I'm a moron....

It’s funny. She keeps a blog, right, sort of the inspiration for this one. So I’m bored today, and I decide I’m going to peruse the archives for a while, see what’s up.

Let me stop my run here to preface this whole thing with two thoughts. 1) I am not normally a jealous type. Used to be, leaned to get over myself somewhere between getting married and getting divorced. 2) The remix and I have talked about this, before. The fact that I’m able to deal fairly well with past boyfriends/lovers/men as long as I have no specifics to get in my head and rub it raw like a bit of sand under your tongue. So what do I do? I go find specifics. Nice call, Deej.

I’m doing ok, reading this. The primary thing to come from all this wasn’t the jealousy. The biggest thing was a deep and penetrating sense of longing. I miss her, retroactively, just from reading the pseudo-biographical blog archives. I wish I’d been there to comfort her, the days she was sad. I wish I’d been there to laugh with her, the days she was happy. I just wish I’d been there, the way you wish you’d seen the beginning of a favorite movie you just catch the end of. Unfortunately for everyone, the biggest thing is not the thing I’m interested in, just now.

The interesting thing is the jealousy. And it’s a weird one. She told me once, beforehand, that the only people she’d really been with I already had names for. I didn’t quite believe it. I knew she wasn’t the one night stand type, don’t get me wrong. I also knew that she dated, serially, by her own confession, and that somewhere in that whole Bill Clinton gray area there would be something to bother me. I found it. Great.

“Can't wait to see you again. Perhaps I ought to print this out and slip it in your pocket, as the face-mashing doesn't seem to leave a great deal of room for talking lately.” There’s more, of course. Much more, burning on my brain, of course, because I ask for it.

Rebound, I know. Didn’t work out, I know. I’m the one getting the glowing words and the face-mashing, which is what really matters. I know. I know, I know, I know.

Dear God, let me get over myself. And quickly.

Ghosts, Spiders, and the Space/Time Continuum.

Here's the kind of weekend I had....there's a black widow spider in my freezer, slowly freezing to death in a tupperware container--and that's not what I'm going to write about. Just thought it worth mentioning, in case I stop updating this, you can safely assume that it's because the ferocious little beast somehow busts through the tupperware, opens the freezer door, and bites me without me realizing it in time to completely panic. Awesome.

Anyway, the Remix and I spent a substantial portion of our weekend together...something like 100%. It was absolutely wonderful, but that's not what interested me. On four separate occasions I had revelation-type moments about myself or my relationship skills--one positive, and three correctable.

My continuing inability to see my own hang-ups is beginning to frighten me a little bit. I apparently have big, big issues with a couple of things, left over from the time I spent with my ex-wife. (Still no clever blog name...sorry.) One of them would be harder to explain, so I'm going to use the more conventional for an example, though the psychology is approximately identical.

I used to love to cook. I'm not always good at it, mind you, but I enjoy it. Pasta, grilling, breakfast, seafood--I like to experiment and occasionally even come up with something edible. I don't cook, anymore. When I was first married, I saw this as an opportunity. Who doesn't want a man who likes to cook, right? I'd stop at the grocery store on the way home from work, randomly grab things I thought might taste good together, put some music on in the kitchen and go to town. The ex hated it. She wouldn't eat anything that wasn't exactly the way mommy made it, and mommy was a shitty cook, so I was out of luck. I thought I might be trying to hard, trying to force her into liking the things I liked, so I regrouped and tried again, made her something I thought she would like. Still no dice. Too much oil, too much salt, too much garlic, and never enough like home. So I gave up. Completely. Let her make dinner, suffered through dry flavorless chicken breasts and burgers made with 98% lean ground beef. And hated it.

It wasn't until this weekend, though, that I realized how much I missed it, and how much it hurt to go unappreciated. Then I made the Remix dinner on Friday. Sure, I burned the tortillas, and she laughed at me while she fanned the smoke detector with a bath towel, but I loved it. I loved that she ate it, and liked it. I loved that she didn't think it just magically appeared on her plate. And it struck me like a out-of-control school bus just how easy it was to get through that wall, once I knew it was there. Lucky for me, we're both enjoying the benefits.

The second revelation was a simpler one, and something I had hoped for. Saturday, we went out with my entire office to a baseball game. People she's never met, only one other familiar face in the crowd, and I behaved. Like, really behaved. Maybe it's just that I'm too old to want to be falling down drunk every weekend. Maybe I've finally developed that sensitivity I so sorely lacked the first go 'round for how it feels to be the only sober one in a group of strangers. Maybe I just appreciate her enough this time that I don't even want to risk alienating her. Whatever the case, I took her out, with my friends, and didn't leave her on an island. More importantly, I didn't feel like I missed out on a damn thing, either.

The specifics of the last revelation are less important. It was about space, and time. I was wildly overprotecting myself again, delineating ways I need my space in certain situations, when she cut me off. She looked sort of sad, and she asked the simplest question. Why don't you think you could do that with me around? Let me just say this--It wasn't just that I didn't think there were girls out there who thought this way, it's that I had totally given up hope and accepted it as fact--girls want all your time, all your attention, and all the control. If you want to have a beer and watch a football game, better clear yourself some schedule or build yourself a den. If you're not ready for bed and your X-Box or online poker habit is tugging at you, tough cookies, right? And it dawned on me, as she said it, that she meant it. With the right person, sometimes it's enough to just be around. When she says she can knit while I watch the end of the Sox game, she' s not trying to make me feel guilty, she's trying to let me breathe, to let me just be me. I was so relieved, I wanted to cry. I can't explain it, really, without another 1000 words of back story. I don't know that I need to. I'm so unaccustomed to anyone considering what I might want, it's almost bewildering to be faced with anything else. If there was any one thing that I didn't know I needed to hear, this was it. If I had any lingering doubts, any self-protection left, it's gone. And it's wonderful.

Some things never change....

So I've been bad about money for as long as I can remember. Even as a kid, if I had it, I'd gladly share it, buy a round of slushies at the white hen for my friends, never expecting anything in return. If I didn't have it, I'd borrow it, and occasionally even pay it back. In college, I'd spend money I didn't have for things I didn't need, racking up an incredible amount of credit card debt with little or nothing to show for it. (Don't even get me started on the student loans/no degree thing, thanks very much.) Nowadays, things are only a little different, but I've got it much better under control. It's a couple rounds of beer now instead of slushies, and the people I've borrowed money from are considerably more corporate and considerably less inclined to forgive infrequent reimbursement.

All that leads me to this. The reason I feel like a moron, sitting here this evening. Since the fateful day that BankOne's collections department finally tracked me down and told me I had 7 days to repay several thousand dollars or face them in court, I have been much, much better about my money. No credit cards. No long term debt. No overdrafts. No scratching from paycheck to paycheck.

And then today.

I overdrafted my checking account today. Actually, Monday, I just figured it out today. Let me preface this with some mitigating circumstances, before I beat myself up too bad. It was an honest mistake, not a case of overspending. Last month, my regularly scheduled payment to my credit card was somehow not sent. So I paid the minimum, a couple days late, apologized profusely, and decided to pay off a big chunk this month to make up for it psychologically. So I moved some money from my stock/savings, and paid it. Here's the part where I'm an idiot....I set up the huge payment to come from my first paycheck of the month, the same one where i pay rent and all my monthly bills. Better yet, it cleared before my stock money made it in, so I paid it with money I didn't have anyway. I feel like I'm eighteen again. Not in the good, perpetual hard-on, conquer the world way, either. The bad, irresponsible, can't remember to take care of things way. What a schmuck.

Anyway, long term, this is not so big a deal. Tomorrow I will get on the phone and sweet talk some hapless bank employee into waiving most of the overdraft charges. If i need to buy anything, I will use the credit card I so recently cleared space on. This, however, is not enough. Frankly, the confidence I have in myself to take care of these things is clearly misplaced. Not that I can't take care of it, mind you, just that I can't take care of it without doing a much better goddamn job of keeping track. So right now, I'm making a spreadsheet. Tomorrow, I'm calling the cable company, and lowering my bill. I'm making a budget, and buying some goddamn groceries so I don't have to eat out for lunch every day. And I'm never, ever, feeling like this again.

Shameless Thievery.

I totally ripped this off the Remix's blog, but like I said before--bored and lonely. Apparently this sort of thing is called meme (pronounced meem), which sound more like something that grown under your toenails than a survey, but whatever, right?

One book that changed your life: It was early, and I didn't even read it, but when I was 5 my Aunt Nancy recited The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe to me while my uncles and Pops were out trying to plant grass in our clay backyard in the middle of a drought. If there'd been any doubt about my literary bent, this one sealed the deal. I wanted to make stories, stories like that one, stories that could make you laugh or cry or gasp out loud. Never did quite get it down, but I'm getting there.

One book I've read more than once: One? I read everything more than once. A Catcher in the Rye (can you imagine a less original choice?) is an old favorite. My copy has a cover that won't stay attached, stains every few pages from reading at dinner until Pops would make me put it down, and entire sections held together by scotch tape and memory.

One book I want to take on a desert island: I'm not going to cheat, like some people, and pick a dozen, so I'll bite the bullet and settle on one. It. Hear me out, now. I know it's not literary, and I know Stephen King is the proud epitome of everything wrong with the American lit scene, but I have my reasons. One, it's a hefty read, 1100 some pages, an excellent time killer and possible escape raft. Two, it's FUN. It may not be Hemingway, but you won't be bored. It's King at his very best, creepy and disturbed, trying too hard to make horror-movie fiction read like legitimate art. I love it, in spite of myself.

One book that makes me laugh: A Confederacy of Dunces. Flat out, no question, the funniest fucking book I've ever read. Legitimately good, too, Pulitzer Prize and all that. The only thing not funny about it is the fact that John Kennedy Toole killed himself before it was ever published. (Though, honestly? That sort of makes me chuckle too.) Anything by David Sedaris is a close second, here.

One book I wish I'd written: High Fidelity. It's far from being a "great" book, but it's my voice, my kind of writing, and a much clearer idea than I've ever had. Oh well.

One book I wish had never been written: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I've never been more annoyed with anything I had to read in a class than Frankenstein. It's not just that it's a dumb story, I've read lots of bad stories. It's not just that it's the first highly acclaimed novel by a woman, I respect that and understand the importance. It's the fact that the book is so bad. The monster learns English in a month, and then carves notes for Dr. Frankenstein INTO PIECES OF ROCK, mind you, that are both eloquent and lengthy. Is the doctor such a poor pursuer that he's unable to catch his creation during the 8 WEEKS it must take him to write these little masterpieces? Give me a fucking break...

One book that made me cry: For starters, Where the Red Fern Grows. I was eight, I wanted a dog, and this book broke my fucking heart. More recently, Schindler's List, for obvious reasons, and The Da Vinci Code, because it's almost as bad as Frankenstein, and I'm really sick of hearing about it.

Book I'm currently reading: All the Harry Potter books, I just picked them all up in paperback to reread. Good, quick, and fun to read. I just finished The Truth by Al Franken, another reread, and I've got Thank You For Smoking sitting here on the desk next to me waiting to be picked up.

One book I've been meaning to read: The World According to Garp. Never quite got to that one, don't know why. Also, I'm told I need to read some Kate Atkinson, and soon, so the Remix has someone to talk to about it. Fight Club has been on my list for a while. I need a library card, stat!

That's all for now, I'm going to go knock back three more excedrin and pray for death. Thanks for reading!

Debutantes

One more notable event that bears discussion, and then some shameless cribbing from the Remix, because I'm bored and lonely and I have nothing better to do.

Yesterday was a coming out party. Out of nowhere Thursday night, my brother came up with a startling invitation--"Why not bring the Remix to my birthday thing tomorrow?" Huh? My brother was never a Remix fan, mostly due to circumstance, but I didn't know he'd grown up this much.

I almost didn't tell her. I wanted her to come, as soon as the idea was out there, but I didn't want her to say no. I love my family, see. I was with someone for a long time who didn't, who refused to even try. The Remix always loved my family, but I was a little afraid that there wouldn't be enough there, that she'd be too battle-scarred to give that part of it a go again. I posed the question anyway, trying to make it sound like a joke, and her first reaction was exactly the one I was afraid of. WHAT? No, no, no, that does NOT sound like a good plan. I swallowed my disappointment and agreed, but as always, she surprised me. She turned back, slowly coming around, and settled right where I'd hoped. Nervous, yes, and maybe a touch on the skeptical side, but game.

So we went. Her hands were shaking, I was smoking as fast as I could light them, but we did it. And strangely enough, it was good. Really good. Pops is still boring and abrupt, Ma is still tactless and overbearing, and my brother is still crude and funny--and the Remix still fits right in. She's a keeper, this one. Thank God for second chances.

Not lazy, just busy

Has it really been almost a month? Eesh. Apologies to the internet, I've had my hands full for the past several weeks, and I must confess to bumping this little exercise down the priority list more than a few times. Anyway, with so much time gone by, there's been plenty of topics worth writing about, so bear with me as I attempt to choose one.

Since I'm sitting here today, home sick while the Remix and her brothers splash in the wave pool at a nearby water park, I'm more than a little miserable. I woke up with a brutal headache, the kind where even a tilt of the head makes you break out in a cold sweat and waves of nausea accompany every attempt to actually walk. Lovely, right. All this when I could be zipping down water slides with a beautiful woman. Plus, I ended up on the phone half the morning trying to fix something for work. Awesome.

Regardless of my current negative disposition, the Remix and I had an interesting conversation last night, and since she hasn't had an opportunity to write about it, I'm totally beating her to the punch. The topic: Exhaustion Theory--the idea that you can wear yourself out in a relationship by giving it too much. Tangental topic: if you're worried that giving too much to the relationship is going to make it worse, is the relationship that good to begin with?

This was an easy one for me. I'm a gambler at heart--if it's worth betting on, bet as much as you can and cross your fingers. This relationship is worth betting on. I'm not going to sit back, trying to protect myself when I could be enjoying the hell out of it just by letting go. This is an easier idea to come to terms with for me than her, possibly because last time she let go I let her down. Either way, I'm determined that whatever happens with this thing, if it goes bad it's not going to be because I was trying to keep something back. If we give it everything we've got, and it sours at some point down the road, at least we know we tried--and at least the time we've got together will be maximized. If I didn't think she was worth it, I would find someone else to occupy my time. I'm sure there's plenty of reasonably nice girls out there who I don't have an eight year history with. That's not what I want, though. I want this one, with all the possibility for heartbreak, with all the navel-gazing overanalysis, with all the tiptoeing around, trying not to hurt anyone's feelings.

Case in point. A couple of nights ago, she offered her time, to come over and spend the night, and I said no. It was an overthought no, with lots of unnecessary discussion. It was hurtful, thought not because of anything I did--for once I've stumbled on a sore spot that I didn't completely cause in the first place. On my end, it was simple. I was tired, I'd been busy and anticipated being busy the rest of the week, and although I desperately wanted to see her again, I knew that by Sunday morning I'd wake up exhausted and wonder where my week went. In retrospect, it may even have been a mistake, on my part--I'm rarely as relaxed as when she's around, and I sleep better even though my first hour and a half in bed is filled with a lot more activity than when I'm alone. The important thing, the thing I realized as we were hashing out some of the hurt feelings on the phone, was that my purposeful self-defense mechanisms of a month or two ago were coming back to bite me.

Early on, I made a point of telling her that I was not going to be constantly available, that I needed my "personal time," that I was eventually going to have to say no. At the time, I was thinking that I needed to make sure I had some boundaries, that she didn't think I was desperate or lonely, that I wasn't going to be here at her convenience. When she proved to have grown up considerably over the past five years, I immediately forgot it. I don't need to defend my time from her anymore, for one, I appreciate the time we spend together much more, and two, she respects my space naturally, without me having to do anything. Problem is, she didn't know. She didn't know that I didn't mean it to begin with, and she certainly didn't know that I wasn't worried anymore.

This is the problem with trying to protect yourself too much. Without even thinking about it, you're always hedging your bets. I spent so much time, telling her I didn't ever want to get married again, that I didn't want a serious girlfriend, that I was too busy to dedicate much time to someone--and all because I didn't want it to hurt. I didn't want her to know how much I wanted to see her, because then she could withhold herself and I'd be hurt. I didn't want her to know that I do want to get married again, someday have a family, because I didn't want her to be freaked out, because I bought into all of her hedging about it. We're not 18 anymore.

I'm not trying not to be hurt anymore. In a relationship like this, self-protection can only come at an opportunity cost to the other person. No more hedging. I've never said it on here, in so many words, though she's heard it over and over again, and probably felt it long before. I've fallen in love with her, all over again. And I'm not afraid.