Diary of a Sex-Starved Pseudo-Mennonite, Part 39

I cannot believe how brave I keep asking myself to be. Sure, Sweet Ness. You had a cheap mortgage and a job with major benefits and a butt-load of perks. You had a comfortable house all to yourself. You could be naked all day and eat candy bars in bed. You could day drink and diddle yourself and dream up implausible personal outcomes without interruption. You even had a late-breaking still-in-his-20's Drummer Boy tell you he loved you. Apparently all that was too easy.

This weekend, Bobby (see Part 8) took a page from Freddy's book and texted me out of the blue. I hadn't heard from him since July, when I believe he was still sussing out a friends with benefits scenario with a future divorcee. Bobby wished me happiness and said he hoped things worked out with me and Drummer Boy. He seemed shocked that us meeting was suddenly essentially off the table due to distance, even though Good Ole Bob seemed in no hurry to meet me when it was practical. He came across as genuinely sad that we probably won't ever have that drink IRL. Oh, Bobby! My allegedly well-endowed sex addict with a heart of gold! You don't know what you got til it's gone.

The benefactress of my new life, Big Al, is famously positive. So positive that those of us carrying dark passengers may have spent considerable energy in junior high and high school giving her a wide berth. I didn't know what she had, but I was afraid it was contagious. Who would I be if I was love and light all the time? How would I stand myself?

Well right about now, all that once inconceivable love and light is saving my fucking bacon. Big Al sends me motivational texts. She tells me how awesome and loved I am. She takes walks with me even though it is not her favorite activity and listens to my voice crack and embraces the vulnerabilities I spill all over the bike path. She treats me like a queen temporarily estranged from her kingdom rather than a spinster loser living in a Star Wars-themed basement bedroom and sleeping with a dog. 

That Star Wars shit is seeping in. I opened a new bank account and could not resist the Darth Vader debit card. Well, who better to be the face of international banking than an evil overlord? When I got my COVID booster, the pharmacist had an expertly bedazzled Star Wars tray he used to tote his shot supplies. He went bonkers for my Vader debit card and when I left saying "The force be with you," he said he was going to start saying that to everyone he pokes. Drummer Boy has an R2-D2 tattoo. I may have mentioned to him that none of his half a dozen tattoos are tough. He pretended I was incorrect. I find his non-threatening tattoos inexplicably endearing.

Drummer Boy has been remote. He hasn't had the time or inclination to speak with me on the phone or video chat. He thinks he can't visit me for Thanksgiving. He can't he can't he can't. Distance is a cruel mistress and that bitch is fucking our shit up.

In case you think you have an iron-clad sense of self, I dare you to leave the region, house, and job you have called home for years with winter coming when you also have no committed partner or children or particularly stable immediate family and see if you still think you know who you are. Good. Fucking. Luck.

This would have been the perfect moment for Bobby to make me an indecent proposal. Put his entrepreneurial dollars to work locking me down as his concubine. Support me, Bobby... I'll make you feel like a billion bitcoins. Plus I cook and clean and have superb taste in music and write a self-indulgent blog. I am a Phi Beta Kappa, graduate-degreed potential perma-date. Oh the inventive scenarios I could whip up, if only given the opportunity and a blank check...

Meanwhile, I apply for jobs at The Onion and places that provide electric bikes in urban areas and staffing agencies and subversive online geek pop culture outlets. I reach out to fundraisers at Rush Hospital and directors at Reader's Digest and international healthcare watchdog publications. In my sweatpants. Willing myself to stay cute rather than slip into the role of CHUBBY unemployed spinster basement-dweller who sleeps with a dog and 7 posters of Luke Skywalker. I hope the force is with me. I needs it.

Until Next Time, Sweeties!

Ness Sweet Ness