I Would Follow You

To Wisconsin.

He said, underneath the heat lamp at the outdoor cafe.

On our first date.

There have now been four dates.

Tomorrow will be number five.

And that is all you need to know about him.

I would like to spill all the words and looks and the synchronicities and the eyes, oh, the eyes.

But.

I am not going to.

I spill so much of my heart on these pages.

“You wear your heart on your sleeve,” an old lover once told me, “I could never write about the things you do, share the things you do, it’s what makes you a good writer.”

I don’t know about that necessarily.

I think a good writer is just one that writes.

I still write every day.

In the mornings.

Three to four pages, sometimes just one or two, but I always write.

I don’t show up here as often, sometimes I think it might be time to hang up the blog, but I just keep holding onto it.

There is something here still for me.
I am not sure that there is anything here for you though.

I just keep letting you go.

I don’t know who shows up to read these ramblings any more.

I don’t know who you are.

I do know that you still read the words.

Sometimes you search me out.

Sometimes you find me on some old social media post I thought I had scrubbed away.

Sometimes you find me with esoteric search engine terms.

You keep finding me.

And I keep writing for ghosts.

This time.

This time though, I am writing for me.

About a month ago I sat down in front of my computer with too much eye make up on and a bushel of glitter and my hair wild and I did my dissertation presentation for a friend who is a film maker.

It was not as good as when I defended my dissertation and was awarded my PhD, that feeling of being so in the moment and not even realizing the camera was on was not with me when I did it for my friend.

But.

He got the gist of it and he liked it and he said, yeah, we can make this into a film.

It had been suggested to me by one of my former supervisor’s that I make the dissertation into something, a one woman show, a documentary, a film.

He said I had it, that he could watch me present the work all over again, would pay for it and that it was better than a lot of what he’s seen on Netflix.

I mean.

Fuck.

What a great compliment.

And also.

Fuck.

Scary and wonderful and am I really going to do this?

I mean.

I just finished my PhD.

I have a full time therapy practice.

Shouldn’t I just be taking long walks on my days off?

Just looking at the sky and the city and breathing without the pressure of a writing project on my shoulders.

Just walking around and watching the birds wheel in the sky.

Just listening to music on my Airpods and smiling that I don’t have to go anywhere, don’t have a deadline, don’t have to do another draft or edit or more research.

I can put away the research.

I have shelved the books.

I can let it go.

Or can I?

There is something here.

There is a story and I do think there is a movie and so does my friend.

When I started writing my blog, twelve years ago now, I would sometimes get a line of words in my head or a phrase and I would know, that’s my blog.

That’s the line.

That’s my way in.

I don’t actually need anything more than that.

Just the line.

What follows after that line I never know.

I just have a feeling for what has to be written in the next moment, the next breath, the next beat of time.

And I kept thinking about how my friend sent me the info about how to write a screen play and how it should be a certain kind of way and I was like, well, damn, I don’t have the “ending” you’re supposed to have.

But who ever does have the ending that they’re supposed to have?

What if it wasn’t bad timing lover, friend, soul mate, what if it was just that we weren’t meant to be, not really, not ever and we stole something, took away light from the moon and carved out a tiny moment in the soul of the world and hid our love.

But it couldn’t stay.

We weren’t meant to be together.

We never were.

Because we aren’t.

So I let it go again.

Let you go again and choose something else, I look up at the stars, the moon be damned, and find a new way forward.

It is dark and it is new and I don’t know where it’s going.

But when I put my hand on his back last night I thought I might just find a new way through.

And I might just have an ending to my story that has hope.

It may not be the fairy tale ending.

I have had my heart broken too many times by the fairy tale.

It will be a different story.

A new story.

And yes.

It will be a love story.

My love story, though.

My way through.

My way out.

When I chose to walk out the door to my apartment and take a right and not a left and meet him at the corner of the street and take a deep breath and say.

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you.”

And really, really mean it.

It really has been so nice to meet you.

I don’t know if we’ll ever go to Wisconsin.

But that you would follow me there.

Well.

That is one hell of a way to start something.

Something that begins with hope.

Come On Girl

Get your sexy on.

Honestly.

All I really want to get on right now is some tea.

Sigh.

End of week school night slumber party may not have been so well advised, but this was it, tonight, or nada.

I have to say eight hours into a ten-hour day I was pretty much contemplating cancelling, I have a share tomorrow when I normally have a single and it will not be a late start to my day, but my normal 8:45 a.m. start.

Which means a 6:30 a.m. get up time.

Then I got a text asking if we were still on tonight and well, my body responded and said, shut up brain, all a tingle and a glow, “yes!”

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, please.

And so, yes, we are on.

Of course when I got home just minutes ago I was back to the, I want to cancel mode, I don’t feel sexy, I feel like a grungy nanny who has been doing grungy nanny work all day long.

I feel like someone who worked a ten-hour day and spent an additional two hours of my day on MUNI.

First the N-Judah to the 24 to work, then the 24 up to the Castro from the NOPA after my nanny share was over, with a solo monkey, who’s folks were going to be late with work, so I ferried him home on the bus.

Then eventually, after dinner time, bath time, snuggle time, and song time, I left to get back on the 24 to the N-Judah to home.

Sigh.

I get home and the first thing I do is disrobe.

I mean.

I don’t know what it is, along with putting up my hair (which is down, since I have a date), I strip down and climb into my yoga pants and a night-shirt.

Then I make tea, thinking about what I am going to blog, and I ice my ankle down.

Which, thank god, was not so bad today, not sure what it was, I did take it easy today and only went to Alamo Square park with the charges and I rested while they were napping.

I even got in a little nap snack, maybe twenty minutes or so, to rest up.

I am starting to feel my mojo come back, I think I was just frustrated too, with the later start to the date than we had previously discussed.

Things happen and when I got the text with the eta it was later than we had discussed.

I wanted to throw a temper tantrum.

Not sexy.

Ugh.

What am I going to do?

I bemoan my fate.

Ok.

Perhaps I am a little dramatic, I mean, really, I am complaining because my lover is going to be taking a little extra time to do something for himself that will probably make our experience better anyhow, so, chill ladybug.

Chill.

I also realized that I was uncomfortable with being dressed when I got home, I like to relax, I want to put my feet up, at least one of them anyway, I want to drink my tea and change into my comfy clothes.

So I did.

Sexy is not what you wear, or what I wear, it’s how I feel.

And if I feel grumpy and frumpy and nanniefied, I won’t be putting out a sexy vibe even in my cute outfit which I picked out this morning specifically because I figured it could weather a ten-hour nanny shift and still bear a resemblance to be sexy.

Besides, the man has seen me naked for Pete’s sake.

I don’t think he’s paying much attention to what I am wearing.

Hell, the first time I was in a walking boot and hobbling around on crutches, I already look sexier than that.

And you know, I am feeling it now.

I stopped my blogging, I striped out of the work clothes, spritzed a little perfume on myself, mussed up the hair, took it down, and slid into some Hello Kitty pajama pants and my new  Day of the Dead night-shirt.

I felt better immediately.

And no surprise, much sexier.

The other thing that is sexy, is taking care of myself.

Which means, having my night-time snack, making myself a little tea (a balance for sure, no one wants to feel overfull when imminent coitus is about to occur, nor do I want to get out of bed fifteen times to pee), writing my blog and taking care of my things.

I have my alarm set.

I have my lunch and dinner set out for tomorrow.

I wrote out a check for Healthy San Francisco and balanced my check book.

I tidied up, not that there’s much to tidy, I am a pretty neat person, and now that my ducks are in a row and my blog near writ and my pajamas on (I did concede to still wearing my bra, I just don’t know that I can meet a lover at the door without one on, that feels too casual, which is again, a hoot, I don’t think he cares, but I do.  And I like the slowing down a bra provides and it’s not the bra I wore to work, it’s hot pink, matches the Hello Kitty pants, heh) I feel better and I know that as soon as he texts.

“I’m here”

I will get a jolt.

And as soon as he kisses me.

I will forget the world, the work, the MUNI, the unsexy and I will unspool and unwind in the best relaxation anyone could ask for, happily provided by the letter “O” and the number “More.”

Tomorrow will take care of itself and I will get through the day just fine.

Probably with a happy smile on my face for most of it.

Who’s sexy now?