Growing Pains

There are some things in life that are just naturally painful. Root canals. Cute shoes that are unfortunately too tight. When your friend pinches you to shut up after you say too much. Spider bites. And talking to your exes about your current relationships.

I may have been clear in the past that just talking to your exes in the first place is probably painful enough, as you've got some colorful history, and sometimes, it's just easier to pretend it (and that person) doesn't exist. But there are some exes that you can't just wish away or out of your life, because, let's face it, at one point, you loved this person, and even if you've since fallen out of love with them and/or moved on, you still bump into them, or you still have mutual friends with them and still occasionally wander through each other's social lives. Or they still keep showing up on your cell phone's screen.

A few weeks ago, I was riffling through the kitchen cupboards on a raccoon-like rampage at 2 AM for something sweet when I heard my text ringtone go off back in my bedroom. Thinking it was the current boy, as we share insomniac tendencies and are prone to late night conversations, I grabbed a chocolate chip cookie, and ate half of it in the time it took me to take my sweet time getting to my room, grabbing my phone, and sauntering back into the kitchen to prepare a response. When I flicked the screen's lock up and saw my ex's name instead, I froze. Cookie crumbs dropped from my hand, as well as the pit of my stomach, not to mention anything about my previously ravenous appetite. I texted back, more incited with his extremely casual text than anything else, and had to take a seat when I realized I was dizzy from this sudden turn of events. Our conversation quickly boiled down to him asking if I'd come over (and believe me, SOMEONE wanted to enjoy some cookie that night other than me), but other than establishing the loss of desire to finish the rest of my cookies and being saved from my sweet-tooth, it also established some odd revelations:

1.) I was able to turn my ex down, something I previously did not know I was humanly capable of. I deserve the Congressional Medal of Honor for this. You may not think so. You don't know my ex.

2.) This meant I liked the guy I am currently seeing a lot more than I previously realized. Oh. OH.

3.) In the moment of having to explain to my ex that I would not be coming over this time, or any other time in the foreseeable future, I felt a sudden wave of extreme tenderness and empathy toward him. It can't be easy, I thought, to reach out to someone you haven't seen or spoken to in awhile, let alone slept with, and admit that you need them for one of your basest desires. I certainly know how hard that is for me, and knowing that I was about to be turning him down made me feel incredibly caring toward him, in a totally platonic way. It made me wonder, what is the least painful way to talk about your new relationship with your exes?

It feels odd to be sympathetic with your ex, and nearly even protective of their feelings again, especially if you haven't interacted with them for awhile. But there I was, finding myself asking how he was after telling him I was seeing someone else, wanting to make him feel like it wasn't a total loss to go out on a limb, wanting him to know that even if he lost the girl, he hadn't lost the friend, instead of saying, "I wasted a year on you, to have to cheat and lie and use me, and now, NOW you expect me to roll over from a guy who's actually treating me like a princess, just because you finally decided on your own accord that you want me?" like I would have wanted to a few months ago, when I was still raw and fresh and sure that I would never heal, that I would never find someone to right the wrongs. Surprise.

A half hour after his initial text and being turned down, he surprised me by texting back and asking if my new S.O was a good guy. I told him he was, and thanked him for asking. I thought this was a good move. I thought it was classy. And then I got another text from him last night. And this time, I had to be firm about it and tell him clearly that I was currently monogamous with someone else, even after he offered so gentlemanly to pay for my cab fare over to his place (the first time he ever offered to pay for anything in the last year and a half we've known each other in a romantic sense). "Well, if you wanna take me up on that let me know. Anytime, probably," he told me, and it was suddenly like I was back in Italy and had to be very straight-forward about the fact that nothing was going to be happening, while still being polite as to not start an international incident.

"Thanks for the offer, but I'm pretty happy right now."

Strange, as he used to be the person I was thinking of while gently turning other men down. I was caught in a sudden kaleidescope of time fragments, thinking about how I used to hold out on other guys for him; how he and I had our own falling out; how I was now holding out on him in favor of another man, while at the same time learning how to put aside my feelings of disappointment and disgust about our dissolution in favor of seeing him as a real person again, a real person who went out on a limb with no promise of a safety net, whose feelings could be crushed, who was trusting me to at least let them down gently-- which, to my surprise, I found myself doing as I thought of him as my friend and the man I once loved for reasons I once knew well, and not just an X in a box for "been there, done that." Oh, how times change. And how YOU change.

XOXO

Long Gone

Tonight, I went to a bar with one of my exes. (Don't worry; this is not one of "those" stories that involve the equation of an emotionally vulnerable woman + man from her past/present she can tell you full measurements of, and I mean, FULL measurements + alcohol = oops.) It actually wasn't as simple as that, because it never is-- when he originally got in touch with me, he said "coffee" and "afternoon," which as the day progressed later and later, turned into "beers" and "11 PM" by the time we actually connected with each other. As is prone to happen, as soon as we made firm plans, a dinner invitation with friends rolled in, I realized I had absolutely nothing to wear in my over-flowing closest that was suitable for this occasion of "hi, this is casual, and yet don't I look great?", another guy came over while I was supposed to be getting dressed, and yet another man texted me to ask if I had any plans for the night. Yes. Yes, I'd say I did. (I swear men have uncanny Spidey-sense about when other men are moving into territory. As I followed my mid-dressing visitor into the kitchen, I had a brief, terrified moment where I thought he was actually going to sit down at our kitchen table to chat and render me hopelessly late for this most very important of dates.)

It always blows my mind how skittish women are about calling guys to firm up plans, but after the ship has sailed, I swear to god it's the easiest thing in the world, mostly, because you don't give a shit. You stop worrying about who was the last one to call or text, or if you're blowing their phone up. He texted me on Wednesday to let me know he was coming into town. He called me this afternoon to work out a time and let me pick a location-- he always lets me pick the location, and this is such a good move on his part. I texted to re-affirm that plans were still on. He texted me to let me know where he was downtown before the bar if I wanted to stop by and grab a slice of pizza pre-drinks, and I called him when I was 5 minutes away from the bar to make sure he was there. I have been told that in a perfectly functional relationship, this is the sort of discourse a couple can have. I have only been able to seemingly achieve it with a few of my exes. I never said I don't have my communication issues.

Once there, standing, pint glasses in hand, face-to-face again after 2 years, it got interesting. I was surprised to find myself no longer sexually bowled over by him, even since our last meeting. Not much had changed in his life, while a lot had in mine-- it made for uneven conversation and the feeling that the student was outgrowing the master. He's 25 now, and I was standing in front of him, drinking legally, obviously not 18 anymore; we were both a little taken aback. And then "Hot Thing" by Talib Kweli came on, and I couldn't place it-- other than the fact that it's on my iPod-- and why it seemed so familiar, and why we were both suddenly so stiff, until I realized it was one of Those Songs from a dark night and twisted bed sheets. Awwwkward. Thanks, 3 Needs.

Afterward, we strolled Church Street to talk where we could actually hear each other talking about our respective semesters in Florence over DMX growling, and when our arms brushed, there was no static charge anymore. In my mind, that was the end of The End. Ship. Officially. Sailed. Off over the horizon. I really have no clue how and why these things work. It makes me wonder if I'll wake up tomorrow morning, or the morning after that, or 2 weeks from now, or 3 months, and suddenly, have no feelings left for people I've held on so doggedly to and weathered through so much with. Probably, actually. Sad, really.

I'm not going to lie about this: Every woman secretly hopes to hear that a guy she used to be with has found that he just isn't able to live without her. This is very rarely the case. But, as we of the XX chromosome persuasion have to know everything, and figuring that all this time and all those other men in between later, I thought it was high time to actually come out with it while he walked me home and ask him why exactly he still calls me every time he comes back to Burlington and asks to meet up.

But instead of admitting his misfortune on dropping off the face of the Earth after graduation and dropping me faster than a hot potato covered in ignited kerosene, when asked why he's kept in touch with me, 3 years later, he grinned his little grin and said, "I still like seeing you. I liked seeing you tonight. And I enjoyed the friendship that we had," and kissed the side of my head. Roughly translated from his Manslation, "I liked the way you blew me."

I have no hope for huMANity. Or my love life.

XOXO

"Well, It Seemed Like You Might Be Asking."

I had the most INTERESTING conversation with Perfect last night.

Firstly, yes, you read that right—your tired eyes are not deceiving you—a conversation (text, albeit,) was had. The first multi-text conversation since he left for college, and it lasted for 6 HOURS. (There was driving and eating somewhere in between there, so I’ll trim it to 4 hours, but still—6:30 PM through 12:30 AM.

YES.

Secondly, against all my better judgment, and all Caiti’s better judgment, Perfect may now have a slightly scandalous picture of me in his possession. Now, before you go all medieval and shit on me (yes, you, Caiti), let me start from the beginning and explain.

Yesterday, Alli, Melissa and I went to Montpelier and Worcester for an end –of-summer weekend blowout. We cleverly called it the “Girls’ MON(tpelier)-(Worce)STER Adventure.” We did all the things we normally do: blasted music, took gratuitous amounts of pictures and video, got coffee, climbed on cannons on the State House lawn and offended families with our sexually-themed poses, skipped gaily through Montpelier without a care in the world of being yelled at to get out of town by Perfect from Capitol Copy now that he’s three and a half hours away in Massachusetts, bombed down Route 12 into Worcester, took some more gratuitous pictures, stopped for gas, took two new “field trips” around Worcester to further adventure, went to the Pots, went skinny-dipping, were caught by a family, walked down the road naked, went to Dairy Crème, had to hold myself back from slamming my medium chocolate/vanilla with rainbow sprinkles twist into the face of the girl who served it to me…you know—the usual.

I should make an aside here so you don’t assume I’m a normally violent or vindictive person. Although I love the ice cream at Dairy Crème, I fucking hate their wait-staff. It seems as though every girl who has ever left a flirty or potentially loaded comment on Perfect’s Facebook wall insinuating SOMETHING works there. Really. And the one who handed me my ice cream cone yesterday was the same girl who posted lyrics to a bump-and-grind song that due to the content that followed afterward, I can only assume she and Perfect ground it out together to some night this past summer. I know, I know….assuming makes an ass out of “u” & “me,” but really—I know Perfect. I know how he loves to dance. I know how he loves to grind. I remember his caveat to me of, “I see pictures later and I’m just like, “whoa, it wasn’t like that!” You know? It’s just dancing.” Yeah, it may just be dancing, but I am a dancing fool who loves to dance just as much as he does, and you know the only people I really grind with? People who I’d let get into my pants, because they might as well be, anyway.

It wasn’t that whole fiasco so much. I’ve gotten past (most) of my issues concerning what may or may not have happened, and channel it in a productive way: I downloaded that song onto my iPod, and when I’m running at the gym, if I start to think I won’t make it another quarter-mile, I put it on. And thinking about it, imagining them fused at the pelvis, well…that burns me through the next quarter-mile with energy to spare. It works. So it wasn’t so much THAT, as the fact that as she reached out, cone in hand, our eyes locked as I realized who she was, and her eyes flashed in recognition of who I was, and then…she smiled at me. This really nice, friendly smile that said, “oh, hey! I know who you are! We have friends in common.” And I just wanted to reach over the counter, grab her by her hair, and smash her forehead repeatedly against said counter with an identical perky smile on my face that said, “Oh, I know!”

But my whole psychotic tirade is an aside to the point.

While at the Pots, Melissa took a picture of Alli and me standing in our towels in front of the swimming hole and waterfall. And yeah, ok, so we may have been obviously not wearing bathing suits because of our blatantly bare backs, but I didn’t think much of it, because I sent it to Perfect later while we were at Dairy Crème with a note attached saying, “Wish you were here! (It’s fucking cold!)” Previously, I had fired off a spur-of-the-moment and not really seemingly important text that we were running a bet, and could he finish of one of the gigantic Dairy Crème large ice cream cones? When he replied back to that verbosely and in multiple sentences and thought processes, it was obvious he was feeling chatty. Maybe that’s what us going five days without talking to each other will do for him. I decided that hey, still parked in the Dairy Crème parking lot while Little Miss Pelvic Thrust was watching us through the glass service window, it would be a good time to send him that picture. So I did.

I should realize by now that Perfect is one of those very few people in my life who always manages to shock me. If I think it’s one way, he’ll be thinking in another direction. If I say “up,” he’ll be thoroughly “down.” When I finally get exhausted from being constantly on my tip-toes and throw in the towel and least expect it is when he always seems to pounce, and it always knocks me off guard. He knows exactly how to push my buttons, in what order, and how I liked them to be touched.

“That’s nothing! I’ve seen better pics!” he said.

At first, I was shocked. Then, affronted. Then, realization dawned and I realized what I had meant to be a friendly photo of something familiar and an “I’m thinking of you” was taken to a “yeah, I’m familiar with your naked back and now I want to think of you fully nekkid” level.

“Hahaha, please,” I texted back after I had recovered. “That was just supposed to be a pic from home. Believe me, if I were going to send you pictures to get your pulse racing, I’d know to send a better one than that.”

Perfect, in full button-pushing mode, called my bluff and raised me. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ve sent some well-appreciated pictures before, but only to the very, very good, and the very, very lucky.”

“Haha. Very, very?”

“A girl’s got to be discerning,” I texted back, with the sort of Victorian haughty sniff that I hoped he caught on to. “Can’t just give them away, you know.”

And then Perfect said the thing that just literally blew my mind right out of the water. “Haha, true, but I have had sex with you!”

Excuse me. Gentlemen in the room? Please stand up. Oh, Perfect, I notice you’re NOT standing? Good boy. Right answer. Although yes, I will admit, it, ahem, got the ocean below rolling when he said this (ohhh, I’m so easy), it got both my libido and pride going in tandem.

“So what?” I asked, maybe a little forcefully; I don’t know, you tell me after you read this. “You want a picture? Do you think you’re very, very good or very, very lucky? Just because I’ve had sex with you doesn’t mean you get a complimentary picture. What’s in it for me, hmm?”

I like to pack as much sass as I can into my 5-foot-3-inches as I can. Sass is something that I feel Perfect doesn’t get enough of in his daily diet. He’s more used to things and/or women just falling over in front of him. I don’t like to fall. As evidenced by the above.

There was about twenty minutes of silence from his end in which I started to worry if I had completely called our little game of non-penetration stimulation off with my loads of…sass. Up until this point, Perfect had been texting back seconds after I sent him a text. (I love that promptness. Nothing says “I’m home in my dorm room and bored and horny” more than a very prompt response. I live for those prompt responses. They are one of my favorite things. Especially if the subject matter built around them is naughty by nature.)

I also started to worry that I may be on the receiving end of a dick-a-licious picture text. So I did what was natural: called in a girl friend’s expert advice. Between the two of us, Caiti and I reached a decision: make sure he’s alone, is sober, and promises to not show any sent pictures to anyone else. Trust is key. Also, DON’T SEND ANYTHING WITHOUT GETTING SOMETHING FIRST. Also, men’s idea of sexy tends to be, literally, balls-to-the-walls. Men have, do, and will continue to think that sending pictures of their packages is hot. They expect titty shots in return. Women, on the other hand, think there’s nothing more tasteful and teasing than a pretty, sexy, and pretty sexy lingerie shot to get things rolling. Women tend to send progressive pictures, each with less clothing than the last. Again, it’s about building both trust and suspense. Men tend to go BAM! There it all is, all at once, and all in the front.

Understandably, I was having some performance-anxiety issues with the idea of actually having to send Perfect a picture if that’s what it came down to. The whole “I’ve seen better” had started to churn around in my head. A.) Oh, really? How many girls are sending you nudey-pics, Mr. Perfect, and B.) What is he used to getting, and so C.) What does he expect? Don’t get me wrong—like I told him, I’m not new to this. And my pictures in the past have been well-appreciated. I also have a nice stash of some pictures already on my cell phone’s memory that I took when Perfect and I were officially together on my birthday, the night that he was supposed to be able to spend the night but ended up not being able to. Let’s just say, the money I dropped in Victoria’s Secret that day was not wasted that night. He had asked for pictures that night, as well, but I heeded the advice of a different Caitlin—Cait—and kept them to myself. But this was an issue of: if he were to send a picture of his artillery, what the fuck was I supposed to counter with? This snatch ain’t seeing a cell phone camera, HELL to the NO.

Instead, I got a different kind of response: a major scale-back. After I read the sassy response out-loud to Alli and watched he face go shocked and slack-jawed, I had started to draft a clarification, but Perfect beat me to it. Wounded. (I forgot he was sensitive. Oops.) A bit affronted. Hurt pride. “LOL, I don’t know. LOL. I wasn’t asking.”

“Oh, well, that last text was supposed to be teasing, not harsh. Text doesn’t translate tone well, hahaha. And I seemed like you might be, so I was trying to decide if you were good or lucky.”

“Haha, am I good or lucky?” AHA. There we go. Back where I wanted. Good save! Carissa fumbles the come on, but recovers it to score a touch-down response somewhere in her end-zone. (Excuse me for a moment. I love football and sexual football metaphors.)

“Well, from what I remember, you were good, and I’d say you’re pretty lucky, but it all depends on a few things.”

“Like what?”

“Are you asking now, for starters?”

“Well, I am if you’re offering, haha!”

Oh no. I wasn’t going to let him escape with this one, oh no. This was not my horny little doing, my friend. His sex-mind was what got us here in the first place. I was just doing a “friendly” thing, which he turned into a “hey, we fucked and I’d like to see where we can still go” thing.

“You were the one who brought it up. And you should know this isn’t a one-way thing. If I send you something, I expect something in return. Can you deal with those terms?”

“Well, I’m not in a place I can do that now with my two roommates in the room, so I guess that means tonight’s a no, haha.”

My libido cried at the same time I considered saying, “That’s what cars are for. Or bathrooms. Or vacant rooms. Or a dark bike-path devoid of passers-by.” Instead, I reigned it in, leaving him to do the thinking on his own.

“Aww, that’s a shame. Well, if you get creative, let me know. I’m down for it.”

“LOL, alright.”

I put down the phone.

An hour later, still thinking about it, I picked it back up, took advantage of Perfect’s now 24/7 coverage that was the only thing that kept me from doing naughty things like this when he lived at home in Worcester, and sent him one of the pictures I took the night of my birthday. Before you kill me, especially Caiti—let me explain. It’s tasteful. I’m covered in a pink-orange lace teddy and flouncy matching underwear. I’m wearing heels that make my legs look a deceptive mile long. The lighting is low, I’m tan and toned, and half of my face is covered by my hair. It’s very Victoria’s Secret catalog, maybe because the lingerie IS Victoria’s Secret. I figure, give him something to think about so he doesn’t go off texting those other little hussies who will apparently send him pictures no questions asked. (To this, I think, really? I can’t see One Time Girl firing off candids of her boobs, so who does that leave? Dairy Crème girls? Grrrrrrrrrr…)

“There’s a little something to start you off,” I told him. “I’m making you a tab. I expect you’ll pay it off when you can. Sweet dreams.”

“Haha, oh, that’s a little better,” Perfect responded back.

“Well, enjoy it killer, because that’s all you get fo’ free, hahaha,” I said. He remained quiet for the next twenty or so minutes, which from previous knowledge is about the time we’ve decided it takes for him to sneak off to whack off. When he texted me back, it made me hoot with raucous laughter.

“Haha, who took that? LOL.”

Now, Mr. Perfect, you can hide behind your “haha”s and your “LOL”s, but really, by now, I know that’s how you dress up, disguise and hide what you’re really trying to say when you’re a little bit unsure of how it will go over. And this “Haha, who took that? LOL,” had concern, jealousy, and just the right amount of delicious male possession all over it. I couldn’t resist baiting him a little more. So easy.

“Hahaha—one of my other lovers. No, I took it myself. I’m holding my cell, see?” And it was true. Almost front and center in the picture, shining in my hand was my cell phone, outstretched to catch my image in my mirror. (Yes, I had to Myspace it up to take the picture in the first place—I’m so, so sorry.) But it felt good knowing my nearly naked body was so captivating he didn’t even notice it until I pointed it out.

“Haha, oh, ok.” Blatant relief.

So. Excuse me, again. Here I am, thinking he’s sleeping around with all the new freshmen girls, getting ready to expect the worst, and yet, apparently, he’s still feeling possessive over my body and worrying about other people seeing it? What is not adding up here? Could Perfect be—gasp—holding on, too? I try not to lead my train of thought down that road, but really—what gives for his concern and desire to make sure I am not passing myself around like I am thinking in a worst-case scenario he is passing himself around?

As I told the lovely Miss Sarah, men are hounds. I like to keep this in mind, which may not fit with the whole "think positive" thing I was supposedly trying to, but I always, ALWAYS keep a little part of my mind that tells me, "He's off sleeping with another girl. Right now. Possibly, two. Possibly, he's sleeping his way through his college/local bar/city/gym."

I have found that if I keep this possibility in my mind, I am never quite so shocked and pissed off as I would be if I didn't consider it a possibility in the first place, or train myself to expect it.

Maybe it's teaching men a bad thing, though. Maybe it's teaching them that we expect bad behavior from men. But honestly, even while I'm intimately texting or talking to Perfect, I can't help but wonder what other girls he's also texting/talking to/looking at pictures of. Maybe I'm guarded. Maybe I am a pessimist at heart. But maybe, it's also smart.

I would cry “double standard” if it wasn’t for the fact that this new development makes me feel deliciously tingly inside. Perfect is still somehow, even just a little bit, attached. Hostage relationship, we have a win!

XOXO

The Montpelier and Worcester Diaries: Naked Tuesdays, Now With More Naked. And Bears.

[This is how Perfect makes me feel most of the time-- upside-down and deliciously light and airy.]

Sometimes, procrastination is a good thing. Sometimes, by fluke, happenstance, or fate, my procrastination genes just take over, and then things occur to which my procrastination cocks its’ little head at me and says, “See? Aren’t you glad you waited?”

This is one of those times. The scoop I had for you Tuesday night is nothing compared to the scoop I had for you today. Or, for that fact, all that is STILL nothing compared in light of what just happened an hour ago.

Procrastination: Making me a better blogger. Truth. But for this entry, we’ve got to go back in time a little bit for it to all make sense.

Monday, August 17th, 2009, night:

It has been six days, 300 miles, six hours, and two states away from each other since I have spoken to Perfect. After fleeing from Burlington home, and from home to Saugerties to help my trainer get her L judging license, and then gone back home and after dragging feet and heavy heart, made it back to Burlington, I, although not completely at peace with him, have calmed down enough to realize that I can still be angry and miss him at the same time, and maybe it’s time to start mending some bridges hastily burned. I send him the world’s most simple text to bridge that gap of silence that has lain uncomfortingly, heavily, and ominously between us:

“Hey killer.”

I go to Cait’s to help her sort through the latest miscommunication mess with her boyfriend, and while there, receive a text back from Perfect. In the heat of the heated moment with Cait, I look at the display on my phone that shows his name and throw it back into my bag with a disgusted, “You. I don’t want to talk to you now.” Cait gives me a look that merits an explanation for me, and she hears out my disgruntled raging at one of her best friends with the calm air that I had previously been reserving for dealing with her.

“He’s just like that sometimes—he clings for awhile, and then he needs his space. It’s not you; it’s him. It’s something that he does. And he was clinging to you when you were together—I’ve never seen him cling that hard to a girl he’s seeing ever before.”

Hmm. Food for thought.

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009, midday:

I am having a picnic on my bed. It’s Naked Tuesday, and I have a spread of all things good to eat and Season Four of SATC, which I swear I will run down the laser imprints on “Ghost Town” and “Baby, Talk Is Cheap” with all the watching that I’ve been doing in, oh, the past two months.
I pause the screen on Carrie’s email to Aiden, and re-read it for what must be the 50th time, feeling it hit all the same old familiar chords of, “Amen, sister!”

“Another big problem—I’m surrounded by memories of you…in my apartment, on the street, that little Moroccan restaurant we ran into when it started pouring rain on us and you kissed me over the cous cous. (Rookie tactical mistake not to have a memory-free environment. Why did we have to go so many places?) Anyhow, I’m not holding out hope that you’re going to change your mind about us. You probably have a new girlfriend now, or several new girlfriends, and I missed my window and I’ll just have to live with that. …Because I know now (too little too late, or better late than never?) that what we had was real and rare and special, and they way it felt to kiss you is the way I always want to feel.

I hope you write me back, but if you don’t, I understand. Just know that I’m thinking about you, and I miss you, and I’m still sleeping on your shoulder when I close my eyes at night.”

In the middle of this, I realize that maybe it would be a good start to text Perfect back and let him know I’ll be in town today to go swimming. His response startles me into fits of glee and hope the likes of which I haven’t seen in myself since the no-baby culmination of last summer’s pregnancy scare.

“Man you guys pick the worst days! Lol, I am seeing my friend for the last time and then hanging with my friends from Mass! Lol.”

His frustration, despite the LOL’s to lighten it, was palpable.

“Hahaha, then it really is the universe’s timing fault and I’m not being crazy and you’re actually not also being a crazy person and avoiding me?” I asked, giddy with glee.

“I am so busy!” he replied.

I called him on the fact that that wasn’t a real answer, though thanked him for refraining from commenting on the me being crazy bit, and we continued seriously talking about our lack of good timing/seeing each other for awhile, among other things. At one point, while discussing packing for his departure to college, he replied to my observation that packing is always the hardest with a, “No! I am a guy, remember?”

“Hahaha, yes,” I told him. “I think we established that fact.”

It was the first time since the dissolution of our mutual union (how many different ways can I say “break up,” I wonder?) that the fact we had in fact, seen each other naked and had sex came up. For two very flirty and sexual people, it was the equivalent of jumping on thin ice, especially since we used to be champion sexters. I wondered if he thought it was as big a step for us as I did.

I ended the conversation a little after, citing the fact that I had brownie cupcakes to go bake. “If I don’t see you today, see you soon?” I asked after we both decided that since my timing for visiting him always seemed to suck, it was on him to plan the timing from now on.

“I will try for it,” he answered, and he meant it.

It was further drilled in when I closed with an “ok killer—later,” and he did something he hadn’t done in a few weeks—sent me back a closing statement of his own, a nice little wrap-up, the bow on the top of the conversation.

“Later.”

Trying from him is all that I ask for—if you try and it still falls through, than oh well—at least I know the thought is there. I sat back at the end of our lovely three hour conversation, and I felt good. We had discussed what I wanted to with him, and had assured each other that avoidance was not the issue here—timing was. I wanted to see him. He wanted to see me in return. We were both being logical and grown-up about discussing things in a mutually beneficial way. Finally, I was doing things right.

It wasn’t until a half an hour later that I realized we had just had another very “relationshippy” talk. Too “relationshippy” for two people not in a relationship. Stumped, I sat back and surveyed the facts. We talk almost every day for hours. We still, with varying degrees of success, want and try to see each other. We still work through our problems respectfully, commitedly, and truthfully. We are, basically, still in a half of a relationship, just minus all the fun parts, like sex and sharing a bed and shower.

“Just resign yourself to the fact you’re stuck with me and everything will be so much easier,” I wanted to say. “Why are we not together?”

Really—why are we not together?

Naked Tuesday, AKA: Tuesday evening:

Last Tuesday, Naked Tuesdays came to be as a sort of inside joke between Alli and I. While we were at the Pots in varying bad moods over the weather and situation Perfect had put us in earlier by basically what was taken to be blowing us, or, well—me especially—off, we had snarkily been joking around about how if he did in fact make his way the arduous half a mile down the road to the swimming hole, he would find our clothing splayed over my Civvy’s hood and jump to the conclusion we were skinny-dipping. Which would lead to him dropping trou immediately and then crashing into the woods to find us, in fact, clothed. Which would lead to some hapless giggling from me, who has, after all, seen it all before, and if I can’t pounce on his naked form, at least give me some hysterical laughter about the absurdity of the situation of there being a ready and willing woman and no boning to be had. And Alli would merely, in her cattily sardonic way, raise a lofty eyebrow and say, “Heeeey, Perf. What is it, Naked Tuesday?”

(This, by the way, is still one of my favorite mental-picture daydreams. Because it could really happen. And this is exactly how it would go.)

We ended up instating Naked Tuesdays as a tradition of our own when we, as usual, got naked on the side of the road to change after swimming. So it was only logical that this Tuesday, the fledging tradition would carry on. And you know, since we’re on a secluded back road, why not dare to go topless? I hate those tan-lines, anyway. And if you’re topless…why not just be naked?

Skinny-dipping isn’t new to me. I’m from the land of the hippies, born from hippies, grown up in a Naked House, and befriend by skinny-dipping fanatics. An exhibitionist by nature, it doesn’t take much to convince me to get naked. The feel of water on bare skin is amazing, despite the fact I am pretty sure my tits made like balls and curled into my body once submerged in the I-can’t-even-explain-to-you-how-chilly water, because they were definitely more small and perky than I remember them ever being on warm dry land. Like every other relationship, you need to take your roommates out of the apartment too, for some quality bonding time. So it was, however, my roommate Kim’s first time skinny-dipping, and when she and Alli both realized that along with the fact it doesn’t take much to convince me to drop my garments, it also doesn’t take much to convince my naked ass to do stupid, naked things, they dared me to go streaking down the road to the car for the camera.

Let me state now that what Alli and I, in the four previous times we had swam at the Pots, had only watched a grand total of two cars pass by. Already today, in our Naked Tuesday adventure, there had been five. I considered it only a chance on time before the next passed. But hell—gas money and an ice cream were on the table for me. I really did need that gas, and I’m never fool enough to pass on ice cream. (I am a woman, you know. The Holy Trinity in life is SATC, sex, and ice cream. And if I can work all three to coincide together, all the better.) They would allow me my bottoms, just for propriety’s sake, but these were my mom’s vintage teal string bikini bottoms, and damn is the elastic on those weren’t finally giving in to Father Time and refusing to stay on or anywhere around my ass when I was doing anything other than stand still. Diving and say, running, made them flee for the safety of my ass-cheeks faster than you could say “thong,” and I’ll be damned if I was going to waltz slowly down that dirt road, which would be karmically begging for someone to drive by.

Instead, I clutched “the girls” and ran, scaring the shit out of the neighbors’ dog as I came tearing down the road, one arm thrown across my bouncing chest, the other flailing with my car keys. The poor dog crashed out of the bushes on the other side of my road from my car, took one look at me, jumped straight up in the air three feet, and then turned tail and booked it back home. I don’t blame it—wet, cold, half-naked, and with my bikini bottoms hiding somewhere the sun don’t shine, I would have ran from me, too. And of course, right as I scrambled back down the hill to the swimming hole with camera held triumphantly in hand, a car passed. Well, I hope they enjoyed that sight.

All toll, seven cars passed that evening, including one that may or may not have been John, Knight in Shining Honda Armor’s mother. So, seeing as Worcester is an exceedingly small town, I feel confident saying roughly half of the town has now seen me naked. Well, that’s certainly a way to get my name or, um, body out there for general knowledge. Take that, Worcester girls! Do you have an ass like this?

The evening was further drawn to a close and a conclusion of theme of “What The Fuck?” when, while driving away into the growing blue and blackness of the night on Minister Brook Road, as we were all singing along to Big & Rich’s “Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy,” (one of my newly re-claimed favorite songs,) a ginormous black bear loped across the road in front of me. Luckily, Alli was in the middle of filming one of our infamous travel videos, and she caught the sound, at least, on tape, as the three of us started shrieking like, you guessed it—girls. Actually, I was doing a sort of voice undulation from shriek to bellow. “BEAR! THAT was a BEAR! That was a MOTHERFUCKING BEAR!!!” About 30 seconds of girlishly flurry and exclaiming later, the car once more descended into silence, and then we all picked up at the next chorus with nary a word about the wildlife. Another example of why women adapt to change so much more quickly than men. All the men I know, especially some of the men I know, Perfect included, would be back on the side of the road where the bear ran into the woods again, tire irons in hand, making plans on how to best subdue said bear with their bare hands, debating the manliness of the situation. My roommates and I, on the other hand, had had enough “bareness” in our day to let the bear become an interesting side-note and go on with life.

Earlier, when we passed the gas station/convenience store in Worcester, I had noticed, (ok, maybe not so much “noticed” as “saw and started wailing,”) that Perfect’s 4Runner was parked in the parking lot with “For Sale” signs on both driver’s side window and windshield. Other than the fact that I am inexplicably attached to this car that has tormented me so much because, although they say that every third car in Vermont is a Subaru, let me tell you—another every third car in Vermont is a Toyota 4Runner, and roughly half of them are from around the same era or color that Perfect’s trusty, growly 4Runner is, and I see them EVERYWHERE, it also brought up the question of, well, if we had been looking for the 4Runner in Montpelier all afternoon, and it was here…what was Perfect driving? Damned questions aside, I gazed longingly at the hulking shape across the dark lot as I fueled up. Alli noticed my longing . “I don’t think I’m going to get to christen it,” I told her, a hint of desperation clinging in my voice. “He and I talked about it, but I don’t think it’s going to happen before it gets sold. It’s going out there, to someone else, undefiled!”

“Or you could see if it’s unlocked and roll around naked in it,” she said, trying to cheer me up.

Once with gas in the tank and all members of Apartment 607 and the excursion back into the car, I drove across the lot to linger by the 4Runner’s side. If you haven’t caught on by now, I’m a car girl. I’ve always been hopelessly attached to cars, starting back in my childhood when I named the family station wagon after the car in “Robocop” and clung to its back bumper sobbing when my parents traded it in. Now, I channel my interest through more productive ways, such as reading “Car and Driver” and “Road and Track” magazines and identifying all the parts under the hood of the Civvy and talking shop with my male friends and mechanics. (Though I still do name all my cars.) As I idled next to the 4Runner, Alli, once again playing devil’s advocate, looked over at me. “Do you have lipstick with you?”

“Of course,” I said, a little affronted. I may know where to find an engine belt, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a girl! “I’ve got my make-up bag in the back seat.”

“Kiss his windshield,” she urged. “He’d love it. C’mon.”

“I think I’ve already done enough reckless behavior today. I think that may be pushing it.”

“Come on. You’ve done this much. Might as well top it off. It’d be great. I dare you.”

If you can’t tell, daring me gets shit done. I slicked on MAC “Lustering” and smacked a kiss against the driver’s side window right over the white paper with the price on it. “And if he asks if it was me,” I told Alli as I jogged back to the Civvy and slid in, slamming the door, “I’ll say it was for good luck to get it sold.” Not.

I went home, and, still elated and a little punch-drunk from my afternoon of bliss and daring, left Perfect a Facebook post, of course. “Ohhh lordy, Mr. Perfect, when you miss things, you REALLY miss things. Well, roughly half of Worcester has now seen me bare-ass naked, and I scared someone’s dog to hell and back by accident when running down the road. And did you know, you live near very large black bears? Because guess what? One ran into the road in front of me. (All involved are fine. Though there was lots of screaming.) Can you beat that evening?” (Please keep this post in mind. It is very important later in this continuing story.)
It wasn’t until the next morning, standing in the shower, that I realized this Naked Tuesday had been the 18th—the two month anniversary of the Great June ’09 Downsizing of Perfect and I.

Thursday, August 20th, 2009:

While walking downtown with Emily and relaying the events of Naked Tuesday with her, the point came up that Perfect had never, in fact, responded to my Facebook post. This is nothing new, however—even when we were together, he would rarely respond. In fact, he only ever sent me a grand total of two Facebook messages. So I generally don’t sweat it, other than being minorly pissy about it to myself at odd moment, like when I’m standing in my closet, putting my jewelry on and it pops into my mind. However, Emily is affronted.

“He could at least text you in acknowledgement or something, even if he doesn’t post back!” she told me. “I mean, really—he likes to text you—can’t he at least give you a “hey, got your post—sounds like an interesting time,”?!”

I’m more blasé about this, but let me tell you something now, because this little demand of Emily’s also becomes quite important a little later on—the Universe is manifesting right now, right this second. I know you may not be into New Age-y shit like this, but I am, and I’m telling you, it’s true. So open your mouth. Tell it what you want. It’s listening right now—make your demands and prepare to be surprised.

Friday, August 21st, 2009, midday:

I am sweaty and sore from the gym, unshowered, disgusting in the midday humidity and muggy heat, and sitting on the porch of a campus dorm with Cait, listening to her tell me how everything is now great with her boyfriend. I refrain from saying “I told you so” in a fifth grade cadence. Instead, I decide that as long as we’re talking about The Boys We Were Previously Mad At, I may as well tell her Perfect and I talked and made up. As I explain to her our conversation, I start to see an odd light in her eyes, and Cait begins to wiggle like, again, a fifth grader, waiting to be excused for a potty break. I know this particular wiggle. She’s got something to share with the class.

She lets me finish my story and then quickly and almost breathlessly adds in. “Girl Who Slept On The Couch The Night You Slept With Perfect is mad at Perfect for the way he’s been treating you,” she says in a tumble of words.

“Oh?” I ask. Girl Who Slept On The Couch The Night I Slept With Perfect is now—haha, how funny life works out sometimes—now a casual friend of mine through Cait and Perfect.

“Yeah. I guess he was talking to Joellen about you and she told Jordan and Jordan got mad at him.”

Her wigglyness is putting her in danger of falling off the porch’s railing by now. My curiosity is piqued as well. “Oh, do tell,” I implore her.

“I guess he was talking to Joellen about how “oh, there’s this girl that I really like hanging out with and I really like her and being with her, but we just never see each other and I’m always busy when she’s around.” And Joellen was like, “well, you need to not be busy and you need to see her if you like her. And stop being stupid about it.” And then Jordan ripped him a new one and was like, “she still likes you, so stop being stupid and making excuses and see her again.” And I want to talk to him about it, too,” she added, spent from carrying the information so long before getting to deliver it, sighing contentedly.

Let me recap, here: Joellen is Perfect’s oldest girl friend, a partner in crime since they were both knee-high. She’s the friend I was supposed to meet the day of the “Save Our Style” clothing debacle, and the friend that Perfect always said I would get along with famously because we’re so similar. With Baby Mix back down South where he goes to school, John pretty much convinced I am great and Perfect is stupid for being stupid and letting me go, and Cait having conflicting interest, Joellen is who Perfect is left with for the whole “confiding things”.

Thankfully, Joellen is a girl, and like most girls, can’t keep something to herself when she feels strongly about it. And again, thankfully, we have mutual friends all too eager to beat the tom-toms and pass the word along. So, long story short: Perfect, after re-immerging from his “I’m a painfully practical man and I’d rather deny myself my feelings than get hurt” two month stupid-coma, managed to confide to someone who, despite never meeting her, likes me enough to beat him senseless with female logic and pass the word on to another girl who also beat him senseless for it, who then got the news to Cait who made sure to deliver it to me.

Now it was my turn to almost fall off the railing.

I vibrate home with happiness and mentally start to conduct my speech for the next time I see Perfect. It begins with a crooked smile and an “Are you done being stupid now? You wasted two perfectly good months of summer you could have been getting spectacular regular sex and having fun, you know,” and ends with something like, “why don’t we give it a try? It doesn’t have to be serious or a relationship—it can be casual. I have no disillusions that you’re not going to be meeting new people and flirting, and so am I. But I get out of classes Friday afternoon, have weekends off, and don’t have to be back until midday on Mondays. I could probably visit you twice a month, if you’d come up once a month. We can see how it goes, and then decide from there if it will work, or if no harm, no foul, it won’t. Honestly, we might as well.” In the middle, there’s a bit of “I’ve missed you; you apparently still want to see me and aren’t over me; maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be; we talk all the time; we might as well still be together for everything we do…yadda yadda yadda.” You get the drift. You’ve heard it all before. Now it’s time for him to hear it.

I'm hoping to win him over with faultless logic and sparkling charm. You know, the things he likes.

Or, if that doesn't work, a sneak-attack on his libido. Which he also likes, too. I figure it's all a win/win.

Friday, evening, Return of the Sexter:

Friday afternoon, Alli convinces me to go see “500 Days of Summer.” It was phenomenal and witty and stirring, but that’s beside the point. The point is, I ate movie theater popcorn again, and when I came home later, became disgustingly sick. I have since reached the conclusion that movie theater popcorn is not compatible with clean, body-is-a-somewhat-holyish-if-just-admiring-shrine well-eating Carissa’s digestive system that is used to things like home-cooked pasta and things without preservatives or many chemicals. Clean, gym-worshipping, well-eating Carissa, devoid of marijuana, fast food, microwavable shit, and high calorie snacks, just isn’t made to eat that anymore, and let me tell you—my body lets me know. Racked up with pain on my bed, cold-sweating profusely while burning up, trembling, and nauseous to smell, sound, and light, in boxers, a bra, and bun, blanket over me and fan directing cold air at my prone body, I texted Perfect, the person I always go to with my gym-related questions. “I don’t suppose with your cast-iron stomach there are any foods you can’t eat after going to the gym because they make you feel nauseous and break out into cold sweats and tremble?”

I passed out for 45 minutes, waking up when he texted me back after he got out of work. “Lol, nope!”

“Awww, fuck, then I’m actually ill,” I found it somewhere within myself to will my thumbs to text back. “You were supposed to say something like, “of course—eggs make me want to die” or something!” (Note the exclamation point in my text. I was obviously feverish, because since Perfect, I usually abhor them and leave them out of my punctuation and up to him.)

“Sorry, yeah, sometimes it’s not good to work out and then eat right after!” (See what I mean about leaving him the exclamations points?)

“I didn’t—I ate 3 hours later but apparently movie theater and Skittles on an empty and freshly worked-out stomach is a no-no. Imagine that.”

“Oh, wow, I don’t know, then!” And now, ladies and gentlemen, for what you’ve been remembering those two previous Important Things To Remember For: “What was that message about you being naked and seeing a bear about? Lol.”

Now,
A.) Perfect always adds a complimentary “Lol” onto the end of a statement if he thinks it will be too personal, because, and he’s right in this, it usually down-plays the real and houndish intent behind it.
B.) I sent him that message three days previously. He’d been thinking about my naked body and bears for three days now. Score.
C.) …that may have been my intent in using the words “bare-ass naked.” What can I say? I’m horny as fuck.

I explained the post, all while cackling maniacally about both the fact that Emily was going to lose her shit when she heard that he actually did exactly what she asked from him, and also about the fact that my naked body, or even the hint of it, still gets him every time. Men. They are so easy sometimes.

“Haha, well, I mean, people like naked bodies,” Perfect responded a few hours, a lapse in service when he went home, dinner, and then a foray back into basic humanity complete with cell phone coverage after I finished the story. “So I don’t think it matters too much who saw you, lol.”

“Yes, this is true. Hopefully, I’ll never meet John’s mom, or if I do, she won’t recognize me with clothing on. The same could be said for the rest of the people who went by. That road is normally not that busy. It was unfair. And it was worth it still, all considering the potential public embarrassment. Or, rather, em-bare-ass-ment, hahaha.”

And then, my friends, that’s when things started heating up, and the Return of the Sexter began.

“Lol, so you were totally naked?” Perfect asked. (See what I mean with the “LOL’s”?)

Is sexting with an ex you want to get back together with bad? I wouldn’t have even considered this change in events possible before this morning—I was still shocked when it, ahem, came up tonight. The other day I was just lamenting the lack of anything sexual between Perfect and I—again, hello, manifesting universe! If I didn’t know what I had found out this morning, I never would have let it happen. But being armed with the knowledge that Perfect is apparently on the same wavelength I am and finding his way back to the path of Us, I um…went along with it. There was only one moment where I looked across from the living room into the kitchen where Alli was cooking dinner and asked, “So, do I call him on this? I mean, it’s been five minutes since the last text—he’s definitely jerking off to this, and I’m letting him. Do I call him out and say, hey, you’re getting off on this and what am I getting, or do I just let it go and thank god it’s happening again?”

Alli wisely stayed out of this. The mention of Perfect whacking off usually does her in.

The only thing that keeps me from being inappropriate at night and sending Perfect texts like the one I wanted to send him last night—“I’d like to eat you alive,”—is the fact that he lives out of cell coverage, and even in my state of extreme hornyness I realize that it will probably be around eight hours before he would get it, which makes it the next morning and some potentially quite awkward morning texting conversation explaining why I thought it was a good idea to send that in the first place. However, I just realized—in nine days when he moves to college, he’ll be in service 24/7. I won’t have that moment of time-judgment. I will be…gulp…judgment-free.

And god knows where this is going with Perfect. All signs point to a veer back on-course, and since the universe, as I said, is listening right now, than please, listen to this: GET ME AND PERFECT BACK TOGETHER NOW THAT HE’S REALIZING HE’S BEEN AN IDIOT. Or, you know, now that he’s horny again and looking to make amends. That works, too. Anyway, give us a second chance. Please.

XOXO

Turbulence: The Worcester Diaries

[DISCLAIMER: Sometimes, the majority of the time, when I write, I do it very informally, sitting or sprawling on my bed. My room, as I’m sure many young people in cities across America can sympathize with me here, is abysmally tiny. No—if I were to ever be incarcerated, my bedroom in this apartment will have already trained me for it. I have about 12 by 6 feet of bedroom, complete with funky wall angles that eat up more room, leaving me with about 10 cubic feet of walking space, total, plus extra-long twin bed, desk, bookshelf, and closet. My dresser is in my closet. My desk is a flat space for important things to rest on. My desk’s chair is where my purses, Uggs, slippers, and often-worn lounge clothing live. This leaves my bed to be where I sleep, and sometimes multi-task entertaining, watching movies, eating, doing homework, working, and writing. (If you were wondering, sex falls under “entertaining.” I’m trying to bring some class to this place.)

Because of this, I rarely use my desk. The only time I actually EVER write at my desk is when I’m feeling particularly unproductive, scattered, uninspired, and unprofessional. The Desk whips me into shape. It makes me feel all Carrie Bradshaw because it’s in front of a window. (I believe in good desk karma.)

I am writing this, after it has sat open in Microsoft Word on my desktop for 2 weeks in bits and pieces, at The Desk. I’m sorry it’s taken so long. You have my heart-felt apologies. Now do you see what I’m working with here?]

I’ve been getting naked a lot of different places lately. Two weeks ago, on the 5th, it was in Worcester alongside Minister Brook Road, which from now on will be The Road I Got Naked On The Side Of, and not so much The Road Perfect Lives Off Of. (I’ve always been one to eclipse things that my men do with things that I do. Hence, one of the reasons I’m going to study abroad in Italy at the same college in Florence that Legs did. I want Italy to be nice, and not associated with him anymore, and mine.) This also may be why I, although not someone it really takes a lot of convincing to strip down in the first place, was so blasé about dropping trou right next to the swimming hole on a fairly well-trafficked road. Also, I was feeling a little reckless at that point.

Yesterday, it happened again, on a different road next to a different swimming hole in Worcester that also happens to be another road Perfect lives off of. However, this road was far less trafficked. And Perfect was actually in my town, and not his. Safer. (Granted, and I mean, hello—it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before. Or anything the people I do swimming with haven’t seen before. If you can’t tell, I was raised in a Naked House.)

July 5th was the first time I saw Perfect since before The Conversation. Alli, Cait and I had gotten bored with Lake Champlain, and were hungering for some river water. Cait offered to take us back to her hometown of Worcester, where the water is cold, the rivers are clear, and the waterfalls are abundant. Also, where Perfect lives. (Cait doesn’t know about Alli and my little adventure. There was some wonderful play-acting from the peanut gallery about being surprised about certain things. Oscars could have been won.) Cait’s been going through a rough patch in life lately, so when she called me the night before our excursion and I couldn’t do anything to help her or figure out what the right things were to say, I grappled for about five minutes with the idea before saying to her, “You know, I’d love to, but I really don’t know what to say to help you. When you went through this before, Perfect was the one who helped you through it. We’re going to be in Worcester tomorrow—do you either want to call him and see if he can meet up with us, or do you want me to text him and let him know what’s up?”

“Are you sure?” Cait asked, always sensitive to the feelings of others, in her own distress.

“Yeah,” I said on an exhale. “We have to see each other sooner or later, and it might as well be tomorrow. You really need him, so I can deal with it.” What I didn’t say was that I knew in my bones that it was the longest since meeting each other that Perfect and I had gone without seeing each other, and I was ready to end that streak. Also, I needed to see him in person to figure out if the weirdness that I was feeling over text and message was for real, or just imagined.

“I’m calling him right now,” Cait told me. “I’ll call you back after to let you know what he thinks and what’s going on tomorrow.”

Five minutes later, my cell rang again. Cait was almost border-line laughing. “He said the same thing you did,” she told me. “It was the whole, ‘I don’t know if she wants to see me, but we have to see each other at some point, and since we’re both your friends and you need us, it might as well be now.’”

Frankly, I wasn’t so surprised. For two people who are so opposite physically (if you want proof other than the written, that picture heading the “Perfection, Or Lack Thereof” post is of Perfect and I. He’s hulking and dark and manly, and I’m small and blonde and feminine. There, at least. He brings out the girl in me;) and in the way we deal with things, Perfect and I are startlingly similar when it comes to the way we approach things about each other. We’ve always been on the same wavelength, from the very beginning. I think that was the magic of the ‘click’.

And so on the 5th, I woke up, had an orgasm, ate fruit salad, did laundry, and worked out so that I would be glowing, toned, clean, and fresh when I saw him. I wore the teeny green bikini that was my mother’s when she was my age, one of my good luck charms. We got to the Mills about twenty minutes before Perfect, and I was sitting on a rock in cut-offs and my bikini when he appeared emerging from the trail down to the river behind me.

What was it like seeing Perfect again for the first time since we called it off? Oh, lord. I said before that it would be a success if I either didn't burst into tears when I saw him or tried to scale him like a very sexy tree. So I guess it was a success as I did neither, but for starters, the Earth dropped approximately two to five feet from beneath me, like it always does. If there is one thing that remains constant with that boy, it’s that every time I see him, it always feels like the earth drops out from beneath me. It leaves me a little short of breath, a little anxious, and more than a little nervous. The rabbits that always gnaw on my stomach lining went into flurried overdrive like they always do about him. With other guys in my past, there were cute, sweet butterflies of nerves. With Perfect, they were replaced by much larger, much more ravenous, much more solid rabbits. Then it became apparent after the initial “hey,” “hey,” “what’s up?” “not much,” that the weirdness was omnipresent and effusive. I realized that a lot of the bravado about being ready to see him again was just that, bravado. Seeing him, actually seeing him, standing there in the afternoon sun in green shorts and a guarded look made me turn unsure and off-balance. There was some shifty eye contact, and some very brief face-searching on both our parts. He looked tense, guarded, and a little bit unsure. I’m not sure what I looked like to him, but I’m pretty sure awkward and trying really hard to keep cool would top the list.

I was nervous; he was shielding. Though I may be adept at keeping most of my feelings and emotions to myself, when it comes to romantic things, I am an open book, hurling my feelings around through the air. I may not ever say the words; I may not ever be the girl who can talk about her emotions or what she wants or needs to whoever she’s with, but if you’re even passably good at picking up vibes, you’ll know how I feel. I’m not talking freaky-deaky paranormal bullshit here, even though I do believe in all that. What I mean is reading good, old-fashioned body-language, noticing small details, and opening yourself up to what feelings another person is projecting. I do believe it’s called “empathy”—you try to feel what the other person is. I am a very empathic person—when it comes to relationship feelings, I can’t wait to pass them off to the next person and try to lighten my load. I think this comes from being single so much, so often, for so long. I’m so used to having to live with myself and try not to hurt my own heart that when I meet someone like Perfect, I can’t rip my own heart out of my chest and hand it over to them fast enough. I tend to trust men to take better care of my own heart than I do. It doesn’t tend to work, as evidenced, but, I keep doing it. Someone once asked me if this is why I “fall in love over and over and over.” But I don’t fall in love over and over and over. To me, I have been in Love once. That’s capital Love, not “oh, I love you too. I love being with you and I love spending time with you. I mean Love as in, “I would move mountains for you, I would have your children, I would die for you, I feel like you complete me and I can’t be without you.” To me, that is Love. Love is not a word that I pass around freely. It seems like a lot more people are willing to just toss it out there. I’m trying to keep the meaning of Love sacred. What I do tend to do, however, is to fall for a guy hard, and fast, with all of my heart and head and soul. I never do anything half-assed.

The one time our eyes actually met for an extended gaze, I was shocked by what I saw there: hurt, and wariness. I wanted to reach up and grab him by the shoulders to shake him while screaming, “I’m not the one who did this! I was willing to hang on! You were the one who jumped ship! All I want is things to be normal; why won’t you be normal? I need you to be normal!”

Thankfully, he brought one of his best friends, John. I’d actually met John for all of about ten seconds previously at U-32’s high school graduation. It was a fly-by introduction—Cait got a hug and a “how are you?” and she pointed Alli and I out to John by our names. I rapidly realized that Perfect’s decision to bring John was a very good one when another ten seconds after he appeared behind Perfect, he looked from Alli to I and went, “Hey! I remember you!”

As normally out-going and effervescent as Perfect normally is, so is John. When it became apparent by his standing apart and lingering minutes standing on the various concrete jumping obstacles that the Mill has to offer suicidal swimmers that Perfect was not going to be his normal out-going self, John stepped up to the plate and jumped in to join Alli and I in the pool of water beneath the falls. He’s an easy conversationalist, instantly likable, and easy on the eyes to boot. (I think the word that comes up most often when I talk to someone about him is “adorable.”) He is someone I would really like to kidnap and stuff in a closet and keep them around for bad days when I need an instant pick-me-up. The kid has a great aura. (Excuse the New Age-ery.)

So what was it like watching Perfect, the first time I’d seen him since we called it off, dive head-first off of things into churning water in apparent suicide attempts? Here I was, watching one of the few guys that I actually deemed worthy of potentially being the father of my children (i.e—I was willing to have sex with him. I felt clarification was needed. I like to protect the few men that hold the chromosomes I would consider meshing with mine. It’s biology, baby. It’s just natural,) jumping off of a concrete bridge 40 feet that sloped out above the churning and rocky water. I may have screamed once, I’ll admit it. Even though he’s been doing this since he was knee-high to a grasshopper, I still got the feeling of “I could watch him die right in front of me.” Waiting for his wet brown head to break the surface felt like one of the longest-held breaths of my life. Both John and Cait also agreed, and they’ve been watching him do this for years. I’m pretty sure the only thing in my head during that time was a desperate repeated mantra of “oh please oh please oh please oh please.”

It’s the waiting for people to surface that always takes the longest.

Growing up fuck-nuts crazy and jumping off of things like the Mills have given Perfect a sort of Superman complex that is completely at odds with his emotional self, which is what really drives me nuts. The cliff-diving, wheelie-popping, discus-throwing, weight-lifting, tree-hauling, adrenaline-freak, while willing to put himself through all sorts of potential physical damage, is so cautious of emotional hurt that he refuses to take chances.

At the beginning of Perfect and I, Alli made the premonition that I would break his heart. I countered with a vehement “no, he’ll break mine.” Neither of us turns out to have been right, but the fact still stands that both parties involved know it’s a possibility. Perfect saw this and made his decision about what to do, which was the right one. I’ll even admit it. He saw possible heartbreak in his future, so he let go now while it was easier. Maybe it’s the masochist in me, but when I looked into that same future and saw that it could fall apart at some point, I thought, “ok, whatever. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. I can hurt myself again—I lived through it the first time; I can live through it a second time.” Myself, I’m of the school of thought that feelings should conquer all—if you feel something, you should fight until the end of the earth for it. This is how I live my life—very focused. I see something, I want it, I find a way to get it. Perfect is more of the "things-just-come-to-me-and-I-assess-them-and-make-logical-decisions" way of thinking and living. I think this makes him the wiser one, but I also think this makes me to one who stands to gain more in the end.

But then the strangest thing happened. We were all standing on the sandbar, chatting as John told us about his new girlfriend, who was actually a girl he had previously dated a few times before. Cait asked him how it was going, and he admitted that he really liked her.

“So are you going to keep dating her?” Cait asked.

“Yeah,” John said, a cute and shy grin on his face.

That was promptly wiped off when Perfect, in the most un-Perfect voice I have ever heard come out of his mouth, butted in with a “But only until college.” That was it. Final. Perfect said it, so it was going to happen that way. And that’s when I knew, hearing that voice and those words, that what Cait had said was true—Perfect had gone to Baby Mix for advice, and Baby Mix had nixed me. I got the Kiss of Dating Death from the best friend due to the best friend’s own fucked-up long-distance relationship. Because in Baby Mix’s world, if it didn’t work for him and Cait, it wouldn’t work any better for me and Perfect. That was Baby Mix talking out of Perfect.

Now, I know you’re thinking I’m fucking crazy. I know you’re thinking I’m one of Those Girls who just can’t understand why they’ve been broken up with an grasps for straws and excuses and possibly answers. But you haven’t met Baby Mix. I have. I’ve spent HOURS talking to both Perfect and Cait about him. I spent HOURS of my birthday talking to the man himself, trying to prove to him that I was a good girl for his best friend, whom goes to him for everything and values his opinions and thoughts above all else. (When Baby Mix says “jump,” Perfect asks “how high, and would you also like me to orchestrate some music to go along with it?”) I would know a Baby Mix statement coming out of a complete stranger’s mouth. And the hard truth of the matter is it’s because Baby Mix and I are so alike. We’re both cunning, calculating people who spend more times planning and plotting in our heads than most people ever do. I actually knew, within moments of being introduced to him by a very nervous Perfect, hoping for the best, that Baby Mix and I weren’t going to get along because we are so similar, as you often know with people like you. You generally can’t tolerate them. I see Baby Mix as cold and self-serving, and he probably sees me the same and as his greatest threat to his best friend and their time together. (It also didn’t help that Perfect was staying at Baby Mix’s place during this time and was seeing the hours and hours of texting we were doing, combined with the fact that the next day, Perfect ran away to my apartment and me for over five hours, leaving Baby Mix behind. I’m sure he loved that.)

John, to his immense credit, didn't back all the way down, instead sputtering a little bit and shrugging, giving a “Well…uhhhh…” while Cait looked at Perfect, as horrified as I was, and leaned into John to comfort him with a “Just see what happens—you can always try long-distance.”

Perfect remained stony. In other words, Perfect remained a (not so) miniature Baby Mix. I have never, ever, not even during our dissolution, liked Perfect less.

Between the suicidal diving, brooding and ice-cold water temperature, (guaranteed to give you hypothermia!) Perfect and I managed to maybe say five complete sentences to each other before he decided it was time for him and John to leave. Bereft of our men, Cait and Alli and I decided that was our cue to leave as well. As we all walked back to the car, John kept the conversation going while Perfect toweled down and hopped in his 4Runner. Come to find out when he complimented my Civic, which NEVER gets complimented being the Plain-Jane of the car world, John works at a Honda dealership. When the words “Let me know if you ever need expensive parts and I can get them for you at my discount,” came out of his mouth, I knew he was one of my new Favorite People. John is my white knight in shining Honda armor. Him, I love. He promptly responds to Facebook messages and is optimistic and charming and eager. His best friend, the one who now can be surly and unresponsive and cynical, is the one who drives me crazy.

---

A week after this less-than-stellar encounter, I was over at Cait’s and finally managed to speak up and ask for some help with the whole “what’s going on?” thing. Generally, I tend to try and not exploit Cait and the trust that Perfect puts in her by talking to her about things, because I know that like a five-year-old, unless expressly told not to repeat something, Cait will regurgitate it to the first person who asks. Which, sometimes, works in my favor. I’m sure it works not in my favor a lot of the time when Perfect talks to Cait.

Seated on her kitchen floor, both a little inebriated, I managed to finally say out-loud, “So. Things have been kinda weird between Perfect and I lately. You saw it at the Mills. What’s going on with that?”

Cait, always a beautifully cheap date, looked me dead in the face. “He’s not over you. He’s realized that the feelings that he had for you were a lot stronger than he thought and he still feels them. He’s having a hard time.”

I didn’t know if I wanted to dance on the rooftop or rip the shelving behind me apart by hand.

“He’s not going to get over you if you guys keep texting and talking and seeing each other,” she continued. My first thought was, apparently the “hostage relationship” thing works, to mixed results. My second thought was, keep texting and talking and seeing him and possibly rattle the teeth in his head around until he admits his mistake and fixes it. Or, at least, it’s time to have a civil conversation about “what we both feel.”

“Are you over him?” Cait asked suddenly, looked much more sober than she had a minute ago.

I didn’t answer.

---

The next day, I jubilantly sent Perfect a few casually flirty texts, which he responded to promptly and similarly, talking about when he’d be in town next. (To see Baby Mix, the relationship-ruining fucker. No, really—I can be civil to him in person, and really, I try. He means a lot to Perfect, ergo, he should mean a lot to me, and he does: I value his thoughts on me, and I value his friendship with Perfect. But he’s screwed-over one of my best friends in a long-distance college relationship, and now helped screw me over with some biased statements about long-distance college relationships. There are some hard feelings involved.)

After some continued nice texting and planning, despite Baby Mix and all, I now realized I had the upper-hand, and something that Baby Mix couldn’t control—Perfect’s feelings. I'm feeling like I need to write something like "He's Just Not That Over You." Hello, truth.

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Yesterday, Alli, Cait, Cait’s boyfriend Justin and I all went back to Worcester to go swimming at another place called the Pots, complete with two deep swimming pools, four waterfalls, and a natural stone water-slide. I like to now call it “Heaven On Earth.” John, who has kept in touch with me since the day at the Mill, was planning on meeting us, but a family dinner came up. Perfect was back in Burlington visiting Baby Mix. So Alli and I scrambled over rocks and trees and pine needles and stones and water, and Cait and Justin cuddled on the rocks. Alli and I, an original native backwoods Vermont Girl, got back to nature, while Cait and Justin got back to basics, otherwise known as first and second base. We had a perfectly lovely time, and Alli and I found the place we were searching for that makes summer feel like summer. We’re planning on heading back this weekend, maybe to meet up with John and/or Perfect.

In the meantime, I’m getting very familiar and comfortable with Worcester and Montpelier. Worcester reminds me very much of Tinmouth, where my best friend lives, and I’d always spent at least half of every year there through high school. I now know where I can get gas or food, where the house with the cool mural is, and what two roads I can take to go swimming or get to Cait’s old house, Perfect’s house, or John’s house. I can now find my own way from swimming to the Dairy Crème with no directions asked. My stomach, sometimes like my vagina, is my compass. And the supreme fact of comfort—I get naked there, which we have decided needs to be a new tradition, even if swimming isn’t involved. (I’m one of those people who can’t stand to stay in a damp bath suit, so I would rather shuck it off on the side of the road and change than marinate in it for the drive home. Mold, people, MOLD.) Especially if Perfect and I get involved again and visiting becomes a common thing, (re: we really need to have that talk about the lingering feelings on both sides,) I foresee some very interesting introductions to people, maybe sans clothing, because I’m that strict with tradition. Thank god I’m not that shy.

So there you have it—the good, the bad, and the naked. A lot has happened in these past few weeks that has either cleared some things up or made others more complicated, but hey—I have the facts, and whatever happens, happens. Sometimes, surprises can be good, like Perfect and I again being mutual with the feelings, and sometimes, they can be bad, like the whole Baby Mix advice debacle. To wrap this beast of a post up, men need to stop surprising us. I know we women always bitch about how we want them to, but really—when they actually start to, it throws us for a loop. Another male friend who was previously given up for a lost soul started being decisive—even doing things like making reservations. Clutch you uterus and hold on for dear life, ladies. The men—they are a-changin’.

XOXO