Tag: Relationships

“There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.”

cmmrb get together, august 2013.
cmmrb get together, august 2013.
L-R Back row: Me, Sarah, Carolyn, Julie, Beth, Kristin
Front: Val
Missing: Anna, Sarah, Amanda, Kristi, Anne

Dear Internet,
It began a few years back when several of us were planning to attend C2E2, looking for hotel roommates to split the bill and then we started collecting other lost souls along the way. In the years hence, we’ve morphed into this incredible collection of women that have become my sisters who are not my sisters.
Our main online meeting place is Facebook. For months when I had been thinking about leaving social media, I was having a hard time reconciling leaving them — because I couldn’t. It would be awful, like my soul was getting ripped in two. But there are some decisions that have to be made, some that are painful to make. I knew Facebook and other online areas were giving me a lot of grief as time sucks and wastes of space. I had to make a choice and deactivating my account on Facebook was what needed to happen.
Every single one of those ladies rallied with me, emailed/texted me to make sure I was okay.  I found myself missing them a lot more, in the safe space we head provided for ourselves for dishing everything from our lives to harmless gossip about our stories, as the days went on. I found myself wanting to confide in them everything that has been going on, but couldn’t. I am not ready to activate my regular Facebook account, and truthfully, I don’t think I’ll be in that space for a long time. While I have been corresponding with them individually, I needed their love as a whole fill in the rough edges and comfort the difficult days.
I just needed them. Together, within arms length for me to love.
Beth twisted my arm to come back, even under my seekret Facebook account, which is what I did. A sudden sense of relief and happiness that I never knew was apparently hovering near the top, came over me once I saw all their shiny faces together in one spot. I almost started crying at my desk.
I am never leaving them again.
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2008

Howard Roarke Laughed. Again.

Laughing Fool. Netherlandish (possibly Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen), circa 1500.
Via Wikipedia Commons.

Dear Internet,
The one major hiccup while working on getting my archives back online is I read almost all  of what I put up to check for errors, broken links, broken images and the like which makes the process longer. In the beginning of this project, I was also checking for grammar, but I decided to leave the earlier work alone in its pure form. (AKA, I’m lazy.)
Some years are terrible to read, like 2003, in which I was an emotional wreck of doom and other years are just nostalgic of, “Oh. I did/read/eat/fucked that?” Sometimes I’m not so bright, and others, I am goddamn fucking brilliant.
What always trips me up the most when working on this project is the relationships that died either in a fiery passion of destruction or the ones that could have been, but never kicked off for whatever reason. I get to relive each train wreck, line by line, in slow, agonizing detail.
A few weeks ago while doing some public clean up on various social sites, I came across messages for me from an ex, TheBassist, which were left on his blogs over the course of several years.  One was from 2011 and the other from earlier this year. Finding his messages was happenstance and at first, I could not place who they were from, but then once I saw the message itself I knew exactly who it was. I checked his main blog and saw the 2011 post in which he had apparently stalked me on Facebook but didn’t attempt to contact me.
Not quite sure what I’m supposed to do with this information for:

  1. He splintered my heart the first time that when he came sniffing around the second time,  about six months after our first tussle, I showed him my partially fixed heart which he took a sledgehammer to. Again.
  2. While the connection between us when we were together was insane, he routinely lied to me on just about everything
  3. I could never trust him again, even in a platonic manner

So if he’s wondering if I read them, yes. Yes, I did.
As I skip through most of the naughts, some exes keep coming up over and over. Miguel, who in 2011 decided to Facebook me to find out where I was so we could get married. And if you all recall, I already am married. Happily. What transpired out of that conversation of nearly 20 years of missed connections and opportunities, was finding out he was ALREADY living with a woman who happened to be nearly half his age. So yes, he was attempting to marry his high school sweetheart (who is married to someone else) while still living with his sweetheart who just out of  high school as this is how this man rolls.
A bullet dodged.
I’ve started dipping into some time periods when Patrick and I were together, which if I had not married TheHusband, and the stars were aligned and unicorn blood had not been spilt, he and I might have ended up Mr. and Mrs. Patrick related to me a few years ago the thought process of if he had gotten his emotional shit together, at the time my emotional shit was together, I would be Mrs. Patrick on this day. Instead, he’s now married in Texas and has a step-daughter whom he adores. No animosity between us, we were never one of those couples, but the best recourse for our sanity is to just remain distant friends instead of the half dreaming of what could have beens. Our over protection of the other, truthfully him more so than me, coupled with our long, long interwoven past makes it difficult not to be forever linked.
TheEx occupied most of my thoughts from 2006 – 08, and makes appearances in my brain every six months or so now, basically in the realm of, “Am I still angry enough to want to rip his nuts out and shove them down his throat? Y/N?”. Just as working through the time in 2003 when Miguel and I were plotting to save the world is painful to read, so is the content I’m recovering about TheEx is painful. What’s up right now is just glimpses of what I have, and that pain is as fresh as if you have poured salt on an open wound.
Recently I was hanging out in 1999, where TheHusband and Jeff (known as Lucid) are prominently figured. I mention that,

Of course as I started writing this, I had to google stalk him. Well, let’s not be surprised he has a Twitter account and I made frowny faces as I read back his timeline because – this is not someone I would have ever dated in a million years.  But it should be noted his first wife had emailed me oh five or six years ago because apparently he spent most of his first marriage comparing her to me and wife #2 looks suspiciously like me circa when we were dating.

After the entry that quote came from had been published, I started thinking about what Jeff would have thought of if he did the same (and let us presume at some point he had Google stalked me) – would he have thought he dodged a bullet with me? Would have have thought I had grown and evolved, or was I just peddling the same shit, just a different decade?
Tough, but much needed, questions to ask as I often wonder the same of myself. I think most who know me, and know me well, would have argued that I have moved and expanded my worldview in the last 20 years. That was one of the first things TheHusband remarked on as we started dating again – I maintained all the good things about my youth and seemingly smoothed out all the trouble spots. As I was saying to someone recently, this public naval gazing of the soul is becoming antiquated. I espouse so much, and at the same time so little, I am not entirely sure how to answer my own question.
Here is what I do know: Being here in this space, either alone or with you, has filled me with great joy this last month. There was a long time when I never thought I would write even privately again, and to know that I can do this still gives me so much.
Today is December 2, which means I’ve written AND posted an entry every day for the entire month of November. Crazy. I seriously can’t believe I have pulled that off! Will I continue doing it? Yes. I’m in a groove now and it seems as unusual now to not write something and post it to the world.
Let’s talk stats!

  • November total posts: 31 (Two posts on November 27)
  • November total word count: 28,036
  • November longest entry: I have a vagina, watch me use a computer (1987)
  • November shortest entry: scary house with the wild front yard (175)
  • Site total posts: 611 (including this one)
  • Site total word count: 412,066 (not including this one)

Taking into consideration how much isn’t up yet, whole years missing, there is a very real chance I’ll hit a million words once the archive project is completed.
Astonishing.
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2010, 1998

The Fragility of All Things

Someone who had been an integral part of my past (I’ve known him for more then half my life!) has come back to me again, through the ultra convenience of Facebook. It was a struggle and a challenge this spring when he contacted me, working through what I was feeling as our last few encounters were fairly messy. I was pretty brutal to him the last time, he was brutal to me the time before. The pattern was always the same, whenever we met.
What has been most intriguing about these textual encounters is how much my own perception of myself was sharpened from the presence of a simple Facebook message in my inbox and the conversations that followed. Things I said to M. nearly a decade ago, explanations of my then life choices, are now crystallized. What’s striking is that I knew then, superficially, why I did things the way I did but it was only now, nearly a decade later, that the full realization of those actions are finally being fully understood.
Rationally, I know that I have always understood the reasoning, but it is obvious with a decade long follow up that I was perhaps afraid to vocalize the truth. I will also shamefully admit that I have not had big thinks in a really long time, most of the what goes in and out of my brain has been fluff and candy these last few years. In my youth, I used to write about my big thinks, streams of unconsciousness that would flow unencumbered but in the last few years, it has been far too painful. I wonder, now, if much of my world would have changed if I had not become so afraid?
The surprising thing about this textual relationship is that it challenged me in ways I did not expect. I knew, for example, why I married TheHusband: I love him, he makes me laugh, he challenges me to be a better person, he knows when to let me be fanciful and when I need to be grounded.
But what I did not really realise until that week just how clearly the TheHusband sees the inner me, the one that hardly anyone ever sees; that at the core of it all, really, is my extreme fragility. That my purity of heart, nobleness, and honesty is covered by the wrapping of obnoxiousness and brassiness to the rest of the world, shines like a beacon to TheHusband. He knows that I bruise easily and this is not a strong thing or a weak thing, and it is not a taking care of yourself thing, it’s a soul who’s a little too not of this planet kind of thing.
M. also saw that side of me, but the key difference is that TheHusband lets me grow and contract, whereas M. still sees me as a 17 year old and he would never let me get beyond that and could not accept the beyond that. This is why M. and I would never work, why we’ll never work, and why we’ll always remain a fond memory of a story and never a temptation of beginning, but always the heartbreak of the end.
There will always be a story of M. and I, that will never change, but that is the has been, while with TheHusband, it will always be the will be.

Panic in the Streets of Grand Rapids: Conversations about mother (part iii)

To support NaNoWriMo this month, I’m finishing the 30+ odd drafts laying about and posting them through the month of November.
Part I: Conversations about mother
Part II: Conversations about mother (part ii)
I felt fine in LA and in Phoenix (no minute or heavy stress attacks) as I drove but somewhere around Las Cruces, NM I began to have a major panic attack. It was late at night, I was stuck between two semis and the 10 had turned into single, each way lanes coupled with high cement shoulders due to construction. To top this wondrous night off, it was raining and raining hard.
I began to panic.
I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t breathe and I was freaked out of my wits.
This stepped up the racing thoughts that any second I was going to careen into the cement shoulder, hit a semi or get run over by the semi behind me. After what seemed like hours but was probably only mere minutes, I pulled off the road when I found the first mom and pop motel where I grabbed a room for the night. Even by taking myself out of what I thought was a dangerous situation, my heart wouldn’t stop racing. I made deals, bets, begged, cajoled, pleaded and bargained with whatever deity was above me to make this end. Nothing happened. I paced my room, smoked a million cigarettes and did everything I thought of in my power but I could not calm down.
The situation was made more intense that while I was no longer freaking out about my impending death on the 10, new thoughts would appear about my situation. I was in the wilds of New Mexico! Alone! With hardly any money! No one I know for hundreds of miles! With a crap cell phone!1 I was literally thousands of miles from my destination, alone, nearly broke, and frightened and scared.
Common sense roused its stately head and forced me to go to the mom and pop of the mom and pop hotel, to explain in very poor pidgin Spanish, that I felt like I was unable to breathe because that was the first thing I could think of to tell them. I could hear the crackling of Spanish on the radio in the make-shift lobby as I spoke. I remember how warm the night felt against my skin and how the air hung with wetness from the recent downpour. I must have looked like a crazy person, standing there, begging for help in a reasonable voice while my heart raged on and clearly, able to breathe.
EMTs shortly arrived thereafter and gave me oxygen, which upon my first inhale I immediately calmed down. They found, just as the ER docs found a few weeks before, nothing wrong with me. Healthy as a horse. It is like once the attack has been fully addressed in some manner, it decides to leave as quickly as it sprang up. Instead of being thankful to the EMTs for the reassurance, I remember feeling chastened. Slightly ridiculous that I called them out in the middle of the night for a panic attack. Also a little stupid, a little insane and a whole lot of embarrassed.
Moments of lucidness during my attacks, when I knew I was fine and I knew I was not in harms way were always felt to be made like disappearing bread crumbs along a well worn road by the panic. It is a struggle, still in the now and sometimes almost daily, to differentiate between the world colored by anxiety and the world in which is real. It is an exhausting struggle within my brain to fight for what could be potentially destructive behavior as compared as to what is termed normal behavior.
I do not know.

1. Back in ye olde times when cell phones were bricks, on analog service and you paid by the minute.

invasion of the barbarians: safe space

To support NaNoWriMo this month, I’m finishing the 30+ odd drafts laying about and posting them through the month of November.
I wrote a charming man sometime in 2008, but never posted it. I wrote a companion piece, Friends don’t let friends waste wine when there’s stories to sell over on LiveJournal within a day or two of a charming man, but that one I posted with glee. Why I posted one and not the other, I have no fucking idea. It is what it is, but it’s important to note that they were written the same day or within days of the other.
These two pieces are related to the the piece below, which I wrote sometime in late 2010 when I found out by sheer happenstance, almost right before TheHusband and I moved back to Grand Rapids, the TheEx was living and working in the Royal Oak area where TheHusband and I were still living. While nearly 2.5 years had passed since TheEx and I had seen each other at the time that I wrote the piece, I spent my remaining days living in the area on high alert that either he was going to find me or I would see him and kill him.
My idea, I believe, in writing this piece was to convey several ideas; namely that no matter how much you work through the pain and tragedy, no matter how much you can forgive, you are still always carrying around shrapnel of that hurt. And all it can take is just a very small trigger to bring the full experience back to life again. The second idea was that I felt, even selfishly, that I had pissed around Royal Oak, marking it as my own and how dare he come to MY land and disturb MY world. Irrational? Fuck yes, but I am thinking that I wanted to write that no matter how far you have come from somewhere, there is always at least something that can send you right back to that space, if not physically, at least emotionally.
The end does not finish cleanly, which I’m leaving as I wrote it last year. I remember now that I struggled so much writing the below, even without having read Friends don’t let friends waste wine when there’s stories to sell.
It’s been 3.5 years since that night when the events of a charming man/Friends don’t let friends waste wine when there’s stories to sell take place and I have not seen TheEx.
I hope I never see him again.
[This post may contains verbiage and/or descriptions that may be triggering to those who have suffered physical, sexual or verbal abuse. Educate yourself: Globally, 1 in 3 women will be abused in her lifetime. ]
I am a survivor of:

  • Physical abuse
  • Attempted gang rape
  • Several date rapes

This in addition to physical, emotional and verbal abuse at the hands of several partners.
Do I have your attention now?
Good.
I need for you to know the background in order to understand the various levels emotions that are going to spill out. In “normal” circumstances, finding out an ex-lover is living in your city is typically nothing to note. Finding out the abusive, predatory jackass you were once involved in, whom you thought lived far, far away, is another. Realising that you’re dedicated safe space has been invaded, even if unintentionally, can be traumatizing. If the safe space isn’t really “safe,” then where else do you have left to go?
Now let me begin.
A few years ago I met and dated someone I thought was the bees knees. I have referred to him, on and off, in the past as TheEx. We met, we fell in love, we lived together. Shit got bad. Shit got worse. Shit got downright awful.
The stereotype of what they say about abusers is true: They are charming, sweep you off your feet as if you were ever the only one and you have NO IDEA they are manipulative, controlling abusive assholes until your knee deep in their bullshit and wondering how the fuck you got here, because you’re a smart girl and you’d NEVER be blindsided by this shit. And then there is a slight humiliation to the whole thing because you thought you were “better than that” and by “better than that” I mean you thought would not fall for such trickery. You are, of course, wrong.
I knew TheEx had “problems” with his ex but his spin was the marriage had gone bad, there may have been a little something but it was a one time occurrence. TheEx was under advisement of several medical and psychological doctors, so how bad can it be? He’s getting help, right? Pish! It was nothing! Merely a trifle.
TheEx, of course, spun HisEx as the crazy bitch from hell and that in the grand scheme of things, he was the spurned one (of course). Even his mother would jump on this proverbial bandwagon that HisEx was a money grubbing harlot, low class with no talent who hurt her baby boy. Sure, TheEx has problems! But, who doesn’t?! And he’s under medical and psychiatric care so it’s not like the problems are being addressed! Who am I to worry!
Right.
And the fact that HisEx, after the divorce, not only left the state but would not give TheEx her address or contact info under any reason should have been a big red signal, but it wasn’t. Because the seeds had already been planted by him, for weeks at this point, about how he was scorned one and etc. And he so pitched the woo to me that I scoffed at the circumstances. Naive, I know. But my reasoning was that I had been involved myself with crazy people and while not abusive, there were some levels you just do not want to cross. I put HisEx in that category.
My burning hatred, which is now simmering embers but could go up at any time, can be best explained in this post on LiveJournal, which has been private for the better part of two years. It was public for a short duration, after it was written, and then made private a month or two later.1
1. The striking difference of my LiveJournal (before I started x-posting blog entries from here to there) and anywhere else was the easy, openness and laxness in which I wrote. Most of which was due to having security controls for each entry individually rather than an all or nothing setting found in most social networks. I could freely discuss my sex life, which I did regularly, without ramifications since I could privatize those entries. Upon beginning my MLIS program in 2008, I locked down the entire journal from public view to prevent any kind of “misunderstandings” about the content.

A charming man

To support NaNoWriMo this month, I’m finishing the 30+ odd drafts laying about and posting them through the month of November.
Late summer or early fall of 2007, TheEx and I made the joint agreement to apply to grad schools together. The plan of attack was to apply to schools that offered programs for both of interests (he, urban planning; me, library and info sciences). We made plans, contingent plans, and back-up plans for almost every possible outcome.
Except for breaking up.
I mention this because on in August of 2008, TheEx moved to Ann Arbor to attend U of M while I’m moved somewhere in the general Detroit area (location undetermined as of yet) to attend Wayne State for my MLIS program. Over the course of the summer of 2008, shortly after we broke up, we’ve started hanging out once or twice a week by going to movies, seeing concerts, and having dinner.
After a few awkward steps of figuring out the deal with how to proceed with the fallout of the break-up, since I came back from the U.K. in mid-June of 2008, things have gone fairly well. We see each other when we see each other, I honestly didn’t think twice about the arrangement (And no, I’m not kidding myself.) and just thought that things being as they were, I was/am okay with the set-up.
And for the better part of that summer, I was told over and over and OVER again by everyone and sundry that I was making a huge mistake. I was making things worse by continuing to be involved with someone when the healing process of the break-up had yet to begin. I was putting myself on the line for something that may or may not ever pan out, regardless of which direction. I sought out therapy (paid and friends), walking, knitting, trips, yoga, doing sage cleanses, and seeing a palm reader. (Who, incidentally enough, predicted the break-up two days before it happened in which I poo-poohed her decision. I thought everything was fine between TheEx and I, only to find out said two days later, it clearly wasn’t.
And I’m stubborn.
I ignored the commentary from well-meaning friends, because if I was okay with how things were going, then isn’t that the main concern? And if I could reconcile the past and put forth energy into the future with being friends with him, and was totally okay with that, isn’t that what it is ultimately all about?
And lastly, I had already thought long and hard about the probability of him seeing someone else, thus, knowing I wasn’t going to be happy about it (more so with my ego over anything else), but you know, I’m an over educated woman of the ’00s, I’ve been around the block a few times, I know how these things work. You meet someone, you date, it ends, you grieve for X amount of time, you move on.
But how the relationship ended, why it ended and the after math were different from prior relationships I have ever been in and thus, I had no road map to work from. I made mistakes in the beginning of the break-up, lost some footing and floundered once or twice, but I always quickly regained my steps and I made sure to always put myself first before anything else.
Because he was leaving G-Rap (more than likely for good), we decided to get together for one final hang out session. Change is afoot and change is never really easy, as we all know. I picked him up and we opted to head for dinner at a place we’ve frequented before and for ice cream afterwards; a typical TheEx and Lisa evening. Dinner was fine, we were having a good time talking about our upcoming school plans and walked over to grab ice cream afterwards only to discover the line was too long. We then opted to head to another favorite place, walking there from his current adobe and enjoying the same brand of ice cream with very little wait.
As we’re sitting outside, he totally getting into his mint chocolate chip in a waffle cone and me attempting to eat a very messy soft serv Twist dipped in hardshell, TheEx brings up that he has to talk to me about heavy topics.
“Is this about the New York Times billing?”, I inquire while ice cream drips all over my hands and onto the ground.
“No,” says he.
He then launches into what now sounds like a pre-rehearsed monologue about how he may begin dating in three weeks, three months or three years and I need to be happy for him. And if I’m not happy for him, then the onus is on myself. (I’m paraphrasing the later, not the former.)
I’m stunned.
I toss my now soggy cone into the garbage and attempt to collect my thoughts but I find that I don’t really have anything to say. Prior to our meeting, I had thought of some things I wanted to say to him this fine August evening but decided that by doing so would be pointless, some things were just better left unsaid. I just assumed that our relationship, with the change in geography and lifestyles, would eventually peter out and we would go on with our own lives in much different directions. I had maintained the relationship for most of the summer by almost sheer force of Lisa-ness: Most of the planning, getting together and encouraging friendship was my idea. At some level, he really is an ultra-cool guy but he’s a loner, who barely sees anyone outside of his family even when he was working and had cultivated work relationships. Most of his friends, his longtime friends, lived outside of the city or even the state. Those in city are busy with their own lives, as people are wont to do. Our social life when we were together was cultivated by my social circle, not his and when we split, he moved back into hermit mode once again.
And we talked about this, his lack of making the effort for anything when we were together as a couple and later, as we attempted to build a friendship. A lot of the decision process in regards to social activity always tended to lay on my shoulders and I was growing more frustrated as our intimate relationship grew and later our platonic relationship and he said he knew that was a problem with him and he needed to “work on it.” Whatever the hell that means, I’m now guessing.
We stumble over conversation for a bit and it was getting difficult to talk while people were coming in and out of the ice cream store. I requested that we head back to his place and sit on the front porch to finish this discussion. We walk back in silence and I’m attempting to formulate my thoughts but I find that I’m angry? Pissed? Upset? I can’t name the emotion that is bubbling towards the surface. Other than a drunken faux paus I made last weekend when we were at a wedding together, I had not made the moves towards him romantically — I can’t handle a romantic relationship with anyone right now. Yes, deep in my heart of hearts, perhaps I did want us to “date” again but when things were better, when stuff was more settled and I could handle knowing what I know and reconcile all of this together. Dating him now would be too easy, it wouldn’t be worthwhile for me emotionally to go through all of this again.
I know this, rationally and logically, I have gone over this a gazillion times with my shrink, my friends and with myself. I know a lot of things about why this relationship wouldn’t work, why I would ultimately would not be happy and why I am doing nothing but beating myself up against the wall. But there is something, something I cannot name that pulls me to him. When he calls or when I’m around him, I’m like a 15 year old girl. Call it love, call it infatuation, call it a crush but one thing that is agreed upon by people who know him is that he is a charming man.
I don’t know how long we “talked,” an hour? More? Less? I keep trying to put together the conversations, stilted.
“I did not or have not felt romantically towards you all summer and I have no desire to pursue a relationship with you now, or ever.”
“Did you fall out of love with me,” I asked.
“I guess, if you want to call it that” says he.
“Are you still attracted to me,” I venture further. (Masochist, I am.)
“That’s irrelevant,” he responds. “I cannot be in a relationship with you because I cannot commit emotionally or physically with you or with anyone. I do not want to get your hopes up. It doesn’t feel good, for me, to think that way.”
——————————
The above was written sometime in late 2008, before TheHusband I got back together and when I was still reeling from the aftermath of my relationship with TheEx. There is quite a few more posts about TheEx lurking about my draft box, hundreds of words that I cannot bear to trash and that need to be made public to the world.
Update: September, 2013
I haven’t spoken to TheEx or seen him since the above conversation took place five years ago. Reading this now, one would think the relationship broke off due to any myriad of usual breaking off reasons. TheEx and I broke up because he hit me. We broke up because he has a long history of physically assaulting his women, which I had found out via happenstance when we were still together of the depth and breadth of the assaults that lead to police charges and jail time.
TheEx is also Bipolar, with various other mental ailments but on a much larger, and more dangerous, scale then I could ever be. Whether or not his physical abuse is tied to his mental issues is a blurred line, but despite the 2x a week shrink he was seeing by the time we met and the rainbow of drugs in his life, these treatments were obviously not enough.
I thought I could change him, having just come off my time in behavioral therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder. I thought I had changed him. I was wrong. After he had hit me, and the furor had died down, and he had moved out, I wanted to immediately protect him. I wanted to comfort him and tell him that it was a one time thing and would never happen again. I wanted to forget he had hit because he would never do it again, previous history of police charges notwithstanding.
His close friends and his family all blamed the brain disease – this wasn’t TheEx! This was the chemical problem that lead to these problems. It didn’t matter it had been going on for nearly 20 years, that he had run ins with police and safety departments, and so forth and so on. This wasn’t him!
While I was the victim, they turned him into a martyr. I was shut out from his family, from his friends who had offered up phone numbers in support “in case something happens,” and treated as a non-entity when I called for help. He was back to being protected and that is all that mattered.
I was pretty angry after we broke up, ever more so after those close to us disavowed me. I was the one who was abused but he was the one who must be protected. I wouldn’t go to Ann Arbor, where I knew he was living for fear of running into him. I found out a few months before TheHusband and I were to move from Royal Oak, he was now living there and then I found it difficult to leave the house for fear of seeing him.
In some ways my life was crippled because of this and I have yet to find the freedom in letting go.

circling the topic

Having a week of downtime between semesters, I opted to do some spring cleaning which meant dumping extraneous emails off of my two primary gmail accounts as well sort through papers and other stuff to prep for TheBF’s arrival soon (extended stay) and to do basic organization. I came across emails from various members of TheEx’s family on one account as well as love notes from him stashed in various papers that were tucked around willy nilly.
I was heart broken, pained and battered emotionally for about five minutes before I moved on with whatever it was that I was doing.
Since my move to RO, I’ve come across such things but not in such strength or number before and I disqualified everything as momentary lapse of reasoning. It was okay to mourn the death of something that was important to me and I felt like there was some ridiculous conspiracy to regurgitate that pain all over again every time I found something new. A flux of emotions would of course then appear only to be waylaid by reason and common sense (typically after a few beers).
No matter how awesome my life has gotten and how great the people I’ve met recently who have aspects and interests that were like his, I still mourn him and for the last year I’ve been mourning him heavily. Part of that morning means still exhibiting verbal output that I’d like to
This long, dreary, seemingly never ending winter (and semester) finally ended last week. Academically, it was one of the most challenging I’ve had in a very long time and I carry my B+ in cataloging with pride (considering I flunked the final, this is a very good thing). My cumulative GPA dipped from 4.0 to 3.88, but I’m also totally okay with that. The academic stuff will be forthcoming in another post from lib schooled. because there is a lot going on that in arena. The whole thing about world domination before I graduated? Totally happening.
I’ve been indulging in pure, unadulterated laziness this last week or so by catching up on network and series TV, pleasure reading, and basic couching. One of my girlfriend’s said recently that she felt her entire creativity get sucked away when she’s in school, hence the lack of posting on her blog and I realized that was the same for me as well — it wasn’t about time so much anymore as about energy and feeling. It feels easier to sit and internets for hours without contributing to the conversation more so than creating something to give. Contribution requires energy and brain power and a dedication that sometimes I don’t always have to give, no matter how much free time I have lallygagging about.
TheBF is coming in a few weeks for another extended stay with plans for permanent move in July sometime and marriage happening sometime after. We’re eloping, I just don’t know when or where as of yet. And we’re not technically engaged either, but I do have a few rings he’s purchased and surprised me with for “sizing” purposes. There is also apparently a “ring fund” that he’s been contributing to for this purpose of getting me my desired fat rock, but every bloody fucking cunty time someone starts talking about marrying me, shit hits the fan so I’m not holding my breath on this one until after the ring is on my finger or I’m at a JP signing my life away.
Moving right along, I’ve been going through some personal effects recently, tossing and getting rid of even more stuff before TheBF gets here. My apartment is only about 600 sqft and with two large humans (he is 6’6) and an 18lb diva pug (Ms. Wednesday herself), the apartment feels cramped. And that’s with just my stuff so to imagine his things, no matter how scant, and the apartment feels claustrophobic. We talk of nesting and of buying better things at a better time when the big girl job comes long for me after graduation next summer, but until then, we will more than likely be slumming it in RO until that time occurs.
As I was cleaning, I ran across things from TheEx that I had forgotten about – nothing spectacular, just random love notes and such that were shoved away in random and various places, I’m assuming that I shifted about for reasons that seemed logical at the time which makes no absolute sense to me at all right now.
Also what was found was a list I had started before the first break-up entitled, “How to be fabulous in 2008.” and much of what I wrote figured him prominently in the plans but what was interesting was that intermingled with that list were items that were deeply personal and independent of him (or of anyone). That to me was the most striking, that shift from coupledom to absolute autonomy. Also interestingly enough, I accomplished a lot of my goals without realizing I had done what I set out to do in those early days of 2008. I had no idea when I wrote this list we would be breaking up a few months later, but yet we did and I survived.
After seeing those notes, what I wasn’t prepared for, really, was how much my heart still pained after all of this time. Getting over people has been one of my strong suites, so much so that I’ve been called a cold-hearted bitch1 a time or two in my life. There are men, however, who’ve gotten so ingrained in my psyche that it’s almost impossible to get them out no matter how much I tried. Alan is a good example, Ex-Fiance #1 as well as TheBF (first go around) to some extent. TheEx, obviously, is another.
Wait, am I starting on my “Top Five Most Soul Sucking Break-ups Ever”? Go away, High Fidelity! I am resisting the urge to lean out my window and start shouting out that there is no room in my top for the likes of TheEx, but of course, there is. And TheEx doesn’t drive a Saab.
When I was younger, I always imagined myself to be the “once in a lifetime” kind of girl who’d fall in love for once and forever and as 37 starts sniping its claws at me, I think it’s time to dispel that myth forever – because I’m not that girl at all. I’ve been involved with a number of men over the course of my life to dispel that overly romanticized notion. I like to believe though that at the time I really and truly felt that way and that because of that, I would never regret being with them. I love big and whole heartedly and passionately and when the relationships fell apart, I was beyond gutted.
I find myself meandering in my writing here, to and fro and I keep having to reign myself in with my point (which there never seems to be anymore).
I’ve met some wonderful people in the last year who have taken his place in some degree or another, namely my Music Boyfriend who is as passionate as myself on music, who happily engages me for hours on the topic. Other F1 and West Ham fans, TheEx was not a total special snowflake and I get that. But it was everything

1. Or serial monogamist.

Friends don’t let friends waste wine when there’s stories to sell

What you need to know is that it took every freakin’ ounce of my being to not drive ~200 miles today to remove your cock with a rusty spork, throw a smoldering cigarette into the open wound and then hang said penis off to dry from the balcony while I merrily drove home.
And I’ll explain this to you one more time since you clearly didn’t get it the first time: Your problems are everyone’s problems. Even on a platonic level, your actions involve everyone around you, not just yourself. You have never quite grasped, as every other normal human has, that their actions reverberate to those around them, involved or not. And your problems trickled over into my life when I was involved, regardless of what capacity. Your issues have effected not just me, but your family and your friends. The psychological, emotional, verbal and physical hurt you inflicted has cost me time, money (spent on therapy), self-doubt, lack of self-worth, and even to some extent sexual crisis. This is to name but a few. You have no idea how much pain and suffering you have inflicted because you have no conscience. Your big outpouring a few months ago on how terribly sorry you were to have hurt me, you were going to spend a lifetime making it up to me, you were going to get your shit together and you had never meant to be like this, add, rinse, repeat. You may have meant it, at the time, but what has become clear in the recent months is that your words mean nothing. It was a facade because someone (me) told you that you had to make amends for the hurt, pain and suffering you had caused. And I also told you that I could not tell you when or how or where this amendment was going to take place and I was suddenly to believe that you were getting your shit straight only a few months later? Clearly, I am naive, gullible and way to quick to believe that everyone can change that quick.
You believed it to be sincere because you wanted or needed it to be sincere. I told you what you needed to do and that’s what you did. It’s how you run your life. Someone dictates that you need to do X in Y circumstance and that is what you do. Every. Single. Time. You cannot make your own decisions without running to 15 different people to tell you what to do. It’s sickening.
You know why I hung out with you this summer? Because I believed in you. I believed that underneath the hurt, the pain, the abuse and every other cliche was a good man. That ultimately, standing by you and supporting you, as I promised I would to the very end, would be its own reward.
And this is why I’m pissed. I’m so beyond pissed right now that it has taken every once of will power and restraint to not murder you, you fucking bastard.
What I want you to ultimately know is that I’m pissed because you made a mockery of me, my friendship and of my love. You turned what could have been a pleasant memory of a something into nothing more than a horror film that I can’t stop watching. Especially so since you still have NO idea what the fuck you did. It took every once of my strength that day to not lean over and strangle the crap out of you. Or knock some sense into your head.
And to add insult to injury to tell me that you were “thinking” that perhaps in 3 weeks, 3 months, or 3 years that you were going to start dating again and that I had better be happy for you and if I wasn’t, then so what? And to even add more salt to the wound, to then suggest your surprise that I wasn’t currently dating someone? WHAT SELF-ABSORPTION IS THIS? Please tell me. No wait, I’ll tell you. Clearly, you do not know me, to have gone through what I did with you for nearly ~2 years with you, standing by you, loving you, encouraging you to be a better man, to get on the right path to life and then to have you, hahaha, tell me that I needed to be happy for you to go frolic with someone else? I love(d) you and when you love someone, you don’t let them down, you don’t let them go and you stand by their side through thick and thin. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Really, this is a joke right? You think I could easily transfer all that emotion, energy, desire and love to someone else because we were no longer together? What am I? The whore of Babylon? Seriously! Do you think emotions run that quick and that shallow that I could transfer what I felt for you onto someone else? That sir, took the fucking cake.
And I’ll tell you why I’m not in a relationship with someone else: After finding out about your costly porn addiction, the mere act of having sexual intercourse with anyone makes me nauseated. I may talk about sex, I may flirt, I may proposition but the actual thinking about having sex with someone other than myself makes me queasy. It took me FOUR MONTHS to even feel normal to masturbate again. So do not tell me, fucker, that your problems do not effect anyone else.
1 in 3 women are or were in an abusive relationship.
1 in 3.
You may not have beaten me to a bloody pulp but what you did was just as bad and the effects are just as lasting. The lying, the manipulation, the crying game when you were out of control, the begging for forgiveness, the deception, the duplicitous of your actions. Everything.
I thought that being jailed AND found guilty of assault against your ex, nearly killing me LAST WEEK in the car due to your uncontrollable road rage/anger issues, getting us evicted from a local grocery store for picking a fist fight last summer, the fact that you’ve lost friends and burned relationships all because you are so out of fucking control would be the wake-up call. Clearly, I was wrong.
You. Do. Not. Get. It.
You are out of fucking control and you need some serious fucking help. Moving ~200 miles away and burning your bridges with me is not going to solve your fucking problems.
I’m well aware that the picture painted from you to your friends, family and anyone else is that I am the woman scorned. I am the manipulative, duplicitous hussy who was after your money (hahahahahaha. That’s a good one.), who treated you badly and connived and manipulated my way into your heart and your family. I know this. I know how this will run. And I also know that I cannot warn any future women you date, that I cannot tell them your history and that I can’t, by the act of sisterhood, convince people to string you from your fucking balls and remove your penis.
It’s unfortunate, but, I can’t.
You fucked up. You fucked up so goddamn hard and so fucking often with me that I cannot imagine, in a million fucking years, how I could ever let you back into my life again. I’m sure one day I’ll find forgiveness, towards you, but you sir are to never darken my doorstep again. Ever.
I thought I had worked on forgiving you, but, clearly with the rage that I feel towards you right now that isn’t happening anytime soon.
You cannot make it with “anyone,” because you cannot make it with yourself.
I’ve deliberately removed your name from this post, after thinking long and hard, because I really want to come out of this with my dignity and grace intact. I am me, you almost sucked me dry, but you didn’t.  But everyone knows who I’m talking about. And I have no fucking qualms about airing your dirty little secrets because well, I didn’t name YOU did I? Because clearly, I could be talking about anyone.  And you can’t get me for slander or libel because your arrest record is public record and I have either character witnesses or surprise, surprise, records culled from public places where other acts of violence took place. Since your name is not mentioned here, you would have to prove beyond all shadow of doubt that I am naming you specifically (which I’m not) and that I’m harming you professionally or personally in some way that detracts from professional or personal dealings.
And the $500 (for grad school apps and the such) I owe you? You’ll be getting that, as I promised as I would, when the disbursement kicks in a month or two. And I’m doing that so that my conscience is clear, that I followed through with my promise and I am not beholden to you anymore for ANY. THING.
For almost 2 years I lived in a smoke screen, lying to people about how “happy” I was with you, because clearly I did not know any better and that I truly “loved” you and this was just a blip! I can make him happy, I can make him overcome his demons, my love will be shining through! Fuck. That. I’m no longer to going to lie, use subterfuge, and deceit to cover YOUR problems and issues which became MY problems and issues.  And I have to come to terms with the fact that I was in an abusive relationship that I will be cursing your fucking name when I start seeking therapy at battered womens crisis center. Thank you, for that. I’m sure I’ll really fucking enjoy it.
You are not a “good” man underneath.
Your family, knowing your problems (because OH! They know! He once was violent towards me AND his parents! How lovely was that!), shied you from reality of your situation and cover your tracks with money and false promises.
I do not love you anymore. (Man, that was easy.)
I no longer believe in you.
I do not support you.
May your “soul” rot in fucking everlasting hell, you motherfucking asshole.
It’s finished.
P.S. And I don’t know when you’ll read this, it may be three hours, three weeks, three months or hell, even three years. But I’m totally okay with that, because it means I no longer have to actually deal with YOU because since clearly you did not listen to me the first time, all those months ago when I wrote something nearly similar, to get you to even CONSIDER your complete fucktardness, then airing everything in public? I’m so totally okay with that. You have no fucking idea. I am no longer protecting you. You can kiss my luscious ass goodbye.

My Dentist Says I have Hot’n’Sexy Teeth

Okay, he really did not say that, but that was what he was conveying with his “Excellent work, as always Lisa” on the commentary on my ereet brushing skills. I owe it all to Sonicare. Seriously.
The other day I received a few “nudges” from people about updating my LJ. “Hrm.,” I thought to myself, “It hasn’t been THAT long since I’ve updated.” Apparently, it HAS. Nearly two weeks. Eek. Let’s recap with our heroine shall we?
Sunday, April 1, Sara and I drove to Detroit to see Snow Patrol play at the Detroit State Theater. Little did we know that the exact same evening at the exact same time, there was a WWE event happening at the Civic Theater right next door, something going on across the street at Comerica Park for the Tigers and another event was taking place in the same neighborhood. Parking was scarce and we coughed up the $20 bucks to park in the ramp near the State Theater. After watching OK GO perform (which, ironically, they were pretty damn awesome live), Snow Patrol came on stage to the thundering applause of all the teenyboppers and hipsters that were either drunk or semi-drunk. We had few cute Asian girls in front of us who were beyond adorable and also beyond sober. Sara and I had ground floor “seats,” which in short meant we were less than 25 feet from the stage. That was exciting.
The show was excellent, not as good as Bloc Party mind you, but still excellent. Sara and I decided to leave during the “encore game” to head home and beat the traffic.
Hah. Hah. Hah.
Remember the casual mention of the other events earlier in this entry? Yes, well, it took us over an hour to get from the parking ramp to the highway – which was less than two miles away. The traffic guards, not local policemen but simple hired hands, were screaming at all the moronic drivers (okay, this IS Detroit after all), “KEEP FUCKING MOVING!”
Sara is one helluva navigatrix when it comes to this shit. She got us out of the jam and onto the highway fairly quickly. If left to my own devices, I’m sure that I would have been screaming at the traffic while slamming my hands on the steering wheel.
As we were hungry and also needed some gas, we decided to stop at one of the towns that litter the 96 highway between Grand Rapids and Detroit to fill up both tanks. Again, thinking that we were over 20 miles from downtown Detroit (if not more so) and heading westward, there shouldn’t have been an issue.
We were wrong. Again.
We stopped in the tiny town of Wixom where after slugging back caffeine, filling up the gas tank, we pulled into McDonalds. Where we waited for nearly 20 minutes in the same damn spot in the damn line to grab our “all white meat” chicken and greasy fries! Every restaurant in the vicinity is showing the same issue: Long lines, one person seemingly working and every redneck from Detroit to Lansing getting the same bright idea as we had, which was evident by all the yelling and screaming and waving of the fake title belts that we saw from their minivans and SUTs.
We hopped back on the road and drove another 15 miles to Brighton (Consequently, TheEx and I realised on our own road trip the previous weekend to Detroit to see Bloc Party that a good portion of the ‘burbs around Detroit were named after English towns. Brighton. Manchester. Birmingham, Pinckney, Chelsea and even a nod to the north with Dundee. If we really were feeling Anglophilic, we could have crossed over to Canada and driven to Essex, Middlesex and London.), where the longs were similarly as long but not as slow. Stuffed with McDonalds goodness, we headed home, arriving nearly four hours after we had got into the car. The two hour ride home was more than doubled and we concluded next time we attempt to go to a show in Detroit, we WILL be double checking with other local events first to see if said show is worth seeing with the hassle of the damn traffic and moronic drivers.
I also came to the brilliant conclusion that damn near every female on Earth wants a Snow Patrol song written about or sung to them. Think about it.
This past weekend, Easter weekend, TheEx and I made plans to travel up north to unwind and just chill. Our plans were shortened by a night as I had a four hour job interview with a local insurance company Friday morning, thus, instead of leaving Thursday evening as originally planned, we left Friday afternoon.
The weather around here has deteriorated from high 60s one day to freezing and snow the next, thus, by Friday afternoon, we packed our winter boots, mittens, and coats and drove three hours north, where the weather was much worse and our plans for a weekend of wine tasting, driving along the countryside, and checking out the 45th parallel were shot to shit.
TheEx and I took advantage of his parents not arriving until Saturday to laze around a Jacuzzi bathtub for several hours, with Tori Amos and R.E.M. piped in the overhead speakers. We watched tv, read magazines, and had the obvious gratuitous sex. Of course. After his parents arrived, nothing much had changed other than we went out to Funistrada for another excellent dinner, capped off with snow angels and watching Ameros Perros, which I had already seen but loved. We drove back to GR early Sunday afternoon to meet up with my family for Easter dinner, chocolate, and the highly anticipated season opener of The Sopranos (whoa baby!).
Though we have only been up north several times, the patterns are already setting in. Pizza the first night we arrive from Bear Paw or Johnny Salami’s. Errands into the village to pick up perishables for lunches and breakfast. Dinner at Funistrada for Veal Saltimbocca and Anniversary Chicken. French toast prepared Lisa way in the mornings. F1 racing or West Ham games in the afternoon. Lots of reading, relaxing, and naps.
And our lives in GR aren’t that much different. We’ve been cohabitating a schedule that somehow works. We haven’t killed each other yet, haven’t had a single tiff as of yet in regards to anything. And it’s weird, in a way, of this whole “living together” because we don’t think of it as living together but as an extended temporary stay. Once the whole “living together” thing is mentioned and we both do the deer-in-headlights look and just shrug our shoulders. We’ve got our routines, our patterns and our duties, it seems. I’ve declared that one night a week is “date night” were we go out and have a date. This weekend we are seeing a hockey game on Saturday night, the following weekend who knows? We now have the McPaper (USA Today) delivered in the mornings and the local rag on Sundays. We talk about days, our domesticity and our plans for future events. Trips that planned, things we want to do, places we want to go and lofty goals that seem within our reach at that bright, shining moment even if they are really just lofty goals.
But we don’t talk about the future, except in hypotheticals. “If we hypothetically get an apartment together,” I said last night as we walked to dinner at YesterDog’s before walking to Billy’s for Mikey’s surprise party, “I would like to hypothetically get a place in Eastown.” “I hypothetically agree with you that our hypothetical apartment should be within a four block radius of Eastown,” TheEx replied. “With a hypothetically large deck for grilling” he added later on that night.
But of course this idea of hypotheticals gets blown to shit when his mother this weekend, in all of her lovable charm and graciousness, asked me quite sincerely, “So Lisa, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?”
Our six month anniversary is coming up in a few weeks and that in and of itself is kinda crazy, weird, and awesome all at the same time. Because I can recall from our first dates, how I tried to break up with him several times because I didn’t, couldn’t predict that we would ever be in the same place emotionally at the same time. Why bother stringing me along after going through a nasty divorce (that is STILL being dragged out by petty mind fucks and vindictiveness)? And apparently, I was wrong (for once, it does happen) and we’ve worked out series of communication and nurturing skills (heh, how professional) that seem to work. And of course not everything is perfect and it can’t be, but, despite my initial reservation, I fall more in love with TheEx with each passing day.
Damn, that took several hours. I have more to update but I have to motor for work.

sassy skirt seeks alliterative ally

Last year, feeling rather despondent about the men I kept meeting, I put up a personals ad. Before doing so, I polled my friends to see what they had to say about me. The following is my favorite response thus far:
“GR woman (No! I’m still a girl, dammit!) who enjoys reading, the arts, travel and the occasional megadose of caffeine seeks a guy with similar interests. I have a fully functional brain, a tall and sexy body and a biting sense of humor; if anything of that intimidates you, sorry, please move along. I am *not* a project, trophy or challenge and I don’t need to be saved; if you can’t take me as I am, please read the end of the last sentence.”
Since 99% of the responses were from moronic twits, I pulled down the ad and went back to the old fashioned method. But since I’m always interested in meeting new people, I decided to put the ad back up. Lucky you.
“So, who am I? In a non-metaphysical sense, I’m a tall (5’11-6’1; depending on time of day and who’s measuring me) bodacious brunette in graduate school. During the day I’m a book pimp, while studying for my masters at night. In my previous life, I was a network engineer for a global corporation (if the phrase “nine billion dollar accounting fraud” means anything to you, you know who I used to work for). I embrace both the arts and technology, and feel just as comfortable discoursing on dead white male authors as I do about bleeding edge technology.
If anything, I’m a dichotomy. You’ve been warned.
I’m a music and movie buff as well as a pop culture queen. Musically, I dig everything from Miles Davis to Madchester to Bossa Nova. Right now I’m in love with Elbow and The Doves. In movies, my taste runs to independents, foreign flicks, and blockbusters. Though lately I’ve been obsessed with zombie movies. Netflix is my hero. I’m also a gaming nut and own four gaming consoles. Tivo has become my replacement boyfriend and my “children” consist of three pugs named after The Addams’ Family.
I’m well traveled, having lived in San Francisco, DC, and Toronto as well as Michigan. I’ve been to Spain, France, Germany, England and Scotland. I have a plethora of piercings (no, you cannot ask where they are located) and twelve tattoos.
I read voraciously and dig just about anything. Unfortunately, my training as an English Lit major has caused me to be a snob about books, thus if you think The Da Vinci Code (or books in a similar vein) is “great” literature, please move along. Big points if you dig Terry Pratchett.
Socially, I hit local pubs and shows with friends, read, catch up on Tivo, playing with my dogs, and writing. I plan road trips in my head, make mix cds for various moods and come up with a 1000 and one ideas that never get seen. I love ethnic food and am game to try just about anything once. I once fell asleep at the opera (I was tired! That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!), but I do like going to the theater, museums and the like. I also like just staying at home playing video games and watching movies. I’ve been known to watch entire seasons of shows in one sitting as well as What I like to do tends to depend on the mood I am in, which tends to shift. A lot.
I’m big on talking, especially debating where I tend to play the devil’s advocate. I’m highly sarcastic and my humour tends to run to the dry variety. If you can’t keep up with me intellectually, then move along please. I’m pretty opinionated and have no problem telling you what is on my mind. I shoot from the hip and usually say the first thing that come out of my mouth, which tends to get me in trouble. Very well-read, though common sense tends to take a backseat sometimes. I can be quite intellectual on some things and a complete ditz on others.
Any other questions?”

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