May 2010 Archives

I took a lot of photos this weekend, with one thing and another. They'll likely be popping up in bits over the next few days. I haven't been posting much because I just don't have that much that I feel like sharing. I'm busy with work. I'm adjusting to the probable end of an affair with someone I rather liked. I was very angry for a few weeks.

I'm feeling a little better. I'm trying to see being asked out by online people as a good thing, with mixed results.

I don't think any of them are cute enough. I never do, with online people. Maybe I just think the Internet is an ugly place.

I've never been a fan of computer art. I prefer the feel and smell and texture of real-world things.

I like the smell of linseed oil. I like the smell of male sweat (on the right guys). I like getting my legs dirty. I picked up a shell on the beach and it had a hole in it, and I am looking for the right string to wear it.

My cat makes a triangle shape when she sleeps in this pillow, and it's funny because she has so many triangles in her face and head to begin with. I wonder if she likes Euclid. She does seem to enjoy watching astronomy on TV. We were learning about neutrinos and gamma rays. "Gamma rays, Kitwich! Gamma rays." She looked interested.

He: It's clear that you like men. But you never keep any of them for very long.
She: Men make women messy.
He: Here's to the fear of being trapped.
(from The Thomas Crown Affair)

She: It's too bad you couldn't have avoided this.
Me: What? Not get involved after he warned me?
She: Yes.
Me: He was just what I wanted.

Sensing a pattern?

Yeah, sure. That don't make it resistible or even something I much want to change at the moment. It serves its purpose. That being to keep me at arms' length. I have my reasons.

But it hurts, you say?

Well, you are talking to a woman whose legs are permanently bruised, scraped, skinned, and sometimes even rug-burned (yes, for that reason).

I have a certain tolerance. Make that resilience. I may not like pain all that much, but I sure do bounce back from it like a Weeble on steroids.

So I'm in that state where I'm drinking espresso at 8:41 pm and stopping in the midst of my 40-mile jaunt to visit a handsome fellow of my previous acquaintance (yes, like that) for a little free-form flirting, just to juice me up again, and then I get back on the bike and ride the rest of the way home dartin' and a swoopin'.

Finish up some work, have a brief bossy little meeting (I was the one being bossy, which is odd for me, but I was still in traffic mode), eat a clementine, blah blah blah. This is how we get on with life, folks, we just get on.

We move, we fly, we get pissed off and decide we deserve better; we recognize that we don't actually want to get too much closer than that and so we scan the horizon for another (un)suitable boy, and there aren't any, so we learn to play bocce ball and win our first-ever game, because, well, we are really quite deft at certain things. Rolling balls in uncertain directions over chalk apparently being one of them.

Jumpy, restless, antsy, unsettled.

It's shocking the degree to which I can pretend to myself that I don't care about someone, that it makes no difference to me how a particular situation (job, boyfriend, whatever) works out. I am such a fricking liar sometimes.

The fact that I rarely lie to anyone but me doesn't really seem to mitigate matters.

The other day I was having a dandy time flirting my proverbial arse off with a group of men, and remembering that hey, I used to have a bit of a crush on that one, and I'd completely forgotten about his existence since the last time I randomly ran into him. And I thought, oh it's fine if the current guy is no longer into me (it's unclear); I'm halfway over it already.

Which is, apparently, bullshit. Know why?

'Cause I like him. He's too young, I'm too old, whatever, but there's something about him that I just jell with. He feels good to me, and I am not (only) talking about the sex bit (which definitely feels good). I like being with him. I like riding bikes with him. I like sitting on a park bench smooching him like crazy.

He's like an animal, or a tree, or a stream - I feel calmer when he's around, and more like I like my life here. He's sweet, and funny, and delightfully dirtily playful.

And while I'm admitting to being a human being, with feelings and all, I miss him. I miss all those aspects of being with him. He was the first person I told when an exciting thing happened in my professional life a few weeks ago, and maybe that was not an accident. I knew he'd appreciate it, I knew he'd really be happy for me.

So there it is, the truth. I care what happens. I'd rather he kept being interested in me. I'd rather not have to get over this one just yet.

I rode for miles and miles last night, and instead of getting tired or sore, my legs got stronger and happier. Okay, I felt a little stiffness in the muscles on the way back, but only because I'd stopped for a little while and sat down.

Today it is 85 degrees, perfect beach weather, and I am contemplating whether I can get back on the bike and ride there. I am totally jonesing for it, as we used to say in the bad old days. It's not just that I'd like to be at the beach - in fact, it's hardly that at all.

When I woke up my very first thought (other than Shut That Kid Up! to the parents of the child whose piping-high screams had woken me up from outside) was, oh I want to get on my bike right NOW!

I have work to do, and I am feeling surprisingly motivated to do it today rather than put it off till tomorrow (which will be thunderstormy), and I keep thinking, what if my legs blow up on the way there (or back). That would be bad.

But it's funny that not only do I still want to ride, I want to ride immediately. I don't even want to give them (legs) a few hours to recuperate. I only slept for four hours. I have no one to ride there with. I don't even care. It makes me think I should plan a big bicycle tour sooner rather than later. It makes me think I can totally ride across the country if I want to. It makes me think that maybe my love of laps is not primarily about the boys, but about the bike. About what I have jokingly described as my one true love, and my boyfriend, and -well- I'm not going to tell you his name, but he does have one.

He's certainly a lot more consistent than the human kind.