August 2017 - Our Lady of Lust and GraceOur Lady of Lust and Grace

Boys

Sex and Sammiches (the sequel)

August 29, 2017

I was quasi-married to a dude for 5 years and every single domestic duty fell to me. The sex and relationship ended up being a dissatisfying rote routine that sucked the life out of me.

That pattern has repeated.

This is where the Siamese twin posts that threatened to stay together are successfully separated.

To be continued…

I started writing way back when I was in that relationship. Stumbled on some of that old stuff when I was cleaning and purging like the Queen of England was on her way for dinner.

I haven’t read much of it, just a light skim.

I was trying to write stripper stories before I had accepted that’s what I really was and it made me happy.

The aforementioned quasi husband took zero interest in anything I had any interest in. At all, ever.

Didn’t cook or clean or even drive me to the grocery store neither. At one apartment we had that meant that I had to cross a football field sized vacant lot with train tracks running through it with one of those carts old ladies use to get food for us and our 2 giant dogs. Not fun loaded up with 100 pounds on the way back nor in the winter. But I did it because it needed doing.

He proposed to me after I spent 2 weeks at Disney with kidlet and my family because he didn’t want me leaving him alone again.

When I left him, I swung far and wide to the opposite side of things and fell stupid head over stupid heels with a man who did show interest in the things I liked and was supportive and was totally fine cooking and being left alone. He didn’t mind me being gone because it gave him more time to bang his mistress.

Left him for the equivalent of a human potato. Bland, overcooked and useless other than taking up space on my plate. But at least he did the dishes and never cheated because no one wanted him, not even me at the end.

I’m a pendulum girl.

I thought once I recognized it I could stop the swing.

But I didn’t.

I left the potato and went in the opposite direction. Beautiful young boys with fiery loins and honey tongues.

I’m not complaining at all. Okay maybe a little. I hated the ghosting. These magic men who all disappeared at the end.

Hopping from unstable lily pad fuckboy to the next unstable lily pad fuckboy for years.

Until I found one that stayed.

Pendulum swing.

So do wrecking balls.

As do I apparently.

I can’t seem to tell them apart nor find the fulcrum or resting space in the lower arc area.

Smashy smash.

The one that stayed? He wasn’t good for me either, he was just different and a 180 from what I had been doing.

In fact I somehow swung around back to dating quasi husband’s carbon copy. Alcoholic, this time with added bits of interest in the things that made me happy, but not enough to calm him down or have him follow through. The domestic chores all fell on me or they never got done and he only locked me down out of fear of being alone. That was the only reason he stayed, that and the regular access to sex.

Neither one of them ever cooked me a meal or did a load of my laundry or even cleaned up after their damned selves.

Didn’t look after me emotionally either.

I am still color blind when it comes to red flags it seems. I knew something felt familiar but the reference was so far in the past I was doomed to repeat it.

Maybe I am not a pendulum going back and forth, nor a merry-go-round. But a Ferris wheel, same ride different perspectives depending on how high I am but it’s all the same views after a while.

Regardless, I’m tired of going in circles and arcs and smashing into things.

On that note…

Somebody make me a sammich goddammit.

men

Sex and Sammiches

August 28, 2017

This might turn into a twofer.

Not sure yet.

I need more coffee.

Okay I’m back.

Once upon a millennia ago, I sat across from a man on our first date.

Didn’t know it was our first date as it had been constructed and arranged by my bestie at the time and her boyfriend.

As I sipped my coffee and picked at my nachos I was still thinking they might show up, they didn’t.

I also didn’t realize that in that moment I was Newton and an apple was about to hit me in the head and I was about to discover something wonderful.

I sat and watched this man, whom I’d had a crush on for months, eat his dinner.

He was magnificent in that moment.

Smirking, smiling, indulging. Making little grunting noises of pleasure while devouring his food.

Cut to a few hours later when he was smirking smiling indulging and making little grunting noises of pleasure while devouring me.

The theory is this.

Men fuck like they eat.

Women fuck like they dance.

A few days after we had sex I started my career as a burlesque entertainer and proceeded to fuck a boatload of dancers and proved the second part of the theory.

And in the years that have followed I have never been proven wrong.

Men that are nervous to eat in front of me, or don’t finish their food or push it around on their plate…

So it is at the dinner table, so it shall be in the bedroom, or on top of the dinner table after the dishes have been cleared.

Men who eat with gusto and passion, fuck the same way.

Women who are controlled and shy on the dance floor (or stage depending) will be so in bed. Those whom vodka assures them they can dance and move with reckless abandon do so dancing in the sheets.

Is dancing in the sheets a euphemism?

Doesn’t sound right, but whatev’s. Y’all know what I mean.

I had a man once, who cooked me a steak dinner with all the trimmings. I wasn’t allowed to help. I have taken on the habit of not holding back when I am happy, and I too tend to moan or roll my eyes back when something good is in my mouth. He did the same. He has really good taste in Scotch and after dinner we sat and sipped smoky splendor and talked about the universe. A most perfect dessert.

And when we got upstairs, he did not disappoint. Traced every inch of my body with his fingers and his lips. Made happy noises throughout and finished everything off with a massage that made me melt even further. Just like good scotch. Fireworks in my belly and that full satisfied feeling for days after.

I think I am going to take the analogy one step further. If they are competent in the kitchen the likelihood of them being a competent partner increase exponentially.

I was quasi-married to a dude for 5 years and every single domestic duty fell to me. The sex and relationship ended up being a dissatisfying rote routine that sucked the life out of me.

That pattern has repeated.

This is where the Siamese twin posts that threatened to stay together are successfully separated.

To be continued…

Boys

Dick Pics, Tinder and Mercury Retrograde

August 27, 2017

What are three things I hate Alex?

Sarah for the win, or lose. So hard to tell right now.

I did one of those Facebook meme generator things where Morgan Freeman narrates your life in a 2 sentence imaginary back and forth.

It went something like…

Sarah thought she didn’t have to follow the rules
Sarah was wrong, she most certainly did have to follow the rules.

God grant me some artistic license, the dignity to admit when I’m wrong, and the wisdom to listen to imaginary Morgan Freeman.

Fuck.

I fucked up.

2 times.

And now I’m alone on a Friday night watching the last season of 30 Rock, which I have never seen before so that in itself isn’t bad.

I forgot the rules.

I inadvertently snubbed my nose at my patron planet, Father Mercury.

10 more days until the end of retrograde and smack dab in the middle I have

Drove 7 hours into another country just to have my battery conk out outta nowhere
Had my computer reboot and eat some things I was working on
Had a massive fight with roomie
Decided to move all of the furniture and buy new stuff
Tried dating not one, but 2 new guys

See above where I’m home alone on a Friday night. To be fair one of them is a bouncer so his presence was not expected, but the conversation has gone from frequent to rare. He’s just not that into me and I know it, just like I know starting anything new during retrograde is a bad idea.

It’s been 2 weeks and the bruises have just began to fade from the black side of purple to a pinkish hue. He was a biter, he liked to hear me squeal. Left orchids on the insides of my thighs. Had a highschool-esque date where we sat in a park and fooled around exactly enough to get arrested if we’d been caught. But we weren’t. He has put forth little to no effort since then.

Strike one.

And what about the second?

On our rather lovely date the subject of dick pics came up and he did the thing I had been warned about.

I mentioned that have received over 100 of the things and I only ever asked for 3.

All he heard was that I asked for 3. Not that opening a message and seeing someone’s dick is akin to a flasher on the subway, and invasion, a visual assault that occurs in the wee hours of the morning ruining my coffee and cigarette and porch time and sometimes my day.

I get it, he wanted to know how he stacked up. The problem is I said “don’t”.

And there is was, the little Snapchat ghost icon in the corner of my phone

I looked. I got irritated. I said I didn’t like unwrapping my presents before Christmas.

Dicks are not photogenic, women are not visually stimulated ya da yada.
How many times do I have to say this?

One more time for the kids in the back apparently.

I cussed him out and he’s gone ghost too.

Quelle surprise.

I don’t know why I bother and now I can’t remember why I care.

I started writing this Friday. Mister Dick Pic and I had a date planned for tonight and no word since yesterday when I asked what he wanted to eat.

It takes 5 minutes to text.

Effort invested will be effort returned.

So that’s a hard no from me.

lost boys

Stalkers and the 3 Date Rule

August 25, 2017

The cat came back the very next day,
yes the cat came back,
we thought he was a goner
but the cat came back.

Well fuck.

T’was not a cat. That would have been alright, or really weird since I haven’t owned a cat since 2009.
Although I did have a cat that left me for 3 weeks and came home, all beat up, right about when I gave up thinking I’d ever see him again.

Why does my life have to be one giant metaphor?

Probably because I make it that way.

I see all the parallels, the history that repeats, hear every crackle and skip of the record as it spins round and round one more time.

Then one little thing will be different and I will think I have broken through some gateway to the other side, just to spin around once more.

A 35 date rule would be better/safer. Not realistic though.

My ex came back. Not the very next day.

To be totally honest, when I was younger, his less than majestic exit would have been one of those big turning points and events that I would have committed to memory. But I don’t know. Chalk it up to the fact that if I wanted to I could scroll back through messages and put dates to things. But I don’t wanna. My patience cup is empty or too full. I can’t remember how it works.
Over it.

It’s been less than 2 months and more than 2 weeks.

I didn’t want him back. He needed to hit rock bottom and I was the cushion he kept crashing into on his way down and or pulling me under with him. I forgot for a while, that my natural state of being is to float.

I was so relieved when I heard he had finally gone far, far away after a horrible bender, during which he lost his damned mind. Forgot who I was and hurled horrible accusations through my phone. I was scared he was going to show up at the house. And now, as he returns, so does the fear. That sharp, acidic flux in my stomach like a phantom punch. Fight or flight. There will be no freeze and my feet are planted here.

Irrational behavior begets rational fears on my part.

I have been through EXACTLY this before. Bad break ups, exes finding out where I moved to and showing up on my doorstep in the rain, wind, snow, ungodly early or late, never an announced afternoon pop by. Always finding me groggy and unawares. The end result always the same, making me change the locks one more time.

It isn’t a romantic gesture like in the movies.

Boys who don’t understand the word No.

He went away to get help. Then decided 2 weeks in that a 2 day bender was a better idea. Ended up passed out on a front lawn. Came to cussing and fighting and biting the hands the feed him. This is nothing new. He tossed gasoline at matches on the bridge he had to me.

Way to skid along rock bottom.

Now he is coming back here to nothing. Which was the name of the cat that came back by the way.

Aaaaaand I’m back to not sleeping the night through, listening for scratches at my back door. I know where the baseball bat is (Swing away Merrill, swing away*).
The fire poker is off the hook and lives once again by my bed. Phone must be charged and in arm’s reach at all times. I’m back on high alert.

In the interest of not being home, I went on a date last night. With a guy who has been gently asking me out for a year.

Told him about the 3 date pact I have with Panda. No boys knowing where we live until after the 3^rd date. He said I was smart not to let him pick me up before we had met. I chuckled because of my current orange alert regarding the last one that made it past the 3 date rule.
He said he understood but I don’t think he knows how dangerous it is to be a girl.
How could they?
Once we are out the door we are fair game. Like gazelles on the plains, safer in groups but barely.
Safer at home but not when your past threatens to kick down the door to your present.

I have been through this before, I know the precautions. Spent yesterday fortifying the door with the longest screws I could find.

I know what I have to do.

I’d rather not have to do it.

(* M Night Shyamalan, Signs)

Uncategorized

Eclipse Wishes and Wants

August 22, 2017

https://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/08/and-you-will-carry-him-poem/

Found that again today after thinking about it for a few weeks and promptly forgetting every time I got near my laptop.

That is kinda how the life of a writer goes sometimes. Think of the perfect idea, hear and amazing song lyric while switching radio stations and have it erased moments later by the next shiny thing.

My muse is intermittent and I do not honor her as well as I should.

I stopped writing this spring and summer. There was a boy. And in the way of the Gunslinger, there was a boy but there wasn’t and my brain was sundered in two. He’s gone now and I am finally beginning to feel like myself again. Remembering how good that clack of keys sounds in the early morning silence, the sun pouring in my window, the sugar in my coffee because I am home and he had none.

God bless Facebook memories, I know once a year I will find the things I hold most dear, maybe not on the day I need them, but they will come. So will the reminders of the places I do not want to be and the girl I was in the time called before.

I leave myself karma markers and reminders, lists of wishes and once upon a time, rants about things I thought I wanted, now I know I was in the wrong place for the wrong amount of time, which was any.

I make wishes every day, some days count more than others when the cosmos adds an extra step to its never-ending dance across the sky and we tiny humans gaze up in awe.

I have lived through 2 eclipses that cut across the continent I was born on. Today marks my third that I am aware of. Another may have happened in the time before internet, south or north enough that there was no way of noticing. But I can’t remember. Internet says June 2000. That was not a good year for me.

The first one, I was young, it was a school day and they kept us in the gym for the duration so we didn’t look up. Grade 3, I would have to guess.

The second that I remember must have been a partial eclipse. I was 19 or so, working my first restaurant job in the kitchen. There were two women that the staff despised due to bitchiness and pickiness and their penchant for returning food. But I recall very clearly walking to the parking lot of my job and one of those very same women putting her arm around my shoulder and handing me her viewer for a minute. The world turned to twilight and felt magical for a few minutes.

We both teared up at the glory of it all and then she probably sent back her salad two days later mid lunch rush. But for a minute we were equal.

And now today.

Today I am picking up my son and heading to the quarry, I have no viewer and it is only 50% visible from where I live. I had plans to go to Nashville Tennessee with kiddo, but logistics were not in our favor. So I feel like floating in the water at 2:32pm our time is a reasonable and wonderful substitute.

I have already had a fairly magical summer. My lists of wishes has matured substantially since I was 19 standing in that parking lot. I want a house of my own with a porch and a yard, I want to keep writing books and writing for you good people and making money at both. There was a ten year breach wherein I didn’t get to see my extended family and that was repaired last week so, more of that.
I would like a truck or an SUV for adventuring purposes.

In fact the last 4 years of my life have been rather glorious and free.

Yes, there has been heartache and heartbreak, but that seem like the only area that needs improvement, and I am getting there, slowly. I know he will come for me in the fall.

So my eclipse wishes are simple things.

A house that is my own and I never have to leave.

A better relationship with my muse.

More books and words by my own hands.

The sense of family and belonging that has already began to show itself to become…more.

A global sense of equalization between us and them, when tiny moon blots out the giant sun and for a few minutes, nothing matters and we are all just insignificant specks on a rock floating through space.

Uncategorized

Becoming Aware of Your Own Bullshit (and doing it all again anyways)

August 13, 2017

I have become very aware of my own bullshit.

Even as I am doing the things I ought not to be doing, the voice saying “Really Sarah, all the information you’ve been given, and this is what you choose to do with it?” is becoming louder and louder by the day.

I am still capable of ignoring it.

And ignore it I shall.

I am stubborn like that.

Even now, typing these words, knowing what I am going to say. I know in my heart of hearts it’s all bullshit and I am writing it anyways.
My motherland (the USA) is on fire and in turmoil. And here I am writing some dipshit blog post about tinder and dating and feelings and shit.

I feel trite and ineffectual.

Maybe that’s my super power.

Gloss over everything with quarts of high gloss primer. Make everything shiny when it’s rotting underneath.

I am not rotting, I get reborn to often for that. I am a snake girl chasing my own tail.

Shedding skin over and over but doing the same old things with my new self.

Like I said, HYPER-aware of my own bullshit.

But honestly? I cannot deal right now. I want some distraction and maybe some of you do too. There are no words that will stop a neo nazi from hating someone based on the melanin levels in their skin. And if there are? I don’t know what they are.

There is no logic in this place.

So now for the thing that has nothing to do with anything at all…

After the chaos of last week I went back on tinder. I needed attention and distraction.

I am a realist about it now.

It’s a sea of catfish and fuckboys. Good thing I like fuckboys. And I am getting better at spotting the catfish. Not perfect, but better.

The goal is to find the least offensive fuckboy and enjoy until I have to throw that one back too.

That isn’t really the goal but it’s where I am at.

There is no turning a man whore into a house husband, and I don’t know if I even want to get married.

I want to be happy and feel good. Get laid by the same guy on the regular while having good dates and good conversation. That’s it that’s all. No fighting, no drama, no lies or secret lives. Just show up, feed me tacos, fuck me good and make me giggle once a day or so with a good meme.

I am not saying that’s all there is. I am sure there is more to life. But I like my little life as is.

At the behest of my besties I tried a date with someone my age. He was sweet and kind and a gentleman and there were zero sparks.
I’m pretty sure he felt that way too as we haven’t communicated past both of us getting home safe in a thunderstorm and a couple likes on Instagram.

I wondered actually, pre date, if I was doing some sort of weird 360 back into my past wherein I only dated guys my age or older. Considering I hadn’t felt alive at all until I ended that cycle of my life, maybe going back there isn’t the best course of action.

I know I need to be learning. I know something has to give and that something is me. I know I am the common denominator.

But here I sit. Talking to yet another young un and smiling a lot in spite of myself.

4/7 haven’t ended so bad.

Statistically just over half went well.

This is what we call optimism, blind faith, hope or sheer stupidity. We shall see. Jury is still out on this one.

I have learned from all of them. Lessons on motherfucking lessons.

I pulled 4 guys off tinder. Sent pics and bios to the girls. The 2 that made it through the screening process were the adult and… my choice, “the one who looks like sex walking”.

Sex Walking continues to pleasantly surprise me with the quality of conversation. Still haven’t met yet. Might hate him, might not.

Insanity is indeed doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. But I kinda like the results of my choices and my behavior, until I don’t, then I leave. And I’m not doing the EXACT same thing over and over, I keep learning every day. I modify, grow, and change bits here and there.

I’m fine tuning my behavior instead of swinging to either side of the pendulum. Wiggling around in the middle ground and I kinda like it here.

Maybe that is what the world needs more of too. Less radicalism or its opposite, non-involvement.

Something in between. Self-awareness, tolerance and a willingness to try in spite of all that came before.

Uncategorized

That’s Not Love.

August 1, 2017

Cue the Friday night fight.

I think he may have mistaken me for one of those girls who gives a shit.

I don’t care what he was doing when he isn’t with me.

Ya, the whole ‘you are mine’ thing threw me off.

But don’t boys get possessive with their toys?

And a lot of this is on me.

I can’t remember jokes except not jokes.

Lemme explain…

Two guys walk into a bar, you think the second one would have seen it.

Maybe my inability to remember and regurgitate a punchline, other than like the one above is indicative of how I have been treated.

I know something funny happened but I can’t recall.

Like the Friday night fights. Didn’t ex hubby used to pick fights so he could r-u-n-n-o-f-t and blame it on me?

There it is, the punch and the line.

It’s not funny but it’s true.

And aren’t thieves the ones who lock their doors?

Wait, that isn’t right.

Methinks the mister doth protest too much. When the guilt surfaces and comes forth as anger.

Fuck, I’ve done it. Everyone has. Feel bad about something and throw a Mexican wrestling mask on it.

Let’s get ready to rumble.

Oh honey,

I may have mentioned that I don’t know how to relationship. I don’t.

And that statement gets truer and truer by the day.

I asked you on our first date why you were single. Wish I hadn’t.

I always thought I would make such a spectacular army wife. Able to handle absences, I crave airport kisses and reunions, I write better than I speak.

But I was wrong.

I need you here and I am too scared to ask because of what happened with the last girl that asked.

I think that if I tell you I need more you will say ‘okay bye’.

https://www.facebook.com/foodaaliizoou/videos/vb.1265944773496133/1378584972232112/?type=2&theater

If you love me let me goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh.

More like if you love me, let me know. I ain’t waiting around to find out and living on scraps anymore.

There was no love here.

Just an insurance policy called keeping Sarah’s pussy in my pocket because I am scared to be alone.

I wrote the above in the time called before.

Before my hand was forced and I was the one who had no choice but to say ‘okay bye’.

Before I knew he had been living with his girlfriend the entire time we were dating.

Everything explained by a girl I had never met and only knew of in a past tense. She is his present and we have no future. I don’t think we ever did. Another Peter Pan lost boy picking Wendy over Tinkerbelle.

Unlike the wee sprite, I won’t die from lack of attention, his wasn’t that good anyways unless I was with him and he was all in. That is now explained also.

I had him to myself on rare occasions. Very rare.

I knew there were other girls, like I know the sky is blue and that I will run out of milk once a week or so.

I didn’t let it bother me, instead taking the path of perseverance.

Which in retrospect looks like martyrdom for a bullshit cause.

Should I stay or should I go?

Personally? It is always a war when I am forced to ask myself that question.

I must have been in one of those conquering armies that managed to succeed in starving out some fortress, and eventually called it mine. That isn’t a victory really, conquering something by wearing it down to the point where they have no choice in there delirium, in their hunger and defeat.

But love isn’t supposed to be a war. The war is outside and I want to be safe, at home.

I sat in an empty parking lot last night and cried a lil bit as the sun finished setting.
I haven’t driven anywhere alone in ages and I needed it I guess. That safety and sanctuary of being self-contained and alone.
Peter Gabriel’s cover of Heroes came on and I sang loud and off key as my voice cracked and tears came.
I drove the rest of the way home and another song came on that took me back to another parking lot moment, but a really good one.

It reminded me, I get low sometimes.
But it doesn’t take much to get me high.

Talked to Gelfling last night.

Actually drove by Wolfling’s, the old house of Hulk and Giant’s street. Pulled over. Cried a bit. Contemplated talking to them, decided against it and then for some weird reason picked Gelfling out of my inbox. Probably because he is prone to vanishing mid conversation and I did want to handle this alone without exhuming the dead.

I wanted to deal with it on my own. Starve out my own doubt. Not go running backwards when my future gets upheaved. And honestly, Gelfling is the king of leaving me hanging so it seemed a safe bet he wouldn’t answer.

But he did.

I asked for him to say something nice, and in his, he surprised me, pleasantly.

But here’s the thing.

The vexing maddening thing that makes me want to scream and pull my hair out.

They never really fucking leave, but they don’t exactly stick around and love me either.