The Upper Left Quadrant & The Over/Under

I may have mentioned somewhere along the way that during the 100/100 project, I met a woman that I would like to date.  I tend to be pretty hetero in my relationship conquests- when I was younger and drinking heavily I slept with a bunch of women, but have not really dated any. I find some women incredibly sexy and when I watch porn it is most often girl-on-girl or threesomes; this is pretty vanilla, I’m sure it somehow relates to internalized sexism and objectification but I don’t want to talk about that today. THE POINT IS that it is unusual for me to want to date a woman- you know, charm her, care for her, want to learn everything about her, explore and relate to her complex inner workings PLUS have a lot of sex with her- like an actual relationship.

So this woman is obviously exceptional.

Turns out, as it would, that she has been pretty active in the polyamorist/swingers community- not that I should be surprised by this AT ALL given who and what I seem to attract.  And some nudist group… but all this in addition to being brilliant, successful, generous, loving, so fun to be around and blindingly beautiful, inside and out.  Talking with her about my experience with my lover was really insightful… a little tough to swallow, but insightful- because to me it was, like, unfathomable, that someone could not connect emotionally and spiritually to a lover, ESPECIALLY to ME, but she set me straight with that nonsense.  Maybe I can’t do it.  But other people- for myriad reasons that extend from trauma to drugs to conscious emotional shut downs, do it all the time.  Even with compelling little me 😉  She advises that I stop seeing the lover individually but stay friends with him- go to a party, invite him as a third where applicable.  I don’t necessarily agree with her, I would still like to see him.  She and I are going to attend some parties together this summer- so, however I get entree into this world, all signs continue to point me there.

We have a date tonight- er, I don’t know if we call them dates yet- we see each other regularly and have a lot of shared interests so we have a lot of tentative plans.  Semantics, not the point.  We are going to a class on orgasmic meditation (OM)– not where we practice the technique on each other (more on THAT another time) but we prepare ourselves in other ways through breathing and meditation to have more spiritually expansive orgasms.  Or something like that.  Make sure to click around on that link up there- this is some information you do not want to miss if you are a woman, or a man who is interested in women having orgasms.

In other news…

Have you ever heard the expression “The best way to get over somebody is to get under somebody else”??

Cute expression, right?! 😉 It’s not really been my style in the past… I tried it, once.  It was not good for me or him- I felt like I was on fire with anger and he caught feelings and got hurt because I was using him.  That felt super shitty and was a mess to clean up.  I don’t think it has to be that way at all- that was just my first try at it.

If you read my last post, then you know I was having some feelings regarding really wanting someone that I cannot have.  Yesterday afternoon as I was listening to more Sharon Van Etten and repotting some plants in the beautiful Brooklyn sunshine, it struck me that a good way to get this out of my system would be a nice little toss with  someone hot & new.  You know, a one night stand.  Honestly, I haven’t had one of those since maybe 2004 but I considered it a good idea.  I just don’t want to think about it anymore- I want it back on a shelf and out of my veins, right now.  I meant what I wrote about circling the wagons, too- I am so not interested in “finding” anyone right now- but if someone turns up, well- maybe.  Maybe.

I did, however, get this little idea in my head and I started to think specifically about a man who works at my favorite restaurant, which I had plans to go to last night.  He is tall and foreign (Italian :)) and super charming, maybe a little young, definitely someone who I once considered out of my league.  I don’t think that way anymore, as you know.  I put that specific idea aside and simply put it out there for the Universe that if She sees fit, to please put someone sweet in my path tonight for a little rendezvous.  A night cap in the garden.  Heh heh.

Not only did that Italian (Sicilian) man turn out to be one of our servers, but he is also a friend of the woman I was having dinner with so we were introduced.  Kiss kiss like the Europeans do.  Apparently, when I left the table to wash up, he came over to talk with my friend and said to her ‘your friend is very beautiful’ which was very sweet. Then when she left the table he came over to talk to me and we had one of those ridiculous/nervous/cute conversations, like we had no game.  It was on, I could feel it- I just felt a little shy about making a move once my friend came back.  As we were getting ready to leave, he came over and took our picture, then asked for a picture with each of us individually… then let us know that he was heading out for a night cap and asked us what we were drinking.  It was a clear opening, and I didn’t take it.  I balked, out of some respect or other feeling regarding our mutual friend.  When he hugged me goodbye, he kissed me on the cheek and stood back, continuing to hold my hand- he confirmed that he had my name right, and told me to please come back and see him soon.  I thanked him and told him I would, then wiggled out of there in my little mini dress, smiling.

Don’t you think I didn’t regret it, like I didn’t want to turn back and be there waiting for him when he walked out the door.  Meeeoooww. Nice that the Universe agrees I need to keep on, and quick- whether that is the old over/under or an OM class with my sweetie while I maintain this other more inward focus,entirely.

cheers to letters & sodas

xxx

 

All Night

This has been the week of a hundred thousand thoughts but not a single tail or loose thread to pull so I could unravel it all and show you what has been happening up in there.  I’m exhausted and I had an evening coffee so here it is 2am and I’m awake, awake.  Lucky you.

I began reading ‘The Gifts of Imperfection’ by Brené Brown this week after a mini-bender on Amazon (holla Prime!).  You may remember her very famous Ted Talk on The Power of Vulnerability (<—- click that if you do not)(I just learned how to code links so no more copy/paste web addresses!!).  Maybe you want to have a first or second look- it may be insightful.  I wouldn’t gush that I loooove her or the book but I appreciate the discussion and some of the practical action/suggestions she makes. There are a few things going on in my life, personally and professionally, that Dr Brown’s work sheds light on, in a rip-open-the-drapes-to-the-midday-sun kind of way.  The book specifically focuses on Brené’s research on shame.  Becomes clearer all the time how influential shame is in my life…  Synchronicity is a funny thing when you’re a meaning-seeking little story teller with a spiritual bent, like me.

Gosh, life can be so very tricky sometimes. Grateful for that which helps us grow and shine right through it.

Speaking of resources, a friend sent me a Tracy McMillan article from the Huffington Post that got my haunches up a bit.  It was titled “Why You’re Not Married (<–)” ; then I went on to read another article from her written in the same voice about being a female Peter Pan(<–).  It wasn’t until I watched the video at the bottom of the first article that it dawned on me I had read one of her books last year- and I remember feeling mostly meh– about it.  The articles are a little touchy, she is brave to write the things that she does, but brave does not equal correct- these really are inflammatory statement pieces.  She does comment that she is delivering these “truths” in the spirit of generosity and wanting to help people, but, where I come from?  Truth without love is cruel.  It might make it more sophisticated and articulate to criticize… eh.  Who cares.  You read it, lemme know what you think.

It’s good timing for this all to be swimming around in my head because I have decided, after some setbacks, fresh starts & tipping points, that I am circling the wagons and getting some shit together.

Deep Sleep by Logan Hicks

I can barely stand myself anymore in a couple of key areas- the subject of this dumb blog being one of the top 2- so this may turn into one of those detox rants for a few weeks or so, like Leonard Cohen’s Book of Longing… ha, if only I could write something to compare to that masterpiece of what it is like to desire/resist/succumb over and over and over only to understand the truth about that suffering is really about God… oh Leonard, how I need you now.  I… oh God, where do I even start?  All I will say is that I have had the devastating gift of having a love with the force of all the Earth’s oceans wash over me in the past couple weeks and… well, I can’t have him.  He is living a version of the dream, with a woman- and their child.  Don’t get freaked out and judgey, not a single shady thing happened between us at all and he is admirable and respectful in every way- and I am too.  Love is like that.

I am left with this surge of anger and demand, however, shaking my fist at the sky and being like whaaaat the fuck—…  No really.  What the fuck.  Between the one I love & can’t have, and my swinger/lover (who is also in many ways a platonic ideal, but doesn’t want a girlfriend so that ‘goes nowhere’), I am feeling pret-ty sorry for myself and like I have been dicked out of something that is most valuable to me.  It occurred to me briefly this evening, after walking back from a stolen moment, that perhaps there is a larger message in this: because that’s what I do to make sense of the difficult things of my life, I seek to learn and grow from them…  OR THERE IS NOT A STUPID LARGER MESSAGE AT ALL AND THIS IS JUST SOME STRAIGHT UP LIFE SHIT THAT IS UNFAIR.  Fuck you rainbows.  Fuck you karma.

Even if a part of me is angry and sad, I remain mostly deeply grateful.  Grateful to be awake and to love like this.

So I am dropping this old shell and swimming my naked lobster ass out to sea to grow a newer, bigger one to accommodate all this growth, and/or the changes that are happening, now. Older lobsters must be the humungous mutant ones.  Good timing for this sort of introspection, given Mercury retrograde beginning in 4 hours(<–).

 

And just in time, today- I discover Sharon Van Etten.  Rocked me.  Every song an anthem.  Like this one:

 

Siren of the Seas by Logan Hicks

 

xxx

 

Set It Off!

Welcome SUMMERTIME with 87 degrees in NYC on the Tuesday after Memorial Day.  Ready for a swim; show ya skin; Gemini season.  I don’t know why but I have been having nightmares for days.

Time to turn that round.  Turn this up:

#obsessed

http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/

#informed

http://www.kitchendaily.com/read/hibiscus-flower-water-recipe

#refreshed

xxx

Days 44 & 45: The Switch

 

Changing up the Match profiles appears to have had an effect. Of the 4 men I engaged over the weekend, I have coffee/drink dates with 2 of them this week, the other 2 are not vibing on me and that is just fine.  There have been a bunch of emails and winks from nice men that I probably will not respond too, but the action is validating.  Feels like I am getting a little closer to the target, most of the time.  Sometimes it feels like I’m just learning.

Saturday morning I was on my way into the city and there were hundreds, I mean literally hundreds of people at the subway station waiting for shuttle buses because they are doing work in the tunnels again.  This has been going on periodically since January- and even though I am of course happy that they are making the trains safe and clean and preparing us for future hurricanes and stuff, it has also been a huge pain in my ASS mostly because I am rarely on time.  I’ve figured out that I can skip the shuttle and just take the train further east to transfer in on another line- that other line happens to be the L (love train!) which is full of cutie Brooklyn boys of all types, which is a great way to start the day.

I was standing there on the pole, heh heh, sipping my juice and tuned into miPod, when the doors open and in walks this young man who looks like a cross between Yasin Bey and Will Smith, wearing those Malcom X glasses, so tall, so yummy.  I notice this older woman on the train look him up and down like she is a leopard and he is an antelope, smiling to herself, admiring him- which was awesome.  He stops at my pole, places his hand directly under mine and gives me a smile.  DIMPLES.  Oi.  He seems a lot younger than me so I figured I would just do like Leopard Lady and enjoy him while he is before me.  More people enter the train and he swings a little closer to me, I fit perfectly at his armpit nook.  Because I am always carrying just a little too much crap with me, I have to use my nose to flip the lid on my juice cup and got some juice on my chin (don’t judge me).  I look up at the young man and he is watching me as I wipe the beet juice off my chin (on to my sleeve) and smile at him.  This is a real Tina Fey moment.  It then occurred to me that I probably also had juice on my nose, so I am wiping off the entire visage with my sleeve while noticing just how tall and handsome my pole sharer is.  He’s not looking at me anymore, he is typing something on his phone.  My cat-like face cleaning stops and I resume my cool.  Jesus.  He surreptitiously looks at me from under his eyes and passes me his phone, which I take in my hands.  In his notes, he has written:

“You are metal and I am a magnet all I want to do is get closer to you.  You are so beautiful.  [his Name, phone number]”

YO, THAT IS MY MOVE!  Sort of 😉  It is pretty smooth and he is really cute; I am totally blushing and we are smiling at each other in that sweet way, swinging a little on the pole like kids would.  I type back something like

“Thank you!  You are gorgeous, I am so flattered. We should meet for a drink sometime [my name, phone number]”

Then we have this slow motion geek series of moments, where we kind of smile at each other and look away, look back and smile, nod, look away- it didn’t make any sense.  I took off my headphones, smiled at him and he removed his then we spoke like humans do.  He tells me that he grew up in Bed Stuy and comes from the streets and nobody in his life has called him gorgeous before.  He asks what I am up to for the day, tells me he is going to help a friend assemble a crib- he likes to help out, smoke some stuff and build shit.  It is not his baby, he does not have any babies.  I ask him if he is of the mind to read the instructions or will he just figure it out.  “Both,” he replies. Then, leaning in to me “Can you follow instructions?”  Ah-hem. He is a straight talker, asks me when was the last time I was really satisfied…  It’s not even 9:30 in the morning.  Tells me that he takes great care of his body (clearly) and that he is very sexually talented and doesn’t understand why women aren’t demanding more satisfaction from their men.

“You got a man?” he asks, I lie and say “Yes, but it’s cool, we have an open arrangement.”  He wants to know about me, what I do, what I like to do- we find common ground in poetry.  He is about to get off the train and tells me that he wants to have that drink, and that he will send me some poetry during the day.  He may have kissed me on the cheek, then he exited the train, turned and gave me a wave.

Whoa.

He did send me poetry, and it is very, very good.  I love it.

That said, obviously this man has got some game.  I won’t make assumptions about what that means, but I’m not so sure I am going to move forward with what he is offering.  My instincts tell me it is not yet safe to do so, and I will heed them.  A friend of mine (the one who I am always quoting for you) said to a group of us last week:

“Imagine that tomorrow night you are going to go to a party and there you are going to meet the person of your dreams, the one that you have been waiting and hoping for and he is totally available and ready to go, you just have to answer one question.  That question is:  what did you do yesterday?”

He then went on to say that the way that we live when we are single and dating really does matter.   So many people, myself included, think that because we are single we can be really causal about who we are sleeping with… And yeahhhh, sure you can.  Of course.  The truth is that ALL of our behavior, especially sexual, reflects our values, how we feel about ourselves, and who we are.  Maybe the way that I conduct myself sexually when single should reflect how I would be if I were in a relationship.  Or that I should regard the person I am sexing with the consideration that this could very well turn out to be my life-partner and the last person I sleep with for the rest of my life.  I shook my head and scoffed at most of this, but it is lingering around in my thoughts and in my heart I am aware that if ultimately, who I am looking for is that partner, I might be helpful to act as if that person is already here.

I have a lot to think about.  I know, I know.  There is no right or wrong, no formula for any of this.  I have to be in the moment living it, spiritually connected and honest.

I have been following astrologer/writer Eric Francis for about 20 years now.  His website is planetwaves.net where you can access his current work and archives for a fee.  I have found that his writings are free in some places, too, though for many years I did pay to have direct access to his website and publications.  I sometimes geek out on astrology. It’s fine, don’t worry about it.  I am thinking about it now because what Eric wrote about us Gems this month has everything to do with what I just wrote about, and with the themes that have been coming us vis-a-vis what kind of relationship do I want, who do I want to BE in that relationship, and what kind of person do I want to be in relationship with.  Check out what he wrote:

“You need your own personal code, your way of life, that is distinct from anything that was ever imposed on you, and which depends on what you have learned from all your travels. Most of all your guide to living must be informed by the outcomes that you want, measured not so much in material things as in the form of ethics, cooperation, the value you place on your relationships, and most of all, the value you place on the future. These are things that count, and the things I suggest you keep right at the front of your mind, every step you take.”

Aayyyyye.

Now you can read what he wrote about you:

http://www.eomega.org/learning-paths/body-mind-spirit/planet-waves-horoscopes-april-2014-horoscopes

Beyonce is my Spirit Creature this month.  Be your Bey, xxx