There’s a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in

It is our imperfections that make us beautiful.  I firmly believe that, and I say it to those I care about as often as I can.

It is also our imperfections that make us human. I’m quite certain that this is a large part of why I find imperfections beautiful — because they show me the humanity in a person, they reveal someone real and vulnerable and relatable.

The scars and wrinkles and “blemishes” that all-too-often get airbrushed out of images of supposedly beautiful women — the images plastered across magazine covers and advertisements everywhere — taking those away leaves something that feels plastic, unreal, not human.  Skin in so many shades and tones, white-washed and bleached and faded in order to look “pretty” — and all I see is “pretty boring.”  Bodies in so many sizes, so many shapes, so many types and amounts and conditions of ability — many of them simply not displayed, and those that are get changed to appear taller, thinner, less waist, more hip, never a wrinkle or touch of acne or visible body or facial hair.  The result is a nearly uniform display of the same woman, over and over, minor variations on the rubber-stamp design.  I hate it.

I remember when I first figured out what “cellulite” is.  Wasn’t very long ago, actually — less than 6 months — and suddenly it made so much sense; commercials selling ways to get rid of cellulite-and-wrinkles, almost as if it were a single word, were offering a way to match the impossible plastic look of the “ideal.”  My first thought was, “Oh, that! Never knew there was a name for it… I always thought it was beautiful.”

Or the perennial question about pubic hair — almost always phrased as “what’s the best on other people: shaved neatly or completely untouched?” Actually, I don’t have a preference about what other people do with their own bodies.  I try to stay out of deciding what anyone else can/can’t, should/shouldn’t, will/won’t do with their bodies — there’s no way I can yell “MY BODY, MY CHOICE!” and mean it if I’m not willing to shout with equal strength, ‘YOUR BODY, YOUR CHOICE!” and act on both with the determination I feel about them.  I really don’t care how you keep your hair, pubic or otherwise; all I know is what I like for my own body.

I am not perfect.  None of you are perfect.  This “perfect” thing is nonsense, anyway — because perfection is so subjective, anyway.

What I am is beautiful.  You are all beautiful.  We are beautiful, and we are human.  And that is a much more important thing to be!

I’ve seen, tonight, what I’d been warned about

MFP and I have pretty consistently practiced direct communication in our relationship, and it has served us well.  This means talking about issues — good and bad — as soon as we are able to do so.  If we can’t talk face to face, we send a text message, or an email, or something — but the direct communication is there.

Maybe she says something that hurts my feelings.  Maybe I’m worried that she took my actions to mean something other than I intended.  Maybe she went out of her way to help me with a task I’m doing.  Maybe I lent an ear when she needed one.  In all of these situations, we communicate!

“You hurt my feelings when you said that.  You probably didn’t mean to, and I recognize that –so I’m letting you know how I was affected.” Then we talk about it.

“I’m worried that you thought I meant X when I did Y, and I really meant Z — I’m sorry if I worried you.” Then we talk about it.

“You didn’t have to help me, and I know you’re busy — thank you.  It meant a lot.” Then we talk about it.

“I’m glad you were there to listen; I just needed to vent.  Thanks.  I hope I didn’t overload you!” Then we talk about it.

I mention this, because it’s a very distinct contrast to a lot of other people I know — or people I used to know.  Apparently a particular someone held on to their issues with me for several months, and only brought things up after I sent a message bringing up a few issues I had; they also only brought them up to tell me how full of shit I was, how fucked up my behavior had been, how horrible a person I was, and that it was good that we already had gone our separate ways.

Would have been great to know that I had done something to offend back when there was anything I could have done about it — but apparently avoiding the topic when we were around each other, acting nice and sweet like everything was cool, and then much later telling me that I’m the one to blame for not talking about it, and not being a mind-reader… apparently that’s what I’ve got to deal with.

I guess this is a good example illustrating of one of my dad’s theories: he calls it “The Principle of Least Interest.”  No, it’s not about loans and finances!  See, he figures that in any relationship or interaction between two people or entities, one of the two is less interested in maintaining that relationship than the other.  That person is the one in control.

For instance, an employee at an entry-level fast food job is much more interested in keeping that job — and the paycheck it provides — than the company is in keeping that particular employee.  The company has control.  Since the employee wants the paycheck, they are more likely to put effort into doing things exactly the way the company wants, and the company can fire the employee and find another one.  Or one friend who has an open schedule and wants to hang out with another friend who has entertaining things planned all week — the one with the packed schedule may also want to hang out, but the one who is bored is more interested in making something happen.  The busy friend has control.  The bored friend is limited by what the busy friend will do to adjust their schedule, unless the busy friend decides that it’s really important to hang out… then Busy becomes more interested than Bored, and Bored gains control.

In my case, the person I once called a friend has declared zero interest.  It happens sometimes, and sometimes it’s clear that won’t change.  The only real option at that point is for me to match that with my own declaration of no interest — because that’s the only control I can take back.  It hurts, and it affects other people too — MFP knows this person, and several other folks are mutual acquaintances too.  There may be unexpected fallout from this, but I’ll have to deal with that as it comes.  Right now, blocking on Facebook and walking away are the things I have to do for my own physical and mental health.  Gotta take care of me first, before giving anything to others.

TIAD

The human body is an amazing thing.  Our ability to regenerate and renew and repair ourselves really astounds me, when I stop to think about it.  Take, for example, a cut to the arm — deep enough that it bleeds, but shallow enough to avoid hitting any major blood vessels.  The platelets in the blood start to form clots; there’s a system in place to stop the bleeding!  As a scab develops over the top, the body goes to work growing new skin underneath, with the scab in place to protect the tender spots as they harden.  Eventually, the scab falls away, and tougher new skin is in place… a scar.

But what happens if you rip that scab off before it’s ready to go?  I don’t mean just picking at it… most of us have probably done that once or twice.  I mean, if that entire scab gets ripped off in one go?  Or what about cutting right through in the same spot, re-creating the same injury?

Those don’t sound like very pleasant things to me.  Nor do they sound very wise.

I got a message on Facebook earlier this week form someone who I had once loved.  Someone who would have been the first cis* woman to fuck me, and was certainly the first to show any interest in me.  She also wounded me deeply — so much that for a couple years, it was too difficult to reference her by name.  She was simply “DE-B” or sometimes just “that bitch.”

She tells me that her therapist wants her to “correct all evils and wrongs” that she’s done to friends, and I have to wonder at what possible wisdom there could be in that.  To me, it seems rather stupid to stay stuck in the past, trying to change what was, what happened, what is already done.  That advice sounds like telling someone to rip off the scab from a wound they inflicted, to cut into scar tissue, because healing comes from… I dunno, bleeding out?

You can’t “correct” the wrongs you’ve done.  You can’t un-break a heart (no matter what Toni Braxton pleads for you to do) and you can’t make your future by living in your past and holding on to your past mistakes.  For the same reason that some debts of kindness can never be paid back, but can be passed on and “paid forward,” the hurtful actions of the past cannot always be made painless… but others can be spared the same hurt instead.

I’ve been working on letting go of the ugliness and pain in my past.  I take comfort in being able to recognize the good things I can take from even the most horrible people in my life: I remembered how fun it is to play make-believe from my psycho ex, as well as how important a bit of magic is in my life.  The boyfriend I had for a few months taught me how to set and maintain boundaries (although it was by his repeatedly violating them) and how to be firm and direct in communication (when he fell apart to the point that I had to repeat until he finally believed me, “if you do not stop attempting to contact me, I will do everything in my power to protect myself — including, if necessary, involving law enforcement. This is your final warning.”)  I had lessons in learning when — and how — to let go of a toxic person, even when they’re the closest to a friend I’ve got — from “Equal Opportunity Hater.”  He was the one guy at the center of my circles of friends and acquaintances at the time, and I lost touch with a lot of people I wish I could have stayed around.  Being told to go shove myself under a subway train if I didn’t come crawling back on my knees to play his game, his way… well, that was a less desirable option.

So, when I look at the time that I knew DE-B, I figure I ended up with a 2-week cross-country vacation with paid airfare and lodging, even if I didn’t eat much.  I took in some self-guided US History, took a fair few photos, and came home with a handful of trinkets and shiny things (most of which were lost in being mugged twice over the next few months, both with a pistol in my face.)  The original purpose of the trip was completely missed, but I’m claiming my own consolation prize instead — I won’t count it as a failure.

I’m home now, in a safe place with a woman I love and who loves me — MFP and I do what we can to make our lives together work.  Things aren’t perfect, but we’re hanging in there… and I’m looking to the future, not living in the past.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?  Decide that for yourself!

Longing to sail on through the night… to the stars

“I am mercury,”
she tells me.
“I know it. I’ve been told
loudly
and often.

rising and falling
unexpected and sudden
when contained
flowing and clinging
silver and fire
when set free

stay near me too long…
you too
will go mad.”

“No,”
I reply.
“You are the moon,
constant,
certain.
even when you think yourself
empty

when you cannot recall
the light you bring
in other moments
I remember
and I wait.

or more truly
you are the tide
oceans flowing over
on your most full days
you have
so much to give
you cannot contain it all
crashing
against the highest rocks

foam
and mist
and undertow
all means of expressing
your love

still on your empty days
I return
to dip my toes
in your quiet
lapping
embrace

to stumble lazy
through the pools
full of treasure
only to be found
in these low moments

sometimes
amid the driftwood
between the seaweed
beneath the clamshells
I find a sparkling gem
or a shining coin
or a bit of brightly-colored glass

I collect these things
place them all
carefully
in my pockets
with a smile

and when
you have returned
with your fullness
as you always do
I share these small
beautiful
things
I give these bright
little
treasures

back to you
to the tide
that brought them to me
I thank you
for allowing me
to find them
and I wait to see
what new treasures
will be revealed
when the tide rolls out
once more
as it always does.”

she smiles,
then pulls me close
and says
“I love you…”
I hold tight
rocking with her
rocking
with the pull
of the tide.

(for MFP)

How do you feel? (I’m lonely…)

there’s a feeling I get
sometimes
searching my mind
for the song to express it
and coming up with empty measures

there’s a feeling I get
sometimes
grasping at words
for analogy to convey it
but it’s almost like… I got nothin’

there’s a feeling I get
sometimes
not quite “longing”
not quite “almost”
not quite “what if”
not quite “what was”

a feeling of “not quite”

where the need to express
is overabundant
and the means to express
is sorely lacking

and this feeling
is made up of the rift
between the two

I still somehow believe
that one day
I will find the song
the lyric reference
and the melody
the music that means this thing

this movement in my heart
this feeling I get

sometimes

You can touch me if you want (I know you’re dying to…)

It’s been a while since I last posted anything here… and a lot has happened, a lot has changed.

I ran into Smash one last time, at the same bar where we first met. She’d told me before that she hadn’t been feeling well, needed some time to rest up and get better, so it was a big downer to see her not only out and having a great time, but doing so with the guy she’d met the same night we did.  It would have hurt a lot less if she’d just told me directly, “I don’t think I want to continue with you.”  I know that’s not always an easy thing to do, but it felt cheap and dishonest to tell me she was really sick instead, as an “easy out.”

Hands had a baby, and apart from the hour or so conversation we had the first time we met, and a few text messages afterward, she’s not been in touch.  Her last word to me was that she wouldn’t be available anymore.

Soup was a brief encounter at the same little pub that used to be my neighborhood hangout, and she came on to me strong. Both she and a few of her friends invited me to their “intentional community” living space for a weekly dinner they host, and as I was leaving Soup was stepping out for a smoke… she asked if she could kiss me goodnight, which turned into a several-minute makeout session on the sidewalk.  Then she never returned my calls, her friends didn’t answer my messages, I never got any details about the dinner invitation, and the next time I saw Soup at the bar she pretended I didn’t exist.

Then a funny thing happened when I attempted to make it to the Folsom Street Fair this year in San Francisco.  “Attempted,” because through circumstances beyond my control, I arrived several hours later than I’d planned, just as everything was closing down.  Hadn’t even eaten that day, and it was already nearly 7pm!  So I stopped by the Center for Sex and Culture to see what might be going on, and found that I had barely missed a group of authors reading their own work… so I sat around and chatted a bit with the few folks there — got to see some old friends and make a few new ones.  The funny thing is, I thought the day had been a total flop; I missed out on all the cool stuff, and ended up with a little conversation as a crummy consolation prize.  One of the new friends I made was headed the same way as me on mass transit, so we walked back to the subway together and took the same train partway (I had to transfer to get back home.)

Then the next day, I got an invitation from this new friend — we’ll call her MFP — to her birthday party a couple days later.  I’m not one to easily turn down an invitation to watch a burlesque show and sing karaoke with a bunch of queermos, so I went, had a great time, and found myself making eyes at MFP while she performed her last karaoke track of the night — “Queer” by Garbage.  She was eying me back just as much, and towards the end of the song, during an instrumental break, she came over and made out with me.

There’s this joke I’ve heard a few times, something along the lines of “Q: What does a lesbian bring on a second date? A: A moving truck.”  Well, it wasn’t quite that quick, and we both recognized that NRE was in play and we shouldn’t rush together even if we felt like everything was perfect… but we were both already looking for housing, and we did both have limited resources on our own… and as we got to know each other a bit better, we found that we could stand to live with each other and finally after lots of hard work from us both, lots of uncertainty and last-minute gambles, we landed a 2-bedroom apartment in an amazing neighborhood for a great price!  We’re slowly getting settled in our new place, and we’ll be having a housewarming party at the end of the week.

I’m still trying to find folks to be fuckbuddies, but it’s not going so great.  MFP and I have a fair amount of overlap in our sexual interests and preferences, but we have just as much that doesn’t mesh, and although I’ve been grateful and delighted to have so many wonderful sexytimes with her… I still have other aspects of my sexual needs left unfulfilled .  When my options seem to be limited to “hang out at a bar, spend money on booze, hope there’s a chance of meeting a girl” and “hang out on OkCupid and write messages to women who almost never write back” I’m not terribly surprised that I’m not getting any better results.  I did have one chick write to me on OkC, said she’d love to hook up while she was in town for a week.  We exchanged phone numbers, sent a few text messages back and forth, picked a day to meet… and then she cancelled late the day before, and rescheduled tentatively for sometime a few days later — which she also backed out of last minute, just before leaving town.  Says she might be around again in a few months, or if I’m ever a few states away where she lives, to look her up.  Why do I still expect people to have the fucking decency to be able to schedule an date and time to meet, and to follow through with that?  It seems to be a forgotten relic of ancient times, or something.  A mythical lore known only to a few bizarre freaks like me.

Here’s hoping I find someone soon!  Who knows, maybe I’ll have a nice holiday screw?

Baby, can I be your baby? Definitely! Maybe won’t do.

I wish I didn’t have such a hard time watching a lot of porn now… getting into social justice, surrounding myself with “silence is not consent” and “only yes means yes” and “consent is sexy” and such has left me with an awareness which I can’t block out, and it’s a frustrating thing when I just want something to help me get off.

I tend to watch girl/girl videos (which is rarely the same thing as “lesbian”) and I also really enjoy older/younger pairings when I can find them.  Since I’m often attracted to older femmes, I can see myself in the “younger” role — and it can be a huge turn-on for me.

But the videos that I find tend to bill themselves as  “seductions” — and even when they don’t, they often play out as a fantasy for the clearly-intended audience of straight cis* men.  Lots of “I promise it’ll feel good!” on one side, with reluctance on the other and plenty of “I don’t know if I really want to do this…”  More and more pressure from the “seducing” partner — “just relax, let me do this, you’ll love it!”  Repeated expressions of reluctance and unwillingness and hesitation, both verbal and physical, plenty of things which are NOT CONSENT, things which are — to my eyes and ears — reasons to STOP.  NOW.  I almost yell at the screen, “She said she wasn’t interested!  Now back off and leave her alone!”  The not-quite-”no” is played up as a key part of the scene, culminating in the “seduction” (read: “I give up, she’s going to keep pressuring me to have sex until I let her have it…”) and then usually some pretty hot fucking follows, ending with post-coital bliss and lots of “thanks, that was beautiful! We should do it again!”  The middle part is kinda hot, and sometimes the end is, too… but the beginning just kills it for me.

Sometimes the setup even has frustrating elements like the classic bait-and-switch: “Here, come up to my room, I just want to show you my collection of cool toys! Just sit down on my bed for a minute here.. oh, surprise! I meant sex toys! Here, I’m half naked and wearing a strap-on, isn’t that fun! It’s okay, just try it.  You’ve never been with a woman before? Let me show you how good it is!”  At no point do the protests of the duped girl matter, except as suspense before “no” doesn’t mean “no” anymore and she’s suddenly “enjoying” the sex she’s been tricked and pressured into! Ugh… ~shudder~

Just tonight someone sent me a link to a video… a woman on a massage table, covered only by a towel, and the fully-clothed woman about to start massaging her.  They start into small talk about how “men are all” lewd perverts who only think about sex, all the time, and “men can’t stop being men even on the job” which is why the woman came to a female-only business, because even male massage therapists have this “bad vibe” and you can “just tell” what they want.  I had to stop the video when the “massage therapist” said something about “making a safe space for women” being the reason for an all-women’s spa — because the WHOLE POINT of the video is that the masseuse is going to touch her customer sexually without asking, which “turns her on” and then they fuck.

Maybe I missed the memo where they changed the definition of “safe space” to mean “space where you get sexually assaulted,” but I don’t think so.

You know what I think would be really hot?  Two women — one older, one younger, both femme — in the same room.  The rest you can just make a few very slight adaptations from Cliff Pervocracy’s script for Communicative Sex That Doesn’t Suck, and you’d have some awesome porn, as far as I’m concerned.  Imagine! The same things that make sex not suck in real life, also make sex not suck when it’s recorded for playback later!