Dating turmoil

It's nice to be reminded every once in a while of the highs and lows of dating. When I wasn't really looking, I met a great girl, older, soft butch, smart and honest and sweet. I liked her a lot, and we were hot and heavy for just under a month. She dumped me because she's fallen for someone else. Me, I got my heart broken, just a little. I'll bounce back quickly, but in the meantime, I was reminded of all the sweet things about having someone. Kissing and cuddling can be so addtictive, not to mention the sex, which was great because it was intimate and passionate and comfortable all at the same time. I trusted her and felt I could open up to her without protecting my heart in a way I haven't done in a long time. In the process, I got hurt, but I learned a lot. I learned that when someone likes you it can be magical (she thought I was really seductive, which was a fabulous ego boost for me). I learned a little about my own sexual power and what it means to use it. I remembered that, after dating mostly transmen since I've been here in LA, there's something wonderful and special and different about dating a woman who's just a little bit butch, but open and comfortable in her female body. I love all of the boys and really masculine women that I've dated, but it was nice to find someone who appreciated my take on femininity without the body issues and minefields associated with female masculinity. It took me a while to warm up to being free to touch where I wanted, but it was a good feeling. And, while it lasted, I felt loved and wanted and feminine and confident in a way that I haven't felt in a long time. That, too, was wonderful and I'm sad to lose it.

Excerpts from Anne Sexton's "For My Lover, Returning Home to His Wife" for MP

Let's face it, I have been momentary.
A luxury. A bright red sloop in the harbor.
My hair rising like smoke from the car window.
Littleneck clams out of season.

She is more than that. She is your have to have...

She is solid.

As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off.

The Joys of Flirting

Hmm. I spent all of last night flirting with a completely adorable boy. It was delightful. He was sweet and cute and he acted as if he honestly found me attractive, which is quite an ego boost. I felt happy and sexy and just generally wonderful. The problem? He's a gay bio boy. He's not my type, and I'm definitely not his type. For me, that's not a big deal, and certainly not a deterrant from some harmless flirting that I was certainly enjoying. It's hard for me to say how he felt about it, though. He occasionally blushed a wonderful shade of pink and he certainly played along, so I hope I didn't make him too uncomfortable. Sometimes it's just so much fun to be cuddly and provokative within a safe and friendly setting.

The whole thing did make me wonder, however, what my limits were in that particular situation. With straight biomen, I never made it past holding hands and cuddling before something in me decided that it just doesn't feel right and I ran away. I never even managed to kiss a boy before I came out as queer. But somehow in this context I wonder if I might have been comfortable going further. If the object of my flirtation were a little more bisexual (and single), might I have been open to more experimentation? I was pretty darn turned on last night. I can picture myself kissing him, though I don't really imagine going much farther than kissing and perhaps some groping. Who knows? I tend to let my body guide me in such things, and if it felt right, I probably would have gone farther with him. Though it's probably for the best that things never got to that point, I'm so appreciative of the opportunity to feel attractive and sexy and playful. Now if only I could find a girl to have that much fun with...

Awake again

Sigh. The cute butch is seeing someone else she's more into. Which is fine, but the brief moment of possiblity woke me once again, and now all I want is to dive into more dating. For the most part, I hate dating and I'm lousy at it. I am not at all good with people I don't already know. But, especially as the weather gets colder, which always makes me more cuddly, I want to be out among queer people more. I want to flirt. I want to go on dates and be out and visible and femme. I'm tired of staying home and doing schoolwork and never meeting new people. I'm tired of not being visibly queer and not being in queer spaces. I want to do wild and naughty things on occasion.

Mmmm

Date last night. With an actual butch girl, which in my recent past has been unfortunately rare. She's totally adorable and I would gladly have spent the whole date nibbling on her ear, but I suppose that's inappropriate for a second date... maybe next time.

The only problem is, she identifies as a bottom, which means it's my job to make the first move (among other things). Now, for the most part I'm pretty OK with that if not terribly experienced. But my problem is that I know all the girly ways to show someone that I want them to make a move, but I don't necessarily know if and how I should know that she wants me to do so. The last thing I want to do is make undesired advances, but goodness she does look yummy.

Mourning an imagined loss

After three blissful days of platonic romance with a nearly perfect boy, I need to cry from exhaustion and from loss. When he touches my life I light up, glowing bright like the molten red sun sinking into the ocean. The residue of the heat produced by flirting is enough to leave me charred. To walk along the beach at sunset, sharing a conversation so intimate and friendly that it bares the broken, scarred insides of my inadequacy hidden from casual view, is enough to last me the months or years it will be until I meet him again. It means so much that he asks all the right questions, knows where to thrust and when to caress, in an intellectual consumation more satisfying than the merging of our bodies that isn't to be. We are fellow travellers, perhaps too alike to be lovers and yet passionately connected through intricate neural networks. When he leaves I want nothing more than to reach out after him, send in his wake all the love and joy I feel for him, offer support and sustenance that can not begin to repay the debt I feel for the few hours of his conversation. So I mourn the loss of a boy I have never possessed, lightning I cannot hold. Though he is someone I'm destined to see for no more than a few days at a time, his absence lingers, a wound left open to air that never loses its sting. Thinking of him even when we haven't spoken for months, referencing his wisdom even when it isn't accessible, sending him love from afar even when he cannot contact. I will never be central in his life, and he will never be the center of mine, but when our orbits cross, sparks fly and magic happens. How can a girl not cry when that magic passes out of her life once again, taking another revolution that may bring us closer together or keep us far apart? My love for him cannot be written in conventional terms, neither described by poets nor analyzed by academic discourse. He is my sweet lost soul other half from another life, but in no way my match in this place and time.

Genius hero trickster god and storyteller, he teaches me lessons that make me a better person. He asks the universe the ethical implications of his own charisma and I answer with unearnéd wisdom. If he's the hero on his journey of transformation, I am Cassandra, cursed. He transforms the myth by listening to the babbling words of advice and prophecy pouring at his feet, providing the priestess an audience even when the outcomes do not change. If he is Orpheus I am Eurydice after death, a shade of partial life following the music of his footsteps. But I am neither curséd nor dead. No Penelope patiently weaving and waiting but Amazon on my own quest, chasing my own golden apples. It is just the shade of me he sees, removed from my real life into another dimension that burns more brilliant when he is there.

Birthday wishlist

My birthday is coming up, and I'm not expecting any particularly revolutionary gifts; I'd rather spend time with friends than receive things. I just wanted to think about all of the crazy things I might wish for.

glitter hairspray
Highlighters (yellow Bic)
books of period styles (clothes, hair, etc), especially any with instructions
purses
hot high-heeled shoes (size 9.5 wide)
comic books
movies (anything from the 1930s starlets, 1940s film noir, 1950s romance genres, or any of those crazy Something Weird types like Olga's House of Shame or Reefer Madness)
jewelry (cheap, decorative, fabulous)
the perfect shade of retro siren lipstick
alcohol
new queer friends
lesbian porn
kittens
condoms, lube, sex toys
a top hat
a wallet
one of those plastic business card boxes
glittery drag queen makeup
anything that will make me more retro femme fabulous
a personal hairstylist
cute queer performance artists
fabulous queer geeks
anyone with a supercool sense of style
40s pinup images
retro movie posters
blank DVDs
Anything John Waters/Jack Smith/queer trashy
Annalee Newitz in live or written form
bondage cuffs
funky nailpolish colors

So if you want to send me any of these things, let me know. I will clearly love you forever.

The Universe is Trying to Test Me

As soon as I feel comfortable with where I'm at in terms of sexuality and labels, something comes along to test my limits once again. Sadly, the cute guy I've been flirting with/kinda sometimes dating for the past month is being weird and flaky, which I assume indicates either a profound ambivalence or complete disinterest. Honestly, I'm a little ambivalent about him myself, considering that he's probably not someone I can imagine being with for long periods of time. But I would have liked to have more sex with him. I fell like we could have had fun for a while before accepting that it's not meant to be. Our interests seemed to line up in some pretty exciting ways. Oh well.

But anyway, so as I've sort of but not quite given up on that, a new guy starts to flirt with me. Which is totally exciting, except that although he tells me he's trans right away, he also tells me that no one in his life except his family knows he's trans. He's completely in the closet. This is weird for me, because the one thing I am is out as queer. I'm not really interested in dating straight men, nor the identity politics inherent in lying to my friends to convince them that I'm dating a straight man. This somehow feels like it's more than I want to explain, although possibly the first transguy I was sleeping with was the biggest step in terms of labels and explanation. But really, the guy seems nice and able to carry on a decent conversation, which is rather rare and exciting in my dating history. I want to give him a chance. And I suppose it comes down to how I feel and whether I want to run away screeming or not when the time comes. One more step toward bisexual isn't really a bad thing.