Theme/Variation

I'm in a mood.

If the tightness of my shoulders or the noise my teeth are making grinding against one another weren't enough to alert me to the fact that I'm a little off, the fact that A State of Wonder isn't calming me down is a pretty good indication that I'm pissed.

Listening to Bach has always been the auditory equivalent of a warm bubble bath and a glass of wine. My heart rate slows, my breathing deepens, my shoulders relax, and my jaw unclenches.

Except when it isn't.

When Bach can't calm me down it means that my feathers are significantly ruffled, as they seem to be today. I don't know if it's the result of the woman next to me at my 6am Spin class who wouldn't stop moaning (Seriously, you're having too much or not enough fun. Either way, please dial it back a bit.) or the fact that I spent most of my REM sleep last night either screwing my exes or running away from serial killers in Disney World, but I am in a mood. 

Nah. That's a lie. I know the reason.

I've been having a lot of conversations about love and dating recently. The recent revelation that OK Cupid has been screwing around with its users is part of it. Having a bunch of recently single friends is another. A great deal of wine has been downed, tears have been shed, and terrible dating stories have been shared. I've actively listened as people have dissected their dating lives and have dissected my own. The stories change a little bit, but the themes of love, commitment, and family run through all of them. 

Usually, it's the kind of conversation I go for, but hand to God, if I hear one more story of a bad date or have one more person suggest that I try OK Cupid or go out to more bars I will go blind. 

***

"Yeah, you're a few standard deviations away from Midwestern normal." She pauses, and I can see her smirking. "But you're not an outlier yet." 

I'm curled up in bed with a cup of tea and a videochatting with a close friend. She's a fellow born-and-raised-in-fly-over-country. She's trying to talk me down from the edge of an honest-to-goodness panic attack (my first in well over a year). I'm wigging out over the prospect of going back to Wisconsin and sitting at a baby shower with about thirty-five Midwestern women.

Sounds innocuous enough, right? 

Or rather, sounds innocuous enough until you realize you're the only unattached (one of a few unmarried) women in the room, definitely the only one who has no kids, no plans for kids, no significant other, and no plans to ensnare a significant other. 

Put another way, the spinster auntie. At 29. 

It's ridiculous. I know it's ridiculous and that I shouldn't care about it. Truthfully, most of the time I don't. But most of the time I'm somewhere aside from the itty-bitty upper Midwestern town that I grew up in. When I'm living my life in the Twin Cities (a life that I love and wouldn't consider trading for a husband, kids, and white picket fence ever), there are many, many variations on love, commitment, and family.

In a town of 1,200 people? Not so much. 

It's the prospect of coming face to face with that  kind of stoic (antiquated?) Midwestern sensibility that has me breathing into a paper bag . 

***

"So, I mean, I guess if I were to be dating someone I'd want to date someone I'd see really intensely, you know, over the weekend and then just go back to doing my own thing for the rest of the week." I pause, waiting to be excoriated, told this is not how grown-ups do relationships and you're commitment phobic and need to seek therapy and listen to me I'm wiser than you are. 

Instead I'm rewarded by a huge laugh and a "Oh my God. We are totally related."

The only conversation I've had about love and dating recently that hasn't left me researching monastic vows has been with my older brother. The conversation winds on for a long time and touches on everything to how our family makes me feel like a spinster to how dating culture is inherently kind of creepy. Eventually, after a long lull, I tell him what has me disgruntled with every other conversation like this I've been having. 

I'm pretty happy being single. 

I have a job that I like, friends that I adore, I keep busy doing things that I enjoy. And I would like to have someone to take on adventures and have all those giddy ohmygodI'mtotallyfallingforyou feelings and of course I'd like to be having more sex (although, past relationships being any indication . . . well, nevermind) but it's not a priority. Or it's not enough of a need to make me want to go back to online dating or shitty, creepy dating culture at all. And it's not wanting it that is making me feel a little bit crazy, that's causing me to wonder if maybe there isn't something broken that I need to have fixed. 

It's the damndest thing.

It makes my older brother start laughing again and I can practically hear him rolling his eyes as he reminds me that yes, I'm a touch unusual for this part of the country but that if I lived near him, or in any major coastal city no one would think twice about it.

Translated from big brother speak? 

Stop being so goddamn neurotic. 

Or, put another way.

There can be many, many variations on a theme (quit being so goddamn neurotic). 

Say That

My older brother is laughing so hard he sounds like he's choking.

Our family has a strong aversion to talking on the phone, so we don't talk to one another often, but I always enjoy myself when we do catch up. He's the only member of my family I allow myself to be bitchy and sarcastic around. He has a real capacity to make me feel less like the crazy black sheep of the family and more like . . . I don't know, but I always feel better after we've had a conversation. 

I've just let fly with the most sarcastic thing I've said all week, the sort of thing that I would never ever say around another member of my family, the kind of thing that might actually give me pause if I let it slip in mixed company. 

"Just do it," he eventually manages to spit out. "Just once, say that." 

***

I don't like going back to Southeastern Wisconsin. 

I love the state, I love my family, I just don't like making the trip back to Mom and Dad's house. It's a long, tedious drive, and when I get there my folks are inevitably working or getting ready for a major holiday or doing something around the house and I don't get to see them or we end up arguing because we're all holifrazzled. Any friends I had in the area have either moved away or have kids of their own now. I hate, with the heat of a supernova, going for runs in the country. 

I much prefer when they make a trip to Minnesota or we meet one another at the cabin. I like when I can show them the city I'm living in, introduce them to my friends, and generally demonstrate that I'm a successful, happy adult. 

When I go back to their house I become . . . unimpressive. I forget that I am a successful, happy adult and revert back to the quiet, polite, painfully withdrawn kid I used to be. 

***

"That . . . was brutal. Efficient, well conceived, well executed. If you don't mind, I'm just going to go bleed out in the corner." 

One of the things I love and appreciate most about the people I am close to is the fact that I don't feel like I have to pull any punches. The above was someone's response to a (apparently) particularly well-aimed verbal cut. I am momentarily chagrined, afraid that this time I really did let my sarcasm and love of protracted verbal duels get the better of me.

When he assures me that No, really, it was fine. Your ability to skewer people is actually rather impressive it occurs to me that this moment is emblematic of my close relationships, of the reasons I have chosen to care about the people I care about. 

***

"So, Kelly, anyone special in your life?" 

From the time I get south of Madison until the time I cross the border back into Minnesota, I am asked this question approximately 532 times. 

The family members who ask it are, I think, well-meaning enough. But it's one of only two questions they ask. It's never "I heard you're sitting your comprehensive exams, what's that like?" or "You mother told me you're training for a twenty-four hour relay race, what made you decide to do that?" or even "Are you going to catch a Brewers game while you're in town?" Nope. It's invariably: "Is there anyone special in your life?" or, equally frustrating, "When are you going to settle down and start a family?" 

Inevitably my answers are "No" and "Not anytime soon" when I really want to respond with: "Well, I just got an IUD, so I wouldn't count on a baby shower invite anytime soon." 

It's the kind of smartass reply I wouldn't hesitate to make to my friends or my older brother, but it's something I couldn't shouldn't say in front of my extended family. It's the reason I hate going back to Mom and Dad's. I rail constantly about how much I hate being buttoned up and I'm never a stiffer, more guarded, more repressed version of myself than when I'm back in Southeastern Wisconsin. 

The funny, smart, mildly crazy girl who blogs about her sex life and can reduce a grown man to tears with a carefully aimed coup de grace? 

She's in the corner grinding her teeth, getting drunk, and tapping her foot impatiently. For years I've stuck her back in that corner and told her to just sit down and be nice. 

She's the one my older brother is encouraging me to let out of corner, to finally introduce to my extended family. 

And for once, I'm actually considering it. 

The Downsides are Obvious

"So I was wondering if . . . maybe . . . I mean, if you'e comfortable with it . . ."

"Jesus, Kels. Out with it."

My college friends don't stand for a lot of prevarication.

I take a deep breath. "I haven't been sleeping well. I was wondering if we could snuggle a little bit before we fell asleep."

She starts laughing and pulls a pillow into her lap. "Yeah, you weirdo. Come on over."

We turn on a movie and she starts to stroke my hair. "Sorry." I mutter, sleepily. "It's the mild autism. I like to be touched when I'm upset."

She laughs again. "It's not mild autism, Kels. It's called being a human and living alone."

I'm asleep before I can smartmouth back.

***

I've got sex on the brain lately.

As if my writing from April to present left any question of what I'm spending my spare time thinking about.

It's the sudden confluence of a lot of factors, not the least of which is a cessation of hormonal birth control (which, for Christ's sake, can we find a birth control pill for men already?) and (if blogs for ladies are to be believed) the arrival of my 30s and ohmygodthebiologicalneedtopassonmydna. Regardless of the factors, the truth is, quite simply, that I've got sex on the brain. 

Given my current status as a single person and the fact that I literally cannot give it away, I've been a little edgy lately. The downsides are obvious. The upsides, if there are any, are that I'm currently ramping up training for a fall race, so I'm doubly motivated to spend five days a week at the gym or running in circles around the Twin Cities. 

Just in case you're wondering, running eight miles doesn't actually take the edge off. Neither do ice baths, conversations about baseball, or depressing television shows. 

I've never had as much empathy for 13 year old boys as I do right now. 

***

The high-pitched noises I'm making are crazy. 

Kelly Marie, you bourgeoisie,
The French Revolution was a near tragedy.
The peasants had no bread, 
The King lost his head, 
and under Maximillian saw forty-thousand dead. [. . .]

It's my annual Bastille Day party. I love holidays that celebrate the overthrow of tyranny in service of democracy, and my family is part French, so Bastille Day is a big one for me. Every year I get a group of friends together, make a huge meal, quaff a great deal of champagne, and talk at length about  . . . whatever. History. Art. Science.

It's one of my favorite parties, a long, lovely night in with the people I love most in the world. This year we outdid ourselves. Not to brag, but the food was superb, the conversation sparkling, the champagne in abundance. It was warm enough to eat in the garden and it was just a fantastic night.  We were going around the table making toasts to the evening, to the company, to the food, and when we arrived at the last person, he announced that he had written a special toast, in honor of my love of French history. He proceeded to give a toast to the French Revolution in rhyme, that he wrote specifically for me. 

Squee.

***

"Colin Firth's voice is like the Balm of Gilead." 

"You got the audiobook, didn't you?" 

"Yup. And it's fantastic."

"When are you listening to it?"

"Bedtime."

"Oh Lord." 

"No! that's not what I meant!"

I have a lot of issues with insomnia, and as a result have to be careful about what I do immediately preceding bedtime. Staying up with a book is nice, but I need to start shutting off lights at least a half an hour before I want to fall asleep. But, you know, just sitting in a dark apartment trying to unwind isn't particularly relaxing. Music keeps me awake because it isn't nearly monotonous enough. Inevitably while listening to podcasts, right as I'm falling asleep I hear an idea that catches me and pulls me back awake.

I had, for a few months in my early 20s, a boyfriend who like to read to me while I was falling asleep and it was the perfect solution. I could slip into one of his shirts, pull on my eye mask, curl up around my body pillow, and listen to him read. His voice was quiet and steady enough that I would be asleep in ten minutes. The next night we would talk about what I remembered hearing last and start again. 

I know. Blorch. I promise, that's as sweetly sentimental as you'll ever hear me get. 

Anyway, like an overstimulated child, I love being read to sleep. And I missed it. For years I looked for a suitable substitute to that guy. 

So when Audible introduced the Sleep function to their mobile app, I nearly cried with joy. 

 These days, around bedtime, I slip into the sheets, pull my eye mask over my eyes, wrap myself around my body pillow, and listen while Colin Firth reads me The End of the Affair. 

It's not perfect, but in a pinch, it'll do. 

***

"You've gotten really good at being alone."

"Um. Thanks? I mean, I've been at it for awhile. So, I suppose . . ." I trail off.

"No, I mean it. Between the body pillow, the audiobooks, the clever method of zipping up your own dresses, you've gotten really good at being alone. I don't think I could ever manage without my husband. Although" she smirks, "I imagine there are some things that are less enjoyable than you could wish."

She looks pointedly at my bedside drawer and I know she snooped while I was in the bathroom. 

Can we all agree that smug married people are the fucking worst? 

I nearly bite my tongue in half trying to keep from verbally skewering this woman. I'm better friends with her husband, and have often been invited out for long bro-y nights of throwing darts and drinking beer. I'm reasonably certain that despite being a solo act, my floor show is better than hers is ever going to be. 

But good manners and a desire not to send her crying home to her husband aren't the only things keeping me from unleashing the verbal harpoons.

I've become really good figuring out the other parts of relationships that I miss. I've got sleeping alone down to a science, I have friends who are intellectually stimulating and emotionally supportive. I'm living a life I love and find tremendously valuable and fulfilling.

I miss sex.

I do. I really, really miss it. I miss the sheer physicality of being with another person. I miss the way physical contact can grind your rational brain to a halt and keep you from being able to remember your own name, let alone how you look without your clothes on. I miss when you suddenly find yourself in an awkward or unanticipated moment and you both burst out laughing. I miss being left breathless and leaving someone else the same way.

Jesus. I even miss the nasty looks from the neighbors when I bump into them in the hallway. 

And regardless of whether or not it's simply the result of not having my body pumped full of artificial hormones or the fact that I may finally be tired of being alone (somehow I doubt it's the latter) for the first time in years I'm at a place where maybe what's in the bedside drawer isn't as satisfying as it used to be.  

Spittin' Image

"Daddy, what are you doing this weekend?"

I'm nineteen, home for one of my college breaks. My mother is insisting that I put on a dress and high heels and accompany her to the wedding shower of a distant relation. I'm in my marriageisashamforceduponusbythepatriarchy phase of my life (also the phase of my life where I would rather die than wear a dress. Or heels.) and I'm trying to beg off the event.

"I'm going to go shoot my bow."  My father is nothing if not to the point.

"Can I please, please, please, please, please come with you?"

He just laughs.

"I should have been born a boy." I grumble.

***

Female rights of passage make me uncomfortable. 

A few years ago a close female friend of mine got married. Through some sort of clerical error or the intervention of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I managed to avoid invitations to every single one of her wedding showers. It's not that I don't love her or that I wasn't thrilled she was getting married. I do and I was. I've just never been terribly comfortable in large groups of women. 

Well, large groups of mothers at anyrate. 

***

"C'mon, Kel, we're going to miss the window!" 

I go running onetwothree down the steps to the lake, step off the pier into the boat, and drop the cooler down next to my seat. 

"What'd you bring me?" Dad starts the motor on the boat and we're off before either of my brothers can object. 

I grin at him. "Night crawlers. And PBR."

"Did you get a . . ."

"Fishing license? You betcha."

"That's my girl."

***

"I regularly apologize to my mother for the period of my life between eleven and nineteen."

"Why?"

"We didn't get along great."

"How were things with your dad then? I mean, I can't imagine he found having a nerdy, klutzy, hormonal daughter super easy." 

"You know. They were actually all right." I pause. "I used to be a little bit of a Daddy's Girl." 

The friend across from me actually does a spittake. When she manages to cough the coffee out of her lungs she chokes out: 

"Used to be?"

***

"Here, Kel. Open this one." My father is beaming. He loves Christmas, especially Christmas morning, before Mom starts her yearly shouting sessions about the turkey and church and ohmygodcompany. Despite my bad attitude (I'm eighteen and have just broken up with my first boyfriend and am so not in the mood for Christmas) I smile at him. 

I take the package from him, staggering a little bit. "I picked it out for you myself!" He looks so happy and excited that it's infectious. I rip off the brightly colored wrapping paper and find . . .

Hubcaps. 

"Now your car won't look quite so old!" He snatches them out of my hands. 

"I'm going to go put them on for you right now." 

***

"Why do things like this make you so uncomfortable?" 

I'm standing outside a wedding shower, taking deep breaths and trying to talk myself back into going inside when a friend appears at my elbow with a glass of champagne. 

I shrug. "I don't have any sisters. Mom would take me to these kinds of things and I was always the kinda awkward girl in the corner." I take a sip. "I don't like to coo over baby things. I think watching people open presents is an uncomfortable waste of an afternoon." 

She smiles at me over her champagne glass. "You remind me a lot of your dad."

"Huh?" 

"You look just like your mom. I mean, just like her. But the first time I met your father and watched the way you interact with one another and with your mom and with the other people in the room all I could think was "Jesus. They are the spittin' image of one another." 

"That," I say, starting to tear up a little, "is the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

She smiles. "We should probably go back inside."

"Shit." I drain my glass and she laughs.

"See what I mean? Just like your pops."

Games

"Just tell me the title."

"I'd rather be flensed."

"It can't be that bad."

"It's horrible. You'll think less of me as a person."

"I thought the smutty parts were the embarrassing part of reading a trashy novel."

"Nope. It's the titles. Far and away. And I am never, ever telling you the name of this one."

I started a new romance novel series. 

They're Regency (of course), they came highly recommended by a friend (who has begged to remain anonymous), they have ludicrous, embarrassing titles, daft plot twists, and feature (among other things) chess, double entendre, fencing, duels, and games of strip dominoes. They're absurd. 

They're also delicious. 

***

Some friends of mine, newly single, are discussing a relationship advice book that they've both read. I'm drinking bourbon and doing the crossword on the other side of the room, eavesdropping and biting my tongue so hard that I'm afraid blood might start spurting out of my mouth. 

They intentionally started the conversation when I was preoccupied with something else. Given that my relationship advice comes almost exclusively from Dan Savage (to wit: communicate clearly about wants, needs, and expectations, be adventurous, treat your partners kindly and respectfully) I don't truck with a lot of books with titles like The Rules. 

The dating advice under discussion is one admonition over the dangers of employing polysyllabic words away from being a real Leave it to Beaver trip back to the 50s. 

Don't dress provocatively. Act like a lady. Don't cuss or make crass jokes. Don't have sex prior to four months into the relationship. 

What the book boils down to is: be an unobjectionable, boring, good girl. 

As a lifelong employer of four-letter words and mini-dress aficionado, I'm infuriated by this advice, and by the fact that two smart, funny women I know are swallowing it. 

Another friend walks in during the midst of an animated discussion between the pair about what exactly counts as provocative dress, overhears fifteen seconds of the conversation, sees the look on my face, and pulls me out of the room, thrusting my Kindle into my hands. 

"Here. You look like you're about to slap someone. Go take a walk and read some of your trashy novels. They can't be anymore antiquated than the advice you're getting in there."

I start to laugh. 

***

I like games.

I'm not talking about the shitty I'm not returning your phone call until forty-eight hours later kind of games. I'm talking when you meet someone who's up for a little one-upsmanship. I like the process of finding something that will make the other person laugh, blush, or shiver. I like the feeling that comes when you know you're on your game and that your middle-of-the-afternoon response to their text was brilliant and a little sassy and just enough to keep them thinking about you until supper.

I like gamesmanship, I suppose. I always have.

It's exactly the kind of thing dating advice books advocate against. Avoid that dress that shows off the freckles on your decolletage. Under no circumstances should you send that coyly worded text. Good girls don't give it away, much less ask for it. 

Phhhhhhhhbt. 

***

I'm usually surprised by how progressive historical romance novels can be. 

I'm serious. They leave those shitty dating advice books in the dust. 

Not only do they celebrate asking for it, but they understand that half of the fun of getting to the smut is getting to play the game. Romance writers understand that there's something to be said for cheeky notes, for besting someone in a fencing bout, for sneaking away in the middle of a party for a little (verbal) harpooning. 

More than that gamesmanship, though, is the progressive secret at the heart of every romance novel: 

There's someone who's going to appreciate you for the person you are. 

Is it a little after-school special and simplistic? Yeah, a bit. But I'd rather think that there's someone out there who appreciates a carefully worded text and a little bit of sass than follow some ridiculous, tried-and-true rules about being a good girl. 

And besides, I've got all these mini-dresses. 

Repressed

My family is full of Repressed Irish Catholics.

When I was 14 my mother gave me The Talk. It consisted of the following:

"Kel, do you know how to keep from having a baby if you don't want one?"

As a good little Catholic girl, I quickly responded, "Abstinence!"

She nodded and said "Do you know the other ways?"

Uh, yes, theoretically? I was terrified to admit it that I even knew they existed. I whispered my answer. "Birth control?"

She nodded. "I think we're done here," and walked out of the room.

***

At 18 I was a precocious little shit.

The precociousness wouldn't have been as much of a problem if it was accompanied by some self-reflection. But I was my Tea-Party father's nightmare--the kind of kid who was ready to be molded and influenced by whatever I read and any adult who took an interest in me. So when I went to a college that encouraged us to read Millet, Dworkin, and Daly I soaked up their ideas without much reflection. Their opinions and theses became things that I would expound on a great length during dinner parties and classes. I did this not just as a first-year student, but all the way through my academic career.

My senior year in college I was in a Women's Lit class. It was taught by one of my favorite professors and I was confident enough to speak up in class.

By speak up in class, I mean intellectually eviscerate people who disagreed with me.

When the single guy taking the class dropped it because "There are too many man-haters in the room" I didn't take it as an opportunity to reexamine some of my more barbed remarks. I scoffed: "Typical guy."

***

I was 17 when I had my first boyfriend.

I don't doubt that we were really cute. A couple of nerds (Him: Math, music. Me: Sci-Fi, Fantasy. Both of us: LAN parties) who were ohmygodsoawkward together. My father, more accustomed to boys who played sports and were interested in cars wasn't quite sure what I saw in him. My mother kept trying to feed him.

I also don't doubt that we were completely revolting in that way that only sexually unsatisfied teenagers can be. We made out constantly, publicly, and really handsily. And not very well (So much tongue. Jesus). But I  still remember it with the kind of rosy-tinged fondness that accompanies your first love. Probably because it was the first time I realized "Oh. That's what that feels like."

There's one moment in particular that I remember with frightening clarity. Michelle and I had lifted weights after school and there was no part of my body that did not hurt. I went going to his house, ostensibly to watch an anime that he loved. He teased me the whole way downstairs because I had a hard time walking.

Once he got to the couch I, being a real empowered 17 year old, jumped him.

When we surfaced for air 90 minutes later he asked "What the hell was that about?"

I wasn't sure.

***

"What do you think left you more fucked up, Catholicism or radical feminism?"

I'm having a late-night Skype freakout to my old college roommate. The only good thing about her living in Thailand is that we're twelve hours apart and when I'm panicking at, say, 12:36am on a Saturday, she's awake and able to take a phone call.

We've been talking about sex and relationships for a few hours, in the open way you do with a very old friend. The bit of the conversation that leads to the question is about how, in our youngest days as feminists, if a partner asked us to do something (a bit of grooming, perhaps, or the dishes) our response, invariably, was "Fuck off." Do you know why?

Because our partner asked for it.

Trust me, the cuntiness of that mindset is not lost on me as an adult.

But for whatever reason, during my early 20s I thought that someone expressing a sexual or social desire was automatically stepping on my Rights as a Woman. How dare you ask me to shave! Women are supposed to have hair, that's why we haven't evolved to be hairless! (I know.) No I won't do the dishes because women to the lion's share of housework and I don't care that you made dinner! (I know.) You want me to put what, where? Noooooooooope. That's demeaning to the Sisterhood! (Trust me, I know.) I had some intense ideas about sex, relationships, and desire.

It's galling to think of the way I treated the men I met during that period of my life.

(It's also amazing to think that I managed to lose my virginity.)

And yeah, the feminism I was reading certainly outlined (or outright argued) some of those ideas. As intellectual exercises, they were interesting and led me to a lot of fascinating conversations. They're also part of the reason I work so damn hard in women's issues. I am indebted to a lot of those writers.

At the same time, they made me into a bit of a prude.

They wouldn't have done so if I wasn't also another Repressed Irish Catholic in a long line of Repressed Irish Catholics. Given little information on the particulars, sex (theoretically) was mystifying and a little bit scary. As a result of 18 years of Repressed Irish Catholic-ness, there was a right way to have sex (after marriage, on your back, with an openness to children). The little bit I knew about my own sexuality, the bits I knew about desire and what I found desirable, ran counter to that in startling ways that I didn't have the ability to articulate, but ways that I knew were bad, wrong, distasteful.

Mix up all that fear and guilt with a precocious shit of a young woman reading feminist theory by Andrea Dworkin and it's no wonder I had such messed up ideas about the way relationships were supposed to work, or that I was so blisteringly bitchy to men that they remained obsequious and zipped up around me.

It's taken six years to dig out of the hole created by that mindfuck of a cocktail, but if the recent uptick in my late-night dopamine production is any indication, it's been time well-spent. I still have my books of feminist theory. They're on the shelf next to a couple books by Dan Savage and a comic book called Sex Criminals.

I'm much less of a prude than I used to be.

Unhooked & Unwound

"Did you take a Xanax before you picked up?"

"Hmmm?"

It's around 10:30 on a weekday morning. I never sleep this late, especially during the week, but I'm taking a well-deserved day off after nearly two months of running around like a crazy person. Typically I'm a bolt-out-of-bed, get dressed, start crossing shit off the to-do list.

This is not one of those mornings. I'm foggy and sleepy. I barely managed to find my bathrobe and get the coffee started before Skype started ringing.

"You're just, I don't know. I never see you this relaxed."

I smile around my coffee cup.

"Me either."

***

Crazy person is my default setting. 

I don't necessarily mean anxiety and depression are my default setting, but that I have a tendency to like time tables, structure, order to my days. I delight in crossing things off my to-do list (and I always have a to-do list) and my weeks are typically full of meetings for my various volunteer gigs, runs with my running partner, dinner with friends, and on and on. They're good things, things that I enjoy doing, but the end result is that I live by my Google calender, that I dislike last minute plans, and that I spend too much time on my cell phone.

So, maybe crazy isn't quite right. Tightly wound is my default setting. 

***

The noise I make when I let down the zipper on my dress is indecent.

"Um, do you want some time alone?"

I'm video chatting with one of my college roommates. I've stepped off camera to get out of my work clothes. It's been a long day in high heels and a structured dress. The satisfaction in stepping out of them and into a soft pair of cotton shorts and a tank top is extreme.

I settle down in front of the laptop again. "No. I'm fine. It was a relief to get out of that dress."

"I'll never understand why you spend a whole day in clothing that's uncomfortable."

I smile. "It's just one of the things you do when you have a grown-up job, I guess."

"How do you manage to unwind at all when you're dressed like that?"

I stretch, wondering if "luxurious" in an onomatopoeia. Whatever. Getting out of those clothes feels luxurious.

"I don't."

***

"Listen, I just want you to know that I think you're about to fall out of your dress."

During the summer you will rarely find me, during my leisure hours, in anything other than a sundress or a bathing suit. Especially on days like today, when my only plans are stretching out on the beach with a novel and playing lawn games.

I glance down. "You," I tell my teammate, "are a real gentleman. Perhaps the last here in Central Minnesota." I duck behind a tree and make some adjustments to my dress (he may be a gentleman, but in this moment I'm certainly not much of a lady) and have to strain to hear his response.

"Oh, trust me, if I had any interest at all in your decolletage, I wouldn't have said a damn thing. "

I come back from behind the tree, griping. "This is what happens when I wear something that's not reinforced with whalebone."

If he was anyone else the look he gives me would border on a leer. "Honey, I get the feeling that even whalebone would have a hard time keeping you in line."

"Oh, hush."

***

My body is unruly.

It's not a value judgement, merely an observation. I gave up thinking I had any control over my hair a long time ago (my stylist once described it as "exuberant"). I have these breasts and hips that are all over the place.

I'm not necessarily complaining about having breasts and hips, but it tends to complicate things. First of all, when you're not wearing much you tend to look like a Picasso nude, all soft curves and stomach. Second, Holy Jesus it's hard to, um, rein everything in and look professional rather than professional.

You cannot possibly imagine the amount of buckles, snaps, and reinforced stitching that goes into keeping everything within acceptable bounds.

***

My body scares the hell out of me. 

In addition to being unruly, it's a little, well, unpredictable. It announces itself in situations where I'd rather just be throwing bean bags or soaking up Vitamin D on a raft. It reacts in ways and to situations that leave me unwound and thinking holyshitwhatwasthat? 

I mean, you know, once I can think at all. 

***

"I'm serious, I just watched you drink an entire pot of coffee. Normally you'd be bouncing off the walls and trying to get off the phone so you could go run ten miles or something." 

"I'm actually thinking about going back to bed when we're finished."  

"I'm not judging! I'm just saying that it's unusual for you."

"Let's say I'm starting to understand the value of being unhooked and unwound."

Yahtzee

"Do you ever worry that you won't find someone who's. .  ." She trails off.

I smile. Grimace, really. "A Yahtzee?"

"Yeah. A Yahtzee."

I've had a few close friends go through intense breakups in the past year. In addition to the money dropped on wine, flowers, and takeaway (the ends of relationships are an awful lot like the start, aren't they?) I've spent a lot of hours helping them dissect What Happened and Where Things Went Wrong.

It's been surprisingly cathartic, despite the fact that I'm alone.

It's nice to know that the things that worry me (being alone forever, how to meet other people, how horrible my boobs look outside of a bra designed by the Army Corps of Engineers, that relationships are the one part of my life that I can't seem to figure out) are things that worry other smart, successful women. It's remarkably comforting to know that we're the same kind of crazy.

Tonight we're talking sexual compatibility and the head trip that comes when you're with someone who gets under your skin in ways you couldn't have imagined. It's also the part of my relationships that goes south the quickest, and for reasons I never would have anticipated.

"Yeah." I respond. "I do worry about it."

***

My brain gets in the way. 

I'm no MENSA candidate, but I'm no Prince Myshkin either. 

Maybe it's not so much my brain, but my curiosity that gets me into trouble. I'm sure the fact that I have a little bit of an obsessive personality also causes some problems, but I hate hanging everything that's wrong with me on that one aspect of my brain chemistry.

Anyway, my brain tends to get in the way.

If I'm reading something that genuinely interests me Ryan Gosling could be doing a striptease in my living room and I wouldn't notice. I have a tendency to say "Just five more minutes" when I'm working on a project. I get unbelievably excited (we're talking jump-up-and-down excited) about historical events and when I finally understand things like orbital velocity or the Doppler Effect. 

My brain gets in the way most during dating.

Anxiety is constantly trying to shank me with thoughts like ohgodwhatifhe'saserialkiller? Depression has kept me from bothering to engage with anyone. Trying to find the off switch for what's going on in my head when I'm with someone has kept me tied up for hours.

Being in my head can be problematic.

My brain its at its most combative and angriest when I'm out with someone who, well, isn't up for either some conversational jiu-jitsu or casual conversation about . . . well, who cares? My interests range from cryptography to bicycle repair to Motown, so it doesn't take much to keep my attention.

But there's gotta be something.

Intelligence, or lack thereof, isn't just a dealbreaker. My (reptile) brain wants it, needs it as much as the evolved brain that's in charge most of the time. I'm not talking about, I don't need someone with a 1600 SAT. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to find a guy who can help me see constellations or understand the Arrow of Time, well, sexy as hell. Intelligence--curiosity and an adventurous spirit, really--is hopelessly knotted together with, well, some more basic needs. My brain gets in the way, and the only way to slap it into submission seems to be finding something, someone, really who can engage it. And that submission, finding someone who can keep up, keep ahead, keep under my skin has always been the tricky part.

I keep coming up a few numbers short of a Yahtzee.