Without you, I'm just a hag

So I joined a gym in January.  Fascinating stuff, right?

It takes a while to put together a really good gym kit.  You go, and you think “Boy, my hair is short enough that I don’t need a brush or comb, but I need a portable pot of that stuff that keeps my hair from looking like a dandelion…”

Towels were immediately an issue.  I had bath towels and beach towels, and quickly determined that neither were gym-appropriate.  I told The Carpenter that I needed gym towels.  Since towels form approximately 20% of our laundry by volume and I can get a little fetishy about them, he tried to dissuade me.

I recounted our argument to The Boys as we walked through a discount department store and I browsed towels, looking for the Perfect Gym Towel.  Of course they did not even need to have the towel taxonomy explained to them.

The Brunette, who doesn’t even go to the gym because he’s a reprehensible little ectomorph who wouldn’t gain a pound if you fed him a free weight, defined a gym towel as “an inexpensive, medium sized, potentially disposable towel that you wouldn’t care if you lost or if someone used it to clean up jizz”

“Yeah!” I replied in my outdoor voice, as we rounded a corner “But my bath towels, you get cum all over those and I’m like -” and OF COURSE there’s some poor guy standing right there.

The test stands though.  

So we’re in the mall, eating frozen yogurt (I know, I know!) and talking about life, the universe and everything.  The Blonde is telling me that I am phobic about conflict, and I can’t even argue, not only because I am phobic about conflict, but because I just had a terrible example of this yesterday.

So I’m telling him about the rude associate in Ikea, and starting to get choked up because it’s not just a rude salesperson - if I can’t stand up to a retail worker who is refusing to help me, how can I accomplish any of the minor acts of self-preservation that are necessary in the immediate future?!  I have a salary negotiation, continuing insurance claim, etc… So I start to tear up.

I’m right on the verge, and The Blonde can see it coming.  Normally when I start to cry over silliness he makes me stop by doing this creepy whispered cheer: “Cry… cry… cry…” 

But this time he just flashes me this huge smile, rolls his eyes and says: “Jeez ____, I’m not breaking up with you!”

And that just set me off.  I look around the food court, suddenly panicked.  ”You… you brought me to a public place?!  To break up with me?  So I wouldn’t MAKE A SCENE?  YOU’RE BREAKING UP WITH ME IN PUBLIC BECAUSE YOU THINK THAT MEANS I WON’T MAKE A SCENE?!”

By now the tears are streaming down my face.  I sustained it for as long as I could before the giggles got me.  It was hysterical.  The Blonde, who like all blondes is a blusher, achieve a state that can only be described as magenta.

I rule!

My youngest, who just turned six, asked me what gay means last night.  It was easy enough to answer.  I told her a person who is gay likes people of their own gender the way most people like people of the opposite gender.  So a gay man likes other men the way most men like women.  She asked if girls can be gay, and if so, who do they like?  At that point I think the math kinda clicked into place for her.  

I don’t know if she’s ever really realized that The Blonde and The Brunette are a couple the way The Carpenter and I are.  

Lately she’s been amusing herself by asking how the baby gets into the mommy’s tummy. I tell her the daddy puts it there.  How?  With his penis.  Cue the hysterical grossed-out six-year-old reaction, played over maniacal giggles.  I know this game.  Two days later she’ll ask me the same questions with exactly the same intonation, and the same reactions.  Its a game.

I always thought part of the purpose was to shock and upset the adults, but observation of my offspring shows that no matter how blase and casual you are while answering questions with bare uncommented/unedited facts, they still ‘forget’ and come back round to get the same answers again.

Maybe it’s like listening to Betty White.  Even if you have a thousand reasons to believe she’s about to say some wild shit, your brain can’t even let you anticipate that it’s about to happen.  Like a blind spot in your ability to predict results based on past performance.

We do this thing when we are ‘performing’ our friendship for an audience, where he ends every sentence with “… for someone your age” and I start all mine with “You people…”.

When we introduce ourselves as best friends, sometimes we have to say: “Seriously.  We are.”

Two of Three just turned thirteen.  Blonde says something about feeling outnumbered.  I challenged Two of Three to say something horrifying.  Without missing a beat she says:

“Sometimes, when I wear a tampon, I’m pretty sure I put it in wrong.  Because it hurts when I sit down!”

And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is how you gag a gay man.

In my defence, I was outside.  At a noisy bus stop.  And I did move away from the crush of people.  The Blonde was trying to bully me into visits.  Finally he tried to bribe me.  Keep in mind, the sour-face older woman at the stop could only hear my half of the conversation:

Blonde: “Pleeeeeeze come over.  We’ll make a BABY!”

Moi: “Bullshit.  You don’t even know the recipe for baby.”

Blonde: “Sure I do.  When a man and a woman love each other very much-“

Moi: “Or if they’ve been drinking, or if they have low self-esteem.”

[dirty look from random bus lady]

Blonde: “Yeah, whatever.  Come ooooover”

Moi: “I’ll have a baby with you, but I’m not giving you custody.  You can visit it.”

[moar dirty look]

Blonde: “WAHTEVER COME OVER”

I did end up going over.  No babies were made or even attempted.

And you know what, grouchy-faced lady?  I have a hearing loss.  Which is way more of an inconvenience for me than for you.  Also; take a look around.  You are in a crowded public space.  You might not want to know anything about our lives, we might not want to know anything about yours.  But we all have to share this space.  See the trees and squirrels?  Outside = outside voice.

… for straight.  I do not think this is in the cards.  He gets really upset if you tell him he is emphatically identifiably gay.  It’s not that he’s closeted at all, or ashamed, or anything like that.  I think he probably just would like to be invisible to bigots, free from harassment, and have his sexuality be something he chooses to share with someone as opposed to something that is public information.

Welcome to the sisterhood.  No wonder straight women and gay men form these intense friendships.

But mostly I think he just wants to fuck straight men.  I tried explaining to him that straight men are not gay, by definition.  

“Shut up.  You don’t know anything!”

Yup.  Part of his brain thinks that if he passes for straight, he is in there.  It’s the unattainability, and who am I to criticize on that account…

Maybe I should have the Carpenter sit him down for a chat?

I took The Blonde with me to a party that I attended as part of a resolution to attend all my ‘school things’ in my last year of school.  Side note: reconsider resolution.

The theme was ‘White-out’.  A theme so fraught with danger that you just knew a bunch of dudes came up with it while wearing dark wash denim and not menstruating.  Also it is on a boat cruise, so it is captive-audience.  Once we’re on it doesn’t matter how much it sucks, we are on for the duration.  But best not to dwell on unpleasantness.

So I bought two tickets and an ill-advised but actually super-cute swishy white skirt and began shopping around for a better date than The Carpenter.  The Carpenter is anti-social, and when I bring him to these things I hate to leave him, so it winds up being the two of us in a corner.

The Blonde is ideal; he is social, but awkward enough that he understands my anxiety.  And he owns white pants.

So off we go.

I leave him alone for three minutes, and come back to find him and some guy chatting on the railing.

See, the thing is; being gay is a thing you have in common with other people, if it is a thing you have.  Straight people don’t bond over their heteronormativity.  You don’t look at another straight girl and thing “Well, we’ve got one thing in common…”

Like when my family was living in a townhouse complex, and a new family moved in across the parking lot.  Second of Three looked out the window and saw a little girl in a poofy princess dress, so she ran upstairs, put on her poofy princess dress, and ran outside.

Instant best friends.

I’m not saying that The Blonde and Random Boat Gay are besties, I’m just saying I wish there was something overt or even subtle about me that would make like-minded types approach me when I stand alone at the rail.

That it looks like a kitten stuck in a sleeve.  

The Blonde invited me over, but I was with my Girls waiting for The Carpenter to return from an errand.  We were texting back and forth, joking about his overreaction to my periods of inattention.  I got a few pictures of Overly Attached Girlfriend and a few accusations of infidelity.  Finally I checked The Carpenter on FindFriends and saw that he was almost home.  So I texted “10min, k?”

The Carpenter got home, and we took off.  As I was letting myself into their building I checked my phone.

“Er. Did I do something? Whats going on?!”

So apparently he thought I was saying not to text me?  I was puzzling it out as I came up the stairs, knocked and put my key in the lock.  Through the door I hear a squeak and “Just a minute!” in a distinctive giggly tone of voice.  I know that tone.  It’s a no-pants tone.

I MEANT I WAS ON MY WAY.  GAWD!

I have heard Halloween called “The Crossdresser’s Holiday”. Even the Carpenter has put on a dress for Halloween. And I love making costumes, so late August is not too soon to start. The Brunette is also into it, the same way I am. Don’t get me wrong. Both the Carpenter and the Blonde will dress up, and the Blonde will even choose his own costume, whereas the Carpenter merely wears what he is given.

But the Brunette is my kindred spirit here. And this year he wants to be Effie Trinket from the Hunger Games. Problem: he has big man-feet, and Effie does not wear flats. So I find some plain black pumps at Value Village on what can only be described as size Sasquatch. Of course, Effie trinket doesn’t wear plain black pumps either, but by the time my glue gun and I are done our thing…

Anyway he was wearing them around the apartment for practice last night. Cooking dinner for the Blonde, who came home and promptly set off an adorable domestic disputed wherein each called the other a faggot and told them to pack their shit and GTFO.

As custodian of all things feminine, it fell to me to explain to the Blonde that the appropriate response to finding your spouse in heels and your dinner on the table is to give her a pearl necklace.

*runs off, giggling*

Side note/postscript: apparently I mispronounce “necklace” but the Blonde won’t tell me what [he thinks] I’m doing wrong. I’ve given up trying to guess. He’s a goddamn Texan anyway, what would he know ‘bout sayin’ stuff right y’all?

“What is *UP* with those two?!” Queries Two-of-Three after not many episodes of Downton Abbey.

Of course, there is something about their relationship, isn’t there.  At first we thought they had to be related, but that isn’t it.  And despite the fact that they are very much the antagonists of the piece, I love their relationship.  They might be evil, but despite the differences in age and gender and orientation (So far as we know about O’Brien, who never expresses an interest in anyone), they are evil in compatible ways.  Kindred spirits.  

Nobody would get it if we dressed as them for Halloween :(

The Blonde has been socializing without me. This is emphatically a good thing - he was in a Fringe show and it would be weird if he made it all the way through without making any friends.

And socializing with them is really the best way to deal with post-show blues. When you’re in a play you have this desperate exaggerated closeness that just *disappears* when the show is done, and that came make you feel bereft.

And I haven’t been much fun lately. Under the pressure of the loss of my home and car, and dealing with all the insurance bullshit, and regular life stuff, I have been… depressed.

Fuck, that is a SCARY word :/

Anyway, he’s been jogging with a girl. And today he’s out for coffee with someone. I’m stuck in this stupid office with nothing to do but compose blog entries on my phone - I couldn’t be out for coffee now even if I had been invited!

Still. He’s *MY* Blonde. I found him first, love him best, am better-loved, and will be here when you are an amusing memory.

RAWR!

The Carpenter’s cousin’s wife had a kid from a previous relationship. Actually she had two. Found out she was preggers with #2 after a week of dating the Carpenter-cousin. Scandalous!

Anyway, the older kid was always a cool kid, into games and manga and anime and whatnot. We used to get her kanji flashcards for Xmas, and she was in our lottery-win fantasies as “we’d send her to harajuku”. But she did a weird thing these past few years. She grew up, and became a cool grownup who is into games and manga and anime.

And she is a kindred spirit. She has this semi-boyfriend who is semi-gay? Seriously, I have no idea. It’s the sort of thing the It’s Complicated setting on FB was invented for. I’ve heard rumours and innuendo and a few things from the horse’s mouth.

Of course I tease The Blonde mercilessly about it. I suspect The Blonde fetishizes straight boys a bit, in a perverse inversion of my fascination with him and The Brunette. It’s a tragic yearning thing – so pretty, so forever out of reach! I get it. So here is this boy, who we will call Timberlake (I know, right?!), who may or may not be ‘on the menu’, so to speak.

It was enough to drag The Blonde out of his post-show depression hidey-hole. Then The Brunette came after his work. There was no flirting (I think Timberlake isn’t allowed to flirt or fuck without permission from Grownup Cool Kid) but there was this sort of… parallel play. Like what toddlers do. And because we are talking about three colossal geeks, it was basically a non-competitive comparison of relative nerdiness.

The Carpenter did not participate. Maybe he sensed there was a sizing-up happening that he could not partake in. Maybe too many of his deck-building games were lost in the fire. Maybe he’s just more of a tabletop geek.

Anyway, it was fun and cute. I want to take them all out on another playdate.

And then texted him a picture:

I have been instructed to start maintaining this blog again. It’s hard because the last few months have been tragically wacky-adventure-free, and because the whole point was to sort of muse on gender and sexuality and relationships, and there just comes a point where you’re beating a dead horse.
Then it gets hard to avoid violating people’s privacy, even your own. It seems to me that the day I start bitching about The Carpenter on the internet I should probably just give him that Divorce Brick I’ve been promising him.
Did I tell you I’ve been working in a family law office? Can I introduce you to my new product, the Divorce Brick? You clobber your soon-to-be-ex in the head with it. Faster, easier and cheaper than a traditional divorce.
Did you know that women took over the world? It’s true, apparently. The Matriarchy triumphed, but generously allowed men to keep their places in politics, business, law enforcement, military, judiciary and community leadership. We took family law, planted our flag in it, and promptly went mad with power.
Apparently, any woman can impregnate herself (?!) and then accuse any random guy of being the father. And to think I pegged it on The Carpenter when there are wealthier men and Colin Farrell out there… Anyway, then the poor guy has no choice but pay eighteen years of child support to this random chick. Babies for profit.
I musta missed the Feminist Matriarch Memo to Card-Carrying Man-Hating Members informing me of my new options, because if I could have rolling around in a pile of pudgy , profitable babies right now, I’d be doing THAT. Instead I am here. Doing this.
Could be worse. Poor Brunette hadta take a job at an outbound call center. Surveys, not sales, but still. His bitter little heart shriveled three sizes that day.

I have noticed that every other woman I see hanging out with GayBoys(tm) is younger and prettier than me.  I am beginning to worry that my Boys could do better.  I have a nice car, and I have certain perspectives that can only really be bought with time and experience, but honestly I usually feel like I get more out of our relationship than they do.

In high school I had a friend who had a secret boyfriend.  She was a soft, doughy, pathos-inducing girl whose stepfather was always left alone with her right before she “Tripped and hit her eye on the doorknob”, and he was a hunky popular boy who would be sweet as pie to her when they were alone, but would not acknowlege her otherwise.  AND he had an official girlfriend, but they “weren’t close”.

They “weren’t fucking”, actually.  Not my friend and this boy.  They totally were fucking.  But the matched set/popular girl was not putting out, so my friend got to be the secret girlfriend who did.

I watch our relationship for signs that I am a secret girlfriend.  Not in the sexual intimacy sense, but in actual real-life measures: look at their FB timelines.  I see myself, a goofy-looking elderly woman, grinning in the background of their lives.  Roller skating with The Brunette.  At pride with The Blonde.  Our relationship may be inexplicable, ineffable, and a lot of other things that start with I-N-E and end with A-B-L-E, but there it is.

(Except I totally put out, eh)