I probably, in the previous post, should have added one small codicil to my "spring in Chicago" note, namely this:
Spring in Chicago is one of the best...blah blah blah....UNTIL it gets to be about noon, and the temperature crosses the 80-degree mark and the building you're in STILL has not got a firm grasp of the concept of "air conditioning", and then the clouds come and trap all the gooey, sticky air in places that also contain ME. THEN I start thinking longingly of days in January.
But I'm still happy.
Slightly less-happy than yesterday, however, because honestly: who WOULDN'T be happy under the following circumstances?
It's like, 9 AM and the sun is shining and you're STILL awake--not "awake again" but STILL awake, as in, I have not gone to bed--because the night before was spent in long phone-and-IM conversations with a guy who, despite various of his flaws, is apparently crazy about me (yes, I mean CR--I suppose I didn't get too far into that whole story, but rest assured that all is well, mostly, and the bits that aren't awesome are those that are outside our control at this time.) and playing computer games, just hanging out and acting like .....well, like an unemployed person, or a college girl, or someone who didn't have to get up and go to work the next day, which I didn't. (Didn't what? Didn't have to get up AND didn't have to go to work. Now, if THAT's not the combination to aim for, I'd love to know what is.)
And so, when CR and I finally hung up, and after THAT when we finally signed off on the IMs, I thought about going to bed for an hour or two....but instead I just moved my car reservation up a couple of hours and drove to the clinic. In front of the clinic, there was a guy who asked me if I, or anyone I knew, would be interested in buying a washer and dryer. I told him no, thanks, and continued in.
And when THAT was done, and when I had finished my little bit of grocery shopping (You know, I love Peapod, but there are a few items they just don't have: Lipton Extra Noodle Soup With Chicken Broth is one of those items. They have the REGULAR noodle, but not EXTRA noodle. There's a MARKED diffference) I drove home, and dropped off the car, and carried my groceries upstairs and put them away amidst a congregation of thoroughly excited cats; and then I played Bejeweled for a while; and some hours later, I finally yawned enough times that I realized: time to go to bed.
Now see, the thing about me and sleep is, it tends to grab me rather suddenly and drop me in my traces. So for instance, when I woke up this morning, I found in bed next to me two chocolate Easter eggs I was unwrapping when I was suddenly attacked by somnolence. Fortunately they were still wrapped; I've had this happen with unwrapped ones, as well. And chocolate eggs? Are NOTHING, mess-wise, compared to a Little Debbie Swiss Cake Roll. I never realized I made a fist in my sleep, until the first time I woke up with cream filling oozing between my fingers.
I woke up a couple of times between yesterday afternoon and this morning; but not many, I'll tell you that. And really, I would have been happy sleeping for a couple more hours, but it was time to get up and bumble through another workday. Since yesterday, really, involved way more "playing hooky" than "absent for a reason", I felt guilty enough to go in and act like a good employee today. (I had asked last Friday to take Thursday as a vacation day; I told them I'd made a doctors' appointment before my schedule had been changed to Mondays off instead of Thursdays. Really, though, I just knew I was going to have to go to the clinic, and wouldn't be in the mood to work. Now, we're not OBLIGATED to give a reason we're going to be out, but you kinda get the stink-eye if you don't.)
And yeah, there's something about not-entirely-policy-based absence that makes the morning seem a little sparklier, even in spring, even in Chicago. There was a lot more to the Happy than that, but since there are bits of it that trend toward that big "TOO MUCH INFO" zone off in the corner of the conversational map, we'll leave that one alone.
I will say this, though: I can't wait til CR comes back from Bumblefuck. He's got about three more weeks, he says, before everything's ready to go: his physical therapy overwith, his tax refund in hand, and that pesky little hospitalization his doctor wants, completed. (She wants to put him in the hospital to find out why his blood pressure is completely off the charts. Every time someone takes his blood pressure, he says, they try to admit him. Finally his doctor talked him into agreeing to go; now, it's just talking him into actually DOING it. And it looks like THAT task falls to lil' old me. I can't blame him for balking; I'd balk too, if I thought I was gonna hear the sort of shit he thinks he's gonna hear. And he can't blame me for nagging him, a little; if it was me, he'd nag too. Hell, he was practically ready to start nagging when I told him what MY blood-pressure was (135 over 82, but that was in the dentist's chair mere seconds before a large needle was to be jabbed into my jaw and a molar pried out with extreme prejudice. ANYBODY's B.P. would be a little high at THAT point, am I right? Yesterday at the clinic it was 127/80, which the nurse said was just fine.) I worry about CR; some of it is stress, but he's ALWAYS under stress. He worries more than anyone I know--and that's saying something.) Once all those things are done, though, he's coming back, this time for good. And then.....well, then -I- start getting to be the worried one, the one who's under stress. Because when CR comes back, everything in my life will be perfectly tolerable....except the Mom situation. The Mom situation is going to get ugly, possibly even UUUUUUGly. But I'm willing to stand up for myself, this time; hell, I'll be forty years old in a little more than a month, and if you can't live your own life when you're forty, when CAN you live it?
Til then, though, I think I'll just continue being happy.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Cryptic, But In a Good Way
Later on, perhaps, when I've actually been to sleep within the preceding 26 hours (a criterion to which now does not conform), I will be able to explain more about, offer reasons for, or otherwise expand upon, the following statement. But right now, once I have a Motrin and a Pepsi, I plan to be entirely unconscious within minutes, and so I will say only this for now:
What an awesome morning. Spring in Chicago is one of the best reasons to wish for a long life, and just at the moment I might be willing to give the human race in general the benefit of the doubt (except for the bitchy meat-department clerk at the Ashland and Roosevelt Jewel store, who was just unnecessarily bitchy when I asked her a basic question. Some people really do not like their jobs.)
In summary: Right now, I would have to say something very unusual for me....I think I'm HAPPY.
What an awesome morning. Spring in Chicago is one of the best reasons to wish for a long life, and just at the moment I might be willing to give the human race in general the benefit of the doubt (except for the bitchy meat-department clerk at the Ashland and Roosevelt Jewel store, who was just unnecessarily bitchy when I asked her a basic question. Some people really do not like their jobs.)
In summary: Right now, I would have to say something very unusual for me....I think I'm HAPPY.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Several Dozen Emotions
Okay, I'm back.
Emotion number 1: Fucking OWWWWWWWWW. I have a root-canal scheduled for Friday. So necessary is this root-canal that I actually called the dentist's office today and asked if I could move it to an EARLIER day. MAN this thing sucks.
Emotion number 2: Gah.
Today, for basically no reason at all, I got snapped at by Mister Christian--you know, my evangelical cube-mate. There are six people in my area, and since we all share a total of three cubes, we are necessarily in very close quarters. And so the custom has evolved that if someone says something interesting on the phone, even if it's none of anyone else's business, it's pretty much free for the commenting--because if it was so damn private, what the hell were you doing talking about it at your desk, which is basically stationed on top of five other people? That's what cell-phones and the end of the hallway down by the window is for--for private calls made out of earshot.
So today, in keeping with the regular norm, I asked a perfectly innocuous question about something totally non-personal which had been said a moment before, and I got my head snapped off for it. "I mean DAMN, will you mind your own business???" was one of the bits I remembered--and again, it's not like I'd done anything that hasn't been done to me a dozen times, nor gone anywhere NEAR the lines that have already been crossed about twice an hour. And my first thought--uncharitable, yes--was "oh, THAT's a Christian way to handle it...." He gives more respect to his kids--and I know, because he talks to them on the phone at least four times an afternoon!
Now, at the end of the day, because I am a doormat and because I feel personally responsible for always making everything better even when there's the slightest possibility that I might have been wrong, I apologized for not minding my own business; and after a minute or two of justifications, rationalizations, and the rest, he finally admitted that he's had a lot on his mind and he might just be short-tempered lately. I managed not to say "Ya think so???" which took an immense degree of effort. So: agnosto-paganoids 1, God-fearing churchgoers, 0.
Emotion number three: giggly twitterpation.
Yes, I'm even making mySELF sick with this one: it's a CR thing. We're absolutely sickening, I swear; all sorts of cutesy schmoopiness of the sort I most despise, all done via IM because: he went back to Boogerhump, IN last week, and I am (emotion number 3.5, here) desolate, in that spectacularly annoying way indulged in by those who know the person they miss will be coming back in a relatively short time. Of course, there's a decent chance this could be replaced tomorrow by REAL desolation; he has a doctor's appointment tomorrow which may change all our plans and annoy the crap out of both of us indefinitely. But for the moment, I'm sticking with the happy side of things....he was here for ten days and it was absolutely fantastic. I had forgotten how comfortable I am with him, and vice versa. We watched a lot of crap TV, talked until I lost my voice, listened to his music for hours (he brought a lot of old soul music and R&B, and I finally (god help me) listened to the entire TWELVE chapters of R. Kelly's "Trapped In The Closet", which made my stomach hurt (from laughing...mostly) and led, as many things with CR and I will do, to a discussion of racial and gender politics. Except we never CALL it that, of course; it's more like "...And this is another thing that annoys me about white people," (said by me, usually) or "And this is how stupid men are..." (usually his words). I was happy while he was here. I'm still happy even though he's not here now; I'm more motivated than I've been in a while, more focused, full of more plans.
Emotion number 4: wistful.
Because, you see, I remember feeling like that once before. I was a lot younger then; and a lot of things have happened since then...but I feel as though there's a chance I might able to go forward anyway. I realize how totally off that seems--that I have to be with someone in order to consider moving forward--but this may be one of those things I have to learn to accept about myself even though I don't like it very much. There are a few of those, mostly things I really cannot change; my non-morning-person-ness, my stubbornness, my insistence on arguing every possible point. I can keep all of those in check, if I try very very hard; but it's an effort, and it's painful, and even when I do my best it doesn't always help. And really, at my age, it might be time to work on changing the really SERIOUS things that need changing--like my fifteen years of apathy and guilt, and the total cessation of all but the most basic survival activities: working, eating, sleeping. That's no way to spend fifteen years; there are things I want to do, you see. And even if I can't see myself succeeding all alone, I can see myself succeeding now--because all alone, all I can think of is what might have been, whereas now, I can think about what IS.
There's more to this post, really...lots more, and I hope I'll get to it tomorrow. There's still "terrified", "resentful", "vaguely amused", "wildly hopeful", "screw you Mister Jerkface" (yes, that IS TOO an emotion), and a fair bit of "righteous indignation"--and probably a few more I'm blanking on, because it's already midnight. But I will come back to them, and in parting tonight I shall leave you with this gem of wisdom:
"OWWWWW. This tooth HURTS, dammit!!!!" --Gladys J. Cortez.
Emotion number 1: Fucking OWWWWWWWWW. I have a root-canal scheduled for Friday. So necessary is this root-canal that I actually called the dentist's office today and asked if I could move it to an EARLIER day. MAN this thing sucks.
Emotion number 2: Gah.
Today, for basically no reason at all, I got snapped at by Mister Christian--you know, my evangelical cube-mate. There are six people in my area, and since we all share a total of three cubes, we are necessarily in very close quarters. And so the custom has evolved that if someone says something interesting on the phone, even if it's none of anyone else's business, it's pretty much free for the commenting--because if it was so damn private, what the hell were you doing talking about it at your desk, which is basically stationed on top of five other people? That's what cell-phones and the end of the hallway down by the window is for--for private calls made out of earshot.
So today, in keeping with the regular norm, I asked a perfectly innocuous question about something totally non-personal which had been said a moment before, and I got my head snapped off for it. "I mean DAMN, will you mind your own business???" was one of the bits I remembered--and again, it's not like I'd done anything that hasn't been done to me a dozen times, nor gone anywhere NEAR the lines that have already been crossed about twice an hour. And my first thought--uncharitable, yes--was "oh, THAT's a Christian way to handle it...." He gives more respect to his kids--and I know, because he talks to them on the phone at least four times an afternoon!
Now, at the end of the day, because I am a doormat and because I feel personally responsible for always making everything better even when there's the slightest possibility that I might have been wrong, I apologized for not minding my own business; and after a minute or two of justifications, rationalizations, and the rest, he finally admitted that he's had a lot on his mind and he might just be short-tempered lately. I managed not to say "Ya think so???" which took an immense degree of effort. So: agnosto-paganoids 1, God-fearing churchgoers, 0.
Emotion number three: giggly twitterpation.
Yes, I'm even making mySELF sick with this one: it's a CR thing. We're absolutely sickening, I swear; all sorts of cutesy schmoopiness of the sort I most despise, all done via IM because: he went back to Boogerhump, IN last week, and I am (emotion number 3.5, here) desolate, in that spectacularly annoying way indulged in by those who know the person they miss will be coming back in a relatively short time. Of course, there's a decent chance this could be replaced tomorrow by REAL desolation; he has a doctor's appointment tomorrow which may change all our plans and annoy the crap out of both of us indefinitely. But for the moment, I'm sticking with the happy side of things....he was here for ten days and it was absolutely fantastic. I had forgotten how comfortable I am with him, and vice versa. We watched a lot of crap TV, talked until I lost my voice, listened to his music for hours (he brought a lot of old soul music and R&B, and I finally (god help me) listened to the entire TWELVE chapters of R. Kelly's "Trapped In The Closet", which made my stomach hurt (from laughing...mostly) and led, as many things with CR and I will do, to a discussion of racial and gender politics. Except we never CALL it that, of course; it's more like "...And this is another thing that annoys me about white people," (said by me, usually) or "And this is how stupid men are..." (usually his words). I was happy while he was here. I'm still happy even though he's not here now; I'm more motivated than I've been in a while, more focused, full of more plans.
Emotion number 4: wistful.
Because, you see, I remember feeling like that once before. I was a lot younger then; and a lot of things have happened since then...but I feel as though there's a chance I might able to go forward anyway. I realize how totally off that seems--that I have to be with someone in order to consider moving forward--but this may be one of those things I have to learn to accept about myself even though I don't like it very much. There are a few of those, mostly things I really cannot change; my non-morning-person-ness, my stubbornness, my insistence on arguing every possible point. I can keep all of those in check, if I try very very hard; but it's an effort, and it's painful, and even when I do my best it doesn't always help. And really, at my age, it might be time to work on changing the really SERIOUS things that need changing--like my fifteen years of apathy and guilt, and the total cessation of all but the most basic survival activities: working, eating, sleeping. That's no way to spend fifteen years; there are things I want to do, you see. And even if I can't see myself succeeding all alone, I can see myself succeeding now--because all alone, all I can think of is what might have been, whereas now, I can think about what IS.
There's more to this post, really...lots more, and I hope I'll get to it tomorrow. There's still "terrified", "resentful", "vaguely amused", "wildly hopeful", "screw you Mister Jerkface" (yes, that IS TOO an emotion), and a fair bit of "righteous indignation"--and probably a few more I'm blanking on, because it's already midnight. But I will come back to them, and in parting tonight I shall leave you with this gem of wisdom:
"OWWWWW. This tooth HURTS, dammit!!!!" --Gladys J. Cortez.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
(Not a) Very Brief Update
Firefly, on the phone the other night, said I sounded much better than that last post would indicate, and I'm going to have to agree: that was a REAL ugly day, or couple of days, and most of the interceding ones have been better.
Well, better for ME, anyway:
--Tim got locked up; as this is his fourth or fifth DUI, and at least the third accident he's caused while drinking and driving, and he was driving on a suspended license as well, we're pretty sure that he'll get out of jail around the time LittleMan goes to preschool.
--Squeaky can't pay the rent because her cash benefits got cut off--our AFDC/Link system is notoriously random like that. Plus, she lost her best friend; Mariana, who had got caught cheating by HER baby-daddy, called Tim (a few days before he got locked up) and left a voice-mail saying that Squeaky was cheating with a friend of hers (which she wasn't--they'd only met once). Tim didn't believe it, but Squeaky told Mariana to piss off; but she'd been spending so much time with Mariana that she needed somebody else to hang with (the one thing Squeaky cannot STAND is to be alone.)
--Well, Squeaky found her "friend"--Kino, the guy she was allegedly cheating with. Apparently, Mariana called HIS baby-mama and told her that he was cheating with Squeaky, and in retaliation, she put him out of their place. That was a day or two after Tim got locked up; Squeaky was alone, Kino was homeless--so guess where Kino's been staying? Squeaky told me last night that it was no longer platonic.
--And the hell of it is, all the changes she'd made while she was with Tim have disappeared. Kino and his cousin Eddie were with Squeaky when she came over the other night; they're cute enough, sure, but basically, they're garden-variety thug boys from Humboldt Park. She's dressing different, talking different, and in all other ways is more like the Squeaky I first met--the one I didn't like.
--The real victim? LittleMan. She brought him over the night she was here with the guys; no matter who was holding him, whether it was me or Kino or Eddie, he would NOT take his eyes off Squeaky. Apparently her dad had been watching him for a couple of days, and she'd just gotten him back, but he was not gonna let his momma out of his sight. He's a sweet little guy, too; Squeaky says he looks just like Tim. I can never see those kind of similarities, but he is awfully cute. I feel so bad for him--and for Tim, as well.
As for me, the real news is: CR is coming to stay here for two weeks. I really, really wish I could put into words the amount of change he's gone through; it wouldn't make any sense, though, to anyone but me. The people who care about me are all suspicious of him, and I can't blame them; how many dozen times did I swear to them he'd changed, and how many times did they then watch while things happened exactly the same way, over and over again? And what would make this time any different? If it was Deb, or Firefly, or Tim, or anyone else (what "anyone else"? lol) and I saw them going back to the same person over and over again, to be treated in the same bad way over and over again, and finally saw them being dumped in the most painful way possible, I know I'd be skeptical too, no matter how long the separation had lasted. But here's the thing: people grow up. People--well, some people, anyway--go through things in life that make them stop to look at themselves and decide: I don't like this person that I see. I don't like the things that person does. CR went through that for a long, long time. He thought about what he wanted out of life, and from what he says, one of those things was to be with me. And I'm in a better place too. No longer am I dependent on anyone's approval or good opinion of me. I can stand it if he leaves me; I can enjoy him if he stays, without losing my self again. And everything he's said to me indicates that he's glad to let me be myself, to encourage me in the things I love, instead of how it used to be. I wish I could explain it; and maybe one of the reasons I find it hard is that in many ways, it makes me think of the best days with JP. I still do miss him, more than I can even bear sometimes; it's hard to press that grief to the side long enough to enjoy being treated well again. In a way it makes me a little impatient with myself: for fifteen years you've waited for someone to love you this way again--as you are, knowing all your quirks and darknesses, but still willing to plan some magnificent visionary future--and now that you've been blessed enough or lucky enough or whatever--now that you've been fortunate enough to have that handed to you unasked, you're still moping over the little ways in which they're different? It makes me think that maybe all these years I haven't been as good at "accepting" as I thought; was there somewhere, unacknowledged, some part of me that didn't want "something like" what I had with JP--that would only accept JP himself? Was all that "understanding" that my life had changed that late-October night, just another example of being able to parrot back the right answer, rather than an answer I believed in?
When I think about CR, though--the things that attracted me to him in the first place, the things I liked about being with him--and liked enough to stay with him even despite the bad times--and the things I missed when he left, even despite myself--when I think about those things, and when I talk to him (we talk on IM every day, pretty much)...then, I can be happy just with what he and I have, without putting all sorts of psychology on it, all sorts of interpretations.
In other news:
I finally got to meet TinyGirl, Deb's daughter, whose blogname is hereby CutiePie. If I was in ANY way inclined toward motherhood, this kid would have tipped me over the edge....unquestionably the cutest baby I have ever encountered in the history of the world, ever. She's calm and laid-back; she'll occasionally let out a little fuss, then she'll calm herself down with no outside intervention. She fell asleep on me--an actual human baby actually fell asleep on me! This is unheard of. Babies do not like me. Babies scream when I hold them, steadily shrieking til I hand them back to their actual parents; not CutiePie. She let me hold her for a while, kind of blase about the whole thing, and then she started getting that groggy-face, the one where the eyelids go to half-mast, and then pop back up.....and dowwwwwn......and up....Finally she just sacked out completely, and I held her for a few more minutes and then put her in her bassinet, where Deb made her into a baby-rrito and after a moment of fussing, she was out like a light. Did I mention that she's also completely freakin' BEAUTIFUL??? One of my things with babies is, when they're born and for the first maybe 8 weeks of their lives, they generally look....well, not to put too fine a point on things, but they look like they've been extruded from somebody's cooter. Squishy and wrinkly and kinda like a little old man, except in miniature. Well, not CutiePie. Deb said that when she was born, the nurses were coming from other floors to see her little blue-eyed redhead. She's got the prettiest face and the cutest little features, and everything on her is just unusually adorable for a month-old baby. And I'm not saying this because she's Deb's kid, either; she's just an unusually pretty baby, is all.
So after CutiePie sacked out and Deb and I visited for a little bit, I left. I'd gotten an iGo car, and had to get it back, so I left around 8:40. As I walked to the car I said, "Nice fog!" thinking that it was just Deb's low-lying neighborhood that had a thick overhay of mist. Well, it wasn't. The main street I drove down to get to I-57 was foggy; the ramp was foggy; I-57 was foggy; the Dan Ryan was foggy; the offramp was foggy, the main street was REALLY foggy and so was the road through the park, the shortcut I normally take to avoid a series of unnecessary stop signs and stop lights. And the walk home--the four-plus blocks which make me nervous to walk at night on a GOOD night, was foggy to a terrifying degree. I was finally able to calm myself with the self-assurance that even the serial killers would have the good sense to stay home on a night like that, and eventually I made it home.
I'm a lot happier than I've been, honestly. I can't say my motivation is back--although I think what I'm going through now is largely just my normal procrastinating over unpleasant tasks (the laundry mountain, moving everything that will need to be moved so I can run the vacuum, etc.) I am still struggling with my creativity, still trying to overcome inertia and get back to writing and drawing and painting, but CR has promised to make it his goal to nudge me back into the things I enjoy, as part of his apology for not supporting me as I pursued those things in the past. It's another one of the things I can't explain; he says he's angry at himself for not admiring my talents enough when we were together before, and this is his way of making it better.
There's been a lot of stuff going on, really; I've got about four beginnings-of-posts that I started, but just never had the time to finish. It's not that I'm losing interest in blogging, as I've been accused of; like every other thing I like to do, I think, I've stopped doing it because there are so many things I -should- be doing that I'm not--and as you know, it's not allowed to have fun when there's undone work. But because I don't want to do the work EITHER, I do nothing--watch TV, play solitaire, fart around on Facebook--and so nothing of consequence, either fun or important, gets done.
I think, though, that I'll have much much more to write about over the next few days. (Although....as Firefly will attest, I'm generally pretty close-mouthed about the Gory Details; somehow, though, I'm pretty sure I'll have writing material even without salacious talk.)
Well, better for ME, anyway:
--Tim got locked up; as this is his fourth or fifth DUI, and at least the third accident he's caused while drinking and driving, and he was driving on a suspended license as well, we're pretty sure that he'll get out of jail around the time LittleMan goes to preschool.
--Squeaky can't pay the rent because her cash benefits got cut off--our AFDC/Link system is notoriously random like that. Plus, she lost her best friend; Mariana, who had got caught cheating by HER baby-daddy, called Tim (a few days before he got locked up) and left a voice-mail saying that Squeaky was cheating with a friend of hers (which she wasn't--they'd only met once). Tim didn't believe it, but Squeaky told Mariana to piss off; but she'd been spending so much time with Mariana that she needed somebody else to hang with (the one thing Squeaky cannot STAND is to be alone.)
--Well, Squeaky found her "friend"--Kino, the guy she was allegedly cheating with. Apparently, Mariana called HIS baby-mama and told her that he was cheating with Squeaky, and in retaliation, she put him out of their place. That was a day or two after Tim got locked up; Squeaky was alone, Kino was homeless--so guess where Kino's been staying? Squeaky told me last night that it was no longer platonic.
--And the hell of it is, all the changes she'd made while she was with Tim have disappeared. Kino and his cousin Eddie were with Squeaky when she came over the other night; they're cute enough, sure, but basically, they're garden-variety thug boys from Humboldt Park. She's dressing different, talking different, and in all other ways is more like the Squeaky I first met--the one I didn't like.
--The real victim? LittleMan. She brought him over the night she was here with the guys; no matter who was holding him, whether it was me or Kino or Eddie, he would NOT take his eyes off Squeaky. Apparently her dad had been watching him for a couple of days, and she'd just gotten him back, but he was not gonna let his momma out of his sight. He's a sweet little guy, too; Squeaky says he looks just like Tim. I can never see those kind of similarities, but he is awfully cute. I feel so bad for him--and for Tim, as well.
As for me, the real news is: CR is coming to stay here for two weeks. I really, really wish I could put into words the amount of change he's gone through; it wouldn't make any sense, though, to anyone but me. The people who care about me are all suspicious of him, and I can't blame them; how many dozen times did I swear to them he'd changed, and how many times did they then watch while things happened exactly the same way, over and over again? And what would make this time any different? If it was Deb, or Firefly, or Tim, or anyone else (what "anyone else"? lol) and I saw them going back to the same person over and over again, to be treated in the same bad way over and over again, and finally saw them being dumped in the most painful way possible, I know I'd be skeptical too, no matter how long the separation had lasted. But here's the thing: people grow up. People--well, some people, anyway--go through things in life that make them stop to look at themselves and decide: I don't like this person that I see. I don't like the things that person does. CR went through that for a long, long time. He thought about what he wanted out of life, and from what he says, one of those things was to be with me. And I'm in a better place too. No longer am I dependent on anyone's approval or good opinion of me. I can stand it if he leaves me; I can enjoy him if he stays, without losing my self again. And everything he's said to me indicates that he's glad to let me be myself, to encourage me in the things I love, instead of how it used to be. I wish I could explain it; and maybe one of the reasons I find it hard is that in many ways, it makes me think of the best days with JP. I still do miss him, more than I can even bear sometimes; it's hard to press that grief to the side long enough to enjoy being treated well again. In a way it makes me a little impatient with myself: for fifteen years you've waited for someone to love you this way again--as you are, knowing all your quirks and darknesses, but still willing to plan some magnificent visionary future--and now that you've been blessed enough or lucky enough or whatever--now that you've been fortunate enough to have that handed to you unasked, you're still moping over the little ways in which they're different? It makes me think that maybe all these years I haven't been as good at "accepting" as I thought; was there somewhere, unacknowledged, some part of me that didn't want "something like" what I had with JP--that would only accept JP himself? Was all that "understanding" that my life had changed that late-October night, just another example of being able to parrot back the right answer, rather than an answer I believed in?
When I think about CR, though--the things that attracted me to him in the first place, the things I liked about being with him--and liked enough to stay with him even despite the bad times--and the things I missed when he left, even despite myself--when I think about those things, and when I talk to him (we talk on IM every day, pretty much)...then, I can be happy just with what he and I have, without putting all sorts of psychology on it, all sorts of interpretations.
In other news:
I finally got to meet TinyGirl, Deb's daughter, whose blogname is hereby CutiePie. If I was in ANY way inclined toward motherhood, this kid would have tipped me over the edge....unquestionably the cutest baby I have ever encountered in the history of the world, ever. She's calm and laid-back; she'll occasionally let out a little fuss, then she'll calm herself down with no outside intervention. She fell asleep on me--an actual human baby actually fell asleep on me! This is unheard of. Babies do not like me. Babies scream when I hold them, steadily shrieking til I hand them back to their actual parents; not CutiePie. She let me hold her for a while, kind of blase about the whole thing, and then she started getting that groggy-face, the one where the eyelids go to half-mast, and then pop back up.....and dowwwwwn......and up....Finally she just sacked out completely, and I held her for a few more minutes and then put her in her bassinet, where Deb made her into a baby-rrito and after a moment of fussing, she was out like a light. Did I mention that she's also completely freakin' BEAUTIFUL??? One of my things with babies is, when they're born and for the first maybe 8 weeks of their lives, they generally look....well, not to put too fine a point on things, but they look like they've been extruded from somebody's cooter. Squishy and wrinkly and kinda like a little old man, except in miniature. Well, not CutiePie. Deb said that when she was born, the nurses were coming from other floors to see her little blue-eyed redhead. She's got the prettiest face and the cutest little features, and everything on her is just unusually adorable for a month-old baby. And I'm not saying this because she's Deb's kid, either; she's just an unusually pretty baby, is all.
So after CutiePie sacked out and Deb and I visited for a little bit, I left. I'd gotten an iGo car, and had to get it back, so I left around 8:40. As I walked to the car I said, "Nice fog!" thinking that it was just Deb's low-lying neighborhood that had a thick overhay of mist. Well, it wasn't. The main street I drove down to get to I-57 was foggy; the ramp was foggy; I-57 was foggy; the Dan Ryan was foggy; the offramp was foggy, the main street was REALLY foggy and so was the road through the park, the shortcut I normally take to avoid a series of unnecessary stop signs and stop lights. And the walk home--the four-plus blocks which make me nervous to walk at night on a GOOD night, was foggy to a terrifying degree. I was finally able to calm myself with the self-assurance that even the serial killers would have the good sense to stay home on a night like that, and eventually I made it home.
I'm a lot happier than I've been, honestly. I can't say my motivation is back--although I think what I'm going through now is largely just my normal procrastinating over unpleasant tasks (the laundry mountain, moving everything that will need to be moved so I can run the vacuum, etc.) I am still struggling with my creativity, still trying to overcome inertia and get back to writing and drawing and painting, but CR has promised to make it his goal to nudge me back into the things I enjoy, as part of his apology for not supporting me as I pursued those things in the past. It's another one of the things I can't explain; he says he's angry at himself for not admiring my talents enough when we were together before, and this is his way of making it better.
There's been a lot of stuff going on, really; I've got about four beginnings-of-posts that I started, but just never had the time to finish. It's not that I'm losing interest in blogging, as I've been accused of; like every other thing I like to do, I think, I've stopped doing it because there are so many things I -should- be doing that I'm not--and as you know, it's not allowed to have fun when there's undone work. But because I don't want to do the work EITHER, I do nothing--watch TV, play solitaire, fart around on Facebook--and so nothing of consequence, either fun or important, gets done.
I think, though, that I'll have much much more to write about over the next few days. (Although....as Firefly will attest, I'm generally pretty close-mouthed about the Gory Details; somehow, though, I'm pretty sure I'll have writing material even without salacious talk.)
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Yeah, Well, This One Ain't Much Better.
I would like to sell my brain.
Actually I'd be willing to barter; my screwed-up brain for a more reliable, less fucked-up model. Preferably something without total recall; or at least, with controllable total recall. I would like to be able to cut it off when it starts heading in certain unprofitable directions.
I wonder sometimes if I'm going to spend the rest of my life wishing for a few months in my mid-20's. The longer it goes, the more I'm pretty sure that's how it's gonna be. Even when everything seeems to be going right, I never feel happy like I used to. And I really, really hope this isn't what the next 20 or 30 or 50 years is going to be--although maybe it's a good thing I DON'T know, because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like the answer.
Then I think, well, it could be worse--I could be Tim, who got locked up again for his ...fourth? fifth? DUI...and wrecked his friend's car (god, I am SO glad I don't have a car)...
I don't know which is worse. Being totally irresponsible with no regard for other people's property or your own well-being; or living a life that feels like it's already over, with just the work left to do. I don't know, but I wouldn't wish this on anyone.
Actually I'd be willing to barter; my screwed-up brain for a more reliable, less fucked-up model. Preferably something without total recall; or at least, with controllable total recall. I would like to be able to cut it off when it starts heading in certain unprofitable directions.
I wonder sometimes if I'm going to spend the rest of my life wishing for a few months in my mid-20's. The longer it goes, the more I'm pretty sure that's how it's gonna be. Even when everything seeems to be going right, I never feel happy like I used to. And I really, really hope this isn't what the next 20 or 30 or 50 years is going to be--although maybe it's a good thing I DON'T know, because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like the answer.
Then I think, well, it could be worse--I could be Tim, who got locked up again for his ...fourth? fifth? DUI...and wrecked his friend's car (god, I am SO glad I don't have a car)...
I don't know which is worse. Being totally irresponsible with no regard for other people's property or your own well-being; or living a life that feels like it's already over, with just the work left to do. I don't know, but I wouldn't wish this on anyone.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
A Very Very Big Sad
I just got a call from Tim's number; Squeaky, though, was the one who made the call. "Gladys?" she said, her voice shaking a little. "Cassidy just died, just now. And Tim's freaking out. Do you wanna talk to him?" she asked.
"If he wants to talk," I said, and she handed him the phone.
I don't know what he said, actually; he was crying so hard I couldn't make out a word. I did manage to hear him say "I gotta go now", and then he hung up.
And so I cried for a while too, and hugged all my cats, and cried some more, and fed them, and cried some more. And then just as I was getting calmed down Squeaky called to ask me if I could go with Tim tomorrow to have the cat cremated, and she told me some details I really, REALLY REALLY could have lived without, and now I'm crying again.
You know, how sometimes, when an animal lives to an old age, you can always comfort yourself by saying "Well, he had a good long life..." Cassidy, though--Cassidy didn't have a good long life. He had a crappy long life, moved around and uncertain and sometimes just terrible, and from what Squeaky said he had a crappy, painful death as well, and I want to say it's not Tim's fault but it sorta is, and it makes me angry, but mostly it just makes me incredibly sad.
I'm not going with Tim tomorrow. I'm turning off my phones tonight; I don't want to know, or hear, anymore than I already have. Mostly I just want to be here in my place, with my cats, who I love as best I know how. I wish I could have done more, though; I always wish I could do more.
Rest in peace, Cassidy--finally, in peace.
"If he wants to talk," I said, and she handed him the phone.
I don't know what he said, actually; he was crying so hard I couldn't make out a word. I did manage to hear him say "I gotta go now", and then he hung up.
And so I cried for a while too, and hugged all my cats, and cried some more, and fed them, and cried some more. And then just as I was getting calmed down Squeaky called to ask me if I could go with Tim tomorrow to have the cat cremated, and she told me some details I really, REALLY REALLY could have lived without, and now I'm crying again.
You know, how sometimes, when an animal lives to an old age, you can always comfort yourself by saying "Well, he had a good long life..." Cassidy, though--Cassidy didn't have a good long life. He had a crappy long life, moved around and uncertain and sometimes just terrible, and from what Squeaky said he had a crappy, painful death as well, and I want to say it's not Tim's fault but it sorta is, and it makes me angry, but mostly it just makes me incredibly sad.
I'm not going with Tim tomorrow. I'm turning off my phones tonight; I don't want to know, or hear, anymore than I already have. Mostly I just want to be here in my place, with my cats, who I love as best I know how. I wish I could have done more, though; I always wish I could do more.
Rest in peace, Cassidy--finally, in peace.
I'm Smarter Than I Think
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.
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.
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