Diary of a Sex-Starved Pseudo-Mennonite, Part 17

Braless and hoping to outrun a Monistat 7 flood, I took myself on a date. I turned onto the street I thought I wanted, found it closed, but a parking spot beckoned before the blockade. I witnessed a downtown parking white whale; a cheap, metered, all day spot that still took coins, the kind of meter I thought had been eradicated once pot was legalized and downtown boomed.

I used to make modesty provisions for the short dress I was wearing. Cropped leggings, bike shorts, something to cover my nether regions should the wind blow. You never realize how often it does until you are wearing a dress. I did none of that for my date. I wore underwear, grudgingly, but only to sandbag the pending flood. Over the course of my life, a handful of degenerates have seen my lady parts. Why deprive the good people of this town?

I was taking me to my favorite restaurant, the back drop to many past birthdays and anniversaries and my engagement celebration. I never sat outside before, overlooking the falls. If you've read my blog in sequence, you already know why.

I had the best time. As the lunch crowd filed in, I determined I was the only patio person on a date. Business D-bags deployed shades to leer in anonymity (they thought). Frustrated matrons shifted and frowned. I had bubbly, the big shrimp cocktail, and a signature pea salad. I watched a marmot gobble a carrot. I left when the bees told me to.

I went back inside to a favored shop and loaded up on healing stones. Each arm braceleted with secret powers like Wonder Woman, at home I laid on the sectional and just existed. I felt so calm. So calm that I did nothing for hours, except I added music at some point. Daisy, ever loyal, played wingman to my healing. She does nothing all the time. No wonder she's so happy.

I put a stone under my pillow to help me sleep. It worked. I put some in front of photos of loved ones. My phone has been pinging ever since. Friends who'd gone silent. Relations who don't respond. Suddenly everyone wanted a piece of the peaceful puppy party.

I put myself first and gave in to this wackadoo stone business and I feel fucking amazing. Almost unperturbable. The elusive inner stillness missing in Part 13 was now curled up inside me, a cream-fed kitten.

I even approached this blog differently. Instead of delivering it like an urgently upchucked exorcism, I let it wash over me all week, taking notes here, shuffling words there, languishing in inspiration instead of trying to jail it on arrival--a stenographer at gunpoint.

I keep thinking of this blog as the "Song of Myself." I have not lingered on Whitman's seminal work (emphasis on the semen from what I understand), just read it quickly for eons-old assignments, but I feel like I am singing my song, my first album, my very long opera underwater in a tiny pet store fish bowl and only the special kids who walk past my rhythmic circles on the way to a gerbil can hear what I am doing and stop to listen and swim with me.

I have been experiencing perfect timing. Deliveries arriving, pleasantly prompt. Others suggesting to me ideas I've hoped they would have. Sending emails and texts and already knowing the favorable response I will receive, even to atypical and self-serving requests. I got an email back at work Tuesday that started "You must have ESP because..." I agreed with her that I did. Smiley-face. I arrived at work that day to a new double rainbow screen saver and my boss saying repeatedly I had perfect timing because she was on the phone with a patient she didn't know how to help, but I would. And I did.

What if my every movement, thought, habit and desire is a ritual and a spell and I am just discovering this now?

I'm talking Nascar pit crew good timing. My internet crashed 4 mininutes before a meeting but I got back online just in time. I know who is texting me as my phone fires across the room. My projects wrap up effortlessly just as I need to move to the next thing. I find myself shrugging into this new state of being like the coziest, most fetching sweatah evah. I'm in the flow and I just know.

As I dust for 3 minutes and notice my throat closing, I am reminded of the reasons I am not meant to be a housekeeper. Beyond profound dust allergies, a childhood physician diagnosed me with a missing shoulder muscle. A birth defect. He said it meant I should not vacuum or mow lawns. I asked to get that in writing. He laughed. Only my mother believes me on this because she was there. My ex-husband thought the whole thing suspicious. As has every healthcare provider since. Perhaps the diagnosis is shaky. But wouldn't someone who loved you believe you anyway and want you to not have an allergy attack and a shoulder ache? Housekeepers are inexpensive. I know this cuz I used to be one. Never again. My stones and my puppy want something different for me. Something that fits like custom cashmere.

Until Next Time, Sweeties!

Ness Sweet Ness