"Don't be sad on the internet. Don't be sad on the internet."

I am repeating this to myself. I can be sad here, in this blog, if I want to be, and I did post a breakup announcement to my "close friends" on fb (I really love that feature, btw, and I don't think enough people are aware of it or use it) yesterday, but I am trying to limit it to that. No poignant song postings, no vaguetweets or vaguebooking or any of it.

I don't want to be sad on the internet this time. And I've blocked Joey on every social media we previously shared. It has kept my anxiety at a minimum. And the sadness too, I think. There has been a little bit of crying today. A little bit of kneeling on the floor, scolding the vial of ashes from bbqs in Minneapolis, topped by stones from a creek in Wisconsin, topped by tiny shells found on the bank of the Ohio the first week after I arrived in Louisville. A vial to represent my journey, that I sat on the floor and chastised, only to realize I was not helping myself.

All of this now is about helping myself. Find friends, find a good group of people, find my place.

I get angrier and angrier at Joey. He only gave me two months. Two months in the worst period of my life wherein I was still charming and funny and warm and made him dinner and loved him despite all of the shit happening to me.

Fucking hell.

Not Girlfriend Time

Welp. Apparently, it's over. He wants to be "friends." I'm not going to prattle on about it. Not too much.

I think I might be okay. I feel a little bit of sadness creeping in today, but it has nothing to do with missing him, or feeling lost or any other thing related directly to us breaking up. It's mostly that I'm broke and my social circle here is currently very limited. I don't have a lot of outlet. I am and will make friends, I will find my place, but it's 6:36 on a Friday night, and I know I'm staying home. I know no one will be calling me to see if I want to go to a thing. I know no one will say, "Hey Sarah, I need to talk. Can I buy you a drink?"

I have plans tomorrow night. With my two new friends, Mia and Sharon. They are insta-likes. My people. My age. I think Sharon's a little older. Sarcasm, dark humor, graphic sexual conversations, warmth. My people. We're going to see a band I saw on Tuesday that's fantastic. Right now, I don't have enough money to pay the door fee. Wait. Maybe I do. I've got $4-something in my bank account and a few coins on my mantle. Together, I may be able to pull together $5. This is where my life's at. That means a 2-mile bike ride to the bank before noon so I can pull out that money.

Thpppt.

For Joey, this has all been intense. For me, it's been the first time I've done a relationship closer to the way I see others doing it. Smartly. I picked my battles more wisely. I kept many things to myself that annoyed or frustrated me that were not important. I "fought" when I had to with as much grace as I could. And I fell slowly in love with him, and deeper as time went on, instead of feeling everything all at once and needing to fulfill myself with intensity within the relationship. I learned to allow myself to be inside the relationship without over thinking it. But, it is a testament to my sometimes faulty ability to read people and a situation that somewhere in the last few weeks, he decided to break up with me, while I was falling deeper in love and thinking of him less and less as a temporary object, or something to be regarded tentatively. And maybe he sensed this, because it happened shortly after I began to fall deeper, that I could sense certain problems forming. A couple days before we broke up, we went out to dinner. I mentioned my ideal way of dying, at 85, in bed with my partner of 50-ish years, of carbon monoxide poisoning. It was all well and good until I laughed and said that he'd be 77, which seems a little young to die. I felt him get just the slightest bit colder. I think he was already near his decision at that point, at least subconsciously. Somewhere in the last month especially he started to make the pile of my faults that would tip the scales in favor of the decision he already made. I learned a long time ago not to do that. It's just a shitty, shitty thing to do to love. Instead, I let those things make a pile and make sure I keep very clear that there's another pile, too. One of love, past good deeds, the way the sun bounces off his eyelashes. And those things always bring me back to the right place. And eventually, things get better.

I won't be writing any songs about this one. I won't be waxing rhapsodic about it being the best relationship I ever had with the best sex and the best connection in all ways. That isn't what this was. This was a kind love. This was patient and warm and safe and I loved it very, very much. It didn't have peaks and valleys of emotion, it stayed steady. I got mad and frustrated and upset with him, but it was never that mad, that upset, that frustrated. For the most part, it was just good.

He disagrees.

Well, okay then.

I need time to not be Girlfriend. I told him this. My offer was we take this month off. I'll be out of town for two weeks for Thanksgiving anyway. I can get my head together about this place I live in, get some money made, etc. I'd leaned too hard on him for emotional and financial support in the tumult that's been my first two months here.

And you know what? Things feel better without him. That isn't to say I don't still want to be with him. That isn't to say I want this love to diffuse itself so it can coalesce some other day for another. I just need a fucking break.

Barf. Child.

It's about 80% hangover making me feel nauseated, but there's a good chunk of wtf doing it to me as well.

I've been thinking about having children.

Who am I fucking kidding. I'm 35. I'm not going to have a child. I'm 35 and have a life about as together as the average 27 year old.

It's just not going to happen.

I started watching one of those Wigs shows on YouTube, where actresses of some note get the opportunity to delve into a "character," a "wig," if you will, and the shows are all about some serious issue women deal with. All well and good. The first I watched, Blue, with Julia Stiles, threw me last year as it was about a mom who has to prostitute herself in addition to having a day job, in order to make ends meet with her young son. A lot of the same issues I've dealt with, in my work, and in my life, were raised in that show.

The shows consist of clips that are about 7-12 minutes long. Little show blurbs to watch on your coffee breaks at work, and the like, I'd guess, was the pitch idea on that one.

Susanna, the one I've started, stars Anna Paquin and Maggie Grace. It's honestly not that compelling and it's more upsetting than anything in a way that makes my gorge rise a bit.

Anna's character is a new mother suffering an obsessive compulsive post-partum depression meltdown. Maggie's character is her stable, mature younger sister with a "real" job.

I've always wondered if I'd be a good mother. I've sought assurances in friends on that front. I used to have a terrible temper. Physically violent sometimes. It's still in me, it's just that I've learned ways to diffuse it within myself in seconds instead of letting it out. It's amazing what just stopping for a second and looking at the situation while in the situation can do. And understanding consequences is a lot of that. "If I throw my phone across the room at my boyfriend, it will hit him hard enough to hurt him, might break my phone depending on whether it hits him, might ricochet and hit something else breaking my phone AND the other thing, and then the fight will escalate, boyfriend might leave me, then I'll be out a phone and a boyfriend and have to replace thing that got broken."

But with a small, vulnerable thing that can't defend itself that's been crying for hours? I don't know how my brain would work with that. I am terrific with other people's children because you can always give them back to their parents when things get stressful. You can go to your quiet home and blare Ryan Adams and sing at the top of your lungs and not have a baby to wake up. You can always get away from the small, vulnerable thing.

And there's the dependence. Sometimes, with four cats, as much as I love them, I think, "Dear god, you are making my life so much harder." You can't just pack up and leave any place with four cats. It's hard to find apartments that will take you. People call you "Crazy Cat Lady" and they think they're hilarious. I can't even go on vacation or a trip for a few days without lining up someone to check in on the cats, change litter, replenish food and water. And that dependence is very, very minor compared to a baby. A baby that becomes a toddler that becomes a child that becomes an adolescent that becomes a teenager.

If I told Joey any of this, he would think I am only thinking this because he is freaked out and doesn't want kids right now and might never want them. While it's true I am thinking this out loud because of the conversation we've been having, it's always been there. Always.

And I know all of these fears are normal. But I'm 35. I really just want to be in a happy, stable relationship. I don't think about the future with Joey. I just love him.

I just wish he could do the same with me, be willing to consider compromises down the line, and acknowledge in a meaningful way that I have moved my whole life to make this work, and that I am willing to get rid of my cats down the line, or even sooner, to have an environment he can be with me in.

Okay. Writing this out makes me feel less like barfing.

Louisville! It's... Kinda shitty. Right now.

It has been three months and some days since my last confession.

I am in Louisville.
My apartment has roaches.
The downstairs neighbor, and cause of the roaches, is a mentally ill, opportunist, dick bag shut in who has a slightly less mentally ill "roommate" who scream at one another at least 2-5 times daily and that likes to yell nigger at him when he doesn't come to supper fast enough. To wit, neither of these men are black.
They both chain smoke, and it comes straight up into my apartment. So bad, sometimes, that the smoke actually makes my bathroom hazy (where the worst of it infiltrates). I have to close the bathroom door at night to actually sleep, turn on the ceiling fan in my bedroom, and sometimes the fan on the air conditioner near my bed that is inexplicably caulked into the window it rests in.
Thankfully, it is not cold enough that any of those helpful things matter.
Thankfully, those two mirthful residents of apartment #1 have been evicted as of Tuesday, and will be forcibly removed from the property this coming Tuesday, if they do not go willingly. Thus far, there has been no packing.
I do not expect Tuesday to be anything less than a parade of expletives and screaming 'til they are both hoarse.

Typing hoarse, I realize I have rarely, if ever, typed the word. It feels quite clumsy to my fingers.

My relationship with Joey, as a result of a lot of this, is, to put it mildly, strained. He broke up with me on Halloween night, in the parking lot of the ValuMarket where we get our groceries, where we'd parked intending to walk down the block to trivia with some of his friends. I was looking forward to it, I greatly enjoy those friends of his. They are my kind of nerds. Warm, friendly, attractive in the way that those kinds of nerds are. They remind me of many of my male friends back home, of the Dan who is not my ex, and of Steve, my Guardian Gnome. The nerds I also played trivia with in Minneapolis.

Joey had shown up an hour late, and didn't notify me that he was running late. I had been in the middle of something, work, that I'd had to stop to get ready to be picked up by him. I sat for almost an hour, in my coat and scarf. I could have been working. I could have made anywhere from $10-$100. Who knows. Such is the way of my work.

And right now every penny counts, counts to a dramatic, borderline operatic level. And he knows this.

I wouldn't say he was spoiling for a fight, but he'd been keeping several things to himself that had been bothering him, and there are certain things we do, as fallible creatures, to piss other people off when things boil too long under the surface. Whether we realize it or not. I don't think he was late, an hour late, knowing I could have been working, on purpose. I think he did what I've done a million times, and that's to occupy myself with other things that stretch into the time I'm supposed to be somewhere else, because I am mired in thoughts and feelings I can't quite make sense of. It is sabotage. Self-sabotage, relationship sabotage. So I told him plainly that not informing me was not okay. He responded tensely, and with sarcasm, that he'd been busy. Too busy, apparently, to say, "Oh hey, I'm busy over here, I'll be there closer to 7 and we can go to Target after trivia."

It came out pretty quickly that my work bothers him. A lot.

I work in the sex industry. I have, in some form or another, for years. I was a SuicideGirl (still am, as they own my "persona" on there in perpetuity due to the ugly contract hundreds of us signed because we were so thrilled for the "honor" of being named an SG), and that started ten years ago. I worked as an erotic masseuse for a year and a half before I moved here. Since July, I have been working as a cam girl.

I am neither proud nor ashamed of this as a job. I do nothing I don't want to do. I am free to choose my own hours, to deal with the people in my channel in any way I choose. If I don't like what someone says to me, I can block them. If I want to give someone a stern talking to for their disrespect, I can. And I do. In about four hours of work per day, I usually make around $100. I am hoping to increase that amount to two or three times that, and to be online more often than I have been.

But, I just started going full bore on this about two weeks ago, once I started being able to be in my place more, once I was able to unpack (the fumigations and roach issues have been enormously stressful on me and on the four cats I've had to move several times to live with strangers since they can't stay with Joey). Once I was no longer almost entirely living at Joey's (which is just about the worst thing that can happen to a new relationship, no matter how much you care about one another. These things have to breathe).

So, I guess it's bothering him now. It's a reality, and not an abstract thing. I am actively getting attention of men who pay me to see my body without clothing. I am very comfortable with this, and I am good at it. It's not as lewd as one would think. A lot of the time, it is fun, and I spend a lot of time laughing with these people. For every 68 year old war veteran who is offering me $100,000 to impregnate me (good lord), there are a dozen men who are between 21 and 37 who tell me I'm beautiful, treat me with respect, and tip me with kind words, often not even expecting a flash of flesh in return. There are a lot of lonely people in this world, and I have always been good with lonely men.

In massage, I formed much more serious bonds. It was physical work, first of all, I was actually touching them. Sensually. I have enough of a compartmentalization capability that it didn't matter that much to me most days. It was work. But some men were gross, entitled jackasses who believed they were going to enjoy a handy despite the repeated, clear language in all of my emails that that is not what would take place.

But yet, I did become friends with some of these men, and even this morning, I thought, "I should write to Jeff and Chris and see how they're doing." Jeff has a marriage that doesn't involve much affection, with a wife who is depressed, chronically. He loves her, but he goes to women like me because it is a grey area. It's not "technically" cheating, in most of their minds. They enjoy physical bonds, snuggling, I would kiss their faces and necks, their backs, rub my breasts on them. And in the end, we would masturbate together. It is a strange thing to feel like good friends to these men who had such sensual encounters with me that I got no real pleasure out of. Yes, I orgasmed, I could probably get off looking at a bowl of maggots. Mind over matter. And I'm not saying these encounters were anything even approaching a bowl of maggots. Anyway. It wasn't an intimate bond. It was work. But still, they became friends.

A couple of my former clients are Facebook friends. A couple have come to see my band play. They are respectful of the boundaries I put in place. That's the world I cultivated in that work for myself.

And now, with cam, it's a similar, but far, far more removed situation. I have never been a prude, I have never had any real sexual hangups. Sex and sexuality are a many splendored thing.

Would I be jealous if the tables were turned? Absofuckinglutely. In fact, I honestly don't know that I would do much better with it than Joey is. But I wouldn't break up with him over it, and all I can do is reassure him that while yes, men are ogling me and getting off while doing it and paying me for the pleasure, I am doing a job, and that's all it is to me. I am forming less of a bond with these men than I did with the majority of my massage clients. And good lord, if I can get this to work for me financially, maybe, finally, I'll have some money sacked away and I'll be okay.

This move has been absolutely fraught since the moment I got here. I suppose I have come to a level of comfort with the baseline of stress, but fucking hell, that I've been working on cam and making the money I need to pull ahead and no longer rely on Joey to keep me fed (I couldn't cam while living at his house, where his sister and best friend live for obvious reasons, nor at my place, given it was too roachy and utterly unpacked until about three weeks ago). I'd had my bills paid through October from my grandma's estate money. But him feeding me, and footing the bill to drive us to Minneapolis over my birthday weekend for my band's last show, and fronting the money to board my cats during fumigations, well, that's taken its toll on us, on him. So coming into my own again financially has eased so much. Until he said he couldn't deal with the work I'm doing.

Which, is kind of an ultimatum. My other option, as a 35 year old woman with no real education is to be a waitress, work 16 hour days, get sexually harassed daily and have no recourse for fear of losing my job. I did that shit for 18 years, off and on. I know where that leads. It leads nowhere. It leads to frustration, feeling small, and depression. Not to mention illness from working long hours around tons of people and consistently not getting enough sleep.

Fuck that noise.

And I am bored with writing this. The other deeper issue is that he is worried, because he is 26 (nearly 27) and not interested in marriage and kids, that I will feel I have wasted my time and will resent him if I stay with him. Fuck that noise too.

It's on the same line as "You're moving in two months, let's break up now to spare the heartache later." It's fear, and it's a cop out. And it's silly.

To end a mostly happy relationship because you're afraid it'll be harder later is just about the most ass-backwards love-related self-sabotagey thing I can think of.

Pffffft.

I haven't slept next to Joey since Sunday night. We're talking on Wednesday. No point in being pessimistic about it, but shit snacks.

I want a bagel.

Oh Good, Grief.

Twice now out of nowhere, I've found myself sobbing in my bed, clutching my grandmother's ashes. Once about three weeks ago, and again last night. I'm having trouble with my mother, it seems that her way of channeling her grief may be to grill me and lash out at me about my life choices. By all visible accounts, I am as happy and stable in every way as I've ever been, which isn't saying there's not room for improvement (note opening sentence), but her supportiveness and open-mindedness of a few months ago appears to have reverted back to the judgement and lack of support I've received my whole life.

I'm moving to Louisville, now, in just a month. Friends were looking for a place for September first, and they love my home and were here last night to fill out paperwork. Assuming my landlords find no issue with their rental history or employment confirmation, they're in here in just over a month. Money from grandma's estate comes in, supposedly, around the same time. My mother doesn't seem to know any more details, and I don't want to grill my uncle who is the executor, since I know he's being bombarded by similar questions from other members of the family.

What this means is that I may still be living here when my friends move in. They hardly have any furniture, so I'll have moved most of my stuff out to be stored using these fun pod things we've got these days that come with a month of free storage, and then they'll ship said pods to wherever they need to go. My friends also want to possibly keep a lot of my furniture. In short, it's been made clear that I am welcome to stay here a week or two until I can get things sorted financially to make the move.

But, I am hoping it doesn't come to that. I am going to Louisville next week, and I am going to ask Joey if it wouldn't make him uncomfortable to loan me the money so that I can have everything settled and get there asap. He wants me there asap, he's offered to help me financially several times lately, and he's got the money to do it, plus I know that I can pay him back in a matter of just a couple of weeks.

Back to the sobbing, though. This week, my mom decided to text me, insinuating I'd sell off all my grandmother's antiques and other things I've got that are of some value, stating that "the past" dictates she ask this. I have never once sold off a single thing from my grandmother, or things that friends and family have given me over the years. If anything, it could be said that I hold onto things well past their value because of their sentimental worth. There is no way in hell I will get rid of any of these things. What I may part with are a fair number of mid-century pieces of furniture that are worth something and have almost no sentimental value to me. That's it. I have collected these things over the years as giveaways from various places or pulled off of boulevards. I don't know where she gets these ideas, and she's ALWAYS had these ideas about me.

She also grills me about my work. Though it's more complicated than the pat answer of, "I freelance, mom," she also has no reason to assume I'm not getting by better than ever. I haven't asked for money but once in probably two years. That doesn't appear to count for anything. She is hardwired in the belief that "work" means going to another place, punching a clock, and getting a single paycheck from one employer. When I tell her that that is just not how things are for a lot of people these days, that what I'm doing is what a dozen of my friends and acquaintances do, it goes right over her head. When I tell her that the money is erratic and yes, sometimes I'm really, really broke and struggle, but that I am happier and healthier and more stable in every way than I've ever been and set my own schedule and don't answer to anyone but myself, that all sounds like laziness and frivolity to her.

It was so nice, for the few months after Chris and I broke up, to have the mother I've always wanted. It's not easy to adjust to the idea that that was just her knowing her mother was dying and softening for a while. Apparently, we are back to the same damn thing that's broken my heart for the past 30+ years.

I prayed to my grandmother that if she could, if she could hear me, that she would let her daughter know that this is not helping me. That this behavior, which she believes is "support," and "love," only serves to drive me from her. My grandmother never approved of the way my mother treated me. None of my grandparents did. They saw the way she treated my sister as indulgent and over-protective, and her treatment of me unsupportive, often mean, and sometimes abusive. My sister has had her problems (conflict avoidance to a fault, a sniping brattiness here and there), but she has mostly outgrown that, and as a result, we've gotten closer (I, too, have obviously overcome several things as well), and she's less close to my mom.

In any case, one of my grandparents heard me. I had a nightmare, a dream I was in a car, something old, a sedan with a bench seat. My family may have been in the back, I can't recall. But I know my dad's father was driving. A country road, and the way the sky goes green just before a tornado. I used to dream about tornadoes all the time. In every one of these dreams, no one saved me, and I had to save everyone else. It was just my responsibility. Dreams about nuclear bombs, too, where I was the only one who seemed to know how to take care of everyone and save them from themselves. I used to have these nightmares two or three times a month. In the last few years, I almost never have them. I can't remember the last time.

Out of nowhere, a huge bank of black clouds turned into FOUR huge tornadoes in the fields just to the left of this gravel road. My grandfather just looked at me and smiled, and I smiled too, turning to the back seat to tell everyone it was going to be okay. Grandpa took a sharp right and drove right into the field on the other side of the road, toward blue skies. We both grinned the whole while. Once we were clear of the storm, I laughed and told him he could stop driving, that we could wait it out and go back. But he just kept smiling, and told me something to the effect of, "I am going to get you as far away from those storms as I can."

Putain de pluie. Putain de pluie. Putain de pluie. Fucking rain.

Fail on the way to win

It is taking some adjustment to be in a happy, healthy relationship. Joey accepts me, unconditionally. He is patient and loving. With him, I am not pushy, or intense, and when he tells me he's eaten some horrible food covered in cheese and I chastise him, he tells me to push harder because he wants to be healthy--he's got myriad seasonal allergies and has a shit immune system and I'm trying to help him eat better, and he loves that I care and give him helpful suggestions of things he can eat that are healthier. With him, I haven't experienced any anxiousness at all, at any moment, aside from the anxiety and frustration I feel that he is so far away from me and there's not much to be done about it right now. It's been three and a half weeks since I last saw him, and my finances are currently in a shambles (it's the 7th and I have $0 toward rent, so rent plus other bills and debts I'm behind on total $2574.39, all due before August 5th. Normally, that would be totally doable, but my work has slowed to a crawl, and I'm transitioning into other work that so far is also proving to be a bust. It seemed like this new job would be something that would really open me up to getting squared financially and starting some savings and finally being on my way to buying a house, but it's been completely disappointing thus far. It is something that can potentially pick up, though, so I'm going to persevere. And quit the other job to devote more time to this.

So, the happiness and excitement I felt initially when I began this work has resolved itself as the image of a brick wall, again. The wall I've seen for the last year, the wall that says, "Sarah, you're almost 35, and you're a failure."

Today, I realized something important, though. I realized that having someone like Joey in my life does not make me a failure. I have had people love me, care for me, be patient with me, but not like this. He is a natural caretaker of the anxious and the neurotic. His actions are preemptive. I never react badly because there's nothing to react badly to. He curtails my usual fears by simply being himself. Instead of being frustrated that we haven't seen one another and that our next meeting is uncertain because I can't afford to get there (he's got a 9-5 M-F job, so coming to see me doesn't make much sense, especially since flying is several times more expensive than me traveling to him by bus), he just says that everything will be okay, that he'll be there any time I can get to him. He tells me he misses me every day, but his patience is contagious. It's okay, it's all okay. Three weeks may feel like a long time, but by October 1st, which is two months and three weeks away, I'll be living there, and I can see him all the time.

Yes, I'm moving to Louisville. I will be getting an inheritance of $5,000 from my grandma's estate, and it should arrive within the next month or so. I had really hoped I could piggyback another few thousand onto that and buy a house, but I will have to wait. It is what it is, and it is what I have to accept.

I am learning how to make sense of someone good. I am feeling my neural pathways reset. To stop craving extremes, and to accept that being with someone so even-keeled is going to mean being bored or not wholly stimulated all the time. I am going to have to learn to be easier going. And I am.

What's most noticeable to me is how I perceive the world around me now. I have always made excuses for bad behavior because I understand it. One of my first therapists always cautioned me against this behavior in myself, and while I took his advice to heart, I was never able to act on it. I find myself doing it now. There are so many things about Chris and our relationship that were destructive. From the first hours. Within the first 24 hours, we had gotten into two minor fights and he'd made me cry by being insensitive and rude. We had an intense connection, and we got on famously in so many ways, but looking back on that, that kind of constant intensity and tension, it frightens me a little. He is not a bad person, but that was not a good relationship. It pains me so much to say that, and to acknowledge it, and I find myself feeling angry with myself and at him. I know what I could have done to be better, but I also know he needs a lot of help to be better himself. I am also seeing how I have been an enabler to so many of my lovers and boyfriends and friends. Chris is a mean drunk. And he IS a drunk. I made excuses for him, when he told me he was an alcoholic, I told him that it wasn't true. But it is true. He doesn't get through more than a day or two without getting drunk. And he is rude, and unpredictable, and he blacks out when he drinks, and so much of our fighting happened in those situations, and yet I always encouraged us drinking a bottle of wine together, or him drinking when we were out. I, and Chris, and Lindsay, have been operating in the mindset of drinking = fun. But I'm finding out that's simply not true. I go out and don't drink or drink half the amount I used to, and I am still having a ton of fun. I'm just choosing much better people to have fun with, these days.

I may have curbed Drunk, Slutty Sarah a while ago, but Drunk Sarah remained. A friend is going through AA. She's really together and amazing now. I was an enabler to her as well, and I'm ashamed. She is far more fun now than she ever was drunk, but yet I always encouraged her drinking, even though I knew she didn't know when to stop.

Things are changing. It's so good. Every day is still a challenge, but I am surrounded by the love and support of my family and friends and a man with a tremendous heart. I'll be a winner yet, by gum!

Baby Steps

I'm trying not to over analyze, let things happen. Try some thought processes I've learned in therapy, and avoid other behaviors that have found me feeling and reacting too intensely in the past.

Yesterday, Joey and I made plans to meet in Chicago next weekend, to stay with friends of mine in their lovely new house, where we'll have our own room. Feeling a little panicky after we talked about it, I told him I needed him to come into this not really expecting anything, that I have to approach things conservatively. I'm not freaking out, I'm just feeling cautious about it. Sex tends to be how I get to know people. It's how I see them vulnerable, it's where I gather and sort the most data, in the spreadsheet that makes up the whole of who they are.

That's another thing we talked about in therapy, that I'm very logical and rational and I want hard information, but yet I am also incredibly emotional. These things, obviously, fight against one another.

Mostly, I don't want to feel pressured. I want to see him, and feel comfortable with him and ease into spending time with him.

It always amuses me how problems in my previous relationship for the other person become something I'm suddenly feeling myself or hyper aware of in the next relationship. I do work really hard to see things from other peoples' perspectives. It's just not always an instantaneous thing. Sometimes, years later, something will happen, and suddenly I'll understand everything that someone was upset with me for or criticized me about. It's like hearing a song you've known all your life and suddenly hearing the lyrics clearly, whereas before, you just mumbled along. Or thought the words were something else entirely.

I observed a lot of these things while with my family while my grandma was dying. Certain things my mom's side of the family does that I had had an inkling of an understanding of, that I now "get."

For instance, arriving at the hospital, to see my grandma, my mom, sister, father and I sat around her bed, talking to her. I wrote about this before, we tried to get her to eat. She did, some. Not enough, but some.

Then, my uncle and aunt came in and we left. When we all were back at the house, one by one, my mother and her brothers voiced some way in which they were special. "We got her to eat!" "Oh, she always takes my calls, no matter how tired she is." "She got really emotional while we were there." It's never said with a tone of celebration, it's all subtle, passive-aggressive one upsmanship. And it's gross. And I see how I do that in my day to day life, trying to prove that MY contribution to a person's life is somehow more valuable, and that ultimately, they are successful or somehow achieved something because of me.

And it's not quite as gross as that, because it does come from a place of caring. Mostly, I think it's part of the abandonment issue schematic; I have to prove why I'm valuable to you so you can't leave me because you'll realize you can't do this without me. With my mom and her brothers, it's a little more sinister.

In my life, it's also something that drives people from me. I see that now. I am not responsible for them, or their success, any more than they would be responsible for mine.

Baby steps, in any case, with Joey. LOL. Joey. Baby. Joey, baby kangaroo. It's bad enough that he's 26, does he need to have a child's name, too!? Oy.

Baby steps. I suppose my biggest fear is this will be something that fizzles fast for me, that it will function as rebound, and I will hurt him. I don't want to keep him at arm's length, I don't want to move too fast, and I don't want to write checks I can't cash. There's a happy medium in there, and I think we're doing pretty well in that frame.

11 Hours, 4 Cats

So much for celibacy.

I went to Louisville. Steve and I had a fun drive down, we are great traveling companions. We arrived at Joey's, I produced the bottle of Malört I'd asked Steve to acquire (a rough-tasting, wormwood based liquor found only in Chi-Town) for Joey, and we immediately did a shot and then sat down to play three rousing games of Scrabble. Joey kicked our asses every time.

Steve and I retired to Joey's room, where I'd take Joey's bed, Steve the futon. I went back downstairs to grab my water, and in one easy movement, went from hugging Joey goodnight, to kissing him.

It was a decent kiss. Mostly, it made me feel safe.

I went to bed.

The next day, the presence of Steve meant Joey and I stole touches on the sly, a squeeze here, a kiss on the forehead there. Pheromone-wise, all of the right things were happening. Again, I felt safe. A glance from across the room made my heart flutter. I felt defensive, I'd gone there with the intention of distance, but he is sweet, earnest and kind. Defenses dissolved. He can't hurt me. When I first reached out to him the next day, it was especially nice, he seemed to breathe more easily knowing the kiss the night before wasn't because we had been drinking.

His Morrissey night was fun. We spent the night at the bar as he DJ'd, and mostly, it inspired a lot of conversation between Steve and I about relationships. The fact that masculinity has been bred out of men almost everywhere in the US. That women like me struggle to find someone dominant enough to handle us on a day to day basis, who understand what it means to be dominant enough to subjugate us sexually in the bedroom without being crass and disrespectful, and yet respect us fully all of the time. Instead, we settle for men who can fuck us, who are assholes, who are misogynists, because the biological need for fulfilling our sexual appetite is stronger than the biological need for fulfilling our need to be taken care of. Ultimately, we can take care of ourselves, even if that's really not what we want. What we can't do is bend ourselves over in front of a window at three in the morning with a storm raging outside and get fucked from behind while rain water soaks us and the floor, and then half way through get picked up like you weigh nothing and thrown on the bed to get fucked some more. So we sacrifice, and we take men home who can do that, who treat us like shit otherwise. Because men who were raised well in this day and age can't navigate their desire to dominate, or that desire has been neutered. Andy was a walking Women's Studies/lame feminist girlfriend disaster. He didn't even look at porn because an ex had convinced him it was a really awful, demeaning thing. Good christ. A little tweaking, and he was able to let a little of his manhood out, but there was always a hesitancy. Not so with dudes who never got that education... I like to think an upcoming generation of men will be inspired by Don Draper of Mad Men to be both gentlemanly and viscerally masculine, but who knows how long the damage of feminist extremes will prevail.

Anyway. In the midst of these conversations with Steve, as I sipped a whiskey water that seemed to be doing nothing for me, Joey would look at me as he DJ'd, I'd be singing along, as he'd be singing along. It clearly made him happy. It made me happy too. Mirroring. Connection.

Morrissey happened to me when I was 17. I'd say I was mostly through that phase by 23. But it was a strong obsession. Morrissey (namely the Smiths), Depeche Mode, and the Cure dominated my life for the bulk of those years, with a two-year dalliance with Japanese rock like Luna Sea and L'arc~en~Ciel in there in the middle. Revisiting this with someone so deeply into it is charmingly nostalgic. His interest, while an obsession, is only one color of his musical palette, thankfully. He appreciates music at the same level as I do. We have already had some really great conversations about music, and it's something that's very important to me. A lot of people I know are into music. Really into music. But there's a special level where it enters definite nerdery, a field I've been playing on my whole life. Encyclopedic knowledge, and an expansive openness to new things. I don't get to spend much time with people like that, like me, except peripherally. Andy was very into music, but also closed-minded and judgmental about what makes something good. Chris loves music passionately, but his interest is more sponge-like; he invests himself in music that comes to him, is around him. He doesn't seek things out, he doesn't go to shows. Joey is like me. He is invested in the scene in Louisville, and writes a popular Louisville music blog with some friends.

After Moz night wrapped up, we returned to Joey's. Attempted another game of Scrabble, but I was beat. I went upstairs and Joey was close behind, to grab his pjs and brush his teeth. Steve stayed downstairs, and I knew he had all his things with him. We'd talked earlier in the evening that it was possible I might like to sleep next to Joey. I figured Steve was smart enough to figure this would happen without further discussion.

Joey and I kissed, as he held his shorts in hand, clearly prepared to head downstairs, assuming nothing. I fidgeted on the bed, looking at my lap, unable to look him in the eye. He continued to lean in to kiss me. Eventually, I looked up at him, and I said that it would be nice to sleep next to him, but I didn't think I could handle any more than that. He assured me that arrangement was more than acceptable, and we each went to brush our teeth.

After kissing a while, he was touching my back, and it tickled. I asked him to touch harder. Instead, he squeezed me really hard, seemingly everywhere at once, with his entire body, and I felt myself sigh into it, I allowed myself to just be there with him, and I felt the fear bubble burst.

And thus, more than kissing began.

I am trying to figure out where I stand here. Being with him helped to snip the last tethers of strong emotion I was tending the knots on for Chris. I was able to unblock Chris on fb yesterday, and don't have any urge to go spelunking his page as a result (I haven't looked at it at all, in fact). It feels like a big step. Seeing a new photo on Lindsay's Instagram of him doesn't make my heart shoot up into my throat. Today, I received the package of Kickstarter prezzies from Chris's comic project and didn't dissolve into a puddle of tears, as I know I would have a week ago. Instead, I just felt an ease, and pride. He is so talented, and I want him to succeed. He is his own worst enemy on that front, and his business sense is myopic at best, so I fear for him. But, for the first time, I don't feel like any of that is something I should have my hands in. Those tethers are gone. I am sure if I saw him, if he knocked on my door right now, it would be a terrifically conflicting battery of emotions, and I feel pretty sure love would be amongst them, but there's a joy in knowing that isn't going to happen.

I can just focus on Joey now. There's nothing I can do about Chris.

So, another chapter in my love life begins, with another long-distance entanglement. My therapist is kind of excited, the pleasant weirdo. He likes that Joey is a kind, easy-going guy, because he feels like I can focus on him without getting into intense emotion territory and can use some of the lessons and information I've gathered since we started therapy in January to make this involvement function better than others have in the past. But, there are still the giant issues of distance in play, albeit marginally less insane, as Louisville IS a day trip away, not two, by bus or car, which is about 4,000% less a logistical and financial nightmare. I can easily bus to Chicago, spend the night with friends, and then bus the rest of the way without putting myself out in any way. Plus, his sister is in Chicago, and she goes there often, so we can get to spend more time together and bus down too.

Joey, too, is badly allergic to cats. So he can't come stay with me. 11 hours. 4 cats.

I get now something that both Chris and Thor struggled with. I looked at our relationships and our distance as something we simply had to accept, and treat accordingly, but they complained about not being able to get to know me face to face. To go on proper dates. That to see one another basically meant living with one another for a week at a time, when we weren't ready for that level of interaction. I honestly didn't think much of it. I tend to accept circumstances that cannot be changed. Except now. Now I'm pissed and I'm frustrated that this lovely person is 11 hours away from me (11 hours driving like a bat out of hell, that is), that I can't bike over to his place and go to a bbq with him after we go out to his favorite coffee shop and then head back to my place for the night. That it's an all or nothing contact situation.

At the very least, I feel rational and in control here. I think because when I met Joey, I was still pretty thick in heartache and thus didn't entertain the baby crush I immediately had, and we had a month and a half to let a connection brew long distance, and become friends, that there's nothing to make me get super heady about this. I worry this also means I may not develop stronger feelings for him, but something tells me this is a curious new frontier for me. My involvements grow healthier with each new one, and the intensity I normally feel is not particularly healthy.

I'll take it as it comes, I guess. And I guess this means planning another trip to Louisville soon.

Ripping through a dozen angry bears...

I done fed myself too much caffeine today. This causes a large amount of general anxiety, coupled with obsessive thinking and effectively, a bit of depression.

I did it to myself, things were just peachy until mid-way through the third cup of coffee, here at home, while I idly watched the 21 Jump Street revamp (pretty funny, though I expect I missed a few things, having never watched the series, and appreciated the Depp Deluise cameos, both of which are still very sexy man folks), did some internet business, and tried to drum up some work. None was particularly effective, so my idleness became quite a sedentary state, as I blinked blandly at the pile of dishes that need washing and generally became twitchy and over-anxious while giving into obsessive, not in the least bit fruitful thinking.

Namely, that Chris's birthday is in two days and I wish it made sense to do something for him, because fuck I'm awesome at birthday shit for boyfriend-types, that I don't ever open the front door to my place without hoping he's standing on the curb, fresh out of a taxi, all Troy Dyer in Reality Bites-like, or that the Sandra Bullock as Mary Magdalene black velvet painting he said he'd still paint for me when we broke up (I didn't ask, he said outright he'd do it, that he wanted to, even if its arrival was upsetting for me, which it couldn't ever not be if we're not together, but I still want it, very much. Tom Cruise as Jesus Christ needs his obvious [to me] companion) would be there on the porch, delivered by the USPS.

Or, better yet, that he'd be standing on the porch with the painting in hand, a shy, maybe a little scared, grin on his face.

And I'd welcome him in, happily, and we'd cry as we are wont to do, being emotional retards, and we'd have some serious talks, or maybe we wouldn't at all, maybe we'd just break down and kiss and love each other, and that would be it, an admission of us both being ridiculous, difficult, impossible people, but an understanding that we are worth working out. Because I still believe that we are.

But every time I open the door, there's nothing there, save some grocery fliers, or mail for my shitty former roommate from the state about her child support, or packages, abundant packages, for the people upstairs, who are nubile, pretty artists in their early 20s, from all over the world.

So I'm trying to balance out the over-caffeination with a little whiskey. I'm still twitchy, and writing this has made me weep a little, but the whiskey is effective and I'm feeling my mood elevate a little. Such a delicate balance, these drugs! Too little caffeine, and I feel cobwebbed and sad and achy. Too much and I'm hyper-neurotic and can get pretty depressed. Too much alcohol leads to a whole host of issues. And too little of it, well, I am a social butterfly, I need my social lubrication.

And, as soon as I've washed some more dishes (two sinkfuls in the last hour, about two more to go), and put myself together a bit, I'll head out on my bike. Maybe aimlessly, maybe with friends and a destination in mind. The night is young.

It's been almost decided that I am headed to Chicago by bus and then Louisville by car on Monday. I bought a very cheap bus ticket today, so if the plan falls through, I am only out $34. My friend's brother is hosting a Morrissey night in Louisville, he is opening his house to me and my friend from Chicago, whether or not his sister is able to make it with us. I look forward to the Morrissey, to seeing him again, and to testing whether I can be responsible with my heart, my body, and my general place in life by not acting on our flirtations. I have never been the most emotionally stable person, I've more or less been in a "bad place" for as long as I can remember, with only infrequent peaks in emotional stability, or feelings of being on solid ground. Travel always helps, and is actually fairly imperative. But that doesn't mean I need to act on a crush. I want better for myself, and for the people who are to interact with me now and in the future.

And the simple fact is, I'd rip through a dozen angry bears to get to/save/be near Chris again.

The stuff that is happening right now is stuff that's pretty good

Ever since I had the stomach flu three weeks ago, things have been on an uptick. There's just something about sitting on the can, voiding both one's bowels uncontrollably while simultaneously vomiting into the bathroom trash receptacle to really, I don't know, purge all the badness from one's person, both literally and metaphorically.

There was even a moment we could call religious, where, realizing I had but a moment to get back to bed before I was going to pass the fuck out, I wound up flopping, just barely, onto said bed, only to wake up I don't know how much later, face down in my blankets, legs half off and nearly touching the floor. Even in my sickly torpor, I laughed at the situation I was in, and crawled up to my pillows to fall back asleep. Three hours of this, about every twenty minutes to half an hour, and the worst of it was over, but it would be four days before applesauce, saltines, Sprite and bananas weren't 90% of my diet. I tried ravioli on the third day, it was a mistake.

I feel good. The weather seems to be, as of yesterday, in the mood to be more of a summery spring than a wintery one, and as can be expected, it's done wonders for the moods of everyone. I'm wearing a flimsy tank top today. I have a cardigan in my bag, but I don't need it. Praise Jesus.

I am continuing therapy, even though I am now feeling stable and content and like I can tackle shit without the bolstering effect of someone impartial to talk to. Mostly because, despite this stability, the problems are still there, in theory; I need to learn how to be better in a relationship. Less anxious. Less tense. Less nitpicky. And I need to learn that keeping some things to myself, in terms of the intensity of my feelings, can be kept to myself, for weeks, even months at a time, without it being "lying." This is the point we covered last session, and when my therapist laughed at me, I laughed too, and quite deflated in my chair. It's the simple realizations that cover the most ground, and it kind of floors me every time. Not being forthcoming about EVERY thing that I think doesn't mean I'm lying to someone. Bah.

This came about after I told my therapist about a friend who went on a date with a fellow she'd liked form afar for some time. Their date went very well, and basically from that moment, she was like, "He's the one, I'm done," but she didn't say that, for, I think, FOUR MONTHS. And now they're married. Had she said it in the first week, or first month, like I do, he probably would have freaked and ran. But she didn't. And she wasn't lying to him, she was smart, she kept it to herself, let him catch up to her. Why can't I do that? It's one of the many little things I do to sabotage my relationships. Every time. We came up with the obvious metaphor of letting things stew for the other person, letting them feel out the full flavors of me and the relationship before I dump the intensity of my feelings on them. DUH, really, Sarah. And in the meantime, I might find that my feelings are infatuation, or that I don't really like them all that much. But the way I do things, I dump out all that's in my head and expect the other party to be comfortable with that, and also put myself in a position to be overwhelmingly attached to them because of the word LOVE. But they never catch up, not to the level that I found from the beginning. Other women are smart. I need to be like them. A little mystery, girl.

In other news, celibacy and emotional distance are still the name of the game. I had a very handsome, charming, 6'5" college football coach hitting on me in a very adult and gentlemanly way at a literary event last week, but while the first meeting was purely charming, and mildly piqued my interest, when I ran into him at another lit event this weekend, it was determined that he has crazy eyes. Also, dad jeans. Dad jeans, unfortunately, are unforgivable at this stage in my life. I am too old to be teaching a man how to dress. Which is good, because the night I'd met him, and gave him my number after he asked, I woke up at 4 a.m. in a full blown panic and could only get to sleep after I convinced myself he'd never call. He did text the next day to say, adult and gentleman like, that it was a pleasure to have met me. And when I ran into him Saturday, something was off. His charm was now plasticine, his eyes a bit shifty. None of us who had borne witness to the charm four days prior could pinpoint what had changed, but the change was there, nonetheless. I am relieved. I am not ready to date, or even think about it, as is evidenced by my 4 a.m. wakeup in fucking heart pounding fear mode.

But I do have a pleasant, harmless crush that helps me pass the time. We play Words With Friends games and chat about Morrissey. He is too young, too slight of build, and too much the brother of a friend (and too much, again, living in another city), but it is so safe, I can use it as an experiment, and have been. Not a whisper of seal has been broken on the crush. Our talk is very vaguely flirtatious, but no admission of any attraction or interest has been broached in the least. I've never done this before. It's been a month, and I am proud. In fact, I sincerely doubt, when I see him again (given he lives in the city I'd like to relocate to in the fall), that I'll allow it to become anything else. Too young, too slight, too brother. I see those red flags, y'all, and they are not worth the trouble it would be to put another notch in my bedpost. Land sakes, might I wind up with a friend that I find attractive, who finds me attractive, that I never engage in physical activity with?

The mind reels.

Here Lies My Will

My official unofficial last will and testament:

I, of occasional Swiss cheese mind state swear that the words herein are totally what I want you to do with my stuff and my person when I die or become completely infirm (if the latter, let it be known that I am pissed you didn’t take me out back and shoot me [in other words, pull the plug]). The date today is May 3rd, 2013.

I would like, assuming we are still close at the time of my death, to have my sister Rachael Kuiken, and friends Chad Lanning, Dan Kane, Steph Grant-Kennedy, Robert and Amber Arwine, and Hilary Falk in charge of executing my will and arranging my funeral services and burial. They know, and understand me best, and I can’t imagine any of them fighting or doing something ridiculous to make my wishes a floppy failure.

My cats are my primary concern. I wish that they go to either Daniel Howard Kane or Jonathan Lloyd Ford, who are two people with lives stable enough for Gaia (aka Gaia the Bee, G-Baby), Odin (aka Odin Marie [when he’s being a ponce], Odin the Terrorcat, Odie), Igor (aka Eegs) and Henry to join them, and who possess the right temperament to become their owners/love them as much as I do. While I would prefer all four stay together because Gaia needs the companionship even if it seems like she hates them, and because Odin loves being daddy to Igor and Henry, I chose two people in the event that this is not possible. If it is not possible to keep them together, please keep at least Gaia and Odin together and Igor and Henry together. Gaia is at this time approximately 15 years old (no precise idea of her age, as she was a stray), Odin is nearly 5 (he was born September 22nd, 2008), and Igor and Henry are nearly 3 (likely born in late September 2010). All of them are healthy, though none of them have had a full battery of shots as I see no reason to do so since they are indoor cats. Igor and Henry do have kitty herpes, but as long as they stay indoors and are loved and cared for, they shouldn’t have any problems with it save some occasional sneezing and giant snot rockets. If they do get gunky eyes, some simple eye wash (available at vet supply stores) will take care of it in a day or two. Gaia occasionally gets a gunk eye as well.

Otherwise, there is my “stuff”. My lamps and dead things and all the tchotchkes on my dresser shrine are probably most important to me (yes, even the rusty metal washers; I pick those up on every trip I take. It’s what poor people call a souvenir.), and I’d like for them to be distributed amongst friends and family who want them (many dead things were gifts, so please allow those who gave them to me to claim them first). It might be fun to put all the washers and little things in a basket for people to take one of at the funeral service, if they’d like. My sister Rachael should have my paternal grandmother Lois’s Tiffany style lamp, the three milk glass lamps from the Ely cabin, and my solid silver bracelet (the bracelet was purchased at the Heard museum in Phoenix, AZ in October 2005 for $198). I would like to keep these things in the family. Robert Stanford Arwine III should have my Nashville guitar. Fur and leather coats to Hilary Falk, and she should get first dibs on any clothes. 

If I have any money at the time of my death, after use to pay for burial and pay off my debts, please give an amount reasonable for the lifetime care of my cats to Dan and/or Jonathan, and any remaining amount should be distributed to pay off debts of my immediate family (parents and sister), and then equally the debts of anyone friend or family mentioned in this will. If there is still a sizable amount of money after that, then I would like the cabin outside of Ely on White Iron Lake that was in my family for several decades to be reacquired, and put into some kind of legalesey trust that ensures the cabin stays in the family and is cared for financially with my money in perpetuity, and that it be a place of refuge for my friends and family alike. If there is any amount remaining after that, I would like for $20 bills to be passed out at random to people on Frenchmen Street in New Orleans, and somewhere old and pretty in Memphis, Louisville, Minneapolis, and Ely until it is gone. If I own any property, or any kind of sweet car, I’d like it to go to Chad Lanning.

How I’d like to be buried and wishes for my funeral:

If I haven’t expressed a specific cemetery by the time of my passing, I would prefer to be buried somewhere in the state of either Kentucky or Tennessee in a small country cemetery, on a hill or in the woods. I want there to be plenty of trees. I want this because my heart belongs to the South, and both of those states are central enough for everyone I love (who are scattered all over the country) to be able to come to the burial/later visit my grave/make yearly pilgrimages to pour Powers whiskey on it, if they so choose. If there is an afterlife and you love me, please consider that being buried somewhere with a harsh winter is just about the only thing that kind of freaks me out about death/being bound to the place one is buried. 

Ideally, I would prefer to not be embalmed, or preserved in any way. I understand that this means burial very soon after my death, and that puts a strain on whomever plans the funeral, particularly if I’m to be buried out of state, but returning to the earth in as natural a state as possible is incredibly important to me. I would like to be buried in a box made of untreated wood, in the traditional old-timey coffin shape. If he would be interested in doing so, it would mean a lot to me to have Thor Johann Carlson of New Orleans make this box for me. (I think it would be pretty rad for y’all to rent a bus and drive down together. Just put my coffin in a trailer behind it, and maybe some tin cans on strings to clatter down the road.)

I do not want any kind of religious officiant to speak at my funeral, nor any conversation about the afterlife in any religious way. I am not an atheist, and I do believe in a higher power, but I am not afraid of death and I don’t believe it is any of our business as the living to make guesses on what happens to us after death. We can’t know. I don’t find it comforting to hear it at other funerals, and I don’t want it to be a part of mine. I would like for friends and family to speak about their memories of me, for people to read letters I’d written, etc. John Morson may or may not have a stash of Sarah quotes at the ready. If someone wants to read something by someone else, let it be something that Leonard Cohen, Charles Bukowski or Nick Cave wrote. As for flowers, encourage people to send wild-type flowers, Gerbera daisies, ferns or ivy plants. Trees (oak, or willow, preferably) planted in my name would also be wonderful. Please bury me at dusk, during magic hour. It’d be neat if y’all wore black, with big hats and veils on the ladies and felt hats on the men, cuz I like fancy coordination like that. Feel free to smile and laugh often, despite this color. And it should be strongly encouraged that people bring their dogs, if they’d like to.

I know this will make my mama cringe, but I would very much like for someone to sing the song Jack on Fire by the Gun Club at my funeral service, or graveside; my band, The Deceitful Lapwings, covered it, but it would be wonderful to have someone reinterpret it. Possible persons to sing/perform it would be Chad Michael Lanning, Hans Lang Olson and Shannah Marie Anderson, with any of my musician friends who’d like to tackle it. It’s a dark and nasty song, but it’s chock full of things that I love and make me laugh, in its macabre morbidity. Shots of Powers whiskey should be distributed as it is being performed, and should take said shot at the line, “And I will fuck you until you die, bury you and kiss the town goodbye. It will be unhappy, it will be sad, but it will be understood that I am bad!” And something with dimes, my favorite coin. Maybe throw dimes into the casket before it’s buried.

An open bar after my funeral service/burial is also important, as well as a live band, several of my friends’ bands, in particular. If someone can make it happen, I also have fantasies of Ryan Adams playing. Maybe by the time I die, he’ll be hard up for cash (or he’ll remember the Tweet he just favorited that states I’d like him to play at my funeral). Jack White would be amazing too, but I suspect even less likely. Choose some small, dark, comfortable bar in KY or TN that can be rented out. You’ll know it by its wood paneling and taxidermy, and it will probably be the possessive name of some man.

Drinks I love that should be notably served, and could be given jaunty/archaic language/dead things Sarah-like nicknames in my honor: Powers whiskey (I take mine tall, heavily watered, no ice), vodka soda with lime, sauvignon blanc, malbec, craft beer porters and stouts, Corona, PBR (in bottle only), and a mango martini that is made with mango puree, black pepper vodka and other stuff; find someone who used to work at Joe’s Garage to get the recipe. Drew White would know. Let there be spicy tuna roll sushi, sandwiches Croque Monsieur and Cuban, plenty of healthy crudité with hummuses and fresh fruits (except for cantaloupe, ew), a nice mixed greens salad with tomatoes and red onion with my vinaigrette (olive oil, red wine vinegar, dill, minced garlic, yellow mustard, honey, salt and pepper) and a taco bar with both trashy gringo taco fixin’s and traditional fresh corn tortilla, barbacoa, white onion, pico de gallo, cilantro and lime (see: TACO CAT!!!). Desserts should be key lime pie, butterscotch budino (alá the 112 Eatery), and angel food with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. My friend Scott Hurlbut would be a fine choice to put together this menu, and it would honor me greatly to have him do so.

And I think that’s about it. 

Sincerely,

Sarah Michelle Moeding

May the third, the year two thousand and thirteen

Grandma

I lost one of my life's best friends the other day, my grandmother. She was 85 years old, and when she died, I was told her eyes got very wide and she looked afraid, like she wanted to fight it. Though there is no autopsy being performed, the cause of death is likely an aneurysm in her stomach that dislodged itself from coughing and shot up into her heart, causing almost immediate death.

She was 80 very tiny pounds when she died. She was as small as a pea, her body nothing more than bones and skin. She had once had beautiful C-cup breasts. Not a bit of that remained on her chest, she was as flat as a child. She had once had a beautiful smile. No longer able to wear her dentures, she was toothless and unable to speak (and the bones under her gums were wearing through, painfully). She breathed heavily, chuffing through her mouth with little moans and noises like she was trying very, very hard to say something, but couldn't do it. That idea upsets me more than anything, that she was too weak to speak and had things to say, but couldn't.

I had been there, at her side, holding her hands, smiling into her still-beautiful face, with eyes that were losing their ability to see in those last hours, clouding over and unable to focus. Her left eye would hold your gaze, her right eye often rolled up into her head. I can't be sure she could even see me. But I kept smiling, giving her as much love as I possibly good with my touch. Because my love for her couldn't possibly wane in the face of her death, her very visible, increasingly clear death. But there was a moment where I shut off, and needed to care for myself. I had had two hours of sleep, and seeing her literally die wasn't going to enrich my life. I was going to have to drive five hours home later, and I needed to get some more rest. So I held her tight, I kissed her cheek, and her forehead, and I told her I love you, and I went back to the hotel room I was sharing with my sister and brother in law.

Not ten minutes after I arrived there, my sister called to tell me she'd died. I hung up the phone and smiled again. "Good girl," I said aloud, and went to sleep. She'd been in so much pain. The last words I heard her speak much earlier that evening (it was now just before dawn) were "What else can I do?" She said this several times. I told her she had nothing left to do, that she was loved, and if it was time to go, she should do that. Then she asked for my mother, and my mom and I sat together with her, trying to convince her to eat something, because she had medication sitting in her empty stomach, and that was the bulk of why her belly hurt so. But she refused. She'd been having diarrhea, so I imagine she thought she'd only add fuel to the fire on that front, if she ate. Not that she'd been able to eat much at all.

She was my last living grandparent, the person I'd always been closest to in my family, and just a really good friend my whole life. She championed my singing and my writing from the very second I began singing and writing. Frustrated that I had stories to tell and couldn't yet write (but could read), I would dictate to her at the age of four. The first was called Robbie The Hummingbird, an origin myth story about how hummingbirds got their colors. I would often put together entire concerts, make fliers, and charge admission at the door to "shows" in the first bedroom in my grandparents' house. I remember one was Bruce Springsteen covers where I made up music on the pump organ and sang his lyrics along to them, disregarding their original melodies. Admission was a nickel. The only person in the family who was guaranteed to be there was my grandma. Everyone else typically continued to watch sporting events in the living room.

We hadn't been very close in the last few years. There had been a major rift in the family with my mom and my uncle that grandma lived with that I had nothing to do with, but as a result, guilt by association, we lost touch. In addition, as she'd gotten older, she'd become gossipy and kind of a brat sometimes, plus while she still had her own house, she was doing things like letting the dish sponge get moldy and using it without realizing it... I am not designed to handle these kinds of things. Everyone else in my family has a medical background, it doesn't faze them, but I can't handle the infirm. Not in a caretaking sort of way.

But I don't regret the time we lost. Like a friend you haven't seen in many years that you find you can just pick up where you left off, my grandma and I were like that.

It fucking hurts though. If Chris and I hadn't broken up, I wouldn't have the closeness I have with my immediate family that's come the past couple of months. But, if we were still together, I'd have someone to go through this with. Friends and family aren't the same as a partner, and all of this makes me miss him so much. And maybe he'd be an asshole right now. Maybe he wouldn't be able to be supportive. Maybe he wouldn't figure out a way to be with me through this. Maybe he'd just shut down. Maybe it's all for the best and happening exactly as it should.

But I can't ever know. My heart aches and I miss my grandmother and I miss Chris. It's been almost three months now. It feels like an eon. I can hardly remember what he's like.

My grandmother was cremated. I wish I'd have known this. I went into accepting that her death was coming with the understanding that I'd see her in her casket. I feel a little robbed of this, but I am at least going to get a little keepsake urn with a bit of her ashes in it. That's better, I suppose. She'll always be with me, but now I can have something tangible.

Okay then. I've got a dozen things to do. My home is as much of a disaster as I ever would allow it to be. I should do something about that before it actually makes me ill.

Thoughts on An Uncomfortable Dream

Time will tell if anything does bloom again with Chris. I never had happy dreams about Andy after we broke up, because, even as I held on to the love for months afterward, I already knew he didn’t love me as much as I did him. I already knew there was too much about him that wasn’t compatible with me, that the level of insecurity he made me feel for not being smart enough, well-read enough, interested in the right music enough, was never going to make me feel comfortable and safe. Those were things I never felt with Chris. I worry he felt that from me, though. There were several instances where Chris had little outbursts of insecurity, citing me being “cooler” than him, already knowing all the right books to read, all the interesting music. And honestly, I don’t know where he got that, except to say it was already there. I don’t think it was coming from me. I don’t think I was fostering that insecurity, and if I was, I sincerely don’t know how. He introduced me to music I now love, to books I now own, to ideas and topics of interest and movies. He was my equal partner on all fronts, in my mind. So much so, it was exciting in just the simplicity of it. A partner, on the same level as me. 

But, he wasn’t all sunshine and kittens. Far from it sometimes, but I love him in spite of this, because that’s what love is. Chris has a persistently dark persona, in spite of the love and kindness he wants to project. Corner him, he’ll lash out with cruelty without a thought. Fight him and he’ll insult you. Do something he doesn’t like, and he won’t be constructive in the way he tells you. He called my hair frizzy several times (hey, sorry bud, years of bleaching and dyeing have given me some damaged hair, and it being long for the first time in over a decade, I’m having to relearn how to manage it. Plus, the whole time we were dating, I was using an “organic” conditioner that didn’t do shit for me other than dry my hair out and make it feel weird. I’ve since moved on to something cheaper, and vastly more effective, but thanks for making me feel defensive about it). He essentially told me I give bad blow jobs (but condescendingly told me I “make up for it in other areas” after I told him that was a shitty thing to say), and insinuated others had been lying to me when I told him that was malarkey as every dude I’ve been with in the dozen years before him writhes with ecstasy and remarks loudly and often that mine are the best they’ve ever experienced (and, notably, a couple of exes have literally asked me to give tutorials to their exes, who are mutual friends; weird, but actually, not as weird as it might sound, since ladies do really want to give great head). The fact is, he likes the kind of blow job other men don’t, in my experience. No variation. Just up and down on the shaft, consistent, with increasing speed, preferably no coming up for air or giving the jaw a break (claiming that because he goes down on you for such an extended period [and with a skill level I would say is precisely on par with my blow jobs, if he actually liked the kind of blow jobs I give], you should happily return the favor, not understanding that licking a pussy is a different beast, where you can easily take a moment to swallow and close your mouth for a moment, than having a solid object between your teeth for minutes at a time). Essentially, a porn blow job. Which is what all girls start doing (and usually hate doing, for good reason), but quickly learn is not what makes a man happy. Variation, incorporating the hand, licking, teasing, taking the balls in the mouth, kissing the inner thighs, wending the tongue around the head, sucking, and yes, at the end, consistency, briefly, to the finish. But instead of accepting my assertion that he was the anomaly, he told me other men must be lying to me. Right. 

I mean, that’s fucked up. Really fucked up. He has a cockiness, an arrogance about his sexual abilities and his art-making that are borderline nauseating. Pair that with the previously mentioned insecurities, and it’s often difficult to know how to navigate him, because if you compliment something he knows he’s good at, he’ll just smugly say, “I know,” but tell him he’s awesome at something he’s insecure about, and he’ll make you feel like you’re lying to him.

While this is a big thing, it’s also something that can be rewired with the right conversations and patience. He either doesn’t get, or isn’t interested in, the fact that this behavior is incredibly off-putting. And now, even though I don’t think any man has lied to me about my blow-job giving abilities, I feel insecure because I realize it’s now possible I could run into another man like him. I am basically afraid to get physically intimate with anyone at all, for several reasons. 

And so I won’t. Because right now is very firmly about rewiring several things about myself, and understanding why I do them. Therapy, friends, drastically reduced drinking, and avoidance of the more obnoxious, “party lyfe” sector of those I know.

Tonight, I’m having a ladies night. The new Ryan Gosling flick, A Place Beyond The Pines. Then dinner. Then maybe something else. I’ll only have a couple of drinks. I’ll laugh and hug and cheek kiss my ladies.

Even that, in and of itself, is a marked change from a few months ago. I am not constantly on the prowl these days. I don’t look around for the cutest dude in the room. And if I do sniff out the cutest dude in the room, it doesn’t really matter. In Louisville, I spend quality time with my friend’s brother (seriously, friends, stop telling me to date your brothers), who is patently adorable, big of nose, hairy, music-obsessed and smart and kind and interesting (also, a baby of 26, natch, which likely has a lot to do with my physical disinterest. In a recent conversation with a friend, we posited that we’ve gotten to an age where younger men must SMELL different, because there’s an honest aversion to them, no matter how attractive they are). I value his opinion of me, and wish to get to know him better, but I didn’t have anything more than the acknowledgement of his attractiveness as a response. I didn’t flirt, touch him unnecessarily, though I feel sure it would have been well-received. I just enjoyed getting to know a new person, as we sat on the couch together, showing one another YouTube videos (introducing him to my favorite Pulp song, Death II, which he’d never heard, despite being a huge Pulp fan, and following it up with live Pulp footage that convinced me Pulp wouldn’t exist without early Scott Walker, and then showing him the videos for Jackie and Montague Terrace in Blue, which thrilled him because the music is great and he recognized I was right about Pulp) ‘til 4:30 in the morning, and smiling to myself as every couple of minutes, he inched just a little closer to me on the couch. Instead of letting anything happen, I bid him goodnight, and went to bed.

In short, I’ve got work to do. And I’m doing it. As for the dream, Andy is not a part of my life, I don’t wish for him to be, and if we ever meet again, I hope it’ll be nice, and that we’ll hug, and we’ll continue our day, appreciating that we still have affection for one another, but that is all. I once told Andy, in the dregs of our breakup, that I hoped we’d find one another at a sunny 4-way stop at some point in our lives, and we’d nod at one another with respect, and see what happened afterward. I still want exactly that, knowing that to “see what happens” is only to see if we can be friends.

I never had happy reconciliation dreams of Andy after he and I broke up. This is the fifth or more I’ve had about Chris. Some people treat this love as if it’s no different than others I’ve had, now. They tell me I’ll move on, that something else is on the horizon. And maybe it is. During some intense girl talk recently, though, a friend that met Chris said she sniffed out that they have very similar, “artist” temperaments, and, comparing him and me to a relationship she had last year that terrified her and caused her to push back in fear with distance and not a little anger, treating him like he was acting “crazy” and too intense, ending it and subsequently sleeping around for the rest of the summer... Now she’s in a “stable” relationship that isn’t ultimately all that interesting to her, and in the last couple of months, she’s been considering that previous relationship that scared her, realizing how much of a connection she has to him, and that there probably is yet something there to be explored, when they’re both single again. She says maybe I should keep Chris in the back of my head. Move on, as much as I can, but keep the love, if I can. Because, if he’s like her as she suspects, he just needs a great deal of distance from everything that frightens him about me. Namely, that I love him as I do.

That was always the plan. Until it’s not. The world will find something else for me if that’s what’s to be, as it always does.

An Uncomfortable Dream

Saw Danny Boyle’s new film Trance last night. I want to talk about it because it pissed me off, but I suspect anyone reading this likely also wants to see the movie, and literally anything I might have to say about it will spoil some aspect of it. It is a movie that can’t be talked about with anyone who hasn’t seen it. 

In any case, the movie infiltrated my dreams, but mostly through set pieces, in a grand meld of the three main characters’ homes. And also, I suppose, through Vincent Cassel’s seductive vigor. I swear, you can get a nose full of his pheromones from the movie screen. He is, despite being many things I don’t normally find attractive (small mouth, aggressively masculine face, narrow head), probably the most potent symbol of masculine eroticism that I can think of. 

So my dream was set in a large, spacious, heavily tiled, modern home, like the homes in the film. Dark, but inviting. Lots of slate, glass tile, subtle lighting.

It was Andy. We were lying in bed together, fully clothed. He’d slimmed down a bit, lost the borderline too much doughiness of his midsection and accompanying fat deposits in the chest region (that were never actually too much, especially when he’d lay on his side and get furry cleavage. I always found that to be quite a lot of fun to stick my finger in, and we’d laugh) in favor of more toned musculature. I was enjoying feeling his form through simple jersey, he was solid, and warm. We had just reconnected, I was unsure of what I wanted, scared that becoming physical would be too much for me, but he suggested we take a shower together. I went downstairs with him, to the enormous, fully slate tiled bathroom, with two stairs you had to walk up to get into the glass-enclosed shower, which had, tellingly, multiple shower heads. He stripped down, and I admired his ass, but felt too shy to disrobe myself. Feeling frightened, I made an excuse, and nervously talked to him as he showered. I thought about his large, straight, prettily-perfect cock that always got so hard I’d joke that one could crack a tooth on it, just as he made some reference to it, trying to entice me to join him.

And then, by some dream trick, he wasn’t there any more, and I was alone in the room, steam from the shower still lingering. I called out for him, but there was no answer. I opened the still-closed shower door, but he wasn’t there. His clothes were gone, he was gone.

I sat there a while, my heart racing, feeling abandoned. I left the room, and went upstairs. He wasn’t in the bedroom we’d been in before. But the house was quite big, and there were many other rooms to investigate. All of which made me nervous, because I knew there were other women in the house. Perhaps he’d given up already, and didn’t want to give me time to figure out what I wanted. Maybe he’d moved on to another woman. 

All of the women in the house were immediately beautiful, in the right light, and this house was designed to always present that light. Women who worked as strippers, as escorts, as erotic masseuses. That wasn’t his type of woman, I knew, Andy prefers intellectual, academic, music-obsessed, earthily plain-pretty girls that you’d never notice in a crowd. A physically unfettered woman, who wakes in the morning the same as when she went to sleep. While I am quite intelligent, I am not academic, and while I am music-obsessed, it was never the right music, and while I am pretty, my prettiness is altogether too unusual to be his type. 

Conversely, the women in this house were over-sexed sea hags, who wake in the morning groaning like kracken, yawing sharply until coffee, cigarette, and thickly applied makeup were had, but one never knows what might draw a person to another, so I entered each semi-darkened room, afraid.

The women were fucking one another, viciously, animal grunts and growls, processed over-styled hair and too much perfume putting out puffs of product that made me want to sneeze, and by the third room, I’d found only one man in bed with them, a man I didn’t know. They all tried to get me to join them, even after they complained that I’d interrupted them.

Defeated, tired, I went down to a room I knew to be sex-free, a basement rec room, with florescent lighting and tan carpeting, where people were putting together puzzles, playing board games, drinking beer and laughing. It felt like a last resort, and even as I knew it was more likely I’d find Andy in the rec room, I needed to abate my fear by confirming he wasn’t with any of those women.

The room had about a half-dozen men in it and only one girl, who wasn’t one of the terrible women, and all parties were lazing about doing the aforementioned game-playing. There was a big, tan brick fireplace all the way at the back of the room, the kind one finds in crappy suburban homes built in the 90s. My eye was drawn to it, as I stood in the middle of the staircase down into the basement. No one looked at me, and I scanned the room, again looking to the fireplace, which wasn’t lit.

And that’s when I saw him. Not Andy. Chris. Laying on his side, on the floor, just in front of the fireplace, wearing a polyester patterned shirt that was white, with blue and red print, clearly from the 70s. He was idly flipping through a magazine, which, if I’m not mistaken, was an issue of Highlights. Yes, the kids magazine. There were other books strewn about him, and they too seemed child-oriented, as in things from the late 70s, early 80s. Our childhood years. 

I cautiously walked toward him, and when he saw me coming close, a wry smile formed at the corner of his mouth, clearly in spite of himself. “Hi,” I said. He stood up, and remained a few feet from me. I motioned for us to walk outside.

We stood on the grass, which was not yet green, as spring had not yet come, next to a river that was barely more than a creek, but rushing with water. He looked at me, down at me, standing tall, but not imposingly so, and said he thought it was too soon that we were meeting, that we weren’t ready. But he still had that wry smile. Despite himself, he was happy to see me. Just uncomfortable, and confused. My heart was racing, but not with fear, just excitement. Andy wasn’t right. This was right. I recognized that the second I saw Chris. I wanted to kiss him, to touch his skin, but I resisted trying, because I knew he wasn’t ready. “We live in the same house,” I said, “I couldn’t avoid you.”

He acknowledged the fairness of this statement. “But I was looking for Andy, I thought we might be reconnecting, but it didn’t feel right. He lives here too.” Chris’s features darkened, just slightly, with a twinge of jealousy that couldn’t be helped. He made motion to his shoulder, indicating the length of Andy’s hair. “Long, dark, wavy hair?”

“Yeah,” I said, “with kind of a darkness around the eyes, a little sunken, Slavic looking.”

Chris nodded. “That guy.”

“But it’s not right. He’s not what I want.”

And we continued to stand there, awkwardly, uncomfortably, but understanding it was better than anything else.

Headed Home...

I have been in Chicago and Louisville for the past week. Chicago has three dear friends that love me very much, and though I don't really care for the city, being with them has been immensely healing. Last night, when I got back to Chicago from Louisville, the couple I'm staying with told me that to them, I'm family. The statement came about because when I was here early last week, a package arrived for them while I was gone. Amber asked why I didn't open it, sincerely. "You're family!"

This is the only house that isn't my actual family where there's a picture of me on the fridge, far as I know. I'm sitting on the bed in their guest room right now, the sheets stripped and drying just outside the door. I should have left nearly three hours ago. I'm just going to hit awful traffic now. But my gut is all in knots and I keep tearing up. I'm afraid to go home. I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I don't know what the next few months hold for me, and I'm afraid.

I've been away for a week and it is the happiest, most content I've been for months. Since before Chris and I broke up. I had a week of adult conversations, interactions, situations. I went out, to shows, to bars, to restaurants, and no one was obnoxious, no one acted a fool, no one said any stupid shit to me, and it was eye-opening. I've thought for a bit now that maybe I'm really done with the party life. Like most things I do actually mean eventually, I think I've been saying this for about three years now. I want reasonable, adult people in my life. We can still go to shows, go to bars, go out and drink, but getting shit faced doesn't feel like me anymore. Fucking dudes who have appropriately thick bodies and the right amount of chest hair but are assholes doesn't feel like what I should be doing anymore. You'd think that would have occurred to me some time ago, and it did, about half-way, nearly a year ago, but, fuck.

I think I'm done. I want to focus on me, on healing all the things I'm holding onto that make me difficult to be close to (with the understanding that I am always going to be an intense, difficult person. I know that's who I am, and I don't want to be someone else. I do want some smoother edges, though). My other friend here in Chicago told me I'm much calmer than last we met two years ago. That means a lot to me.

Every year for the past three years I've gone on a trip this time of year that's put huge things into perspective and moved me forward a great deal. Memphis in 2011 pushed me toward forming my band. New Orleans 2012 made me realize just how many toxic people I was keeping in my life. I hope looking back around this time next year, it'll feel like something just as big was created from my travels.