ExFiance 2 – A Most Unreliable Narrator

you are beautiful because you are here

Dear Internet,
Tuesday is post a silly picture day! You can keep track on the page or over at my instagram.

When I published everything you f*cking need to know to be happy (but were afraid to ask) yesterday, I thought it would be a good idea to start breaking down some of the things I struggle with.
Today, it’s compliments.
The battle that rages inside is when someone compliments me on anything – appearance, work, or whatever, I think they want something. Because when someone tells you something nice, there is a condition attached to that compliment.
Always.
Today is a good example. I take the silly picture and post it on my FB and instagram pages. People compliment how pretty I am.
What do they want?
I struggle to find a way to answer. I used to be self-deprecating about those compliments but then I started thinking people would take the self-deprecation for shilling. So I stopped the self-deprecation and started thanking them instead and by changing my verbal response, I am begin the long road of accepting myself.

The gratitude of thanking people started when TheBassist and I were dating. I would tell him how much I liked/loved/adored X,Y,Z. How very handsome he is (because he is). What a great body / body part / thing he did because I saw it to be true. I know others think/thought the same way about him. So what was the problem? (It’s inconceivable to me others might have self-hatred issues. Everyone else is awesome!)
He always said something along the lines of the years of self-hatred, it’s hard for him to accept the things that people see about him. He doesn’t see them in himself so why would others see them in him?
Thus, whenever you tell him something kind about himself (he’s handsome, wonderful bass player, fabulous intellect, etc) he says, “Thank you.” No qualifiers, no explanation, just two words. He’s learning to start loving himself.
Thank. You.

My self-loathing runs deep and as far as my view of my attractiveness or brilliance¹, I don’t see it. That’s not entirely true — I know there are attractive features about myself physically (I have great breasts, my eyes are fabulous, my hair is pretty killer) and mentally (I enjoy and have conversational skills on many things, I can often make people laugh), but as an overall package? No. I don’t see it.

A couple of years ago before TheBassist came back, the implosion of my marriage to TheExHusband is simmering below the surface. One discussion was already under our belts about how unhappy I was in our marriage and the reasons why. He didn’t want to see a couples counselor. I felt stuck. It wasn’t as if I didn’t love him, but the pain of being married to him was getting to be unbearable and I could not conjure up a reasonable explanation to leave him.²
TheExHusband and I’s love life had already begun the decimation. He said some pretty awful things. I took those awful things to heart. I would silently cry when watching any kind of romantic shenanigans on TV or in movies. I wouldn’t leave my husband, I was relatively young, but then I saw the rest of my life being in a near sex-less marriage. Having passion? Hah. Hah. Hah.
Not long after that discussion, I flew out to California for a job interview. It was a last ditch effort on my part to see if I could get a job before I left my old place of employment (and before getting serious about the writing). An old friend, whom I’ve known since my days with ExFiance #2, lives about an hour away from my hotel. Old friend and I recently got in touch after not speaking for years. We agree to hang out when I’m in California to catch up, have dinner, the usual.
Now I haven’t seen old friend in over a decade at this point. I’ve aged, I’ve gained weight, and I’m nervous about seeing him because I’m already assuming he’s going to find me an ignorant, fat slob which only adds to my loaded self-esteem issues. I need everyone to like me even if I perceive myself to be an ignorant, fat slob.
We make plans for dinner, he gets in touch when he’s in the lobby, and here we go. I swallow the bile of my thoughts and proceed down stairs. As I turn the corner, he’s leaning up against one of the pillars.
He’s grown insanely hot. He’s tall. His intellect is amazing. He plays hockey and his body just simply rocks. The rush of lust confirms I was not dead in the desire department, but logically and reasonably, I knew I couldn’t act on those feelings. I made a commitment to TheExHusband. I gave him my word. Somehow I had to fix my marriage but now?
Now here was lust. Desire. I bathed in it.
So there is old friend and I’m tongue tied. I am lusting after him and yet the bile of hatred is now brimming because there is no fucking way he’s going to want to have dinner, let alone desire me.
What the fuck am I going to do?
We scamper across the Bay Area, I get slightly drunk, and we end the night on hugs. I knew if I didn’t not get the fuck out of there, I was going to make a move and not only was in that moment would I be fucking up my marriage (I gave my word) but I was also ruining the beginning of a close friendship, with the bonus of adding more to the hating of one’s self for being an ass. Besides. He probably didn’t see me with the same lust, so hey, this is all working out. Off to prep for the interview I go.
Cut ahead a few months when old friend and I are chatting online and the only thing I remember about that trip was, other than the fact I didn’t get the job, I had empirical proof I was not dried up. So I tell old friend, with much bravado, if I had stayed later that night or called him after my interview the following night for dinner, I would have made a massive pass towards him – hah hah hah. I am hilarious.
Except he tells me if I had, it wouldn’t have been turned down.
Shut the front door.
Turns out old friend has had a massive crush on me since the days when ExFiance #2 and I were together. ExFiance #2 knew about it, old friend’s wife knew about it, and they would tease him.
Me? No. Fucking. Idea.
(I always act surprised when I find out someone has even thinks I’m remotely attractive. As if I’m not worthy for that persons lust/desire/admiration or they are fulfilling some kind of fetish. When they tell me years later, I’m even more flabbergasted.)

Compliments and admiration are multiple edged sword: They give you the admiration you desire from people, they reaffirm the good work you’ve done on X, they make you feel good, but they can be intimidating as hell. These feelings negate the the admiration someone has just given you, whether you’re looking particularly nice that day, wrote a brilliant piece, or you did something kind for them.
We all want to feel good about ourself but it’s hard to accept this kindness especially for those of us who have years, nay decades, of self-hatred to chip through.

There are a couple of things we need to remember:

When we feel like shit about ourselves, remember these are just thoughts. They cannot hurt or harm you.
Having thoughts about X is a shared human emotion. When you’re not feeling particularly kind about yourself, someone else is having a similiar or exact thought about themselves that very moment. This is not to say you two should have a pity party but that
You’re not alone
You can be kind to yourself by being thankful for what you have. Once you can accept on being kind to yourself, you will be more receptive to people being kind to you

It will take a long time, no arbitrary date can be set, but anyone can forgive and love themselves. I know you can.

Today I am grateful for my readers, far and wide, who share with me their own struggles and dreams. Who feel my word resonate with them. Who find me funny, brilliant, or just a bit goofy. Who think I have much to give to this world and yes, who think I’m attractive.
Thank. You.
xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. As I was writing this, and the second I hit publish, the very first thought in my mind was those reading were going to think I was shilling for compliments. This is why it’s important to ditch the self-hatred because it gets you no where.

1. I have a post on this very topic hanging out in the wings. I need to summon up the courage to post it.
2. He has seen a therapist, he is now on anti-depressants, and we’ve had long conversations about this period in our life and he’s very contrite. He’s not a bad guy – he was just in a terrible place.

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2015, 2013

a music historiography of boyfriends past

Dear Internet,
Sirius/XM 1st Wave was rocking out today with their hour long Halloween mix, which I then was pumping through my stereo and singing along badly. Somehow this pushed me down the rabbit hole to generate a Spotify holiday playlist of (mostly) punk, pop, rap, ska, and other non Michael Buble artists. Tada! So below is 12.5 hours of holiday music to get you in the mood.

When TheExHusband and I returned to the cabin from our errand running this afternoon, and I had finished building the holiday playlist, this seemed like a damn fine time to import 100g (not including new stuff I’ve picked up recently) into iTunes so I can play my own shit at home without necessarily relying on Spotify or Amazon. It’s been so long since I’ve looked into this dark corner of my nas, I was truly clueless to what was hiding in there.
The lack of playing music at home has nothing to do with not wanting to listen but the relative ease of using Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, and buying mp3s from Amazon/iTunes. Why should I pull up my mp3s of Elbow when I can stream all of their albums in Spotify? Why should I track down a CD when I can buy the digital album via Amazon?
Long live physical media. Physical media is dead. (Except for vinyl. Shaun Cassidy for the win!)
When I was packing my stuff within the recent years, I found one of my old mix tapes (yes, on cassette), from 1992 or so? I would have been driving at that point (I got my license at 19) and more than likely driving the inherited mumsy’s old Cadillac Cimarron. So about ’92 or ’94ish? One side of the tape was “Manic” and the other was “Depressive.” Aren’t I clever? The tape is packed somewhere amongst the ruins of my material life thus the track listing is escaping me. That is probably the only physical evidence I have of my early music mixing youth.

Making mixed tapes, from cassette to CD to Spotify playlists, is part of my DNA. If I love you, platonically or romantically, you’re getting a mixed tape. I became more active in making said tapes when I made one for TheBassist in ’05:

(TheBassist confessed when we started dating last year that over time, as he swapped from computer to computer, he made sure a copy of that mix was always with him and he played it constantly during the last 10 years. You can imagine I was flattered like hell.)
TheEx and I would exchange mix tapes during the course of our relationship:

For the first holiday with TheEx, I created a holiday mix, which I also gave to people who wanted a copy:

I know I’m definitely not alone in using music to convey my feelings. I once read somewhere those who use music to pontificate their emotions was due to their inability to vocally articulate said feelings themselves. Articulating feelings is not a problem for me as I have nearly 20 years of my life on the internet, but I use music to manage those feelings and it’s freeing. It’s much more satisfying to dance manically in one’s living room to a pounding beat over chewing thoughtfully on a pen after you scribe. Amirite?
Roping back to listening to 1stWave (or any station really), it’s been particularly hard these last few weeks and years. While I’m driving, I often find it difficult to listen to a particular tune without wanting to flip everything off or pound the steering wheel in fury or having tears well up. It’s not necessarily just the recent string of my lovers but how I associate music with people, places, and times.
(It doesn’t help TheEx and TheBassist are the same age so of course I bonded with them on the music of our youths, which is primarily played on 1stWave. The dicks.)

I was just outside. The stars are shining bright and the gods are talking to me through the tree tops again. I thought writing this would exorcise some of the feelings associated with these songs and I think I was wrong. It’s hard when nearly every memory is easily accessible via music and it all feels like yesterday. It’s been nearly 20 years when TheExHusband and I first dated, 10 years since I met TheBassist. Nine years since I met TheEx. Those three were, in various incarnations, my heart for a very long time. And now, now, all of that music is just a burning bright reminder of where I’m at now. I feel like I’ve been handed a big bag of memories and it’s up to me to sort through it all, donate some to charity and keep others. I forget at times they may be going through the same thing themselves, but fuck’em.

For the last ten years, I’ve been banging on about my life is High Fidelity. I am the female Rob, something I had in my dating profile long ago and what wooed TheEx to contact me. The following fourth wall monologue by Rob resonates how I often feel:

What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?

This post has been sitting in my drafts for a while I thought it would interesting to pull up the music from my exes and talk about the influence the songs (and them) had on my life. Memories at the push of a button.
TheExHusband (1997-1999, 2008-2014)
TheExHusband and I reconnected earlier in 2008 right after TheEx and I broke up. Seven to eight months later, we planned a get away weekend which we refer to as The Great Bang of 2008. We were glued to each other’s hip for nearly seven years and it’s hard to narrow just a few songs to encapsulate our relationship.
After we got married, I created a wedding mixtape and here is why those songs still resonate with me, about him, today:

Every couple has an “official” song, usually some Michael Buble remix or regurgitated emo bullshit. We have Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros, a band we both gravitated to after hearing them on All Songs Considered. Lyrics can be found here and YouTube is here.

Granted, this is not a typical love song by a long shot but Idiot Wind is off of TheExHusband’s favorite Dylan album, Blood on the Tracks. This album was one we listened to on repeat on one of our second first dates back in 2008 and it is also one of our mutual favorite tracks.

“Intergalactic,” the single off of Hello Nasty by the Beastie Boys, was released in the summer of 1998, right when TheExHusband and I started dating the first time. According to him, I listened to Beastie Boys, Lords of Acid, Sarah Mclachlan, and Afghan Whigs nonstop during that period. Since I was not, for the sake of the story, sober for most of that period, I’ll take his word. In 2009, Justin bequeathed me an art poster based off of “Intergalactic.” I knew based on the first few lines of the song, and the history behind it in regards to us, had to go into the mix. Video is available here.

In the world of pop and rock music, one of the definitive albums that is still seen as the holy grail of influence is the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. Any kind of music critic, if apparently worth his or her salt, will name check this album in their review at least ONCE, regardless of the song/album/band/genre they are reviewing. Most of my die-hard music friends also name check this album and agreed that yes, one should at least have Pet Sounds in their repertoire. For Christmas 2008, I indeed received Pet Sounds as a present from TheExHusband. “God Only Knows,” in stereo not analog, is included in the mix. Again, with the stupid still photos with musical background only available on YouTube or terribly edited live version, there is only lyrics, which are available here.

“The Sausage” is an obscure track sung by an obscure calypso artist, Baldhead Growler. It’s become an in-joke of sorts, where one of us will randomly start singing this song for no particular reason other than it’s fun and raunchy.
TheBassist (2004-2005, 2014-2015)
When TheBassist and I got back together, he gave me a run down of all the songs he had compiled over the years to express how he felt for me. This seemed like a good time to put together a playlist of songs that resonated and represented how we presently felt about the other.

Interpol’s second album, Antics, had just been released and we were both ga-ga for the band. We quickly proclaimed a particular Interpol song for the other. Mine is Slow Hands about him, his is Obstacle 1 about me. I once had a t-shirt that said, “She can read, she’s bad.” Both songs come up, still, frequently on alternative stations and it should be no surprise they drag up a lot of feelings.
We thought the ultimate pinnacle of our relationship would be to see Interpol live. We never did go.

This song, by Elbow, is the tale of a female drug addict, but to me the song represents/ed what a twat TheBassist had been when he dumped me back in 2005. It still resonates today.

This song, and another one that is not on the list and is escaping my memory right now, is the best description of how he felt about me during all of those years. The yearning, the love, the everything broke my damned heart when I heard them for the first time.

Doves was/is a band that came along the same time as Elbow (they know each other in Madchester) and this song, which is apparently about nothing, was heavily played when TheBassist and I met the first go-round. It was also included on his 2005 mix tape.
TheEx (2006-2008)

If Interpol was TheBassist’s and I band, Bloc Party was mine and TheEx’s. We traveled often to see shows across Michigan and to Chicago. A Weekend In The City came out a month or two after we started dating and we caught their tour that summer and I still stand by my declaration it is one of the best concerts I have ever been to.
This particular song was chosen because there is a Brighton, MI, a city you pass on I-96 as you travel to Detroit. We would crank this song up on high as we roared past because we were, more often than not, driving to Brighton for the weekend.

I’m a big fan of shoegaze and apparently I missed out on a lot of American bands who were the forefront of the movement during the early ’90s. The American Analog Set is one such band and this song was on one of the first CDs he made for me.

Snowden is a relatively little known indie band comprising of one guy but who has a backing band when he tours. TheEx got me hooked on him and when I was one of two up for a gig at AMG, I interviewed Snowden as my assignment for my interview. As you may have noticed, I did not get the job.

Another single TheEx put on of his earlier mix tapes. He must have known one day I was going to become a librarian.
Derrick (2004ish)
Derrick was an old co-worker of mine at UUNet, who I found out a few years after I left, had a big crush on me. That crush turned into a romance that didn’t last terribly long (six months or so?), but we parted on good terms. Within the last year or so, Derrick got in touch and mentioned he thought of me fondly and has been slightly kicking himself for letting me go after he was diagnosed with MS. We are super friendly with the other, BFFs on Facebook and all that rot.

Derrick is a huge ska/punk fan and every time I hear this song, I think of him.
Patrick (1996ish-2004ish)

Patrick and I knew each other forever (hence the 1996ish start date) but didn’t really start to date until around 2003 or so. We split for a number of reasons but still remain(ed) friendly. He’s married now. Within the last few years he said something along the lines that while he still loved me, he found it too hard to be friends. I get a happy birthday from him every year and that’s about it.
ExFiance #2 (1999-2002)

ExFiance #2 and I parted on good terms and were friendly for a number of years after the breakup. BUT since he’s been married (and has a family of his own), he’s been talking shit about me across the Internet. Why? I have no reason but I’ve had several of our mutual friends confess that what he was saying didn’t match up with how I actually was. Men.

Relationships may come and go, but I will always have my music. Just press play.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2001, 2001

Meijering at night.

Growing up, my mother installed a strange power relationship with food into our heads. I’ve never quite figured out where her ideas came from but essentially her idea was that less food in the house the better. Let me explain further: She would sometimes “forget” to go grocery shopping and or she would buy a few packages of hamburger, American cheese slices, saltines, and popcorn. For a family of four with eating habits for a family of six.
We’re large people and a bit on the tall side (I hover near 6′, Mumsy at 5’10” and brother at 7′. My now-ex step-father is about 6’1″.) While my mother is now borderline morbidly obese, my brother and I are just plain chubbeh. We could stand to lose a few pounds, but, we’re both fairly active (then and now) and are not sit at home stuffing our faces type people. We do, however, have large appetites.
It wasn’t that we were poor, Mumsy made a really good living as a home health care nurse (let’s just say, she neared six figures by the late ’90s in Michigan) and she certainly could afford to feed us, but, without fail, every week she would go grocery shopping and bring home the exact same items:
Continue reading “Meijering at night.”

love, actually

I’ve been living alone for exactly one year and one day. How nuts is that?
Go lisa, get your groove on! It’s your birthday!
I want to fall in love.
I’m ready to fall in love.
I couldn’t think of a good segue into this, but it’s true. I spent a lot of time with my maiden aunts recently, and I really don’t want to end up like them: bitter, desperate, clinging to the past. I want to love and be loved. I want to feel close with someone and feel their closeness. I want to rip apart the facades we put up as we approach people and feel their need for me as such as I need them.
It’s a very scary thought, thinking about allowing myself to be vulnerable — to willingly strip away all the barriers and just let it go. On the same hand, it’s also powerful feeling.
Makes me feel invincible.
I just want to be seriously and insanely in love. I learned a lot of lessons this year living alone. I learned I could do it by myself and I learned I could handle living alone without getting lonely. I learned I could love my friends and keep them close to me and I had great tolerance for my family. I learned how to let go of people who were not good for me.
I also learned that I like to take care of people. This was not something to be ashamed of, as I once thought it to be, but it’s actually a strength. The tricky part is when to know the difference between taking care of someone and mothering them to death: a problem I had with Paul. I think that because Paul was not responsive to return this in kind, I started to regret doing it. That regret became resentment. But when I’m with my mom and I help her, and I worry about her, I realise that I genuinely like doing this for her. She appreciates me, she’s proud of me, and she loves me. This is a step with my mother I never in a million years I thought I would see, but it happened. It did. I’m glad that our relationship is taking such leaps and bounds and that I no longer feel the resentment i used to feel towards her. There is always some strain, but it’s over ridiculously minute shit that it’s not even worth the bother anymore.
The year was spent in a lot of retrospection, a lot of people watching and a lot of getting to know who and what I am. It’s very tough to learn who
and what you are, but one of the biggest lessons I learned this year:
Don’t let the career goals overtake personal goals.
Very important is this one. Ironically (or shamefully enough), I was watching Charmed and one of the minor characters said to Phoebe something about how her generation of women were so focused on being independent and career orientated that they forgot about their personal relationships. Here were all these women in their 40s/50s who had no one to celebrate lifes things with them. I got choked up about that one. Really. No lie. I really don’t want to be like my aunts. Ages 60, 59 and 46. All bitter and desperate. Every single one of them. Two of them had the gall to tell me that I was too old to have babies at the age of 31. Can you believe this shit? Too damn old to have babies. I do want kids, someday. Just not right this second.
Love.
It’s a powerful word. Is there anyone in mind I’m thinking of as I write this? If I say yes, then someone will think I’m going too far, pushing boundaries we never really explored before. If I say no, then I could be lying. So I’ll say maybe. I’m not saying I’m in love with someone NOW, I am saying that if it happens, I won’t push it away, like I have so many times before.
Patrick and I were talking about sex the other night and he asked me, “When was the last time you had great sex?” I replied, “If I was being a bitch, 1992 or 1993.” “Damn,” he said, “That’s cold.” Even though we were on the phone, I nodded almost violently. One part of me felt like it was the truth, the other part of me felt like it was a lie. I HAVE had good sex since then, but, there was something always missing.
Things I didn’t think about then, that I realise now. Parts of me that wish that I could turn back the clock to repair those moments, be more attentive to my ex-lovers, instead of being hateful or mean as I was wont to do. Communicate more to them my own needs instead of expecting them to take charge and know what I want. Many mistakes were made on both sides. I do not put the blame solely on them, however, they do have their faults.
So then this leads me to thinking about sex, and what my sexual needs are. I think a lot of it has to do that I often find myself at odds with how I want to feel as compared to as how I really feel. I don’t have a problem being assertive towards someone, I have a problem when the person EXPECTS it always to be me to lead the way. I don’t have a problem being kinky, I do have a problem when it’s always that way. I don’t have a problem with lack foreplay, but I do have a problem if that is all I want and the person isn’t willing to do even that. I do believe in the tit-for-tat love life: If I go down on you, you return the favour. I just don’t get why so many guys are hung up on simply not returning the favour.
Sensuality, that’s a big. A huge one. In my early twenties, I thought it was all about hard, head banging against the wall kind of sex. Instant gratification now. Damned their needs, mine had to be taken care of first. But then I was so about control during the sexual relationship, my needs never really got met. Orgasms? Hrm. Good question. One person has been able to give me clitoral orgasms other than myself, one other gave me vaginal orgasms. A minute percentage of my lovers, isn’t that sickening? The irony about the one person who gave me vaginal orgasms, is that I didn’t really particularly care for him. We were dating, we were even living together, but it was a bad relationship and bad times. He also had a fetish for getting fucked up the ass with a dildo, so much so, he preferred that to actually having intercourse with me.
But I digress.
I realised I’m not a casual sex kind of person. If I’m going to sleep with you, it has to mean something. It has to denote something. A beginning of something, hopefully not an end. I can’t just sleep with random men to fulfil my needs because part of my needs is that I have to be attracted both physically AND mentally. I’ve said this nine hundred times before: you want to get into my pants, engage my mind. Yet no one listens. This is why I prefer being talked dirty to or having dirty stories read to me in bed rather than seeing porn — I’m not a visual person to get turned on sexually. This is one of the reasons why I’ve always been a big fan of phone sex.
I need all my senses on fire.
I also realised I’m not a dating kind of person. This means, I can’t just casually date someone. I’ve tried that and it doesn’t work. I want to crawl under the skin and get to know them and what makes them tick. That’s the challenge. I need to have their attention on me and my attention on them. It’s fearful isn’t? Almost intimidating, but, this works for me. I need to meet someone and know that if we are “talking” that they are talking to me and no one else. Monogamous from the start. It’s not that I’m jealous or insecure, it’s just that it takes so much damned energy to get to know someone, to spread it out over several someones just seems ridiculous to me.
It’s been said that men are logical creatures, romance goes out the window a lot of the times. In conversations with my brother and his friend tonight seem to mark that as being true. My brother said he never saw me as the getting married type, and while I can see where he is coming from to say that, I feel that he is wrong. I just don’t think I’m the type for a
“conventional” marriage. Not in the white picket fence, 2.5 kids and 3 dogs way. That is not me. Is marriage? Yes, it is.
My dating experiences this year were minute, at best. But they were powerful. I was able to find a lot about what I wanted from these few experiences. Will I jump back in the dating ring again? Not in the tractional sense, no.
I’m braver, stronger and more assured now. Something I could not say a year ago. Not even six months ago. I’m not willing to be with someone for the sake of being someone and I’m not willing to be with someone if they do not feel the same as I do. I’m not willing to risk my life with someone who isn’t willing to risk themselves for me. Because it will never work out.
A lot has changed over the this past year, internally, with me. I was able to face a lot of fears, take risks romantically and pull out when it wasn’t working. I was able to look at someone I loved for 15 years and tell him I was not going to sleep with him even when it was offered. Can you imagine, how incredibly hard and painful that was to do that? But I knew he wasn’t going to fuck me because it was “me,” he was going to fuck me because I was available pussy. I cried and cried and cried. When the end came, and he wanted to do the friendship with benefits routine, I told him on the phone I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be this person who randomly was available for quick and easy sex, because it would be, to me, just meaningless and empty sex.
I hung up on him. Never heard from him again. Never slept with him either. The only saving grace to my ego is that all he has to remember me is one of my internationally known blow jobs, ones that he remembered after all these years. He received two from me recently. Frightening isn’t it when your memory is reduced to a blow job?
Regardless of how that relationship worked out, it was needed, no matter what my friends said. I had to see him and confront him and gamble. I learned by my interaction with him just what kind of woman I was. I liked who I have became, that I was willing to risk it all for love and to walk away with no regrets when I wasn’t the person for him. That will be something I want to teach my children, to take risks. Take that chance. You never know what could happen.
I want to be with someone who is a risk taker, who is willing to gamble. Who isn’t afraid of being with me and knowing that being with me is not something entirely simple. I want someone who has goals, dreams and energy. Who, sexually, isn’t afraid of being sensual/passionate one night and slutty the next.
I always argued that I was a simple person, and I still think that is true. I just think my simplicity is different because I have so many layers. I used to think they were barriers or walls, Throw up so many, become defensive when accosted on something, toss it away and walk away being called a cold-hearted bitch. But, in retrospect, that isn’t true. We are often scared of what we do not understand, and I think much of the bad juju I got from exes is that they could not understand me and or they were frustrated when they thought they could “read me” and it was wrong. Or I did something that was different from previous interaction with me. But that, my dears, is part of my charm.
I do not feel like the bitter old lady that I often portray, I feel brave and hopeful. More hopeful than I had in years. I was able to get rid of a lot of demons this year, ones that I never knew existed and I’m able to be more up front about what I want and what I want.
Yeah.
PS: Masturbation lately has been in overtime. Self-realization has kicked my libido into over gear even more so and it’s driving me bat shit. Marathon masturbation sessions lasting over an hour have been common in this house. I’m telling you, I feel mightily sorry for the next guy I date because he is NOT going to know what has hit him.
x0x0xx

International diss Lisa day

Someone emailed me politely about my lack of lj-cut skills *koff* and I went through and cleaned up the last month or so of entries. They are all nice and neat behind lj-cut. When I told another person what i had done, they told me they were thinking of removing me because of my recent straying from using the lj-cut foo. In so far as the verbosity, well, if you can’t deal with all the posts, either remove me or create a Lisa filter. I’m not cutting down on number of posts per day because someone doesn’t like it.
I had forgotten that it was Danny’s birthday yesterday. He got on Yahoo! before I left to go tutor with the Literacy Council tonight and I asked him if he wanted to hang out tonight to celebrate his birthday.
He said “Well, South Park is on.”
“I get home at 6-6:30pm and South Park is not on until 10. You’re going ot be busy for four hours?”
“Well, I have shit to do and you have homework.”
“I’m on fall break.”
“Oh.”
If you are going to engage in conversation with me, and I have told you I’m trying to get out the door, do not sit there and play these ‘games’ with my time if you know I’m in a hurry. I asked him out and he was being wishy-washy. I told him I was going to be home between 6-6:30pm, to come over and we’d hang out and do whatever. He said fine.
It’s now going on 9pm, no Danny. Fuck it, I’m tired of his shit and I’m done even attempting to be friends with him.
To make matters worse, when I got to the library today to tutor, my student was not there. I had told her last week that I was going to try to switch our days to Tuesday but I called and told her that we were still on for Wednesday, same bat time, same bat channel. I told her to call my cell to confirm she got the vm. Never called. Checked my home phone last night and no message from her. I just assumed she would be at the library. She wasn’t. I ran all over the damn place looking for her and no phone call or nothing as to why she skipped.
Great.
Earlier today, I was on the phone with the family realtor. We had an appointment today, but I got up so damn late that I called her an hour before our appointment to tell her that we (my brother and I) were not going to show up. I had tried to call Jeff earlier to reschedule We ended up on the phone for hours talking about family and catching up etc. My brother called me at 10:50am (our appointment was for originally at 11am and we live a good 15 minutes from her, not including time to go pick up his ass). He called an additional three times looking for info.
He just called me about our next appointment and I went through what she wanted us to bring to the meeting. She’s like a family friend and she did well by my mom on her house purchase so I feel comfortable doing this. But then I remembered the little incident of what Jeff pulled at the restaurant Saturday with Miguel there and I got really fucking angry. We started screaming and hung up.
I’m not buying a house with my brother. I’m going to try to do this alone.
Fuck. Jeff. I don’t need my 24 year old brother ratting me out and telling my secrets to someone I had not seen for 10 years let alone sit there and tell me in the restaurant that I was being too harsh to his roommate and then turn around and do it to me. He then says — “Well, you do it all the time!” — OH WHEN? WE NEVER SEE EACH OTHER.
Conversations between my ex-Paul and me:
LisaIsAModgirl: www.modgirl.net/gallery/bigrig
angrypauly: interesting
LisaIsAModgirl: what?
LisaIsAModgirl: graham says he looks like you
angrypauly: bleh
LisaIsAModgirl: pauly
LisaIsAModgirl: i dated him when i was 17!~
angrypauly: mhm
LisaIsAModgirl: till i was 22!
LisaIsAModgirl: You and I have been split up for a year.
angrypauly: mhm
angrypauly: i can still be jealous
LisaIsAModgirl: mhm.
angrypauly: im always jealous of my exs
angrypauly: MINE
angrypauly: hehe
LisaIsAModgirl: :p
angrypauly: i dont share
angrypauly: <- failed kintergarden
LisaIsAModgirl: lol
MEN! ARE! PIGS!

In which Lisa has committment issues

So, HGFH and I have been emailing back and forth. Despite me being totally upfront with her, she’s absolutely convinced I hate her. I don’t hate her, but I’ve known her for 17 years and we’ve never really sat down and talked about our differences. Ever. Oh, we TRIED but that got pushed out of the way with the quickness.
Especially considering we spent at least 10 years living in different states, it’s easier to push it to the side. So her emails to me are about how much I hate her (which, again, I never said). My emails to her are convincing her I don’t hate her, I just have a problem with what she does in some things but on the same hand I’ve also praised her for being my friend.
She wants to break off being friends from me.
Which, totally surprised me, seeing as she was the one who wanted closure on our argument (fine, i agree to that) but WANTED ME TO BE UPFRONT AND HONEST WITH HER ABOUT HOW I FEEL! I told her she was being passive/aggressive — again and that she needed to either stick with one thing or another. IE: If she wants to “review our friendship,” fine, I have no problems with that but don’t email me about how you don’t want to be friends with me and in the same email you want closure and work this out. You can’t have it both ways. I’m sorry, but hey, if you want me to be honest with you, I will.
Long story short, I told her to email me if she wants to pursue this and work it out or if she really wants to break it off. Just for the record, I don’t bear anyone ill will — ever. I don’t give that kind of power to others — I’ve learned only what that kind of power can do. I don’t hate — oh sure I’ve been catty but it’s not like I’m sitting there making voodoo dolls and sticking pins in people and wish them ill will. Shit don’t work out, fine and dandy, it doesn’t work out. People mistakenly get this idea that because I have strong opinions I’m also a hate monger and I’m not and I really resent the fuck out of it if you think I am.
Also on the update issue, tiglore and I finally met up on a date — and it didn’t work out. :/ We did part as friends and are planning on hooking up some weekend (this upcoming one or the next) to do a GodFather marathon and to generally hang out etc. He said I was now regulated to his order of “sisters” which I’ll take in high regard. Then the bastard tells me that if we had worked out, our next date he was going to bake cookies in shape of roses! Men! I tell you!
Sometime later on in the week, tiglore and I were talking about crush with Pip, the tattoo artist whose picture I had on LJ a few days ago. I told tiglore I would be hesitant about pursuing something with Pip simply because he works at a shop I frequent and it falls under the same category for me as dating people I work with — I just refuse to do it. It doesn’t appeal to me and I always seem to have drama surrounding my life so any way to minimize it, I will. The irony is that friday night as Pip was tattooing me, he was telling me how he would never pursue someone he tattooed unless it was outside the shop. LIke he met his girlfriend via the shop, but she pursued him at his second job. He’s afraid of the ink whores who come in just wanting to get with an artist for free ink.
But conversation was stilted. Like, every damn time I come in, we are ALWAYS talking and after I got my outer labias done, I ended up staying at the shop for another two hours while he was working because we were talking about everything under the sun. My appointment on friday got bumped because one of the owners told Pip he had to take an overflow appointment because another artist was running behind. I didn’t end up getting ink till later on in the evening and while he was tattooing me, we barely spoke a word to each other. Oh yah we talked but it was — different. I don’t know if it was because we had things on our minds or what but after a break when a bunch of the artists went out to have a smoke, I got to listen how they talk about women. OMFG, I felt so removed from my own sex by these skanky women that they date and thinking that I’ll be spending the rest of my life alone because I’m not skanky. I can’t win, I tell you! When we did talk, I asked Pip about his gf and her name is Heather. No offense or anything to any of the Heathers out there, but all I could think of was the movie Heathers. There are issues between those two and well, lets just say it’s not my place to get involved and so I will remain just the SINGLE ink slut who goes in to get inked.
In other news today, Paul IM’d me (my ex, not AQ Paul) to tell me he wants to come visit for Halloween because apparently Slayer is playing at the Orbit Room with Hatebreed and a few other bands on Halloween night. I was planning on going to go to ministerofsilly’s house with him and his lovely wife lotus_flower and pass out candy. OR the shop usually throws a huge halloween bash as well. But hell, that would be cool to see slayer. I already bought my costume 🙂 Let’s just say it’s sexxxyyy. Anyways, either way, looks like I’ve got plans for Halloween. Now the interesting thing is that Paul has an extra ticket to see Eddie Izzard at the DC shows. Now HGFH and I were supposed to go to the Detroit show and I’m going to suppose if we are no longer friends this is off and Paul invited me to see the DC show, which falls during my Fall break from AQ. So, I might be in DC for a few days and if I do, I’ll be sure to let people know so we can do dinner or something 🙂
The weirdest thing happened this weekend: I had a 65+ year old woman tell me she loved my knee high black boots. Go figure.

I’m locking this in case someone gets snoopy

Okay, so i decided to get the a300. I figured anything better than the camera i have now is better and for some reason, i do not use optical zoom enough to jutsify the expense.
However, I did find out that Paul sent me 100 in GC at amazon, not 50, so i went a big hog wild. This is what i got for 400 bucks:
a300 camera
128M flash card
flash card reader
rechargeable batteries
nintendo game boy advanced platinum
ecard reader
cable link for gc/gb
finally a book for keth’s mom as ‘thanks’ for letting me stay 🙂
lisa

at the airport

One of the great things about being a geek is the capability of having technology with you on the go. However if I was more of a geek, I’d be sitting here on wireless dialup account instead of, well, not.
The Grand Rapids International airport (GRR) is strange in many ways. First off, the security measures here surpass those of even Dulles (IAD) in Washington. My brother had said to me when he was flying out of GRR to IAD to come visit me last summer about the trials and tribulations he had to go through with security when he was waiting for his flight. I didn’t believe him. How could I? For a metro area of several hundred thousand people, many don’t seem to leave, and it would seem difficult to comprehend the idea that the security at GRR would surpass that of IAD.
I feel more and more out of place when I talk about my travels when in my own mind, I do not do more than go where I want. In my own eyes, the world is so large and I’ve seen so little, it’s hard to distinguish from what is “well traveled” to what is not. I guess it does sound a bit exotic to say I’ve lived in San Francisco, Washington DC, and Toronto and then come back here to good old GRap as the locals call it. Why would I want to come back?
There was a girl I had worked with at the cawfee shop who had said that her world consisted of Kent County and that was it. She had no desire to travel beyond her “bubble” as she called it. She wanted to get married, have babies, and be a mommy. She was all of 18. She had no desire to see the world or explore outside of her bubble. There are those I know who have traveled outside their boundaries physically and could not comprehend what they saw. I mean that here they are, traveling around the state, country or internationally, and disliked it.
Personally, I don’t know what it is. Is it the restlessness that I feel? Which I automatically think that is really screaming of my own lack of commitment. Can I feel comfortable to one day settle down in one place and be happy or even just content? It is difficult for me to say. The Geography of Michigan class that I’m taking currently shows just how diverse Michigan is, at least from a geographical point of view. There is so much to see and do here (as shocking as that may be when taking into heart my thoughts on Michigan and the Midwest in general), that I feel overwhelmed. I haven’t even been any farther than Traverse City and have yet been to the Upper Peninsula, and for being a “local,” to me that is disgraceful.
Because my trip plans for Europe have fallen through, I had been thinking of renting a cottage up in the UP for a week. Just me. The dogs. My laptop and pray-fully, no internet connection. I have found that the more I live alone, the more I like it. I’m more of private person and now I wonder if I will ever really be happy being with someone in a relationship. I think about that part quite a bit, that my own happiness is coming from within, but yet even at that stage, I would never feel comfortable being with someone else. Things like having a family do equate into this, but I do not ever really see someone else as being by side. I’ve honestly thought that if I was not married or in a committed relationship by the time, I was 35, I would end up having IVF kids. Keth and I joke about that now, but the more I look at it, the more I realize just how much of the truth it may be. I’m not scared of this idea, I guess I’ve always thought that it would be better to raise a child alone than in a relationship where it was abusive, and the issue is that it’s becoming clear with my own relationship choices that abuse is all I know. That is not to say that all the relationships I’ve been were abusive, but it all goes back to Alan and when I had for a brief moment in time the “perfect” relationship in my eyes only to have it blown up in my face – all because he had cheated on me.
Danny says I carry extra guilt left over from my Catholic upbringing, and I’m not quite sure that is true. I can see why he would think that but I’m tired of feeling like I have these rigid set of morals and ideas only to find the world shifts too much into the grey pattern area. Most of it conflicting. Like I do consider emotional cheating to be cheating. I cannot abide by the fact that if you are in a relationship that you would have the audacity of wanting to be with someone else. Oh, I know it’s human relations to look and admire attractive people, that’s fine, but when it becomes something else and ends up being more than a fantasy, then it becomes dangerous. Why get married or be with someone if you don’t, truthfully, want to be with them? That’s never made sense to me and those who know me the best would know the agony I went through prior the separation with Paul. It made me numb. I felt nothing other than I did not want to be here and I had to leave and I could never communicate to those just how difficult it was TO leave. The one thing I did resent was the common ideology that if you are not happy, then just leave, that I could pick up and go and no one seemed to take into account that they only knew my side of the story or even better, they knew only what I would tell them. They did not walk in my shoes and they did not seem to understand when I tried to make the situation clear.
I have this sinking suspicion I’ll always be a solitary person, and that discovery has hurt more than anything else. Not that being solitary is bad, but simply that not having someone by my side would hurt. I’ve dreamed of being with someone, this ‘being’ if you will, that would compliment me as I would compliment them. True wuv. So now, I wonder if I feel disillusioned simply because of past experiences or what the deal is. Hope is there, it’s a small flame, and it’s becoming smaller. In the end, I’m tired of a society that is cruel and malicious and I just wish people were nicer to each other, but that wish doesn’t seem to want to work out.
Keth says, maybe I’m looking too hard? She said to me when I was lamenting about this to her fairly recently and I can see why she would say that. If you’ve searched for “something” for over 30 years, it’s very easy to get discouraged but it’s difficult to keep up hope. It’s difficult to feel that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I know there are many difficulties that I have sustained in my life that have bucked the system. I’ve left high school and went back and got my GED. I went to college, only to leave and come back many years later. Things that professionals say are the hardest to do, I’ve done. Yet I feel no satisfaction from these accomplishments.
($Deity save me from ignorant people. Please. A girl in my Geography of Michigan class asked if we had to know the bedrock type. Hello. Geography. Pay ATTENTION! Another woman compared the term ‘outwash’ (the left over silt from glacier movement) to the leftover drippings of Guinness. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.)

little orphan lisa

[Entry: it includes drugs, rape, family and all your usual suspects.]
Today I declare myself an orphan.
Really. I’m not kidding.
It started when my brother called me the other night and told me that he had received the bills from his hospital stays and so far the debt is mounting in the thousands. He’s getting a big break (75-100%) depending on the vendor but the numbers are staggering for not having insurance and seems overwhelming at first but the hospitals and the doctors are willing to work with him on payment.
He calls and he’s freaking out about how he is going to kill himself, declare bankruptcy or whatever to get out of this situation that he was in and I went ballistic. First off, suicide is not a matter to even joke about — hello, look at our family history. Secondly, he also knows if he files for bankruptcy, he is going to fuck ME over (We have our names on a platinum card I am paying off). I am tired of this defeatist attitude between him and my mother and Paul. Really. Absolutely fucking tired of it.
It goes back even father when I went to stay with my mom in early March. We sat at Tom Manis’ restaurant and ate greasy food when I gave her the absolute REASONS why she has treated me the way she has throughout my life. It’s so fucking textbook, it’s disgusting. I mean for fuck sake she has had me in therapy since I was NINE! Yes. Nine. Years. Old. What can a nine year old do that is so terrible to warrant therapy. ANd she sat there, picking at her food and she agreed. She agreed to what I had said. DIdn’t apologize or make excuses but just agreed I told Shelly the conversation almost verbatim when I got home and she asked me how i felt.
I didn’t’ feel the catharsis I thought I should have had. I didn’t. It was like when I called Dr. Asshole an “arrogant jerk” to his face, I didn’t feel all smug like “AHAH! I was right. Phew now i feel better”. I wanted to feel something and all I really felt was even more sad, more confused and more frustrated.
I’ve been in a lot of bad situations in my life. I’ve dropped out of high school, not once but TWICE. I’ve tried to commit suicide when I was 17. I’ve almost been gang raped. I have been date raped. I’ve been beaten up by boyfriends and had my life threatened. I’ve lived with no so nice people and I’ve moved cross country not once but TWICE (three times if you count the recent jaunt back to MI). And through it all, every single time, I had HOPE. I had hope that something better was going to come along and I had hope that somewhere out there things were going to be different. I always found. a. way. to. remove. myself. from. these. situations. They sometimes may not have been the best way or the easiest way, but I did it. Somehow I found a solution and it may have taken me awhile but i did it. I did not let the situation get the best of me even if i felt like it was.
I put myself back in high school where the teasing was awful. And when I found out i was still a credit short to graduate with the class below me, I got my GED. I went to college and then found work with computers and worked my way up the ladder starting with the entry level stuff and moved up to the positions at UUnet. When I got sick of Michigan, I went to San Francisco. When things went belly up in San Fran, I came to DC. And when I knew i was about to commit murder, I came back to MI. I kept trying to take classes at universities and now i’m a full time student competing with people a decade younger than myself. I’m not doing too shabby of it either. Not as wonderful as it could be but not too shabby.
But I always found a way.
Paul wanted a mother just as my brother wants a mother as my mother wants one as well. They all want to be
taken care of and would prefer to have me or someone do things for them than do things for themselves. My mother! SHe says so she is so proud of me! But it’s bragging rights because she can tell them that her daughter was making $50k a year and was under 30 (which is damn good)! She tells people about how I’m back in college and starting all over again and doing things that women of her generation were never really able to do. But she does not really /care/. In fact the only time she calls me is when she needs money and everything i tell her is punctuated with an ‘mhm’. Do you know how fucking irritating that is?
My brother is angry at me because he says he wants ‘help’ when what he really wants is for me to do the work for him, which I’m refusing. I go to his smelly apartment in which it smells like sweaty asscheeks to listen to him talk on the phone to one of his fifty whores while he tries to order me around, which i refuse to do what he asks. He told me and later Shelly the reason why is such an ass to me NOW is due to the fact that he was bullied a lot by all of the local kids and my friends when were growing up. I’m not kidding, he really believes this. I said, Jeff, you have no idea what it was like for me in high school. I was tortured just as much as you were. He said “what do you mean?” and I recounted the story how the swim team had trapped me in their cabin on my freshman ‘camping’ trip and attempted to pull a train and i had gotten out by nearly beating the shit out of some of the guys and trapping myself in the bathroom and friends pulled me through the window. I was so easy to pick on in high school, it was disgusting.
He said “I didn’t’ know that.” I said “Just don’t assume.” And he promised me he would lay off and he never really did.
He says “Who helped you move in Virginia. WHo helped you pack. Who did blah blah blah”. I say “What about your fifty thousand friends? Who took you to the emergency room and stayed with you and carted you around and PAID your meds and doctor visits” and he keeps going on about how i never help him? Hahahah. I hung up on him and he calls back “lisa i’m so sorry.” and then launches from another angel trying to convince me why i should do his work for him. Why i should call the insurance companies and why i should do XYZ. I refuse.
I am so done.
This is not a family spat. Oh no, it is much larger than that. I’ve already resigned to myself that there are very few people in this world who actually care about what happens to me, and none of them are blood related. I’ve worked past all of this years ago, and now this is just the final cut.
Lisa

Not Casual Thrusday

Introspection aka whining.
when i moved back to MI, everyone including paul thought that i was going to start sleeping with Danny again. Everyone, including my brother, friends, family, etc. And I told them ‘No. It’s not happening.’ And it didn’t. It hasn’t and it won’t and I just laid that on the line tonight – yet again.
Danny is like paul where every compliment was double sword. “You are so beautiful. My you have a fat ass.” kind of thing. He works under the assumption that because X happened once, Y will happen again. I once told Ben something Danny had said to me and he thought it was fairly arrogant, at least of American men. The great thing about telling
people about your life is that you often get different perspective on how things are or should or could be. Shelly is a wonderful instrument in this regard.
Danny has been pestering (pestering isn’t the right word for it i guess) about us sleeping together since i moved back, but it is that I can’t discern sleeping with someone who I feel is taking advantage of me. Does he want to sleep with me because he finds me sexy or because we have a mutual history? I want someone to want me, REALLY want me because they find me sexy etc ad nauseam, NOT because we simply have a history together and it’s been said and done before. This was a question i had asked paul before we moved in together “do not move in with me if you do not love me like how i want to be loved and as i will love you in return.”
I had told Danny in the past that we were not going to sleep together, again. We were not in a relationship and I was not about to sleep with just anyone even if it is him, I can’t do that anymore. Tonight I made it more clear, and he said he understood but that he can’t ‘help himself’. What had hurt the most was that he had said “you should be so lucky i still want you” and i said “what the fuck does THAT mean?” and he wouldn’t clarify what he meant.
recently i received some emails from an ex-coworker who spilled out in no uncertain terms that he expected us to have a little something-something going on when I was living in Virginia and he seemed completely distraught that I had not shown him my nipple rings when I was working at UUNet (he found them on the Internet, which is ironic because most of those I worked with knew I was pierced). I’m not stupid, I knew what he was after when I was working at UUnet but to think that I would do something like that? What would be my gain? The person irritated me when we were working together because he worked under the all to common assumption that if you were pierced, tattooed or ‘alternative’ you were free and easy in sexual relationships. I hate that shit. I do. I hate the assumption that because I fulfill some sort of freak stereotype that i fall into others. Plus we disagreed on everything from politics (he was a gun-toting, NRA Republican) to music (he admitted to country). he was beige. His whole world was beige. I went to a party at his house and he had lived there for years and the only color that was there was from me spilling Lisa Secret Punch Recipe on his upstairs carpet when i tripped on lint. He had no furnishings in most of his house and everything was beige. It irritated the fuck out of me.
Here is what I don’t understand, is that if everyone is looking for love (or most of us anyways), then why all the compromisation? Why the manipulation and control issues? I nearly killed myself making the men I’ve been with feel like they were perfect just the way they were, because to me they are, but yet it was not returned. Yes they had faults but I never said “honey, you are perfect and yet you are too balding/hairy/fat/too many zits/too this/too that” (unless it was an argument as paul and i were wont to do and then hell hath no fury like a lisa scorned). Never ever did i make them feel that they would be more to me if they dropped weight, grew hair, got their back waxed. I want to be loved just as I am and they want mommy nurse slash concubine.
It was like the editorial i saw in Electronic Gaming Monthly that some fart wrote in stating that having ‘fat chicks’ in a skyy vodka ad was a ‘huge turn off’. Okay lets look at the market here: gaming, geeks, pale, probably chubby. Who the fuck are they to speak? HELLO! Pot meet Kettle! It was like the xbox nerd i saw at Don Pablos this weekend that sat there with his 500lb ass cheeks nearly splitting the chair and I kept expecting Triumph the Insult dog to come waltzing in like he did on the nrrd fest at Star Wars EP:1. That at least cheered me up.
I don’t know what I’m going to do.
This is why reading is so much better than dealing with reality, as you an always put it away for another day.