Taking the bad with the good

I’m PMSing like a bastard and it’s making Minx seem really damn annoying.  Or maybe his ADD stuff is just unusually pronounced lately, like to an extent that would drive me insane at any time of month.

He’s always impatient for me to get to the point of whatever I’m saying.  Usually, this manifests itself as him interrupting me to finish my sentences – except he rarely, if ever, guesses what I was actually going to say, so I end up glaring at him and finishing my own sentence anyway.  On one of Minx’s really impatient days, I can start an anecdote with “Y’know, it’s weird -” and he’ll irritably interrupt me to ask “What?!  What’s weird?!?!?!?” And I’m like “IF YOU’D SHUT THE HELL UP I MIGHT ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO TELL YOU.”

You’d think this impatience of Minx’s would mean that he gets to the point quickly, himself.  Alas, no.  He does talk way faster than average, but it’s kind of the aural equivalent of Scooby Doo running in place for a few seconds before finally zipping out of frame: the start of Minx’s sentences tends to be a meaningless jumble of “Um so okay it’s like you know um like you know…” before he actually says anything that means anything.  And he’ll often trail off before getting to the point: “Um so like you know I was um thinking like you know maybe we could take the ummmmmm……….” or he’ll take seemingly forever to answer a simple question: “Minx, I’m making scrambled eggs, do you want some?”  [Fifteen full seconds go by as I stand in the next room and silently pantomime blowing my own brains out] “……….yeah, okay.”

Somehow, he regularly manages to interpret me as saying the exact opposite of what I actually did say: “So Cowgirl, should we have Bob meet us at the bus stop or in the theatre?”  ”Hmmm…the theatre would probably be crowded…it’d be hard to find a person there.  The bus stop would be better.”  ”Okay, I’m gonna text him to meet us in the theatre.”

On a possibly related note, Minx is fairly terrible about noticing stuff.  Which actually I can totally live with if he would acknowledge that I (apparently) have a freaky near-eidetic memory.  But instead he’ll insist that something never happened when I know goddamn well that it did.  And yes, I know it would feel weird and kind of embarrassing for him to decide to trust my word over his own memory (or lack thereof), but I think he should.  He knows my memory for certain kinds of things is insanely good; he knows (I hope!) that I would never ever lie to him or screw him over; therefore he should go by my version of things, the same way a blind person trusts their seeing eye dog.  Instead, we get conversations like “Hey, Minx, that little gift shop on the way to the grocery store is hiring.  Maybe you could apply there!”  ”I don’t know what store you’re talking about.  I’ve never seen it.”  ”No, you have; I point it out literally every time we pass by.  Remember, just yesterday when we were on our way back from getting groceries I pointed at the scented candles in the window and said -”  ”NO.  I HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS STORE.”  ”You have seen it.  You just don’t remem -” “I’VE NEVER SEEN IT!!!!!”

I’m trying to deal with these quirks as well as I can.  I really am.  And I think generally I manage to hide my annoyance pretty well.  But.

A couple of months ago, Minx told me that the mess in the apartment bothers him so much that he sometimes wants to move out.  And that’s not the first time he’s said so.  So obviously I have this constant anxiety in the back of my head of “if I don’t meet Minx’s standards of tidiness, he’s gonna move out.”

The other night, we were sitting in front of the tv while I worked on some merchandise for the craft fair thingy I’m doing in a couple of weeks.  When I’d finished crafting for the night, I tidied up – I mean, I left a few items on the floor by the couch, but I put away a good 80% of it.  I took the living room floor from “literally not visible at all” to “a wide clear path through a little bit of clutter.”  And I did it really ostentatiously, making a point of slowly crossing between Minx and the t.v. numerous times with my arms full of stuff to make sure he noticed I was cleaning.  And also, the next day I tried to reinforce the fact that I’m making an effort by actually outright asking him if he was pleased that I’d tidied up.

And he was like “Oh, did you?  Thanks.”

And my brain snapped a little bit because I’m under all this pressure to be neater and yet when I put forth an effort, Minx doesn’t fucking notice!  I told him (still reasonably calmly, mind you) that from now on I’m gonna wear a fucking bell whenever I tidy anything up, and possibly narrate everything I’m doing as well.  It’s seriously ridiculous how little he notices.*  Minx replied, “Well, I didn’t notice that you’d done anything because it’s still messy in here.  There’s still stuff on the floor.”  And then I started to get seriously pissed and said “So I have to be absolutely perfect or else it doesn’t count?”  Minx was all “I didn’t say that!  I only said that I didn’t notice you’d done any cleaning because there’s still stuff on the floor.”  I said “Please explain to me how ‘I don’t care that you cleaned up 80% of the mess because there’s still 20% left’ is different from ‘your efforts don’t count because you’re not perfect.’”  He couldn’t come up with an answer.

That night I dreamed that I was fighting with Minx – except he kept sporadically turning into my ex husband.  I was screaming obscenities and punching him/them in the randomly-morphing face as hard as I could.  I woke up and told Minx about this distressing dream, and as I told the story I realized exactly why I dreamed it: my ex also told me once that he might have to initiate a separation if I didn’t tidy our living space more often (and magically stop being clinically depressed and anxious).  I spent a bunch of months, back then, feeling like my ex was haughtily judging me from on high – like I had to scurry around and be a good little Stepford wife while he sat back and tried to decide whether I was behaving well enough for him to stay with me.  Which is pretty much exactly how I feel now.

I told Minx all of this.  Then I told him again how frustrating it is that he should threaten to move out unless things improve – and then refuse to acknowledge when I have improved because apparently I didn’t improve enough.  Minx said again that he never said I had to be perfect, just that he didn’t realize I’d done any cleaning at all because the floor still had a couple of things on it.  I asked him again what the fuck he thinks the difference is.  Once again, he couldn’t give me an answer.  And I said that regardless of whether or not he’s insisting on perfection, does he really think it’s gonna motivate me to ignore every good thing I do and focus on whatever I didn’t get around to?  It’s like a parent looking at their kid’s report card and going “Huh.  You got an A.  What’s the matter, couldn’t get an A+?”  You’d want to tear their fucking face off.  I think I went on a rant then that if he’s gonna make some huge terrifying threat of moving out if I don’t improve at something, it’s his fucking responsibility to notice when I do improve.  How does he know the apartment is even messy in the first place when he literally can’t see a difference between “cluttered around the edges” and “can’t see the floor”?

I also reminded Minx that it’s not like I’m just opening dresser drawers and flinging the contents everywhere while squealing with girlish glee; the mess he hates so much mostly comes from the fact that I’m an artist/crafter – it’s the only way I even make any money right now – and this entails a) getting out a bunch of tools and supplies and making stuff and b) spreading it all out while it dries.   I cannot make money without first making a bit of a mess.  I think that since I’m not making a living at it yet, Minx has forgotten that the artistic stuff is technically a job and not a hobby.

Minx pointed out that if I tidied up my work area in the kitchen, I’d have more space to lay things out and wouldn’t always have to use the living room; I said I need to devote as much time as possible to preparing for the craft fair right now, and can’t afford to spend an afternoon sifting through a bunch of crap and putting things away.  I said that I’d definitely attack the workspace mess after the craft fair was over and I could finally relax, but for now I need to put all my energy into making stuff to sell.  At which point Minx said – his voice filled with dark insinuations – that he didn’t think he could wait two weeks for me to clean up my workspace.

I told him to just go fuck himself and move out, then.  I said that I want to be in this relationship, and I’m trying to meet Minx’s needs as best I can, but this is just too much pressure.  It’s not easy for me to do the amount of cleaning I’ve been doing!  I’ve been feeling totally shitty and low-energy lately and I have that craft fair to prepare for and I can’t believe that he would put this enormous pressure on me at a time when I already have this huge, momentous thing on my plate.  I pointed out a bunch of ways that I sacrifice for him on a regular basis and said that if he told me “Listen, a huge thing just happened and for the next two weeks I’m gonna be really stressed and busy and things are gonna suck…but after that my stress levels will fall and things will go back to normal and I promise I’ll make it all up to you” I would completely be fine with that because it’s my damn job to help him through the bumpy parts of life, just like it’s his job to help me through mine.

My angry speech made Minx realize he was being unfair to me.  He tearfully apologized and proposed a compromise: that I finish up my arts-and-crafts stuff by 9:30 every night and he’ll help me put it all away.  That way, he’ll be more likely to remember how much stuff I had lying out in the first place and appreciate that it’s not there anymore.  I was willing to try this, and happy with his heartfelt apology.  It really felt like the fight was over.

But a little while later I accidentally opened up the can of worms again.  See, that whole fight happened while we were packing to spend a weekend at Minx’s parents’ place, which got me thinking about the last time we’d gone there together: I’d marvelled to him at how freakishly hotel-clean it is there (the toilets look like they’ve never ever been used!) and he’d dismissively said “Most people’s places are like that.”  So now, at the tail end of our latest “the apartment isn’t clean enough” fight, I realized out loud “Oh!  Y’know what…maybe part of the problem is that your parents have given you unrealistic expectations of what the average living space is supposed to look like.”  And I cited that one exchange and explained to Minx that he must’ve been spoiled by his parents’ OCD because it really isn’t normal for a person’s living space to be that immaculate.

And – get this – Minx smiled sorrowfully at me, like I’m just so delusional that all he could feel was pity, and he said “Yes it is.”

“No, it’s not,” I said (and had to bite my tongue to keep from adding, how would you know what the average person’s house is like when you NEVER VISIT ANYONE OR GO ANYWHERE!?!?!).  ”Admittedly most people’s places probably don’t get as bad as ours does, but there’s usually at least, like, a bit scuzz in the corners where the floor meets the wall and some toothpaste splatters on the bathroom mirror and a couple of socks and magazines lying around…stuff like that.  Your parents‘ level of cleanliness is not standard.  It might not even be standard for them; they might clean up extra when they know you’re coming for a visit.”

And Minx said “I think you’re just making excuses” – once again doubting my powers of observation even though he should fucking know by now that I notice things way more than he does – and I felt as though he’d punched me in the gut.

And then we had to leave for his parents’ house – a visit I couldn’t get out of because we were all slated to go see a play and my ticket was already bought – and I spent the next few hours almost catatonic with depression and anxiety.  Barely being able to speak; responding to words or touches far more slowly and sluggishly than usual; overwhelmed by the smallest noises or movements.  I get like this when someone really, really upsets me – especially when there’s no resolution and no way to get away from them.  I can’t deal with the person so I just shut down.

Annnnnd whenever Minx makes me shut down, he immediately becomes all cheerful and solicitous.  He bought me a bottle of water at the bus station because I’d mentioned having a headache, and petted my head while I tried to nap on the bus, and gave me tons of massages once we got to his parents’ place, all the while repeatedly telling me how much he likes “helping me.”  And yet what he’s “helping” with is the damage that he caused, which makes me feel really conflicted.  First off, my sluggish brain can’t comprehend the fact that this same person who was just breathtakingly cruel is now being nice to me; I suppose Minx does the nice stuff out of guilt over the mean stuff, but when I’m slowed down and fucked up it just feels like some kind of trick or trap.  Secondly, I really want to reject his nice overtures – hello, he’s the fucker who screwed up my brain in the first place! – but I usually can’t bring myself to do it because the massages and whatnot really do help bring me back into my body again.  Also, in this particular case I was stuck in public with Minx as my only ally/buffer zone, so if I rebuffed him I’d basically be having to fend for myself in the outside world while being in a severely compromised state.  So I grudgingly accepted his attentions.

Besides, I wanted us to present a united front with his family; they’re religious and don’t agree with us living together without being married, so it’s really important to me to demonstrate how stable and awesome we are together even though we’re not “united in the lord” or whateverthefuck.  Having to act “normal” and not make a scene (both on the bus and at our destination) was actually a huge factor in my anxious, fucked-up headstate – not only was I feeling hurt and angry and betrayed, but I wasn’t allowed to express it.  But I soldiered on and by the time we got to his parents’ place I was able to give some semblance of being the cheerful, loving girlfriend again.

By the second day of the visit, the cheerful and loving thing was less of an act; I’d gotten some decent sleep and managed to let go of the argument a little bit.  And when we all went out to see that play, Minx demonstrated an amazing awareness of my bathroom neuroses (he noted where the ladies’ room was in relation to our seats and offered me the aisle seat so I could sneak out easily if I needed to).  Nobody’s ever been as good at remembering and accommodating my weird shit as he is.  It really helped me remember why I’m in this relationship in the first place.  And his parents told me lots of hilarious stories about what Minx and his siblings were like as kids, and I managed to tell some anecdotes back that got laughs, and I felt quite pleasantly like a member of the tribe.

But when we got back home again – back to the scene of the crime, as it were – my resentments started trickling back.  Minx wanted to have sex, and on a physical level I did too (it’s the horndog week of my cycle) but when we started fooling around I just couldn’t get into it at all and finally I disengaged and told him that I was still kind of mad.  I said that I guess if two people have different needs and they’re trying to meet each other halfway, I guess it’s necessary to be like “Are you getting your needs met?  Are things okay now?” but I can’t help feeling like the version, “Have I cleaned to your satisfaction?  Will you stay with me?” is just…really subservient and gross and I hate it.  I don’t think Minx ever directly addressed this statement, but it served as a jumping-off point for him to say that he hadn’t been communicating well before, and was overtired and reacting really badly and crankily at the time, and he was really sorry.  We talked about some possible ways to improve the state of the apartment (giving some stuff away, rearranging the furniture, getting more shelves) and Minx was generally talking as though he’s committed to staying with me – not standing with one foot out the door, waiting for me to fuck up or anything – so I feel pretty okay now.  But I still wish I knew how to make him notice things.  There doesn’t seem to be a solution to this aside from me taking before and after photographs every time I tidy something – but that again seems ridiculously sycophantic, like I’m jumping through hoops for Minx to prove myself worthy.  And if he took pictures of the apartment at regular intervals so he could inspect them and determine what I’ve cleaned, that would make him seem like a fucking Nazi.  So…I dunno.  I dunno what’s going to happen.  I hope we can keep working together and get through this.

But anyway, all of this – the fight and the visit with the in-laws and the resolution – did serve to remind me of some of Minx’s good qualities.  He may sometimes say horrible hurtful things, but at least he gets over his anger quickly – and tries to make up for his outbursts by sucking up to me a lot.  He generally understands that a successful relationship requires negotiation and compromise, and he’s better than anyone else I’ve ever dated at talking issues through and coming up with solutions.  He’s phenomenal at dealing with my OCD and anxiety and overall weirdness; he handles himself so gracefully that sometimes I don’t even realize he’s doing stuff just for my benefit**.  He grinds up my too-big-to-swallow vitamin pill for me every morning, and reminded me to take my pills with me to his parents’ place.  He believes me when I say that the food I eat has a huge impact on how I feel, and asks me what he can do to help me eat better and improve my health.

I want this boy in my life.  I want to make it work.  The good outweighs the bad…so far, anyway.  Hopefully it always will.

After that final discussion about the tidiness issue, we did finally have sex, btw.  I slapped Minx hard in the face and pulled his hair, and it made his eyes go all blissful and far away…perhaps this is what subspace looks like, I’m not sure.  And he came and collapsed on top of me and said “You own me” and I thought my heart might burst.

 

*I actually found out about Minx’s general obliviousness the day after he moved in with me.  When we went to bed, the living room was a clusterfuck of his possessions: there were literally about fifteen biggish boxes piled in the middle of the floor, plus his old desktop computer with its bigass CRT monitor.  It’s a small apartment so basically this was all enough to cover the entire floor.  I couldn’t sleep because I had a bunch of ideas for Tetrising this shit into a better configuration, so finally I just got up and started sorting it.  I ended up being able to stack ten of the big boxes in the closet, shove the remaining boxes into an out-of-the-way-corner, and slide the computer/monitor/etc. underneath the table my t.v. sat on.  It was a vast improvement.  The next morning I skittered into the living room ahead of Minx and went “Ta daaaaaa!” and Minx looked confused and went “…What?”  He for real did not perceive any difference at all.  Not even after I told him exactly what I’d done.  Ten fucking boxes.  Two or three hours of work.  90% of the living room reclaimed.  And all of it went right the fuck over his head.  I couldn’t make this shit up.

**We went to a really crowded comic book convention once – a place that triggered my agoraphobia and anxiety in a major way – and afterwards Minx pointed out that he’d regularly contrived to look at his floor map and plot where to go next, mostly just so there was an excuse for us to step out of the flow of traffic and focus on something aside from the clusterfuck crowdedness for a few minutes.  Or he’d try to involve me in a discussion of some piece of art or other so I’d concentrate on that instead of how often strangers were jostling me.  I couldn’t believe how much thought and effort he’d put into trying to make me comfortable.

*Eeeeek*

I recently stumbled over an ad for a one-day outdoor arts-and-crafts market.  I applied, and got in.  It’s happening in like three weeks.

Now, for some reason when the application asked “what will you be selling?” I put down (among other things) this relatively new idea I had that I’ve only made two or three prototypes of, and haven’t even tried to sell yet.  So now I’m committed to making enough of these things to fill a 6′x2′ table (or, okay part of the table…I’ll have other stuff too)…in the next three weeks.  Without having done any market research or having any idea if people will even like the item in question.

I just got back from spending over $200 on supplies to make the items.  Sure, I’m generally a cheap bastard, but when money needs to be thrown at something, I throw it: GO BIG OR GO HOME.  Sometimes I think these artistic flights of fancy give me an addictive adrenaline rush, not unlike the one people get from skydiving.  Basically, I know what I’m doing is kinda crazy, and I know it might disfigure my bank account, but I have to at least try – and if it works, it’ll be amaaaaaaaazing.

Y’know the sad thing, though?  This craft fair cost $75 to participate in and as I was arranging the bank transfer I thought, “Ouch, there’s another hit to my poor bank account…but hey, this will be good, it’ll get me some exposure.”  It didn’t even occur to me that I might actually sell stuff – that I might break even in the end or, strange but true, make a profit.  Now, I know it’s good to have reasonable expectations, but that’s a bit ridiculous.

Anyway.  I’m kind of freaking the fuck out…I don’t think I’ve gotten a proper night’s sleep since the craft fair guy told me I made the cut.  To top it off, I was gonna start hardcore looking for part-time work (and indeed I found some decent listings I wanted to apply for) but I don’t feel like I can apply for anything for the next few weeks because I’ll be way too busy frantically making merchandise that may or may not sell.

But hey, maybe I’ll sell assloads of stuff.  Furthermore, maybe I’ll sell assloads of stuff and it’ll lead to more artistic money-making opportunities.  Which was kind of the whole point of quitting my day job in the first place.

Money for nudity

So, one of my chick friends – someone I don’t think I’ve directly mentioned here before, let’s call her The Vixen – recently started pro domming.  Shortly after that, she started fucking people for money, too (although I’m pretty sure she keeps the two practices separate and doesn’t fuck the men she dommes).  She’s well suited to sex work; she’s outgoing, intuitive, and a gifted actress.  She also says that her body always starts responding during sex, no matter what her partner looks like, so she always enjoys herself at least a little bit with her clients and occasionally even gets off.  I always thought that sex workers who claimed to “just love sex” (i.e. with absolutely anyone) were bullshitting, but The Vixen is actually kind of like that.  Actually, I have mentioned her here in passing: she’s the chick from this post who has a much, much more open mind than I do about what’s attractive.  So.

I’m constantly asking The Vixen all kinds of questions about what it’s like to be a pro domme/sex worker (so far she’s been patient with me but I’m gonna try to stop because I don’t want her to feel like a carnival sideshow).  I used to think I could be a pro domme or some mild variation on a hooker (foot fetish only, maybe?) myself, but after hearing The Vixen’s stories I’m quite sure I couldn’t – mostly because I’m deeply skeeved out by the dynamics in most porn and The Vixen’s clients all seem to want her to embody pornliness.  I was hoping that someone like me – mostly shaved head, no-nonsense wardrobe – might be at least a little in demand (there are guys who like tomboys, goddammit!  I’ve dated them!), but The Vixen says that clients all seem to want long hair, short skirts, makeup, heels, etc.  It sounds like her clients really don’t want to see her as human whatsoever – they want a walking, talking blow-up doll to act as a receptacle for their semen or their submission.  I could never deal with this; I’d be constantly wanting to assert my personality and force the guys to understand that I’m an actual person*.

I spent the night at The Vixen’s place recently.  While I was there, she ducked into the next room to change her clothes but then came out to respond to something I’d said while still topless.  She and I don’t have a changing-in-front-of-each-other kind of friendship.  Almost immediately, she was like “Oh, crap, sorry, I guess I’ve gotten too much in the habit of being naked around people.”  I said it was fine and I didn’t care, which is more-or-less true.  ”It’s weird for me but I don’t want it to be weird and I know that if you keep on being half-naked I’ll get used to it” would have been more accurate.  And indeed, when I said it was fine she just…kept on hanging out in just her underpants for a while.  She puttered around on the internet and snuggled her cat (not a euphemism) and chatted with me and her boobs were just right there.  I do get the feeling she was making some kind of point by remaining half-naked for so long; possibly using me as a foil to prove something to herself (that she’s brave?  That she’s sexy?  I don’t know).  I resented feeling manipulated but I did get used to her boobs.

(I should probably mention that she and I have a bit of…history.  She mostly likes chicks, and when we were first hanging out she developed a crush on me and – despite me mostly liking dudes, and despite me preferring a very narrow body type while The Vixen is plus size – I started feeling vaguely crushy toward her, too.  She is funny and smart and awesome and pretty, as well as the most hip and stylish person I know.  Also, she’s a sub whose interests and kinks mesh perfectly with mine.  So a few years back at her Hallowe’en party we ended up making out, and it was pretty fun but I don’t think I was into her enough to want to go further – to want to date her or do naked stuff with her or anything like that.  And the next day she called me and we Talked About It and agreed that we should just be friends.  But I’m almost certain she would have dated me if I were into it.  Therefore, when she unveiled her boobs the other day I couldn’t help wondering if she was obliquely hitting on me, or showing me what I’d missed out on, or something.  I honestly don’t think that’s what it was, but my mind did go there.)

SO ANYWAY.  During my stay, a client called The Vixen and booked an appointment with her for 11pm that night – which meant I had to vacate for an hour.  Normally I’d be pissed if a friend told me to GTFO for a while so they could do something else, but this is The Vixen’s only source of income and she needs all the appointments she can get (she’s not making enough yet to cover her expenses) so I totally understand.  While he was on his way over, we debated what outfit to put her in – the client had said he loved women to look “sleazy” and asked for stockings, garters, and thigh-high boots, but he didn’t specify what else she should wear.  I saw a pink leopard-print dress in her closet and suggested that; then I gave suggestions for how to skankify her makeup.  The Vixen opted to be completely naked for most of the time she was getting ready, which struck me as rather gratuitous (there’s nothing she did that couldn’t have been done while wearing a dress…) so, again, I’m not sure if she was trying to prove something or what.  But I did end up getting totally used to her nudity, and I helped her fasten her stockings to her garter belt (my head inches away from her exposed crotch…) and help her apply some fake eyelashes with rhinestones on them.  She was completely matter-of-fact with me the entire time – not flirty at all – so I didn’t feel skeeved out or anything.  And it was super-fun playing dress-up with her.  Little does her client know that The Vixen was only able to look so perfect and hot and slutty because her ugly uptight butch friend was there just minutes beforehand, frantically helping her do her clothes up and put on finishing touches.  The cognitive dissonance between his experience (hot girl opens the door calmly, acting sultry and wearing a perfect slutty outfit, ready to do his bidding) and reality is just…too much.  It depresses me.

By the way, I like that The Vixen’s naked body became normal to me.  I know goddamn well (and have been trying to explain to guys for ages) that the human body is functional first and foremost – not inherently sexual.  My legs are for walking around on, my boobs are for feeding potential offspring, and my stomach muscles are necessary for holding my body upright when I stand.  If someone else finds any of these parts attractive, that’s happening entirely inside their own head; I’m not being attractive at people.  I’m just fucking standing here.  And this is true of everyone.  I know this, and yet my gut instinct about nudity is to find it very personal and sexual: “I’m seeing things that only this person’s partner oughta see!”

I think my reaction to nudity comes from a somewhat slut-shaming, puritan place: so what if I’ve seen someone’s boobs?  So what if everyone’s seen her boobs?  All the same people have probably seen her arms or face, too, and my brain doesn’t freak out over that…so clearly I still have some work to do.  Feeling weird about The Vixen’s naked body made me wonder if I’m really not as open minded and sex positive as I think I am…but when I returned after The Vixen’s client was gone, and she said he hadn’t been able to get hard with a condom on so she’d blown him instead, I tried to freak myself out thinking “OMG The Vixen had a stranger’s cock in her mouth five minutes before I got here” and I…just couldn’t make myself give a shit.  So that’s good.

On a related note, my savings have run down to a point where I know I should start looking for a job.  I briefly toyed with the idea of being an art model – like, posing naked in front of art students so they can practice drawing the human body – but quickly backed away from this idea (naked in front of strangers?  Eeeeek!) and started thinking about looking for another office job instead.  But, y’know…I don’t want to work in an office again; it would feel like I was going backward, returning to the safe and familiar.  I want to carve out a new, more artsy, more daring life for myself.  And after The Vixen got me thinking more about my attitude toward nudity, I realized that being an art model would be pretty much the most perfect thing ever.

See, in art modelling, it’s not about being sexy or pretty or titillating or porny in any way; it’s straight-up “here is a human body for you to draw.”  I attended a figure drawing class in high school (as an artist) and it was the first time I’d ever seen naked bodies treated in a practical, nonsexual, non-slut-shaming way – it was totally illuminating!  The models were average-looking people of all shapes and sizes, and in fact this was probably the first time I’d ever seen an average-looking chick naked besides my mom – any other naked ladies I’d seen at that point would’ve been thin, conventionally beautiful movie actresses doing sex scenes.  I hadn’t seen many regular-looking naked guys at that point in my life, either.  So, here were these naked people who were totally normal looking and I was allowed (nay, expected) to stare at them and the instructor would make remarks like “Look at the nice curve the upper arm makes, there” or “try to capture that lovely play of light and shadow over the ribcage.”  In one fell swoop I learned that a) nudity is not inherently sexual b) not everyone looks like a movie star and c) all bodies are beautiful, functional art objects.  It was intense; it was awesome.

So the way I see it, posing naked for art students is almost the antithesis of The Vixen’s sex work: I’d be helping to teach people that naked folks are still human beings (not sluts asking to be hit on or leered at), and that people can come in all shapes and sizes and still be beautiful, rather than trying to embody someone’s fantasies and possibly giving them a skewed idea of what’s real.  I’ll gain more confidence and body-awareness and finally, hopefully, understand bone-deep that my body really is just the vehicle that carries around my brain; it’s not linked to my morals or my character and it’s not gonna harm me in any way if people look at it**.  Also, I get to be made into art, yay!

Also, my ideal job is something that pays a lot (so I can work fewer hours and have more time to paint), has flexible hours and hopefully no early mornings, and has little to no responsibility involved – I want to be able to zone out during my shift and never think about work when I’m at home.  Art modelling appears to have all of that going for it.  All the figure drawing classes I’ve seen advertised online are in the afternoon or evening and I believe the minimum pay rate is $20/hour (which I could make doing office work, but the office job would probably be much more fast-paced and stressful and require me to work 9-5).  So, $20 (or more) per hour for basically just sitting there – no deadlines, no customers to be fake-nice to, no coworkers to try to get along with, no important tasks to try not to fuck up.

And I have this major problem of living inside my head all the time, and of feeling anxiety but doing everything I can to distract myself from feeling it; I recently took a course in “mindfulness” (basically meditation where you focus on what you’re thinking and how your body feels) and I know that it helped with my anxiety and overall health but I never could bring myself to do the meditation exercises at home like we were supposed to.  It feels like sitting still and meditating is a waste of my time and that I should be doing something more productive.  Art modelling would fucking force me to sit still with no tv or internet and just…exist.  It would force me to just be silent and focus on my body.  I figure during the longer poses I could actually meditate just like they taught us in class (special bonus: meditation makes time go really fast!).  So in theory, working as an art model would allow me time to meditate and be in my body, which would calm my anxiety and help me sleep better.

I’m not gonna lie: being naked in front of people will be terrifying at first.  I’ll probably blush and be a little shaky the first time or two.  But the instructors in life drawing classes always forbid students from talking about the model’s body (and sometimes from talking whatsoever, probably so that nobody tries to whisper to each other about the model’s body) so I won’t have to put up with comments; I’ll only have to get used to being looked at – and not even in a leering way, just in a studious and analytical way.  Plus I’m pretty nearsighted, so without my glasses the crowd will kind of recede anyway.  I might be able to just unfocus my eyes and phase everyone right out.  And I realize that the actual holding-still-for-long-periods part will probably suck sometimes, but not nearly as much as, say, trying to placate an angry customer.  Overall, art modelling sounds beautifully calm and predictable.

I have this fantasy, now, in which I get work as an art model and I eventually become so renowned for my awesome poses and professional demeanour that I can easily get work anytime and anywhere I want…and so I pose whenever I need to pick up some extra cash, and I work hard at my art business the rest of the time, and between the two I  make a totally decent living.

I have no idea whether any of this could happen.  Maybe art schools prefer someone more “classic” looking, and my punky hair and tattoos will rule me out.  Maybe they actively want people with non-conventionally-attractive bodies so as not to get the students all stirred up, and I’ll be a little too sexy.  Maybe my city is already supersaturated with nude models and nobody needs any more.  Maybe the fact that I have no experience will be a big black mark against me.  But I emailed six different art schools today (one of which was actually advertising that they need people) offering my services , so we’ll see.

*I’ve done this during cybersex; the majority of guys will type what they’re doing to me and then type how I’m reacting to it, which always prompts me to correct them (“Actually, I don’t like my nipples touched that way so I would not ‘moan in ecstasy’” and lecture them (“p.s., if you’re gonna write both sides of this encounter then you might as well go jerk off by yourself.  I’m not a screen for you to project your fantasies on; I’m cybering with you because I want to participate and interact and get off.”)

**One of my guy friends once remarked that he’s perfectly comfortable having a partner take naked pics of him, and even keep them after they break up, but “women seem to think that taking a naked picture of them steals their soul, or something”.  And yeah, that is how it feels to me – but I can see that it’s ridiculous.

Some incredible things about Minxes.

A while back, Minx was going through the hard drive on his old desktop computer that he never uses anymore.  There were tons of photos on there so we took a walk down memory lane together.

Many, many of the photos were of Minx and his exes.  It was illuminating to finally know what they actually looked like (the only photos I’d seen previously were their meticulously selected and cropped Facebook profile pics.  The photos on Minx’s computer were candid and unedited).

Minx has one ex girlfriend who stands out, for me.  His other relationships all seemed to happen because he was bored and lonely, but this one girl actually had qualities he liked; he seemed to have actively chosen to be in a relationship with her instead of just tripping and stumbling into one.  She’s the only past girlfriend he’s ever said anything nice about and the only one who broke up with him instead of vice-versa.

When Minx first started dating this girl, she had an ex-fuck-buddy that she was still hanging out with as friends (perhaps she made the conversion from fucking to friendship because she’d started dating Minx; I’m not sure).  Anyway, at one point the girl announced to Minx that she had slipped up and re-fucked this guy and therefore she and Minx had to break up.  Minx’s reaction to this was twofold: 1) “Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to have sex with this guy?  We could’ve worked something out” and 2) “You keep calling yourself a slut and insisting that we have to break up, and I don’t understand it.  I don’t think you’re a slut and I don’t want us to break up.” *  Somehow, he talked her out of berating herself and they ended up dating for another bunch of months (ostensibly monogamously) before she ultimately dumped him for other reasons.

Anyhoo.  One folder of pics on Minx’s old computer was from a party this girl had thrown at her place.  Minx pointed out a dude in a few of the photos and said “That’s the guy, by the way.  The one she slept with while we were dating.” As an afterthought, he added, “The Pedant always reminded me of him.  Like, whenever I see a photo of The Pedant, I think for a split second that it’s this guy.”

I was flabbergasted.  ”So, you freely gave permission for me to make out with the Pedant, even though he reminds you of the guy your ex cheated on you with?!?”

“Well, I mean…they may look kind of alike but I know they’re not actually the same person.”

“You’re fucking amazing, do you know that?”

I mean, seriously.  If I were in Minx’s shoes, I don’t think I could be so rational.  Seems to me his ex was so into this other guy sexually that she just couldn’t stay away – she was willing to jeopardize her relationship with Minx in order to keep on fucking him.  If I were Minx and I moved on and fell in love with someone else, and the new person was like “So, I had a crush on this guy before I met you and I’d like to pursue it.  What do you say?” and the guy in question looked like the guy who almost ruined my previous relationship, I don’t think I could get past it no matter how much I repeated to myself that it wasn’t the same guy.  At the very least I’d want to meet the guy in person and talk to him a bit in order to establish to myself that he was indeed someone else.  But Minx said yes to Pedant makeouts after hearing a quick story and seeing some Facebook photos of him.  Holy shit.

Minx and I got to talking a bit more about my side-fling with The Pedant, and I learned another amazing thing: when I got home from those first Pedant makeouts, Minx made a point of kissing me right away not because he needed reassurance about our relationship, but because he figured (rightly) that I would.  He’d planned this response in advance.   It melts my heart that I did this thing that most of society would call “cheating”** – a thing that would normally require me to suck up to Minx and make sure he was alright – and he coddled me through it instead.

I’ve wondered in the past whether polyamory is a mindset or a lifestyle – like, if someone is in a monogamous relationship (or no relationships at all) can they still call themselves poly simply because they know it’s how their mind works?  Or is polyamory strictly the act of dating multiple people?  Minx (and others) have helped me clarify this to myself: there are definitely people who lack the typical jealousy responses and would therefore be well-suited to open relationships whether they actively sought one or not.  And Minx comes by his low jealousy levels and lack of slut-shaming naturally; it’s not like he ever sat down and deliberately unlearned old patterns (like I did and continue to do).  It sounds like he’s always been genuinely confused by the way typical possessively monogamous people conduct their relationships.

So yeah…I’m not saying that polyamorous people never feel jealousy, or that only unjealous people are allowed to be poly.  But there are definitely some people this stuff comes easier for.  And I think I understand now how someone can refer to themselves as “poly” regardless of their actual relationship status.

*Before Minx told me this story from his past, we’d had some discussions about kinda-sorta opening our relationship but I could never quite believe that he’d be okay with it.  After this, though, I realized just how open-minded he really is.

**Except it’s not, because cheating – in board games as in relationships – means breaking the rules and Minx and I didn’t have rules about not kissing other people.

Bah. Being a grownup ruins everything.

It’s difficult, sometimes, being old-ish and feminist and a big ol’ overthinker.  For one thing, it means that a lot of the books and movies I loved as a kid actually skeeve me out now.

I found the movie Splash on sale for $5, so I got it to show to Minx (I’m educating him on famous ’80s movies and the video store never has the ones I want).  All I really remembered about the movie is that Darryl Hannah is a beautiful mermaid (eventually given the name Madison) who falls in love with Tom Hanks’ character, Allen.  What I’d forgotten about the movie is that Allen is the archetypal Coldly Practical Businessman – at the beginning of the movie, his (unseen) live-in girlfriend moves out on him because he’s so distant – and Madison is the manic pixie dreammermaid who finally breaks through his shell and teaches him to love.

Now, when I saw this movie as a kid, this all made perfect sense to me.  I mean, who wouldn’t fall in love with a mermaid?  But as an adult, I can’t help noticing that the unseen ex-girlfriend is described as “having it all: bright, sensitive, beautiful” – and is obviously also self-reliant and calls people on their bullshit, since she broke up with Tom Hanks’ character and moved out – while Madison, the woman (er – mermaid) he does finally fall for, is clingy, helpless, doesn’t appear to be terribly bright* and (at first) can’t even speak English.  She’s also totally obsessed with Allen – I’d say “in love with,” but there’s really nothing on which to pin that emotion.  Two brief interactions – during which they didn’t get to know each other at all because they don’t speak the same language and also Allen was drowning at the time – were enough to prompt Madison to track Allen down to his home in New York, and when she finds him she literally just walks right up to him and starts passionately kissing him.  He eagerly kisses back, and it’s implied that they go on to have sex in the elevator of his apartment building, then several times in the apartment itself.  All without Madison having said a single word.

Perhaps you think I’m gonna say “Humph.  Typical male fantasy – a beautiful slutty woman who puts out for a guy she doesn’t even know.  THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!”  Well, no; it’s not that cut-and-dried.  Really, I think “super-hot, passionate person who’s really attracted to me” is just about everyone’s fantasy, male or female.  There’s nothing wrong with having those fantasies, and nothing wrong with portraying them on-screen.  Plus, there’s nothing wrong with sleeping with someone really soon, if that’s what you wanna do; the fact that Madison fucks Allen pretty much immediately and they end up in a loving long-term relationship is kind of awesome, when you think about it.  It’s the anti-Madonna/whore.  And I happen to find ’80s-era Tom Hanks really cute, so there was eye candy for me  in those love scenes, too – not like in porn where there’s usually a conventionally beautiful woman fucking some schlumpy dude who does nothing for me visually.  So that’s fine.

But Madison doesn’t fuck Allen because she finds him physically irresistible; it’s strongly implied that she fucks him because she fell in love with him at first sight, without knowing him or speaking to him.  That kind of undercuts the slut-positive message (of course it’s okay that she put out for him; she was in looooove!), erases the idea of female desire (she didn’t have sex because she was horny, she had sex to bond with the guy emotionally!  That’s what women do, right?) and perpetuates the dangerous myth that love is this magical thing that just “happens” between people, no communication, commonalities, or emotional intimacy necessary.  I also dislike that Splash (among other movies) portrays a basically good guy who falls totally in love with a woman who’s dependent and subservient.  Seemingly, in fact, because she’s dependent and subservient.  Movies like this led me believe, growing up, that guys – awesome guys, dateable guys – love women who act like doormats.  I had to learn the hard way that in reality, only abusive and/or terribly insecure people (male or female) dig doormats.  Well adjusted folks quite rightly feel squicked – not aroused – at the idea of being in charge of another adult’s well-being.

When I see movies about a guy drawn to a woman’s total helplessness, I can’t figure them out.  Is “clingy, totally helpless chick” a secret fantasy that even the well-adjusted guys have – albeit a fantasy they wouldn’t actually want in real life – and that’s why it keeps popping up?  Or maybe the issue is that pathetically few guys actually are that well-adjusted, so these movies are still catering to the majority?  Could it be that male moviemakers put that element in because they think that’s what women want to see – that we want to identify with a damsel in distress who gets “rescued”?  A little gratuitous sex for the gents and a little gratuitous infantilizing for the ladies, kind of thing?  I don’t get it, and I think I might not want to get it because it would probably fill me with rage.

I will note one more thing about Splash: it ends with Allen leaving everything he knows to go live with Madison in the ocean, so ostensibly the shoe is on the other foot (fin?) now and he’ll be the helpless one.  That evens things out a little bit; at least I know that Madison isn’t doomed to live out the rest of her existence as an awkward, childlike fish out of water**.  But the fact remains that the movie itself was about Allen – and, by extension, the audience – falling in love with a character for being so helpless and childlike, and this seemed fine when I was eleven years old but it’s a lot less fine now that I’m thirty-nine.

I wish I could talk about this stuff with Minx.  I mean, I can to an extent, but he’s not a person who enjoys long analytical discussions about media.  Also, he’s a boy (more or less), so insulting portrayals of women don’t anger him; for him these things aren’t personal.  Which only reminds me of his male privilege and emphasizes the fact that, as much as I love him, we sometimes occupy two completely different worlds.

Thank god I have my friend Kaija.  She always welcomes and understands my feminist rants.

 

*Madison probably is smart – she manages to learn English from watching tv for six hours.  But for most of the movie she runs around doing things that make her look charmingly childlike and sometimes kinda stupid.  For instance, when Allen gives her a gift, she cradles the box in her arms and gushes, “it’s beautiful!” – Allen says “no, open it” and she replies, “There’s more?”  These things are probably not actual stupidity, just culture shock; I get that.  But we never see any hint of her having an intellect aside from that brief scene in which she learns English through osmosis (which was probably just there because the writers had run out of “Madison doesn’t understand English” jokes and wanted to quickly move on to “Madison voices her cockamamie ideas” jokes).  One is definitely left with the impression that Allen fell in love with her naivete, not her brain.

**SEE WHAT I DID THERE?

On broadening one’s horizons

I stumbled across a blog comment a while back (I forget what the blog post itself said or where it was, or else I’d link you) in which someone with a male-sounding username said that he(?) feels it’s very important for people to broaden the scope of who they’re attracted to – to try to see the beauty in body types they wouldn’t normally be into.  He believes in this so hard that he’s actually trying to reprogram his own physical tastes by making himself picture folks with a wide range of different body types (ones he doesn’t normally find appealing) while he jerks off.

I applaud his sentiment, but find his execution kind of offputting.

It just…seems like he’s being really hard on himself for having preferences.  It’s okay to be attracted to certain things!  It’s okay to not want to date or sleep with someone because (for instance) they’re blonde and you prefer brunettes, or they’re tall and you really dig shorter people.  That blog commenter seems to feel that we all have a duty to fuck whoever’s interested in us so he’s prudently training himself now, just in case he’s propositioned by someone who’s not his type.

“You owe [that guy you're not attracted to] a chance!” is entirely too familiar a sentiment to me - I feel like society’s been screaming it at me all my life.  The irony of the whole thing is that these guys I “owe a chance” to?  Approach me for a date and/or a roll in the hay because they’re attracted to me.  If they weren’t attracted to me, they wouldn’t be asking for a “chance” and my alleged obligation to humour them never would have come up.  For some reason, it’s generally understood that someone’s attraction to me automatically trumps my lack of attraction to him, and I call bullshit.  You’re interested in me and it’s not mutual?  Sucks to be you.  Go away.

That being said, I do think there are times when our attractions are governed and limited by prejudice, and while we don’t owe anyone sex, we do owe it to them to see them as real human beings.  But if you’re secretly a teeny bit racist, you can’t fix it by jerking off to thoughts of black/Asian/East Indian/etc. people.  You need to instead start questioning your assumptions about race; to pick your issues apart and unravel them once and for all.  If you unravel your issues successfully, perhaps your taste in sex partners will open up accordingly.  Or, perhaps it won’t.  I really think that sometimes the things we like are just…random.  But you won’t be secretly a teeny bit racist anymore, and that’s far more important.

So this guy’s campaign to wank his way to more diverse attractions seemed kind of insane to me.  What’s the point of deliberately warping your tastes like that?  It’s not your responsibility to be ready to fuck whoever asks, dammit!

But then a good reason to broaden one’s sexual horizons did occur to me, and it’s purely and delightfully self-serving: if you find everyone on the planet attractive, it means that everyone who ever hits on you will be super duper hot!

I have a friend who’s a lesbian (actually I have several, but the others aren’t relevant here).  She and I have overlapping taste in chicks; we’ve been out at clubs before and both swivelled our heads to check out the same cute boyish thin androgynous white chick.  But my friend also lusts after women of all races who are considerably fatter and/or older and/or more mannish than I happen to prefer – basically, she seems to find absolutely any butch lesbian attractive, as well as bigger/heavyset F2M dudes and a smattering of femmes, M2Fs, and cismen.  Which means that she’s constantly telling me – with genuine lusty delirium – about the crazy-hot person she made -out/had a date with/slept with recently.  When I was single, I did not have nearly so many hi jinks with crazy-hot people, and this is probably because I find very few people crazy-hot.  My stories were mostly about being hit on by people and politely declining.

So I can certainly see the advantage of being sexually open-minded.  I’m not sure I’ll be trying to reprogram myself via masturbation anytime soon, though; I kind of tried that already when I was married, and it didn’t work.  I mean, I managed to convince myself that I liked morbidly obese men (like my husband), but that never felt as real to me as my totally uncontrived  and abiding lust for skinny, effeminate twinks.  My fat-guy lust was a temporary patch that I plastered overtop of my actual preferences as a survival mechanism, and once I was back in the dating pool I reverted right back to what I’ve always loved.  My attraction to Minx is five hundred times sharper, clearer, and more effortless than my forced attraction to my husband ever was.

I’m gonna keep on steadily identifying and weeding out my prejudices for now, and if that ends up inadvertently reshaping my lusts then that’s great.  But I don’t want to deliberately foist a particular aesthetic on myself ever again.

Big weekend.

Man.  The last few days have been packed with a lot of stuff.  Not all bad stuff, but…impactful stuff.

On Saturday, Minx and I hung out with The Latent Heterosexual – the first time the two of them had met.  This is big because:

1) I was seeing TLH before and slightly during Minx.  Minx has met exes of mine before, but the fact that there was some overlap – albeit consensual overlap – between the two relationships* makes this feel a bit different;

2) A few months ago, Minx gave his blessing for me to make out with TLH.  Now, granted, when I brought up the idea with TLH, he changed the subject without ever outright saying yes or no; I suspect he was caught off-guard and didn’t know what to say.  I haven’t brought it up since ’cause I don’t want him to feel pressured.  Still: this boy is a potential makeout buddy, so it’s a very new step for me, having him meet my partner.  My instinct  (because I was raised in such a monogamous headspace) is to keep everyone separated – like cheating but without the secrecy – but I don’t want a dynamic that looks anything like cheating.  I want to carve a brand new path.  And ever since Minx friended The Pedant on Facebook and the Pedant accepted, I really like the idea of my makeout partners being friends – it reinforces the fact that everyone knows what’s up and they’re all good with it.  

3) HAWT GIRLYBOY THREESOME ACTION.  Or some tamer version thereof.  TLH has expressed interest in posing for me, either naked or in lingerie, so I can paint him.  I asked how he’d feel about posing naked with Minx, and he said he’d be fine with it.  I asked Minx if he’d ever pose naked with TLH and he said, quite reasonably, “I’d have to at least meet him first!  Jeez.”  So, I’m planting some seeds here that will hopefully lead to really awesome things somewhere down the road.  Did I mention that both boys are bi-curious and both of them have said they’d be willing to be in an M-M-F threesome with me under the right circumstances?  

But seriously, I’ve lived a life of such serial monogamy that even the tiniest hint of open-ness seems ridiculously exciting and taboo.  I’m not holding out for a porn-perfect Bacchanalian fuckfest here: even kissing TLH in front of Minx would be kind of amazing.  Or getting TLH to give Minx a massage.  Or having a little photoshoot of the two of them in a coquettish lingerie pillowfight.  

Anyway, we met up and went to a store that sells clothes and accessories specifically for crossdressers.  They both wore boy clothes that day, but Minx put a lot of effort into glamming himself up with eye makeup before we left the house – I think he was competing with TLH, not for my attentions but simply to be the prettiest girl.  Minx is a catty little bitch sometimes.  He seemed a bit curt with TLH at first, but eventually he loosened up and the two boys were chatting away about video games and stuff.  I bought Minx some pink ruffled panties at the transvestite store (I’m not sure but I think I caught TLH looking on jealously…not surprising, since I used to buy panties for him) and then we went for sushi.  During dinner talk I learned two interesting things: that TLH’s professional masseuse girlfriend taught him a bunch of tricks of the trade (:D), and that she and TLH are breaking up soon because she’s going to school in San Diego in the fall and they don’t want to try to do the long-distance thing.  I suspect TLH dodged my makeout proposition back in the day because the “open” status of his own relationship was so new to him and he wasn’t ready to plunge in yet; if I’m right, well, that obstacle is about to be removed.

So yeah…my two boys got along pretty well, I think.  Afterward, when Minx and I were home again, it was very hard for me to keep my enthusiasm for the future under wraps…I mean I wanted to ask “Did you like him?  Did you maybe think he was cute?  Would you pose naked with him?  Would you double-team me with him?” but I did not.  I did say (in a joking-but-not-really way) that we should invite him over sometime to teach us what he’s learned about massage – most likely by massaging Minx while I watch – but it was late at night and Minx said he was too tired to know how he felt about that idea.  Fair enough.  

That was my Saturday.

On Sunday, Minx and I were slated to hang out with my ex-husband and our dog (who lives with the ex, and whom I haven’t seen in over two years(!)).  Honestly, I kind of didn’t want to; I mean, I’m the one who asked for this, but then the Saturday outing with TLH came through and I knew it would probably leave me tired and wanting to slack off.  But my ex was only free on Sunday (and he’s flaky and busy so who knows when my next chance for dogtime would be?) so against my better judgement I booked social stuff two days in a row.

Before I tell you how Sunday went, I need to mention that Minx and I came home on Saturday after our tiring but pleasant day with The Latent Heterosexual to find an email from the landlord that the apartment across the hall had bedbugs so they were going to fumigate the whole building on Monday afternoon.  This meant frantically cleaning the place up and finding a friend to crash with on Monday night so we wouldn’t get exposed to the poisonous fumes – ideally a friend who’d take in BastardCat, too.  And there was still Sunday with my ex to get through.  I put out word of my fumigation predicament through Facebook (without much success) and then Minx ordered me to go take a nap because I was tired and stressed to the point of barely being able to move.  While I was asleep he got lots of tidying done, and I was able to get some done later on as well.

The plan for Sunday (as I told – not asked – my ex) was for us to take public transit as far in his direction as we could (he lives beyond the end of the transit line) and he’d pick us up with Dog and drive everyone to whatever park was nearest and we’d hang out for a bit.  Dog freaks out on car rides and Ex made it clear years ago that I wasn’t welcome at his place (he said his second wife felt threatened by me) so this seemed like the best solution.

I was feeling a lot of trepidation about seeing Dog again.  Ex and I got him when he was three months old, and I was his mommy for the first eight years of his life – I was the one who took him for walks most of the time, and taught him to climb the stairs when he was such a wee pup that he couldn’t figure it out, and comforted him when he was scared or hurt.  I’ve brushed his teeth and detached poo from his butt.  He slept in our bed every single night, usually spooned up against my chest.  But Ex and I separated in 2005; at first Ex would leave Dog with me for a weekend here and there, but then he got married (and was always schlepping his stepdaughter to gymnastics class or some shit) and Dog’s car anxiety got way worse and I also got busy with life and acquired BastardCat and, well, it’s been over two years since I’ve had Dogtime.  Possibly more like three years. I felt guilty and horrible about that, and wondered if the dog thought I’d abandoned him; at the same time I had a horrible feeling that he’d actually forgotten me entirely.  I was also convinced that Sunday would be the last time I’d ever see Dog alive, since he’s a whopping fifteen years old now and Ex is barely ever available to hang out.

Oh, and on top of all this, Minx and Ex had never spoken before – just nodded at each other in passing when I went out for coffee with Ex one time.  So, for the second fucking day in a row, I was hanging out with my partner and an emotionally charged person from my past, with little or no idea how it would all turn out.  I really wanted Minx to meet Dog and Ex, though; they both contributed so much to making me who I am today.  And I wanted Minx there for emotional support in case Dog had no idea who I am.

When Ex showed up at the appointed spot on Sunday, Dog was not in the car.  Surprise!  Ex decided to take us to his place.  Dog is apparently worse at car rides than ever, so driving him anywhere was simply not an option.  I guess Ex’s wife is over whatever crap she felt about me (if indeed that was ever really the issue; it’s been pointed out to me that Ex may have manufactured that whole thing because he didn’t want the two of us talking.).

On the drive to Ex’s place, Ex barely acknowledged that Minx was in the car; at the time I thought Ex was resuming his old pattern of being pointedly hostile toward my friends, but now I think it was just regular ol’ social awkwardness; it’s hard to start a conversation with someone you’ve just met.  And anyway Ex has no reason to fuck with my social circle anymore; that was a ploy to keep me isolated so I’d never have enough social support to leave him, but I left anyway, so.

We pulled into the driveway and Ex told me to brace myself because Dog would probably go crazy at the sight of me (he used to go crazy every single day when I came home; one can only imagine what he’d do after years, right?).  I braced myself.  Ex opened the door.

…And Dog had no fucking idea who I was.

Seriously.  He greeted Minx and I in the same pleasant, low-key way, and then wandered off to the living room.  At no time during our visit did he ever twig to my identity; I don’t know if it’s because his hearing is going so he couldn’t recognize my voice, or if I smell different now because I’m no longer vegan, or if it’s the simple fact that he hasn’t lived with me full-time in – god, almost half his life.  But I did get to hang out with him and pet him and kiss him and be kissed in return, so that was nice.  And y’know…the fact that he didn’t know me means that he hasn’t been missing me.  I had all this guilt, thinking that when those weekend visits stopped he thought I’d abandoned him and was sitting around sad, but I guess he never did.  Or at least he got over it okay.  So my heart got broken and mended all in the same afternoon.

Ex and Minx and I sat around making awkward chit-chat for a bit (with Ex’s wife popping in to make even more awkward chit-chat – I don’t know what to say to her and she barely understands English) and then Minx and Ex and Dog and I went for a long walk through the big ravine behind the house, and by that time the conversation was flowing a bit more smoothly.  There was more hanging out in the living room, and we were invited to stay for dinner but we declined because we really had to get home and clean up for the exterminator some more.

And so we went home and cleaned.  A lot.  And I realized that all of Minx’s and my friends either have cats already or are allergic to them, so there was no way for me to remove BastardCat from the house and keep him with me (which was my ideal solution).  I texted my friend Kaija to see if I could crash on her couch (she said yes within minutes <3) and started frantically researching kennels. Yeah, that’s right, I learned that my dog didn’t know me anymore, then came home to the sweet, loving kitty who thinks of me as his mommy…and started making plans to banish him from the house.  Really bad coincidence, there.

We got through it.  Minx and I each had a nice time visiting our respective friends’ places, and BastardCat was stressed out by spending the night in a kennel but he seems to be over it already, and our apartment smells kind of gross and chemical-y but the smell is gradually dissipating and it’s allegedly safe to be here.

And Minx was just so strong and steady, standing by me through all the emotional stuff and being the true driving force behind all the pre-fumigation organization…I love him more than ever, if that’s even possible.  We’re stronger together than we are on our own.  I hope we get to weather all our difficult times side-by-side for the rest of our lives.

 

*Maybe “interactions” is a better word?  TLH and I were never boyfriend/girlfriend and when I was seeing TLH and Minx at the same time, Minx and I weren’t boyfriend/girlfriend yet.