Before we get started, for the record, I still have a problem dealing with attractive people in person; I lose basic motor skills, my IQ plummets to disability-check-worthy lows, and, although I’m technically unconscious at the time, I’m 98% sure that I physically mutate into an equine anus during these encounters. This is something I hope to cure with time but, honestly, I’m not too optimistic about a full recovery.

However, back in my high school adolescence, I used to hate a few specific women who were beautiful… and the funny thing about this was that I actually thought I was hating them because they were beautiful. (Y’know, just like every other catty, insecure adolescent female being raised in this insane modern American society.) The weird thing was, though, that I only really loathed a couple girls specifically and then viewed/judged all the other beautiful girls around me objectively. For example, some of my closest friends at the time were “those girls” who were traffic-stoppingly/crowd-hushingly gorgeous and, while I sometimes cried with envy at the attention they were so easily able to garner, I never once actually felt any ill feelings toward them because of their staggering beauty. (Additionally, I never fell madly in love with any of my beautiful friends and thank God for that because aaaaawkwaaaard.) Similarly, there were other girls around me that our small community saw as “beautiful” but whom I genuinely couldn’t stand because of the horrible characters they actually were just a scratch below their coveted surfaces. I can honestly say that neither of these two varying types of beautiful acquaintances ever received anything other than objective emotional responses from me, which is pretty damned impressive now that I think about it, given how tormented by incessant, relentless insecurity I was at the time.

In my endless reflection on who I was (which is ongoing and consistently updated) you’d think I would’ve caught This Great Epiphany sooner, but, instead, it took me ten whole years to realize that the few girls I supposedly hated with every fiber of my being were, in fact, the ones I was in love with.

I know; it’s painfully obvious from where I’m sitting now as an “out” bisexual who has comfortably had relationships with women and has no problem identifying women I find attractive and acknowledging/praising the beauty in every woman. In fact, you would’ve thought I’d have come to this conclusion, oh, 7-8-ish years ago when I stopped being genuinely afraid of beautiful people (even completely inaccessible celebrities) after the realization that, just because someone else is physically beautiful, it doesn’t mean that I’m somehow not or am less of a person or should feel threatened/intimidated in their presence, etc. (You know… Normal coming-into-adulthood-after-a-bunch-of-therapy stuff.) Around that time (2003-ish), just like now, I just got shy and idiotic around pretty people (‘specially women) but my first response wasn’t to automatically loathe them; that was reserved for just a few people.

There’s one recently recovered memory in particular that brought about The Great Epiphany. In high school (as in every high school) there was this One Girl in my class who was just outlandishly gorgeous and wise beyond her years and incredibly vulnerable but unabashedly assured in her sexuality (moreso than the rest of us, who were still trying to figure out how to admit that we were sexual beings without being labeled “sluts”, ’cause we thought that matteredAAANYWAY) and, while her character drew me in and made me a bit obsessive in my observations of her, I just looooaaathed her with an intensity normally reserved for terrorists and abusive exes.

I know the moment it started, too. She and I were invited to a slumber party of a mutual friend and, although I remember nothing about this party except for who the hostess was and that we listened to a lot of Shonen Knife, one instance stands out as A Defining Moment of My Identity. We were all gorging on ice cream and whipped cream (maybe icing?) like you do when you’re 15 and won’t gain an ounce from anything you ingest and, for some reason, She turned to me out of nowhere, in apropos of nothing, and said, “Hey, try this; it feels really cool.” And then She put some whipped cream (maybe icing?) on my tongue and sucked it off.

Don’t get excited; literally NOTHING else like this happened at this or any other slumber party I ever attended in my youth. There were no ensuing make-out sessions, no admittances to deep, love connections, no scantily-clad pillow fights, no comparing of breast sizes – nothing. She closed her eyes and slowly sucked the cream off the length of my tongue and then perked back into Her normal self, exclaiming, “Weird, right!?” and then went on with the rest of the night with no idea that She’d just changed my whole entire fucking life.

See, I knew I’d had inklings of being “into” girls before then but, you know, a girl isn’t “supposed” to get giggly and giddy and infatuated over another girl the way she can over a boy. Girls aren’t “supposed” to doodle other girls’ names into their notebooks or whisper to her friends about how cute the female object of her affection looked on any particular day. Sure, there had been female acquaintances during my previous 15 years that I’d been attracted to, but I would just bashfully shy away and ignore them, lest I found myself giddily blushing in response to their attention and wanting to ask people if she’d talked about me or what she was wearing, etc. And, so far, I’d been keeping a pretty good cover… Until the tongue-sucking moment.

Being that there’s no handbook on how to handle keeping a lid on homosexual attraction when you’re barely able to define your sexuality at all (and/or even believe that bisexuality is a real thing and wasn’t just made up for “My So-Called Life”), I took the 5-year-old-boy-on-the-playground approach and decided to publicly hate Her. Passionately. For years. Actively. It seemed totally safe and foolproof; if I loudly proclaimed how much I hated Her, there was no way anybody would possibly think I was actually infatuated with Her, right? As far as I was concerned, I was a genius in my ruse.

And this embarrassingly immature/textbook scheme lead to me being a complete moron about it for the next 4 years, being reallysupernice to Her face (because I actually liked talking to Her and being around Her energy) and then overcompensating to cover my fondness by saying truly awful things about Her to my friends. (Years and years later, when I apologized to her for being suuuch a cunt, I explained that my insecurity was such that I genuinely never thought someone like Her could possibly give a shit about what someone like me might be saying about Her, which is honestly/pathetically the truth. I really never stopped to think that She would/could ever be hurt by anything I was saying, just like everybody else I talked smack about in high school. Seriously, I was nobody; who would take offense to anything I had to say? I know; pretty messed up… Uhhh… however, I left the part about the infatuation out of that conversation with Her; I figured the aforementioned statement was fucked up enough. No need to pile on unnecessary levels of fuckery  this far into the future when it’s no longer relevant, you know?) What a totally awesomely foolproof plan I had concocted!

This actually happened with a couple other girls I was very seriously attracted to (if you’re reading this and somehow still hold onto the idiotic/ignorant belief that gay/bi people are wildly attracted to everysingleperson in their preferred gender(s), I’m going to need you to stop reading this and maybe do a little research on how human attraction and this stuff all works. Come back when you’ve taken some time to understand human sexuality a bit more thoroughly. It can wait.) before the inevitable monkey wrench appeared in my seemingly foolproof system.

I should’ve seen it coming; after all, I was in college by this point and I was in an area where “alternative” sexual preferences weren’t so horrifying and bizarre in the public eye. At this time, I developed a colossal, maddening, unabashed crush on this unbelievable, enigmatic beauty who was full of wit and eroticism and style and confident sexuality. But before I had a chance to start actively hating her (as per habit) she… she noticed me. And… and flirted with me. Me! And wanted to get to know me and would call me and she asked me to go out with her… like, on dates…

… and I didn’t know whatthefuck.

Like with any overwhelming attraction to someone who inexplicably seems attracted to me in return, my first instinct told me, “RUUUN!!! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!!” (Seriously. Ask my husband. I met him at a meeting for the student magazine years after all this, we locked eyes a few times, and that was enough to have me sprint out of there like I was racing for a prize. It took the poor guy a whole semester of chasing me to finally corner me long enough to express himself enough to get a date.) but, for whatever reason, I didn’t run [and good things happened that I won't describe in full here.] And, since then, I’ve had the ability/comfort to admit when I’m heavily/very much/OMGwhoa attracted to another female.

Admitting it to other people is a different story, however. For the most part, I kept my crushes on other girls quiet around my friends, for fear of making them uncomfortable and I NEVER told anybody in my family when I was dating a woman; I figured I’d save that for “if it got serious” because, frankly, they had enough to worry about with me being literally-clinically-psycho and alcoholic without confusing things with my “sinful” sexual practices. (Plus, they might’ve confused my preference for both genders as a symptom  of my mental illness or a phase and I certainly didn’t want to perpetuate those misconceptions.) Over time, I kind of casually mentioned it to friends here and there but there was never a day when I decided, “I’m going to COME OUT!!! HOORAY FOR ME!!!” I mean, I never felt the urge to publicly announce that I was into light bondage or having loads of casual sex with people I didn’t care about when I was shamelessly doing so (and I’m still not ashamed of that, btw) or that I really liked to be spanked; that sort of crap is none of anybody’s business, right? So what makes the gender of my sexual interest so important to other people? I dunno… So I never really made an official proclamation about it.

And I’ve rethought that over the years, especially after I got married. Once, my husband and I were discussing my bisexuality and he said, “Well, that doesn’t really matter now because you’re with me.” and I took great offense to that. To me, that’s like saying, “Well, I’m right-handed, but since we’re all using computers to write these days, it doesn’t really matter.” because it does. Being right-handed AND attracted to both genders are both part of my identity, whether or not I put those to use everysingleday. The whole idea of it made me feel like someone was trying to discredit a part of my identity just because I’m not implementing it at the moment and that felt wrong to me… I didn’t stop finding women attractive just because I legally committed myself to a monogamous relationship with a man, the same way I don’t stop reading/loving “Peanuts” just because Charles Schulz is dead.

Anyway, the important thing here is that I have stopped hating women when I have crushes on them, which is really liberating and healing and, frankly, way more fun than the alternative. That being said, I still don’t know how to handle myself around beautiful women who acknowledge me fondly (this became screamingly apparent last year at Burning Man, when unrealistically gorgeous human beings would reduce me to low, rumbling, staggered chuckles simply by making eye contact and holding it while smiling/passing me a hookah tube/dancing with me/making a joke/touching me in any forum/offering me fresh produce, etc. I spent the whole week drooling and muttering “Huhhuhhuh…” in response to half the people I encountered for this very reason.)

But at least I don’t have the knee-jerk reaction to hate someone just because she’s beautiful and/or likable, which I believe may put me ahead of the curve. Honestly, when it’s all said and done, I’d rather be an awkward, pervy, socially-inept weirdo than a stereotypical, catty woman who hates the beauty in other women because of her own messed up psyche. Seriously, sign me up for the Creepily-Leering Dykes League over the latter any day.

* This isn’t me actually “coming out” so much as just a story of my relationship with femininity and this recent epiphany I had about hating certain people in the past. I don’t really believe in “coming out” and I look forward to the day when nobody has to because nobody gives a crap who or how other people are loving/screwing/whatevering.

(I actually loathe that song but I’m short on time and creativity for a witty, related entry title.)

TASKS COMPLETED SO FAR THIS WEEK
* Tried this public theology thing again
* Spent [the boring] half of worship service trying to get the Bear to stop screaming in terror at being left in the nursery.
* Sent letter to minister Re: his need to perpetuate the myth that women are frigid, manipulative nuns and are the exclusive reason husbands deal with sexual frustration.
* Plan to return to community church again next week.
* Wrote press release and press kit for SC CARES. as an ad hoc PR guy.
* Called and updated owner/manager of SC-CARES to let her know I hadn’t forgotten about her.
* Set up official “Consultant” status with Passion Parties, Inc.
* Set up personal, company-based Passion Parties webstore
(User-friendly URL to be purchased and released after this weekend.)
* Set up business email.
* Set up presence on business message board.
* Read a million different materials about starting up my personal business chapter.
* “Attended” business-related conference call.
* Shopped extensively for tantalizing-yet-tasteful marketing materials (business cards, etc.) to no avail.
* Sent a sample of my favorite marketing image to about 10 friends, asking if it would look like I was running an escort service instead of a sex-toy distribution service.
* Received emails pretty much saying, “It’s a hot image but yeah, in Smalltown USA, you’re going to be known as ‘The Lady Pimp’ if you hand those out.”
* Assembled press kits and addressed them to some 20-ish media sources.
* Purchased Tinkerbell costume for the Bear’s Halloween.
* Sent a friend a kind, unsolicited package because I’m a nice effing person, dammit.
* Wrote and sent sponsored Peruvian child a “hello!” letter.
* Deposited a check wearing only men’s boxers and a wifebeater.
* Implemented Phase 2 of my Great Snail-Mail-Based Prank on one unsuspecting friend.
* Relayed messages between my old volleyball coach and my former teammates about the time and date of the Homecoming Alumnae Volleyball Game this Friday.
* Then relayed more messages about everyone’s t-shirt sizes.
* Then laughed with other alums who were frustrated because we never actually hear about any of this stuff unless one of our parents runs into one of our former faculty.
* Then realized that there’s a reason I haven’t voluntarily made it back to any high school functions, nor have I sought out any info about them.
* Updated and added editorials to various ongoing freelance gig websites.
* Sent invoice to said gigs.
* Realized the Bear has outgrown this diaper size after cleaning up 3 overflows in 3 days.
* Acquired “training potty” for the Bear and got into a tussle when she wouldn’t stop sitting on it – bare-assed – after 30 minutes.
* Three loads of laundry
* Two piles of dishes
* A partridge in a pear tree.

STILL TO DO THIS WEEK
* Send press kits. FINALLY.
* Restock the fridge.
* Sign contract at local theatre for December employment.
* Purchase URL for Passion Parties webstore.
* Return eight or nine phone calls.
* Upload personalized design to VistaPrint and order marketing materials.
* Make dinner for old college buddy’s Stone Soup dinner on Thursday
* Drive to Greensboro for old college buddy’s Stone Soup dinner on Thursday.
* Drive to Myrtle Beach Friday morning.
* Play in high school Alumnae Volleyball Game Friday evening. (Try not to look incompetent.)
* Attend first Homecoming football game ever. (Try to avoid people who made me contemplate homicide some 8 years ago.)
* Return on Saturday and send invitations for first Party on 18th.
* Call Blair and figure out when she’s moving to town.
* Write final “exam” piece for Second City writing class.
* Apply for credit card machine.
* Get something for the couple whose wedding we’re attending next week.
* Write my penpal (it’s long long overdue.)
* Compile package contents for my Great October Gift Exchange recipient.
* Start memorizing/learning merch, pricing and policies.
* Stave off the desire to resume my long-dormant smoking and/or drinking addictions.
* Write a blog post honestly happily discussing these newest happenings in my life and how I hope they’ll help me start working toward some of my bigger goals (going back to school, starting a small sugar scrub business, etc.)
* Bathe

To be fair, I did say that I was tired of being bored while stuck in the house with the Bear all day every day.

As the clouds part and the sun spills in over my mind, my home, and my city, I am suddenly wild with hormones I haven’t experienced since my late adolescence. I am a 17 year-old-boy with permission to fondle his first girlfriend, constantly cornering my husband with passionate kisses and general groping, no matter the setting or circumstance.

My husband is both surprised and ecstatic at greeting this new side of me, given that the majority of our relationship has seen my sexual drive stifled, first by my pregnancy and then by the ensuing wave of depression. Finally, I am the quintessential newlywed, fawning and gushing over my husband as though we are only just physically experiencing each other for the first time. I’ve recently spent hours studying the contours of his body, running my fingers through his hair, smiling at the beauty of his physicality and taking time for slow, concentrated kisses and embraces for the first time since we started dating. 

Additionally, with the gradual melting of extra padding from my frame, I’ve become more comfortable showing myself to him and allowing myself the audacity of emitting sexuality. This, naturally, creates a ripple effect through our love life as we move closer together in our intimacy, regaining rhythm and familiarity to each other’s bodies in the aftermath of the exhausting emotional struggles we’ve weathered in the last two years. I hope I don’t jinx myself, but it seems as though all the romantic and functional components of our relationship together are finally synching up as a much-needed reward for all our recent stress. It’s a break that arrived not a moment too soon.

Relaxed siiiiiggghhh…

You ever have one of those songs that just turns you on no matter how many times you play it? I have a number of them on respective mix CD’s for when I need to conjure certain powers, like my “Going Out” Mix or my “Pissed and Meaning It” Mix or my “Sad Because it’s not the 90′s Anymore” Mix or my “Drag Queen” Mix or my “Going Onstage” Mix (that one’s old).

However, (and I’ve said it before about this song) I don’t know exactly what mix CD to put this one particular song on, and I don’t even freaking like the band, so I don’t want to run out and buy any of their stuff (and I’ve even seen them live), but every time I hear Death Cab for Cutie’s “I Will Posess Your Heart”, I sort of lose my mind.

I don’t necessarily like the lyrics, but the music is amazing. The wandering, chaotically melodic piano crashes, the strong-yet-lackadaisical bass that cockily seduces my erongenous areas with boyish playfulness, the glistening guitar notes that remind me of hungover stars on New Years Night… damn, it gets me every time.

… I listen to it on repeat and imagine myself walking through the streets of Chicago in slow motion, my hair blown back by the pounding, freezing gusts that come off the Wabash and sewer grates leaking steam that frames and absorbs my silhouette. I pull my collar around my neck as I walk past a quartet sharing a jazz cigarette and make eyes at the slightly younger bass player, who happens to wear suspenders without a hint of irony.

… I imagine myself primping for my lover in an elegant Parisian boudoir, powder billowing off the puff I use to dab at my chest and floating vicariously out the window into the French evening. I am wearing satin lingerie trimmed with hand-stitched lace that I have put on with care under a vintage silk robe that hangs over the seat of my vanity’s tiny stool. My kitten heels seduce the floor as I walk over to the chaise to gaze out over the city and sip champagne just before he breezes through the door and takes me, my glass shattering as it smashes on the floor.

… I imagine I am riding through the fiery autmnal leaves of the New England countryside in my own classic roadster, wearing only large sunglasses, a blazing red satin cocktail dress that hugs my curves as tightly as I’m hugging the road’s, and diamond-encrusted stilettos that are both elegant and forceful as they alternate pumping the clutch and the gas. My pelvis tightens as I breeze through the winding turns, careful not to careen too far and laughing wickedly as I balance the eternal rush between thrill and danger.

… I imagine I’m a painter working in a studio atop a city skyscraper, painting on canvases the curves of beautiful women who are lounging around the loft while smoking and eating tropical fruit amidst swirls of incense. I am covered in splotches of paint, despite wearing an apron over my grey t-shirt and jeans and my hair and hygiene are a disaster from hours of relentless work. Still, I splash paint across my easel as the bassline pulses around me, driving me forward and the gals giggle and chatter amongst themselves, imploring me to come and discuss literature and art and sex and life with them. Instead, I smile and drag an exhausted forearm across my forehead, while patiently instructing them into their next poses and giggling at the pieces of pineapple they jokingly fling in my direction.

I could go on, but I really should get back to my life here. Looks like it’s back to late-90′s chick rock for me for a while…

le sigh..

I’m sorry. I’m not generally an advocate for the Lifetime network anyway, but when I was feeding Chloe with Golden Girls reruns playing the background the other day, I happened upon the fact that they must think we’re all stupid.

Not because of the totally stereotypically vapid reruns (that I love), the heavily demographically-schemed original programming (that I tolerate), the formula-friendly original movies (that are atrocious,) or any other feminist-friendly issue with their network, though.

But because they apparently really think we’re not going to notice that this new Heather Locklear movie (‘Flirting with Forty’) is just ‘How Stella Got Her Groove Back’ with white people. And I’m sorry to get all soapboxy this early in the weekend, but NOBODY is going to make a steamier sex scene than Angela Bassett and Taye Diggs. Nobody. Not ever. Never in the history of cinema or the world or in any realm of any universe or dimension…

…ahem…

Don’t insult my intelligence, Lifetime. You may have sucked in most women with your overcompensating reruns and Carson Kressley making women love their own naked bodies, but you’re not going to pull the wool over our eyes on this one. Not happening.