On Traveling, Old Boyfriends and Sex in the City

Friday, September 29th, 2023
Shabbos

[Spoiler Alert: And Just Like That]

It’s shabbos. The challah is baked and on the table. The soup has been done for hours.

I have company.

Mommy looks a tiny bit like a ghost.

I don’t think the Oracle Tree was very nice to her. Not one bit!!!

I told her and Matt that we’re going to follow Baby Girl Rules and that will mean NO LEAVING and NEVER EVER GOING again.

I also told them they were very rude for going to all the hospitimals.

We were able to talk on the phone on Tuesday. That was the first time I had heard Mommy’s voice since right before our chalet weekend got cancelled. That’s back when she thought she had a 24 hour bug.

This shit was NOT a 24 hour bug.

It’s only now that I’m getting all the details…how they prepared to spend hours in the emergency room but to their surprise, Dee got seen immediately.

Because she needed to be seen immediately.

She would have died if she had stayed home.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

While she was in the hospital, she texted me a bit. That was better than picturing her at home without help (don’t forget Matt was also incapacitated). I knew that the Oracle Tree would take care of her.

As she got better, her humor came back. That was a relief. I think I relaxed a tiny bit when I got the first joke.

I wanted to go see her but she wasn’t allowed to have visitors cuz of all the monsters swimming in her blood. She said that the centaurs and forest animals had to wear full-on suits and masks whenever they had to visit her.

She got her own room, too! So that’s good. They took care of Mommy. But I don’t think I truly believed her when she said she was getting better, because there were so many things wrong and they were all so scary.

She was finally discharged after almost two weeks last weekend.

Our phone call lasted for three hours. She filled me in on what things had been like and I finally got to tell her all the things on my mind.

And suddenly, the things didn’t seem like problems anymore.

Because that is the magic of Mommies, and the Oracle Tree didn’t take it away.

She’s washing her hair, now. She says she has 5 weeks of Gazelle hair and figured I would be mad if she took more time to wash it at home. Which is true.

So she’s showering, and I’m writing this blog.

While Mommy was doing ‘portant Mommy things, Matt and I had the soup. Because it’s late already and he was hungry.

“So, have you seen Etienne recently?” he asked.

Oh!

When I didn’t answer right away, he filled in, “Or is he off travelling somewhere?”

“I forget that Mommy doesn’t tell you absolutely everything about my life,” I said. “We actually, had a…”

I didn’t have the words. Or I did, but they still feel a little bit painful.

“Actually, I just recorded new episodes on Spotify!” I said. “You can listen to the Etienne episode.” (Matt, Catarina and my mom are currently the three people I know of who have actually either read or listened to every story I’ve written. Well, Mommy too of course.)

I gave him a quick lowdown though, anyway. On how I’ve been so rageful, and how it wasn’t even a fight, it was just us walking on eggshells around each other.

“Oh yeah, that’s the worst,” he said. “And you can both feel it, when something is off like that.”

“Yes,” I demurred, feeling a pang again because I keep thinking about how even though it felt off, I hadn’t said anything.

“The thing is, we talked about it and stuff, we looked at it, we understand what happened. But now the question is…”

“Where do you go from here,” he said, finishing my sentence for me.

Gah gah.

“I feel bad,” I said, “Because I see now how I wasn’t trusting him in a lot of ways. But he also wasn’t trusting me. We both have our baggage, and…”

“Well, and coming from Gavin like you did…” said Matt.

Gah gah.

Matt thought for a moment and said musingly, “I totally get why you were drawn to him, by the way. The thing about Gavin was that unless you had inside knowledge of what was happening, you wouldn’t know it to look at him.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, because it makes me feel less dumb that I fell for him,” I said.

“Oh yeah!” said Matt. “He’s interesting, charming…you throw in the British accent, and he makes a pretty decent first impression. He draws you in. You know, the thing that got me though…” I leaned in, pleased that I only felt excited to dish on my ex and not triggered by the mere thought of him.

“When I built that office for you, remember?”

I remember. That was right before shit hit the fan. We were four months into the pandemic, and both Gavin and I were working from home.

I worked in the office upstairs. Gavin had offered it to me as a move-in gift: My own personal space. My desk was an old oak table, and there were a bunch of drawers with odds and ends next to it. Then there was the door to our balcony.

My desk did tend to get covered with dirty dishes on BBQ day since it was a convenient spot between the kitchen and the outdoors.

And Gavin never did close the drawers behind him or tidy up after using the spot for one thing or another.

But it was the closest thing to mine that I had.

Anyway, the problem was the sound. We had to time our meetings, because if both of us tried to have one at the same time, our colleagues could hear the other persons’ voice. There was no sound proofing whatsoever.

So Matt built a wall. For pretty damn cheap, too; he charged us way too little because that’s how he is with friends.

“He was so wasteful!” exclaims Matt, now. “While I was working there, he threw out so much stuff. He would have these expensive techy things and toss them away five months later because the newer, better thing had come along.”

You don’t have to tell me.

That was really fun, the shopoholism.

And I am kidding when I say fun.

I mean, at first it actually was kind of exciting. We would drink until we were wobbly and then go to the store and buy all the things.

That’s when he was the sweetest with me; when he was a few beers in and would take me drunk shopping.

Chocolates, stuffies, random figurines…if he was a particular level of drunk, all I had to do was say I wanted a thing and it would either land in my lap that moment or it would arrive by mail the next day.

He had a really good job. Still does. So there was no reason to think he couldn’t afford it.

Except.

He couldn’t afford it.

The thing is, you can have a really good job. And you can afford a lot of stuff.

But shit adds up.

An $800 bathroom vanity one night after the bar.

A $3000 cruise ticket one night after the bar.

A brand new $2000 television one night…

Some lingerie for me barely even made a dent.

I remember one day when he decided to buy some macademia nuts. Suddenly we were in a nonstop text conversation about what else we needed from Costco.

I needed to work.

I also knew that the week prior, he hadn’t been able to pay his credit card bill.

“Sweetie?” I said, after seeing the Costco subtotal in the cart. He was asking me for my advice, and silly naiive me, I thought he actually wanted my advice.

What he actually wanted was my approval, which I mistakenly did not give.

“Maybe we don’t…need the $250 Costco run? Our fridge is already full to bursting.”

I got the nasty voice for that one, that’s for sure.

I was a “rain on his parade.”

I “spoiled all his fun.”

I just liked to “shit on the party.”

“Geeeeeez,” says Matt, now. “And you’re telling him that because it’s in his best interests.”

Oh yeah! Don’t even get me started. The grief he gave me.

And then, when he finally took my advice and started to learn how to budget…

Yeah, don’t even get me started.

Thursday, November 2nd, 2023:

What a month.

What a mother-fucking month.

WHAT A FUCKING MONTH!

Holy shit.

It’s November now. November! It snowed, the other day. I think. I feel like I saw it coming down outside and then I literally kicked the observation out of my brain.

The thing is, I was ready for winter.

But Montreal tricked me with one last, beautiful day of Autumn.

I got home late Friday evening and it was positively balmy outside. No trace of a chill.

On Saturday, I sunned myself on the porch, dried up the fake grass and put away all the plants.

On Sunday, it snowed.

On Monday, my landlord informed me that the next day some workers would be coming over. At 7am. For a small demolition.

SMALL DEMOLITION MY ASS!

I’ve been SO discombobulated. Like, so much. I need a clean happiness palace that is not covered in dust. I want my things back on the wall (grrr) and no dirtysass handprints covering what may or may not still be painted over…

Okay okay, first world problems, I know.

But it’s been such a month!

I honestly don’t know where to start. I don’t. Let’s see. Um.

Well, I started the month in Idaho.

No I didn’t. It was a different state, but I’m lying and saying it was Idaho, and you’re going to have to guess which bland midwestern spot it really was.

So as I insult Idaho, just know, I’m really insulting the other state I was in. I have nothing against Idaho. It’s the coolest puzzle piece on the map of the country, or at least as cool as Oklahoma and Texas, and also I’ve never been there so I wouldn’t know.

As I drove around Boise for the few days I was in town, I asked people what to do locally.

They were like, “Ummmmmmmm…”

None of them could suggest anything.

I met a lot of people who had come from someplace else; L.A., Connecticut, Cuba.

They were basically like, “I don’t like it much here, but it is much better than where I came from.”

Better meaning cheaper in the case of L.A. and Connecticut. Better meaning jobs in case of them all.

After Idaho I caught Covid and landed in Southern California just in time to quarantine from Estrella.

It was so frustrating. Like SO frustrating.

I tested negative three days later. It was honestly pretty much like a cold.

“A cold with a stigma,” I announced miserably to Estrella when I saw the double line glaring at me ominously from the Covid-pregnancy-test.

“Now I know the name of my cold!”

Somehow we managed not to let the germs transfer. And by “somehow” I mean by carefully (some might say neurotically) applying pools of disinfectant, wearing masks while unavoidably close and distancing even when it would have been really nice to snuggle on the couch.

Neither of us is super concerned about Covid at this point — it’s no longer what it was, thanks to time, vaccines, and the natural evolution of the disease, but still, getting sick is no fun, and I didn’t want to give it to Estrella.

We fairy princessed it UP!

On the plane ride home, I watched all the screens.

I started with a kids movie, Disenchanted. I loved Enchanted when it came out a million years ago. Disenchanted was fabulous too.

Artists are getting clever.

The woman ahead of me was watching some other movie while I was watching Disenchanted, and I eavesdropped the name with my eyes.

Now I can’t remember it. It had Jennifer Lawrence. She was 32, which was “old.” Outrageous!

I just googled it. “No Hard Feelings.”

I watched that movie next, and while I was doing that, the woman in front of me started in with And Just Like That, the follow-up series to Sex and The City. I had actually started it a while ago but I think I quit when it got complicated to download off The-Streaming-Service-Formerly-Known-As-HBO.

So then I switched to that, only she was ahead of me, which means now I know Carrie re-meets Aidan, which I guess we should have predicted anyway.

This new series is trying, believe you me. Someone must have told them how racist their last movie was.

Now they’re so poly-trans-gay forward it’s almost nauseating. And I’m allowed to say that, since I’m poly-trans-gay. Well, not trans, but poly, and…I think I’m allowed to say I’m gay, right? Queer, for sure…

I met somebody trans. Well, non-binary, anyway. Their name is Juran and they are beautiful.

We met on Feeld a little before I took my trip out west. I have tentatively put myself on the app. In my profile I say how I’m a fairy princess and looking for other forest friends. How I’m traumatized so it’s just friends-for-now but one day I will be lots of fun.

Juran was my third meet-up, and definitely the best. I felt instantly comfortable the moment I met them.

I told Isaac about Juran while we were in the car. He had just picked me up from Estrella’s.

“Good!!” He said. “Are you going to bring them home? Mom and Dad need to be less transphobic.”

“Ummm…no,” I said, considering it for half a second. “I wouldn’t subject Juran to that. It wouldn’t be kind.”

Juran shifts genders like a chameleon. They have a beautiful stereotypically male body with this masculine presence that is a huge turn-on and yet…they morph into a fairy princess who is crazy feminine and just as beautiful.

I met their new girlfriend last weekend. It was the night after I got home from San Diego, and I had spent the day sunning myself and taking the porch in, not realizing that winter would be here the next day.

(I’m exaggerating, clearly. It’s only so cold that I needed a winter jacket today; we’re not into double-layers and snowpants to stop the wind burn yet.)

Their girlfriend is stunning. Like, STUNNING!

I said that when Juran came over the next day. They were super tired because while I had gone home at midnight and gotten a decent night’s sleep, they had partied until the wee hours of the morning with their new girlfriend, their other new girlfriend, and an ex who randomly just showed up. All of whom I met, too.

“My dance card is full,” said Juran wearily. “Any more relationships would be unethical.”

I saw their eyes dropping and directed them to the couch, where they fell promptly asleep.

Full? Dance card full?? But I didn’t even get a chance, I thought to myself, watching Juran sleep. I didn’t know dance cards filled up so quickly!

Wait three more months, said a voice in my head. Or however long it takes. By the time you’re ready, maybe they will be, too.

“Dyana is stunning,” I reiterated over kale and beans. I had bought a million leafy greens, in case Mommy came over. The oracle tree says she needs them, apparently. The dumb medicine they gave her keeps hurting her insides. But she gets to stop taking it soon. Gah gah.

“How she looks is…the least incredible thing about her,” said Juran. “She astonishes me every day.”

Oh. I couldn’t tell if they were just randomly issuing compliments or quietly scolding me for being superficial, or both.

I backpedaled.

“I’m sorry to focus on looks first,” I said, “It’s just, it was hard not to! She’s so beautiful! But yes, I mean, she seemed really awesome.”

She was, too. She invited me in even though I was a total stranger and showed up two full hours before Juran arrived.

I was wearing my bunny onesie.

Bun Buns rode in my purse, dressed as a witch.

It was a really nice group of people, and it felt like a relief to be around a bunch of people who understand what poly is, and not only that, embrace it.

And yes I’m sure half of them were off their rocker, but isn’t anyone, at any party you go to?

At least at this one I could feel comfortable.

Speaking of comfortable.

Juliette and Dajuan are coming into town.

And they want to visit me.

Me!

I was like,

“Umm…please could we clarify who “we” is?”

Her answer?

“Everybody.”

Me: “Okay, elephant in the room, Dajuan hasn’t spoken to me for seven years…”

I was too scared of what Juliette’s reply might be so I didn’t read it for days, waiting until somebody could help me with my moats, which are getting really really full these days. Only, Estrella was busy and Mommy had said she would but literally moments before she called I decided I didn’t want to wait any longer.

I decided I may not want to know what it said but it was worse imagining what it might say.

The response was pretty nice, actually.

Juliette said that Dajuan was ready to let the past be the past (i.e. code for let’s never talk about this again), that she was sorry I felt bad, that I had never done anything wrong and that she “cherishes” our friendship.

Gah gah.

So I guess I’ll also pretend that the seven-year blip never happened, and I’ll show them around Montreal next week with their kids, her mom, and their nanny.

Good luck, me!

“So…do I just let the whole thing go?” I said to Mommy.

“For this family trip? For sure,” she said.

“And then I just never talk about how hard it was again? And I swallow the petty pain of them socializing with Sekhar while shunning me?”

“Well, no. What Sekhar did was really wrong. He weaponized their friendship and shoved it in your face and that wasn’t okay. At some point you’ll probably want to share that with her. But you don’t have to do it this visit, with a bunch of other people around. It’s okay to wait.”

Gah gah.

Is this what’s going to happen with me, Marisol and Andres?

Gah gah.

Tuesday was halloween. I thought I might see Mommy but I didn’t. She had had a rare good day on Sunday with all the energy, and we had three precious hours together. But Tuesday she only had enough in her to go to the checkup at the hospital and go home again, so I went to my backup plan.

Estrella says it’s good to have socializing backup plans in my effort not to orbit around the people I love, especially when they are in post-ICU-recovery.

So I went to Lauren’s and Farid’s! Lynn came too. We sat outside with fluffy blankets and tea, and in my onesie again I actually didn’t feel cold.

There was a house in their neighborhood that did. It. UP! Like, crazy crazy. Like, so, crazy! With dry ice, and a heat lamp for the grownups to huddle under and then a labyrinthine maze through a haunted garage to get to the candy.

I was the only one in a costume, so Lynn and Lauren said they’d be the parents and I could be the kid.

Trick or Treat.

I got candy!!!

“You made my decade,” I told the woman behind the candy table.

Decades, plural, I guess. How long has it been since I went trick or treating??

They don’t really say it much, here. I guess there’s no super good French equivalent. Apparently sometimes they’ll say a version of “candy please” in French, or even just “trick or treat,” with a Quebecois accent. But most of the time they just stand there plaintively waiting for you to notice them, or shoving their bag in your face.

And most of the kids these days didn’t even say thank you!

Outrageous.

We had a blast, and Lauren served us all the snacks and yummy food.

And all was well, until I got the text from Marisol, who apparently “can’t stay silent” about my unfair treatment of Andrés.

FUCK ME.

Just…damn it.

I redirected her away from my magic drawbridge, again.

Then I patiently explained, and by patiently I mean furiously, blood rising in my chest while I tried to remember to stay calm and at least double check once before hitting send…I patiently explained that I will talk to Andrés when I feel ready to, and I am not ready to yet. And that no, I’m not going to tell him that now, because I already did, and that I’m not being a bad friend, I’m instituting good boundaries, which is what “good friendships” need.

I know you may not understand my decision to wait to speak with Andrés, but I really really hope you will respect it. Every time you talk about how I’m not doing something that “friends should do,” or I’m “icing him out,” I get super sad, and anxious, and worried you won’t want to be friends with me. No, I’m NOT saying he is a “terrible asshole.” I’m saying that he mismanaged his feelings, and as a result, I felt unsafe. So now he has to wait until I feel safe again to talk to me.

Or something like that. I’m paraphrasing, because if I wanted to know what I actually wrote, I would have to go fishing in the moat, and the whole point of moats is to NOT go fishing in them.

That’s where Marisol is living. In the moat.

She is also living in the magic drawbridge, a double-drawbridge access sort of thing that is a tenuous privilege, because if she brings this drama back into my happiness palace one last time, she’s booted.

And if that sounds callous, well, fuck me.

I told Estrella how a week before all this went down, Marisol proposed a threesome with Andrés.

Estrella says that the timing (the proximity of my sexual rejection to his temper tantrum) is not a coincidence.

“I’m sorry you were objectified like that,” she said. “It isn’t right. This is why I think you can’t mix friendship and sex, not like that. I mean, if it’s from the start, fine.” (Whew, I thought, thinking of Juran.)

“But I DIDN’T!” I wailed. “I did NOT invite this. They were vanilla when I met them!”

“I know,” she said, “It doesn’t sound like it’s your fault. But, there it is anyway.”

The stupid thing about all of this is…well, there’s a lot of stupid things, but one of them is that Marisol is making a guest appearance on my podcast in two weeks.

And normally that would be a cinch, because we’re friends.

But everything is icy, apparently all due to me, because I won’t soothe her man-baby of a boyfriend.

Estrella was really outraged that Marisol was out advocating for him.

“Stay out!! This has nothing to do with her!”

Mommy says it boggles her mind that partners can be so frustrated with their spouses one day and then so utterly blind to their shortcomings the next.

My mom, on the other hand, is worried about my social life collapsing, which is really comforting, because so am I.

“Nobody’s perfect, you know,” she said to me in her trailer at the site in Joshua Tree. She was making me tea on her two-burner stove.

The trailer is 7 feet by 15, not counting the bed. With the bed it’s 19.

I cannot believe she and my father are still talking to each other.

Four months, they’ve been traveling. Four! And I’m like, completely wiped out, after ONE month of being away from home. And I’m not towing a trailer!

Oh, the views, though. The views.

The trip really was spectacular.

The views!

Anyway. I know nobody is perfect. I’m not asking for perfection. What I am doing is learning to build good boundaries, and to not tolerate people when they take out the mismanagement of their feelings on me and then gaslight me and tell me it’s my fault!

Which, for the record, is what used to happen with my exes, whom my mom helpfully informed me I’ve been choosing wrong.

Which I KNOW.

So I’m implementing some changes, one of which is, no longer taking shit.

“Mom…I think maybe I’ve given you the wrong impression of Dee, and…” I suddenly didn’t know how to talk.

“Look, I’m not trying to convince you to like her,” I said. “I know I’ve done that in the past and it wasn’t right.”

“Oh really? You know that?” she asked, and I could actually see surprised relief on her face.

Oh. Maybe I was ready to see past my grief to notice how my past relationships have impacted my mother.

I realized I owed her an apology.

“Yes. I’m sorry, mom. I know I’ve tried to convince you to like my boyfriends in the past and I shouldn’t have done it. It was a misguided attempt for validation, and you were right not to be happy with it. I shouldn’t have tried to convince you of anything.”

“Well…thank you,” she said. “So, you’re sorry that you guilt tripped us into hosting Sekhar when he was working nearby and you weren’t even with him? Your father had to wear a robe around the house and he really didn’t like that!”

We both laughed.

“And I NEVER liked Gavin,” she said. “He tried, he really did. But I didn’t like him.”

“And you were right!!” I said. “You were right not to like him, and I’m sorry I wanted you to. You were a very good judge of character!”

“Well, thank you!” she said again. “So can we talk about Asher now?”

We really laughed at that one.

And then, tremulously, I approached the topic of Dee.

“I promise you can make up your own mind about her. I just want to make sure that I correct anything I may have said that led you to think she was out to get me. She’s the one who has kept me from melting into a pool of awfulness over these last few years.”

Or something like that. I’m paraphrasing.

What to say? I had led her to believe that our relationship was like mine and Gavin’s, when nothing could be further from the truth. But only mom can decide how she feels, can know who she thinks makes me happy or not.

My mom seemed kind of non-plussed about the whole thing.

So I said the BDSM thing, how I’d used that terminology to describe us, but it wasn’t really what we were.

“Oh, I’d repressed that,” said Mom.

Noooooo.

“But I don’t want you to,” I said back. “If something scares you, I want you to tell me. I promise to listen to you seriously, and if there is a problem, I will see about fixing it. And I also want the opportunity to correct any misinformation I’ve given you.” Like giving her the impression that Mommy hits me. Which she does NOT!

“Okay,” she said.

Okay?

Okay.

It’s weird cuz I know that in all likelihood, Mom is going to be reading this.

Eeek.

You’re welcome, Mom! If you have any rebuttal comments, I’ll publish them; it just needs to be anonymous so we wait as long as possible before spoiling our family name.

The sex scenes in the Sex and the City remake are kind of gross.

Not because of the actors and actresses!

They’re pretty.

But they’re like…messy.

I guess they are overcompensating for the over-the-top overly dramatized sex scenes from twenty years ago, but these ones are…gross! Groping, saliva, awkward angles.

I mean sure, that’s sex, but…It’s too realistic!

Okay, maybe it’s a good thing.

Still though. God bless the fast forward button.

I never believed Miranda and Ché though. I’m glad they broke up. It wouldn’t have been believable if they had stayed.

Also, no WAY was Miranda okay with Ché randomly staying behind to have sex with their ex-husband.

Also, it’s unethical to spring a threesome on your partner when it’s practically already happening and it will be awkward for them to say no.

Oh well.

I haven’t even halfway finished the story of my trip.

What a dream.

What a fucking nightmare.

What a fricking month I have had!

Ooooooh the writing feels good. It feels like I am ME again.

Good job me, scheduling a date with my muse.

I’m very nearly tempted to just stay home this winter. To stay in my cozies, light the candles, watch the snow swirl outside the window and write.

However, I realize that in the deep dark dead of winter, it’s possible I may regret such a decision. I may think, why did I not fly to Panama when I had the chance?!

I wrote Jasmine a follow-up email today.

If she says she’ll hire me for my fairy princess workshops, I’m pretty sure I’ll fly south.

Otherwise, it’s hibernation for this baby bear.

Toss a coin and we’ll see what happens!

Love,

Baby Girl