So Tim and Squeaky, still broken up (I guess) are still cohabiting--if "when one walks in the other hands them the baby and walks out, often for days at a time" can be referred to as "cohabitation". Tim called me last night (at 11:30, 12:45, and 4 AM...on a work-night....before my earliest morning of the week....) and, among other things, told me that Squeaky had not been home for four days, and that a week or two ago she turned to him and told him that she was "sick of LittleMan". The kid isn't even four months old yet, and already his mother is leaving him at home with his father and staying out for days. Tim, who is not at his peak for many reasons, threatened last night to drop the baby off at DCFS and tell them the mother abandoned her child--and then walk out on both of them.
I would normally want to strangle him for at least ten reasons in just those sentences alone, but I am cutting him the most infinitesimal bit of slack for a crucial reason: Cassidy, his 15-year-old cat who has been with Tim for as long as I've known him, is dying, and Tim can't even do anything about it. When Tim told me the details, at the end of one of the phone calls--I'll spare you all from them--but when I hung up the phone, I cried for literally an hour. Poor Cassidy; he was such a good boy, and it breaks my heart that he's hurting. (I told Tim to take him to the vet not TERRIBLY far from where he lives, and I'd call in and take care of the bill for having Cass put down; but of course, Tim can't leave til Squeaky returns, and there's some drama involving Squeaky's phone, and blah blah blah--because Squeaky wants to be an immature little brat, Cassidy gets to hurt for another day, and Tim gets to hurt as he watches his beloved cat waste away. I really want to punch Squeaky right now.
And then there's Deb; the thing we were most afraid of has pretty much happened, and she's in a bad case of postpartum depression. I'm so worried for her--she sounds so sad, even though she can explain from an intellectual standpoint exactly what she's feeling and why. And her husband is NOT helping; he's choosing to stay out later than he has to; when he WAS home, he had the flu and was acting like a whiny baby the whole time. I do not understand certain men.
I understand CR a little better, though; he's been amazing, incredible, wonderful--and the only thing he HASN'T done is make it into town. If the snow would maybe manage to stop happening every three days alternating between here and there, perhaps progress would be made in this area as well. But we talk via IM every night, and we've pretty much worked out everything in the past that went wrong.
But right now, honestly, I'm just pretty glad to be me. Compared to all the things my friends and loved ones are going through at the moment, a messy house and a pile of laundry the size of Mount McKinley are practically comforting. And if I needed anything to confirm my judgement, both Tim and Squeaky with their cabin fever, and Deb with her hormones kicking her ass and her stitches in a Really Bad Place, have reminded me how much I really do NOT want to go through the whole having-a-baby thing. I guess from a philosophical/dream world standpoint, I'll always wonder what might have been; but from a practical, about-to-turn-40-and-none-too-stable-my-damn-self perspective, I've made the best decision for me.
Showing posts with label Tim. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tim. Show all posts
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
4 AM Updates
For the third time tonight, I just got off the phone with Tim.
Call #1 was a two-hour catching-up call, with the occasional Squeaky-related complaint, but no signs of anything critical.
(Anyone got a guess on where this might be heading?)
Call #2, at midnight, waking me from a sound sleep, was to ask me what I thought about the following: Squeaky had called early today asking Tim if he minded if she went to her friend Malia's for a while. Then a bit later, she had called to tell him that she wasn't going to be home at 6 after all, that she and Malia were going to an 8:00 movie. And as of midnight, Squeaky STILL wasn't home, and wasn't answering her phone, and was he right to be annoyed? And did I think she was okay, or was he worrying about nothing??
Call #3, at 3 AM: "G? Squeaky just came in with the cops and took the baby and left."
I asked him, in about four different ways, what had led up to that point, and each time I got the same answer: when the phone was finally answered, it was Malia who answered, and of course Tim doesn't like Malia and was not exactly polite, but when he talked to Squeaky he had not (per him) said anything that would be construed as threatening. (Now frankly, I don't care who said what to whom; Squeaky knows Tim well enough to know that there are two, and only two, excuses for her to involve the cops: either a) he ACTUALLY puts his hands on her (not "threatens to" because the two of them threaten horrible murder ten times a day and both of them know better) or b) he ACTUALLY sets about injuring himself. (Questions of safety involving the baby are past consideration; he loves that child beyond imagination.)
Tim is now threatening his own life--though he's promised not to act on that til at least tomorrow night, and most likely will alert authorities beforehand if he DOES have such intentions--I've been down this road with him before, and right now I can tell that all he really wants are an answer as to WHY, and his baby back in his custody. The threats of self-harm are right now just Tim's shorthand for "I am miserable and sad and I don't understand what just happened to me, and I'm scared that history is repeating itself."
Well, -I- don't understand either, and though I'd like to be more optimistic, I'm afraid that history is doing exactly what he thinks it's doing. But next time Squeaky logs into her Facebook account, she's got a letter from me that would melt paint off the walls. Tim may be most-upset about this, but in the who's-most-upset arms-race, I am DEFINITELY in second place tonight.
Call #1 was a two-hour catching-up call, with the occasional Squeaky-related complaint, but no signs of anything critical.
(Anyone got a guess on where this might be heading?)
Call #2, at midnight, waking me from a sound sleep, was to ask me what I thought about the following: Squeaky had called early today asking Tim if he minded if she went to her friend Malia's for a while. Then a bit later, she had called to tell him that she wasn't going to be home at 6 after all, that she and Malia were going to an 8:00 movie. And as of midnight, Squeaky STILL wasn't home, and wasn't answering her phone, and was he right to be annoyed? And did I think she was okay, or was he worrying about nothing??
Call #3, at 3 AM: "G? Squeaky just came in with the cops and took the baby and left."
I asked him, in about four different ways, what had led up to that point, and each time I got the same answer: when the phone was finally answered, it was Malia who answered, and of course Tim doesn't like Malia and was not exactly polite, but when he talked to Squeaky he had not (per him) said anything that would be construed as threatening. (Now frankly, I don't care who said what to whom; Squeaky knows Tim well enough to know that there are two, and only two, excuses for her to involve the cops: either a) he ACTUALLY puts his hands on her (not "threatens to" because the two of them threaten horrible murder ten times a day and both of them know better) or b) he ACTUALLY sets about injuring himself. (Questions of safety involving the baby are past consideration; he loves that child beyond imagination.)
Tim is now threatening his own life--though he's promised not to act on that til at least tomorrow night, and most likely will alert authorities beforehand if he DOES have such intentions--I've been down this road with him before, and right now I can tell that all he really wants are an answer as to WHY, and his baby back in his custody. The threats of self-harm are right now just Tim's shorthand for "I am miserable and sad and I don't understand what just happened to me, and I'm scared that history is repeating itself."
Well, -I- don't understand either, and though I'd like to be more optimistic, I'm afraid that history is doing exactly what he thinks it's doing. But next time Squeaky logs into her Facebook account, she's got a letter from me that would melt paint off the walls. Tim may be most-upset about this, but in the who's-most-upset arms-race, I am DEFINITELY in second place tonight.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
This Is Why I Don't...
This is why I don't post about exciting news until after it's an accomplished fact.
For the past two weeks, Squeaky has been over the moon about an old friend of hers and how this girl was "saving her life", how she now "has (her) life together" and all the rest. The source of all this excitement was to happen on Monday, when she and Tim were to board a bus to the southern part of the state, where said friend lives. There, she had been assured, there were jobs, cheap housing, assistance for poor pregnant families, and the rest--a veritable land of milk and honey (or Cheetos and barbeque sauce, if you're Tim and Squeak.) They had been assured that the wait for public housing was negligible--less than a month--and that in the meantime, they could stay at the house of this friend of Squeaky's, who she hadn't seen in a while but who she'd run into on Facebook and reconnected with.
And so for the past two weeks I have been subjected to hours upon hours of "Is Tim going or isn't he?" and "I can't wait to get there" and "Should we take Megabus or Amtrak or should my friend come up and get us, or...?" Hours and hours and hours. And yes, I have been INTENSELY interested in the outcome--not so much the planning, just the point on Monday night when, for the first time since EARLY APRIL, I would come through the front door to a home that belonged--entirely and completely--to ONLY ME. I was looking forward to that. I was looking forward to a large number of things at least partially contingent upon that, as well. (Yes, CR figures in a couple of them. I'm only human, for god's sake.)
Well, as of about noon today, all of them are dust. Squeaky sent me a message on Facebook: "I just got fucked over again. My friend totally backed out on me."
I called her at home and talked to her for about half an hour about this. Apparently, the friend's boyfriend something something her brother, whose girlfriend was crazy and wanted to kill him but is now also staying there with her kids, something something not enough space blah blah sorry. ("So what did you write back?" I asked. "Nothing--I was just totally in shock," she said. I don't normally interfere in other people's friendships, but I would give my right pinkie-finger right about now for that woman's e-mail addy. Even if Squeaky doesn't have the ability to say anything in the face of this situation, please feel free to bet your ENTIRE GLUTEAL REGION on the fact that I would retain no such compunction. Squeaky's life is not the ONLY one that's been fucked with by this decision.)
"I'm not talking to any of these people anymore," says Squeaky tearfully, then goes on to enumerate all the other friends she's going to call to see if she can get housing space from them. "Or we could get an apartment"--the "we" in this case does not include me, as I've already signed my lease for the year and I have no intention of leaving. That ship has sailed--"I only need a co-signer," she says, "since I don't make enough money." Or have a job, or have a man with a job, or have anyone giving you any sort of financial assistance whatsoever... so where this mythical apartment-for-free is coming from is a whole 'nother question.
In the meantime: Squeaky is "depressed". Up until yesterday, Tim had not spoken more than three words to me over the previous ten days; he "just doesn't feel like talking", evidently, and this apparently includes talking to the person who has been giving him free floor space nearly full-time since 2008. Civility is a BITCH, I tell ya. So that's two in the "depressed" column.
Meanwhile, my job has given me a right-proper screwing--wait, let's find a better metaphor, since "a right-proper screwing" would be on the short list of things that might actually IMPROVE my temperament. (There's a CR story that fits in here, but in the interest of "not jinxing it", I'll forbear. However: man, if 10% of what he says is valid, real, anything--if he really means even 10% of what he says, I will have found the biggest turnaround of a human life since I quit heroin in '99. Seriously. I've got so much to tell on this subject, but in some ways I'm reluctant to expose it to skeptics. Not because skepticism will change my opinion of him, or of what he's claiming--only time and experience could do that, and if they do, it will officially mark the end of my belief that people really can change--but because every possible thing anyone could say against him is something I've already said to him directly, or thought to myself--mostly said to him directly, really. The first day he called me after being gone for six years, I promised myself that the days of staying silent and choking on my rage were over. If I had anything to say to him I was going to say it, all guns blazing if necessary. So far, we've talked on and off for a year, and there's not been any time I've broken that promise to myself. It's been his reactions which have startled me--acceptance, apology, a total lack of defensiveness or excuses or ANYTHING. "I did that. I was wrong, and I realize now what the consequences were." That's been the bulk of his reactions....I'm going off track here, but...Yeah.Short form: I am ready to be hurt again, or not to. Neither of these outcomes will upscuttle my life in any serious way; if it goes bad, then it's just a case of the leopard not changing his spots. In fact, it might actually upheave me more if it DOES work out well.)
Anyway, as I was saying: Job. So in the last post I told you about my new, "temporary" location...well, I've finished my first week there, and the verdict is in: please, send help, for I am dying here. The trip to the new place now adds 2 hours of commuting time to my day, each day, and changes my schedule drastically. Where before, I could get up at 9:15 and be at work at 10:00 as scheduled, I now start work at 8:30 and need to get out the door by 7:00 or risk lateness. And I arrive home only half an hour earlier, despite getting off work a full 90 minutes sooner each day. Supposedly, it's just temporary, but--and I don't know if I have ever mentioned this?--I am not a morning person. At. All. Not even a little bit. So getting up at that hour--admittedly not quite the ass-crack of dawn, but definitely beneath dawn's waist somewhere--It's not improving me, is what I'm saying. And then today--admittedly, a day I'd be working anyhow--I had to catch the bus early, and it was really crowded but I was lucky enough to get a seat--but then an old guy sat next to me and like, LEANED on me the whole ride, which wouldn't have been NEARLY as awful if he'd showered or changed his shirt since 1982. So all day long I have been smelling--whether it's real or imagined--Old Man Funk. I have actually been going out of my way to stand away from civilized folk so they can't smell what I smell. I believe I shall BURN this shirt when I get home.
Later:
It's hard to be here and know they're not going anywhere any time soon. I've been reading back over the past couple of years, and I've realized: this is not the first time I've had quite enough of these two, or even just of Tim himself. (He DID, however, manage a conversation when I got home; later translation from Squeaky explained that he really hadn't wanted to move, that he was happy they weren't moving because he knew he'd hate it, and thus his silence for the last...whenever.) I think this friendship is effectively over, once they leave; I really don't want that to be the case, but it really has been one-sided for quite a while now. And then I wonder if I'm really being fair; after all, I -am- the one who has the resources, the education and the easy employability; maybe this is just my role in this friendship, to be the one who's there for Tim when he needs me. But all the same, there's something wrong; I could live with the financial unbalance in our friendship, but lately he's just been a butthead, and the butthead differential can be a killer in ANY friendship. I don't know; time will tell. But in a year or two, when Tim comes back at me with a list of Ways In Which Gladys Failed As A Friend: Squeaky's Pregnancy Edition, I don't think I'll be as willing to accept the blame as I have been in the past.
For the past two weeks, Squeaky has been over the moon about an old friend of hers and how this girl was "saving her life", how she now "has (her) life together" and all the rest. The source of all this excitement was to happen on Monday, when she and Tim were to board a bus to the southern part of the state, where said friend lives. There, she had been assured, there were jobs, cheap housing, assistance for poor pregnant families, and the rest--a veritable land of milk and honey (or Cheetos and barbeque sauce, if you're Tim and Squeak.) They had been assured that the wait for public housing was negligible--less than a month--and that in the meantime, they could stay at the house of this friend of Squeaky's, who she hadn't seen in a while but who she'd run into on Facebook and reconnected with.
And so for the past two weeks I have been subjected to hours upon hours of "Is Tim going or isn't he?" and "I can't wait to get there" and "Should we take Megabus or Amtrak or should my friend come up and get us, or...?" Hours and hours and hours. And yes, I have been INTENSELY interested in the outcome--not so much the planning, just the point on Monday night when, for the first time since EARLY APRIL, I would come through the front door to a home that belonged--entirely and completely--to ONLY ME. I was looking forward to that. I was looking forward to a large number of things at least partially contingent upon that, as well. (Yes, CR figures in a couple of them. I'm only human, for god's sake.)
Well, as of about noon today, all of them are dust. Squeaky sent me a message on Facebook: "I just got fucked over again. My friend totally backed out on me."
I called her at home and talked to her for about half an hour about this. Apparently, the friend's boyfriend something something her brother, whose girlfriend was crazy and wanted to kill him but is now also staying there with her kids, something something not enough space blah blah sorry. ("So what did you write back?" I asked. "Nothing--I was just totally in shock," she said. I don't normally interfere in other people's friendships, but I would give my right pinkie-finger right about now for that woman's e-mail addy. Even if Squeaky doesn't have the ability to say anything in the face of this situation, please feel free to bet your ENTIRE GLUTEAL REGION on the fact that I would retain no such compunction. Squeaky's life is not the ONLY one that's been fucked with by this decision.)
"I'm not talking to any of these people anymore," says Squeaky tearfully, then goes on to enumerate all the other friends she's going to call to see if she can get housing space from them. "Or we could get an apartment"--the "we" in this case does not include me, as I've already signed my lease for the year and I have no intention of leaving. That ship has sailed--"I only need a co-signer," she says, "since I don't make enough money." Or have a job, or have a man with a job, or have anyone giving you any sort of financial assistance whatsoever... so where this mythical apartment-for-free is coming from is a whole 'nother question.
In the meantime: Squeaky is "depressed". Up until yesterday, Tim had not spoken more than three words to me over the previous ten days; he "just doesn't feel like talking", evidently, and this apparently includes talking to the person who has been giving him free floor space nearly full-time since 2008. Civility is a BITCH, I tell ya. So that's two in the "depressed" column.
Meanwhile, my job has given me a right-proper screwing--wait, let's find a better metaphor, since "a right-proper screwing" would be on the short list of things that might actually IMPROVE my temperament. (There's a CR story that fits in here, but in the interest of "not jinxing it", I'll forbear. However: man, if 10% of what he says is valid, real, anything--if he really means even 10% of what he says, I will have found the biggest turnaround of a human life since I quit heroin in '99. Seriously. I've got so much to tell on this subject, but in some ways I'm reluctant to expose it to skeptics. Not because skepticism will change my opinion of him, or of what he's claiming--only time and experience could do that, and if they do, it will officially mark the end of my belief that people really can change--but because every possible thing anyone could say against him is something I've already said to him directly, or thought to myself--mostly said to him directly, really. The first day he called me after being gone for six years, I promised myself that the days of staying silent and choking on my rage were over. If I had anything to say to him I was going to say it, all guns blazing if necessary. So far, we've talked on and off for a year, and there's not been any time I've broken that promise to myself. It's been his reactions which have startled me--acceptance, apology, a total lack of defensiveness or excuses or ANYTHING. "I did that. I was wrong, and I realize now what the consequences were." That's been the bulk of his reactions....I'm going off track here, but...Yeah.Short form: I am ready to be hurt again, or not to. Neither of these outcomes will upscuttle my life in any serious way; if it goes bad, then it's just a case of the leopard not changing his spots. In fact, it might actually upheave me more if it DOES work out well.)
Anyway, as I was saying: Job. So in the last post I told you about my new, "temporary" location...well, I've finished my first week there, and the verdict is in: please, send help, for I am dying here. The trip to the new place now adds 2 hours of commuting time to my day, each day, and changes my schedule drastically. Where before, I could get up at 9:15 and be at work at 10:00 as scheduled, I now start work at 8:30 and need to get out the door by 7:00 or risk lateness. And I arrive home only half an hour earlier, despite getting off work a full 90 minutes sooner each day. Supposedly, it's just temporary, but--and I don't know if I have ever mentioned this?--I am not a morning person. At. All. Not even a little bit. So getting up at that hour--admittedly not quite the ass-crack of dawn, but definitely beneath dawn's waist somewhere--It's not improving me, is what I'm saying. And then today--admittedly, a day I'd be working anyhow--I had to catch the bus early, and it was really crowded but I was lucky enough to get a seat--but then an old guy sat next to me and like, LEANED on me the whole ride, which wouldn't have been NEARLY as awful if he'd showered or changed his shirt since 1982. So all day long I have been smelling--whether it's real or imagined--Old Man Funk. I have actually been going out of my way to stand away from civilized folk so they can't smell what I smell. I believe I shall BURN this shirt when I get home.
Later:
It's hard to be here and know they're not going anywhere any time soon. I've been reading back over the past couple of years, and I've realized: this is not the first time I've had quite enough of these two, or even just of Tim himself. (He DID, however, manage a conversation when I got home; later translation from Squeaky explained that he really hadn't wanted to move, that he was happy they weren't moving because he knew he'd hate it, and thus his silence for the last...whenever.) I think this friendship is effectively over, once they leave; I really don't want that to be the case, but it really has been one-sided for quite a while now. And then I wonder if I'm really being fair; after all, I -am- the one who has the resources, the education and the easy employability; maybe this is just my role in this friendship, to be the one who's there for Tim when he needs me. But all the same, there's something wrong; I could live with the financial unbalance in our friendship, but lately he's just been a butthead, and the butthead differential can be a killer in ANY friendship. I don't know; time will tell. But in a year or two, when Tim comes back at me with a list of Ways In Which Gladys Failed As A Friend: Squeaky's Pregnancy Edition, I don't think I'll be as willing to accept the blame as I have been in the past.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Important Facts, June 2009
1. Birthdays are alternately sucky and awesome. The "pondering the passage of time, the wasted years and my own eventual death" part = sucky. The "really awesome present from Mom, upon which this blog entry is being written from the privacy of my own room AND wirelessly" = awesome. Also, not being in the hospital for my birthday, a la 2005 = also awesome.
2. My boss is a....no, don't want to be QUITE that profane.
My boss is a....no, I'd probably get sent straight to hell just for TYPING that.
My boss is...Okay, look. My boss is a FU----G B---H, is the point I'm heading towards here. (In fact, I'll even go back and redact the middle letters there, just so no one can go tut-tut at me. But she IS that, and worse, to the uttermost degree.) Today was the Office Picnic. It was moved inside due to an infestation of mud in the usual picnic ground; otherwise, though, it was a repeat of last year...in all aspects but one. See, last year, the picnic ended at 2, and afterwards everyone could go home. THIS year, however, Ms BossLady decided to buttonhole a departing Help Desk staffer and question his decision to leave. When my immediate boss objected, saying "that's not what happened last year," she insisted that it WAS. So while EVERY DEPARTMENT BUT OURS left to go home for the day, my colleagues and I labored on--even though we are a technical-support department and there was no one to support but ourselves! AND--to add icing to this crapcake--Ms BossLady left at 5, my immediate boss left at 4:15, and I? Had to stay til 6:30, just like every day. What a crock of crap.
3. I am not moving in November. I have told Tim this; I am not moving. It is not in my best interests to move. He and Squeaky are welcome to stay and work out what they're doing next, but the baby will not be brought "home" to here in December. We all have limits. Tim understands this and thinks it's fine, and he says he's grateful for my straightforwardness. Despite his many flaws, I will not be shaken from my opinion: Tim is a good guy, with bad judgement and worse luck, who's gotten himself in waaaaaaaaaaaaay over his head in life. He isn't trying to take advantage; if it does come out that way sometimes, it's unintentional. I fully expect that Tim and I will end up as roomies in the old-age home, if his liver makes it that long.
4. Squeaky, though, I can take or leave, and would prefer to leave. She spent Mother's Day with me at my mom's house--a last-minute invite for dinner, since Tim had gone all Asshole-Boy and went off to hang with his friends--and even my MOM said Squeak is extremely self-centered. Every conversation came back around to "I'm pregnant!" She's not a bad person--in fact, I think the thing that disturbs me most about her is that I see in her a lot of who I might have easily become, had my life not turned in the direction that it had. If I had continued on the pampered-darling path I was heading down when I was 18 or 19 or 20, I could very well have remained unconscious, invested my entire energy, heart, and soul into a Man, and been somebody's little shadow, someone's mouthpiece, for the rest of my days. I can't pinpoint the moment my life turned--it was before I met JP, probably, but not LONG before--but I thank X every day for it.
4a. "You thank WHO? Who's 'X'?" Okay, look. I know some of you might be religious, and I begrudge no one their deity, but seriously: if people do not stop whacking me upside the head with their Lord and Savior, I'm gonna get REAL heathenish, REAL quick. Yesterday I left work early with a bad stomach; before I left, my cubemate PUT HIS HAND ON MY SHOULDER (big no-no--I'm practically Asperger-y about unsolicited touch) and PRAYED that I would be HEALED in the name of JESUS. (And no, there was NO irony intended at all--he was dead serious.) Today, when he brought his wife and kids in for the picnic, he announced to them "I prayed for Gladys yesterday when she was sick, and she got better." I WANTED to say, "I was gonna get better ANYWAY, nimbot--this happens pretty much EVERY month for a day or two," but I figured, if it made him happy to believe that he'd "cured" my monthly case of premenstrual bubbleguts, who was I to harsh his God-buzz? But seriously: between him, Mom, and random kindly strangers who take entirely too much interest in the condition of my alleged immortal soul, I am distancing myself ENTIRELY from this whole Judeo-Christian-normativity complex. In other words: please remove your higher power from my grill. He is not happy there; it's not the kind of 'hood He wants to inhabit. K, thx, BAI!!!
5. Summary: I'm good. Not great--sometimes not even functioning, alas--but taking things on the balance, I'm doing okay. A few improvements could be made, but that will come in time, I hope.
(but my boss is still a bitch...)
2. My boss is a....no, don't want to be QUITE that profane.
My boss is a....no, I'd probably get sent straight to hell just for TYPING that.
My boss is...Okay, look. My boss is a FU----G B---H, is the point I'm heading towards here. (In fact, I'll even go back and redact the middle letters there, just so no one can go tut-tut at me. But she IS that, and worse, to the uttermost degree.) Today was the Office Picnic. It was moved inside due to an infestation of mud in the usual picnic ground; otherwise, though, it was a repeat of last year...in all aspects but one. See, last year, the picnic ended at 2, and afterwards everyone could go home. THIS year, however, Ms BossLady decided to buttonhole a departing Help Desk staffer and question his decision to leave. When my immediate boss objected, saying "that's not what happened last year," she insisted that it WAS. So while EVERY DEPARTMENT BUT OURS left to go home for the day, my colleagues and I labored on--even though we are a technical-support department and there was no one to support but ourselves! AND--to add icing to this crapcake--Ms BossLady left at 5, my immediate boss left at 4:15, and I? Had to stay til 6:30, just like every day. What a crock of crap.
3. I am not moving in November. I have told Tim this; I am not moving. It is not in my best interests to move. He and Squeaky are welcome to stay and work out what they're doing next, but the baby will not be brought "home" to here in December. We all have limits. Tim understands this and thinks it's fine, and he says he's grateful for my straightforwardness. Despite his many flaws, I will not be shaken from my opinion: Tim is a good guy, with bad judgement and worse luck, who's gotten himself in waaaaaaaaaaaaay over his head in life. He isn't trying to take advantage; if it does come out that way sometimes, it's unintentional. I fully expect that Tim and I will end up as roomies in the old-age home, if his liver makes it that long.
4. Squeaky, though, I can take or leave, and would prefer to leave. She spent Mother's Day with me at my mom's house--a last-minute invite for dinner, since Tim had gone all Asshole-Boy and went off to hang with his friends--and even my MOM said Squeak is extremely self-centered. Every conversation came back around to "I'm pregnant!" She's not a bad person--in fact, I think the thing that disturbs me most about her is that I see in her a lot of who I might have easily become, had my life not turned in the direction that it had. If I had continued on the pampered-darling path I was heading down when I was 18 or 19 or 20, I could very well have remained unconscious, invested my entire energy, heart, and soul into a Man, and been somebody's little shadow, someone's mouthpiece, for the rest of my days. I can't pinpoint the moment my life turned--it was before I met JP, probably, but not LONG before--but I thank X every day for it.
4a. "You thank WHO? Who's 'X'?" Okay, look. I know some of you might be religious, and I begrudge no one their deity, but seriously: if people do not stop whacking me upside the head with their Lord and Savior, I'm gonna get REAL heathenish, REAL quick. Yesterday I left work early with a bad stomach; before I left, my cubemate PUT HIS HAND ON MY SHOULDER (big no-no--I'm practically Asperger-y about unsolicited touch) and PRAYED that I would be HEALED in the name of JESUS. (And no, there was NO irony intended at all--he was dead serious.) Today, when he brought his wife and kids in for the picnic, he announced to them "I prayed for Gladys yesterday when she was sick, and she got better." I WANTED to say, "I was gonna get better ANYWAY, nimbot--this happens pretty much EVERY month for a day or two," but I figured, if it made him happy to believe that he'd "cured" my monthly case of premenstrual bubbleguts, who was I to harsh his God-buzz? But seriously: between him, Mom, and random kindly strangers who take entirely too much interest in the condition of my alleged immortal soul, I am distancing myself ENTIRELY from this whole Judeo-Christian-normativity complex. In other words: please remove your higher power from my grill. He is not happy there; it's not the kind of 'hood He wants to inhabit. K, thx, BAI!!!
5. Summary: I'm good. Not great--sometimes not even functioning, alas--but taking things on the balance, I'm doing okay. A few improvements could be made, but that will come in time, I hope.
(but my boss is still a bitch...)
Saturday, April 18, 2009
You Are Here. You Probably Ought To Think About That.
So, um....yeah.
WackyWackyWerld, aka Gladystopia, has done some of its expected and usual things. Tim has been playing Floor-Hopper, rotating between my living room floor, his friend Chuck's living room floor, and whatever it is he sleeps in at Squeaky's place-with-the-roommate. But that pool of potential stopping-grounds decreased by one the other day; apparently between the two of them, they decided that the remaining thirteen days on Squeaky's lease with the hell-roomie were just not worth the effort. (Apparently this woman--the roomie, not Squeak--is a wee bit of a beeyatch. I don't know her, and I've experienced enough time with Squeaky to be aaalmost inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt because: annoyy-ying!--but seriously, there are some birds that just don't fly, as in "you agreed on $400/month for rent on a room the size of a small pantry, but in mid-lease you demand $500/month instead, 'for utilities'." I cannot imagine how many appliances one would have to run to rack up $100/mo in utilities, but I'd be willing to bet they wouldn't all fit in Squeaky's room. It's pretty clear to all three of us--Tim, the Squeakster, and myself--that Wee Beeyatch is trying to use Squeaky's living situation to pay her OWN past-due bills. Which wouldn't be a problem if it had been agreed in the beginning, but you just can't change terms like that. So in this case, painful as it may be, I'm gonna have to side with Squeaky.)
They have been trying to find a place to live. They have been failing rather spectacularly, thanks to their combined lack of/abysmal state of credit. And last night, when I was on Facebook, Squeak IMed me to ask if she could just stay here for a while.
Now, who the hell would I be to turn a pregnant kid out on the street? (Yeah, yeah, I know--someone perfectly within her rights to do so. But sometimes just because it would be acceptable to do something doesn't make it seem right--and this, to me, is one of those cases.)
And I actually kinda like having Tim around, if we're being honest. He's a neat freak; he does housework; and when I'm not hiding out in my room (which I do when nobody's around, as well, so that can't be blamed on the two of them either) we have a lot of fun. It may not be the most equally-balanced friendship in the world, but...Look. It's fairly clear to me that there's a good chance I will spend my "golden years" having to look out for myself, in the absence of any husband or children or extended family to count on. I'm not as okay with that as I wish I was; I have to admit, seeing all my grade-school classmates on Facebook, married and procreating, with sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law and a string of family stretching out the door, I feel like a failure at living. Mostly I can combat it; after all, in the absence of JP, this is my choice. And if it's not my favorite choice to make, I do recognize that it is the fairest choice for everyone concerned; looking back over the past few years, the things I liked about everyone I dated have been the things that reminded me most of JP. I never thought I was comparing, but yeah--I was. And I still am; it's unfortunate, but there it is. Everyone's better off this way.
But anyway: if I'm not going to generate a family, and since I don't have an original family to speak of--there's me, there's Mom, there's my dad's sister-in-law and her sister, and my mom's youngest sister who lives a billion miles away--and that's the lot of them, unless I want to count my mom's other two sibs who send her anti-Obama wingnut e-mails ten times a week, and I abso-freaking-lutely do NOT wish to count THOSE two, nor their spouses nor their spawn... anyway, since THEY're not there for me, I've got to create my own family. And I guess this is what I'm doing. Tim is like the irresponsible little brother with a good heart and not much in the way of sense; Squeaky's the little brother's bedraggled girlfriend who shows up pregnant one day. There ARE less-fucked-up or not-fucked-up-at-all people in my life; Debbie, for one, and Firefly; Debbie being a wee bit more fucked-up than Firefly (okay, actually a lot LOT LOT more, but since it's not her fault and hasn't completely compromised her ability to make a good life for herself, it's not so bad.) And honestly--let's just get to where the bear crapped in the woods now--seriously, who the hell am I to judge someone else for their fucked-up life? My record for keeping a job is not-quite-five-years; I'm stuck in an entirely different decade than most people currently inhabit; I've got an incredibly warped perception of time, and thanks to the illustrious Ms. China White, there are large blocks of my late 20's of which I have no recollection. I am in DIRE need of a really excellent grief counselor; I'm constantly harassed by the thought of the afterlife, and wondering if I'm living right--constantly moving between "there is a heaven, so I better get my shit together" and "there's nothing, so believing in some grand reunion is foolish denial of the truth". I have no house; I have no car; my credit is fucked to a high degree (although at least THIS time I'm in good company, and can blame no one but myself....oh, and the subprime mortgage industry); I am now officially Completely Miserable in my job, but I've also come to realize that I will probably be Completely Miserable in ANY job which requires working for someone else, or accepting arbitrary orders, or acting in ways which don't make sense to me--in other words, any job anywhere at all. I can't even start a relationship, let alone sustain one, and I've given up on the possibility of anyone ever finding me attractive again. So again, I ask: WHO the hell am I to judge anyone ELSE's life?? Mostly I want to run away and do exactly the things I want to do, nothing else; buy my little farm and put a "Baked Goods For Sale" sign out by the road, and spend my mornings baking and my afternoons in the barn doing all manner of art--pottery, and glasswork, and painting and quilting and writing and crochet (and maybe even learn to knit, even though I've never been able to get both hands working at once so far). And at night, just lay out in a hammock slung between two trees, and pull a sheet of mosquito net over me and go to sleep. It's not that I want a simpler time, exactly; I want a time that's MINE, where no one is controlling me but me, and where every action moves toward a goal; where rules make sense and exist for a REASON, and don't change randomly at someone else's whim. I want to live an orderly life--not a life without chaos, exactly, but a life where I UNDERSTAND the chaos. Honestly? Right now, Tim and Squeaky are the least of my worries.
And if from this you take the conclusion that my work is really screwing with me, please accept my applause for your excellent deductive skills. Last evening, upon walking into my apartment, I unleashed such a storm of profanity and invective regarding my boss--touching on issues including--but not limited to--her ancestry, her sexual practices, her hygiene, her mental state, and her predilection for inter-species mating--that even Tim, who has heard me at my peak, was surprised. It would have been one of my proudest moments of vulgar inventiveness, had I not been SO DAMN PISSED-OFF at the subhuman stinking pustulent piece of ....Oops....there I go again.
(Yeah, I know--what made me so mad, right? Let's just put it this way: When I am reprimanded for a violation of a policy --a violation which involved an interval of TWO MINUTES, against a policy which, although I was told in the beginning that it was perfectly acceptable to do what I did, has apparently changed, of which change neither I was EVER informed, nor were the two OTHER people who perform the same task...I do NOT remember EVER seeing, ANYFUCKINGWHERE in my job description, "reads minds/displays psychic ability". That was NOT in the qualifications, and so to be reprimanded for what is essentially my failure to read that crazy-ass whoreslut's degenerated parasite-raddled mind...
I am perfectly calm, now.)
Seriously, though, I am never going to accept a job working for another female boss. I told myself that when I left Other Place Where I Used To Work; my resolve was strengthened by Ill-Fated Short-Term Employment; but I needed a job so badly, and I thought there was going to be a buffer zone between myself and her (and there was, til they demoted Best Boss Ever--I should have started slamming out the resumes right there and then)...It's not a mistake I'm going to make again. I don't care HOW desperate I am...it's NEVER worth it.
Oh. And then, after all this--Squeaky asking for a place to stay, ElMo (which is what I have dubbed The Crazy--I have my reasons!) giving me nothing but shit because I couldn't read her mind, and a bunch of other crap into which I haven't even gone--after all that, last night the phone rang: After seven years, CR's been put out of the girlfriend's house. (Short form: She asked him if he loved her; he gave an honest answer. Next sentence: "Get out of my house!") He's trying to work out how to get a place of his own; even though apartments are SUPER-cheap there, so are wages, especially when he can only get 25 hours a week. I was really impressed, actually, with most of what he said; seems like all the things I said so long ago, about standing up and being a man and living on his own, may have sunk in after all. Seven years late, mind, but any progress is good progress.
And that, my friends--all those bits of wonder, and an exploding toilet too--is what my little life is made of, right about now. Strangely enough, I'm almost happy; there's something to be said for realizing that you are no longer willing to be crapped on for the privilege of drawing a paycheck. Obviously I've gotta hang on til the economy gets itself together, but that's okay; the important thing is KNOWING it's not forever, that I'm not going to let it be forever, and I'm not going to spend the rest of my life scared of some bitch's opinion of me. That's no way to live, and even if I have to do it temporarily, I do NOT have to do it permanently. I may not be able to see the light at the end, but at least now I recognize that it is, in fact, a tunnel I'm standing in.
WackyWackyWerld, aka Gladystopia, has done some of its expected and usual things. Tim has been playing Floor-Hopper, rotating between my living room floor, his friend Chuck's living room floor, and whatever it is he sleeps in at Squeaky's place-with-the-roommate. But that pool of potential stopping-grounds decreased by one the other day; apparently between the two of them, they decided that the remaining thirteen days on Squeaky's lease with the hell-roomie were just not worth the effort. (Apparently this woman--the roomie, not Squeak--is a wee bit of a beeyatch. I don't know her, and I've experienced enough time with Squeaky to be aaalmost inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt because: annoyy-ying!--but seriously, there are some birds that just don't fly, as in "you agreed on $400/month for rent on a room the size of a small pantry, but in mid-lease you demand $500/month instead, 'for utilities'." I cannot imagine how many appliances one would have to run to rack up $100/mo in utilities, but I'd be willing to bet they wouldn't all fit in Squeaky's room. It's pretty clear to all three of us--Tim, the Squeakster, and myself--that Wee Beeyatch is trying to use Squeaky's living situation to pay her OWN past-due bills. Which wouldn't be a problem if it had been agreed in the beginning, but you just can't change terms like that. So in this case, painful as it may be, I'm gonna have to side with Squeaky.)
They have been trying to find a place to live. They have been failing rather spectacularly, thanks to their combined lack of/abysmal state of credit. And last night, when I was on Facebook, Squeak IMed me to ask if she could just stay here for a while.
Now, who the hell would I be to turn a pregnant kid out on the street? (Yeah, yeah, I know--someone perfectly within her rights to do so. But sometimes just because it would be acceptable to do something doesn't make it seem right--and this, to me, is one of those cases.)
And I actually kinda like having Tim around, if we're being honest. He's a neat freak; he does housework; and when I'm not hiding out in my room (which I do when nobody's around, as well, so that can't be blamed on the two of them either) we have a lot of fun. It may not be the most equally-balanced friendship in the world, but...Look. It's fairly clear to me that there's a good chance I will spend my "golden years" having to look out for myself, in the absence of any husband or children or extended family to count on. I'm not as okay with that as I wish I was; I have to admit, seeing all my grade-school classmates on Facebook, married and procreating, with sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law and a string of family stretching out the door, I feel like a failure at living. Mostly I can combat it; after all, in the absence of JP, this is my choice. And if it's not my favorite choice to make, I do recognize that it is the fairest choice for everyone concerned; looking back over the past few years, the things I liked about everyone I dated have been the things that reminded me most of JP. I never thought I was comparing, but yeah--I was. And I still am; it's unfortunate, but there it is. Everyone's better off this way.
But anyway: if I'm not going to generate a family, and since I don't have an original family to speak of--there's me, there's Mom, there's my dad's sister-in-law and her sister, and my mom's youngest sister who lives a billion miles away--and that's the lot of them, unless I want to count my mom's other two sibs who send her anti-Obama wingnut e-mails ten times a week, and I abso-freaking-lutely do NOT wish to count THOSE two, nor their spouses nor their spawn... anyway, since THEY're not there for me, I've got to create my own family. And I guess this is what I'm doing. Tim is like the irresponsible little brother with a good heart and not much in the way of sense; Squeaky's the little brother's bedraggled girlfriend who shows up pregnant one day. There ARE less-fucked-up or not-fucked-up-at-all people in my life; Debbie, for one, and Firefly; Debbie being a wee bit more fucked-up than Firefly (okay, actually a lot LOT LOT more, but since it's not her fault and hasn't completely compromised her ability to make a good life for herself, it's not so bad.) And honestly--let's just get to where the bear crapped in the woods now--seriously, who the hell am I to judge someone else for their fucked-up life? My record for keeping a job is not-quite-five-years; I'm stuck in an entirely different decade than most people currently inhabit; I've got an incredibly warped perception of time, and thanks to the illustrious Ms. China White, there are large blocks of my late 20's of which I have no recollection. I am in DIRE need of a really excellent grief counselor; I'm constantly harassed by the thought of the afterlife, and wondering if I'm living right--constantly moving between "there is a heaven, so I better get my shit together" and "there's nothing, so believing in some grand reunion is foolish denial of the truth". I have no house; I have no car; my credit is fucked to a high degree (although at least THIS time I'm in good company, and can blame no one but myself....oh, and the subprime mortgage industry); I am now officially Completely Miserable in my job, but I've also come to realize that I will probably be Completely Miserable in ANY job which requires working for someone else, or accepting arbitrary orders, or acting in ways which don't make sense to me--in other words, any job anywhere at all. I can't even start a relationship, let alone sustain one, and I've given up on the possibility of anyone ever finding me attractive again. So again, I ask: WHO the hell am I to judge anyone ELSE's life?? Mostly I want to run away and do exactly the things I want to do, nothing else; buy my little farm and put a "Baked Goods For Sale" sign out by the road, and spend my mornings baking and my afternoons in the barn doing all manner of art--pottery, and glasswork, and painting and quilting and writing and crochet (and maybe even learn to knit, even though I've never been able to get both hands working at once so far). And at night, just lay out in a hammock slung between two trees, and pull a sheet of mosquito net over me and go to sleep. It's not that I want a simpler time, exactly; I want a time that's MINE, where no one is controlling me but me, and where every action moves toward a goal; where rules make sense and exist for a REASON, and don't change randomly at someone else's whim. I want to live an orderly life--not a life without chaos, exactly, but a life where I UNDERSTAND the chaos. Honestly? Right now, Tim and Squeaky are the least of my worries.
And if from this you take the conclusion that my work is really screwing with me, please accept my applause for your excellent deductive skills. Last evening, upon walking into my apartment, I unleashed such a storm of profanity and invective regarding my boss--touching on issues including--but not limited to--her ancestry, her sexual practices, her hygiene, her mental state, and her predilection for inter-species mating--that even Tim, who has heard me at my peak, was surprised. It would have been one of my proudest moments of vulgar inventiveness, had I not been SO DAMN PISSED-OFF at the subhuman stinking pustulent piece of ....Oops....there I go again.
(Yeah, I know--what made me so mad, right? Let's just put it this way: When I am reprimanded for a violation of a policy --a violation which involved an interval of TWO MINUTES, against a policy which, although I was told in the beginning that it was perfectly acceptable to do what I did, has apparently changed, of which change neither I was EVER informed, nor were the two OTHER people who perform the same task...I do NOT remember EVER seeing, ANYFUCKINGWHERE in my job description, "reads minds/displays psychic ability". That was NOT in the qualifications, and so to be reprimanded for what is essentially my failure to read that crazy-ass whoreslut's degenerated parasite-raddled mind...
I am perfectly calm, now.)
Seriously, though, I am never going to accept a job working for another female boss. I told myself that when I left Other Place Where I Used To Work; my resolve was strengthened by Ill-Fated Short-Term Employment; but I needed a job so badly, and I thought there was going to be a buffer zone between myself and her (and there was, til they demoted Best Boss Ever--I should have started slamming out the resumes right there and then)...It's not a mistake I'm going to make again. I don't care HOW desperate I am...it's NEVER worth it.
Oh. And then, after all this--Squeaky asking for a place to stay, ElMo (which is what I have dubbed The Crazy--I have my reasons!) giving me nothing but shit because I couldn't read her mind, and a bunch of other crap into which I haven't even gone--after all that, last night the phone rang: After seven years, CR's been put out of the girlfriend's house. (Short form: She asked him if he loved her; he gave an honest answer. Next sentence: "Get out of my house!") He's trying to work out how to get a place of his own; even though apartments are SUPER-cheap there, so are wages, especially when he can only get 25 hours a week. I was really impressed, actually, with most of what he said; seems like all the things I said so long ago, about standing up and being a man and living on his own, may have sunk in after all. Seven years late, mind, but any progress is good progress.
And that, my friends--all those bits of wonder, and an exploding toilet too--is what my little life is made of, right about now. Strangely enough, I'm almost happy; there's something to be said for realizing that you are no longer willing to be crapped on for the privilege of drawing a paycheck. Obviously I've gotta hang on til the economy gets itself together, but that's okay; the important thing is KNOWING it's not forever, that I'm not going to let it be forever, and I'm not going to spend the rest of my life scared of some bitch's opinion of me. That's no way to live, and even if I have to do it temporarily, I do NOT have to do it permanently. I may not be able to see the light at the end, but at least now I recognize that it is, in fact, a tunnel I'm standing in.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Cartoon Sound Effects
I really need cartoon sound effects in this post, to give you a general idea of how insane things have been. Like the Wile E Coyote going-over-the-cliff noise--that would be ideal.
I was in the process of writing my post-inauguration post when Tim and Squeaky arrived. They are still here. (Well, "there", actually, as my current "here" is at work, and they are--mercifully--not "here". But they -are- at my apartment.) Everything went fairly-well for the first couple of days...and then there was Friday.
Friday morning Tim told me "I'm going up north to arrange my storage space, and then I'm gonna stop by and see Betty and Jay." Okay, says I--I really don't care what he does, since he's a grown man, as long as it doesn't bring drama into my world. "I'll be home pretty early," he said.
At 6:45 I walked in the door and was immediately enveloped in Typhoon Squeaky. "He was supposed to be home....I am so pissed...He's..." here, he's there, she's texted him, he's answered, she's called him, he hasn't answered, he hasn't answered, she's called him again, again, again, again, again...he's texted that he's leaving at 8:30...he's awful, a liar, a cheater, he's using her, she's called him again, again, again, again, again....he answered! She yells, then she's sorry, then after she hangs up she's yelling again, because he SAID he was coming home at....
At about 10, I went to my room--not because I was sleepy, but just to get away from the teenage angst. She knocked on my door three separate times--once because he was on the phone and wanted to talk to me, during which she listened in on the extension--and the other times because she'd texted him and he hadn't answered, she'd called him, she'd called him again, again, again...he's so mean, he lets his friends tell him what to do...he's such a jerk, she's going to leave him...she called him again..
At 3 AM I got up to go to the bathroom. When I stepped out of the bathroom--there she was. "I called him and he let BETTY answer his phone!!! I hate that bitch..." She hates that bitch. She's gonna kill her. She's gonna kill ALL his friends. She hates them all. How DARE she answer his phone. "And THEN she said I was AGGRAVATING him. Well, he lied about what time he was gonna come home--I have a RIGHT to aggravate him!"
I finally got back to bed.
I try to think back, sometimes, when I am at my peak of Squeaky-induced rage; I think back to my first boyfriend, how insecure I was sometimes, how there were times I thought I would literally fall to bits if he didn't call me RIGHT THAT MOMENT. I remember being jealous of his female friends; I remember him telling me I had no reason to be jealous, then later finding out that yes, I did have a reason. (That whole kerfuffle, as a matter of fact, set off the chain of events that led to me eventually meeting JP.) I try to remember myself objectively, and I ask myself: Was I THAT insecure? Was I THAT annoying? Was I as underhanded as Squeaky is? Did I have such a sense of entitlement?
I made a lot--a LOT--of mistakes in that first relationship; biggest of all, really, was breaking it off in the end. He's a CTO somewhere now; he married the girl he dated after me, a friend of a friend. He went on to bigger and better things and I...well, you know what happened to me. I'd like to think I wouldn't change much about my life, but when I look at the divergence of those two paths, I pretty much conclude: yep, kid, you really fucked THAT one up righteously. But when we were together....Yeah, I had my moments. I was way, way too dependent on him, on his approval; then again, I was way too dependent on EVERYONE's approval back then--it was the way I had been taught to be. I fight that even to this day; I'm still trying to convince myself that doing things just for the sake of doing them, because it makes me happy, is a perfectly-acceptable reason. I'm still trying to teach myself that an audience is OPTIONAL, not mandatory.
And when I was scared, or when I was sad, or when I wasn't sure if he loved me--yeah, I'm sure I was a monumental pain in the ass--both to him, and to those around me. (I remember one night in the cafeteria, when one of my friends basically told me she wasn't going to hang around with me because I was being too depressing. This was not long after I'd found out I was being cheated on; she was the independent woman who didn't need a man, the master of her own destiny. Funny thing--she was the first one of our little group to actually stay married, and the first one to have kids. She's got three, and she and her hubby and their brood live someplace awesome on their enormous salaries. And I...well, you know what happened to me.) I'm sure Firefly could probably tell stories for hours, about what a mess I was back then.
But: Would I have ever gone on and on, nonstop, for three hours, about it? Especially to someone who has said more than once that she really doesn't wanna hear it? Would I have lurked outside the bathroom door at 3 AM, just so I could be sure I'd get to vent my spleen, because someone else had answered his phone?
Highly unlikely, I think. In fact, bordering on "HELL no." But again--I'm looking back eighteen years, peeking over the giant brick wall of 1995 in my memory, that dividing line between "things I'm trying to forget" and "things I just don't remember". Trying to think back, about ANYTHING, is like juggling glass jars of nitroglycerin: it's better to focus on the effort itself, than on what the consequences will be if you don't do it right. So maybe I'm not being fair to her; maybe Squeaky is just a karmic payback for the way I was when I was twenty years old. Hell, maybe I'm just jealous; I would give anything at all to be that age again, at that point in your life when you've just figured out that you have wings, but have no idea yet of how they work. I was never meant for middle-age; a stable, quiet life with seemingly nothing left to discover. I'm beginning to believe that what's been diagnosed as "depression" may just be a realistic sense of my own limitations, of what's passed by and what I've lost.
Then again, one of the benefits of middle age: I'm only watching the teenage soap opera, not experiencing it again. I don't know if that's enough of a compensation for everything else, but after last night, I'll tell you--it's definitely better than the alternative!
I was in the process of writing my post-inauguration post when Tim and Squeaky arrived. They are still here. (Well, "there", actually, as my current "here" is at work, and they are--mercifully--not "here". But they -are- at my apartment.) Everything went fairly-well for the first couple of days...and then there was Friday.
Friday morning Tim told me "I'm going up north to arrange my storage space, and then I'm gonna stop by and see Betty and Jay." Okay, says I--I really don't care what he does, since he's a grown man, as long as it doesn't bring drama into my world. "I'll be home pretty early," he said.
At 6:45 I walked in the door and was immediately enveloped in Typhoon Squeaky. "He was supposed to be home....I am so pissed...He's..." here, he's there, she's texted him, he's answered, she's called him, he hasn't answered, he hasn't answered, she's called him again, again, again, again, again...he's texted that he's leaving at 8:30...he's awful, a liar, a cheater, he's using her, she's called him again, again, again, again, again....he answered! She yells, then she's sorry, then after she hangs up she's yelling again, because he SAID he was coming home at....
At about 10, I went to my room--not because I was sleepy, but just to get away from the teenage angst. She knocked on my door three separate times--once because he was on the phone and wanted to talk to me, during which she listened in on the extension--and the other times because she'd texted him and he hadn't answered, she'd called him, she'd called him again, again, again...he's so mean, he lets his friends tell him what to do...he's such a jerk, she's going to leave him...she called him again..
At 3 AM I got up to go to the bathroom. When I stepped out of the bathroom--there she was. "I called him and he let BETTY answer his phone!!! I hate that bitch..." She hates that bitch. She's gonna kill her. She's gonna kill ALL his friends. She hates them all. How DARE she answer his phone. "And THEN she said I was AGGRAVATING him. Well, he lied about what time he was gonna come home--I have a RIGHT to aggravate him!"
I finally got back to bed.
I try to think back, sometimes, when I am at my peak of Squeaky-induced rage; I think back to my first boyfriend, how insecure I was sometimes, how there were times I thought I would literally fall to bits if he didn't call me RIGHT THAT MOMENT. I remember being jealous of his female friends; I remember him telling me I had no reason to be jealous, then later finding out that yes, I did have a reason. (That whole kerfuffle, as a matter of fact, set off the chain of events that led to me eventually meeting JP.) I try to remember myself objectively, and I ask myself: Was I THAT insecure? Was I THAT annoying? Was I as underhanded as Squeaky is? Did I have such a sense of entitlement?
I made a lot--a LOT--of mistakes in that first relationship; biggest of all, really, was breaking it off in the end. He's a CTO somewhere now; he married the girl he dated after me, a friend of a friend. He went on to bigger and better things and I...well, you know what happened to me. I'd like to think I wouldn't change much about my life, but when I look at the divergence of those two paths, I pretty much conclude: yep, kid, you really fucked THAT one up righteously. But when we were together....Yeah, I had my moments. I was way, way too dependent on him, on his approval; then again, I was way too dependent on EVERYONE's approval back then--it was the way I had been taught to be. I fight that even to this day; I'm still trying to convince myself that doing things just for the sake of doing them, because it makes me happy, is a perfectly-acceptable reason. I'm still trying to teach myself that an audience is OPTIONAL, not mandatory.
And when I was scared, or when I was sad, or when I wasn't sure if he loved me--yeah, I'm sure I was a monumental pain in the ass--both to him, and to those around me. (I remember one night in the cafeteria, when one of my friends basically told me she wasn't going to hang around with me because I was being too depressing. This was not long after I'd found out I was being cheated on; she was the independent woman who didn't need a man, the master of her own destiny. Funny thing--she was the first one of our little group to actually stay married, and the first one to have kids. She's got three, and she and her hubby and their brood live someplace awesome on their enormous salaries. And I...well, you know what happened to me.) I'm sure Firefly could probably tell stories for hours, about what a mess I was back then.
But: Would I have ever gone on and on, nonstop, for three hours, about it? Especially to someone who has said more than once that she really doesn't wanna hear it? Would I have lurked outside the bathroom door at 3 AM, just so I could be sure I'd get to vent my spleen, because someone else had answered his phone?
Highly unlikely, I think. In fact, bordering on "HELL no." But again--I'm looking back eighteen years, peeking over the giant brick wall of 1995 in my memory, that dividing line between "things I'm trying to forget" and "things I just don't remember". Trying to think back, about ANYTHING, is like juggling glass jars of nitroglycerin: it's better to focus on the effort itself, than on what the consequences will be if you don't do it right. So maybe I'm not being fair to her; maybe Squeaky is just a karmic payback for the way I was when I was twenty years old. Hell, maybe I'm just jealous; I would give anything at all to be that age again, at that point in your life when you've just figured out that you have wings, but have no idea yet of how they work. I was never meant for middle-age; a stable, quiet life with seemingly nothing left to discover. I'm beginning to believe that what's been diagnosed as "depression" may just be a realistic sense of my own limitations, of what's passed by and what I've lost.
Then again, one of the benefits of middle age: I'm only watching the teenage soap opera, not experiencing it again. I don't know if that's enough of a compensation for everything else, but after last night, I'll tell you--it's definitely better than the alternative!
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Drama Slowing Down
Tim got out of the hospital Wednesday noontime and promptly, per Squeaky, disappeared. Throughout the six days he was hospitalized, I listened to Squeaky making it HER ordeal. SHE had it bad because SHE missed him. She essentially came out and said something to the effect of "I mean, he's locked up, but it's just as bad for ME because he's not here!" So she was just rabid to have him come "home" on Wednesday and be all domestic and worshipful with her.
So Wednesday night, for the entire night, she called me repeatedly to ask if I'd heard from him. I hadn't; I'd left one calm message on his voicemail and gone about my business, figuring he'd call when he was ready to call.
Not Squeaky. She called me about four or five times, each time calling to tell me he hadn't answered her calls, or her text messages, or her voice mails--and worse yet, when he stopped back at the house right after he'd been released--rather than putting on his smoking jacket, picking up his pipe, slipping into his slippers, and patting Wally and the Beav on the head before settling down to the evening paper--you know, like a dutiful boyfriend would--he'd just taken a shower, changed clothes, and left. The nerve.
So--fine, whatever, he's a Great Big Meanie and everyone's out to get poor Squeaky. Each of Wednesday's calls ended the same way. "I'll call you right away if I hear from him," I told her. "And if YOU hear from him, please let me know, okay?" "Oh, I will," she said.
I didn't really care what he was doing or who he was with; I was worried, though, that either a) he'd ended up back in the hospital, after trying to finish what he'd started; or b)(far more likely, in my opinion) he'd ended up in jail for some type of drunken idiocy, or for running his mouth at a police officer, or whatever. I wasn't hovering over him--I was WORRIED about him.
Wednesday night slipped by without a word from Tim. Thursday, I tried to call him around lunchtime, figuring he'd be awake by then, wherever he was. No answer. I was getting more and more worried. Finally, at about 8:00 Thursday night, I called Squeaky.
"Have you heard from Tim?" I asked.
"Oh, yeah...he's right here!!" she bubbled.
That was when my head completely exploded.
Let's try this again, shall we?
Hypothetical situation, Squeak: Your recently-suicidal boyfriend is missing. You call his friend, asking if she has information. She has no information. She promises to call if she hears anything. She asks you to call if YOU hear anything, and you agree.
YOU want to know where he is so you can feel slighted that he's not with YOU, worshipping YOU and hanging on YOUR every word and just BASKING in how much you supposedly love him. (This despite the facts: the main reason he was hospitalized in the first place is that his living situation--including you--has become so toxic that he sees no other way out.) His friend, however, is concerned about his safety, and wondering if there is anything that she can do, or needs to do, to preserve his well-being and freedom.
So eventually, the Prodigal Boyfriend comes home. Even though he has been there for several hours, and even though you promised to do so, YOU DON'T CALL TO TELL HIS FRIEND that you've found him??? When, had the tables been turned and the friend was the one who heard from him first, not calling you would have been a MONSTROUS, UNFORGIVABLE SIN????
I simply cannot STAND this girl. From talking to Tim, it's become apparent that a goodly portion of what I was told during his hospitalization--about things he said, about the "threatening" phone calls from Betty "for no reason", and so on and so forth--were either greatly exaggerated, deliberately misinterpreted, or flat-out invented. (He did, however, admit that I had done the right thing by calling 911, even if the source of the information that led to the call was....faulty. "Honestly--not exaggerating?" he said. "I had about...50, 60 pills in me. I took a LOT of narcotics that night--I pretty much took some out of every bottle they had in the house. So yeah...I WOULD have been dead," he said. That, for him, is a hell of an admission; in the past, he's minimized any and all of his self-harming behavior, so for him to acknowledge the likely outcome of his actions...well, that's big.)
He's worked out a plan for himself, which seems like a good one, at least in the short term: he's going to rotate staying with various friends who have expressed a willingness to let him stay for a day or two. He'll end up at Squeaky's maybe one or two days a week; he'll be here a couple of nights, and with other friends the rest of the week. Then, he said, as soon as they can make arrangements, he and Betty are going to move out of state; he's got two friends out East, each of whom has offered him a place to stay and leads on a few jobs, and who don't have an issue with a tag-along. (Betty, of course, was who he was with on Wednesday when he wasn't calling Squeaky or me; actually, he said, he was ignoring Squeaky's calls and mine was just collateral damage. Anyhow, he said, he and Betty had what he referred to as "a 'moment'...or actually, a couple of 'moments'." And then he went on to wax rhapsodic about all of Betty's wonderfulnesses, to the point that I was actually feeling a wee bit jealous. Not of the "girlfriend" thing--Tim and I are NOT meant for that--but because he makes her sound like the most awesome person in his life, the one who keeps him together, and having heard all that, I feel a bit...unappreciated. Ignored. Dismissed. Like he's so willing to sing her praises for changing his whole life just by existing, but I, who have done quite a bit for him in terms of concrete, quantifiable actions, am nowhere near as lauded. I'm sure he doesn't mean it like that, but ::::snarl:::: anyway.)
I'm glad he's seriously considering moving away. I'll miss him, but I think it would be the best thing he could do for himself. Betty's inclusion...well, if it makes him happy and gives him something to strive towards, so much the better. I hope the jobs work out, wherever he goes, and that he takes the opportunity to turn over a new leaf in regard to his drinking.
Mostly, though, I hope that Squeaky won't take his eventual departure--if in fact he DOES decide to move away--as an excuse to call me and get all dramatic about his absence and her consequent misery...because if she does, my personal balance will shift from "well-intentioned-if-slightly-pitying polite dissimulation" to "complete, damn-the-torpedoes honesty"--and THAT transition will not be a pleasant one. Not for her, not for me, not for anyone. And it will very likely end with an equation of the form "I'll call you sometime,"--where the value of "sometime" is roughly equal to "towards the beginning of the next Blagojevich administration" (or, for non-Illinoisans, "when Jessica Simpson wins the Nobel Prize for Physics".)
So Wednesday night, for the entire night, she called me repeatedly to ask if I'd heard from him. I hadn't; I'd left one calm message on his voicemail and gone about my business, figuring he'd call when he was ready to call.
Not Squeaky. She called me about four or five times, each time calling to tell me he hadn't answered her calls, or her text messages, or her voice mails--and worse yet, when he stopped back at the house right after he'd been released--rather than putting on his smoking jacket, picking up his pipe, slipping into his slippers, and patting Wally and the Beav on the head before settling down to the evening paper--you know, like a dutiful boyfriend would--he'd just taken a shower, changed clothes, and left. The nerve.
So--fine, whatever, he's a Great Big Meanie and everyone's out to get poor Squeaky. Each of Wednesday's calls ended the same way. "I'll call you right away if I hear from him," I told her. "And if YOU hear from him, please let me know, okay?" "Oh, I will," she said.
I didn't really care what he was doing or who he was with; I was worried, though, that either a) he'd ended up back in the hospital, after trying to finish what he'd started; or b)(far more likely, in my opinion) he'd ended up in jail for some type of drunken idiocy, or for running his mouth at a police officer, or whatever. I wasn't hovering over him--I was WORRIED about him.
Wednesday night slipped by without a word from Tim. Thursday, I tried to call him around lunchtime, figuring he'd be awake by then, wherever he was. No answer. I was getting more and more worried. Finally, at about 8:00 Thursday night, I called Squeaky.
"Have you heard from Tim?" I asked.
"Oh, yeah...he's right here!!" she bubbled.
That was when my head completely exploded.
Let's try this again, shall we?
Hypothetical situation, Squeak: Your recently-suicidal boyfriend is missing. You call his friend, asking if she has information. She has no information. She promises to call if she hears anything. She asks you to call if YOU hear anything, and you agree.
YOU want to know where he is so you can feel slighted that he's not with YOU, worshipping YOU and hanging on YOUR every word and just BASKING in how much you supposedly love him. (This despite the facts: the main reason he was hospitalized in the first place is that his living situation--including you--has become so toxic that he sees no other way out.) His friend, however, is concerned about his safety, and wondering if there is anything that she can do, or needs to do, to preserve his well-being and freedom.
So eventually, the Prodigal Boyfriend comes home. Even though he has been there for several hours, and even though you promised to do so, YOU DON'T CALL TO TELL HIS FRIEND that you've found him??? When, had the tables been turned and the friend was the one who heard from him first, not calling you would have been a MONSTROUS, UNFORGIVABLE SIN????
I simply cannot STAND this girl. From talking to Tim, it's become apparent that a goodly portion of what I was told during his hospitalization--about things he said, about the "threatening" phone calls from Betty "for no reason", and so on and so forth--were either greatly exaggerated, deliberately misinterpreted, or flat-out invented. (He did, however, admit that I had done the right thing by calling 911, even if the source of the information that led to the call was....faulty. "Honestly--not exaggerating?" he said. "I had about...50, 60 pills in me. I took a LOT of narcotics that night--I pretty much took some out of every bottle they had in the house. So yeah...I WOULD have been dead," he said. That, for him, is a hell of an admission; in the past, he's minimized any and all of his self-harming behavior, so for him to acknowledge the likely outcome of his actions...well, that's big.)
He's worked out a plan for himself, which seems like a good one, at least in the short term: he's going to rotate staying with various friends who have expressed a willingness to let him stay for a day or two. He'll end up at Squeaky's maybe one or two days a week; he'll be here a couple of nights, and with other friends the rest of the week. Then, he said, as soon as they can make arrangements, he and Betty are going to move out of state; he's got two friends out East, each of whom has offered him a place to stay and leads on a few jobs, and who don't have an issue with a tag-along. (Betty, of course, was who he was with on Wednesday when he wasn't calling Squeaky or me; actually, he said, he was ignoring Squeaky's calls and mine was just collateral damage. Anyhow, he said, he and Betty had what he referred to as "a 'moment'...or actually, a couple of 'moments'." And then he went on to wax rhapsodic about all of Betty's wonderfulnesses, to the point that I was actually feeling a wee bit jealous. Not of the "girlfriend" thing--Tim and I are NOT meant for that--but because he makes her sound like the most awesome person in his life, the one who keeps him together, and having heard all that, I feel a bit...unappreciated. Ignored. Dismissed. Like he's so willing to sing her praises for changing his whole life just by existing, but I, who have done quite a bit for him in terms of concrete, quantifiable actions, am nowhere near as lauded. I'm sure he doesn't mean it like that, but ::::snarl:::: anyway.)
I'm glad he's seriously considering moving away. I'll miss him, but I think it would be the best thing he could do for himself. Betty's inclusion...well, if it makes him happy and gives him something to strive towards, so much the better. I hope the jobs work out, wherever he goes, and that he takes the opportunity to turn over a new leaf in regard to his drinking.
Mostly, though, I hope that Squeaky won't take his eventual departure--if in fact he DOES decide to move away--as an excuse to call me and get all dramatic about his absence and her consequent misery...because if she does, my personal balance will shift from "well-intentioned-if-slightly-pitying polite dissimulation" to "complete, damn-the-torpedoes honesty"--and THAT transition will not be a pleasant one. Not for her, not for me, not for anyone. And it will very likely end with an equation of the form "I'll call you sometime,"--where the value of "sometime" is roughly equal to "towards the beginning of the next Blagojevich administration" (or, for non-Illinoisans, "when Jessica Simpson wins the Nobel Prize for Physics".)
Monday, January 5, 2009
Update: The Saga Continues
Tim gets out Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Squeaky is driving me Bonkers Q. Batcrap, calling me every...single...solitary...time she talks to Tim on the phone, or thinks she should talk to Tim on the phone, or wonders if she ought to CALL Tim, or wondering if Tim is going to call HER...and that's saying nothing of what she's doing to poor Tim. Apparently she's calling him when she has nothing to say.
Now, calling when you have nothing to say is an excusable thing when you're 13. Or 16. By the time you're 20, you should know when it is or is not appropriate. "Calling your 34-year-old ex-lover at the psych unit" is definitely on the "not appropriate" side of the checklist. And, predictably, he's getting snappish with her. Then she has to call me, in case I talked to him and he said something about her. Every conversation has to be dissected and analyzed and picked-over...(I realized at one point that I was feeling guilty, and wanting to look up my high-school boyfriend to drop an apology for when I used to do this....when I was 17, 18 years old. I refrained; believe me, I owe him about ten thousand times more apologies than for THAT.)
The maddening thing is, though: Squeaky is clearly Not With the Program regarding the significance of all that's happened. Her worry for Tim is couched largely in terms of "but does he love me?" "does he know I love him?" "Is he mad at me?" The issue at hand--Tim's health and welfare--she comprehensively fails to understand; she claims in one breath to want to do what's best for him, but then in the next she's talking about how she wants him to come back and live with her and Old Bastard again. Apparently, she and Old Bastard had a discussion, entirely without Tim's input, regarding what conditions Tim would be required to agree to in order to be allowed to live there again. The conditions are fairly insulting, first of all, and then there's this other small problem: Tim doesn't WANT to live there. He never did--the only reason he lived there in the first place was that she moved all his belongings there and told him it would be a stable place that he wouldn't be kicked out of! But he hates it there; he's said this a hundred times at least.
The best thing for Tim, I think, would be to take up the offer his friend in Ohio made. His friend offered to give him a room and line him up with a job, no questions asked. The reason Tim gave for not going when it was offered was that he didn't want to just turn up on the guy's doorstep in the middle of the holidays; well, the holidays are over now, so that barrier is removed. I'm going to offer to buy him the bus ticket, in fact, when he comes by on Wednesday; the way I see it, getting him out of this stress factory would probably be $40 well spent. Between me, Squeaky, and Betty the Bartender, I'm reasonably sure that I'm the one who has Tim's welfare most in mind, and who has the fewest ulterior motives. I just want him to be healthy (i.e. not constantly drunk off his butt and using "stress" as the excuse); happy (i.e. not constantly submerged in so much stress that he can USE it as an excuse); and self-supporting (because I think THAT will do more for his mental health than ANYTHING. I remember the old, self-reliant Tim, when he had a job; sure, nothing was perfect--he still drank, still did the occasional stupid thing--but he was in his 20's at the time, so that makes sense. And he was HAPPIER--that I know. He took pride in paying his rent and bills on time. I really think being in the socioeconomic dumps has hit him a lot harder than many people realize; then again, there aren't many people in his life who knew him back then, or who have seen him in circumstances besides the ones he's in.)
I wish Squeaky would leave him alone, or at least act like a grownup.
I wish Squeaky would leave ME alone. I'm a solitary person; I don't deal well with three phone calls a night, all from the same person (to whom I didn't want to talk anyway) and all of which say the same thing, to wit: nothing.
I'm reasonably sure neither of those wishes will come true.
Maybe if I changed my number and moved to Borneo....?
And of course, the person I feel worst for is Tim. -I- can just not-answer the phone; he doesn't have that option. I'm not trying to save him, mind you; I'm long past the time when I thought I even COULD save him or anybody else. But I still feel bad that he has to go through it, and if I can give him an avenue out--well, then, so much the better.
Meanwhile, Squeaky is driving me Bonkers Q. Batcrap, calling me every...single...solitary...time she talks to Tim on the phone, or thinks she should talk to Tim on the phone, or wonders if she ought to CALL Tim, or wondering if Tim is going to call HER...and that's saying nothing of what she's doing to poor Tim. Apparently she's calling him when she has nothing to say.
Now, calling when you have nothing to say is an excusable thing when you're 13. Or 16. By the time you're 20, you should know when it is or is not appropriate. "Calling your 34-year-old ex-lover at the psych unit" is definitely on the "not appropriate" side of the checklist. And, predictably, he's getting snappish with her. Then she has to call me, in case I talked to him and he said something about her. Every conversation has to be dissected and analyzed and picked-over...(I realized at one point that I was feeling guilty, and wanting to look up my high-school boyfriend to drop an apology for when I used to do this....when I was 17, 18 years old. I refrained; believe me, I owe him about ten thousand times more apologies than for THAT.)
The maddening thing is, though: Squeaky is clearly Not With the Program regarding the significance of all that's happened. Her worry for Tim is couched largely in terms of "but does he love me?" "does he know I love him?" "Is he mad at me?" The issue at hand--Tim's health and welfare--she comprehensively fails to understand; she claims in one breath to want to do what's best for him, but then in the next she's talking about how she wants him to come back and live with her and Old Bastard again. Apparently, she and Old Bastard had a discussion, entirely without Tim's input, regarding what conditions Tim would be required to agree to in order to be allowed to live there again. The conditions are fairly insulting, first of all, and then there's this other small problem: Tim doesn't WANT to live there. He never did--the only reason he lived there in the first place was that she moved all his belongings there and told him it would be a stable place that he wouldn't be kicked out of! But he hates it there; he's said this a hundred times at least.
The best thing for Tim, I think, would be to take up the offer his friend in Ohio made. His friend offered to give him a room and line him up with a job, no questions asked. The reason Tim gave for not going when it was offered was that he didn't want to just turn up on the guy's doorstep in the middle of the holidays; well, the holidays are over now, so that barrier is removed. I'm going to offer to buy him the bus ticket, in fact, when he comes by on Wednesday; the way I see it, getting him out of this stress factory would probably be $40 well spent. Between me, Squeaky, and Betty the Bartender, I'm reasonably sure that I'm the one who has Tim's welfare most in mind, and who has the fewest ulterior motives. I just want him to be healthy (i.e. not constantly drunk off his butt and using "stress" as the excuse); happy (i.e. not constantly submerged in so much stress that he can USE it as an excuse); and self-supporting (because I think THAT will do more for his mental health than ANYTHING. I remember the old, self-reliant Tim, when he had a job; sure, nothing was perfect--he still drank, still did the occasional stupid thing--but he was in his 20's at the time, so that makes sense. And he was HAPPIER--that I know. He took pride in paying his rent and bills on time. I really think being in the socioeconomic dumps has hit him a lot harder than many people realize; then again, there aren't many people in his life who knew him back then, or who have seen him in circumstances besides the ones he's in.)
I wish Squeaky would leave him alone, or at least act like a grownup.
I wish Squeaky would leave ME alone. I'm a solitary person; I don't deal well with three phone calls a night, all from the same person (to whom I didn't want to talk anyway) and all of which say the same thing, to wit: nothing.
I'm reasonably sure neither of those wishes will come true.
Maybe if I changed my number and moved to Borneo....?
And of course, the person I feel worst for is Tim. -I- can just not-answer the phone; he doesn't have that option. I'm not trying to save him, mind you; I'm long past the time when I thought I even COULD save him or anybody else. But I still feel bad that he has to go through it, and if I can give him an avenue out--well, then, so much the better.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Cross Off THAT Resolution...
Tim is in the substance-abuse unit at a local mental-health center. I just talked to Squeaky for an hour (and my respect for THAT little girl is ramped up to a fairly-amazing height, considering our history) and things are not looking too spectacular for Tim at the moment. Apparently, after having "the charcoal thing" (Squeaky's description) done to his stomach ("He wasn't real happy about that,") he "kinda freaked out" and was subsequently put in full-body restraints, with the kind assistance of "about 30 or 35 people", and once restrained, was pumped full of tranquilizers. No--I mean FULL of tranquilizers. Per Squeaky's description, they gave him a shot...then another...then another...."They seriously had to go back out to get more medicine about eight times," she said. "There was a doctor there who asked me 'Why isn't he asleep already?' I said 'I TOLD you--he's got a really high immunity for medication!'" (True; I've seen Tim take in quantities of this and that which would have incapacitated, like, ANYONE else.)
Eventually, after they transferred him from the regular hospital to the mental-health center (dumping ground of those who, like Tim, have no insurance) he DID fall asleep; they'd taken his restraints off after the shots started working enough to ensure he wasn't going to kick anyone's ass. (Squeaky told me that last night, when she called me, he had already beaten her up as she tried to get the pills away from him. That's the first time in the history of our friendship that I know of him hitting a woman. I'm not real pleased about it, but then again, he had to have been pretty far gone to even be able to do that.)
And with all the stuff Squeaky's going through with Tim, bullshit is now apparently coming from an unlikely source: Betty. Apparently Betty has decided that the reason Tim is in the condition he's in is traceable directly to Squeaky. "Why did you buy him beer??" Squeaky said Betty asked, during one of several increasingly-hostile phone calls. (Which, to me, is quite hilarious; Squeaky claims she bought him a six-pack, which I believe; whereas, when he's out with Betty, the festivities usually include pitchers of beer (plural) and shots of hard liquor, sometimes with other substances involved as well. Betty's not got a leg to stand on for THAT accusation, unfortunately; "Ms. Pot? I've got a kettle on line 1...something about colors?") Betty is blaming Squeaky, loudly and repeatedly, for every bad thing that's happened to Tim. Now, in the long dark days before Tim knew either Squeaky OR Betty, I have experienced a similar Tim-plosion; he drank himself senseless and started threatening self-harm, and somehow the police were called (I think that time, Tim did it himself) and he was taken to the same hospital. This was back when we were living with CR, so it's a good nearly-ten years ago--and I don't think Squeaky, at 10 years old and not even known to either of us, could be said to hold any responsibility for THAT. The fact of the matter is, Tim needs help; has needed it for a long time, if even only on the substance-abuse level; and right now, no matter how much he hates it, Squeaky hates it, Betty hates it, or I hate it, Tim is exactly where he needs to be. He certainly does NOT need to be in the roommate environment he was in--though that's apparently a moot point, since Old Bastard has told Squeaky that if Tim returns, they will BOTH be kicked out--and he does not need to be motel-hopping/sofa-hopping/whatever with Betty, Squeaky, or both. More than anything, I think, Tim needs some stability; a solid place to stay, and a solid job that he's not going to be "downsized" from, or shut out of when the place closes because of the economy, or whatever. He needs a routine (says the woman who herself is in dire need of a routine, but still).
Squeaky's in a bad way, as who wouldn't be after seeing the person they love put into full-body restraints and shot full of tranquilizers. She's still a kid, really; I have to remind myself of that. I couldn't have handled that when I was 20; then again, at 20, I was still kind of a sheltered, moderately-spoiled, unthinking little product of my upbringing. It wasn't til I met JP, when I was 21, that I started seeing the world through different eyes; even when we were just friends and verbal sparring-partners, he always made me THINK.
I went to the doctor today, and as I suspected she raised my dosage of Effexor. I'm a teeny bit concerned, because my legs seem itchier since I started taking it three weeks ago; but that could be just dry skin and healing from the old condition. The doctor said if it starts to get really bad, stop taking the meds, take Benadryl, and call her. I'm not going to cold-turkey STOP, though; I've heard the withdrawals from Effexor are rather unpleasant, and I don't do well with unpleasant withdrawals. The increase is definitely needed, though; my regular psychologist was worried enough after our last appointment that she scheduled me for another one in two weeks, rather than our usual four. Some of that's the holidays, I'm sure; and some of it isn't. I don't like being in a rut.
Of course, I'd rather be in a rut than be Tim, or Squeaky, or Betty right now.
And then, when I'd hung up with Squeaky (after promising to call her tomorrow), CR called. He hadn't called much recently; in fact, I hadn't heard from him for three months or so, til this morning. "I thought you weren't talking to me anymore," he said. "I thought the same thing!" I told him.
As I suspected from those pictures, he's not in a good way. He told me that within the last three weeks, he found out he has diabetes and high blood pressure (I THINK he got the numbers wrong, or he should be approximately dead--108/180?? Is that possible??) The doctors want him to lose 75 pounds (40 of which he's gained since leaving Chicago) and he's scheduled for a sleep study. (The whole fricking WORLD has sleep apnea, seems like.) And tonight, his best friend at work--an older woman who helped him immensely when he was starting there--the one who, when we first started talking again, he got so emotional when telling me about her influence on him that he actually choked up and cried, which is pretty major for him--anyway, she got fired today. Not only that, but she got fired for being a whistleblower--something about the way the staff was being treated. CR didn't go into detail about that--but basically this woman went to bat for the employees and lost her job for it. Between that, and the health problems, he's feeling really, really low just now. "Thanks for listening," he said, as he promised to call me tomorrow night. "No problem," I said.
I am a sad person surrounded by even sadder people. In one way, it's probably not ideal; in another way, it makes me realize how fortunate I am. I have a solid job, a stable place to live, no current substance-abuse issues; moderate mental-health issues, but none completely incapacitating; several minor-to-moderate health problems, but nothing currently at a critical stage; food in my fridge, two gorgeous cats, and a host of things I could do to change my life, even in small ways, were I only to make the choice to do so. So, although I am a sad person surrounded by even sadder people, I am also among the most-fortunate people I know. I AM in a rut; there is an astonishing lack of magic in my life right now; but under the circumstances and with my friends for comparison, I'm doing pretty well for myself.
I do wish I was happier about it, though.
I've got a phone number for where Tim is; Squeaky says it's a pay phone in the ward and it's often busy, but I'm going to try to call him tomorrow evening. I suspect he's probably very angry with me for calling 911--he always has been in the past--but as I said last night, and as I told Squeaky tonight, I will tell him tomorrow: I'd rather have a pissed-off live friend than a dead friend. He can be as angry as he wants, but it won't shake in the slightest my belief that Squeaky did the right thing by calling me, and I did the right thing by calling 911.
This year isn't starting out very auspiciously, though, is it.
Eventually, after they transferred him from the regular hospital to the mental-health center (dumping ground of those who, like Tim, have no insurance) he DID fall asleep; they'd taken his restraints off after the shots started working enough to ensure he wasn't going to kick anyone's ass. (Squeaky told me that last night, when she called me, he had already beaten her up as she tried to get the pills away from him. That's the first time in the history of our friendship that I know of him hitting a woman. I'm not real pleased about it, but then again, he had to have been pretty far gone to even be able to do that.)
And with all the stuff Squeaky's going through with Tim, bullshit is now apparently coming from an unlikely source: Betty. Apparently Betty has decided that the reason Tim is in the condition he's in is traceable directly to Squeaky. "Why did you buy him beer??" Squeaky said Betty asked, during one of several increasingly-hostile phone calls. (Which, to me, is quite hilarious; Squeaky claims she bought him a six-pack, which I believe; whereas, when he's out with Betty, the festivities usually include pitchers of beer (plural) and shots of hard liquor, sometimes with other substances involved as well. Betty's not got a leg to stand on for THAT accusation, unfortunately; "Ms. Pot? I've got a kettle on line 1...something about colors?") Betty is blaming Squeaky, loudly and repeatedly, for every bad thing that's happened to Tim. Now, in the long dark days before Tim knew either Squeaky OR Betty, I have experienced a similar Tim-plosion; he drank himself senseless and started threatening self-harm, and somehow the police were called (I think that time, Tim did it himself) and he was taken to the same hospital. This was back when we were living with CR, so it's a good nearly-ten years ago--and I don't think Squeaky, at 10 years old and not even known to either of us, could be said to hold any responsibility for THAT. The fact of the matter is, Tim needs help; has needed it for a long time, if even only on the substance-abuse level; and right now, no matter how much he hates it, Squeaky hates it, Betty hates it, or I hate it, Tim is exactly where he needs to be. He certainly does NOT need to be in the roommate environment he was in--though that's apparently a moot point, since Old Bastard has told Squeaky that if Tim returns, they will BOTH be kicked out--and he does not need to be motel-hopping/sofa-hopping/whatever with Betty, Squeaky, or both. More than anything, I think, Tim needs some stability; a solid place to stay, and a solid job that he's not going to be "downsized" from, or shut out of when the place closes because of the economy, or whatever. He needs a routine (says the woman who herself is in dire need of a routine, but still).
Squeaky's in a bad way, as who wouldn't be after seeing the person they love put into full-body restraints and shot full of tranquilizers. She's still a kid, really; I have to remind myself of that. I couldn't have handled that when I was 20; then again, at 20, I was still kind of a sheltered, moderately-spoiled, unthinking little product of my upbringing. It wasn't til I met JP, when I was 21, that I started seeing the world through different eyes; even when we were just friends and verbal sparring-partners, he always made me THINK.
I went to the doctor today, and as I suspected she raised my dosage of Effexor. I'm a teeny bit concerned, because my legs seem itchier since I started taking it three weeks ago; but that could be just dry skin and healing from the old condition. The doctor said if it starts to get really bad, stop taking the meds, take Benadryl, and call her. I'm not going to cold-turkey STOP, though; I've heard the withdrawals from Effexor are rather unpleasant, and I don't do well with unpleasant withdrawals. The increase is definitely needed, though; my regular psychologist was worried enough after our last appointment that she scheduled me for another one in two weeks, rather than our usual four. Some of that's the holidays, I'm sure; and some of it isn't. I don't like being in a rut.
Of course, I'd rather be in a rut than be Tim, or Squeaky, or Betty right now.
And then, when I'd hung up with Squeaky (after promising to call her tomorrow), CR called. He hadn't called much recently; in fact, I hadn't heard from him for three months or so, til this morning. "I thought you weren't talking to me anymore," he said. "I thought the same thing!" I told him.
As I suspected from those pictures, he's not in a good way. He told me that within the last three weeks, he found out he has diabetes and high blood pressure (I THINK he got the numbers wrong, or he should be approximately dead--108/180?? Is that possible??) The doctors want him to lose 75 pounds (40 of which he's gained since leaving Chicago) and he's scheduled for a sleep study. (The whole fricking WORLD has sleep apnea, seems like.) And tonight, his best friend at work--an older woman who helped him immensely when he was starting there--the one who, when we first started talking again, he got so emotional when telling me about her influence on him that he actually choked up and cried, which is pretty major for him--anyway, she got fired today. Not only that, but she got fired for being a whistleblower--something about the way the staff was being treated. CR didn't go into detail about that--but basically this woman went to bat for the employees and lost her job for it. Between that, and the health problems, he's feeling really, really low just now. "Thanks for listening," he said, as he promised to call me tomorrow night. "No problem," I said.
I am a sad person surrounded by even sadder people. In one way, it's probably not ideal; in another way, it makes me realize how fortunate I am. I have a solid job, a stable place to live, no current substance-abuse issues; moderate mental-health issues, but none completely incapacitating; several minor-to-moderate health problems, but nothing currently at a critical stage; food in my fridge, two gorgeous cats, and a host of things I could do to change my life, even in small ways, were I only to make the choice to do so. So, although I am a sad person surrounded by even sadder people, I am also among the most-fortunate people I know. I AM in a rut; there is an astonishing lack of magic in my life right now; but under the circumstances and with my friends for comparison, I'm doing pretty well for myself.
I do wish I was happier about it, though.
I've got a phone number for where Tim is; Squeaky says it's a pay phone in the ward and it's often busy, but I'm going to try to call him tomorrow evening. I suspect he's probably very angry with me for calling 911--he always has been in the past--but as I said last night, and as I told Squeaky tonight, I will tell him tomorrow: I'd rather have a pissed-off live friend than a dead friend. He can be as angry as he wants, but it won't shake in the slightest my belief that Squeaky did the right thing by calling me, and I did the right thing by calling 911.
This year isn't starting out very auspiciously, though, is it.
Resolution #1
My first resolution for 2009: No more drama.
It took me, granted, 27 hours of the new year to codify this one; actually, 26 hours and 48 minutes, which was how long after midnight on January 1 that Squeaky called me to tell me that Tim was "eating handfuls of pills"--Benadryls and Advils, before he started going through the OTHER roommate's pills (the 61-year-old guy, who I'm sure is on some heavy-duty stuff, and who will henceforth be known as Old Bastard). And when I told her to call 911, she claimed "I said I was going to, and he snapped at me and shit." Now, Tim, when drunk/whatever, is not always the nice guy he is when sober; he said the only time he ever hit a woman was during a drunken blackout several years ago, and so I wasn't in the mood to put Squeaky in that position. So I told her "Give me the address and I'LL call 911. I don't care HOW mad he gets at ME." (Which is true.) So she did, and I did, and I gave them the address and told them what she told me, and they said they were going to send somebody over there. Past that point, as I told Squeaky, I'm not terribly concerned. If he never speaks to me again...oh well. I would rather have a pissed-off ex-friend than a dead friend. And if he DOES speak to me again, he's going to get an earful; I've been down this road with him before, and I'm reasonably sure that it's a)alcohol-fueled; b)not an actual suicide attempt; c)calculated to get under SOMEONE's skin, probably Squeaky's. I know he's having a positively shitty time right now; he's still jobless, living in a place he hates with people he can't stand, and seeing no viable way out for quite some time. But what he's going to hear from me is: he's making it worse for himself, too. Squeaky and Old Bastard are NOT the only ones responsible for his misery; he's done a fair bit to further THAT himself. Not that I don't understand; but there's only so much I can do, and tonight he basically reached that limit.
This is NOT an auspicious beginning to the year.
It took me, granted, 27 hours of the new year to codify this one; actually, 26 hours and 48 minutes, which was how long after midnight on January 1 that Squeaky called me to tell me that Tim was "eating handfuls of pills"--Benadryls and Advils, before he started going through the OTHER roommate's pills (the 61-year-old guy, who I'm sure is on some heavy-duty stuff, and who will henceforth be known as Old Bastard). And when I told her to call 911, she claimed "I said I was going to, and he snapped at me and shit." Now, Tim, when drunk/whatever, is not always the nice guy he is when sober; he said the only time he ever hit a woman was during a drunken blackout several years ago, and so I wasn't in the mood to put Squeaky in that position. So I told her "Give me the address and I'LL call 911. I don't care HOW mad he gets at ME." (Which is true.) So she did, and I did, and I gave them the address and told them what she told me, and they said they were going to send somebody over there. Past that point, as I told Squeaky, I'm not terribly concerned. If he never speaks to me again...oh well. I would rather have a pissed-off ex-friend than a dead friend. And if he DOES speak to me again, he's going to get an earful; I've been down this road with him before, and I'm reasonably sure that it's a)alcohol-fueled; b)not an actual suicide attempt; c)calculated to get under SOMEONE's skin, probably Squeaky's. I know he's having a positively shitty time right now; he's still jobless, living in a place he hates with people he can't stand, and seeing no viable way out for quite some time. But what he's going to hear from me is: he's making it worse for himself, too. Squeaky and Old Bastard are NOT the only ones responsible for his misery; he's done a fair bit to further THAT himself. Not that I don't understand; but there's only so much I can do, and tonight he basically reached that limit.
This is NOT an auspicious beginning to the year.
Monday, December 29, 2008
No, Really--I'm SERIOUS.
Well, that was a heckuva holiday.
First off—I was one of the two last living bodies to flee my workplace, at 6:30 PM on Christmas Eve. Now. Let’s look at this through the distant lens of logic, which so seldom is found in my office. My work is dependent on a stream of work tickets. These tickets are provided by the first-line phone support staff, who receive requests for assistance via both phone and e-mail. If there were no first-line staff, work tickets would not be created.
So why in the name of curdled eggnog were we still there at 6:30 PM, a full TWO HOURS after the first-liners had shut off the phone, shut down their e-mail, locked the front door, and fled the vicinity on foot or by wheel???
(Answer: because the boss said we had to be there. Good enough reason, I guess.)
So Mom picked me up from work and we stopped at my place to feed the kits, and I picked up my suitcase and my bags of this and that, and went to spend the night at Mom’s, which is part of our Christmas tradition. And we did our little candle-lighting and our Bible reading, and Mom fixed a fabulous dinner, and we began the other part of our Christmas tradition: the Potato Ceremony. (This is actually part of the _real_ Christmas meal, but the preparations involved are time-consuming enough that we have to start them the night before.) And then Mom went to Midnight Mass, and I turned on WGN’s “Bozo, Gar and Ray” special, and wrapped the one present for Mom which had survived the holiday season intact; and placed it under the tree and went to bed.
And the next day, we opened gifts and finished potato-ing, and then we packed up what seemed like half the food in the house (four trays of twice-baked potatoes, two large cheesecakes, and two containers of strawberry topping, along with a bunch of other stuff I’m forgetting) and trekked it down the ice-glazed walks to Mom’s car, and went to The Fun Relatives’ House. (The house belongs to my aunt-in-law; between her and the various people who bring side dishes and desserts, dinner there is a thing of beauty. And they really are fun people.)
Then I went home.
Here was my first mistake:
At about 11:00, later than the usual time that anyone calls me with GOOD news, I picked up the ringing phone to the sound of hysterical male weeping. I mean, just sobbing. My immediate thought was Oh my god, Tim’s cat died. (It was, of course, Tim. Who did you think it would be?) But no—the cat is apparently hale and hardy, though it took some time before I could pick out enough whole syllables to ascertain that such was the case. He was just…bawling. Apparently something something Squeaky’s roommate something mutual friend something tried to tell him but something something and then I just took it straight to him…which I wasn’t proud of but something something….blah blah…probably shouldn’t have called you…I’ll talk to you soon, okay. Click.
Well, I said. That was…perplexing.
At which point the phone rang again. “Listen, G? I’m gonna head out toward you, okay? I mean, it’ll be a while because of the buses and everything, but I’ll keep you posted…”
Oh. Goody.
He showed up at about 3 AM, moderately drunk, as I expected. You know for 100% sure that Tim is drunk when every other sentence that comes out of his mouth is “Seriously?” I guess if you hang around a ditzy twenty-year-old long enough, you get to sounding like one yourself. So anyway—seriously?—he calmed down enough to tell me the story. See, Squeaky’s roommate was a 60-year-old-guy, and—seriously?—he had a crush on one of Squeaky’s friends, who was like 23. Seriously. And so she (the friend) tried to dissuade him (the roomie) and—seriously? (Okay, I’ll stop, I promise. But that’s what the conversation was like—seriously.) And anyway, the roomie didn’t like it, and Tim tried to talk to him and somehow, something just blew up and punches were thrown and the friend fled the vicinity in disgust, and I STILL have no idea what the hell Tim was all hysterical about on that first call, but whatever.
So then we devolved into Various Dark Secrets of Tim’s Past and Present, of which the only one I’m at liberty to disclose is that he’s in love with Betty the Bartender and thinks it’s mutual. But there was a lot more than that, and it was about 5 AM when I finally chugged off to bed. And I was tired. I’d had a very, very busy day, what with the potatoes and the family and the socialization and this and that…
I wanted my peace and quiet, is what I wanted.
Unfortunately, before leaving the room, I had answered “yes” to a very simple, seemingly harmless question: “Hey, G, you mind if I have a shot of your vodka?” I figured, as late in the night as it was, and as stressed as he’d been, he’d have a shot and pass out on the floor for a few hours.
My first notion that this was not going to be the case came when I got up to use the bathroom. “No—wait—don’t go back in the room yet—I want to ask you something—no, seriously—“ He then attempted to stop me from feeding the cats because he didn’t believe “you’ve got them on a schedule? Seriously?” And what, should you ask, was the crucial thing he needed to ask? He needed me to proofread a text-message to Squeaky. And then he came into my room—which from long roommate-ship, he knows is not appreciated—after I’d told him I was tired and I was going back to sleep now, and goodnight.
The next thing I heard was BadCat, yowling and hissing and generally sounding thoroughly outraged, alternating with “Seriously? What. What are you gonna do, huh? Seriously?”
Now, BadCat and Tim are not good friends. BadCat, from kittenhood, has been…concerned…by Tim’s existence. He expresses that concern through loud meows, yowls, and hisses whenever Tim violates his own personal feline zone of no-contact. Even a casual walk-by will elicit a mew of consternation; actual, direct attention gets a concert of yowls and moans and very very unhappy cat noises, increasing in volume. I know those yowls well enough to know that intervention was required.
I opened the door, and Tim was on all fours in the hall, with BadCat backed into a corner. “Dude. Cut it out,” I said. No response. “Dude, I said cut it OUT!” He continued. Finally I stepped forward, put my hand on Tim’s forehead, and pushed. “Tim! Stop it right now. Leave the cat alone.”
“Yeah, okay, sure,” he said. I went back into the room.
Five minutes later, yowl, hiss, meow, Seriously, etc.
The conversation progressed thusly.
“Tim. Leave the cat alone, please. Go to sleep.”
“Tim. Stop it. “
“I’m not kidding. Stop aggravating the cat. You’re pissing me off.”
“You are really, seriously, pissing me off right now, Tim. Go to sleep and leave the fucking cat ALONE.”
And finally, the coup de gras: “You know what? You need to leave now.”
If I thought I’d heard the word “Seriously?” a few times earlier in the evening, it was nothing at all compared to how many times I heard it as he put his shoes on, pulled on a sweatshirt, and picked up his backpack—all in triple-slow motion, because surely I was going to change my mind, right?
I didn’t. Not through “seriously?”, not through “I’m sorry, I’m an asshole,” not through “I thought we had a stronger friendship than that, but whatever.” And he walked out the door in quadruple-slow motion, and it took a good five minutes for him to walk the length of the hallway to the elevator.
And I locked my door, gave BadCat an extra treat for being a trooper, and went to bed.
(He called me about eight times in the next four hours. He left his jacket in my closet, for one thing, and I guess he either wanted to apologize or let me hear him bitching out pedestrians who were cruel enough not to give him a cigarette when he asked. But he also called after he sobered up, and the messages sound, at least, like he recognizes what an ass he was. It’s something, anyhow.)
Christmas, man. What a freakin’ riot.
Seriously.
First off—I was one of the two last living bodies to flee my workplace, at 6:30 PM on Christmas Eve. Now. Let’s look at this through the distant lens of logic, which so seldom is found in my office. My work is dependent on a stream of work tickets. These tickets are provided by the first-line phone support staff, who receive requests for assistance via both phone and e-mail. If there were no first-line staff, work tickets would not be created.
So why in the name of curdled eggnog were we still there at 6:30 PM, a full TWO HOURS after the first-liners had shut off the phone, shut down their e-mail, locked the front door, and fled the vicinity on foot or by wheel???
(Answer: because the boss said we had to be there. Good enough reason, I guess.)
So Mom picked me up from work and we stopped at my place to feed the kits, and I picked up my suitcase and my bags of this and that, and went to spend the night at Mom’s, which is part of our Christmas tradition. And we did our little candle-lighting and our Bible reading, and Mom fixed a fabulous dinner, and we began the other part of our Christmas tradition: the Potato Ceremony. (This is actually part of the _real_ Christmas meal, but the preparations involved are time-consuming enough that we have to start them the night before.) And then Mom went to Midnight Mass, and I turned on WGN’s “Bozo, Gar and Ray” special, and wrapped the one present for Mom which had survived the holiday season intact; and placed it under the tree and went to bed.
And the next day, we opened gifts and finished potato-ing, and then we packed up what seemed like half the food in the house (four trays of twice-baked potatoes, two large cheesecakes, and two containers of strawberry topping, along with a bunch of other stuff I’m forgetting) and trekked it down the ice-glazed walks to Mom’s car, and went to The Fun Relatives’ House. (The house belongs to my aunt-in-law; between her and the various people who bring side dishes and desserts, dinner there is a thing of beauty. And they really are fun people.)
Then I went home.
Here was my first mistake:
At about 11:00, later than the usual time that anyone calls me with GOOD news, I picked up the ringing phone to the sound of hysterical male weeping. I mean, just sobbing. My immediate thought was Oh my god, Tim’s cat died. (It was, of course, Tim. Who did you think it would be?) But no—the cat is apparently hale and hardy, though it took some time before I could pick out enough whole syllables to ascertain that such was the case. He was just…bawling. Apparently something something Squeaky’s roommate something mutual friend something tried to tell him but something something and then I just took it straight to him…which I wasn’t proud of but something something….blah blah…probably shouldn’t have called you…I’ll talk to you soon, okay. Click.
Well, I said. That was…perplexing.
At which point the phone rang again. “Listen, G? I’m gonna head out toward you, okay? I mean, it’ll be a while because of the buses and everything, but I’ll keep you posted…”
Oh. Goody.
He showed up at about 3 AM, moderately drunk, as I expected. You know for 100% sure that Tim is drunk when every other sentence that comes out of his mouth is “Seriously?” I guess if you hang around a ditzy twenty-year-old long enough, you get to sounding like one yourself. So anyway—seriously?—he calmed down enough to tell me the story. See, Squeaky’s roommate was a 60-year-old-guy, and—seriously?—he had a crush on one of Squeaky’s friends, who was like 23. Seriously. And so she (the friend) tried to dissuade him (the roomie) and—seriously? (Okay, I’ll stop, I promise. But that’s what the conversation was like—seriously.) And anyway, the roomie didn’t like it, and Tim tried to talk to him and somehow, something just blew up and punches were thrown and the friend fled the vicinity in disgust, and I STILL have no idea what the hell Tim was all hysterical about on that first call, but whatever.
So then we devolved into Various Dark Secrets of Tim’s Past and Present, of which the only one I’m at liberty to disclose is that he’s in love with Betty the Bartender and thinks it’s mutual. But there was a lot more than that, and it was about 5 AM when I finally chugged off to bed. And I was tired. I’d had a very, very busy day, what with the potatoes and the family and the socialization and this and that…
I wanted my peace and quiet, is what I wanted.
Unfortunately, before leaving the room, I had answered “yes” to a very simple, seemingly harmless question: “Hey, G, you mind if I have a shot of your vodka?” I figured, as late in the night as it was, and as stressed as he’d been, he’d have a shot and pass out on the floor for a few hours.
My first notion that this was not going to be the case came when I got up to use the bathroom. “No—wait—don’t go back in the room yet—I want to ask you something—no, seriously—“ He then attempted to stop me from feeding the cats because he didn’t believe “you’ve got them on a schedule? Seriously?” And what, should you ask, was the crucial thing he needed to ask? He needed me to proofread a text-message to Squeaky. And then he came into my room—which from long roommate-ship, he knows is not appreciated—after I’d told him I was tired and I was going back to sleep now, and goodnight.
The next thing I heard was BadCat, yowling and hissing and generally sounding thoroughly outraged, alternating with “Seriously? What. What are you gonna do, huh? Seriously?”
Now, BadCat and Tim are not good friends. BadCat, from kittenhood, has been…concerned…by Tim’s existence. He expresses that concern through loud meows, yowls, and hisses whenever Tim violates his own personal feline zone of no-contact. Even a casual walk-by will elicit a mew of consternation; actual, direct attention gets a concert of yowls and moans and very very unhappy cat noises, increasing in volume. I know those yowls well enough to know that intervention was required.
I opened the door, and Tim was on all fours in the hall, with BadCat backed into a corner. “Dude. Cut it out,” I said. No response. “Dude, I said cut it OUT!” He continued. Finally I stepped forward, put my hand on Tim’s forehead, and pushed. “Tim! Stop it right now. Leave the cat alone.”
“Yeah, okay, sure,” he said. I went back into the room.
Five minutes later, yowl, hiss, meow, Seriously, etc.
The conversation progressed thusly.
“Tim. Leave the cat alone, please. Go to sleep.”
“Tim. Stop it. “
“I’m not kidding. Stop aggravating the cat. You’re pissing me off.”
“You are really, seriously, pissing me off right now, Tim. Go to sleep and leave the fucking cat ALONE.”
And finally, the coup de gras: “You know what? You need to leave now.”
If I thought I’d heard the word “Seriously?” a few times earlier in the evening, it was nothing at all compared to how many times I heard it as he put his shoes on, pulled on a sweatshirt, and picked up his backpack—all in triple-slow motion, because surely I was going to change my mind, right?
I didn’t. Not through “seriously?”, not through “I’m sorry, I’m an asshole,” not through “I thought we had a stronger friendship than that, but whatever.” And he walked out the door in quadruple-slow motion, and it took a good five minutes for him to walk the length of the hallway to the elevator.
And I locked my door, gave BadCat an extra treat for being a trooper, and went to bed.
(He called me about eight times in the next four hours. He left his jacket in my closet, for one thing, and I guess he either wanted to apologize or let me hear him bitching out pedestrians who were cruel enough not to give him a cigarette when he asked. But he also called after he sobered up, and the messages sound, at least, like he recognizes what an ass he was. It’s something, anyhow.)
Christmas, man. What a freakin’ riot.
Seriously.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Oh, Yeah--I Forgot...
(See, this is what happens when I don't post in a long time. Things get overlooked.)
I didn't mention the BIG FREAKING DEVELOPMENT:
Tim and Squeaky are mostly-broken-up and (shocker) once again mostly-homeless. AND: Betty (Tim's friend who used to be a bartender at his favorite bar til she got fired several months ago) is apparently travelling with them.
The order of events, as I understand it, went something like this:
Tim and Squeaky had been living with Squeaky's dad for the past year. Squeaky's dad (hereafter abbreviated to SD) has his own issues; he's apparently schizophrenic, along with a bunch of other diagnoses, and so he lives in an apartment subsidized by some church group with which he's affiliated.
Meanwhile, Betty had been staying with her boyfriend, but they got into a huge fight and she left, and SD told Tim and Squeaky "sure, why not, what's another one?" So Betty was staying with Tim and Squeaky.
One night, after some trivial slight, Squeaky just basically flipped the fuck out. (I have this on the authority of both Tim, whose version of the story would be open to doubt, and Betty, who would have no reason to varnish the truth.) She started screaming at Tim "I'm gonna fucking kill you!" and pounced on him, scratching and clawing and strangling and just generally losing her mind. Betty, at the time, was sitting in the living room watching TV with SD, and SD said "What's she doing to him NOW???" (Both Tim and Betty claim that Squeaky's attacked Tim before. I don't entirely doubt it...in fact, I don't doubt it at all.) Betty ran in and pulled Squeaky off Tim, and the screaming and yelling and the rest continued.
Meanwhile, SD had had enough. Now, normally, when people have Had Enough, they yell and make ultimatums and so on. Not SD. SD, when he's Had Enough, checks himself into the hospital for a break. And that's what he did in this case--he left, and went to the hospital, and checked himself in as a psych patient.
Betty and Tim managed to calm Squeaky down, and Tim was of course properly pissed--as who wouldn't be...Anyway, Tim told Squeaky that he was pretty sure that they were all in serious trouble, now that SD had gone to the hospital, and that the next few days would be critical.
Enter the Church Guy. The Church Guy (now CG) is apparently SD's caseworker or whatever; anyway, CG showed up at the hospital and heard SD's story of why he was there, and CG--quite rightly--said "oh HELL no; out they go, the lot of them." And so there they were: Tim, Squeaky, Betty, and two cats, out on the streets two weeks before Thanksgiving.
The first I heard of it was the first day of my vacation, when Tim called. "Um, G?" he asked. "Could me and Betty maybe crash at your place for a day or two?" He told me the story, told me he had "suggested" that Squeaky find somebody else to stay with among HER friends (oh, wait, that's right--she didn't really HAVE any, but fortunately someone she knew from the old days was willing to let her crash there anyway) and emphasized that it was only for a couple of days, that they were working on several other options. That was at about 8 PM, and they said they were "on their way".
They arrived at 4 AM, after several stops and missed buses and pauses at bars and et cetera; they told me the full story, which lasted pretty well til sunrise. Throughout the story, and in fact through the next two days, every conversation was interrupted with the BEEP of either Tim's or Betty's phones, with text messages from Squeaky. She was DETERMINED to get back into their good graces, which--from what I was hearing--was totally NOT going to happen.
Anyway, they stayed three nights, at the end of which it was determined that they REALLY needed to get Betty out of my apartment before her entire head exploded--Betty is HIGHLY allergic to cats!--and so they actually left. They've since been staying here and there, and apparently Squeaky has some roommate situation developing, and though Tim is adamant that he and Squeaky are broken up, apparently they're going to be staying in the same place--all three of them, plus the cats (the cats had been living with SD, and getting fed by CG when he wasn't around--Tim was more worried about the cats than Squeaky, really, and I can't blame him) and Tim may have a job in the works, at last.
Mostly I'm just happy he and Squeaky broke up; I'm pretty sure it's for keeps, too. I have heard Tim at various points in most of his breakups, and I can pretty much tell when he means it and when he doesn't; then, too, Betty is a helpful reinforcement in several ways. One, she loathes Squeaky; two, Tim has had a crush on Betty for quite a while, though it's not reciprocated; three, Betty is pretty much an exemplar of all the qualities which Tim admires and which are completely lacking in Squeaky: Betty is down-to-earth, has street-smarts, is self-sufficent (well, when she has a job!), has a life outside her relationship...I would say "isn't annoying" but...well, Betty is kinda loud and brash, but in a fun way, and she has enough other good qualities that it can be forgiven. And she's smart, too. She actually READS--in fact, she left here with a couple of my books, and when I talked to Tim a couple of days ago I heard her in the background saying "Tell her I need more books!" It's been so long since I've had people around me who READ...like, at least ten years, maybe more. I don't think Tim and Betty will end up together, but it wouldn't be a bad match, if they did.
Really, I'm just glad they're figuring this out on their own, for the most part. Tim, when they were here, made some remarks about how much I've done already, and how he doesn't feel comfortable asking me for any more, in the face of all that; not that I mind helping him, but I'm impressed that he seems to want to handle it without asking me for help. That--like dumping the Squeakster--is a step in the right direction.
I didn't mention the BIG FREAKING DEVELOPMENT:
Tim and Squeaky are mostly-broken-up and (shocker) once again mostly-homeless. AND: Betty (Tim's friend who used to be a bartender at his favorite bar til she got fired several months ago) is apparently travelling with them.
The order of events, as I understand it, went something like this:
Tim and Squeaky had been living with Squeaky's dad for the past year. Squeaky's dad (hereafter abbreviated to SD) has his own issues; he's apparently schizophrenic, along with a bunch of other diagnoses, and so he lives in an apartment subsidized by some church group with which he's affiliated.
Meanwhile, Betty had been staying with her boyfriend, but they got into a huge fight and she left, and SD told Tim and Squeaky "sure, why not, what's another one?" So Betty was staying with Tim and Squeaky.
One night, after some trivial slight, Squeaky just basically flipped the fuck out. (I have this on the authority of both Tim, whose version of the story would be open to doubt, and Betty, who would have no reason to varnish the truth.) She started screaming at Tim "I'm gonna fucking kill you!" and pounced on him, scratching and clawing and strangling and just generally losing her mind. Betty, at the time, was sitting in the living room watching TV with SD, and SD said "What's she doing to him NOW???" (Both Tim and Betty claim that Squeaky's attacked Tim before. I don't entirely doubt it...in fact, I don't doubt it at all.) Betty ran in and pulled Squeaky off Tim, and the screaming and yelling and the rest continued.
Meanwhile, SD had had enough. Now, normally, when people have Had Enough, they yell and make ultimatums and so on. Not SD. SD, when he's Had Enough, checks himself into the hospital for a break. And that's what he did in this case--he left, and went to the hospital, and checked himself in as a psych patient.
Betty and Tim managed to calm Squeaky down, and Tim was of course properly pissed--as who wouldn't be...Anyway, Tim told Squeaky that he was pretty sure that they were all in serious trouble, now that SD had gone to the hospital, and that the next few days would be critical.
Enter the Church Guy. The Church Guy (now CG) is apparently SD's caseworker or whatever; anyway, CG showed up at the hospital and heard SD's story of why he was there, and CG--quite rightly--said "oh HELL no; out they go, the lot of them." And so there they were: Tim, Squeaky, Betty, and two cats, out on the streets two weeks before Thanksgiving.
The first I heard of it was the first day of my vacation, when Tim called. "Um, G?" he asked. "Could me and Betty maybe crash at your place for a day or two?" He told me the story, told me he had "suggested" that Squeaky find somebody else to stay with among HER friends (oh, wait, that's right--she didn't really HAVE any, but fortunately someone she knew from the old days was willing to let her crash there anyway) and emphasized that it was only for a couple of days, that they were working on several other options. That was at about 8 PM, and they said they were "on their way".
They arrived at 4 AM, after several stops and missed buses and pauses at bars and et cetera; they told me the full story, which lasted pretty well til sunrise. Throughout the story, and in fact through the next two days, every conversation was interrupted with the BEEP of either Tim's or Betty's phones, with text messages from Squeaky. She was DETERMINED to get back into their good graces, which--from what I was hearing--was totally NOT going to happen.
Anyway, they stayed three nights, at the end of which it was determined that they REALLY needed to get Betty out of my apartment before her entire head exploded--Betty is HIGHLY allergic to cats!--and so they actually left. They've since been staying here and there, and apparently Squeaky has some roommate situation developing, and though Tim is adamant that he and Squeaky are broken up, apparently they're going to be staying in the same place--all three of them, plus the cats (the cats had been living with SD, and getting fed by CG when he wasn't around--Tim was more worried about the cats than Squeaky, really, and I can't blame him) and Tim may have a job in the works, at last.
Mostly I'm just happy he and Squeaky broke up; I'm pretty sure it's for keeps, too. I have heard Tim at various points in most of his breakups, and I can pretty much tell when he means it and when he doesn't; then, too, Betty is a helpful reinforcement in several ways. One, she loathes Squeaky; two, Tim has had a crush on Betty for quite a while, though it's not reciprocated; three, Betty is pretty much an exemplar of all the qualities which Tim admires and which are completely lacking in Squeaky: Betty is down-to-earth, has street-smarts, is self-sufficent (well, when she has a job!), has a life outside her relationship...I would say "isn't annoying" but...well, Betty is kinda loud and brash, but in a fun way, and she has enough other good qualities that it can be forgiven. And she's smart, too. She actually READS--in fact, she left here with a couple of my books, and when I talked to Tim a couple of days ago I heard her in the background saying "Tell her I need more books!" It's been so long since I've had people around me who READ...like, at least ten years, maybe more. I don't think Tim and Betty will end up together, but it wouldn't be a bad match, if they did.
Really, I'm just glad they're figuring this out on their own, for the most part. Tim, when they were here, made some remarks about how much I've done already, and how he doesn't feel comfortable asking me for any more, in the face of all that; not that I mind helping him, but I'm impressed that he seems to want to handle it without asking me for help. That--like dumping the Squeakster--is a step in the right direction.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
"Oy," Also "Vey".
2 PM, voice mail left on my cell phone:
"Hey, G, it's me. Listen, call me when you get this message because I've been having a REALLY BAD past couple of days and I know it's not your problem but I really need somebody to speak to."
4 PM, same:
"G..." (to someone in background: "Shut the fuck up,") "Hey, G, call me as soon as you get this message, okay?"
Now, Tim knows what my cell-phone situation is, so it was my measured opinion that if it was REALLY important, he would call the HOUSE phone. But the second message, with its background argument, made me curious enough to call him.
He answered on the fourth ring: "G--hey. Listen, I'm on my way up there," he told me, "because I can't be around this crazy motherfucker ANY MORE." And then there ensued about fifteen minutes of that I'm-talking-to-the-person-on-the-phone-but-really-I'm-talking-to-the-person-in-the-room-with-me-who-is-the-real-target-of-what-I'm-saying kind of thing. In fact--once the practical outcome of the conversation had been achieved--I just took my ear away from the phone. He wasn't telling me anything I didn't know already (Squeaky's dad is a semi-crazy, extremely-lazy, parasitical welfare-cheat) and frankly, I wasn't that interested. As I said, the main outcome had been arrived at; Tim's on his way over and will most likely be spending a couple of days--at least--on my floor.
This is going to be interesting.
Curiously, I'm not complaining. I'm learning things about myself, these past few months, and one of the things I've learned is: the neat and quiet life isn't all it's cracked up to be. I need a little messiness, a little (okay, a LOT) of stuff going on; not so much cleaning up after everyone around me, but at least having all their stuff play out in my vicinity. Otherwise I get lonely and bored and BORED and depressed, and grossly uncreative. (Speaking of which--I'm taking my REAL computer in this week, and once it's fixed I'm going to scan in a crapload of my artwork. I've been doing a lot of work in colored pencils, pastels, and conte crayons; I wouldn't call it groundbreaking, by any stretch, but it's surely fun, and some of it is quite pretty. In fact, my next step is to buy some mat-board and start decorating.)
I don't necessarily like this new development--and the minute Tim starts with "Squeaky has no place to stay," my attitude will change 180 degrees, to "And Out You Go Too!!"--but for the moment, hey, what the hell--I'll take care of the world for a while longer.
I mean, SOMEBODY's got to, right?
"Hey, G, it's me. Listen, call me when you get this message because I've been having a REALLY BAD past couple of days and I know it's not your problem but I really need somebody to speak to."
4 PM, same:
"G..." (to someone in background: "Shut the fuck up,") "Hey, G, call me as soon as you get this message, okay?"
Now, Tim knows what my cell-phone situation is, so it was my measured opinion that if it was REALLY important, he would call the HOUSE phone. But the second message, with its background argument, made me curious enough to call him.
He answered on the fourth ring: "G--hey. Listen, I'm on my way up there," he told me, "because I can't be around this crazy motherfucker ANY MORE." And then there ensued about fifteen minutes of that I'm-talking-to-the-person-on-the-phone-but-really-I'm-talking-to-the-person-in-the-room-with-me-who-is-the-real-target-of-what-I'm-saying kind of thing. In fact--once the practical outcome of the conversation had been achieved--I just took my ear away from the phone. He wasn't telling me anything I didn't know already (Squeaky's dad is a semi-crazy, extremely-lazy, parasitical welfare-cheat) and frankly, I wasn't that interested. As I said, the main outcome had been arrived at; Tim's on his way over and will most likely be spending a couple of days--at least--on my floor.
This is going to be interesting.
Curiously, I'm not complaining. I'm learning things about myself, these past few months, and one of the things I've learned is: the neat and quiet life isn't all it's cracked up to be. I need a little messiness, a little (okay, a LOT) of stuff going on; not so much cleaning up after everyone around me, but at least having all their stuff play out in my vicinity. Otherwise I get lonely and bored and BORED and depressed, and grossly uncreative. (Speaking of which--I'm taking my REAL computer in this week, and once it's fixed I'm going to scan in a crapload of my artwork. I've been doing a lot of work in colored pencils, pastels, and conte crayons; I wouldn't call it groundbreaking, by any stretch, but it's surely fun, and some of it is quite pretty. In fact, my next step is to buy some mat-board and start decorating.)
I don't necessarily like this new development--and the minute Tim starts with "Squeaky has no place to stay," my attitude will change 180 degrees, to "And Out You Go Too!!"--but for the moment, hey, what the hell--I'll take care of the world for a while longer.
I mean, SOMEBODY's got to, right?
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Thanks...
...Eatmisery, for your concern.
I'm fine, mostly. I would say the depression is...maybe not abating, but settling down somewhat. Last week was the worst it's been in a while, but since about Friday afternoon I've noticed an uptick in my basic functionality. Which is good, because I wasn't getting a damn thing done; I took two sick days and just laid around in front of the TV in my pajamas, trying to rationalize my total inertia. At first I wondered if this isn't the fallout from the change in medicine/dosage; then I came up with a more-logical explanation. But whatever it is, I did not enjoy it. At all.
Friday night I sorta got a "second wind", and chugged off to work on Saturday morning; from the time I got home after work, I've been scurrying around nearly nonstop, working on projects for Mom both at her house (digging up the extremely-dead front lawn, putting down poison against the grubs that killed it, and then re-seeding) and here at home (scanning and transcribing some old family letters from the 1920's). The nice thing about THAT project is that it got me a brand-new all-in-one printer-scanner-copier, because mine gave up the ghost midway through the project and Mom is really, REALLY anxious for me to finish with the letters, and so she agreed to go halfsies with me on a new one. I appreciated the hell out of that; more so because...
Well, this is why I think I'm depressed.
My finances have improved GREATLY in the past few months. I still have a crapload of old bills to pay, but I can pay all the current ones and then some. And when my tax check came, I thought "Yay!" and started thinking of all the things I could buy...
...except for a promise I made about 18 months ago.
See, Tim has an old friend, Brandon. They've been friends since grade school, and they're pretty close. Brandon's getting married next month. Well, back in the fall of 2006, when Tim moved in with me after I got fired, he told me about Brandon's wedding and how honored he was that Brandon had asked him to be best man...but that he was really nervous, because the wedding was in Las Vegas and Tim wasn't sure if he was going to be able to afford to go, and he didn't want to accept and tell Brandon he could be in the wedding if he wasn't one hundred percent sure he could make it. "I don't want to let him down," Tim said. So, being me, I said, "Don't worry about it, Tim--if you need some help getting to the wedding when the time comes, I'll help you out." When I said it, I figured Well, he knows a year and a half in advance that this is an expense that's coming up; he'll make SOME kind of provisions for it. He has time to get a job and save up at least MOST of what it will cost, and if he needs me to throw in a couple hundred at the end, well, I can do that for him--after all, he's my friend.
And he is. But he is also, and I didn't know this when I made the promise, a different Tim than the one I knew when we first lived together. Being homeless did something to him, I swear, and the former sense of thrift and responsibility and planning ahead has been replaced by this day-to-day survival instinct which sees no time but right this minute. So eighteen months after making this promise, last Monday I found myself typing my payment info into the checkout screen on Orbitz--for just over $800.
This didn't eat up all my money. But it ate up every bit of my emotional reserves.
He wants me to go to Vegas with him. He claims it's because he feels bad about the fact that I'm spending my money to send HIM, but I'M not going myself. (If I was picking places to go, Vegas wouldn't be on the list, I don't think.) He also says he wants someone to "keep an eye" on him; this is so he can give a clean report to Squeaky, methinks.
I -could- afford it--just barely, but I could. But if I DID go, I would be going out of guilt.
Now I ask you: What kind of damn person feels GUILTY because she can't do something she doesn't want to do, for someone on whom she's already just spent more money than she's nearly-EVER spent on herSELF--and she's not even romantically involved with him, or even INTERESTED like that??? (Wait--I think I can answer this one: a DOORMAT. THAT's what kind of person.)
Well, all that crap rattling around the brainpan, coupled with the tweak in the meds, plus finding out that Debbi (my oldest friend) is apparently going to marry this guy who everyone in her life seems to think is beneath her--I can't say, since I've only met him once and other than being one of those disgustingly clingy, slobbery kind of couples I'm always secretly jealous of, I can't say anything bad about him, but he's definitely NOT the dream guy she's described in the past--anyway, she's supposedly marrying him next spring, and between hoping SHE'S going to be all right, and worrying about how I'm going to tell Tim I'm not going to Vegas with him, and wondering if that's the right thing to do, and dealing with Mom which has been a WHOOOOOLE nother story....
I've been a little overwhelmed, is what I'm saying, I guess. I'm certainly trying. Trying to do the right thing, trying to make everyone happy, trying to keep it together, trying to be a good person...trying to cover it all up and make everything seem normal when it isn't.
Also, I've been drawing. Before I bought Tim the Vegas trip, I took the proceeds of my tax check to the art-supply store, and I gave myself a merry little Christmas. I bought acrylics, watercolors, pastels, paper, pencils, brushes, ink pens...oh, I had a grand old time. There is nothing in this world that's cooler than having a brand-new box of paints and a brand-new set of brushes...
...Now, though, I have to set up a cat-free workspace. And that's not as easy as you'd think.
"Cat-free" pretty much means "in my bedroom", and it's pretty cramped in there to begin with. Full-size bed, two dressers, cedar chest, two bedside tables, a couple of small bookcases, an armchair--plus laundry hampers, boxes, assorted accoutrements of daily living...Maybe if I moved the bed out into the living room? I mean, it IS my apartment...there's no law that says the bed needs to be in the bedroom... :::laughing::: (See, THESE are the kind of problems I like. THIS is the kind of dilemma I'm equipped to deal with. "Where can I paint?" is so much softer and easier of a question than "What's my purpose in life?" If one question is like drinking cool water through a straw, the other is like trying to inhale a Buick through your nose.)
Anyway. All this is to say, there's no need to worry. I'm doing my damnedest to keep my pieces together, and though I'm not entirely successful at it just yet...well, we may be making progress. (And it's SPRING!!!! Spring helps my mood, quite a lot. It's more difficult to be depressed when every time you look around, you're confronted with fuzzy baby green grass blades, tiny little purple and yellow wildflowers, and noisy bright-red cardinals singing from the utility pole outside your window.)
I'm fine, mostly. I would say the depression is...maybe not abating, but settling down somewhat. Last week was the worst it's been in a while, but since about Friday afternoon I've noticed an uptick in my basic functionality. Which is good, because I wasn't getting a damn thing done; I took two sick days and just laid around in front of the TV in my pajamas, trying to rationalize my total inertia. At first I wondered if this isn't the fallout from the change in medicine/dosage; then I came up with a more-logical explanation. But whatever it is, I did not enjoy it. At all.
Friday night I sorta got a "second wind", and chugged off to work on Saturday morning; from the time I got home after work, I've been scurrying around nearly nonstop, working on projects for Mom both at her house (digging up the extremely-dead front lawn, putting down poison against the grubs that killed it, and then re-seeding) and here at home (scanning and transcribing some old family letters from the 1920's). The nice thing about THAT project is that it got me a brand-new all-in-one printer-scanner-copier, because mine gave up the ghost midway through the project and Mom is really, REALLY anxious for me to finish with the letters, and so she agreed to go halfsies with me on a new one. I appreciated the hell out of that; more so because...
Well, this is why I think I'm depressed.
My finances have improved GREATLY in the past few months. I still have a crapload of old bills to pay, but I can pay all the current ones and then some. And when my tax check came, I thought "Yay!" and started thinking of all the things I could buy...
...except for a promise I made about 18 months ago.
See, Tim has an old friend, Brandon. They've been friends since grade school, and they're pretty close. Brandon's getting married next month. Well, back in the fall of 2006, when Tim moved in with me after I got fired, he told me about Brandon's wedding and how honored he was that Brandon had asked him to be best man...but that he was really nervous, because the wedding was in Las Vegas and Tim wasn't sure if he was going to be able to afford to go, and he didn't want to accept and tell Brandon he could be in the wedding if he wasn't one hundred percent sure he could make it. "I don't want to let him down," Tim said. So, being me, I said, "Don't worry about it, Tim--if you need some help getting to the wedding when the time comes, I'll help you out." When I said it, I figured Well, he knows a year and a half in advance that this is an expense that's coming up; he'll make SOME kind of provisions for it. He has time to get a job and save up at least MOST of what it will cost, and if he needs me to throw in a couple hundred at the end, well, I can do that for him--after all, he's my friend.
And he is. But he is also, and I didn't know this when I made the promise, a different Tim than the one I knew when we first lived together. Being homeless did something to him, I swear, and the former sense of thrift and responsibility and planning ahead has been replaced by this day-to-day survival instinct which sees no time but right this minute. So eighteen months after making this promise, last Monday I found myself typing my payment info into the checkout screen on Orbitz--for just over $800.
This didn't eat up all my money. But it ate up every bit of my emotional reserves.
He wants me to go to Vegas with him. He claims it's because he feels bad about the fact that I'm spending my money to send HIM, but I'M not going myself. (If I was picking places to go, Vegas wouldn't be on the list, I don't think.) He also says he wants someone to "keep an eye" on him; this is so he can give a clean report to Squeaky, methinks.
I -could- afford it--just barely, but I could. But if I DID go, I would be going out of guilt.
Now I ask you: What kind of damn person feels GUILTY because she can't do something she doesn't want to do, for someone on whom she's already just spent more money than she's nearly-EVER spent on herSELF--and she's not even romantically involved with him, or even INTERESTED like that??? (Wait--I think I can answer this one: a DOORMAT. THAT's what kind of person.)
Well, all that crap rattling around the brainpan, coupled with the tweak in the meds, plus finding out that Debbi (my oldest friend) is apparently going to marry this guy who everyone in her life seems to think is beneath her--I can't say, since I've only met him once and other than being one of those disgustingly clingy, slobbery kind of couples I'm always secretly jealous of, I can't say anything bad about him, but he's definitely NOT the dream guy she's described in the past--anyway, she's supposedly marrying him next spring, and between hoping SHE'S going to be all right, and worrying about how I'm going to tell Tim I'm not going to Vegas with him, and wondering if that's the right thing to do, and dealing with Mom which has been a WHOOOOOLE nother story....
I've been a little overwhelmed, is what I'm saying, I guess. I'm certainly trying. Trying to do the right thing, trying to make everyone happy, trying to keep it together, trying to be a good person...trying to cover it all up and make everything seem normal when it isn't.
Also, I've been drawing. Before I bought Tim the Vegas trip, I took the proceeds of my tax check to the art-supply store, and I gave myself a merry little Christmas. I bought acrylics, watercolors, pastels, paper, pencils, brushes, ink pens...oh, I had a grand old time. There is nothing in this world that's cooler than having a brand-new box of paints and a brand-new set of brushes...
...Now, though, I have to set up a cat-free workspace. And that's not as easy as you'd think.
"Cat-free" pretty much means "in my bedroom", and it's pretty cramped in there to begin with. Full-size bed, two dressers, cedar chest, two bedside tables, a couple of small bookcases, an armchair--plus laundry hampers, boxes, assorted accoutrements of daily living...Maybe if I moved the bed out into the living room? I mean, it IS my apartment...there's no law that says the bed needs to be in the bedroom... :::laughing::: (See, THESE are the kind of problems I like. THIS is the kind of dilemma I'm equipped to deal with. "Where can I paint?" is so much softer and easier of a question than "What's my purpose in life?" If one question is like drinking cool water through a straw, the other is like trying to inhale a Buick through your nose.)
Anyway. All this is to say, there's no need to worry. I'm doing my damnedest to keep my pieces together, and though I'm not entirely successful at it just yet...well, we may be making progress. (And it's SPRING!!!! Spring helps my mood, quite a lot. It's more difficult to be depressed when every time you look around, you're confronted with fuzzy baby green grass blades, tiny little purple and yellow wildflowers, and noisy bright-red cardinals singing from the utility pole outside your window.)
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Huh,
Of all the things that I wouldn't have thought would help my state of mind nearly as much as it did: Tim called tonight. Didn't want anything, really; just to say hi, to keep in touch, to chat. He and Squeaky are still together, still living with her dad; they actually seem to be really good for each other. I told him how surprised I was; how in the beginning I thought one or both of them was completely insane to be together; and how honestly glad I am to have been wrong about that.
I knew my opinion of them would improve once I was living on my own; now that we're not piled on top of each other like overgrown puppies in a too-small basket, we can get along and not constantly be snapping at each other. It's nice to be in a situation where we can be friends again. I hate to admit it, but I kinda missed Tim. (Squeaky, not so much, but I still consider her a friend; not necessarily a friend I'd like to spend a lot of time with, but someone who, if she was in trouble, I'd be glad to help....as long as it didn't involve, you know, actually LIVING with her for any length of time.)
Tim said he might stop by on Monday, which is fine with me; fine if he does, fine if he doesn't. But hearing from him, talking to him for an hour about nothing of great consequence...it felt good.
In other news, my oldest friend Debbi (of Debbi and Cowgirl fame, of Girls' Nights Out (now sadly abandoned, for lack of transportation and horribly conflicting job schedules), bought a house. Today was her moving-in day, and THIS is when not having a vehicle becomes a real annoyance; I would have GLADLY helped her pack and move and all the rest, but the whole transportation issue (she's moving from one completely-inaccessible area of a highly-underserved-by-public-transit south suburb, to a nearly-as-bad-but-there's-at-least-a-Metra-station-down-the-street area of another underserved south suburb) makes the whole plan fraught with difficulty. I wanted to go out there last Sunday to help her pack, but neither the necessary buses nor the required trains--the only way to get from here to there--run on Sundays. At least where she's moving TO, everything runs on Sundays--albeit on a monstrous, every-two-hours schedule. I could reserve an iGo car, but that's a little bit of a strain on the already-strained budget this month. It really sucks not to be able to see your friends because of transportation. The plus to all this, though, is that by the time I get a chance to see her and her new place, I'll have had the chance to finish her housewarming gift; I'm going to quilt her a set of placemats, and also have some drawings framed. (To explain the drawings would require an entire blog post all its own, but I will attempt to summarize: About twelve years ago, during the winter after JP's death, when Debbi and Cowgirl pretty much kept my spirits up as much as possible, Debbi got tonsillitis. There was a brief period when the doctors were talking about having them removed, and during this time, the three of us created a whole storyline about Debbi's tonsils and what they would do once they were "out". This culminated in a series of three cartoons, which could have been a much longer series, in which the tonsils packed their bags, left a note, and escaped through Debbi's mouth while she slept. Somewhere in the series, they were also chased behind the refrigerator by a gerbil, which...okay, look. Haven't I TOLD you people I have a strange, vivid, and intensely bizarre imagination? I think I've mentioned it. Anyway, The Adventures of Debbi's Tonsils turned up in a box of memorabilia which I was sorting through a week or so ago, and when I mentioned it to Debbi on the phone, her reaction was such that I knew I was going to need to get them framed and give them to her as a housewarming present.)
I'm a little jealous, I'll admit. But only a tiny, tiny bit; mostly, I'm just really happy for Debbi. She deserves a cute little place of her own; she's spent the last ten years in a third-floor walkup apartment in a building full of noisy families and neglectful landlords, and from what she says, the house is adorable. I can't wait to see it.
All this stuff, and my reactions to it, make me think I know what's happening, or at least SOME of what's happening, to make me so depressed; plain and simply, I'm lonely. That's hard for me to admit; I'm a fan of solitude, and usually very good at being my own company, but I think I've pushed it a little too far this time. Part of it is that I have a very hard time making friends--bluntly, I don't have the slightest idea how to do it--and part of it is that I am carrying so much guilt about friendships from the past. I think of all the people who I've lost touch with, and it really brings me down. Walking to work today, I told myself: I've got to let go of some of that guilt. Yes, I made mistakes; there were people I should have called or written to; people to whom I should have been a better friend. There are people who I lost because I was a drug addict; and people I lost because I was depressed and self-absorbed; and people I lost because I was with one man or another, to the exclusion of all else. There are some people I've lost and I don't even know why. All that is very hard to live with, especially for someone who can't seem to forgive her own mistakes; to think that I'm alone largely because of the many things I've done wrong...well, that's a heavy weight to carry. But it's true; in many of the friendships I've lost, I've been the responsible party. And now I seem to have lost the ability to make friends, to let anybody get close enough to decide whether or not they like me. I keep people at arm's length, because I assume nobody would want to be any closer than arms-length to me to begin with. I'm sure it comes off all wrong, but I'm not sure how to be any different; not completely sure I want to be different, really. It's a hell of a quandary.
So the only thing I'm sure I can do is try to keep the friends I have, try not to piss off anyone else who cares enough to still be around, and hope that maybe I'll figure all this stuff out, sooner instead of later....and try not to miss the people who I drove away. That, more than anything, is the part that sucks.
I knew my opinion of them would improve once I was living on my own; now that we're not piled on top of each other like overgrown puppies in a too-small basket, we can get along and not constantly be snapping at each other. It's nice to be in a situation where we can be friends again. I hate to admit it, but I kinda missed Tim. (Squeaky, not so much, but I still consider her a friend; not necessarily a friend I'd like to spend a lot of time with, but someone who, if she was in trouble, I'd be glad to help....as long as it didn't involve, you know, actually LIVING with her for any length of time.)
Tim said he might stop by on Monday, which is fine with me; fine if he does, fine if he doesn't. But hearing from him, talking to him for an hour about nothing of great consequence...it felt good.
In other news, my oldest friend Debbi (of Debbi and Cowgirl fame, of Girls' Nights Out (now sadly abandoned, for lack of transportation and horribly conflicting job schedules), bought a house. Today was her moving-in day, and THIS is when not having a vehicle becomes a real annoyance; I would have GLADLY helped her pack and move and all the rest, but the whole transportation issue (she's moving from one completely-inaccessible area of a highly-underserved-by-public-transit south suburb, to a nearly-as-bad-but-there's-at-least-a-Metra-station-down-the-street area of another underserved south suburb) makes the whole plan fraught with difficulty. I wanted to go out there last Sunday to help her pack, but neither the necessary buses nor the required trains--the only way to get from here to there--run on Sundays. At least where she's moving TO, everything runs on Sundays--albeit on a monstrous, every-two-hours schedule. I could reserve an iGo car, but that's a little bit of a strain on the already-strained budget this month. It really sucks not to be able to see your friends because of transportation. The plus to all this, though, is that by the time I get a chance to see her and her new place, I'll have had the chance to finish her housewarming gift; I'm going to quilt her a set of placemats, and also have some drawings framed. (To explain the drawings would require an entire blog post all its own, but I will attempt to summarize: About twelve years ago, during the winter after JP's death, when Debbi and Cowgirl pretty much kept my spirits up as much as possible, Debbi got tonsillitis. There was a brief period when the doctors were talking about having them removed, and during this time, the three of us created a whole storyline about Debbi's tonsils and what they would do once they were "out". This culminated in a series of three cartoons, which could have been a much longer series, in which the tonsils packed their bags, left a note, and escaped through Debbi's mouth while she slept. Somewhere in the series, they were also chased behind the refrigerator by a gerbil, which...okay, look. Haven't I TOLD you people I have a strange, vivid, and intensely bizarre imagination? I think I've mentioned it. Anyway, The Adventures of Debbi's Tonsils turned up in a box of memorabilia which I was sorting through a week or so ago, and when I mentioned it to Debbi on the phone, her reaction was such that I knew I was going to need to get them framed and give them to her as a housewarming present.)
I'm a little jealous, I'll admit. But only a tiny, tiny bit; mostly, I'm just really happy for Debbi. She deserves a cute little place of her own; she's spent the last ten years in a third-floor walkup apartment in a building full of noisy families and neglectful landlords, and from what she says, the house is adorable. I can't wait to see it.
All this stuff, and my reactions to it, make me think I know what's happening, or at least SOME of what's happening, to make me so depressed; plain and simply, I'm lonely. That's hard for me to admit; I'm a fan of solitude, and usually very good at being my own company, but I think I've pushed it a little too far this time. Part of it is that I have a very hard time making friends--bluntly, I don't have the slightest idea how to do it--and part of it is that I am carrying so much guilt about friendships from the past. I think of all the people who I've lost touch with, and it really brings me down. Walking to work today, I told myself: I've got to let go of some of that guilt. Yes, I made mistakes; there were people I should have called or written to; people to whom I should have been a better friend. There are people who I lost because I was a drug addict; and people I lost because I was depressed and self-absorbed; and people I lost because I was with one man or another, to the exclusion of all else. There are some people I've lost and I don't even know why. All that is very hard to live with, especially for someone who can't seem to forgive her own mistakes; to think that I'm alone largely because of the many things I've done wrong...well, that's a heavy weight to carry. But it's true; in many of the friendships I've lost, I've been the responsible party. And now I seem to have lost the ability to make friends, to let anybody get close enough to decide whether or not they like me. I keep people at arm's length, because I assume nobody would want to be any closer than arms-length to me to begin with. I'm sure it comes off all wrong, but I'm not sure how to be any different; not completely sure I want to be different, really. It's a hell of a quandary.
So the only thing I'm sure I can do is try to keep the friends I have, try not to piss off anyone else who cares enough to still be around, and hope that maybe I'll figure all this stuff out, sooner instead of later....and try not to miss the people who I drove away. That, more than anything, is the part that sucks.
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