I suspect most of you who read this regularly (hi) already see me on my real-name site and on the social media, so you know what happened between last post and now, but in case you missed something, let me fill in a little bit.
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So Wednesday was a late night. Called it. Wasn’t all bad, and I don’t mind being at Neighbor’s anyway; one of the reasons we have these weekly get-togethers ended up happening while I was there and I got front-row seats. Then, I was looking at his wall art again and realized that one framed work comprised a grid of tiny squares. Cross-stitch! Not just cross-stitch, a large and really intricate and detailed piece. Expressed my wow and Neighbor said yes, my mother did that, and it took her a year, and such-and-such other pieces on that other wall are hers too. I had looked at the stuff on his walls before, but I had somehow overlooked that. My hat off to her (she has since passed on, and I am not sure when, and in some ways it’s still fresh for him, so I don’t pry). I might manage something that cool one day but I doubt it and anyway, my son wouldn’t exactly show it off to friends years after my death, would he. My daughter certainly wouldn’t. Neighbor’s mom was an awesome woman or Neighbor is just a really loving son. Could be both. Who knows.
I always sound like I am trivializing this shit.
I never said I was a good writer.
I just wish I’d been better. That’s all. Not at writing, I mean. No one gives a shit about that anyway. Well, a few people, but you might say I’m extremely niche. More niche than Neighbor’s writing, and that is saying something. Really though, I wish I’d been a better person, and most of all I wish I’d been a better mom.
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Thursday L’s two pregnant friends from out of town arrived for the feminist event this weekend. I had been wondering all along whether she’s so distant from me just because she’s introverted, but no… it really depends, doesn’t it. She jumped RIGHT into the role of Devoted Honorary Auntie-To-Be and also talked their ears off. For their part I suppose they seemed nice enough. I’m not sure they knew what to make of me. Fair do’s. I don’t know what to make of me either. No one does. I think I’m just a placeholder if you want to know the truth.
I had had the paid scutwork at Neighbor’s and left from there to go to Walmart because I was nearly out of coffee and drink mix and was circling the drain financially, but I had a few bucks and felt I’d best spend it wisely. While in the store L messaged me wanting to know if I wanted a ride to pick up the pregnant ladies and then (I think this was immediately after) to go to the feminist thing and check in. She was surprised I hadn’t known what time check-in was. Didn’t I get the email? I just looked at it right now, and there isn’t one fucking thing about being there at 4pm, which she seemed to be heavily implying. It all worked out because I had begun walking back when she came the other way and saw me, so I got the ride after all. But I knew it didn’t sound right, the 4pm thing, and now I’m pissed all over again that she’s basically called me stupid for not reading something that wasn’t even in a fucking email. Not so I’d go on a rampage, just one more fucking thing to tally up because shit has just been weird.
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Yesterday was all right, I guess. I’ve written in more detail about it on my Substack (if you know me, you know where that is; if you don’t, it’s not important) but one thing I didn’t mention is this: I’m tired of every fucking feminist thing being about trans. I GET WHY IT IS, but Jesus Christ, you only need so many of us to be fighting about this 24/7/365 and for the love of fuck, we need SO many other things to be going on AT THE SAME TIME. And the stress from this, from the ridiculousness of having to fight to name our own reality over and over and over in the face of totally unreasonable hostility and violence, is just making us crazy. We’re still not wrong that “trans women” are men. But we’re wrong when we blame leftists for a thoroughly right-wing movement and we are wrong when we say that because “they” are wrong about gender identity then “they” must be wrong about COVID measures or whatever and we are wrong when we say that we need to make friends with Republicans in any real sense. Especially the ones who’ve voted for Trump, like, ever.
And it was like I’d never even interacted with some of the attendees who I’ve been connected with on Facebook for a while. Lynn was the most disappointing. We’ve video-chatted before, goddamn it, and she knows some of what has been going on with me and Thea and, until today, we were still Facebook friends. I don’t need to be worshiped or coddled or centered or anything but the absent-minded “oh hi” shit and then wandering off or not carrying on the conversation like she finds me irritating or something? God. Most of them that I talked to weren’t that bad but none of them wanted to exchange contact info either, and I was half relieved because I’m tired of having to explain over and over how to spell my name. I need TERF business cards or something.
Or not.
L had mentioned at some point that she was going to take some attendees over to Neighbor’s house to meet him; his writing niche is one this movement butts up against and quite a few of the participants are aware of him, because he gives more than half a shit about the welfare of women and girls. Good little mama’s boy, that one, and in a good way (or so it appears; I never take this shit 100% at face value anymore, I always expect to find out they’ve got feet of clay), and so he’s not an unfamiliar name. But when I heard about this I assumed L would just take them over a few at a time and that’d be that.
And then after several times of her disappearing throughout the day, I caught her back on-site when I was getting tired and had been almost dozing off during one seminar (or presentation or whatever they call it) and asked if she was going back to the house. She told me she was taking people to dinner at Neighbor’s but she could drop me off on the way and oh, it would be awkward to turn around with cars behind her so could she drop me at the mailbox intersection in the neighborhood? Sure, I said, going numb. No problem.
By the time she dropped me off at the mailbox with like three cars behind her all going to Neighbor’s having to pause behind her to watch me doing the walk of shame away from her car like the bad little girl who had to go to bed without supper, I was fucking done with everything.
So ensued a pretty bad evening. I got lucky. One of the very few Facebook friends besides Dawn who ever checks up on me happened to get a whiff of something amiss and messaged me directly to invite me to traumadump. I’m always a little suspicious of that sort of thing too but hey, if nobody in my face-to-face life wants to be my friend and I’ve got no therapist because they’re fucking insane and I don’t have insurance anyway, I had to put it somewhere.
She thinks it sounds like either Neighbor didn’t want me there or L didn’t want me there. She seems pretty invested in the idea that L is into Neighbor and came up with it independently of me; she asked me if L maybe knew about my “history of poly” and maybe that bothered her. Well, I’m glad to know I’m not the only one getting vibes off that situation — and this woman’s never even met the people in question. I could just be presenting it weird, I don’t know, but I have a feeling any dispassionate observer would be seeing the same things I’m seeing and that at least one other person is now seeing thirdhand just from the little detail I’ve gone into.
The thing I feel like, in general, and I don’t think I have spelled it out very far until now, is that L has some sort of unrequited thing for Neighbor and doesn’t want to say so because the movement they’re a part of is more important to her and they already lost their co-author from the book that kicked off the whole thing. There’s probably a certain amount of camaraderie involved in co-authoring a book; I don’t know how much it hurt to lose A (he fucked off over the trans issue), but I would imagine quite a lot. If she’s got a thing for Neighbor, and if it didn’t work out, that would be so much worse. I say “unrequited” because as I mentioned in another post: lack of PDA. And Neighbor talking about his testosterone shots weeks ago and about his doc asking him “would you like to ever have sex again,” not “would you like to ruin your sex life by quitting the shots.” Different background assumption for each question; phrasing is important. There’s a disconnect there. L doesn’t fucking like it. Am I making it too obvious that I like Neighbor? Probably. I am probably almost never as subtle as I like to think I am.
And that’s the only reason I can think of that she’d be so cold to me, because she is. Even when we do have conversations — yes, she always uses a nice, light, conversational tone — it feels like she’s holding me out at arm’s length and only saying as much as she has to in hopes the conversation will be over with soon. Over and over I get the vibe that I’m “the help” and I shouldn’t expect anything like friendship because I’m “the help” and I’m not welcome to eat at the same table because I’m “the help” and I don’t get to participate in the fun stuff (like the dinner at Neighbor’s) because I’m “the help.” I never got the impression that she was like this with anyone else. Certainly no one’s warned me about her. But then she hasn’t exactly announced who her “help” is this time around, either, and if I did spell out in a public Facebook post that I was living with her, she’d probably give me grief about it. Hiding me? It could be a security measure because she and Neighbor catch so much shit for their activism work, but… that doesn’t feel right. That’s not all of it. Could be she’s been like this with past “the help” and she doesn’t want them warning me.
This is probably all just bullshit and wild speculation. I’m ugly. I’m a loser. I look like a nightmare with my clothes off. I have absolutely nothing to offer. Hell, L and Neighbor could actually be together and are just conducting their relationship in a highly unusual way. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen that happen. But if I’m right, if I’m mostly hitting it on the fucking nose, let me just say for the record that I am beyond tired of women who are more beautiful than I am (and she is; short silvering hair, no makeup, turning sixty this year, and fucking all) but feel threatened by me. WHAT THE FUCK. Guys NEVER go after the uglier woman because they actually want her. She’s a distraction. She’s a fucksock. That’s it. And those things are all I’ve ever fucking been too.
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I didn’t go back to the feminist thing today.
I got some good things out of the one full day I went but I knew I did not want to spend one fucking moment in that car with L and her fucking friends who watched her walk-of-shame me the night prior and were now acting like absolutely nothing amiss had occurred. And I didn’t even know who’d been in the three cars behind them, so for all I knew I was going to get stupid questions at some point as well. What do you even say to that. “Uh, well, I’m nobody, just The Help, and L doesn’t want me around Neighbor except to do scut work for him or else he might want to fuck me as a side distraction and we can’t have that, CAN WE.” Land sakes. Fucking no. So it’s just as well.
I will tell you what though, they were insistent. Because that’s not mixed signals at all.
You have two options, L ol’ buddy. You can start treating me like a human being or you can stop playing dumb about why I don’t want to go do recreational shit with you.
There will be no third option.
I must admit, I’m mildly irate. I spent $185 to waste my fucking time and be humiliated. I would rather have that back and get a bicycle with it. I knew it would be nonrefundable and I’m not going to fucking bother about it. I’m just tired. Everyone please just fuck off.
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The other thing Facebook Friend and I talked about was S. Okay. Given my druthers I’d go for the big man. He’s in Scotland and married and even if he weren’t he can have any damn woman he wants. That was never on the table. As far as men I actually know I’d go for Neighbor instead. Assuming I don’t find out something about him that puts me off my feed. Him being involved with L would do that and basically at this point I’m assuming it’s a done deal just to save my sanity. So Neighbor is off the table. But S has been a bit weird with me all along and I’ve kind of been wondering about him around the edges.
FF says she likes S better. Nice eyes, she says; pleasant face, she says; then random choice remark speculating about something else, etc. Now me, I’m a sucker for a man with a nice voice. S does not have a bad voice. S has quite the acceptable voice. Neighbor has a beautiful voice and big man’s voice makes my underwear elastic suddenly three sizes too large. I don’t need the gorgeous deep voice to make me happy though. It’s just a really nice extra.
Neighbor seems a lot kinder. S seems… a mite self-promotional. I suspect that in the long run I’m going to find he’s a giant walking ego. I also suspect I am not much better than he is, but I’ve seen what happens with men and giant egos; I had better not excuse myself into a bad situation.
I have to wait til next month to even meet him and I’m a mite impatient about it. I don’t even know where that event’s going to be. I know it’s at someone’s house and I doubt it’s at Neighbor’s and that is all. Though with all the bears the invitational flyer is boasting, it could be at Neighbor’s. I kind of hope so, because then I could walk it. I will probably have to, in fact, because by then L will probably be fed up with me.
You know what, though? It might not be a bad idea to flirt a little openly with S while that’s all going on. Because unless he turns out to be utterly repulsive in person, I would probably flirt anyway BUT, it will have the extra added benefit of putting L at ease if she sees it or hears about it. It’s a bit Machiavellian (OH MY GOD I SPELLED THAT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME) to want to maneuver things like this, but I also don’t want to end up homeless, so if I’m not by then, I’d like to push a few buttons to make the situation more secure. Once everything in my fucking life stops redlining and I can get a damn breather, maybe I can re-assess.
I have a feeling it could work out in S’s favor anyway. He’s going to be in Victoria, at least for the fall and winter, I think? Might as well entertain him while he’s here. I doubt he’ll kick up much of a fuss.
I’m assuming an awful lot.
Never mind.
But definitely, paying attention to him during next month’s event is a good idea. Even if the only thing that happens is people think I have a crush on him (and I may well do, by then), that may be enough to take the pressure off me. And maybe he’ll enjoy it. If it looks like he isn’t or like he doesn’t give a shit, of course, I’ll back off.
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Whatever happens I think it’s safe to say this whole adventure can be chalked up to one gigantic FAIL. I’ll be amazed if it turns out I’m wrong.
Okay. I think L’s in bed; I hope she’s asleep. I need to clean up my supper leavings…