ask, and you shall receive

fun with texting*

Me: Just looked at the Target receipts. Turns out the toilet paper we got really was unambiguously the best deal cuz it was an additional $3 off so was only $14 after all!

Her: Omg amazing deal! Greatest purchase ever – re: the toilet paper. EPIC.

Me: Thank God you’re around to keep my banality in check.

*hat tip to greg, whose own “Fun with Texts” posts always make me smile!

we’re both baskets in this metaphor

We were in our sleep position (big spoon: her, little spoon: me), starting to drift off. And then this little gem of an exchange took place, inspired by our previous conversation about how she really wants me to go to the doctor again about all the unexplained bruising I’ve been having:

Her (sleepily): It’s really scary to put all my eggs in one basket… you know?

Me: Yeah, I know. It is scary.

Her (as she squeezes me tighter): But I really like this basket.

Me: I like the basket MY eggs are in.

Her: But what if the basket falls?

Me: I know, then all the eggs will break!

Her: That would be so sad!

So, here’s to hoping both of our “baskets” will remain healthy and strong for a long, long time.

okay, I know these things are silly, but I can't resist…

This is a meme borrowed from greg. I couldn’t resist because it has SEX in it. HA!

1. Boxers, briefs, hipsters, bikinis or none? Boxers post-sex, hipsters the rest of the time.

2. Last book you’ve read or are now reading? I’m in the middle of two books. (1) Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh). Good book, but the only edition of it I could find anywhere has the TV miniseries pictures all over the cover. Number one way to deter serious readers from a good book? PUT PICTURES FROM A TV MINISERIES ALL OVER ITS COVER. (2) Lolita (Nabokov). Read it before, hated it. So I’m reading it again to try to convince myself of its “literary merits” and ignore the sleazy pedophilia. Harder than it sounds.

3. When did the realization hit you that you’re a lesbian? Well, technically, sophomore year of college when I fell in love with my ex-girlfriend. (See my National Coming Out Day entry for the deets on that story.) But, really, it was in fifth grade when I had a huge crush on Joanna Eastmond. She moved to South Dakota the following year and I have no idea what’s happened to her. She’s Mormon though. So I think it’s safe to say that would’ve gone nowhere.

4. Give us some details of your first lesbian sexual relationship: Oh my god, eye-opening. Just, wow. I had no idea it was possible to get that wet, to be that turned on, to feel so explosively sexual. We were each others’ lesbian firsts, so we got to do the whole exploring-everything-because-it-was-all-brand-new thing. SO MUCH FUN!

5. Rate your sensitivity level from 1 (low) to 5 (high) for your hurtful feelings: Probably 4. I’m pretty sensitive. But then there are times when I’m surprisingly not sensitive, and then people will apologize to me for something they thought probably hurt me because I usually am sensitive, and I’m all like “what? what’d you do? I didn’t know you did anything.”

6. Name the farthest place you’ve traveled to from home: I guess Hawai’i was technically the farthest from my then-home (upstate New York). Greece (the island of Evia) is the furthest from my current home (San Francisco) (though at the time I was living in Germany!).

7. Ever get caught “doing it”? Or explain the most embarrassing if you’ve had many: Never been caught “doing it”, and the only time I’ve ever been caught hooking up at all was last winter, at mi’lady’s holiday party at her house. She calls me into her room in the middle of the party and we start making out madly on her bedroom floor (at this point we’d been dating for all of like, 3 weeks) and after maybe 10 minutes her best friend knocks on the door and then just BARGES ON IN! Like the knock was just a protocol? I don’t know. So we look up at her like deer in headlights, and she looks terribly flustered, goes completely red, and is all “OMG” and backs out of the room in a confused hurry. We mostly thought it was pretty funny.

8. What is your biggest accomplishment? Hmmm. Somehow I don’t feel all that accomplished. I guess it would be finishing my undergraduate honors thesis in philosophy, and getting magna cum laude on it. That felt pretty good, especially since as late as November of that same year I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish it.

9. What is your major weakness? Relying on other people too much for my own sense of self-worth.

10. Do you normally keep your ex’s as friends? Nope. Never have. Once I move on, I’ve moved on. My college girlfriend and I are I guess “friendly acquaintances” now, but I just can’t do the friends thing.

11. Have you gotten your heart broken more or have you broken more hearts? Well, above-mentioned college girlfriend totally broke my heart after two years of dating — she broke up with me right before I was moving to San Francisco to be with her. (Luckily SF is a place anyone would want to be regardless of relationship status.) That sucked, and I lost about 25 pounds in two months (and people, I was only about 135lbs to begin with) and cried every single day and was miserable and alone. And then slowly but surely, I started getting over her, and several months later I found mi’lady, and then I broke my ex’s heart, because it turns out she’d been still in love with me the whole time and was harboring hopes of getting back together and was heartbroken when I told her I was with someone else now. Karma, y’all. So I think I’m even — heart broken once, one heart broken.

12. Ever cause any divorces? I certainly hope not!

13. Ever participate in a ménage de trios (three some)? No, and can’t say I’m really itching to either. I think I’d be overwhelmed.

14. Are you a boobs, butt or legs woman? OMG BOOBS. My tongue is hanging out of my mouth like a dog about to get a treat just at the thought of mi’lady’s. Mmmmmmmmmm.

15. Muffled or loud? Oh, loud, absolutely. I can stifle if necessary, but oh my when it’s good I just can’t be shushed…

16. Name the most unusual place(s) you’ve “done it”: Well this isn’t exactly an unusual place, but it shows my unusual skill, haha. I was driving down to LA with mi’lady, I was driving, remember, and while I was driving, I fucked mi’lady in the passenger seat. That was really, really hot, because I had to keep my focus on the road so I couldn’t look at her and couldn’t touch her aside from the fucking, but she was writhing and wet and groaning and trying not to be too obvious to cars passing us on either side… Okay I’m getting wet just typing it. And I’m at work, totally not a good place to be turned on.  …. Other unusual places: bottom of a slide at a playground at night (we slid down on our backs with our heads first, and fucked with our heads hanging off the bottom edge of the slide), at the symphony (that took some skill, we weren’t even in a box! we had coats on our laps and had to be reeeeeally really covert), in the back of a cab (poor cabbie, I’m sure he knew what was going on), in the back of the car while my ex’s sister was driving and her husband was in the passenger seat (that was just rude, I feel bad about that now), in the fitting room at Target while trying on swimsuits…

Okay I need to stop writing about sex, because it’s way too distracting at work. And I’m NOT EVEN GOING TO SEE HER TONIGHT! Though I shouldn’t complain, we had sex three times last night. Well, maybe I should count it as all one time, since it’s not like we got up and did other things in between, but each time we were going to stop and then just couldn’t. We got this new toy, see–a rabbit vibrator dildo in a harness. Mi’lady has never been able to come internally, so we thought maybe with a vibrator and with some clitoral stimulation at the same time it might be possible. Oh BOY was it possible. Watching her come like that was insanely hot; since she’d never come that way before she was just so shocked and overwhelmed and a bit confused and her body had this whole reaction without her fully realizing what was going on. She just looked so completely vulnerable and at the mercy of this feeling. So amazing. But then afterwards she needed more, she needed another orgasm in order to feel full and completed. And then she needed another… Oh man. So, so good.

Okay now I REALLY need to stop writing about sex.

How my life is taking over my life

I have not written in a while. This, you see, is because I have been completely occupied with the following two things:

1) Girlfriend.
2) Work.

Number 1 I like a lot. Number 2 I am not such a big fan of.

There were lay-offs at my firm back in January; luckily I was not among those laid off. However, every pretty white puffy cloud has a black lining (is there a better idiom for that? I’m pretty sure I just made that one up) and now that there are fewer staff, I am working more. Compensating for those who are now gone. Of course, I get paid over-time, so when I work a 90 hour week (for realz), at least I get approximately 398723 times more money on my paycheck than usual, considering the bountiful overtime compensation here. HOWEVER. It sucks up a helluvalotuvmytime. And honestly? I’m sick of it. In fact, I’m applying for different jobs. We shall see what happens, though I’m bracing myself for nothing much, because of the assinine economy and the fact that everyone and their mothers are all looking for (better) jobs.

The girlfriend (hereafter to be referred to as mi’lady :)), however, is a completely different story. Sometime in January or early February, we finally decided that we were “girlfriends.” Our official first date was November 29, though, so we count that as the beginning. Which means it’s now been… 3 1/2 months. And it’s been awesome. I’m falling in love with her, folks. Here are some of the things I love about her:

1) She has disarmingly beautiful eyes.
2) When she brushes her teeth, she gets toothpaste ALL OVER her mouth.
3) She calls me “baby,” which none of my other girlfriends have ever called me. In fact no one’s ever called me that. Turns out I like it.
4) She’s a sexy musician :) Sings and plays guitar in a sweet electro-funk indie band.
5) She has long, willowy hands. I love love love hands, they’re my favorite body part.
6) She is SO good in bed. SO good. SO GOOD. Did I mention that she’s really good in bed?
7) She makes me laugh. A lot.

And I’m going to stop there because if I keep going I’m going to get too involved in it and I will have a list that is 197892 items long, and obviously that is kind of boring for everyone who is not the one dating her. Which would be everyone but me.

The point is, I’m happy with her. And I’m excited for the future, excited about knowing her in and out, about fucking in new and exciting ways, about becoming best friends. About travelling with her (we are already planning a long weekend to Mexico!), playing music with her, reading books with her, going on bike escapades with her, writing a lesbian TV show that is way better than The L Word with her…

So I’m keeping busy. However, I would really like to not let my life get the better of me, and I would like to continue to document it here, just because I like it. There’s something kind of intriguing and exhilarating and simultaneously unnerving about sending my life to the Internet. Somewhat akin to sky-diving.?

The inevitable, accidental, coincidental run-in with the Ex-Girlfriend

I ran into my Ex today. I knew it would happen eventually; we both live in San Francisco, and we’re both gay, so we were bound to cross paths at some point. But I didn’t think it would be on a harmless Sunday afternoon downtown.

The day started off innocuously. Actually, it started off really well. For some reason, I was inspired to go to church. Don’t ask why, I certainly don’t know. I grew up singing in the choir at an Episcopal church in my hometown, a fairly conservative, traditional, docile church. But I’ve never felt particularly religious and so I stopped going to church when I left home. But yesterday, for some reason, I decided that I would go to church today, so I went to Glide Methodist church in the Tenderloin. It’s a social justice church, an anti-oppression church, an all-inclusive, welcoming church. So it advertises itself. And I can’t imagine it being more true. It was just, overwhelming. In a good way. I was so moved to be there and feel like part of this force. Especially with our brilliantly momentous election coming up, everyone there was so rallying around this notion of change, of choosing life. And they kept reiterating, “NO ON 8!” There was so much energy and camaraderie… I think I’ll be going back. I know I’ll be going back.

And then I went to vote. They have early voting here in California and I figured I’d do it now so I don’t run into any crises on Tuesday–since I’ve moved recently, I wasn’t sure they’d gotten my change of registration. Turns out I and half the city had the same idea, so I waited in line for three hours–THREE HOURS–at City Hall to vote. Phew. There were No on 8 people campaigning outside, though, reminding us: “Barack Obama says NO ON 8! Arnold Schwarzenegger says NO ON 8! Diane Feinstein says NO ON 8! My mama says NO ON 8!” Et cetera. Cute. And I VOTED!! I nearly cried as I was checking the box for NO on 8 and for Obama. Today I’ve just been really teary for some reason. Been feeling moved, awed, inspired by humanity. So it felt so heavy and meaningful to cast my vote.

And then I finally left City Hall after three and a half hours and there was my Ex, walking by. I was kind of stunned, and I think she was too; we didn’t really know what to say to each other. It was like this wall was up. We were going in different directions, so after a couple minutes of awkward, stammering “so how are you? Yeah, I’m great, I’m happy, blah blah blah,” we parted ways. “Would you want to hang out sometime? Like go with me to the Academy of Sciences?” I asked. “Yeah, sure, that would be cool,” she said, noncommitally. Sigh. Now I’m feeling drained.

Those lips, I kissed those lips,
I woke up
with my arms around that body,
tangled up in those legs.

Those eyes, I soared and floated and sank in their gaze,
I ran my fingers through that hair,
fluttered my eyelashes against those cheeks,
Mesmerized by
the fantastic reality of our lives and bodies intertwining.

No longer intertwining, as we stand here.
I see those lips, those eyes, that foreign body;
Tactile memories flood my senses, confuse my composure.
The air is thick with evaporated love, like carbon monoxide
Or laughing gas.

A couple feet away,
I could reach out and brush her cheek,
But my arm can’t interpret such a gesture,
and those few feet are unreachable–

What was once so effortless now so utterly impossible.

funny friends

Annika left yesterday morning, early, before I got up to go to work. We didn’t get much sleep–we had sex most of the night and talked intermittently. “We’re a funny sort of friends,” she said, naked, tangled up in me, her head resting on… my shoulder? collarbone? chest? There really ought to be a name for the nook someone rests their head in, under your chin, in front of your neck, the place you put your hand when you say the pledge of allegiance. Anyway, “we’re a funny sort of friends.” And there we were, post-sex, having spent five days fucking and hanging out, but not falling in love. We are a funny sort of friends. The sort of friends who laugh and have fun together, talk about each others’ lives, listen actively, share forthrightly, are honest and genuine with each other. Also the kind of friends who find each other sexy, who flirt with each other, who make out and fuck. But… also the kind of friends who act like a couple? Who cuddle and kiss and pet each other and go on dates? Don’t those things generally mean you’re more than friends?

It’s strange. The first time we met, she was visiting with her friend, Becky, my roommate’s on-again-off-again lover. That first time, though, I was already occupied with another girl. Annika and I had one conversation, just one. But I thought she was hot and when Other Girl came and went, and turned out to be a married woman who picked me to fall in love with (”It’s not all women, I’m not gay, it’s just you!”) and then became all puppy-dog on me, and then when Annika came back to visit again with Becky the following weekend, that’s when Annika and I hit it off. The whole weekend (which turned out to be a four-day weekend… I even missed work) she and I were together, which involved a whole lot of making out, a whole lot of getting drunk, sleeping on the floor of a hotel room with 8 other people, and then finally, the last night, having amazing sex in my bed at my place (while my roommate and Becky, coincidentally, were having sex in their room).

And I thought that was that. But then Annika came back to San Francisco, to visit. This past weekend. Three weeks after she was here the last time. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been attracted to someone smarter than me,” Annika told me. “Smart is sexy.” (I don’t think I’m smarter than her–she’s pretty fucking smart herself–but I do think that one of the things that made us click was that  I could be intellectual with her. I could talk about philosophy and gender theory and she thought it was hot. I like that in a woman.) So she came back, for five days.

I was nervous. I’m not in a place right now where I want to be in a relationship. With anyone. I don’t want to be in love. I want to be single, I want to be exploring sexuality, I want to be connecting with lots of different people, and being open to lots of different possibilities. It’s not that long ago that my Ex and I broke up and we had a pretty difficult relationship at the end. And I’m just done being miserable, done living for someone else. I need to learn how to live for myself before I get involved with anyone else. So having Annika come back seemed like a major thing that I wasn’t sure I was ready for.

And I’m still not sure what to make of it. “I’m not really looking for anything serious,” she told me. Phew. But what on earth is our connection about? It’s so odd. I’m not in love with her, and I don’t know if I ever would be. But we had really good sex (interestingly, with her, I was a consistent bottom–very unusual for me; “I felt the urge to hold you, heal you,” Annika told me (why? is what I want to know), “I just assumed you were a bottom, didn’t you assume I was a top?” I did, actually, assume she was a top, so I may have just been playing along with that–also interestingly, she said she’s not usually a top–what’s up with the switcheroo?!) and really good conversations, really good chemistry. We acted like a couple the whole time. But I’m just not feeling the idea of getting serious with her.

And that’s kind of a first for me. Feeling good about just having a casual non-monogamous fucking thing going on. We’re a funny sort of friends, I guess. And it works. She left to go back to Seattle yesterday morning, kissed me gently before tiptoeing out and running off to the airport, and I haven’t felt a particular urge to talk to her or call her. But I also do still want her in my life, and she’s thinking of moving here in January. So what will happen then? Will we keep fucking? Decide to call it quits and be friends? Decide to step it up and date? Who knows.

What I do know is, I’ve learned something about myself. That it’s possible for me to have sex–awesome sex–with women I am not in/soon going to be in a committed relationship with. That I can do it without overanalyzing, getting nervous and self-conscious, and feeling vulnerable. And maybe part of my reluctance to think of getting at all serious with Annika anytime soon is that, hot damn, I want to do this some more!