My dad came over Sunday.

I don’t know why but I told him all about Noah and how awful it felt that someone could like me over the airwaves for a whole year and then meet me in person and decide I suck. And what a complete mind-fuck it was that Max’s dad actually found someone who thinks he’s a catch.

He asked what the new woman looked like and I told him I didn’t want to know because there’s a massive wound festering on my self-esteem that’s threatening to open any minute now.

First Gerard, then Noah, now my baby daddy.

Fuck my life.

This shit is too real.

Hello! My name is Undesirable Nancy and I like taking long walks in the moonlight with a paper bag over my head so you can’t see my hideous face, fucking with my clothes completely on so you don’t accidentally barf, and sitting in the corner with one of those safety cones around my neck; you know, the kind they make the dogs wear after they snip their nuts so they don’t lick themselves? Just make sure the velcro is tight as fuck so I can’t talk or even breathe really because I might scare you away with the way my breath is so goddamn dramatic on the exhale. Can you just stop breathing now, Undesirable Nancy? Or at least hold your head out the window? God! Your hot breath is all over the car.

I mean, I didn’t even want a man until I got drunk that one night back in the summer of 2019 and decided I was tired of watching Bruce sing The River on YouTube and wouldn’t it be fun if I found someone to talk to? Heck yeah, it would!! A quick Google search later and I drunkenly stumbled into that music chat room and declared to the room that I would love to visit both Seattle and Washington state someday. Obviously, I know Seattle is in Washington state so my sentence didn’t make any sense at all but I was halfway through a bottle of red by that point and making sense hardly seemed like a priority. I guess it wasn’t totally cringe because someone named Grump messaged me and thought it was rad. We chatted back and forth until I finished my bottle. I promptly logged out and stumbled off to bed.

But wait!

I didn’t give him any way to contact me other than through this random music channel that I may never remember how to get back to. I logged back in quickly and he was still on so I gave him my email address because I am 800 years old and had never talked to people on the internet before him and didn’t know I was supposed to have some kind of app or somesuch something in which to converse with strangers around the globe. It didn’t matter to Grump because he was also 800 and us old people know how to make shit work.

And make shit work is exactly what we did.

Damn, that was a fun ride with Grump.

It truly gutted me when he disappeared. So much so that I revived this dead blog to write to him almost every single day in the hopes he’d come back around. Yeah. I did that. He’d read everything I’d written back in 2009 when I first started writing here so he knew the blog existed. I had no way to contact him except on these pages. So that’s what I did.

I don’t even know if Grump is dead or alive.

How I stumbled on that Reddit post a couple of months later where some guy was asking for advice about his dating profile, I’ll never know. I don’t even know why I clicked to read the comments but I did and there was Wisebutter. Just commenting away, being a total smart ass and a total good guy all at the same time. I laughed and thought ‘awww this guy is something else’ and then checked out his profile and read all of his post history several times over. I thought about sending him a message for 4 days before I actually said ‘fuck it’ and pressed send.

I had no idea that Wisebutter would turn out to be a total Casanova and would feed me his elixir almost immediately. I’d never had anybody treat me the way he did, like I was both a goddess and a whore, both strong and weak, complete and incomplete. It was a heady force that left me feeling dazed and beautiful and so incredibly feminine. He seemed to instinctively know that women wanted to be both cherished and commanded at the same time. And the way he talked to me! No man had ever said the things he said to me. It was intoxicating. Totally mystifying. I was still crazy about Grump and hoped he’d come back around but Wisebutter was a different breed. He asked me things like “who owns you?” and called me a “good girl” and talked about my body as if he knew it like the back of his hand. He could be so rogue and unbelievably scandalous but then turn around and send me walls of text detailing the most tender of emotions.

I was consumed by him.

He seemed to be consumed by me too.

Until he just….wasn’t.

There’s no other way to describe it. It’s like a faucet that he just turned off suddenly. Without warning. There was a usual morning text one Monday morning in December and by that afternoon he was gone. I could feel it when he left. We had been texting for a year by that point and had met in person in October. I could feel the exact moment the shift occurred. I knew it was over Monday afternoon at 1:30. Here that morning, gone that afternoon.

No explanation. No reason.

When I asked what happened several days later, he seemed genuinely baffled. To him, nothing had happened.

Now here I am. A month or more later and I still don’t know how to process it. I don’t know if I ever will.

He’s just up there in his spot on the map, completely oblivious to me now.

It’s mind blowing and mind numbing all at once.

SIGH

First Grump, then Wisebutter……

Now a happily ever after for the baby daddy too.

Undesirable Nancy has left the building. She’s going back to watching Bruce sing The River on YouTube.

Naked.
Without a paper bag on her head.
Breathing with her mouth wide open.

I spent the last two hours writing to you. 

It’s long and drawn out and I’m not going to post it here.  It was an attempt to make sense of the last year of my life.  But after I wrote it and tied it up all nice and pretty with a shiny red bow, I realized I wasn’t really interested in making sense of the last year of my life.  

Why bother?   

Why do we feel the need to make sense of things?

Sometimes things just don’t make sense. 

You can find an answer or a reason for anything but it’s not always the right answer or the real reason.  It’s just a thing we latch onto to make ourselves feel better.  

To ease our load just a little bit.  

The truth is, I’m not interested in easing this load yet.

When the load eases so do my memories and thoughts of you. 

 

Maybe none of it was real for you.

Maybe you made the whole thing up.

 

I didn’t.

 

It was real to me.

I loved you.

And that’s all that truly matters in the story of my life.

 

Stephanie loved Noah.

Once Upon A Time.

 

 Dear Stephanie,

It’s me, Stephanie.

I’ve been reading your blog over the last year and…..Whoa, Sister.

You’re a bit of a mess aren’t you?  Maybe a little ship wrecked?  Train wrecked? I-don’t-remember-how-I-got-here-wrecked?

How many more years in a row are you gonna welcome the new year with the ‘ol achey breaky heart?  Hmmm?

Got anybody lined up to do the honors come December?

Listen, I need to let you know something that apparently everyone EXCEPT YOU already knows.  It’s going to change your life, maybe even save it.  

It’s what everyone your age is doing now so you need to do it too.

 

Okay, here goes.

Stephanie.

Don’t put your eggs in one basket.

That way when someone is done with you, you will have scattered your eggs around to several different baskets and you can just chill in one of those for a while.

This will prevent you from giving too many Fucks.  Giving too many Fucks causes you to feel things.  Feeling things causes you to give your Fucks to people who might actually deserve them.

But listen, you don’t have that kind of time.

You’re old as shit now and your birthday is in 6 days and you better not even pretend to turn 29 again because, BIIITCH! ain’t nobody falling for that now.  Just be honest  with yourself for once in your life and put 36 candles on the cake this year.  For fucks sake, Stephanie.  Everyone already knows you’ll be turning 36 anyway.

AND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY go put your eggs in as many baskets as possible!

Like RIGHT NOW!!!! YESTERDAY EVEN!!!

Look, I don’t know who this mysterious person is that you’re gonna eventually want to give all your Fucks to but you need to at least be operating at your Max Basket Capacity so you’ll have a way better chance at recognizing him when he shows up.  Max Basket Capacity varies for everyone.  Some people are able to operate upwards of 10 or more baskets at one time.  Others can only handle 5 or less.  Since you’re a rookie and don’t know your MBC (that’s Max Basket Capacity), I’m gonna suggest you start big.  You can always narrow it down later.

NOOOOO, Stephanie.  This is purely math and science here.  Get outta English Lit and walk your ass back across the hall.

Listen, it doesn’t matter if they catch feelings for you, Stephanie.  You are not giving them any of your Fucks, remember?  Right.  So fuck ’em!  That’s not your problem.  They’ll have to figure out how to cope after you’re done with them.  Because YOU WILL be done with them eventually.  They’ll learn.  It’s not your job to teach them.

Repeat after me:  Fuck ’em!

They’re just human beings with feelings and emotions, blah, blah, freaking blah they haven’t learned to regulate yet because they haven’t taken all the personality and love tests we’ve taken or gone to hardly any TED talks or webinars or zoom conferences where EXPERTS, Stephanie, EXPERTS tell us what to feel and then  how and when to feel it.

STEPHANIE

STEPHANIE 

STEPHANIE

They haven’t even set up their Boundary Box!  They don’t even have one!  They’re just out there –  all willy-nilly and EXPOSED for everyone and anyone.

THE AUDACITY!!!

Please tell me you have a Boundary Box, Stephanie.  It’s the box we keep ourselves in until we get ready to give our Fucks to someone.  No one, and I do mean NO ONE, is allowed inside the Boundary Box.  In fact, if you’re a pro like me, you will have a Boundary Box inside a Boundary Box inside another Boundary Box, kinda like those Chinese nesting dolls.

Listen.  This is important:

The Basket Eggs are allowed to approach the Boundary Box but must never attempt to infiltrate it even a tiny bit.  If that is to happen, you must go NO CONTACT immediately.  Right away.  No questions or explanations are needed for the vile and filthy person who would even think about getting inside your Boundary Box.

GHOST THEM, STEPHANIE!!!!  It’s the only way.  They are EVIL.  They will try to make you feel things for them!  They will try to make you give them all your Fucks!!!! 

Do Not Fall For Their Manipulation Tactics!

Walk Away Walk Away Walk Away

Then RUN, bitch!

As fast as you can!

There IS a better egg in one of those baskets and you deserve that egg, Stephanie!

DO NOT settle for just any Basket Egg.

But absolutely DO let them entertain you until you have found your GOLDEN basket egg.  It makes them feel important and when they feel good they’re more fun to be around.

Win/Win.

No, Stephanie.  They’ll be fine!  They’re just crying right now but they’ll get over it.  Remember?  Fuck ’em!

Repeat after me:  Fuck ’em!

STEPHANIE!  I’m telling you right now that giving them even half a Fuck will cause you to feel something and feeling something will cause an avalanche of all your Fucks and then you will love them unconditionally forever and ever amen until the end of time because that is what you do and I am tired of saying hello to all the January’s of all the years with a broken goddamn heart because you can not stay inside your Boundary Box!

Stop flopping around in the mud puddle and come look at these potted plants from the Home Depot and then bake cookies and sip tea and talk about your crafts and your kids like the rest of the middle aged ladies do!  God!

LYLAS,

Stephanie

 

P.S.  BIIITCH!! We all know you’re not turning 36 in 6 days either and if you don’t lock yourself up in that boundary box, I’m going to expose you!

 

 

Dear Stephanie,

Hey, it’s me, Stephanie!

What’s up, ho?  

What the hell did I just read?  You sound a bit unhinged.

Look, I’ve got this ok?

I have it on good authority that I am a REAL BAD BITCH.  As such, I can handle our shit.  

I’m sorry but you’re gonna have to sit this one out, sis. I appreciate your Fucks and MCBs and BBs and the really sage advice about treating people like shit so I can get what I want but that’s not really how we operate, is it?  I mean, we didn’t make it all the way to 37 (you got me) with our heart still tender and malleable by being a total douchebag, did we?

We didn’t.  And I don’t intend to make it another 37 years by being one either.

So calm the fuck down already.

We’re going to keep right on loving people who may or may not also love us back and then we’re going to write about it here on this blog after we have fallen all the way off the cliff, just like the 16 year olds we never grew out of would do.  After a few months of total despair and heartache, we’ll find love again.  Or we won’t.  In which case this blog will sit dormant for another 10 years.  Maybe forever. 

Or. 

Or, Stephanie.  There’s always an ‘or.’  Maybe, just maybe, someone will eventually love us back the way we love them and then we can rename our blog “UntangledOrder.”

You just never know.  The future is alive with possibilities.

But, in the meantime, you and I will work on neglecting and killing potted plants from the Home Depot, burning the baked cookies, staring at the crafts that we bought but don’t give two shits to actually try and, most importantly, avoiding the other old ladies that don’t look like us because NO WAY WE LOOK THAT OLD, sister.

Now, let’s go listen to Em’s new album and try to say the words along with him. That fool is never gonna stop rapping. And we’ll never stop listening.

Stephanie, we are beautiful and transparent.

Probably from all that time we spent splashing around in the mud puddles when we were 36, almost 37.

We’ve got this.

LYLAS,

Stephanie

P.S.  HO, if you tell anyone how old I actually am, I am going to stuff you inside your boundary box inside the other boundary box inside the other boundary box so you can’t ever get out and then I can really spread all my Fucks around!  

You can’t even imagine how many Fucks I have!  

So very many Fucks.

Fucks for Everyone

Fucks for Days

Fucks Forever

Fucks Unlimited

……………..

Every single day I think of you and every single day I think of some different thing I did or didn’t do while we were together that made you think “hmmm, you know what?  FUCK THIS.”

Because obviously it was a big Fuck This from you.

Right?

What’s that stupid shit they love to throw around all over Reddit?

If it’s not a HELL YES it’s a HELL NO.

I guess it wasn’t a HELL YES for you then.

I go back and forth between being sad and heartbroken to angry and confused.  I don’t know which place I’m supposed to dwell in until I don’t think about you anymore because I’ve stopped caring one way or the other if I was a HELL YES or a FUCK THIS.

I want to ask you how come you couldn’t love me but I don’t dare because that is considered weak and pathetic and I’m supposed to know that I’m a QUEEN who doesn’t need answers because obviously it’s your loss only and 

this one is my absolute favorite:  IT’S NOT ME, IT’S YOU.  

But also, there’s this thing called DIGNITY and apparently I’m supposed to want to possess it and therefore can not go flailing about all out of control (who makes these fucking rules!) because that will look bad to the person who broke my heart (you) and I am supposed to want them to RESPECT me later on down the road when they’re with someone who is NOT ME!

DIGNITY!

Have some motherfucking dignity, Stephanie.  Make her your bitch  and walk around town with her tattooed across your forehead so everyone will know that when your heart breaks in half you do not fall down or even stumble.  

Why?  

BECAUSE YOU ARE DIGNIFIED! 
AND A QUEEN!  

And when that man asked you to take your final bow for him, you curtsied all the way across the stage like the good little girl you’ve always been and let him go gently into that good night, back from whence he came.  

Good Day, SIR.

That’s how someone with DIGNITY behaves when her heart shatters. 

 

What a load of absolute molasses!!!

But, Stephanie! TWENTY SEVEN people on this one post on the internet said it’s true and there was also an article on Medium written by an accountant who almost majored in psychology but didn’t and she said it was true too.  Plus, there’s this sad old woman who writes this pathetic blog about how much she loves all the men who don’t love her and she said it’s true too….

Wait….

No, she didn’t.  

She definitely didn’t say it was true.

She says all the things that no one really wants to hear because we’ve all convinced ourselves that we are gods and goddesses and anyone who thinks otherwise was simply just too dull to bathe in the beauty of our light so they need to GET GONE.  We have bigger fish to fry than to worry about a thing like self-reflection.  FUCK THAT.  The only person who needs to do any kind of self-reflecting is the absolute moron who could have possibly taken a pass on you, Queen.  There is obviously something wrong with him.

It’s not you, Stephanie.  Of course it isn’t you.  

He only thought you were amazing for a whole year before he met you in person.

Do you think it was your chin?  Or  that you wore too many clothes?  Maybe you should have let your titties hang out more?

But seriously.

What the fuck did I really think was going to go down when you met me?  I mean, the week before you said “This feels more like a dead end than a new beginning because it would be an insurmountable challenge for you to move to Corn City and I don’t want to move to Loserville so…..”

I will tell you what I thought.  Honestly and Sincerely.  From the bottom of my overflowing heart.

I really and truly thought we’d fall madly in love.

Or, at the very least, we’d like each other so much that we’d want to see each other again.

That’s what I thought.

FUCK ME SIXTEEN WAYS TO FOREVER, I never imagined it would be a one and done.  Totally did not see that freight train barreling right on through the station.  I guess I was too busy looking at you and laughing when we stared at that map of Mobile on the wall of that little house we stayed in.

I was really hoping I’d see you again sometime….

I’d give you back my whole heart if I could rewind time to that day in October when you left your apartment up there to drive down here.  I wish when you locked your door behind you, you were just on your way to the market and not on your way to me.  Then your name would still light up my phone and your voice would still be in my head.

I miss you.

I hope 2021 is everything you need it to be.

 

Do you think people who can write words like

There’s a hole in the roof for the stars to fall in
I gather them up for you

Ever considered attachment theory or love languages or any of the other bullshit that places like Reddit like to peddle as fact? 

Do you think Bukowski when he was fucking one of the big tit women from the race track ever thought “I wonder what her love language is.  I better find out so I can write poetry about her later.”

Do you suppose when Romeo fell in love with Juliet he gave two shits what her score on the Myers-Briggs personality test was?  When he drank that vial of poison do you think he stopped to ponder if maybe he was getting just a bit too attached to ol’ Juliet over there?

If he had, what would Shakespeare have written about?

What kind of modern day love stories will we be reading about in 20 years when this generation of kids meet on places like Tik Tok and their love songs to each other begin with “Bitch, I’m a ghost.”  And then they dance for each other through heavily applied filters that hide every crease or blemish on their faces.

By the way.  Have you studied the theory of attachment and do you know which attachment style you are?  

And while we’re talking about that, can you go take this test and get back to me and let me know what your love language is?  This is super important before we proceed into any type of partnership.

There’s also this emotional IQ test I need you to take and where exactly do you fall on the Myers-Briggs?
I need you to input that into your data when you plug in our compatibility.

Less important is your zodiac sign and which phase of the moon you were born in and if the stars were shining super bright or just mildly bright when your head crested your moms hoo-haa.  Or if you were a C-baby and born during the day, was the sun behind a cloud or was it raining??? Snow?  Tornadoes??  Oh my.  This might take a while.  

You’re super cute and fun but it’s just not going to work unless I get your spec sheet soon.

I’m already starting to lose interest. 

You pronounced your “th” more like a “d” and that’s just not going to work for me. 
You’ve got a hole in the corner of your eye.  You said it was from your mom popping a chicken pox or something like that.
It’s a no for me.
I’m really sorry. 
Actually I’m not sorry at all. 
There are 16 other people in my inbox right now and they’ve already sent me their test results and at least 4 nudes and 12 boob shots so I’m sorry but that selfie you took in the car is just not doing it for me. 
But….
Can you bend over and show me your ass?  I need to know if I might want to stuff my dick in it before I call you later tonight.  

 

If you spend any time on the internet, you will inevitably come to understand that nothing is ever your fault.  It’s so obviously their fault and you should just pick your heart up from off the floor and dust it off and put that sucker right back in your chest and shake your ass provocatively as you walk out the door and wait for all the man-meat that is now going to appear in your DMs because the world is literally your mother-fucking oyster and there is an abundance of pearls out there just waiting for a chance to do the two step with you.

So Fuck Them and Fuck Them Again.

Buh-Bye.

This is what we’re doing now. 

I mean, duh. 

 

2021

I don’t peddle sunshine.
That’s the first thing you need to know about me.
If you’re here looking for a dose of dopamine,

please exit stage left.

Or
take a seat.

Maybe a dopamine rush is not really what you’re looking for anyway.

Maybe you want to be entertained in some other way. 

Some dark horse,
some black night,
some stale bread,
some congealed soup left on the kitchen table for one too many days in a row now.

Maybe that’s the kind of rush you’re after

Maybe that’s the thrill you’re seeking.

Check underneath that coffee pot over on the counter. 
I bet you’ll find last weeks coffee grounds still under there. 
Don’t open the pantry door unless you want to see yesterdays trash still on the floor. 
It fell out when the trash can overflowed and we didn’t bother picking it up. 
That makes too much sense, you see. 
And we don’t make sense around here. 

We’re feral.

We’re all the way up in the mess and we don’t bother dusting that dirt of our shoulders like Jay-Z told us to do.

Nah.

We wear that shit like a mother fucking badge.

We take it with us out into the world when we open the front door and let the sunshine all the way in to every corner of our unmade house.

Our unmade house.
Our unmade beds.
Our unmade lives.

 —————————————————————————————————————————-

I used a platter from the china cabinet just last night and written in the dust behind it was:

Mama
Max
Kaya
Hank
Skittles

I don’t remember writing it.

How long do you suppose it’s been there?

That’s how long it’s been since I moved dishes around to dust.  We only touch up the places people can see.

You See?

I see.

You used to say that a lot.

I see.

Did you ever see?
Did you ever see me?

Yeah.

Well.

I saw you.
I saw all kinds of you. 
I saw you in every way I could see you.  

Unmade.  Made.                   
Kind.  Cruel.
Hilarious.  Stoic.
Brave.  Weak.     
Beautiful.  Ugly.

 

Did I enter your atmosphere or did you enter mine? 
Did I orbit around you or did you orbit around me?  

These are questions I ask myself late at night when I crawl into my unmade bed after I’ve forgotten to brush my teeth or apply moisturizer to my tired skin.  

These unanswered questions are the chasm between us.   

And I see you over there on the other side but I can’t get to you.  

The chasm is filling up with water.  

And it’s hot.  It’s dangerous.  

It swirls and swirls
and there are drowning promises in there
and gelatinous blobs of words
we lobbed
back and forth to each other  

and they’re so pretty
but 

oh my!

they’re so dangerous.  

We don’t dare take a stick and poke at the beautiful blobs of words because then the blob would just burst and fill this hot swirling water with all the goo that’s holding them so perfectly together.

(All the goo
Is that all the pretty words ever were?)

The water would become so thick then,
like the mucous in my throat and nose
when I cried on that horribly uncomfortable bed

the one our love never got made in

except for that half-hearted attempt
on a Wednesday night
after it all came unraveled.

Forever and ever.  

Amen. 

You didn’t know then that unraveled is where I live. 
It’s where I exist.

You thought it was in a two story house on Main Street in some small town in Alabama.

No.

That’s just the place I keep my chipped dinner plates and mismatched cutlery.  That’s just the building that holds my stained wash rags and plastic food containers who’s lids have all traveled on to places unknown.

That house on Main Street in Alabama is just a shell.

 

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