, bad neighborhood you know, but fortunately there are lampposts that light the way back out as long as I remember to look for them and follow the light to the source.

It is only dark when I am inside my head.

Even when it’s grey outside, and believe me, it’s grey, it’s really a San Francisco summer.

Seeing all the stores down town with their summer seasonal displays of sheer dresses and light tops, shorts, and swim suits, sun hats and capris made me laugh as I wandered past in my layers and hand warmers.

There were more winter scarves on than summer shorts, I tell you what.

Even when it’s grey outside.

I bring my own color of love to the mix.

“OH MY GOD!!! I love her hair, did you see her hair, look!” the young teenage girl in the mall excitedly chattered to her friend.

Well.

At least I’m a hit with the kids.

And myself.

For reals.

This journey, this part of the path, has been a little rockier than expected, and although I have stumbled a bit, I’m picking myself up, dusting myself off, and letting go of the unnecessary garbage I thought had some value to it.

Obsession with and validation from an outside source does not bring my happy.

Only I bring me happy.

Happy.

To be.

Once again.

In the pink.

Things That Are Taboo

Wanting to have sex with your ex boyfriend.

Or maybe, you know, just um, cuddle.

Yeah.

That.

My motives are shit right now and I know it and so I won’t be seeing my ex boyfriend any time soon.

It’s just in the air, the fog, the mist, the shiny, slippery streets–it’s so foggy out there that when I left the Sunset Youth Services a few moments ago I thought at first that it was raining.

But no.

Fog.

It’s lovely though and put me in the mood for snuggling.

I choose to snuggle with myself this evening.

Being in communication with my ex has been interesting and I have done some more work around me and how I respond and feelings and all that and why, gosh, it just turns out that I am human.

“You obviously had a strong bond,” he said to me over tea at the Church Street Cafe, “girl, you too were electric, there was chemistry there.”

“And that doesn’t necessarily go away, connection is connection, it’s when the instinct gets blown out of whack, that’s the problem.”

Yup.

So.

No calling up the ex, not inviting him over for a late night cup of tea.

If I were to see him it would best be in daylight across a table in a busy cafe.

No touching.

Ahem.

God.

I miss being touched.

I met someone tonight who I have seen around a little and we recognized one another from a different part of town.

He shook my hand and I just stood there.

Human contact.

Such a small thing and yet, so necessary.

I think about the failure to thrive orphanage video I watched in psychology class years and years and years ago, about the babies that had everything they needed, food, nutrition, a bed to sleep in, clothes, but no love.

And what happens?

They die.

I mean.

That’s serious.

I’m not there.

And I love myself enough to know that I won’t let myself get there.

But I can still get caught up in the what to wear thing and the being attractive thing and I was going to head out this evening after work and go straight to my place and do the deal in my pajamas after coming home from a long day at work and taking a smashing hot shower, but I got it in my head I would bump into the ex and boy, I better look cute.

Thanks brain.

Now I need to wash off the makeup.

But.

In reality, it helped, I like looking cute and you never know who you might run into, who might take your hand and squeeze it tight.

Of course.

I don’t remember his name, but the kind eyes were bright and the hand was strong and the arm covered in tattoos.

I like all of these things.

I like that he said he was in the neighborhood too, 48th and Kirkham.

I like that my brain also wondered, is he gay?

‘Cause I can pick ’em like that.

I like that he said, my class is done, I’ll be back here on Wednesday nights again.

Good.

So.

Something, someone to look forward to.

That’s been the other thing.

With the exception of someone from absolute left field who as it turns out, though attracted to me, though someone who has had a crush on me (!) reached out to me, he’s not available and I haven’t had anyone that I have been crushing on.

I haven’t had any zing.

Anything or anyone that makes me get all a quiver and excited.

I miss that feeling too.

That nice shiver of anticipation.

And kissing.

Oh.

I miss kissing.

I need to be kissed.

For reals.

It’s been four and a half months since the breakup.

There’s been no kissing, no sex, no snuggling, no cuddling, no nothing.

My bicycle seat’s been getting all the action.

And I look, good damn it.

In fact, I look better than when I was with my ex.

I dropped about five pounds and tightened up a bit, all the extra bicycle riding, went down a dress size, got my hair shaped up, and colored a fabulous pink, and I haven’t gotten any play.

Granted.

I could have.

That whole trying Tinder for a day was enough to let me know there are plenty of guys out there who have no interested in whether or not I can read a sentence in a book or carry a conversation, as long as I can bend over and lift my skirt.

Please.

You have to try a little harder.

I ride by Good Vibrations every day on my way back to my house, the one on Valencia at 17th, and I keep finding myself wondering if it’s just time for a new vibrator.

Sigh.

Nothing wrong with a new sex toy.

Let’s be adults here folks.

But my dildo can’t kiss the back of my neck while I play the soundtrack to Amelie and listen to the whisper of the fog horns off the coast herald the misty night swathing the neighborhood.

I wonder then if it’s time to climb back into the dating websites or if I just hold steady for a while yet.

See what happens when I’m not looking, just keep going about my day and my life and someone will notice, step forward, and say, yes, let me kiss you in the door way, press you against the orange painted gate of your house and run my hands though your wild pink hair.

I will here Yann Tiernan in my head and sigh and melt into the air and the fog will swirl my heart away out over the ocean.

I don’t want sex.

That’s the real taboo thing.

I can talk sex all day long, and I do want sex, don’t let my words mislead.

But I want the courtship first, the date, I want to pick up a book and hold his head in my lap and read to him and I want to be wrapped, tucked tight, really, in the crook of a man’s arm and held, guided, led through the mists out to the beach, where the love smashes itself on the sand and the electric blue jellyfish flay themselves on the sand, melting into the tide line like mermaid tears.

That’s what is taboo.

Wanting love.

To be loved.

To want romance.

That is the real deal breaker.

I wait for it.

The carousel will stop turning and I will grab the brass ring and sail around the perimeter of the square, while accordions play and the sun sprays on my face a calliope of desire and love.

Until then.

Another cup of tea.

A few more words on this page.

I open my heart to give and receive love.

I shall start with me.