"Thanks. My ex never said anything nice about my (insert anything about me here)."
This is what keeps coming out of my mouth every single time the man I am dating/seeing/whatevering says anything about me. I told him the line I wrote about my ex, into my List Of Things I Still Want To Say To All Of You (In No Particular Order) poem, which reads, "You say that you're an ass man only because you don't like what being a tits man says about you."
"That's a good line," he says, "But, you know, you've got those things too."
Before I can tell myself to shut the fuck up and just lean into this championship-round snuggle that is already happening, I say, "Not enough of one. Too much of the other."
Self-deprecation is my knee-jerk, my fallback, and now I have to see it as my bad habit that I might just have to break myself of. I like myself, I just assume the rest of the world doesn't. This is the manner in which my self-confidence has grown in the past year and a half or so: I have come to own the way I feel about myself, all the while assuming the rest of the world, apart from maybe three or four people, does not actually agree with me. I brought it up with Gabriel when I was sharing with him my big problem: the fact that this young man even wants to spend any time with me. "I can't get over it, because he is just so... much, and I know I should stop talking shit about myself in front of him but I can't quite stop it."
"That's a dangerous thing," Gabriel said, "Sometimes guys hear a woman's self-deprecation and think, 'Well, maybe she knows something I don't'".
Giver of best advice as always, I slump down into my seat away from the truth he is holding up in front of me again. Of course, I think, and because I don't see things until they are really obvious, I can see now why my ex undervalued me, and why he thought he could do better: I put those thoughts in his head. I fed him a steady diet of flattery paired with constant undercutting of myself, and he was just believing the hype. And now I'm seeing someone who is even funnier, more clever, more attractive, better at sex and more fun to be around than my ex, and even though I am trying not to keep falling into the frozen mud puddle that is my self-deprecation, I am still struggling with how easy it is to bring up various shitty things my ex said when we were together. I have identified what it was that made my ex think he had permission to do this, but it hasn't entirely taken the sting out or made me stop thinking about it whenever this young man who I get to spend time with, occasionally at least, says something nice.
I can't just come from a place of appreciation, I immediately have to swallow the nice comment and regurgitate something awful my ex once said to me about the same thing. I'm starting to wonder if this is just what comes with the territory when you are dating someone our age, someone who has dated literally anyone else and has any experience to draw from. It's impossible to approach anyone with an entirely blank slate, especially when you are someone like me, who has mined most of my personal life for the sake of my writing already, polished it up, took out the parts where I acted like a total jackass, and published a lot of it on this blog. I am trying to be the kind of person I want to be, who does not cock up the mood with too much information about my past, who can just be in the moment without perpetually bringing up some other jerk I dated, but I don't even think that is possible to stop altogether. If you are in your late twenties or early thirties and are not brand new to dating, even if you haven't been involved with a lot of people, like me, the bones of all of your past involvements are buried underneath your feet wherever you are standing. Whatever you build is going to be over a foundation of bad dates, awkward kisses, uncomfortable sex, and painful breakups, as well it should be. If you haven't had your heart broken or even just had a really embarrassing moment with someone by the time you are over the age of 25, you are either lucky or haven't really gotten out enough.
The past doesn't just stop existing because it is in the past, but I know I don't need to bring it up constantly, especially when I don't get to see this person that much. When I am lucky enough to spend time with him, I need to remember that at this point, whatever this is kind of only exists inside of a bubble, a bubble that really is too small for the rest of the world to even get into. Looking at it this way, it gives me the freedom to not think about my ex, and not talk about him. It's a relief.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Thursday, September 19, 2013
First Responder
I work for a civil litigator. She emails me, on average, fifty times per day, and expects an immediate response to each one, even if it is just the word, "confirmed" to which she usually replies, "tnx". If I don't respond quickly enough to let her know I have read and understood one of her emails, she yells out from her office, "Did you understand that?!" because as someone who is operating under 100+ deadlines at any given time, she needs to know that I am paying attention to everything as much as she is. I have become conditioned by working for her into thinking that this is normal, that when someone texts me, they want a response as quickly, no quicker than that, as my fingers can type it out on a virtual screen. It's hard to switch it on and off all the time. I have to be hyper-vigilant for eight-ten hours of the day and then go back to acting like I give zero fucks the rest of the time. It's transferred over into how I react when someone takes too long to reply to me. I was talking to my dear friend Gabriel about this. We are similar in terms of how quickly we respond to people. Turnaround time for me on a message is usually within 1-5 minutes. Gabriel is just as prompt, usually. Any longer than that feels rude. It's partially due to my job, but I have always been pretty prompt. I asked him why his wife, my best friend, who I love more than anything (no lesbo) hadn't yet answered a text I sent her days before. "It's been two days!" I said
"She is in New York," he offered, "Working."
I knew that she was in New York on a buying trip, but I was still indignant about it. "No excuse," I said, because I don't see why she can't Swype me a quick LOL while checking out accessories.
Most people are not this way. I asked my co-worker why it occasionally takes boys a full 24 hours to respond to a text, and he said, "Guys don't do it to hurt anyone- we just start watching Games of Thrones or playing Angry Birds or something and we forget that literally anything else exists."
I think I'm just too used to multi-tasking. I'm not actually just sitting by my phone, staring at it and waiting for a reply, I'm knitting something, watching an episode of Community, making dinner, possibly reading an article on Jezebel, AND checking my phone every few minutes. When I finally get a reply, I respond too quickly, and I know I probably come off like this:
And then the other person is probably all, "BITCHES BE CRAZY!!!!!".
I try to lock down my neuroses- if I can. When I was seeing Mike, I would leave my phone in my car when I was at work because if it was near my desk, I would text him just out of habit or if I was bored or if I thought of something funny, and nobody needs all that noise. Once it was clear that I had changed from a cute girl to a buzzing irritation to him, I didn't want to give him the motherfucking satisfaction of getting annoyed with me. I still sometimes just turn my phone off because I will keep checking it and not even realize how many times I have. It's the modern-day nervous tic, checking your screen to see if anything new has happened, if you have a reason to keep smiling today.
It's especially hard to not look like an overeager puppy when it comes to someone I think I like but can't see in person because they don't live near me. It's trying to build something on the fragile foundation of Facebook messages and Instagram likes, even if it's a friendship. I keep trying to be a really cool girl and pretend I have better things to do than respond to every message they send me as quickly as I can, but I'm not, not if I like someone and I don't care if they know it. I'm not subtle, and I'm not good at hiding how I feel. I know I come off as overenthusiastic because I am overenthusiastic. I do have more important things to do than send someone a video of baby sloths while I am also typing up a cover letter to the court and responding to one of my boss's emails, but I will send it while I am in the middle of this and probably fifteen other things, because I just want them to see it. And because everyone needs baby sloths.
"She is in New York," he offered, "Working."
I knew that she was in New York on a buying trip, but I was still indignant about it. "No excuse," I said, because I don't see why she can't Swype me a quick LOL while checking out accessories.
Most people are not this way. I asked my co-worker why it occasionally takes boys a full 24 hours to respond to a text, and he said, "Guys don't do it to hurt anyone- we just start watching Games of Thrones or playing Angry Birds or something and we forget that literally anything else exists."
I think I'm just too used to multi-tasking. I'm not actually just sitting by my phone, staring at it and waiting for a reply, I'm knitting something, watching an episode of Community, making dinner, possibly reading an article on Jezebel, AND checking my phone every few minutes. When I finally get a reply, I respond too quickly, and I know I probably come off like this:
And then the other person is probably all, "BITCHES BE CRAZY!!!!!".
I try to lock down my neuroses- if I can. When I was seeing Mike, I would leave my phone in my car when I was at work because if it was near my desk, I would text him just out of habit or if I was bored or if I thought of something funny, and nobody needs all that noise. Once it was clear that I had changed from a cute girl to a buzzing irritation to him, I didn't want to give him the motherfucking satisfaction of getting annoyed with me. I still sometimes just turn my phone off because I will keep checking it and not even realize how many times I have. It's the modern-day nervous tic, checking your screen to see if anything new has happened, if you have a reason to keep smiling today.
It's especially hard to not look like an overeager puppy when it comes to someone I think I like but can't see in person because they don't live near me. It's trying to build something on the fragile foundation of Facebook messages and Instagram likes, even if it's a friendship. I keep trying to be a really cool girl and pretend I have better things to do than respond to every message they send me as quickly as I can, but I'm not, not if I like someone and I don't care if they know it. I'm not subtle, and I'm not good at hiding how I feel. I know I come off as overenthusiastic because I am overenthusiastic. I do have more important things to do than send someone a video of baby sloths while I am also typing up a cover letter to the court and responding to one of my boss's emails, but I will send it while I am in the middle of this and probably fifteen other things, because I just want them to see it. And because everyone needs baby sloths.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
When You Decide To Love Your Curves
Before:
1. Your journey will start when you are eleven years old. The 34-C's that you will appreciate eventually will sprout up on your chest in sixth grade like unwelcome guests. You will spend most of the year trying to force a grown woman's breasts into a little girl's training bra, watching them spill over the tops and sides like marshmallows expanding in the microwave. Your flat-chested friends will hate you a little. Boys will always be trying to put their hands under and over and inside of your shirt just to say that they got there first, and this will never be about you. It will be about tits you still don't even think of as being yours. And when you tell on the ringleader, like you have been trained to, you will be called a liar. And a troublemaker. And, somehow, worst of all, a tease. You will not own your body yet. You have barely even been introduced to it.
2. Men like you-for a little while. Up until they realize that this is the way you always look, that this isn't just your going-out body, that you cannot just get rid of these hips, these thighs, this everything that was made to be held onto for dear life. You are an adventure. You are a bouncy castle at a kid's birthday party. He knows he will have a really fun time with you but he isn't sure if he wants anyone to see him do it. You are vacation sex. Men will come at you hard just because they have to see what it is like, especially if their last girlfriend was skinny and not very nice. They will think they can hide inside of your curves, use them as a flotation device to keep themselves from drowning, and then realize they don't need you when they sink their fingers into dry sand and know they are safe now. You're not for wearing out in public. You're a secret garment- the silk kimono he wears when he is alone in his house.
After:
3. The world still might not love your curves even if you do. Your husband will show you Amazonian plus-size models in an attempt to make you feel better about your 5 foot one frame that can still hold all of this body. You will try not to point out that this is not the same thing at all. He will be able to deal only with very specific parts of you, and he will barely touch you while you are trying to enjoy the sex that only happens once a week now, and he won't look at you, and he won't forgive you for gaining more weight and giving him even more of you to ignore. You will need to wait until after he separates from you and your problem areas to realize that he was wrong. You will believe it because you will tell yourself that it's true.
4. You will be so amazed at how good you look in that one pencil skirt, you will want to cry. You will be asked the question, "How do you fit all that ass inside your jeans?" You will be told that the song, "Ms. Fat Booty" is about you. You will be told you have the perfect waist-to-hip ratio. You will see a picture of your mother from 1977, her silhouette outlined against the sky, and for a split second think it is a picture of you. You will pretend to double-dutch jump-rope in front of a room full of people while wearing shorts and give zero fucks about it. You will realize that you are a silk kimono, and a bouncy castle, and an adventure. And you will understand what it means to be all of those things.
1. Your journey will start when you are eleven years old. The 34-C's that you will appreciate eventually will sprout up on your chest in sixth grade like unwelcome guests. You will spend most of the year trying to force a grown woman's breasts into a little girl's training bra, watching them spill over the tops and sides like marshmallows expanding in the microwave. Your flat-chested friends will hate you a little. Boys will always be trying to put their hands under and over and inside of your shirt just to say that they got there first, and this will never be about you. It will be about tits you still don't even think of as being yours. And when you tell on the ringleader, like you have been trained to, you will be called a liar. And a troublemaker. And, somehow, worst of all, a tease. You will not own your body yet. You have barely even been introduced to it.
2. Men like you-for a little while. Up until they realize that this is the way you always look, that this isn't just your going-out body, that you cannot just get rid of these hips, these thighs, this everything that was made to be held onto for dear life. You are an adventure. You are a bouncy castle at a kid's birthday party. He knows he will have a really fun time with you but he isn't sure if he wants anyone to see him do it. You are vacation sex. Men will come at you hard just because they have to see what it is like, especially if their last girlfriend was skinny and not very nice. They will think they can hide inside of your curves, use them as a flotation device to keep themselves from drowning, and then realize they don't need you when they sink their fingers into dry sand and know they are safe now. You're not for wearing out in public. You're a secret garment- the silk kimono he wears when he is alone in his house.
After:
3. The world still might not love your curves even if you do. Your husband will show you Amazonian plus-size models in an attempt to make you feel better about your 5 foot one frame that can still hold all of this body. You will try not to point out that this is not the same thing at all. He will be able to deal only with very specific parts of you, and he will barely touch you while you are trying to enjoy the sex that only happens once a week now, and he won't look at you, and he won't forgive you for gaining more weight and giving him even more of you to ignore. You will need to wait until after he separates from you and your problem areas to realize that he was wrong. You will believe it because you will tell yourself that it's true.
4. You will be so amazed at how good you look in that one pencil skirt, you will want to cry. You will be asked the question, "How do you fit all that ass inside your jeans?" You will be told that the song, "Ms. Fat Booty" is about you. You will be told you have the perfect waist-to-hip ratio. You will see a picture of your mother from 1977, her silhouette outlined against the sky, and for a split second think it is a picture of you. You will pretend to double-dutch jump-rope in front of a room full of people while wearing shorts and give zero fucks about it. You will realize that you are a silk kimono, and a bouncy castle, and an adventure. And you will understand what it means to be all of those things.
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Eliza Pilgrim Vs. No One
One of my favorite comic book series, just after Sandman, is Scott Pilgrim. I found the series, as well as the movie, really comforting when I was at my lowest point. Maybe it's because I identify so much with Scott Pilgrim as a character. He's kind of a nice guy but he's kind of a dick to the girls he dates, he's not really that good at anything, he has friends but they don't really like him, he falls ass over teakettle in love with a girl he sees in a dream and then finds out is a real person. I haven't been there on every single one of those instances, but you get my point. I have literally told someone,"I'm going to leave you alone forever now," just like Scott does the first time he actually speaks to the girl of his dreams.
I read Sandman again, particularly the book The Kindly Ones, when I know something terrible is about to happen and I want to revisit something I know like the back of my hand, but I read Scott Pilgrim again when I need to be reassured that even the least remarkable person can learn, and I've spent a lot of time feeling pretty unremarkable.
When I first read it, I really wanted to be Scott's love interest, Ramona Flowers. I have concluded that I will never be a Ramona Flowers. I will never get that many people to fall in love with me and then hate me that much. I kind of still wish I was a Ramona Flowers. Ramona is mysterious. She does not give much away. I give too much away. I dominate a conversation with so much information, all of it about me, or I try to impress someone with how many trivial facts I know about one specific thing to try to get them to like me. I wish I was guarded and unattainable, but I'm not. I will fall hopelessly in lesbians with someone I have only just met and I will always go too far trying to prove it. I will always be Scott Pilgrim.
It might be better to not strive to be a Ramona. Ramona is kind of a jerk. Almost all of her relationships end with her cheating on someone and she's kind of a coward. It would also be really annoying to be her. She tries to have a relationship with this charismatic, mysterious guy who wears awesome glasses and he pays her back for trying to leave when it gets to be too much by inflicting her with the Glow and pushing her around until she vanishes into Subspace. Then he forms a League of Evil Exes to control her love life? And every time she wants to date someone new, even someone as basically harmless as Scott, she has to see all of them again? Jeez. I don't have evil exes. My exes just kind of don't like me anymore. My exes are like Scott's exes. I have my Kim Pines, my one Knives Chau somewhere back there, and my one Envy Adams still fucking things up for me. The difference is, my ex isn't even some slinky, sexy rock star girl with a crazy awesome Evangalion hairstyle. He's just a guy who gave up, who runs into my stepmother and doesn't even ask how I'm doing. He has no interest in sabotaging my future happiness, but that is all due to the fact that he has no interest in me. And I still ask his mother how he is doing when I run into her even though I really want to not care.
There is something to be learned from how much Scott is willing to do for Ramona. It makes me wish I had that kind of pull with anyone. He is so obsessed with her that he is willing to fight everything and everyone that gets in his way. He mans up so completely, and so almost needlessly, that it holds up a dark mirror to my own past. Every time Scott does something in the name of all of that need, just to impress this really cool girl, I just want to reach into the book, pluck him out by the scruff of his neck and tell him, "Ssh, stop it. Just stop it," because I want to be able to do that to myself. I wish I could have pulled myself out of so many situations that arose over someone who didn't really warrant that kind of shit. I will never run out of Ramonas to fight over or new ways to look foolish.
I keep forgetting the point of all of it, or at least what I see the point as being. Ramona doesn't even end up being the reason for Scott becoming a better person. She's the impetus, but not the reason. The best fight, of course, is between Scott and Ramona's evilest ex, Gideon Graves, but before that, Scott has to battle himself. The most important fight is between Scott and Nega-Scott, who was created out of Scott's inability to see his own flaws, and the point is that Scott isn't meant to actually fight him, he is supposed to merge with him, and thereby accept all of his faults that he has ignored up to that point. I keep thinking about all of that negative, black energy I manifested when I got my heart broken, how it felt like carrying around a whole other person who hated me. I wonder where it actually went, or if it's still following me. I'm still trying to figure out if I did it right, if I actually zeroed in on what is wrong with me or if I've just spent the past year and a half identifying what is wrong with every person who has ever hurt me. Every time I get depressed, I feel like I am still just fighting the meanest, darkest version of myself, the side of me that wants to watch me drown. And I am still not sure I can even trust my own memories. I don't even have the luxury of blaming my one-sided recollection of things on someone implanting false memories in my head, the way Scott Pilgrim does. This is entirely my own doing. The ultimate enemy is always going to be me, but it's not even an enemy I can fight, it's an enemy I need to learn from. More to the point, this isn't a fight at all, so there is no chance of winning. Maybe the upside of that is that there is therefore no chance of losing. The game is rigged-you cannot lose if you do not play. Oh, shit, never mind, that's from The Wire. Fuck it, I'm going to go watch The Wire in its entirety from beginning to end for the fourth time and get Lance Reddick's face tattooed on my chest. And try to be a little less like Scott Pilgrim and be more like Deputy Cedric Daniels.
I read Sandman again, particularly the book The Kindly Ones, when I know something terrible is about to happen and I want to revisit something I know like the back of my hand, but I read Scott Pilgrim again when I need to be reassured that even the least remarkable person can learn, and I've spent a lot of time feeling pretty unremarkable.
When I first read it, I really wanted to be Scott's love interest, Ramona Flowers. I have concluded that I will never be a Ramona Flowers. I will never get that many people to fall in love with me and then hate me that much. I kind of still wish I was a Ramona Flowers. Ramona is mysterious. She does not give much away. I give too much away. I dominate a conversation with so much information, all of it about me, or I try to impress someone with how many trivial facts I know about one specific thing to try to get them to like me. I wish I was guarded and unattainable, but I'm not. I will fall hopelessly in lesbians with someone I have only just met and I will always go too far trying to prove it. I will always be Scott Pilgrim.
It might be better to not strive to be a Ramona. Ramona is kind of a jerk. Almost all of her relationships end with her cheating on someone and she's kind of a coward. It would also be really annoying to be her. She tries to have a relationship with this charismatic, mysterious guy who wears awesome glasses and he pays her back for trying to leave when it gets to be too much by inflicting her with the Glow and pushing her around until she vanishes into Subspace. Then he forms a League of Evil Exes to control her love life? And every time she wants to date someone new, even someone as basically harmless as Scott, she has to see all of them again? Jeez. I don't have evil exes. My exes just kind of don't like me anymore. My exes are like Scott's exes. I have my Kim Pines, my one Knives Chau somewhere back there, and my one Envy Adams still fucking things up for me. The difference is, my ex isn't even some slinky, sexy rock star girl with a crazy awesome Evangalion hairstyle. He's just a guy who gave up, who runs into my stepmother and doesn't even ask how I'm doing. He has no interest in sabotaging my future happiness, but that is all due to the fact that he has no interest in me. And I still ask his mother how he is doing when I run into her even though I really want to not care.
There is something to be learned from how much Scott is willing to do for Ramona. It makes me wish I had that kind of pull with anyone. He is so obsessed with her that he is willing to fight everything and everyone that gets in his way. He mans up so completely, and so almost needlessly, that it holds up a dark mirror to my own past. Every time Scott does something in the name of all of that need, just to impress this really cool girl, I just want to reach into the book, pluck him out by the scruff of his neck and tell him, "Ssh, stop it. Just stop it," because I want to be able to do that to myself. I wish I could have pulled myself out of so many situations that arose over someone who didn't really warrant that kind of shit. I will never run out of Ramonas to fight over or new ways to look foolish.
I keep forgetting the point of all of it, or at least what I see the point as being. Ramona doesn't even end up being the reason for Scott becoming a better person. She's the impetus, but not the reason. The best fight, of course, is between Scott and Ramona's evilest ex, Gideon Graves, but before that, Scott has to battle himself. The most important fight is between Scott and Nega-Scott, who was created out of Scott's inability to see his own flaws, and the point is that Scott isn't meant to actually fight him, he is supposed to merge with him, and thereby accept all of his faults that he has ignored up to that point. I keep thinking about all of that negative, black energy I manifested when I got my heart broken, how it felt like carrying around a whole other person who hated me. I wonder where it actually went, or if it's still following me. I'm still trying to figure out if I did it right, if I actually zeroed in on what is wrong with me or if I've just spent the past year and a half identifying what is wrong with every person who has ever hurt me. Every time I get depressed, I feel like I am still just fighting the meanest, darkest version of myself, the side of me that wants to watch me drown. And I am still not sure I can even trust my own memories. I don't even have the luxury of blaming my one-sided recollection of things on someone implanting false memories in my head, the way Scott Pilgrim does. This is entirely my own doing. The ultimate enemy is always going to be me, but it's not even an enemy I can fight, it's an enemy I need to learn from. More to the point, this isn't a fight at all, so there is no chance of winning. Maybe the upside of that is that there is therefore no chance of losing. The game is rigged-you cannot lose if you do not play. Oh, shit, never mind, that's from The Wire. Fuck it, I'm going to go watch The Wire in its entirety from beginning to end for the fourth time and get Lance Reddick's face tattooed on my chest. And try to be a little less like Scott Pilgrim and be more like Deputy Cedric Daniels.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
I Learned It From Watching You
"I can't believe it-every time I look at you, you look more like your mother," my aunt said to me a few weeks ago.
I said thanks, whatever, and tried to fight against the shameful blush that takes over every time this happens. My knee-jerk reaction, every time someone tells me I look like my mother, is still to say, "No, I don't," like they have just made a mistake.
It still feels like it can't be true. Everyone, or maybe just me, has one picture of their mother where she just looks so beautiful, you cannot even fathom how you came out of this person, how you were made out of the same materials they were made from. It's like a biological experiment gone wrong-a sow's ear that was made from a silk purse. It wasn't until very recently, when I started to really see the resemblance, not just in the shape of my eyes and my cheekbones but in the shape of my body, which is the same as the shape she hated so much and fought against, that I realized what this negativity actually puts out into the world. All I am doing by hating this body I have been given is feeding into the self-hatred she carried on her back like a thousand extra pounds until she died, and I learned it from watching her.
It is hard to undo the years of learned self-loathing that I learned from my mother, because it did not come just from her. I used to have friends who encouraged my bad behavior, who congratulated me for weight loss that was usually brought on by just being too fucking sad to eat. My family, to a degree, has encouraged my past self-abuse, by only remarking on my weight when I was that sick. When I gained it back because I was happy, they were not so thrilled. In my family, skinny equals pretty, so I've only been pretty on and off to them, and only when I've been sad. This negative thinking is starting to go away, little by little, just by surrounding myself with the right people, but it's a very slow process. Now I have better friends. No one is trying to feed me diet pills or telling me it was better when I was "bulimic-looking".
This tendency I have always had, to hate everything about me that is like my mother-the shape of my face, my curves that will never flatten out, needs to end with me. All I am doing by hating the very things that made my mother beautiful is proving her assertions right. I don't want to prove her right. I also don't want to have a daughter someday who learns to hate herself from me. It's going to be hard because it is so much easier to be self-deprecating. It's funnier and people like hearing it more. No one likes someone who is too pleased with their own self. Still, this is a pattern that I am tired of carrying on. I am trying, every day, to not look at my body only in terms of what is wrong with it, with the relief map of areas that need to be changed or altered or made different. It's so much harder than it needs to be.
Trying to see myself differently has changed the way I feel about my ex, and how he dealt with my body. I have made a lot of accusations about my ex in terms of how he wanted me to change, but to be fair, how could I expect him to love the way I looked if I couldn't even like it? He couldn't, and I can't expect anyone else to. My father told me, years after my mother was gone, how he tried to give her what he thought she needed by telling her how beautiful she was, and how frustrating that was because she would counter-point with something she hated about herself too often. You could throw compliments at this woman all day and nothing would stick. I remember looking at her yearbook photos when I was little, telling her she was the prettiest girl on the homecoming court, and she replied, "I only got nominated because I was popular, not because I was pretty. I was never pretty."
I think back to when, exactly, my ex stopped telling me I was anything other than flawed, and it must have been when he figured out that there was no point. I pushed back against anything nice the same way my mother did, and he just got exhausted. So, I'm giving up on it. I'm giving up because I'm tired of this. I can't carry my mother's self-hatred anymore. Of all the ways that I see that I do resemble her, this is the one that has to change, and I am the only one who can change it.
I said thanks, whatever, and tried to fight against the shameful blush that takes over every time this happens. My knee-jerk reaction, every time someone tells me I look like my mother, is still to say, "No, I don't," like they have just made a mistake.
It still feels like it can't be true. Everyone, or maybe just me, has one picture of their mother where she just looks so beautiful, you cannot even fathom how you came out of this person, how you were made out of the same materials they were made from. It's like a biological experiment gone wrong-a sow's ear that was made from a silk purse. It wasn't until very recently, when I started to really see the resemblance, not just in the shape of my eyes and my cheekbones but in the shape of my body, which is the same as the shape she hated so much and fought against, that I realized what this negativity actually puts out into the world. All I am doing by hating this body I have been given is feeding into the self-hatred she carried on her back like a thousand extra pounds until she died, and I learned it from watching her.
It is hard to undo the years of learned self-loathing that I learned from my mother, because it did not come just from her. I used to have friends who encouraged my bad behavior, who congratulated me for weight loss that was usually brought on by just being too fucking sad to eat. My family, to a degree, has encouraged my past self-abuse, by only remarking on my weight when I was that sick. When I gained it back because I was happy, they were not so thrilled. In my family, skinny equals pretty, so I've only been pretty on and off to them, and only when I've been sad. This negative thinking is starting to go away, little by little, just by surrounding myself with the right people, but it's a very slow process. Now I have better friends. No one is trying to feed me diet pills or telling me it was better when I was "bulimic-looking".
This tendency I have always had, to hate everything about me that is like my mother-the shape of my face, my curves that will never flatten out, needs to end with me. All I am doing by hating the very things that made my mother beautiful is proving her assertions right. I don't want to prove her right. I also don't want to have a daughter someday who learns to hate herself from me. It's going to be hard because it is so much easier to be self-deprecating. It's funnier and people like hearing it more. No one likes someone who is too pleased with their own self. Still, this is a pattern that I am tired of carrying on. I am trying, every day, to not look at my body only in terms of what is wrong with it, with the relief map of areas that need to be changed or altered or made different. It's so much harder than it needs to be.
Trying to see myself differently has changed the way I feel about my ex, and how he dealt with my body. I have made a lot of accusations about my ex in terms of how he wanted me to change, but to be fair, how could I expect him to love the way I looked if I couldn't even like it? He couldn't, and I can't expect anyone else to. My father told me, years after my mother was gone, how he tried to give her what he thought she needed by telling her how beautiful she was, and how frustrating that was because she would counter-point with something she hated about herself too often. You could throw compliments at this woman all day and nothing would stick. I remember looking at her yearbook photos when I was little, telling her she was the prettiest girl on the homecoming court, and she replied, "I only got nominated because I was popular, not because I was pretty. I was never pretty."
I think back to when, exactly, my ex stopped telling me I was anything other than flawed, and it must have been when he figured out that there was no point. I pushed back against anything nice the same way my mother did, and he just got exhausted. So, I'm giving up on it. I'm giving up because I'm tired of this. I can't carry my mother's self-hatred anymore. Of all the ways that I see that I do resemble her, this is the one that has to change, and I am the only one who can change it.
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Different Names For The Same Thing
I was caught off-guard this past week in the dumbest way when I was bored and playing Bejeweled on my Kindle. When the little window popped up with my "high score" (ridiculous, as I am, essentially, playing against myself), I saw that when I first installed this stupid time-waster, I put in my name as "Liza Pretzel Bits". Long story, inside joke, suffice it to say it's something my ex-husband used to call me, and of course I got a little weepy and stupid over it. I miss things I shouldn't miss. Even though I feel like I am in a better place, and of course I prefer living by myself to living with four other people (in fact just the thought of my ex's shit taking up 3/4ths of the space in my tiny apartment gets me feeling claustrophobic), I can't let go of these silly little things. No one calls me by any of the nicknames my ex made up for me. No one calls me Munchkin. No one calls me Hey, Bitch. No one calls me Liza Pretzel Bits.
I doubt anyone ever looks over at their spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/other and thinks, while they are doing something thoroughly annoying, "God, I am going to miss this when it's not happening all the time."
Not even the most insightful among us thinks of that. But now that I'm just alone all the time and have a significant, I would say, lack of things annoying me about my home life, it's created a vacuum. I don't have my ex beckoning me over to the computer to watch a forty-minute-long video on Youtube about chem-trails or following me into the bathroom just to tell me a story, and now I kind of miss being annoyed.
I was walking around in this melancholy state, just being nostalgic, poking at that still-open sore that won't heal, feeling lonely, until I saw that the little fucker defriended me on Facebook. I have never overreacted so quickly to something so trivial. This is the new passive-aggressive way to hurt someone-you symbolically remove them from your life. I wanted, so badly, above all, to not care. I wanted to not feel wounded and embarrassed and, once again, like I was just being informed that I was an idiot. I raged out just a little, roping my best friends into it, making them parrot back the same emotions I was feeling just to justify them. It wasn't until the tenth time that I pointed out that I had more reason to cut this last invisible social media thread than he did that I realized why I never scrolled all the way down that little drop-box next to his Facebook cover photo and clicked the "Unfriend" option, not even when I thought I really hated him. I kept the lines open, remained civil, listened to him talk about girls he liked even when it went so against my nature that I wanted to rip my hair out, all because, I think, I just wanted to look like the bigger, better person. I'm not more grown-up or well-adjusted, I'm just better at faking it.
I miss his friendship, really, and the nicknames, and feeling like I had someone in my life who knew me better than anyone ever had, but it's not healthy for me to miss someone who responds to me standing up for myself just a little bit with something like this. I could have stayed friends with him forever, I know, if I had just given him everything he wanted. Things were cool as shit between us when we were broken up, but still having sex, and before I told my attorney to move this thing forward. I could be wrong about all of this, of course. He could have unfriended me by accident, but that sounds like a lie a girl tells herself when a boy doesn't call. I thought, that even after he changed from someone I knew best to someone I don't know, that he would still be someone to me. I knew he wasn't going to call me Munchkin anymore, but I thought we would at least keep liking each other's status updates and stuff. That was more than he could deal with, I guess, and I think I've learned by now not to push it and never attempt to find out why. Why doesn't matter. I have hundreds of other people who not only like my status updates and stupid links, they also like me.
I doubt anyone ever looks over at their spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend/other and thinks, while they are doing something thoroughly annoying, "God, I am going to miss this when it's not happening all the time."
Not even the most insightful among us thinks of that. But now that I'm just alone all the time and have a significant, I would say, lack of things annoying me about my home life, it's created a vacuum. I don't have my ex beckoning me over to the computer to watch a forty-minute-long video on Youtube about chem-trails or following me into the bathroom just to tell me a story, and now I kind of miss being annoyed.
I was walking around in this melancholy state, just being nostalgic, poking at that still-open sore that won't heal, feeling lonely, until I saw that the little fucker defriended me on Facebook. I have never overreacted so quickly to something so trivial. This is the new passive-aggressive way to hurt someone-you symbolically remove them from your life. I wanted, so badly, above all, to not care. I wanted to not feel wounded and embarrassed and, once again, like I was just being informed that I was an idiot. I raged out just a little, roping my best friends into it, making them parrot back the same emotions I was feeling just to justify them. It wasn't until the tenth time that I pointed out that I had more reason to cut this last invisible social media thread than he did that I realized why I never scrolled all the way down that little drop-box next to his Facebook cover photo and clicked the "Unfriend" option, not even when I thought I really hated him. I kept the lines open, remained civil, listened to him talk about girls he liked even when it went so against my nature that I wanted to rip my hair out, all because, I think, I just wanted to look like the bigger, better person. I'm not more grown-up or well-adjusted, I'm just better at faking it.
I miss his friendship, really, and the nicknames, and feeling like I had someone in my life who knew me better than anyone ever had, but it's not healthy for me to miss someone who responds to me standing up for myself just a little bit with something like this. I could have stayed friends with him forever, I know, if I had just given him everything he wanted. Things were cool as shit between us when we were broken up, but still having sex, and before I told my attorney to move this thing forward. I could be wrong about all of this, of course. He could have unfriended me by accident, but that sounds like a lie a girl tells herself when a boy doesn't call. I thought, that even after he changed from someone I knew best to someone I don't know, that he would still be someone to me. I knew he wasn't going to call me Munchkin anymore, but I thought we would at least keep liking each other's status updates and stuff. That was more than he could deal with, I guess, and I think I've learned by now not to push it and never attempt to find out why. Why doesn't matter. I have hundreds of other people who not only like my status updates and stupid links, they also like me.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
The Bitter End
This week turned out to be one of those weeks where nearly everyone who is in a relationship was putting something about how in love they are on Facebook, and needless to say I was annoyed. It started when my sister and her fiance came upon their first anniversary and I told her she was grossing me out with how much she loves him and then it kept going all the way up to Thursday, when my best friend's husband put yet another thoughtful, lovely observation about how beautiful she is and though I resisted, I really wanted to make fun of him for it. I told a friend from work about both of these incidences and she said, in this little baby-voice of hers, "Yeah, that probably won't last. Just look at what the divorce rate is."
I surprised myself by leaping to defend both of them. My sister who I had just inferred was making me ill with her sentimental posts about how much she loves her husband-to-be and my best friend's husband who I really wanted to mock for how gay he is for his wife. This friend of mine from work has been divorced twice, and she thinks that makes her an expert on marriage. That might make her an expert on failing at marriage, but she is not really a person I would go to for her opinion on what makes them work, or whether or not one is destined to be a success or a failure. Plus, it just kind of pissed me off that she could say something sassy like that about people she doesn't even know. It was hurtful and oddly pointed- like she was hoping their relationships would end badly. It reminded me a little too much of something my former mother-in-law did once while my ex and I were living in her house. I was in the kitchen with her and when my ex walked in the door from work I said, as I always did when I saw him, as most normal-ass wives do, "Hi, honey."
"Hi, honey," his mother said in a terrible imitation of my voice, albeit my voice if I had severe head trauma and a speech impediment, "That shit won't last," she said, walking out of the room.
What really bothered me was the way she said it, like she hoped the lovey-dovey nonsense wouldn't last, like she hoped we would stop loving each other. I attribute this to the fact that her marriage had not exactly worked out the way she wanted it to. Legally, she and her husband were still married and living together, but emotionally, they were divorced. It was enough to make anyone bitter. I don't believe she was happy about it when her son broke our marriage off, but I imagine that a part of her couldn't help but think, "I told ya so."
My co-worker expressing the same type of sentiment rubbed me the wrong way. "Umm, kind of a reductive statement," I told her, "Just because my marriage and your marriage(s) didn't work out doesn't mean everyone else is going to get divorced."
I said this because I am fighting against this bitterness trap that is so easy to fall into. No matter how much going through my own divorce changes me, I will not let it sour me. I will not become some jaded, flippant divorcee who wishes ill upon other people's relationships and quotes this bullshit about divorce rates. Why should I? Everyone else should be happy, I think, and I still believe in marriage. Even if I don't think getting married again is for me, I will continue to have faith in it. On top of that, I can't bear the thought, even though I know it's possible, of my friends' relationships ending. Joking about it is tantamount to joking about any of them dying. It just isn't acceptable. I will make fun of them all day and all night for it, but that is only because I'm jealous. My ex never put something up for all the world to look at about how much he loved me. Maybe if he was the type of person who did, we wouldn't be in this position, both of us alone, neither of us happy but maybe thinking we have an okay shot at figuring out how to be. And maybe if I was more worthy of that kind of thing, he wouldn't have asked me for a divorce. It's hard to say either way. What I do know is that I'm going to continue to be happy for other people, even when I'm annoyed and rolling my eyes and wanting to tell them to cut it out, because I will not shame anyone I love for being in love. I'll leave that to all of the other divorcees.
I surprised myself by leaping to defend both of them. My sister who I had just inferred was making me ill with her sentimental posts about how much she loves her husband-to-be and my best friend's husband who I really wanted to mock for how gay he is for his wife. This friend of mine from work has been divorced twice, and she thinks that makes her an expert on marriage. That might make her an expert on failing at marriage, but she is not really a person I would go to for her opinion on what makes them work, or whether or not one is destined to be a success or a failure. Plus, it just kind of pissed me off that she could say something sassy like that about people she doesn't even know. It was hurtful and oddly pointed- like she was hoping their relationships would end badly. It reminded me a little too much of something my former mother-in-law did once while my ex and I were living in her house. I was in the kitchen with her and when my ex walked in the door from work I said, as I always did when I saw him, as most normal-ass wives do, "Hi, honey."
"Hi, honey," his mother said in a terrible imitation of my voice, albeit my voice if I had severe head trauma and a speech impediment, "That shit won't last," she said, walking out of the room.
What really bothered me was the way she said it, like she hoped the lovey-dovey nonsense wouldn't last, like she hoped we would stop loving each other. I attribute this to the fact that her marriage had not exactly worked out the way she wanted it to. Legally, she and her husband were still married and living together, but emotionally, they were divorced. It was enough to make anyone bitter. I don't believe she was happy about it when her son broke our marriage off, but I imagine that a part of her couldn't help but think, "I told ya so."
My co-worker expressing the same type of sentiment rubbed me the wrong way. "Umm, kind of a reductive statement," I told her, "Just because my marriage and your marriage(s) didn't work out doesn't mean everyone else is going to get divorced."
I said this because I am fighting against this bitterness trap that is so easy to fall into. No matter how much going through my own divorce changes me, I will not let it sour me. I will not become some jaded, flippant divorcee who wishes ill upon other people's relationships and quotes this bullshit about divorce rates. Why should I? Everyone else should be happy, I think, and I still believe in marriage. Even if I don't think getting married again is for me, I will continue to have faith in it. On top of that, I can't bear the thought, even though I know it's possible, of my friends' relationships ending. Joking about it is tantamount to joking about any of them dying. It just isn't acceptable. I will make fun of them all day and all night for it, but that is only because I'm jealous. My ex never put something up for all the world to look at about how much he loved me. Maybe if he was the type of person who did, we wouldn't be in this position, both of us alone, neither of us happy but maybe thinking we have an okay shot at figuring out how to be. And maybe if I was more worthy of that kind of thing, he wouldn't have asked me for a divorce. It's hard to say either way. What I do know is that I'm going to continue to be happy for other people, even when I'm annoyed and rolling my eyes and wanting to tell them to cut it out, because I will not shame anyone I love for being in love. I'll leave that to all of the other divorcees.
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Stop, Just Stop
I got all cranky the other night because my man-crush was talking to a girl who I arbitrarily decided is my nemesis a few years ago. She said something kind of annoying once and I thought, "Okay, lady, someday I will destroy you."
After that, I didn't see her around, so I basically forgot about it. I guess I didn't really need a nemesis as badly as I thought I did. The part of it that makes it funnier is that I don't even know her name, or anything about her, other than that she's prettier than me and people like her. Oh, and one time she said to her group of friends that they should all learn the dance to Thriller like that was something that had never been done before. And now that the guy I think is really hot was talking to her, I must destroy her and make a lampshade out of her skin. Or I'll just, you know, not do that and move on to something else because I'm not an actual psychopath, and I doubt that would impress him.
My dad asked me, because he is trying to show that he has an interest in my social life, if I have even talked to this guy more than once. "Nope," I said, "Too intimidated. He's too handsome."
"You talked to him that one time, and you weren't too intimidated then, right?" he asked.
"I didn't realize how good-looking he was the first time I talked to him," I said.
"C'mon, he's alright," my dad said, because I had pointed him out to my dad one time when he was in the same place as us, like the pocket-sized stalker I am, "He's not that good-looking."
This felt a little too similar to my ex-husband trying to convince me that the next guy I dated wasn't that attractive. "Not really your area of expertise, Daddy, and whatever, he so is. And I've given up on that anyway. He was talking to my nemesis, so that's a no-go for me," I said.
My dad was not following, as I didn't really expect him to. My father is totally confused by me most of the time. I like it, because I think I kind of amuse him, but sometimes he must find it exhausting, and he looks at me as if he is thinking, "Jesus Christ, just be normal for one fucking second."
After explaining how it is possible to have a nemesis I don't really know, and why I even decided I needed a nemesis in the first place, and my dad just sort of making that dad face that he makes when he realizes he can't argue with his daughter because she is not making a lick of sense, he asked me why that meant that now I had to give up. "I think I've learned by now how to be practical about when I should give up on something, Dad," I said.
"That may be, but you haven't really tried yet, have you?"
This is my father's nice way of pointing out that I am being a total pussy. I hate it when my father says something so obvious, that I want to argue with, but I can't, because he's right. Again. I've convinced myself that I already know the end result, and it won't go my way, so I let that go and move on. I'm not as tenacious as I used to be, and I can't tell if it's a sign of growth or if I'm just being a wimp. I think I know what most people would say, and it wouldn't surprise me to find out that yes, I am just being a wimp.
It should not be this hard to do any of this. I think what is guiding me is a reluctance to look like such a big, dumb asshole ever again. I looked like a big, dumb asshole over my ex-husband, because I focused so hard on him for years and he repaid me for that by asking for a divorce, and I looked like a big, dumb asshole over the next guy I dated because he was seeing someone else the whole time and never told either of us. Trying to kick it with this guy who is too good-looking for me and has prettier girls interested in him would be just another opportunity to look like an even bigger, dumber asshole. That's why I gave up before I even tried.
I also gave up a little too easily when my ex told me he wanted a divorce, I see now. I saw how hard it would be to repair it, how I would never be able to unknow that for a good portion of the year before, he was convinced that he didn't love me. The unfairness of it was too much because I never, even when I thought I hated him, never for a second thought that I didn't love him. Not fighting for it was kind of a weak move, but again, sometimes a weak move is also a practical one. It is impossible to make someone care, or, at least, it is for me. I know it's not the same for everyone. I see couples who have come this close to breaking up but have stayed together because they both realized they loved each other too much to end it. I have also seen couples who have stayed together because one out of the two people just wanted the other to stay so much, and the one who wanted to leave can barely hide their contempt for the other person. I can't imagine living with the knowledge that my spouse wants to leave, and I did not want to spend all of that time convincing my ex that we should stay together because I knew it would just make him hate me.
I was not bound and determined to keep my marriage going because I knew there was no convincing someone as stubborn as my ex that he did love me, and he did want to stay married to me, and what we had was good. I didn't try because I had already been trying, in so many ways, for months, to convince him, and I knew it was not worth it any more. You can only hold something like that together by sheer force of will for so long before it just crumbles.
I've just come around to the conclusion that being single is not the worst thing in the world, but it's going to take me a while to figure out how to stop being so cautious all the time, and just take risks. And maybe wait until my nemesis is not around to try talking to my man-crush, or just try not to notice how handsome he is and how his horrible fashion sense somehow makes him more attractive and wait for someone else to come along, because one person is not the answer to everything. No one can argue with me on that.
After that, I didn't see her around, so I basically forgot about it. I guess I didn't really need a nemesis as badly as I thought I did. The part of it that makes it funnier is that I don't even know her name, or anything about her, other than that she's prettier than me and people like her. Oh, and one time she said to her group of friends that they should all learn the dance to Thriller like that was something that had never been done before. And now that the guy I think is really hot was talking to her, I must destroy her and make a lampshade out of her skin. Or I'll just, you know, not do that and move on to something else because I'm not an actual psychopath, and I doubt that would impress him.
My dad asked me, because he is trying to show that he has an interest in my social life, if I have even talked to this guy more than once. "Nope," I said, "Too intimidated. He's too handsome."
"You talked to him that one time, and you weren't too intimidated then, right?" he asked.
"I didn't realize how good-looking he was the first time I talked to him," I said.
"C'mon, he's alright," my dad said, because I had pointed him out to my dad one time when he was in the same place as us, like the pocket-sized stalker I am, "He's not that good-looking."
This felt a little too similar to my ex-husband trying to convince me that the next guy I dated wasn't that attractive. "Not really your area of expertise, Daddy, and whatever, he so is. And I've given up on that anyway. He was talking to my nemesis, so that's a no-go for me," I said.
My dad was not following, as I didn't really expect him to. My father is totally confused by me most of the time. I like it, because I think I kind of amuse him, but sometimes he must find it exhausting, and he looks at me as if he is thinking, "Jesus Christ, just be normal for one fucking second."
After explaining how it is possible to have a nemesis I don't really know, and why I even decided I needed a nemesis in the first place, and my dad just sort of making that dad face that he makes when he realizes he can't argue with his daughter because she is not making a lick of sense, he asked me why that meant that now I had to give up. "I think I've learned by now how to be practical about when I should give up on something, Dad," I said.
"That may be, but you haven't really tried yet, have you?"
This is my father's nice way of pointing out that I am being a total pussy. I hate it when my father says something so obvious, that I want to argue with, but I can't, because he's right. Again. I've convinced myself that I already know the end result, and it won't go my way, so I let that go and move on. I'm not as tenacious as I used to be, and I can't tell if it's a sign of growth or if I'm just being a wimp. I think I know what most people would say, and it wouldn't surprise me to find out that yes, I am just being a wimp.
It should not be this hard to do any of this. I think what is guiding me is a reluctance to look like such a big, dumb asshole ever again. I looked like a big, dumb asshole over my ex-husband, because I focused so hard on him for years and he repaid me for that by asking for a divorce, and I looked like a big, dumb asshole over the next guy I dated because he was seeing someone else the whole time and never told either of us. Trying to kick it with this guy who is too good-looking for me and has prettier girls interested in him would be just another opportunity to look like an even bigger, dumber asshole. That's why I gave up before I even tried.
I also gave up a little too easily when my ex told me he wanted a divorce, I see now. I saw how hard it would be to repair it, how I would never be able to unknow that for a good portion of the year before, he was convinced that he didn't love me. The unfairness of it was too much because I never, even when I thought I hated him, never for a second thought that I didn't love him. Not fighting for it was kind of a weak move, but again, sometimes a weak move is also a practical one. It is impossible to make someone care, or, at least, it is for me. I know it's not the same for everyone. I see couples who have come this close to breaking up but have stayed together because they both realized they loved each other too much to end it. I have also seen couples who have stayed together because one out of the two people just wanted the other to stay so much, and the one who wanted to leave can barely hide their contempt for the other person. I can't imagine living with the knowledge that my spouse wants to leave, and I did not want to spend all of that time convincing my ex that we should stay together because I knew it would just make him hate me.
I was not bound and determined to keep my marriage going because I knew there was no convincing someone as stubborn as my ex that he did love me, and he did want to stay married to me, and what we had was good. I didn't try because I had already been trying, in so many ways, for months, to convince him, and I knew it was not worth it any more. You can only hold something like that together by sheer force of will for so long before it just crumbles.
I've just come around to the conclusion that being single is not the worst thing in the world, but it's going to take me a while to figure out how to stop being so cautious all the time, and just take risks. And maybe wait until my nemesis is not around to try talking to my man-crush, or just try not to notice how handsome he is and how his horrible fashion sense somehow makes him more attractive and wait for someone else to come along, because one person is not the answer to everything. No one can argue with me on that.
Saturday, June 15, 2013
What You Deserve
I was about to publish this post when I learned that Kay, a dear family friend, was hit by a car the night before and killed. She ended up being my biggest supporter in my blogging efforts, leaving helpful comments and telling me that what I was doing, this side-project that I usually think of as silly, was worth someone's time. I came to value her insight immensely in the process of going through my divorce. She will be dearly missed, and it breaks my heart to think of what her family is enduring. There is nothing anyone can say that really helps during the grieving process, especially when it is in the wake of something so unthinkable. There are no words of comfort when the loss is this immense. Still, this latest post is one that I think would amuse her. Kay, wherever you are, I hope you can still read this, and I am going to knit something really awesome in your memory.
I sent my best friend a message about how worried I am about entering some kind of second adolescence. I'm starting to get boy-crazy again, which would maybe be cute if I was 12, but it's not such a good color on a 30-year-old. It's hard to not get swept away by how intense everything is when you are through the most painful part of a breakup, and past the usual rebounding that leads you to make questionable decisions, when your brain is just running a constant scroll of "sexsexsexsexsex" and suddenly, every other guy you meet looks like the hottest motherfucker you have ever seen. It's rough trying to just be a normal person when your hormones take control of your actions and you realize you're just an animal, and a really gross, awkward one at that. I told about how trouble I was having just trying to talk to a guy I met the other night because he is so good-looking and I am like a newly-molted cicada right now, emerging with wet wings and no idea how to do anything other than swarm. She replies by saying that she thinks the guy in question is single, and immediately I kind of deflate. Great, I think, he's single. It doesn't make a difference, because he is too attractive for me.
All of what little swagger I had has gone out of me during the past few weeks and I feel like I am already starting to decay, melodramatic as that sounds. In creating the Greek yogurt of my single self, I feel like I have already consumed the good part and now all I am left with is acid whey. What it keeps coming down to is what I think I deserve, or rather, what I don't deserve. I see this ridiculously attractive man and think dangerously hopeful thoughts until I realize that he is up here, and I am down here. I am always waiting for someone to point out that I'm not pretty enough, and not only that but that I'm not cool enough or smart enough or any other thing enough. I look at myself and just think, "Don't even try. You deserve nothing."
I don't know what I deserve. I keep wondering how in the world anyone could ever even like me. Despite what a lot of people say to my face, and I try to tell myself, about my ex and how much "better" I can do, I'm hung up on how disproportionate our levels of attractiveness were. He was too good-looking for me, and he knew it because I told him. I never got over that. I can lie to myself and think that he was my floor, but really, he was my ceiling, and I think everyone else knows it, too. For how much I bitch about his remarks about this same topic when we were together, at least he didn't lie to me. He told me that I was pretty, but not as pretty as other girls, and maybe that should just be enough. I know I flip-flop on this subject a lot, but there is such a fine line between having confidence and being blind, just as there is a fine line between being realistic and having body dysmorphia. It is hard to accurately assess yourself.
Maybe in that whole time with my ex, I was getting what I deserved, because he told me the truth. When I got fat, he told me I got fat. When I didn't look good in something, he told me I didn't look good in it. On the other hand, once I lost the weight after we split up, he noticed, and he told me, and if I looked really awesome in something, he noticed that, too. It wasn't all just harsh truths with him. He was a lot of things, but he was not a liar. Say what you will about how you should treat someone you love, but at least he prepared me to just be realistic about myself. I know I'm not going to spark the interest of the ridiculously handsome man, that the best I can ask is that I get to make small talk with him for a few minutes and just know he exists.
I sent my best friend a message about how worried I am about entering some kind of second adolescence. I'm starting to get boy-crazy again, which would maybe be cute if I was 12, but it's not such a good color on a 30-year-old. It's hard to not get swept away by how intense everything is when you are through the most painful part of a breakup, and past the usual rebounding that leads you to make questionable decisions, when your brain is just running a constant scroll of "sexsexsexsexsex" and suddenly, every other guy you meet looks like the hottest motherfucker you have ever seen. It's rough trying to just be a normal person when your hormones take control of your actions and you realize you're just an animal, and a really gross, awkward one at that. I told about how trouble I was having just trying to talk to a guy I met the other night because he is so good-looking and I am like a newly-molted cicada right now, emerging with wet wings and no idea how to do anything other than swarm. She replies by saying that she thinks the guy in question is single, and immediately I kind of deflate. Great, I think, he's single. It doesn't make a difference, because he is too attractive for me.
All of what little swagger I had has gone out of me during the past few weeks and I feel like I am already starting to decay, melodramatic as that sounds. In creating the Greek yogurt of my single self, I feel like I have already consumed the good part and now all I am left with is acid whey. What it keeps coming down to is what I think I deserve, or rather, what I don't deserve. I see this ridiculously attractive man and think dangerously hopeful thoughts until I realize that he is up here, and I am down here. I am always waiting for someone to point out that I'm not pretty enough, and not only that but that I'm not cool enough or smart enough or any other thing enough. I look at myself and just think, "Don't even try. You deserve nothing."
I don't know what I deserve. I keep wondering how in the world anyone could ever even like me. Despite what a lot of people say to my face, and I try to tell myself, about my ex and how much "better" I can do, I'm hung up on how disproportionate our levels of attractiveness were. He was too good-looking for me, and he knew it because I told him. I never got over that. I can lie to myself and think that he was my floor, but really, he was my ceiling, and I think everyone else knows it, too. For how much I bitch about his remarks about this same topic when we were together, at least he didn't lie to me. He told me that I was pretty, but not as pretty as other girls, and maybe that should just be enough. I know I flip-flop on this subject a lot, but there is such a fine line between having confidence and being blind, just as there is a fine line between being realistic and having body dysmorphia. It is hard to accurately assess yourself.
Maybe in that whole time with my ex, I was getting what I deserved, because he told me the truth. When I got fat, he told me I got fat. When I didn't look good in something, he told me I didn't look good in it. On the other hand, once I lost the weight after we split up, he noticed, and he told me, and if I looked really awesome in something, he noticed that, too. It wasn't all just harsh truths with him. He was a lot of things, but he was not a liar. Say what you will about how you should treat someone you love, but at least he prepared me to just be realistic about myself. I know I'm not going to spark the interest of the ridiculously handsome man, that the best I can ask is that I get to make small talk with him for a few minutes and just know he exists.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
One Fine Day To Be Nude
I was listening to Marc Maron's WTF podcast with Alison Brie the other morning. She was talking about her time studying at CalArts, telling him that the rules were, at that school, that you could be naked anytime and any place, with the exception of the cafeteria. It was funny to hear her talk about walking around in just tennis shoes to make her friends laugh, but it also sounded like my personal nightmare. Being around a bunch of people who just don't care and can be naked anywhere there isn't food being served sounds completely foreign and weird and not at all comfortable. I don't even like being naked when I am by myself. I kind of wish I could just give myself a break and be naked, all of the time or even just some of the time, without feeling like someone is watching me and doesn't like the view. I want to be half as confident as this guy:
I don't know if I have body dysmorphia or if I'm just brutally honest with myself or what, but I'm still struggling with what I see when I take my clothes off.
One of the things I was looking forward to, when I finally got my own place and didn't have to consider how I might be accidentally making anyone else uncomfortable, was just being naked all the time. I couldn't get naked whenever I wanted, for obvious reasons, when Gino and I had roommates, but even when we just lived together as a couple, if I was naked, I kind of ended up having to explain why I was naked. When I moved in here and didn't have to explain anything to anyone, I did just walk around in various states of undress pretty much any time I was home, but then I started to be such a girl about it and realized that I'm not comfortable being naked. I made a joke, this past summer, when I was still heavily embittered about my failed marriage, that Gino only saw me naked a handful of times in seven years. The way I told it made it sound like I never let him see me naked, but what I actually meant was that he didn't really look at me anymore. That was true to some extent, although I was, as I tend to do, exaggerating. We got naked a lot, but he stopped seeing me when I was naked, I think, a few years ago. He would try to make me feel better about my weight gain, and how my body was just wrong in so many ways, but it was a struggle, I could tell. He would put his hands on my hips and say, "See? It's working," meaning that my constant exercising and other attempts to shrink myself down were showing, but there was an edge to his voice when he said it.
The overall impression I got from Gino telling me it was working was, "It's working a little".
It was sweet of him, and he was trying, but it must be hard to be married to someone who just continues to expand year after year. I didn't live up to my marriage vows, which were to always be the girl he fell in love with. The girl he fell in love with had curves, but also had a concave stomach, and he didn't need to craft forgiving compliments for her. She was fine, if a little underfed. He didn't have to try at all. And then I got my post-marriage body and everything changed. I understand that my excess fat grossed him out, and I didn't help matters by being so self-conscious. If I had more confidence, I could have said, "So what? You know I'm working on it and it's taking a while, but it's not like I weigh 200 pounds. Get over it," but instead, my attitude was just, "Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry."
I like my body well enough, but it's like a friend I enjoy spending time with but don't need to see all the time. I keep coming back to this place where I wish I could just say fuck it and stop apologizing for it, but I'm just not there. I haven't, truth be told, gotten naked with a lot of people. I don't just mean that I haven't had sex with a ton of people. Whenever I see women just trying on clothes with each other in movies, or going into saunas naked together without a care, I just think, "Who does that?"
I was talking to my best friend about why we, humans that is, even try to find someone to get naked with. We get something from the knowing, I think, that another person will see us naked and not run away screaming, or laugh, or both. I'm not sure she arrived at the same conclusion as me, but she doesn't have body-consciousness issues like I do, and besides, she is gorgeous and would be crazy to have them. Of course, she says the same thing to me, so there you have it.
I don't usually give myself challenges, but this week I'm trying to just be naked whenever I can. If I'm home and I don't have anywhere else to be, I'm naked. The only way I'm going to accept the way I look and learn to like it is to just force myself to deal with it all the time. Maybe if I can manage to do that, the next time I am naked with someone, I won't be waiting for them to demand that I put clothes on again. It's a silly goal, but it's something I have been really struggling with and I don't know how else to address it. So, for a little while, if you don't see me, I'm probably going to be nude.
One of the things I was looking forward to, when I finally got my own place and didn't have to consider how I might be accidentally making anyone else uncomfortable, was just being naked all the time. I couldn't get naked whenever I wanted, for obvious reasons, when Gino and I had roommates, but even when we just lived together as a couple, if I was naked, I kind of ended up having to explain why I was naked. When I moved in here and didn't have to explain anything to anyone, I did just walk around in various states of undress pretty much any time I was home, but then I started to be such a girl about it and realized that I'm not comfortable being naked. I made a joke, this past summer, when I was still heavily embittered about my failed marriage, that Gino only saw me naked a handful of times in seven years. The way I told it made it sound like I never let him see me naked, but what I actually meant was that he didn't really look at me anymore. That was true to some extent, although I was, as I tend to do, exaggerating. We got naked a lot, but he stopped seeing me when I was naked, I think, a few years ago. He would try to make me feel better about my weight gain, and how my body was just wrong in so many ways, but it was a struggle, I could tell. He would put his hands on my hips and say, "See? It's working," meaning that my constant exercising and other attempts to shrink myself down were showing, but there was an edge to his voice when he said it.
The overall impression I got from Gino telling me it was working was, "It's working a little".
It was sweet of him, and he was trying, but it must be hard to be married to someone who just continues to expand year after year. I didn't live up to my marriage vows, which were to always be the girl he fell in love with. The girl he fell in love with had curves, but also had a concave stomach, and he didn't need to craft forgiving compliments for her. She was fine, if a little underfed. He didn't have to try at all. And then I got my post-marriage body and everything changed. I understand that my excess fat grossed him out, and I didn't help matters by being so self-conscious. If I had more confidence, I could have said, "So what? You know I'm working on it and it's taking a while, but it's not like I weigh 200 pounds. Get over it," but instead, my attitude was just, "Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry."
I like my body well enough, but it's like a friend I enjoy spending time with but don't need to see all the time. I keep coming back to this place where I wish I could just say fuck it and stop apologizing for it, but I'm just not there. I haven't, truth be told, gotten naked with a lot of people. I don't just mean that I haven't had sex with a ton of people. Whenever I see women just trying on clothes with each other in movies, or going into saunas naked together without a care, I just think, "Who does that?"
I was talking to my best friend about why we, humans that is, even try to find someone to get naked with. We get something from the knowing, I think, that another person will see us naked and not run away screaming, or laugh, or both. I'm not sure she arrived at the same conclusion as me, but she doesn't have body-consciousness issues like I do, and besides, she is gorgeous and would be crazy to have them. Of course, she says the same thing to me, so there you have it.
I don't usually give myself challenges, but this week I'm trying to just be naked whenever I can. If I'm home and I don't have anywhere else to be, I'm naked. The only way I'm going to accept the way I look and learn to like it is to just force myself to deal with it all the time. Maybe if I can manage to do that, the next time I am naked with someone, I won't be waiting for them to demand that I put clothes on again. It's a silly goal, but it's something I have been really struggling with and I don't know how else to address it. So, for a little while, if you don't see me, I'm probably going to be nude.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
I Stand No Chance Of Growing Up
Someone challenged me this week on why I'm doing this at all when I asked their permission to write about them in this blog. This is the first time I have ever asked, or offered to change someone's name, which doesn't make me look like such a good person, and I didn't get the response from him that I was hoping for.The long and short of it was that he didn't want me to write about him, and I was not my most mature self in dealing with his answer. It bothered me because in the course of the conversation he asked me, point-blank, why I needed to write about this when the whole point of starting this blog was to work through my emotions as they pertain to my divorce. If this has nothing to do with my divorce, and there are no emotions to work through, he reasoned, why am I even writing about it? I tried to counter that I am always honest, and something else about how I share everything, and he had no problem making me feel like that argument was hollow. In his estimation, I was just bragging, and he didn't want his name associated with my bullshit.
I had to concede to his point because he was right, to a degree, but it left me feeling kind of despondent. Saying that there are no emotions associated is an unfair assumption. There are always emotions surrounding sex, and I don't want to be the kind of person who thinks there aren't. There is a reason we don't just fuck ourselves all the time. You can't french yourself and you can't spoon yourself. Plus, I may have started this project as a way to work through my failed marriage, but I do write about other things. I have other things to work out that have nothing to do with my divorce.
I was bothered by his harsh assessments enough that I couldn't sleep at all that night.This is actually one of the many reasons why I like this person so much. Sometimes, you like someone not because they are always nice to you and they make you feel like the best person in the world, but because they aren't always nice and, occasionally, make you feel like the worst person in the world. It's a hard pill to swallow when you realize that someone sees right through you, and what they see isn't good.
The question of why I do this continued to bother me all day, leading to me question myself on whether or not it even matters. I'm the only blogger in my area, it seems, who isn't writing about being a parent, the arts, or local history, and all I can think is that what I'm writing just doesn't matter. It made sense and helped, when I started, in a similar way to how it helps when I just think out loud, but now it's mostly just about me bumbling through a bunch of bullshit and talking in circles about boys, and it seems less and less relevant. I'm stuck- I'm stuck in this cycle of caring when I shouldn't care and then talking my way around it to make it seem important. I'm growing, but I am still not a grownup.
This is going to keep coming up if I'm going to keep writing this stupid blog. Someone pointed out that I had to know it would come up eventually, because I made the choice, early on, to not change names or hide anyone's identity. I asked for this other person's permission because I wanted him to be okay with it, but he wasn't, so now I'm dealing with my reaction to that. I had to ask, though. I've never asked for anyone's okay before, because with those people, at that point at least, I didn't care. When I started this blog, I didn't think my ex and I would ever be friends again so I didn't care if his feelings were hurt. I can't conduct myself that way anymore, it has become clear, because to do so would mean risking losing a friend. I was fortunate enough already that my ex doesn't mind being written about and that the only other person I have written about doesn't read it, or is just too cool to tell me if it bothers him. As for my other friends, they haven't said anything or asked me to change their names. My sister did take issue with something I wrote about her, so I edited it to make it a little less harsh because, truthfully, what I said wasn't really fair. I can't lose any of the friends I have because I'm not very good at making new ones, and I like the ones I have, especially this one, who I am so fond of. Nothing is worth risking any of my friends never wanting to speak to me again.
He knew I had written him into my novel and seemed like he did not have a problem with that, but that might have more to do with the likelihood that no one will every read it, so it's not a threat to his privacy, and in any event, it's a work of fiction. I don't know, and somehow, the things my friends say that usually placate me are not working. I can't tell myself that I could have just written about it without asking. That argument doesn't stick because I keep coming back to asking myself why I need to do this at all. It doesn't matter and it's not helping anyone other than myself and the fact that I will just keep doing it regardless says something very specific about me. I have always been this way. I would put on a show even if no one was paying attention, and I'm still doing it, but now instead of singing songs from The Little Mermaid, I'm talking about my personal life. The only thing I can manage to not care about, most of the time, is the fact that no one cares. In the meantime, I will be more aware of what I'm writing and who might be affected by it. I also am starting to accept that I don't need to blog about every single thing that happens to me. Some things are meant to be private. Private and secret are not the same thing, just like being honest and sharing too much are not the same thing. Little by little I'm getting it.
I had to concede to his point because he was right, to a degree, but it left me feeling kind of despondent. Saying that there are no emotions associated is an unfair assumption. There are always emotions surrounding sex, and I don't want to be the kind of person who thinks there aren't. There is a reason we don't just fuck ourselves all the time. You can't french yourself and you can't spoon yourself. Plus, I may have started this project as a way to work through my failed marriage, but I do write about other things. I have other things to work out that have nothing to do with my divorce.
I was bothered by his harsh assessments enough that I couldn't sleep at all that night.This is actually one of the many reasons why I like this person so much. Sometimes, you like someone not because they are always nice to you and they make you feel like the best person in the world, but because they aren't always nice and, occasionally, make you feel like the worst person in the world. It's a hard pill to swallow when you realize that someone sees right through you, and what they see isn't good.
The question of why I do this continued to bother me all day, leading to me question myself on whether or not it even matters. I'm the only blogger in my area, it seems, who isn't writing about being a parent, the arts, or local history, and all I can think is that what I'm writing just doesn't matter. It made sense and helped, when I started, in a similar way to how it helps when I just think out loud, but now it's mostly just about me bumbling through a bunch of bullshit and talking in circles about boys, and it seems less and less relevant. I'm stuck- I'm stuck in this cycle of caring when I shouldn't care and then talking my way around it to make it seem important. I'm growing, but I am still not a grownup.
This is going to keep coming up if I'm going to keep writing this stupid blog. Someone pointed out that I had to know it would come up eventually, because I made the choice, early on, to not change names or hide anyone's identity. I asked for this other person's permission because I wanted him to be okay with it, but he wasn't, so now I'm dealing with my reaction to that. I had to ask, though. I've never asked for anyone's okay before, because with those people, at that point at least, I didn't care. When I started this blog, I didn't think my ex and I would ever be friends again so I didn't care if his feelings were hurt. I can't conduct myself that way anymore, it has become clear, because to do so would mean risking losing a friend. I was fortunate enough already that my ex doesn't mind being written about and that the only other person I have written about doesn't read it, or is just too cool to tell me if it bothers him. As for my other friends, they haven't said anything or asked me to change their names. My sister did take issue with something I wrote about her, so I edited it to make it a little less harsh because, truthfully, what I said wasn't really fair. I can't lose any of the friends I have because I'm not very good at making new ones, and I like the ones I have, especially this one, who I am so fond of. Nothing is worth risking any of my friends never wanting to speak to me again.
He knew I had written him into my novel and seemed like he did not have a problem with that, but that might have more to do with the likelihood that no one will every read it, so it's not a threat to his privacy, and in any event, it's a work of fiction. I don't know, and somehow, the things my friends say that usually placate me are not working. I can't tell myself that I could have just written about it without asking. That argument doesn't stick because I keep coming back to asking myself why I need to do this at all. It doesn't matter and it's not helping anyone other than myself and the fact that I will just keep doing it regardless says something very specific about me. I have always been this way. I would put on a show even if no one was paying attention, and I'm still doing it, but now instead of singing songs from The Little Mermaid, I'm talking about my personal life. The only thing I can manage to not care about, most of the time, is the fact that no one cares. In the meantime, I will be more aware of what I'm writing and who might be affected by it. I also am starting to accept that I don't need to blog about every single thing that happens to me. Some things are meant to be private. Private and secret are not the same thing, just like being honest and sharing too much are not the same thing. Little by little I'm getting it.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Final Anniversary
May used to be my favorite month. April always seems like it's going to be warm enough, sunny enough, but it never is. It's usually rainy and chilly, only when it isn't (still) snowing, and even when it is sunny, it's that kind of sunny weather where people in the Northeast say, "Well, at least the sun is out!" and hug the winter coat they are still wearing around their bodies to block the freezing cold. In May we finally get the weather we deserve after such a shitty season. May used to be my favorite month, but now, and probably for a while, it is going to be The Month My Marriage Ended. I'm coming up on the 23rd, which is, if memory serves, the date that my husband finally came clean and told me that this thing we had been trying so hard to keep going was dead. I remember very clearly that it was on a Wednesday, and that week, just three days before, I had posted on Facebook, "What we got on our hands here is a dead shark," referring, of course, to our relationship. I knew the end was coming, I just, I suppose, never really expected that the end would actually come. I thought we would keep avoiding it, dancing around it, that we'd both be too chickenshit to actually say out loud that we were married, but that this was no longer a marriage.
He used to make fun of me for celebrating both of our anniversaries after we got married- the anniversary of when we got together, which was July 1st, and our wedding anniversary on April 19th. He would tease me for being sentimental, for wanting to mark the occasion of when we became a couple and I would take it, and not argue, because I knew it was silly. Last summer, July 1st came and went, and I was too busy being depressed to even notice. Now, July 1st is just another day, and April 19th is just another day. I texted him on what would have been our fifth anniversary with, "Happy non-iversary, weirdo" and the next day, he shot one back, "Yeah, happy non-iversary weirdo".
This approaching day is the final "anniversary" we will have. The day our divorce becomes official and we are irreversibly not married anymore won't matter. We stopped being married over a year ago, so receiving a judgment stating the same from a judge won't have any effect on how I feel about it. That's why I'm not in a hurry to get it over and done with. At this point, because we are so copacetic with each other and neither of us "needs" a divorce so we can marry someone else or leave the country or, I don't know, something else interesting, I could honestly give a shit.
Nearly a full year has gone by since he let the cat out of the bag, and of course I've changed since then. Losing your first real, big love has to change you, or else it wasn't worth your time. I'm already seeing that I am a little more cautious than I used to be. I used to take more risks. Of course, this caution came about more from being involved with someone else than it did from my ex asking me for a divorce. Right after we broke up, I was so obviously desperate and needy, I might as well have had a target on my back. It was stupid and typical and I still don't like myself much because of it. It taught me something, though, which is that just because a man shows up at the right time, and quotes a Hall and Oates song and really seems to like going down on you, that does not mean anything more than that he showed up at the right time and knows one line from a song and has had a lot of practice doing that one specific thing and is just showing off.
I'm interested in someone right now, which is fun for the moment, and reassuring because that has not happened in a while. The rules are different, though. I used to just go running after boys, practically screaming, "I like you! I LIKE you! I like YOU!" but I can't do that anymore. Now, if I am interested in someone, it comes with a caveat attached. Before I can even allow myself the luxury of thinking this guy is cute and funny, my subconscious smacks me back down to Earth and says, "Okay, now let's find out what the catch is."
It's not that I think I'm only attracted to weirdos or that if I like him, there must be something wrong with him because I'm just so hopeless (Cathy comic, Sex and the City, blah blah blah shoes). I'm just assuming that there is a catch, based on my recent history, and I am also preparing myself for that moment when I learn, either directly from him or through a third party, what the deal-breaker is. I have a strong aversion to being humiliated, as do most people. I was humiliated by my marriage failing and I was humiliated by the fact that Mike was splitting his time between two girls and I was not the better of the two. Humiliation can stiffen your spine, which is good, but I think my spine is stiff enough as it is and I would like to not put the cart before the horse before I know what, or rather, who, I'm dealing with here. I know it's inevitable that I will do something stupid and make an ass of myself eventually, because that's just how I roll, but I guess I'm just trying to not make such an ass of myself in such a spectacular way. I think that's an achievable goal.
He used to make fun of me for celebrating both of our anniversaries after we got married- the anniversary of when we got together, which was July 1st, and our wedding anniversary on April 19th. He would tease me for being sentimental, for wanting to mark the occasion of when we became a couple and I would take it, and not argue, because I knew it was silly. Last summer, July 1st came and went, and I was too busy being depressed to even notice. Now, July 1st is just another day, and April 19th is just another day. I texted him on what would have been our fifth anniversary with, "Happy non-iversary, weirdo" and the next day, he shot one back, "Yeah, happy non-iversary weirdo".
This approaching day is the final "anniversary" we will have. The day our divorce becomes official and we are irreversibly not married anymore won't matter. We stopped being married over a year ago, so receiving a judgment stating the same from a judge won't have any effect on how I feel about it. That's why I'm not in a hurry to get it over and done with. At this point, because we are so copacetic with each other and neither of us "needs" a divorce so we can marry someone else or leave the country or, I don't know, something else interesting, I could honestly give a shit.
Nearly a full year has gone by since he let the cat out of the bag, and of course I've changed since then. Losing your first real, big love has to change you, or else it wasn't worth your time. I'm already seeing that I am a little more cautious than I used to be. I used to take more risks. Of course, this caution came about more from being involved with someone else than it did from my ex asking me for a divorce. Right after we broke up, I was so obviously desperate and needy, I might as well have had a target on my back. It was stupid and typical and I still don't like myself much because of it. It taught me something, though, which is that just because a man shows up at the right time, and quotes a Hall and Oates song and really seems to like going down on you, that does not mean anything more than that he showed up at the right time and knows one line from a song and has had a lot of practice doing that one specific thing and is just showing off.
I'm interested in someone right now, which is fun for the moment, and reassuring because that has not happened in a while. The rules are different, though. I used to just go running after boys, practically screaming, "I like you! I LIKE you! I like YOU!" but I can't do that anymore. Now, if I am interested in someone, it comes with a caveat attached. Before I can even allow myself the luxury of thinking this guy is cute and funny, my subconscious smacks me back down to Earth and says, "Okay, now let's find out what the catch is."
It's not that I think I'm only attracted to weirdos or that if I like him, there must be something wrong with him because I'm just so hopeless (Cathy comic, Sex and the City, blah blah blah shoes). I'm just assuming that there is a catch, based on my recent history, and I am also preparing myself for that moment when I learn, either directly from him or through a third party, what the deal-breaker is. I have a strong aversion to being humiliated, as do most people. I was humiliated by my marriage failing and I was humiliated by the fact that Mike was splitting his time between two girls and I was not the better of the two. Humiliation can stiffen your spine, which is good, but I think my spine is stiff enough as it is and I would like to not put the cart before the horse before I know what, or rather, who, I'm dealing with here. I know it's inevitable that I will do something stupid and make an ass of myself eventually, because that's just how I roll, but I guess I'm just trying to not make such an ass of myself in such a spectacular way. I think that's an achievable goal.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
You Made It Weird
I hit a roadblock in my uphill battle to just finish what I damn started in November with my novel, trying to turn a scattered, fragmented mess of words into something I can actually stand by. Separating the wheat from the chaff, I have found that a lot of those 50,000 words were chaff, and that even worse, I can't even fit a great deal of the wheat into the new version of my book. Cleaning up this thing is hard because while I love chopping off the unusable parts, I have trouble not falling in love with the parts I can no longer use, but meant a great deal to me when I wrote them.
The roadblock came about as a result of trying to write a sex scene. I had no trouble with any of the other ones I had already written because unlike those ones, this one has not happened to me in real life. I have written about all of the sex I have had so far in this thing, and the end result is I don't know how to create something new. I can take my life experiences and rework them into fiction, share every humiliating moment that actually happened, and do it with total abandon. What I can't do is write a character I don't already know and then have my main character have sex with them without criticizing my every creative impulse. If I make the character too good-looking, I criticize myself for thinking the fictionalized version of me would deserve someone that good-looking. If I make him too funny, or tall, or nice, or anything else, this little voice in my head tells me what I assume anyone who reads it would think, that I think I deserve that. I trust myself when I write about things that actually happened because I can point to the past and say, "See? That's how it really went!", but when it comes to inventing something, I am judgmental to a point that might be handicapping me.
Fiction is tricky, especially when it's the mundane kind that is just about dating and being a girl and stuff. I don't imagine writing fantasy, or mystery or sci-fi is any simpler, but it must free you up a little to just let your imagination guide you in a specific genre like that. My "fiction" is so reflective of my own life, it barely passes as fiction, and that comes with its own set of complications. As much as this piece of writing is fiction, and my fictional avatar is not me, I pass the same judgments on her about what she deserves, and I end up punishing her because I have come to the conclusion that I deserve nothing. If I deserve nothing, that means she deserves nothing. I have little sympathy for her because I feel that I have earned every bit of mistreatment I have been handed, and any time I try to just give her a fucking break, I have to ruin it for her and make it weird.
I kind of chickened out, and barely wrote any sex. I talked to my sister about it a few days after, and she and I agreed that when you have sex, you don't remember every single thing, and every thing going into a thing, you remember snippets. I don't want to get too fruity with my explanation, but I don't think in terms of what was happening in my vagina all the times I had sex, I think in terms of what was happening in my head. I've given myself permission to not muddy up my book with, "and then this happened... and then THIS happened."
I've decided t's okay for me to not be gross about it, that I don't have to come up with twenty different words for penis, because I'm not writing Twilight fanfic here. I get flinty whenever I bring up what I am writing in conversation, especially with other women, because they always giggle and ask, "Is it like Fifty Shades Of Gray?"
No, you idiots, it isn't like that awful book. My character never says, "Argh!" and her boyfriends aren't control freaks who nag her about eating and make her sign a contract that stipulates getting her vagina waxed. I try to be supportive of all writers, but Jesus Henry Christ that fucking book is doing something to the book-reading public. The lines between erotica and literature have blurred, and while that can be good because sex doesn't have to be brown paper bag/bottom drawer any longer, it can also be bad. It seems that if I want people to ever buy what I create, I either have to force more grossness into my book or just make it sterile; dirty it up or clean it up, respectively. For a book to be marketable, it seems, there has to be a hook, and I don't know if I will ever be able to get published because I don't have that hook. I'm not trying to get anybody hard with my writing, and I doubt anybody would get hard when reading it, not even accidentally. Sex can be useful in writing, especially when it's not about that. It can be informative and funny and sad. I only write it into my fiction, and into this blog, because of all of those uses, not the other ones. I made it weird, but that's kind of okay because it usually does get weird, even when I'm not the one making it weird.
The roadblock came about as a result of trying to write a sex scene. I had no trouble with any of the other ones I had already written because unlike those ones, this one has not happened to me in real life. I have written about all of the sex I have had so far in this thing, and the end result is I don't know how to create something new. I can take my life experiences and rework them into fiction, share every humiliating moment that actually happened, and do it with total abandon. What I can't do is write a character I don't already know and then have my main character have sex with them without criticizing my every creative impulse. If I make the character too good-looking, I criticize myself for thinking the fictionalized version of me would deserve someone that good-looking. If I make him too funny, or tall, or nice, or anything else, this little voice in my head tells me what I assume anyone who reads it would think, that I think I deserve that. I trust myself when I write about things that actually happened because I can point to the past and say, "See? That's how it really went!", but when it comes to inventing something, I am judgmental to a point that might be handicapping me.
Fiction is tricky, especially when it's the mundane kind that is just about dating and being a girl and stuff. I don't imagine writing fantasy, or mystery or sci-fi is any simpler, but it must free you up a little to just let your imagination guide you in a specific genre like that. My "fiction" is so reflective of my own life, it barely passes as fiction, and that comes with its own set of complications. As much as this piece of writing is fiction, and my fictional avatar is not me, I pass the same judgments on her about what she deserves, and I end up punishing her because I have come to the conclusion that I deserve nothing. If I deserve nothing, that means she deserves nothing. I have little sympathy for her because I feel that I have earned every bit of mistreatment I have been handed, and any time I try to just give her a fucking break, I have to ruin it for her and make it weird.
I kind of chickened out, and barely wrote any sex. I talked to my sister about it a few days after, and she and I agreed that when you have sex, you don't remember every single thing, and every thing going into a thing, you remember snippets. I don't want to get too fruity with my explanation, but I don't think in terms of what was happening in my vagina all the times I had sex, I think in terms of what was happening in my head. I've given myself permission to not muddy up my book with, "and then this happened... and then THIS happened."
I've decided t's okay for me to not be gross about it, that I don't have to come up with twenty different words for penis, because I'm not writing Twilight fanfic here. I get flinty whenever I bring up what I am writing in conversation, especially with other women, because they always giggle and ask, "Is it like Fifty Shades Of Gray?"
No, you idiots, it isn't like that awful book. My character never says, "Argh!" and her boyfriends aren't control freaks who nag her about eating and make her sign a contract that stipulates getting her vagina waxed. I try to be supportive of all writers, but Jesus Henry Christ that fucking book is doing something to the book-reading public. The lines between erotica and literature have blurred, and while that can be good because sex doesn't have to be brown paper bag/bottom drawer any longer, it can also be bad. It seems that if I want people to ever buy what I create, I either have to force more grossness into my book or just make it sterile; dirty it up or clean it up, respectively. For a book to be marketable, it seems, there has to be a hook, and I don't know if I will ever be able to get published because I don't have that hook. I'm not trying to get anybody hard with my writing, and I doubt anybody would get hard when reading it, not even accidentally. Sex can be useful in writing, especially when it's not about that. It can be informative and funny and sad. I only write it into my fiction, and into this blog, because of all of those uses, not the other ones. I made it weird, but that's kind of okay because it usually does get weird, even when I'm not the one making it weird.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Nope, No, Not Right Now
I spent Patriot's Day at work, despite the fact that the office was technically closed, getting my boss ready for trial the following day and dealing with the craziness generally associated with that. I was too busy to check news websites or generally be aware at all of what was happening outside of my cubicle. When I heard the news about the bombing in Boston, it was in passing, and though I wanted to read about it and find out what the F happened, I still had hours of work to do and knew it would take twice as long if I stopped to check Gawker for an update. It was as if my mind said, "Nope, no, not right now, not while you have 300 more pages of exhibits to Bate stamp."
After getting out of work, I had a dinner to go to, and by the time I got home it felt too late in the day for me to get into what actually happened, how many people were affected, and all the things I wasn't doing to help. I was right to wait. If I had gotten into it late Monday night, I might not have ever fallen asleep. I didn't watch the raw footage until Tuesday morning, look at the photos of the blast victims being wheeled away on stretchers, see how much devastation had come to my state's capitol while I was doing stuff that seemed less and less like it actually mattered. Nearly the same thing happened when 9/11 happened. I was in Nova Scotia at the time, living in a house with no television, so I was insulated from how huge that event was. Everything I saw was after the fact, over a month later, and by then, it was old news. I was protected by distance, far from the panic that overtook the entire nation at that moment in time.
I hate how a tragedy like this makes me feel. It's not enough to acknowledge how unthinkable this madness is, I have to think of it in terms of how it is affecting me. Me, who had no loved ones anywhere near the blast site and has little affiliation with Boston as a city. I hate that I turn it around and use a dark mirror like this to reflect how small my problems are, how fortunate I am to have two legs and arms and a beating heart. It takes three deaths and upwards of one-hundred injuries for me to see how lucky I am, that I deserve no pity, and that there are people so much worse off. It is pathetic that things only come into perspective for me when something as tragic as this happens.
Despite all the perspective or focus or whatever bullshit name I can ascribe to it, I have been anxious this week about my parents moving back to the Berkshires. When I say that, I don't mean that I am anxious because I don't want them living near me, I'm just not sure yet how I feel about it. They have been living so far away for eleven years, basically the whole time I have been becoming a tolerable person, and now they are back, and I know it's going to take me a while to be a normal-ass person around them. I have gotten used to seeing them only twice a year, and being my happiest, wackiest, funniest self when they are around, trying not to burden them, being me but with the volume turned up. It's a happy thing, a good thing, but of course it's manifesting itself as slight mania. I now have the freedom to disagree with them, fight with them, have a real relationship with them that is not just a bunch of stops along the way. I stopped over to see them the day they got in, and I had to keep reminding myself that they are here for good, that I don't need to cram in all the time with them that I possibly can before I don't see them for another six-to-twelve months.
The distraction of anticipating their arrival and the panic over how and why and who set off the bombs at the marathon has kept me from thinking about one more thing that would probably bother me more if I had time to think about it. This week, Friday, in fact, would be my fifth wedding anniversary. Five years ago, I was looking at the man I was about to marry, thinking I was going to love him forever, no matter what. That hasn't changed, really. I will still love Gino forever, just not the way I planned. We're still present in each other's lives, still mean something to each other, but there is a bitter edge to our friendship that might never go away. Thinking about how giddy and unbelievably happy I was the day I got married, I can't help now thinking about how broken I was when he told me he wanted a divorce, and I wonder if I ever will be that hopeful again. I think I will, but who knows? These days, yon can't predict anything and at the same time have to prepare for anything. Nothing is certain, except for the certainty that things like this, life changes that come from out of nowhere, are not insurmountable. Nothing is, really. If I haven't learned that by now, I might not ever learn it. Right now, my heart is not breaking for myself and the fact that my wedding anniversary is just another day, it is breaking for everyone affected by the marathon bombing and what they will have to deal with for the rest of their lives.
After getting out of work, I had a dinner to go to, and by the time I got home it felt too late in the day for me to get into what actually happened, how many people were affected, and all the things I wasn't doing to help. I was right to wait. If I had gotten into it late Monday night, I might not have ever fallen asleep. I didn't watch the raw footage until Tuesday morning, look at the photos of the blast victims being wheeled away on stretchers, see how much devastation had come to my state's capitol while I was doing stuff that seemed less and less like it actually mattered. Nearly the same thing happened when 9/11 happened. I was in Nova Scotia at the time, living in a house with no television, so I was insulated from how huge that event was. Everything I saw was after the fact, over a month later, and by then, it was old news. I was protected by distance, far from the panic that overtook the entire nation at that moment in time.
I hate how a tragedy like this makes me feel. It's not enough to acknowledge how unthinkable this madness is, I have to think of it in terms of how it is affecting me. Me, who had no loved ones anywhere near the blast site and has little affiliation with Boston as a city. I hate that I turn it around and use a dark mirror like this to reflect how small my problems are, how fortunate I am to have two legs and arms and a beating heart. It takes three deaths and upwards of one-hundred injuries for me to see how lucky I am, that I deserve no pity, and that there are people so much worse off. It is pathetic that things only come into perspective for me when something as tragic as this happens.
Despite all the perspective or focus or whatever bullshit name I can ascribe to it, I have been anxious this week about my parents moving back to the Berkshires. When I say that, I don't mean that I am anxious because I don't want them living near me, I'm just not sure yet how I feel about it. They have been living so far away for eleven years, basically the whole time I have been becoming a tolerable person, and now they are back, and I know it's going to take me a while to be a normal-ass person around them. I have gotten used to seeing them only twice a year, and being my happiest, wackiest, funniest self when they are around, trying not to burden them, being me but with the volume turned up. It's a happy thing, a good thing, but of course it's manifesting itself as slight mania. I now have the freedom to disagree with them, fight with them, have a real relationship with them that is not just a bunch of stops along the way. I stopped over to see them the day they got in, and I had to keep reminding myself that they are here for good, that I don't need to cram in all the time with them that I possibly can before I don't see them for another six-to-twelve months.
The distraction of anticipating their arrival and the panic over how and why and who set off the bombs at the marathon has kept me from thinking about one more thing that would probably bother me more if I had time to think about it. This week, Friday, in fact, would be my fifth wedding anniversary. Five years ago, I was looking at the man I was about to marry, thinking I was going to love him forever, no matter what. That hasn't changed, really. I will still love Gino forever, just not the way I planned. We're still present in each other's lives, still mean something to each other, but there is a bitter edge to our friendship that might never go away. Thinking about how giddy and unbelievably happy I was the day I got married, I can't help now thinking about how broken I was when he told me he wanted a divorce, and I wonder if I ever will be that hopeful again. I think I will, but who knows? These days, yon can't predict anything and at the same time have to prepare for anything. Nothing is certain, except for the certainty that things like this, life changes that come from out of nowhere, are not insurmountable. Nothing is, really. If I haven't learned that by now, I might not ever learn it. Right now, my heart is not breaking for myself and the fact that my wedding anniversary is just another day, it is breaking for everyone affected by the marathon bombing and what they will have to deal with for the rest of their lives.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
My Stupid Hurt Feelings
I don't know what is wrong with me today, and really, every day since my birthday, but I reached some kind of tipping point in terms of what I am able to suppress, roughly at 10 am. It struck me, in the way I all of a sudden notice something that I have been trying to ignore, that my ex never wished me happy birthday, and that really started to piss me off. It set off my Anger Avatar, which just happens to look and sound exactly like Krazee-Eyez Killa from my favorite episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Outwardly, I looked pretty placid, but inside, my inner monologue was just a constant scroll of, "Muthafucka, whatthefuck?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eC8V7uLoVko
I sent Gino a text message wishing him a happy birthday this year, and I invited him to my party, which he did not attend. I assumed he was too busy watching the Bruins-Canucks game, which was not surprising, but I was hoping I would see him since I hardly ever run into him anymore. I did everything a friend does for another friend. I got into an argument with my father wherein I defended Gino. I told my father that he was wrong to pass judgement on someone he, truly, barely knows, and how I know he doesn't understand, but that Gino was my best friend for seven years and how I don't want to just let go of that because everyone thinks I should. I know it's just my hurt pride taking over, but god, it's really embarrassing to tell a 68-year-old man, "You're wrong! We can still be best friends! Everything is FINE!", and then find out a few days later that he was right, that Gino and I can't be as close as we used to be. My father is always right, and it still annoys me. My dad makes up for it, though, by never pointing out that he is always right, and then doing something adorable, like leaving a Facebook post on my timeline that begins, "Hey, girlfriend-" and then sending me tulips at work for my birthday.
I sent Gino a text, not so much angry as it was passive-aggressive, and he responded with a confused one, a message that basically amounted to, "What?"
Come to find out, he was distracted this week. A friend of his passed away, a friend his age, from cancer, and he didn't think to congratulate me on, oh, being born. Surprise, everyone, I'm a jerk.
I did my best to lower myself to the floor, tell him I'm here for him, and if he needs anything, please tell me. I called him out for being a shitty friend and acted, in turn, like an even shittier one. I overreacted, as I tend to do, and now I'm just trying to get him to forget that I did that. It isn't easy. Nothing about this is easy. Getting older and finding that I still act like a child is not easy. Hoping for some kind of acknowledgement from the person I used to expect it from, and not getting it, is not easy. Admitting that my father still knows best is not easy. I'm pretty good, though, with not easy. At least, I think I am. I'll keep finding out if that's true.
I sent Gino a text message wishing him a happy birthday this year, and I invited him to my party, which he did not attend. I assumed he was too busy watching the Bruins-Canucks game, which was not surprising, but I was hoping I would see him since I hardly ever run into him anymore. I did everything a friend does for another friend. I got into an argument with my father wherein I defended Gino. I told my father that he was wrong to pass judgement on someone he, truly, barely knows, and how I know he doesn't understand, but that Gino was my best friend for seven years and how I don't want to just let go of that because everyone thinks I should. I know it's just my hurt pride taking over, but god, it's really embarrassing to tell a 68-year-old man, "You're wrong! We can still be best friends! Everything is FINE!", and then find out a few days later that he was right, that Gino and I can't be as close as we used to be. My father is always right, and it still annoys me. My dad makes up for it, though, by never pointing out that he is always right, and then doing something adorable, like leaving a Facebook post on my timeline that begins, "Hey, girlfriend-" and then sending me tulips at work for my birthday.
I sent Gino a text, not so much angry as it was passive-aggressive, and he responded with a confused one, a message that basically amounted to, "What?"
Come to find out, he was distracted this week. A friend of his passed away, a friend his age, from cancer, and he didn't think to congratulate me on, oh, being born. Surprise, everyone, I'm a jerk.
I did my best to lower myself to the floor, tell him I'm here for him, and if he needs anything, please tell me. I called him out for being a shitty friend and acted, in turn, like an even shittier one. I overreacted, as I tend to do, and now I'm just trying to get him to forget that I did that. It isn't easy. Nothing about this is easy. Getting older and finding that I still act like a child is not easy. Hoping for some kind of acknowledgement from the person I used to expect it from, and not getting it, is not easy. Admitting that my father still knows best is not easy. I'm pretty good, though, with not easy. At least, I think I am. I'll keep finding out if that's true.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Thirty For Thirty
Today is my thirtieth birthday. I keep expecting to feel some way about it, but I kind of don't, really. The more I think about it, I'm just one day older, and it's thirty, for the love of god, not ninety.
I think one of the reasons I don't really care about getting older is that I lucked out with genetics. I look younger than I really am, which won't last, but most of that is because I am the height of an average fifth-grader, which will last. I've watched most of my friends cross over into their thirties this year and the issue that keeps coming up with those of them who have a hard time with it is not being where they "expected to be" at their current age. Dudes, I wanted to say, no one ends up where they want to be at thirty except maybe Alexander the Great. Or Mark Zuckerberg. But he's still not there yet. There is time for him to fail.
When I turned twenty, I was in a very different place. I was living with my sister, I was unemployed, and I hadn't even had sex yet. I hadn't even met Najwa, who is now my closest, dearest friend, and hadn't yet reconnected with Tony, who is my other best friend. Still, I'm pretty much the same person I was. I'm single, just like I was ten years ago and I like to dance inappropriately, even more so than I did ten years ago. The only big changes are that I've stopped grooming my eyebrows so obsessively and I've stopped wishing my ass was smaller. I want my old eyebrows back, and I want an ass you could balance three or four cans of Coke on.
I am definitely not where I thought I would be at thirty. I thought I would still be married and I thought I would have at least one child by now. But, that wasn't the plan for me, and it's stupid for me to even make plans. When I make plans, the world laughs, and I have to learn to improvise. This whole past year of my life has been about improvising, because I have no fucking idea what I'm doing, and that's not just when I am at work. I've gotten comfortable with not knowing what I am doing, even when I'm just walking down the street or having a conversation. I'm pretty hopeless, but maybe I'll learn to not be so hopeless in my thirties.
I am lucky to have a best friend like Najwa, who threw me my very own dance party. In the months leading up to when I would have to either plan some way to celebrate or just decide not to do anything, I kept hearing that voice in my head, which happens to sound just like Regina George, saying, "Stop trying to make your birthday happen. It's never going to happen."
Every time I have tried to put together something for my own birthday, I have failed. I am not including my last birthday, which was, of course, hosted by Najwa and Gabriel, in that assessment, but I have bad associations with it now. From that party is the last photograph that will ever be taken of Gino and I as a couple, and Jesus, does he look unhappy in it. It was a fun party, but now it's got this pall over it, and I am still having trouble remembering it as fun.
I might just have bad luck with parties that I am in any way associated with in any other capacity than as an attendee. Any time I try to put together any party, it has been an epic let-down. There must be something about me that just makes some people say, "Uhh, no thanks?"
I still feel guilty about Gino's thirtieth birthday, two years ago, when I tried to organize a surprise party for him and only a handful of people showed up. Planning an event doesn't always work the way you want it to. In your head, you make the list, the people who say they want to come all show up and you have cake and everyone has a nice time. In reality, people say they will be there, but then at the last minute they forget or they find something better to do or they just don't feel like it and they assume they are the only person on the list who did so.
My birthday party this year was not a failure, even though I was competing with a Bruins-Canucks game and two other parties, so some people were absent. I saw the people I wanted to see and I got to dance and I ate too many cupcakes for my own good. And today, I don't have any papers to file or laundry to do or knitting classes to teach, and I'm sitting on my bed drinking water out of a martini glass because why not? It's my birthday, and I can do what I want.
I think one of the reasons I don't really care about getting older is that I lucked out with genetics. I look younger than I really am, which won't last, but most of that is because I am the height of an average fifth-grader, which will last. I've watched most of my friends cross over into their thirties this year and the issue that keeps coming up with those of them who have a hard time with it is not being where they "expected to be" at their current age. Dudes, I wanted to say, no one ends up where they want to be at thirty except maybe Alexander the Great. Or Mark Zuckerberg. But he's still not there yet. There is time for him to fail.
When I turned twenty, I was in a very different place. I was living with my sister, I was unemployed, and I hadn't even had sex yet. I hadn't even met Najwa, who is now my closest, dearest friend, and hadn't yet reconnected with Tony, who is my other best friend. Still, I'm pretty much the same person I was. I'm single, just like I was ten years ago and I like to dance inappropriately, even more so than I did ten years ago. The only big changes are that I've stopped grooming my eyebrows so obsessively and I've stopped wishing my ass was smaller. I want my old eyebrows back, and I want an ass you could balance three or four cans of Coke on.
I am definitely not where I thought I would be at thirty. I thought I would still be married and I thought I would have at least one child by now. But, that wasn't the plan for me, and it's stupid for me to even make plans. When I make plans, the world laughs, and I have to learn to improvise. This whole past year of my life has been about improvising, because I have no fucking idea what I'm doing, and that's not just when I am at work. I've gotten comfortable with not knowing what I am doing, even when I'm just walking down the street or having a conversation. I'm pretty hopeless, but maybe I'll learn to not be so hopeless in my thirties.
I am lucky to have a best friend like Najwa, who threw me my very own dance party. In the months leading up to when I would have to either plan some way to celebrate or just decide not to do anything, I kept hearing that voice in my head, which happens to sound just like Regina George, saying, "Stop trying to make your birthday happen. It's never going to happen."
Every time I have tried to put together something for my own birthday, I have failed. I am not including my last birthday, which was, of course, hosted by Najwa and Gabriel, in that assessment, but I have bad associations with it now. From that party is the last photograph that will ever be taken of Gino and I as a couple, and Jesus, does he look unhappy in it. It was a fun party, but now it's got this pall over it, and I am still having trouble remembering it as fun.
I might just have bad luck with parties that I am in any way associated with in any other capacity than as an attendee. Any time I try to put together any party, it has been an epic let-down. There must be something about me that just makes some people say, "Uhh, no thanks?"
I still feel guilty about Gino's thirtieth birthday, two years ago, when I tried to organize a surprise party for him and only a handful of people showed up. Planning an event doesn't always work the way you want it to. In your head, you make the list, the people who say they want to come all show up and you have cake and everyone has a nice time. In reality, people say they will be there, but then at the last minute they forget or they find something better to do or they just don't feel like it and they assume they are the only person on the list who did so.
My birthday party this year was not a failure, even though I was competing with a Bruins-Canucks game and two other parties, so some people were absent. I saw the people I wanted to see and I got to dance and I ate too many cupcakes for my own good. And today, I don't have any papers to file or laundry to do or knitting classes to teach, and I'm sitting on my bed drinking water out of a martini glass because why not? It's my birthday, and I can do what I want.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
What All Men Are Looking For
I ended up having the same conversation I have all the time the other night with a guy I work with. I still go to my former place of work twice a week to teach knitting, and every once in a while, I run into this guy. He's at least twenty years older than me, and must be doing that swing-for-the-fences thing that older single guys do because he cannot stop hitting on me. He was watching me set up the needles and yarn for my knitting class, talking about how Gino is such an idiot for breaking up with me. "I told him, I said, 'Gino, you're a fuckin' idiot for letting her go, you have no idea'"
I kind of tried laughing it off, but that bothered me. I don't want everyone shitting on my ex-husband. I'm over that stage of grief. I no longer want to hear that people are criticizing him just for doing what he thinks is right for him. I also didn't feel like it was coming from someplace genuine. This guy, who is way too old and way too boring for me, only told Gino that so he could tell me about it, probably. Does he think that insulting my ex will be his in? That I'll be so overtaken with gratitude for pointing out what a dumb move that was that I will repay it in blowjobs, or whatever 50-something-year-old guys like. I don't know what they do.
"You always had this, I don't know, unconditional love for him," Tim remarked.
"Yeah," I agreed, trying to cast stitches on at double-speed just to get away, "For him, specifically."
He then started listing off my "qualities" in a way that made me feel even more uncomfortable. "So, you're young, talented, attractive, with domestic inclinations," he said, "Just the type of girl I've been looking for."
I didn't even look at him when I answered, "Tim, I'm the girl every guy is looking for."
He laughed and tried to say something about how I'm sassy, too, and I chuckled, hoping he would just leave me alone so I could just relax and do my job. I like attention just as much as the next girl, but duh, Tim. Of course every guy in the world is looking for a woman who can knit them a sweater and cook them arancini di riso on a weekday night. And who is short enough to make them feel tall and has a weird figure that looks like it was put together by Russ Meyer. That's pretty much a gimme. I know what my good attributes are, and I don't need a maintenance man in his fifties to tell me what they are. I might sound like I'm full of myself, but until someone else is at least partially full of me, I'll continue to toot my own horn, and then I'll say something shitty about myself to negate it.
I could look at it from the point of view that he was just trying to be nice, but I know better. He's been hitting on me since I started working with him, when I was still happily married. And, when I was married, I did all of the things I did for Gino because I loved him, not because it's just what I would do for any man. Tim doesn't know anything about what my marriage was really like. I might know what my good features are, like my ability to appreciate a joke and my big, fat ass, but I also know what my bad attributes are. I have a temper, and I'm irresponsible with money, I tend to tune out when I become disinterested in a conversation topic, and for years, before I learned to tone it down, I was exhausting with all of my hard opinions on things. I didn't recognize all of the things about me that suck until I became single. Along the way, though, I also figured out what is awesome about myself all on my own.
I kind of tried laughing it off, but that bothered me. I don't want everyone shitting on my ex-husband. I'm over that stage of grief. I no longer want to hear that people are criticizing him just for doing what he thinks is right for him. I also didn't feel like it was coming from someplace genuine. This guy, who is way too old and way too boring for me, only told Gino that so he could tell me about it, probably. Does he think that insulting my ex will be his in? That I'll be so overtaken with gratitude for pointing out what a dumb move that was that I will repay it in blowjobs, or whatever 50-something-year-old guys like. I don't know what they do.
"You always had this, I don't know, unconditional love for him," Tim remarked.
"Yeah," I agreed, trying to cast stitches on at double-speed just to get away, "For him, specifically."
He then started listing off my "qualities" in a way that made me feel even more uncomfortable. "So, you're young, talented, attractive, with domestic inclinations," he said, "Just the type of girl I've been looking for."
I didn't even look at him when I answered, "Tim, I'm the girl every guy is looking for."
He laughed and tried to say something about how I'm sassy, too, and I chuckled, hoping he would just leave me alone so I could just relax and do my job. I like attention just as much as the next girl, but duh, Tim. Of course every guy in the world is looking for a woman who can knit them a sweater and cook them arancini di riso on a weekday night. And who is short enough to make them feel tall and has a weird figure that looks like it was put together by Russ Meyer. That's pretty much a gimme. I know what my good attributes are, and I don't need a maintenance man in his fifties to tell me what they are. I might sound like I'm full of myself, but until someone else is at least partially full of me, I'll continue to toot my own horn, and then I'll say something shitty about myself to negate it.
I could look at it from the point of view that he was just trying to be nice, but I know better. He's been hitting on me since I started working with him, when I was still happily married. And, when I was married, I did all of the things I did for Gino because I loved him, not because it's just what I would do for any man. Tim doesn't know anything about what my marriage was really like. I might know what my good features are, like my ability to appreciate a joke and my big, fat ass, but I also know what my bad attributes are. I have a temper, and I'm irresponsible with money, I tend to tune out when I become disinterested in a conversation topic, and for years, before I learned to tone it down, I was exhausting with all of my hard opinions on things. I didn't recognize all of the things about me that suck until I became single. Along the way, though, I also figured out what is awesome about myself all on my own.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Sick In The Head
I had a head cold this week, a sinuses-full-of-concrete, sneezing non-stop, half-tempted to take a power drill to my own nostrils head cold. No cough, no chest congestion, everything in my head. "It's all in my head", I though at one point, and then I laughed that weird, raspy, sick laugh that comes from drinking NyQuil well before bedtime and finding everything suddenly hilarious and kind of squishy around the edges. I was more miserable than I've been in a long time because for one, I haven't had a cold for at least a year and a half, and for another thing, this is the first time I've been sick since I started living alone.
Gino was not perfect, nor was I, but we took care of each other when we were sick. It wasn't a rule we announced or anything, it just kind of became the law between us after a few years. I remember one time, feeling really awful with some kind of stomach bug. Gino was about to leave to go see his best friend, but when he saw me looking so gross, calling to tell him, "Yeah, I can't come over, Liza's sick. She told me I could leave but she just made an adorable sicky noise, so I can't go," and then asked me if I needed more ginger ale.
Most people probably read that and think, "...and?"
The fact that anyone would take care of me, other than my parents who, let's face it, kind of had to, is still amazing to me. It's what I miss. That's what you do when you have made a commitment. It's not just in sickness and in health, it's in accepting the person you love while they look disgusting, while they are vomiting convulsively right in front of you, and not letting them know just how grossed out you are. It's committing to staying home instead of going out while they are passed out in bed, exhausted from being sick as fuck, just in case they need anything from you. Being sick when you're single, even with something that passes pretty quickly, like a cold, is the worst. It's like Valentine's Day had an illegitimate love-child with a wedding you don't have a date for. It makes you feel more alone than anything else, when you have no one around who feels obligated to get you hot water with lemon and put a cold compress on your forehead and tell you to feel better. As I tried to clear my sinuses for the third day in a row with a Neti pot I was convinced had it in for me, I imagined I would give up all of my stupid ideals if anyone was willing to take care of me at that moment. I told myself I would put up with a guy who lied, never picked up after himself and was really, really boring if that person was willing to go to another pharmacy and get me more tissues and then put VapoRub on my back. It was mostly exhaustion talking, but Jesus Christ, it's hard being sick when you are single and have to do these things for yourself. I did an okay job, making myself chicken-coconut soup and ginger tea and all the dumb bullshit I always think I need when I'm ill, but I annoyed myself a lot. I was passing myself tissues and measuring out decongestants for myself, thinking, "Uhh, get over it, you bitch, it's just a cold."
This is just another example of how with others, I am a good caretaker, but I suck when it comes to taking care of myself. This is why I still give Gino so much credit for taking care of me when I was sick for all of the years we were together: Healthy Eliza is annoying enough. Sick Eliza is so fucking emotional and whiny it's amazing my parents didn't drop me down a well and leave me there. I think being sick just made me appreciate my parents and my ex-husband that much more, because if I was this bad just with a cold, imagine how awful I was when I was a little kid, getting strep throat twice a year, every year? Or when I would get a cluster headache at least once a week and Gino couldn't watch hockey at top volume because I could literally see my own brain throbbing? In the future, if I ever do meet someone, I will probably just quarantine myself so they don't have to deal with me when I get sick or have a migraine. It's just safer that way.
Gino was not perfect, nor was I, but we took care of each other when we were sick. It wasn't a rule we announced or anything, it just kind of became the law between us after a few years. I remember one time, feeling really awful with some kind of stomach bug. Gino was about to leave to go see his best friend, but when he saw me looking so gross, calling to tell him, "Yeah, I can't come over, Liza's sick. She told me I could leave but she just made an adorable sicky noise, so I can't go," and then asked me if I needed more ginger ale.
Most people probably read that and think, "...and?"
The fact that anyone would take care of me, other than my parents who, let's face it, kind of had to, is still amazing to me. It's what I miss. That's what you do when you have made a commitment. It's not just in sickness and in health, it's in accepting the person you love while they look disgusting, while they are vomiting convulsively right in front of you, and not letting them know just how grossed out you are. It's committing to staying home instead of going out while they are passed out in bed, exhausted from being sick as fuck, just in case they need anything from you. Being sick when you're single, even with something that passes pretty quickly, like a cold, is the worst. It's like Valentine's Day had an illegitimate love-child with a wedding you don't have a date for. It makes you feel more alone than anything else, when you have no one around who feels obligated to get you hot water with lemon and put a cold compress on your forehead and tell you to feel better. As I tried to clear my sinuses for the third day in a row with a Neti pot I was convinced had it in for me, I imagined I would give up all of my stupid ideals if anyone was willing to take care of me at that moment. I told myself I would put up with a guy who lied, never picked up after himself and was really, really boring if that person was willing to go to another pharmacy and get me more tissues and then put VapoRub on my back. It was mostly exhaustion talking, but Jesus Christ, it's hard being sick when you are single and have to do these things for yourself. I did an okay job, making myself chicken-coconut soup and ginger tea and all the dumb bullshit I always think I need when I'm ill, but I annoyed myself a lot. I was passing myself tissues and measuring out decongestants for myself, thinking, "Uhh, get over it, you bitch, it's just a cold."
This is just another example of how with others, I am a good caretaker, but I suck when it comes to taking care of myself. This is why I still give Gino so much credit for taking care of me when I was sick for all of the years we were together: Healthy Eliza is annoying enough. Sick Eliza is so fucking emotional and whiny it's amazing my parents didn't drop me down a well and leave me there. I think being sick just made me appreciate my parents and my ex-husband that much more, because if I was this bad just with a cold, imagine how awful I was when I was a little kid, getting strep throat twice a year, every year? Or when I would get a cluster headache at least once a week and Gino couldn't watch hockey at top volume because I could literally see my own brain throbbing? In the future, if I ever do meet someone, I will probably just quarantine myself so they don't have to deal with me when I get sick or have a migraine. It's just safer that way.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Disapproval Rating
My parents shocked the hell out of me this week by calling me en route from Florida to let me know they would be in town for a little while. They shocked me even moreso when they told me the reason: my stepsister, Jenny, is in the hospital after a head-on collision. She is doing better, but is still recovering from surgery. I am happy to see my parents, always, but I hate that in order for me to see them, they have to be going through this. I am also worried for Jenny, despite the fact that we, truth be told, don't know each other very well. She is family, though, and of course I was concerned not only for her, but for her children, who are my niece and nephews, and for my stepmom, who had to deal with seeing her daughter in the hospital again.
My reaction to any crisis is, of course, to just be a goofball and keep them from thinking about it, tell them stories about my dumb life, and show them my tattoo so they can disapprove of it. They did not disappoint. "Why did you DO IT?!" my stepmom asked, looking completely aghast.
"Because I'm a grown-up," I had to remind them, "And because I can. And I wanted it."
My father was, as usual, silent, which is his usual state when faced with an uncomfortable moment. I had to remind them that I had wanted to get another tattoo for a while, and that I felt a great deal stronger after getting it. My arguments were valid despite there being no reason for them, or for my parents disapproving of what I do with my 29-year-old body. They just went into a story about my niece's boyfriend getting a really bad tattoo and having to spend $400 getting it covered up. I can't help but feel a little crestfallen that they didn't like it. They weren't even impressed when I told them that it took four hours, and that I sat quietly the entire time and never made a sound. My ability to withstand pain does not impress them. I don't usually quote Will Smith, but he had it right in 1988: Parents Just Don't Understand.
I had a similar feeling a few months ago, when my stepmom expressed some motherly disapproval over this blog. "I just don't understand," she said, "Why you wouldn't just write your feelings down in a journal if you have something to say. If you're worried about people reading it-"
"I'm not worried," I told her at the time, "I want people to read it."
She took that in and responded with, "Maybe it's a generational thing."
"Well, yeah," I said, "I don't see the point in writing something that no one is going to see. It keeps me honest- if I'm just writing for myself, I can tell myself anything."
She sounded like that confused her even more, but she didn't say it. I wanted to say that I'm doing this for myself! I'm putting all of my pain out there! Someone called me the female Hank Moody! But, I didn't say it. I knew I wouldn't get her to agree with my reasons for doing it. When Debbie got divorced, there was no blogging. There was therapy, and Snackwells, and there were her three children to take care of. We come from different worlds, and that is fine. I know my parents might disapprove of most of what I do with my new-found freedom. It's not their deal. They want the best for me, even if what they want me to do isn't what I want. They're smarter than me, and they want me to just go through life without all of this struggle, without the fallout from, say, my sister reading my blog or having to wear a cardigan even in summer to cover up my new tattoo when I file something to court for my boss. They want me to take it easy, give myself a break, tell a trained professional my thoughts and not put them online for anyone to read. They want me to make smarter decisions, but I want to take risks. I realize my risk-taking may cause even more head-scratching on their part. I'm going to keep sharing with them, keep being a goofus and waiting for them to scratch their heads in response. It's my role, and it's one I don't mind playing. Despite their disapproval, they have never influenced me to be anyone other than who I am, and I know they only react that way because they love me. They are the only parents I have, and I wouldn't change them even if I could.
My reaction to any crisis is, of course, to just be a goofball and keep them from thinking about it, tell them stories about my dumb life, and show them my tattoo so they can disapprove of it. They did not disappoint. "Why did you DO IT?!" my stepmom asked, looking completely aghast.
"Because I'm a grown-up," I had to remind them, "And because I can. And I wanted it."
My father was, as usual, silent, which is his usual state when faced with an uncomfortable moment. I had to remind them that I had wanted to get another tattoo for a while, and that I felt a great deal stronger after getting it. My arguments were valid despite there being no reason for them, or for my parents disapproving of what I do with my 29-year-old body. They just went into a story about my niece's boyfriend getting a really bad tattoo and having to spend $400 getting it covered up. I can't help but feel a little crestfallen that they didn't like it. They weren't even impressed when I told them that it took four hours, and that I sat quietly the entire time and never made a sound. My ability to withstand pain does not impress them. I don't usually quote Will Smith, but he had it right in 1988: Parents Just Don't Understand.
I had a similar feeling a few months ago, when my stepmom expressed some motherly disapproval over this blog. "I just don't understand," she said, "Why you wouldn't just write your feelings down in a journal if you have something to say. If you're worried about people reading it-"
"I'm not worried," I told her at the time, "I want people to read it."
She took that in and responded with, "Maybe it's a generational thing."
"Well, yeah," I said, "I don't see the point in writing something that no one is going to see. It keeps me honest- if I'm just writing for myself, I can tell myself anything."
She sounded like that confused her even more, but she didn't say it. I wanted to say that I'm doing this for myself! I'm putting all of my pain out there! Someone called me the female Hank Moody! But, I didn't say it. I knew I wouldn't get her to agree with my reasons for doing it. When Debbie got divorced, there was no blogging. There was therapy, and Snackwells, and there were her three children to take care of. We come from different worlds, and that is fine. I know my parents might disapprove of most of what I do with my new-found freedom. It's not their deal. They want the best for me, even if what they want me to do isn't what I want. They're smarter than me, and they want me to just go through life without all of this struggle, without the fallout from, say, my sister reading my blog or having to wear a cardigan even in summer to cover up my new tattoo when I file something to court for my boss. They want me to take it easy, give myself a break, tell a trained professional my thoughts and not put them online for anyone to read. They want me to make smarter decisions, but I want to take risks. I realize my risk-taking may cause even more head-scratching on their part. I'm going to keep sharing with them, keep being a goofus and waiting for them to scratch their heads in response. It's my role, and it's one I don't mind playing. Despite their disapproval, they have never influenced me to be anyone other than who I am, and I know they only react that way because they love me. They are the only parents I have, and I wouldn't change them even if I could.
Monday, February 25, 2013
If Your Nose Hurts, It's Because I Broke It
I received a text from my dear friend Kit the other night informing me that she was watching Mike make out with a girl we know, and all I could think to respond with was, "Oooookay."
Good for him, I thought, because she's cute. I kind of feel bad for her, though. She probably spent her weekend feeling hopeful, which is the worst state of mind to be in when it comes to Mike. He inspires a lot of hope with no follow-through. He says really nice things and then realizes what effect they are having and changes them into really mean things. I surprised myself because at another point in my life, I might have thought, "What a slut. Hope he likes herpes," but my first thought was more along the lines of, "Oh, poor her. Hope she likes getting jerked around."
Still, part of me kind of hoped that maybe she was going to be the one to jerk him around. Each girl I hear about him fucking around with as he Big Daddy Roths it through the female populace, I hold a little burning hope that maybe he'll be the one to get his sternum caved in this time. This is the reason why I know that whatever I felt for Mike, it wasn't even close to love. When I love someone, really love them, the way I, for example, loved Gino, I want them to be happy even if it means getting the hell away from me. I don't want Mike to be happy. I want him to be miserable. I want him to be stomach full of stinging nettles miserable. I want him to suffer. I have a lot of mean thoughts.
I don't think I even liked him that much. That's why I'm still thinking about it, still trying to figure out what the hell happened there. I went from really liking him to really hating him so quickly, my timeline is fucked up. I think what I really liked was being able to have sex that didn't make me sad, and that's it. My problem is, I still do not know how to separate sex and those pesky emotions that cooler people can ignore. Sex was how Gino and I said a lot of things. It was how we said, "I love you" and also, "I hate you." It gets especially confusing when the hate-sex feels just as good as love-sex. Love can hurt, and hate can feel good- like the adrenaline rush from a punch to the jaw.
I was so busy riding that high I got from the validation, the way he made the first move, that I never even stopped to think about it. It was the flattery of it that fucked with my head, made me think I had emotional attachments growing when really, all I had was a physical itch being scratched. I don't know how to tell the difference, it turns out, between, "I really like you," and ,"I really like the way your tongue feels in my pussy".
Mike happened because I let him, and also because he was there. I am getting closer to being honest with myself and admitting that I just wanted to have sex, and I might have ended up having sex with just about anyone at that point. I kept pushing it with him for longer than I should have because it was easier than finding someone new to think about. It's similar to why I kept insisting my marriage was stable even long after it was clear to everyone that it was crumbling. It was easier to just deny what was obvious and keep going.
Gino said something interesting the other night about this, though, when I referred to my laziness with men. "I don't think you're lazy," he said, "You're just impatient."
Holy shit, I thought, Gino really does know me better than just about anyone, even if he spent that whole nugget of wisdom eye-fucking another woman's cleavage. I wanted to think I could keep it casual, just enjoy myself with Mike and have fun, but I was always several steps ahead. I knew what we were doing, but I was so determined to make it into something else. I was full of hope, even if I didn't like him all that much. I just wanted to be loved again after being run over so harshly by Gino telling me he didn't love me anymore. I was willing to settle for someone, anyone, who would pay attention to me, and I refused to believe that someone could say something and not mean it. It says something about me, I guess, that I made a slight fool of myself just because for once, I met a guy who put so much effort into getting me to come. I really liked the orgasms, not the person, and I didn't figure it out until it was over. At least I did figure it out. Maybe a little late, but eventually.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Galentine's Day
I'm not as cynical about Valentine's Day as I used to be. Maybe I'm just picking my battles a little more carefully, or maybe I'm just getting to that age where I'd rather take a nap than stew about how IN LOOOOVE everyone is. I'm single. The pressure I used to apply to my ex-husband is off. I can just relax instead of waiting for him to not live up to what he is "supposed" to do for me. It's, frankly, a relief. Plus, I was too excited about Galentine's Day to even think about Valentine's Day. Galentine's rules, and Valentines can suck it.
Galentine's Day was perfect, of course. It was the perfect group lady-date. You can't really go wrong with the group of girls (and one dude) who were there, especially when your group activity is eating waffles and drinking Bud Light. The other thing that made it great was that it was a pretty even split between single people and people who are in a relationship. This is just more proof that Hollywood always gets it wrong when they portray what it is like to be single in this day and age. In the rom-com version of my life, I would have spent my first Valentine's Day post-separation crying, maybe looking through my wedding album and chugging white wine like a doctor is on his way to saw my legs off. Instead, I spent the 13th pounding waffles and beer (which is, real talk, an underrated combination) and the 14th going to see The Silver Linings Playbook. The only time I cried was during the movie, and I blame Robert DeNiro for that. This Valentine's season left me feeling more loved and cared about than the past five have. Who gives a shit, right? I love movies and I love my girlfriends. If this stupid holiday is about love, then I spent the night before with a bunch of people I love and the evening of doing what I love. I crushed Valentine's Day.
I spent the morning of Valentine's Day, ironically, texting with Gino. He posted something that confused me on Facebook, I asked him what his post meant, and then started texting me from his brand-new Android phone either because he misses me a little or because he has no one else to text. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
After he explained what he meant (and I explained to him what Instagram is, a.k.a. the Magical Place Where Happiness Lives) we both suggested that we should hang out soon. We went back and forth on when and where and what we could do together, and I got a little jolt of deja-vu. It felt like, even though it definitely isn't, we were setting up a date. Here I am, finally feeling comfortably blase about Valentine's Day, and I'm setting up a pseudo-date with my ex.
We met for a beer that quickly turned into him updating me on the girls he is attempting to date. One is a single mom who seems kind of out of his league, if I'm honest, and the other is a girl I think might be a little too young for him. Still, I reserved my opinion and told him to go for it with either of them because, despite the little cramp I get in my gut over it, I really just want him to find someone. More than that, I want him to find someone who is better for him than I was. I was a good wife, but not what he needs. I let him get away with so much, let him coast because I didn't want to be hard on him. That's how I know how much I love him, still, even when I want to strangle him because he is barely paying attention to what I am talking about because he is so distracted by the huge set of jugs standing to my right. I kind of love him for that, too. He can do whatever he wants now, after all, and so can I.
Galentine's Day was perfect, of course. It was the perfect group lady-date. You can't really go wrong with the group of girls (and one dude) who were there, especially when your group activity is eating waffles and drinking Bud Light. The other thing that made it great was that it was a pretty even split between single people and people who are in a relationship. This is just more proof that Hollywood always gets it wrong when they portray what it is like to be single in this day and age. In the rom-com version of my life, I would have spent my first Valentine's Day post-separation crying, maybe looking through my wedding album and chugging white wine like a doctor is on his way to saw my legs off. Instead, I spent the 13th pounding waffles and beer (which is, real talk, an underrated combination) and the 14th going to see The Silver Linings Playbook. The only time I cried was during the movie, and I blame Robert DeNiro for that. This Valentine's season left me feeling more loved and cared about than the past five have. Who gives a shit, right? I love movies and I love my girlfriends. If this stupid holiday is about love, then I spent the night before with a bunch of people I love and the evening of doing what I love. I crushed Valentine's Day.
I spent the morning of Valentine's Day, ironically, texting with Gino. He posted something that confused me on Facebook, I asked him what his post meant, and then started texting me from his brand-new Android phone either because he misses me a little or because he has no one else to text. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
After he explained what he meant (and I explained to him what Instagram is, a.k.a. the Magical Place Where Happiness Lives) we both suggested that we should hang out soon. We went back and forth on when and where and what we could do together, and I got a little jolt of deja-vu. It felt like, even though it definitely isn't, we were setting up a date. Here I am, finally feeling comfortably blase about Valentine's Day, and I'm setting up a pseudo-date with my ex.
We met for a beer that quickly turned into him updating me on the girls he is attempting to date. One is a single mom who seems kind of out of his league, if I'm honest, and the other is a girl I think might be a little too young for him. Still, I reserved my opinion and told him to go for it with either of them because, despite the little cramp I get in my gut over it, I really just want him to find someone. More than that, I want him to find someone who is better for him than I was. I was a good wife, but not what he needs. I let him get away with so much, let him coast because I didn't want to be hard on him. That's how I know how much I love him, still, even when I want to strangle him because he is barely paying attention to what I am talking about because he is so distracted by the huge set of jugs standing to my right. I kind of love him for that, too. He can do whatever he wants now, after all, and so can I.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Lady Dates
I've been busy this week with planning some "lady dates", which are much more fun and less fraught with anxiety than actual dates where I might have a good time and/or sex. For a lady date, I still put just as much effort into the fun part, getting dressed up and making sure I smell nice, but I don't have to deal with
the part that bums me the fuck out, i.e. when the guy is going to start talking about his ex or try to choke me. Or both.
I met up with my good friend, Libby, this week since she was visiting from Albuquerque. I wanted to see her, but felt a bit conflicted about it, since my sister told me that she and Libby had recently had a fight and weren't friends anymore. I find myself in this position often, having to choose between being loyal to my sister and doing what I actually want to do. It kept me from seeing the not so subtle, ham-fisted flirting Mike was throwing at me (which actually might have been a good thing, come to think of it) because Sarah forbid me from hooking up with him. I've lost other friends because of one thing out another that Sarah did. To be fair, a friend who can't separate me from my sisters actions is not one I really needed, but it still stings. All I need to remember to get over my guilt, of course, is that Sarah has done worse. She went behind my back to a former friend, a person I refuse to associate with to this day because he is a garbage person who told everyone I was in rehab for an imaginary drug addiction when I was actually in a psych ward for behavioral issues. Sarah and I ended up at the same party as this bitch, and Sarah cornered me and told me that I needed to get over it and be friends with him again, because I was "being immature". Yeah, I needed to be friends with him because Sarah probably needed something from him. Sometimes, that's how she operates. I love her, but I don't always trust her.
Regardless of my misgivings, I enjoyed spending time catching up with Libby. We had some wine and I did ask her what the fight with Sarah was about. Her version of events was, of course, totally different from Sarah's. Not really a shocker, because I'm used to that. I heard Libby out and then just had a fun time, caught her up on what I've been doing and felt happy at the end of the evening that I had gone on my lady date with her.
I started trying to interest my friends into the ultimate lady date- Galentine's Day. I stole the idea from Parks and Recreation, but who cares? It's a great idea. Valentines is a shitty holiday. If you're single, it makes you feel, somehow, even more single. If you're in a relationship, even if it is with someone you really love, often you either fail them or they fail you. Or, you try to surprise them with flowers and discover that your wife is allergic to baby's breath. That happened to me one of the only times Gino made an effort.
Last Valentines was the worst. I had to bully Gino into taking me out for a hot chocolate and a fucking macaron at Chocolate Springs, and he was sulky and bored. He was even more sulky when I brought up the fact that we never talked about the future any more, and that I wanted to talk about moving out of his parent's house, and maybe starting a family soon. It was a conversation about a future conversation I was hoping to have, but it was still too much for him. I always wondered why it was so hard to get him to do something nice for me. It didn't come naturally to him, especially last Valentine's Day, when he had already stopped loving me that way.
Focusing on lady dates feels like the best thing for me. I need my friendships more than ever, because I can feel myself turning, little by little, into a spiteful bitch. I don't like it. I saw that Mike put a poem by Charles Bukowski on his Facebook page, and I grumbled about it all night. I mean, Charles Bukowski? What the ass? That's like when Gino quotes Albert Einstein- it's absurd. I'm not even sure what bothered me about out so much. Maybe it was the fact that he even put a whole verse of any poem on his page, as if he is so emotional and deep, he has to borrow the words, but maybe it was the poem he chose, as if he knows what it feels like to have a bluebird in your heart. To have a bluebird in your heart, first you need to have a heart, you fuck stick, I wanted to say. I didn't say it, because it's not my place to say what someone can quote on Facebook, nor is it really my place to call him a fuck stick. I'll leave that to others. But I still think he's a fuck stick.
the part that bums me the fuck out, i.e. when the guy is going to start talking about his ex or try to choke me. Or both.
I met up with my good friend, Libby, this week since she was visiting from Albuquerque. I wanted to see her, but felt a bit conflicted about it, since my sister told me that she and Libby had recently had a fight and weren't friends anymore. I find myself in this position often, having to choose between being loyal to my sister and doing what I actually want to do. It kept me from seeing the not so subtle, ham-fisted flirting Mike was throwing at me (which actually might have been a good thing, come to think of it) because Sarah forbid me from hooking up with him. I've lost other friends because of one thing out another that Sarah did. To be fair, a friend who can't separate me from my sisters actions is not one I really needed, but it still stings. All I need to remember to get over my guilt, of course, is that Sarah has done worse. She went behind my back to a former friend, a person I refuse to associate with to this day because he is a garbage person who told everyone I was in rehab for an imaginary drug addiction when I was actually in a psych ward for behavioral issues. Sarah and I ended up at the same party as this bitch, and Sarah cornered me and told me that I needed to get over it and be friends with him again, because I was "being immature". Yeah, I needed to be friends with him because Sarah probably needed something from him. Sometimes, that's how she operates. I love her, but I don't always trust her.
Regardless of my misgivings, I enjoyed spending time catching up with Libby. We had some wine and I did ask her what the fight with Sarah was about. Her version of events was, of course, totally different from Sarah's. Not really a shocker, because I'm used to that. I heard Libby out and then just had a fun time, caught her up on what I've been doing and felt happy at the end of the evening that I had gone on my lady date with her.
I started trying to interest my friends into the ultimate lady date- Galentine's Day. I stole the idea from Parks and Recreation, but who cares? It's a great idea. Valentines is a shitty holiday. If you're single, it makes you feel, somehow, even more single. If you're in a relationship, even if it is with someone you really love, often you either fail them or they fail you. Or, you try to surprise them with flowers and discover that your wife is allergic to baby's breath. That happened to me one of the only times Gino made an effort.
Last Valentines was the worst. I had to bully Gino into taking me out for a hot chocolate and a fucking macaron at Chocolate Springs, and he was sulky and bored. He was even more sulky when I brought up the fact that we never talked about the future any more, and that I wanted to talk about moving out of his parent's house, and maybe starting a family soon. It was a conversation about a future conversation I was hoping to have, but it was still too much for him. I always wondered why it was so hard to get him to do something nice for me. It didn't come naturally to him, especially last Valentine's Day, when he had already stopped loving me that way.
Focusing on lady dates feels like the best thing for me. I need my friendships more than ever, because I can feel myself turning, little by little, into a spiteful bitch. I don't like it. I saw that Mike put a poem by Charles Bukowski on his Facebook page, and I grumbled about it all night. I mean, Charles Bukowski? What the ass? That's like when Gino quotes Albert Einstein- it's absurd. I'm not even sure what bothered me about out so much. Maybe it was the fact that he even put a whole verse of any poem on his page, as if he is so emotional and deep, he has to borrow the words, but maybe it was the poem he chose, as if he knows what it feels like to have a bluebird in your heart. To have a bluebird in your heart, first you need to have a heart, you fuck stick, I wanted to say. I didn't say it, because it's not my place to say what someone can quote on Facebook, nor is it really my place to call him a fuck stick. I'll leave that to others. But I still think he's a fuck stick.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
The Place Where Things Happen
The other night, the pipes froze in my apartment building because the basement of my building is unheated. The handyman who works for my landlord came over, assessed the damage and told me he was sorry, but he couldn't fix it tonight, leaving me without a working toilet, shower or bathroom sink for the evening. I was actually happy to live alone at a time like this. If I was going to spend the night peeing into a plastic bucket and pouring it out into the kitchen sink, I was grateful no one was around to see that.
It does nothing to point this out right at the moment, but it is fucking cold. It is so cold, I have been compelled to break out my "cuddle socks", which should never be worn by a person who wants to be touched by another human ever again. They came in one of my parent's notoriously misguided Christmas packages a few years ago. They are baby blue, fleecy and hideous as all-get-out, not to mention the rubber grippies on the bottom that remind me of slippers for invalids. They are so unattractive, they make me not even want to fuck myself when I'm wearing them.
It's too cold to even think of anything other than not freezing to death right now, so it should come as no surprise that I've settled into my extended dry spell for the time being. I am wearing so many layers, the first of which is gray long underwear that makes me look, to paraphrase Patton Oswalt, like a Dr. Seuss rough sketch, that no one could even get to me if they wanted to. They would have to fight through three layers of cotton, fleece and wool to be able to even know what my skin feels like. Winter is not a sexy time. When I was still in a relationship, sex during winter meant moving things to the side or half-off, getting it over with and then covering back up as quickly as possible. No one gets naked willingly when it is this cold. If I could get away with showering in my thermal undergarments, trust me, I would.
I was out the other night, at yBar Writer's Room, to see a poet named Jon Sands. Everyone, myself included was still wearing our coats indoors to keep from shaking like pathetic, wet poodles. I ended up in a conversation about this blog with Jim, the owner of the bar and founder of Word by Word. He mentioned that he kept meaning to check it out after I read a post at the Open Mic Night the week before. Gabriel, my best dude friend and reluctant writing mentor, referred to it as, "The naughty blog where things happen."
I wish things were happening right now, but I'm too busy shivering. I said as much to Gabriel, and he ordered me to go out and get some penetration before this turns into a cooking blog. This was similar to something my friend Joe expressed to me last week when he asked, "So, when are you going to embark on a new disastrous relationship that you can write about?"
I had a typically whiney reaction to both of these options, a response of, "Aww, come on, do I have to?"
I'm not going to start having gross, weird sex or date someone who is totally wrong for me just so I have something to write about. This isn't Nerve.com circa 2000. I am also not planning on posting about ten new ways to cook kale (because it is, apparently, the only vegetable that exists in New England during winter). Any of these things might be fun, but I hope I don't need to rely on them yet. I still have territory to mine, after all. I'm still in the process of getting divorced which, I found out thanks to my new legal career, is because an uncontested divorce is placed on a six-month hold from the time it is filed, in case one of the parties changes their mind. So, in the end, the address of this blog might not even be true. I might not, in the end, even be divorced by thirty. My thirtieth birthday is less than three months away, and this might not even go to court until after that date. For the time being, this blog is going to have to be how I'm not getting laid or getting divorced yet, and hopefully the horrible dates and bad (or good, or bad/good) sex can wait for now. I think I'll wait until I feel comfortable taking off the long underwear, and then I'll see.
It does nothing to point this out right at the moment, but it is fucking cold. It is so cold, I have been compelled to break out my "cuddle socks", which should never be worn by a person who wants to be touched by another human ever again. They came in one of my parent's notoriously misguided Christmas packages a few years ago. They are baby blue, fleecy and hideous as all-get-out, not to mention the rubber grippies on the bottom that remind me of slippers for invalids. They are so unattractive, they make me not even want to fuck myself when I'm wearing them.
It's too cold to even think of anything other than not freezing to death right now, so it should come as no surprise that I've settled into my extended dry spell for the time being. I am wearing so many layers, the first of which is gray long underwear that makes me look, to paraphrase Patton Oswalt, like a Dr. Seuss rough sketch, that no one could even get to me if they wanted to. They would have to fight through three layers of cotton, fleece and wool to be able to even know what my skin feels like. Winter is not a sexy time. When I was still in a relationship, sex during winter meant moving things to the side or half-off, getting it over with and then covering back up as quickly as possible. No one gets naked willingly when it is this cold. If I could get away with showering in my thermal undergarments, trust me, I would.
I was out the other night, at yBar Writer's Room, to see a poet named Jon Sands. Everyone, myself included was still wearing our coats indoors to keep from shaking like pathetic, wet poodles. I ended up in a conversation about this blog with Jim, the owner of the bar and founder of Word by Word. He mentioned that he kept meaning to check it out after I read a post at the Open Mic Night the week before. Gabriel, my best dude friend and reluctant writing mentor, referred to it as, "The naughty blog where things happen."
I wish things were happening right now, but I'm too busy shivering. I said as much to Gabriel, and he ordered me to go out and get some penetration before this turns into a cooking blog. This was similar to something my friend Joe expressed to me last week when he asked, "So, when are you going to embark on a new disastrous relationship that you can write about?"
I had a typically whiney reaction to both of these options, a response of, "Aww, come on, do I have to?"
I'm not going to start having gross, weird sex or date someone who is totally wrong for me just so I have something to write about. This isn't Nerve.com circa 2000. I am also not planning on posting about ten new ways to cook kale (because it is, apparently, the only vegetable that exists in New England during winter). Any of these things might be fun, but I hope I don't need to rely on them yet. I still have territory to mine, after all. I'm still in the process of getting divorced which, I found out thanks to my new legal career, is because an uncontested divorce is placed on a six-month hold from the time it is filed, in case one of the parties changes their mind. So, in the end, the address of this blog might not even be true. I might not, in the end, even be divorced by thirty. My thirtieth birthday is less than three months away, and this might not even go to court until after that date. For the time being, this blog is going to have to be how I'm not getting laid or getting divorced yet, and hopefully the horrible dates and bad (or good, or bad/good) sex can wait for now. I think I'll wait until I feel comfortable taking off the long underwear, and then I'll see.
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