Things I Think About - Saga of the Puppets
I process in this bizarre obsessive way. Been true quite a while now. I fixate on unusual moments I've flagged and assemble and reassemble them until a truer picture emerges in my brain and I can name things for what they are, deal with them, and keep going.
This is the biggest difference I've discovered between my mental health shit and bi-polar. The folks I know with bi-polar are more likely to talk themselves out of things and ignore them, assuming their brain is just trying to kill them. Then focus on something they can do and keep busy.
I do that too. The talk myself out of things and keep busy routine, but the thoughts always keep swirling in my backbrain one way or another until I've finished some form of mental picture that allows me to deal with it for real and move on. The difficulty with that approach is that sometimes too many things are swirling at the same time and they have to be separated out. Knowing which feelings go with which things is very complicated when you have a backload of feelings that remain unprocessed.
And that was the epic place I was in when I started festival. Too many horrible things had come to a head before I moved to the Twin Cities on my own. My family was a disaster of walking dead due to my father basically checking out on us and never coming back. My freshman year of college, he decided just before Thanksgiving that he was going down to Florida to go through a program to learn how to be a golf instructor. He was so excited about this potential change of career, and to be fair, he really is good at coaching others with golf, though definitely eccentric about it.
Anyway, I drove home from school that Wednesday night before, saw the family for a few hours, then dad decided he was so excited about his Florida plans that he left that very night. Skipped that Thanksgiving with the family and started his road trip early. And that was only the beginning of him physically flaking out on us in a significantly symbolic way that winter. He had promised mom that he was going to secure an income down there and send money home. Never happened. He was gone the whole winter, got the certificate from the course, and did who knows what else while he was away that six months.
And I was dating that jock boy long distance while I was away at school. We'd hooked up at a Bible study the spring prior. He was actually flirting with another girl all night, but he interested me because he "wasn't from around here" and he was at a Bible study. So I started up a conversation with him outside afterward and we dated all summer prior to me leaving for school. I heard weird rumors that winter, and he told me a story of him "just dancing" with a girl at a club and someone shouting for them to get a room, but it wasn't like that... uh-huh. I believed him at the time, but I didn't have enough data.
Came home from my freshman year, after taking out student loans because my family is poor as sin due pretty much entirely to my dad's behavior, and freaked out when I got the statements totaling my debt from just one year of school. Little did I know how ugly that would get ten years later...
Then, in July, jock boy and I drove out to Ohio to visit his extended family. And honestly, it was his family that really got to me, even from the beginning. He was living with his older brother, his wife and kids here in MN, and I loved their family. Our first date involved hanging out with them and playing dominoes. If jock boy had truly been like his older brother, I coulda gotten sucked into that way of life.
Anyway, we stayed with his folks on that visit, and they were definitely on the more conservative Christian side of things, but it was a fun adventure. And he proposed to me sitting in a lifeguard chair looking out on the great lake. And that night we got physical. But I was on the rag, so I figured it wouldn't result in sex and we were at his parents house. And it all resulted in a very awkward story where his mom found us and assumed some things. Things I didn't actually have a chance to enjoy because of the awkward story, but this is a very long theme in my life. I get in trouble for something without even having the fun part that should go with it.
After we got engaged, I found out from one of the girls at the camp where he worked with the horses that summer that she suspected something was going on with one of the lifeguards. And I chose to blow it off, because I'm a dumbass like that sometimes. But shortly later got confirmation that it was all true, he and I had this long talk, and a week later I gave him back the ring. I was waitressing at the time and a couple tables had asked me about it and then my engagement, and I didn't know what to tell them... Shortly thereafter, I moved to the Cities, started waitressing there, and told him he knew where to find me if he wanted to fix things.
And that was probably the most fucked up winter of my life. When I moved out of the house, I told mom I thought she should divorce dad. I was disillusioned with everything and didn't know which way was up. I would do this thing where I'd be crying driving in the car to work, pull in and set my face for the generic waitress show, work all night, drive to the video store, watch movies til 3-5 in the morning and wake up and cry again. New Year's day that year I spent two hours sobbing on the floor with my body so heavy I didn't feel I could make myself move.
Sometime that spring, a couple of college friends visited me for the weekend in the Cities and brought along Stargirl. From that point forward, she took an active interest in me and we started sharing stories and poetry and music and found ways to hang out that whole summer. Then I got into a car accident on my birthday that spring and my neck got all messed up, so I couldn't carry the trays at the restaurant. At that point I started hostessing and looking for other work.
Because all my human interaction that winter had been the shallow customer service type, I decided that I needed to look into nannying as being around kids would make me feel more human again. In the interim, I got involved with this low level artistic group, the details of which are ironic and something I always figured you would make fun of me for, for good reason. I landed a nannying gig for a family in Edina that started at the end of August, and the artistic group was running a booth at Festival for a weekend as a fund raiser. One of the guys was heading out the costume shop to get the costumes and did I want to come along? Hell yes I did.
In the process, I got to talking to Dana about how they ran the shop. I had a work study in the costume shop my freshman year, and us talking dirty details led to her offering me a job on the spot. Which I took. I started about a month before the season began. The plan was that by the time I started my nannying job, I would just be out at Fest on weekends, but participated in what was left of the seasonal build during the week until that point.
While all that was happening, I discovered that jock boy had given me an STD. HPV, to be precise. We'd taken our clothes off, so even though I'd never had the full fun, I did have a raging external break out. Which I had burned off that summer. But oh my god did I hate myself and think I was some fucking damaged goods on so many fucking levels.
And that's the end result of me attempting to play the virgin game and be a good girl and save myself for marriage. I was a fucking virgin with an STD. Game over. Disqualified.
But working in the costume shop was hella good for me. I was exposed to all kinds of new, cool music. I will always credit Stacy for introducing me at the time to the Bloodhound Gang. And one of the girls was bisexual, and I was exposed to what I considered at the time "how the rest of the world handles sexuality". And her friend Lauren ended up being a guru for me of how to ethically handle sexuality and all sorts of other things. But even then, I was learning about things not actually doing them.
One of the dudes working grounds crew that summer started hitting on me and I spent most of that season flirting with him. That all led to this one night in a caravan? Where I told him about the STD and my undies stayed on and I never actually heard from him again. Found out from a mutual friend later that he kinda targets virgins, so thank heaven for large insults? Cause that would sucked more the other way around? Fuck if I know.
But that season in the costume shop, these puppets would come in at the beginning and end of each day with the costumes. We would launder them overnight and send them back out. And I just liked those puppet guys and kinda wanted to hang out with them. And I talked to one of them on site that year, but they kinda blew me off and indicated they had a girlfriend, but their friend was available. Then that one did this awkward little move, but it seemed I had just been passed off dismissively, and that wasn't where I was at, so I let it go.
Later that season, a different puppet guy, Long Haired Geek Boy, started talking to me at this event. And he was nice enough and we nerded out on theatre and geek things and he asked me out. And I said no, I wasn't in the place for it, but I would be interested in hanging out. And we hung out in the off season. And he brought me juice once when I was sick. And he took me goth clubbing.
And the clubbing was a big deal. I had all this anger and frustration I didn't even know what to do with. And I was coming to terms with the fact that I wished my father would just die and get it over with. Something I've never stopped feeling, by the way. My greatest fear is that my mother will die before him, being the caretaker and all, and I will never ever ever be able to forgive him if that's how that story ends... So I threw out all my happy little beliefs about being a good girl, with happy endings and unreasonable expectations, and tried to figure out what reasonable expectations actually were.
And over that winter, I was still hung up on grounds crew guy because things had been left hanging. And I wondered if I cared that that one puppet guy had a girlfriend, and I spent a lot of time hanging out with Stargirl when were in the same state. And on top of nannying, I started working some nights at a lesbian owned coffee shop where I could bring in my own tunes and put them on random all night. I liked it there. They had a sign over their door that said "Everyone Welcome".
The next festival season, I went back to college. I still worked fest on the weekends, but after a year of nannying, I was ready to go back to school and figure out some things about myself and my faith, and then figure out what came next in my life. And that season, the puppet with the girlfriend was now married... Stargirl had been increasing some pressure with me that summer, and while I loved her, I knew I didn't feel that way. I was very sexually repressed, but I also didn't want her that way. That said, I made her a costume for fest that year and I had no problem holding her hand publicly. She asked me about it later, and I told her I didn't care what people thought about my orientation. If they gave a shit, they'd ask. At which point she told me I was sooooo naive, and I responded I didn't care.
At the end of that season, Long Haired Geek Boy asked me out again, and I agreed to it. But I told him I couldn't promise him forever, just that I would try it out. And he was 10 years older than me, didn't give me any crap about having sex (something I still hadn't tried out), but did encourage me to start reading Dan Savage. Stargirl freaked the fuck out and stopped talking to me at school, and I didn't blame her for being upset that I started seeing that dude in particular, but I had to do something and he seemed safe enough for me to figure some shit out.
And I met people because of him. Even at fest, he'd been out there a while and so I got to start hanging out with some of the established performers a whole lot sooner in after hours meals and the like. In retrospect, his Concierge character makes me laugh, because that was his whole thing with me, too.
That winter I started having sex, which is a different completely awkward story, and was the beginning of my mom shunning me. We had two "conversations" on that topic. That fall, before anything had even started on that front in my relationship, she asked me where I stayed on the weekends I was visiting the Cities. I answered "At his house". That spring, after things actually had started, I said something about putting on a few pounds, and her response was "There are certain medications, which I'm sure you're on, that will do that." That is all she and I ever talked on that topic. But from that point forward, she stopped talking to me about MY life.
By fest the next year, married puppet guy now had a kid, and as far as I was concerned was not even something to think about anymore. Though he had cut off all his long hair that winter, and when LHGB and I saw him, I knew puppet guy was about to receive endless amounts of shit. LHGB has some cultish beliefs about long hair. So before he even got one word out of his mouth, I said "Well hey there, Sexy Bald Man". Because LHGB was wrong to give him shit about that hair cut. So very wrong, and I didn't want to hear it. And from that point forward that one puppet guy was now constantly Sexy Bald Man where I was concerned.
And that season, I hung out with all the puppet guys more. And you were the one who started asking questions. Usually in the car on the way to or from dinner. You were the one who commented that you'd both thought I was gay. And it's the only moment I ever cared someone had thought that. You were the one who made some comment about good girls gone bad wherein I raised my eyebrow in a bored way and shook my head like that summed up the situation... You were the one who made all the real moves of any kind. You were also the one I expected to figure my shit out, which I was avoiding. As far as I was concerned, I was a walking, inexperienced, disaster.
LHGB and I opened up our relationship for outside play after I came back from my costuming internship in DC. I spent that time in DC figuring out my sexual wiring, overcoming my repression and figuring out how to climax. That summer at the geek convention, a dude started hitting on me. He was confident and great flirt and late in the weekend he kissed me. At which point I went straight to LHGB, told him what had happened, that I enjoyed myself and was kinda interested in more of the same, and his response was sure as long as that freedom extended both ways. He had indicated early on that he was open to such ideas. At the time, I responded by bawling for an hour or so. In retrospect, I probably should have ended the relationship around that point, but I considered it a fairy tale to expect anyone else was gonna be any different, and adjusted my expectations.
LHGB and I moved in together once I finished school, and at that point my mom stopped telling me when she was going to be in the Cities and didn't set foot in my home. So I realized that I needed some form of alternative family support and LHGB and I started talking about getting married without telling anyone. I thought it was meaningless. Marriage was a big ol' joke and the paper was a formality. And you two puppets didn't help on that front. Playing your flirty, meaningless games while leaving your wives at home to mind the kids. That's certainly not what I wanted. I hate being left at home and missing the fun shit. And I didn't want my mom to know I got married. It was meaningless and I didn't want her to start treating me differently like my relationship was suddenly valid in some way. And he didn't want his best friend or the geek social circle to know.
That spring, The Dregs were working a one weekend fest and out there we ran into another fest band and hung out socially. That's when I first met my goddess and the Viking Tenor. It wasn't until the regular festival season the following fall, that VT and I started flirting hardcore. Halfway through the season he and I planned a night off site together. LHGB was in the know and made his own plans for that night. LHGB and I got married in a friends house, played board games, ordered pizza, never made any promises and signed a document the following Friday.
The next day, at closing gate show, was the rose show. Not only did I realize his affection for me was all spectacle, no content. I also realized he wanted everyone at fest to know about us, just not everyone outside of fest. And he'd pulled that shit in front of VT, in front of all these other people, after spending our time walking toward the front gate asking my advice on how to hit on another girl. And I went through an emotional shut down and focused only on keeping my shit together until we got back to the van where I lost it. And not only did I start weeping uncontrollably, I spent the majority of my conversation with LHGB telling him "it's okay. It's not your fault. It was lovely. I just didn't want that. I don't like being a spectacle in front of other people."
It works like that too. When I lose my shit, I have to talk the other person down...
And I saw you standing outside of the van, out of the corner of my eye. And I remember wondering if SBM was there too, because he seemed the sort of dude I could just cuddle up to. And how was I going to explain myself to you?
Later that night, you pulled me away from the talent show for a walk. And we mostly said nothing. Then you asked me that question, and I'm not sure I even responded. I didn't have an answer, but it was a clean, important question. One I'd just never asked myself.
And after that season, I started hanging out with VT more, realized I stopped caring about telling LHGB what was even going on, and that I needed to end things. So I ended things with VT first, told LHGB that we needed to fix our relationship or we needed to end it, and thought I had another year in me. That turned into a month before I made the call that it was over. And ending that relationship turned into me becoming isolated form a social circle, yet again. But Quiche invited me out to the house for the weekend, and I met my goddess for real. And I wasn't sure what would happen with VT, though I started hanging out with him again.
That spring, I met TJ and I chased his ass down. See, out at fest there are all these dude pairs. These little bromances. TJ had lost his, and he reminded me a bit of SBM, and there was the whole fire thing and the excellent sense of humor. And he was smart and interesting and well traveled. Problem is, he started detaching from fest when his bromance out there ended. So I spent that first season we were dating out there attempting to find different ways for him to reconnect with the place. The Toad was my go to guy on that front.
And I remember this one night that season where we were all hanging out in a group, and one of the girls was having a horrible season due to Douchebag Toby. And you were just standing there while she acted out, and taking it, because you knew what was going on. And I knew what was going on with her too, and I was oddly proud of you in that moment. And that moment, that moment after all the time of us talking on line or emailing, was the first moment I realized you were actually a giant softy.
You always seemed impatient when I was hanging out with you. You'd get up and stalk around, or get agitated. And you'd get impatient with other people's drama at times, so I always assumed that if I got into too much of my own bullshit with you, you'd get bored and walk away. Oh, but I liked you. Unti
EDIT
Well, I went to add a footnote and lost a bunch of the closing text.
None of the above changes the fact that you are capable of burning someone mercilessly if you perceive them as a threat. I never meant to become one, but I can't be shocked that TJ did everything in his power to continue to interfere with MY friendships that didn't revolve around him. Friends was always enough for me, but apparently I don't get to have that either.
This is the biggest difference I've discovered between my mental health shit and bi-polar. The folks I know with bi-polar are more likely to talk themselves out of things and ignore them, assuming their brain is just trying to kill them. Then focus on something they can do and keep busy.
I do that too. The talk myself out of things and keep busy routine, but the thoughts always keep swirling in my backbrain one way or another until I've finished some form of mental picture that allows me to deal with it for real and move on. The difficulty with that approach is that sometimes too many things are swirling at the same time and they have to be separated out. Knowing which feelings go with which things is very complicated when you have a backload of feelings that remain unprocessed.
And that was the epic place I was in when I started festival. Too many horrible things had come to a head before I moved to the Twin Cities on my own. My family was a disaster of walking dead due to my father basically checking out on us and never coming back. My freshman year of college, he decided just before Thanksgiving that he was going down to Florida to go through a program to learn how to be a golf instructor. He was so excited about this potential change of career, and to be fair, he really is good at coaching others with golf, though definitely eccentric about it.
Anyway, I drove home from school that Wednesday night before, saw the family for a few hours, then dad decided he was so excited about his Florida plans that he left that very night. Skipped that Thanksgiving with the family and started his road trip early. And that was only the beginning of him physically flaking out on us in a significantly symbolic way that winter. He had promised mom that he was going to secure an income down there and send money home. Never happened. He was gone the whole winter, got the certificate from the course, and did who knows what else while he was away that six months.
And I was dating that jock boy long distance while I was away at school. We'd hooked up at a Bible study the spring prior. He was actually flirting with another girl all night, but he interested me because he "wasn't from around here" and he was at a Bible study. So I started up a conversation with him outside afterward and we dated all summer prior to me leaving for school. I heard weird rumors that winter, and he told me a story of him "just dancing" with a girl at a club and someone shouting for them to get a room, but it wasn't like that... uh-huh. I believed him at the time, but I didn't have enough data.
Came home from my freshman year, after taking out student loans because my family is poor as sin due pretty much entirely to my dad's behavior, and freaked out when I got the statements totaling my debt from just one year of school. Little did I know how ugly that would get ten years later...
Then, in July, jock boy and I drove out to Ohio to visit his extended family. And honestly, it was his family that really got to me, even from the beginning. He was living with his older brother, his wife and kids here in MN, and I loved their family. Our first date involved hanging out with them and playing dominoes. If jock boy had truly been like his older brother, I coulda gotten sucked into that way of life.
Anyway, we stayed with his folks on that visit, and they were definitely on the more conservative Christian side of things, but it was a fun adventure. And he proposed to me sitting in a lifeguard chair looking out on the great lake. And that night we got physical. But I was on the rag, so I figured it wouldn't result in sex and we were at his parents house. And it all resulted in a very awkward story where his mom found us and assumed some things. Things I didn't actually have a chance to enjoy because of the awkward story, but this is a very long theme in my life. I get in trouble for something without even having the fun part that should go with it.
After we got engaged, I found out from one of the girls at the camp where he worked with the horses that summer that she suspected something was going on with one of the lifeguards. And I chose to blow it off, because I'm a dumbass like that sometimes. But shortly later got confirmation that it was all true, he and I had this long talk, and a week later I gave him back the ring. I was waitressing at the time and a couple tables had asked me about it and then my engagement, and I didn't know what to tell them... Shortly thereafter, I moved to the Cities, started waitressing there, and told him he knew where to find me if he wanted to fix things.
And that was probably the most fucked up winter of my life. When I moved out of the house, I told mom I thought she should divorce dad. I was disillusioned with everything and didn't know which way was up. I would do this thing where I'd be crying driving in the car to work, pull in and set my face for the generic waitress show, work all night, drive to the video store, watch movies til 3-5 in the morning and wake up and cry again. New Year's day that year I spent two hours sobbing on the floor with my body so heavy I didn't feel I could make myself move.
Sometime that spring, a couple of college friends visited me for the weekend in the Cities and brought along Stargirl. From that point forward, she took an active interest in me and we started sharing stories and poetry and music and found ways to hang out that whole summer. Then I got into a car accident on my birthday that spring and my neck got all messed up, so I couldn't carry the trays at the restaurant. At that point I started hostessing and looking for other work.
Because all my human interaction that winter had been the shallow customer service type, I decided that I needed to look into nannying as being around kids would make me feel more human again. In the interim, I got involved with this low level artistic group, the details of which are ironic and something I always figured you would make fun of me for, for good reason. I landed a nannying gig for a family in Edina that started at the end of August, and the artistic group was running a booth at Festival for a weekend as a fund raiser. One of the guys was heading out the costume shop to get the costumes and did I want to come along? Hell yes I did.
In the process, I got to talking to Dana about how they ran the shop. I had a work study in the costume shop my freshman year, and us talking dirty details led to her offering me a job on the spot. Which I took. I started about a month before the season began. The plan was that by the time I started my nannying job, I would just be out at Fest on weekends, but participated in what was left of the seasonal build during the week until that point.
While all that was happening, I discovered that jock boy had given me an STD. HPV, to be precise. We'd taken our clothes off, so even though I'd never had the full fun, I did have a raging external break out. Which I had burned off that summer. But oh my god did I hate myself and think I was some fucking damaged goods on so many fucking levels.
And that's the end result of me attempting to play the virgin game and be a good girl and save myself for marriage. I was a fucking virgin with an STD. Game over. Disqualified.
But working in the costume shop was hella good for me. I was exposed to all kinds of new, cool music. I will always credit Stacy for introducing me at the time to the Bloodhound Gang. And one of the girls was bisexual, and I was exposed to what I considered at the time "how the rest of the world handles sexuality". And her friend Lauren ended up being a guru for me of how to ethically handle sexuality and all sorts of other things. But even then, I was learning about things not actually doing them.
One of the dudes working grounds crew that summer started hitting on me and I spent most of that season flirting with him. That all led to this one night in a caravan? Where I told him about the STD and my undies stayed on and I never actually heard from him again. Found out from a mutual friend later that he kinda targets virgins, so thank heaven for large insults? Cause that would sucked more the other way around? Fuck if I know.
But that season in the costume shop, these puppets would come in at the beginning and end of each day with the costumes. We would launder them overnight and send them back out. And I just liked those puppet guys and kinda wanted to hang out with them. And I talked to one of them on site that year, but they kinda blew me off and indicated they had a girlfriend, but their friend was available. Then that one did this awkward little move, but it seemed I had just been passed off dismissively, and that wasn't where I was at, so I let it go.
Later that season, a different puppet guy, Long Haired Geek Boy, started talking to me at this event. And he was nice enough and we nerded out on theatre and geek things and he asked me out. And I said no, I wasn't in the place for it, but I would be interested in hanging out. And we hung out in the off season. And he brought me juice once when I was sick. And he took me goth clubbing.
And the clubbing was a big deal. I had all this anger and frustration I didn't even know what to do with. And I was coming to terms with the fact that I wished my father would just die and get it over with. Something I've never stopped feeling, by the way. My greatest fear is that my mother will die before him, being the caretaker and all, and I will never ever ever be able to forgive him if that's how that story ends... So I threw out all my happy little beliefs about being a good girl, with happy endings and unreasonable expectations, and tried to figure out what reasonable expectations actually were.
And over that winter, I was still hung up on grounds crew guy because things had been left hanging. And I wondered if I cared that that one puppet guy had a girlfriend, and I spent a lot of time hanging out with Stargirl when were in the same state. And on top of nannying, I started working some nights at a lesbian owned coffee shop where I could bring in my own tunes and put them on random all night. I liked it there. They had a sign over their door that said "Everyone Welcome".
The next festival season, I went back to college. I still worked fest on the weekends, but after a year of nannying, I was ready to go back to school and figure out some things about myself and my faith, and then figure out what came next in my life. And that season, the puppet with the girlfriend was now married... Stargirl had been increasing some pressure with me that summer, and while I loved her, I knew I didn't feel that way. I was very sexually repressed, but I also didn't want her that way. That said, I made her a costume for fest that year and I had no problem holding her hand publicly. She asked me about it later, and I told her I didn't care what people thought about my orientation. If they gave a shit, they'd ask. At which point she told me I was sooooo naive, and I responded I didn't care.
At the end of that season, Long Haired Geek Boy asked me out again, and I agreed to it. But I told him I couldn't promise him forever, just that I would try it out. And he was 10 years older than me, didn't give me any crap about having sex (something I still hadn't tried out), but did encourage me to start reading Dan Savage. Stargirl freaked the fuck out and stopped talking to me at school, and I didn't blame her for being upset that I started seeing that dude in particular, but I had to do something and he seemed safe enough for me to figure some shit out.
And I met people because of him. Even at fest, he'd been out there a while and so I got to start hanging out with some of the established performers a whole lot sooner in after hours meals and the like. In retrospect, his Concierge character makes me laugh, because that was his whole thing with me, too.
That winter I started having sex, which is a different completely awkward story, and was the beginning of my mom shunning me. We had two "conversations" on that topic. That fall, before anything had even started on that front in my relationship, she asked me where I stayed on the weekends I was visiting the Cities. I answered "At his house". That spring, after things actually had started, I said something about putting on a few pounds, and her response was "There are certain medications, which I'm sure you're on, that will do that." That is all she and I ever talked on that topic. But from that point forward, she stopped talking to me about MY life.
By fest the next year, married puppet guy now had a kid, and as far as I was concerned was not even something to think about anymore. Though he had cut off all his long hair that winter, and when LHGB and I saw him, I knew puppet guy was about to receive endless amounts of shit. LHGB has some cultish beliefs about long hair. So before he even got one word out of his mouth, I said "Well hey there, Sexy Bald Man". Because LHGB was wrong to give him shit about that hair cut. So very wrong, and I didn't want to hear it. And from that point forward that one puppet guy was now constantly Sexy Bald Man where I was concerned.
And that season, I hung out with all the puppet guys more. And you were the one who started asking questions. Usually in the car on the way to or from dinner. You were the one who commented that you'd both thought I was gay. And it's the only moment I ever cared someone had thought that. You were the one who made some comment about good girls gone bad wherein I raised my eyebrow in a bored way and shook my head like that summed up the situation... You were the one who made all the real moves of any kind. You were also the one I expected to figure my shit out, which I was avoiding. As far as I was concerned, I was a walking, inexperienced, disaster.
LHGB and I opened up our relationship for outside play after I came back from my costuming internship in DC. I spent that time in DC figuring out my sexual wiring, overcoming my repression and figuring out how to climax. That summer at the geek convention, a dude started hitting on me. He was confident and great flirt and late in the weekend he kissed me. At which point I went straight to LHGB, told him what had happened, that I enjoyed myself and was kinda interested in more of the same, and his response was sure as long as that freedom extended both ways. He had indicated early on that he was open to such ideas. At the time, I responded by bawling for an hour or so. In retrospect, I probably should have ended the relationship around that point, but I considered it a fairy tale to expect anyone else was gonna be any different, and adjusted my expectations.
LHGB and I moved in together once I finished school, and at that point my mom stopped telling me when she was going to be in the Cities and didn't set foot in my home. So I realized that I needed some form of alternative family support and LHGB and I started talking about getting married without telling anyone. I thought it was meaningless. Marriage was a big ol' joke and the paper was a formality. And you two puppets didn't help on that front. Playing your flirty, meaningless games while leaving your wives at home to mind the kids. That's certainly not what I wanted. I hate being left at home and missing the fun shit. And I didn't want my mom to know I got married. It was meaningless and I didn't want her to start treating me differently like my relationship was suddenly valid in some way. And he didn't want his best friend or the geek social circle to know.
That spring, The Dregs were working a one weekend fest and out there we ran into another fest band and hung out socially. That's when I first met my goddess and the Viking Tenor. It wasn't until the regular festival season the following fall, that VT and I started flirting hardcore. Halfway through the season he and I planned a night off site together. LHGB was in the know and made his own plans for that night. LHGB and I got married in a friends house, played board games, ordered pizza, never made any promises and signed a document the following Friday.
The next day, at closing gate show, was the rose show. Not only did I realize his affection for me was all spectacle, no content. I also realized he wanted everyone at fest to know about us, just not everyone outside of fest. And he'd pulled that shit in front of VT, in front of all these other people, after spending our time walking toward the front gate asking my advice on how to hit on another girl. And I went through an emotional shut down and focused only on keeping my shit together until we got back to the van where I lost it. And not only did I start weeping uncontrollably, I spent the majority of my conversation with LHGB telling him "it's okay. It's not your fault. It was lovely. I just didn't want that. I don't like being a spectacle in front of other people."
It works like that too. When I lose my shit, I have to talk the other person down...
And I saw you standing outside of the van, out of the corner of my eye. And I remember wondering if SBM was there too, because he seemed the sort of dude I could just cuddle up to. And how was I going to explain myself to you?
Later that night, you pulled me away from the talent show for a walk. And we mostly said nothing. Then you asked me that question, and I'm not sure I even responded. I didn't have an answer, but it was a clean, important question. One I'd just never asked myself.
And after that season, I started hanging out with VT more, realized I stopped caring about telling LHGB what was even going on, and that I needed to end things. So I ended things with VT first, told LHGB that we needed to fix our relationship or we needed to end it, and thought I had another year in me. That turned into a month before I made the call that it was over. And ending that relationship turned into me becoming isolated form a social circle, yet again. But Quiche invited me out to the house for the weekend, and I met my goddess for real. And I wasn't sure what would happen with VT, though I started hanging out with him again.
That spring, I met TJ and I chased his ass down. See, out at fest there are all these dude pairs. These little bromances. TJ had lost his, and he reminded me a bit of SBM, and there was the whole fire thing and the excellent sense of humor. And he was smart and interesting and well traveled. Problem is, he started detaching from fest when his bromance out there ended. So I spent that first season we were dating out there attempting to find different ways for him to reconnect with the place. The Toad was my go to guy on that front.
And I remember this one night that season where we were all hanging out in a group, and one of the girls was having a horrible season due to Douchebag Toby. And you were just standing there while she acted out, and taking it, because you knew what was going on. And I knew what was going on with her too, and I was oddly proud of you in that moment. And that moment, that moment after all the time of us talking on line or emailing, was the first moment I realized you were actually a giant softy.
You always seemed impatient when I was hanging out with you. You'd get up and stalk around, or get agitated. And you'd get impatient with other people's drama at times, so I always assumed that if I got into too much of my own bullshit with you, you'd get bored and walk away. Oh, but I liked you. Unti
EDIT
Well, I went to add a footnote and lost a bunch of the closing text.
None of the above changes the fact that you are capable of burning someone mercilessly if you perceive them as a threat. I never meant to become one, but I can't be shocked that TJ did everything in his power to continue to interfere with MY friendships that didn't revolve around him. Friends was always enough for me, but apparently I don't get to have that either.