Relationships – Page 6 – A Most Unreliable Narrator

fire woman

I was having a post-coital moment after sex tonight sitting on the toilet reading stuff (the august 2001 issue) when the article on “how to stratify her to tears…of joy!” caught my eye.
Apparently, in this article, the journalist(s) dis on everything from different positions and tantric and kama sutra saying that in short, none of it works. They blamed Sting for how bad tantric is because part of the exercises is that you have to stare into your lovers eyes for hours before even engaging sex. Also, apparently, ‘dirty talk’ (72%) and ‘anal sex’ (41%) were on the list of ‘kinky things’ people have tried. In the category of ‘kinky things we have tried and didn’t like’, group sex (38%) and anal sex (38%) were the top two things people would never try again. Also listed were bondage, role play and voting for a democrat.
Aha. They polled 1200 Cosmo readers. NOW it makes sense.
In any regard, this recent backlash of going to an almost puritanical stint in the terms of human sexuality is all wrong. Women should be gathering and empowering their sexiness, not turning into boring little boards with boobs. it angers me. yes missionary is fine. Vanilla sex is fine. But even after awhile you start to count the threads in the sheets you are so bored.
I’ve been in this mood lately, since i arbitrarily changed my meds to 75mg of Effexor and 150mg of Serzone. When I was on the 350mg EFfexor and 50mg of Serzone, i was thinking clearly but my sex drive was low. Since mid-july (due to when I was in Michigan and having to ration out my crack), I’ve been on this new cocktail, I’ve been feeling more sensual and sexual. It’s like taking a hot bath after days of having no hot water. It’s a wonderful feeling. I can tell by the change in drugs how my mood has changed and how more confident I feel (Don’t worry Dr. B, I’ll be making an appointment again, I haven’t forgotten) both naked and when wearing clothes. I feel more alive, as it were.
This is of course, bothering Paul, to some extent. I took the initiative and put a personals ad on nerve.com to meet people (no, not just for sex but to just make friends with hello) in the area that i hadn’t already met via work or some geeky type of thing. I wanted to meet people that were of my interest and not just the geeky-types. I was getting pretty fed up with how our social life was resulting in meeting people and Paul chubbing a wood because of all the toys everyone has. Not to say our local friends aren’t great, they are, i just need more.
Which is the story of my life.
At any rate, I’ve been striking up conversations with people via nerve and having a damn fine time. I plan on meeting one in October when both of our schedules are free and another longtime ‘net friend this weekend (i hope) since he is finally getting a divorce from his wife and we can hang out without her getting feisty about it. I’m also going to start taking dance classes next week (adult tap/jazz/ballet) as I haven’t danced in years (not including clubbing) and i don’t want to look like a big dork when I DO go clubbing (thanks alisha!).
So sex is on my mind and today i had shaved every hair on my body i could find, even down to my cunt making it as bald as i could with a bread trimmer and my Venus razor. I get so turned on by shaving, I instantly masturbated after my shower thinking of a lisa sammich. Afterwards, wrapped in a towel and a bathrobe, i walked out to the computer room, grabbing Paul’s hand to feel my hairless cunt, telling him, lets go make some noise. As per usual, he was more interested in Tony Hawk than fulfilling my needs and immediately got upset when I had told him I had masturbated. He accused me of cheating. When I asked whom was I cheating with (we were standing in our bedroom at the time), he said Aaron Lewis (lead singer of Staind, my lust for bald tattoo’d pierced men has come to the forefront again). I laughed. At any rate, I attempted to pin him down this evening for some quality pussy time when he kept giving me the jibe of ‘not right now’, and I’m thinking to myself “you know, fuck this, he always put his computers in front of me and I’m sick of it’, so i said ‘are you turning me down?’ and he said ‘no, just not right now I’m busy (playing a video game)’. so i begged and i pleaded and finally we went to the bedroom and started snuggling.
Paul now has this new habit of where he no longer feels ‘dominant’ or ‘aggressive’ cos he’s not in the mood to be. To preface this, we both have ‘issues/matters/concerns’ with our sex life, which has lead heavy discussion with Dr. B on what to do next. Primarily “was it me or is it him or what the fuck is going on”. Partly, he is scared because anything that is beyond vanilla i tend to get upset at. Riguse anything that is beyond episodes within the last few years and now that I’m on crack, i feel so much the better for it. I learned how to deal with my anger and my depression (as it were), and i want to have more. Nothing so far, is seemingly, working. It’s a huge issue between us, as you have probably guessed.
So by this time tonight, I’m hot and horny again (i have no idea what’s been setting me off lately — my trigger points usually are smells and music, but this time everything seems to be setting me off), and I’m rubbing up and down Paul in my grey little nightie and thong looking at him adorably and telling him I want to go make love (I’m changing tactics here, I’m infamous for wanting to just ‘fuck’). I beg and plead some more and we go off to the bedroom where Paul climbs under the covers and starts being passive. I’m trying hard not to get angry, I’m trying hard to be different in approaching him in anticipation he see’s i really do want him. This continues for a few minutes while I snuggle and kiss him and I feel like I’m ‘forcing’ myself on him. I get his shirt and underwear off and climb on top of him, 69 style, driving my cunt into his face with only my thong to keep him from tasting me. Usually, this works. Usually, he is such a cunt-eater, that even the smell just gets him going. I’m giving him head, notating how I give it and paying a lot of attention to his cock, all the while I’m driving and grinding down hard on his face and he is just …. laying there. He is hard and he is moaning, but he is just laying there. So I reach around, pull my thong to the side and shove my cunt deeper in his face. He finally starts reciprocating. After awhile, I get naked, grab a condom, sit on him and place his hands on my breast. I start just moving my hips only slowly, very very very slowly and Paul is like ‘come here and give m a kiss’ and I’m not in the mood to be kissed, i just want to feel his cock inside of me. I’m grinding away and he comes but at the same time i keep mashing his hands against my breasts and he sighs this content of relief.
I roll over on the bed still hornier than fuck (i have only been able to cum vaginally once, maybe twice in my life) and start to masturbate. Paul has referred me to being male as I roll over and just sleep when I’m satiated.
Sex has been figuring heavily in my mind lately as I’m watching friends of mine divorce or break-up and one of the biggest reasons why is “lack of affection/lack of sex” (besides cheating, but I won’t go into that). I value having a relationship with Paul, but this putzy way we are having sex is driving me crazy. We used to have fun in the begriming (as I refer to as the “Atlanta time”) and now i feel like we are an old married couple. We seriously need to start working on this issue before I stab him or something because I do not want to spend my life with someone who isn’t sexually compatible with me. People get married for all the wrong reasons, and while I may love someone deeply or am in love with someone deeply, i DO however see sex and love as being together and not separate. I never thought, in a million years, of being with someone I wasn’t sexually attracted to, had that intense feeling with, etc and staying with them because i loved them. Physical love needs to grow as well as spiritual love. No more compromises and no more ‘another times’.
the time is now.
x0x0x
Lisa
I’ve moved a lot in my relatively young life. When is started thinking about all the places I’ve moved to, I wanted to draw up a list:

1972 – Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
1972 – Moved from Toronto to Port Huron, MI
1985 – Port Huron MI to Grand Rapids MI – apartment complex
1989 – GR: Apartment complex to my mothers lovers (Chuck) house
1990 – GR: Mothers lovers house to her own house on Paris Ave
1990 – GR back to Toronto, Canada
1991 – Toronto back to Grand Rapids, MI
1996 – GR: Moved from my mothers house in with Danny
1997 – GR: Moved back to Mothers house
1997 – Grand Rapids, MI to San Francisco, CA
1997 – SF: Changes apartments
1998 – Moved to Oakland, CA
1999 – Moved from Oakland, CA to Virginia Beach, VA
1999 – Moved from VB to Fairfax
2001 – Moved from Fairfax to Herndon, VA
2001 – Herndon: Moved across the complex to a smaller apartment

the real me

i could spend an inordinate time filling in the back story of these last few months that have whizzed by pretty fast. but the thing is, i don’t think neither of us really care anymore about the back story, as i always end up trading that in for the current moment.
life has shown me, in the last year and a half, how incredibly sweet and short it is. I’ve discovered that anger isn’t a way to deal with things (I’m an executive goth btw), that you shouldn’t put yourself or let yourself get into situations that make you uncomfortable and you should primarily write for yourself and make yourself happy.
while these are easy words to say, and easy words to write, i know making that first step and that tiny step is the most important one. It’s like when I joined weight watchers and had to admit i was a bit too chubby for a girl my size, and that i had to admit that i used food to compensate for “issues,matters and concerns” that were plaguing my life at the moment.
and that has ALWAYS been my problem, my god i laugh now thinking about seeing my one therapist Charlie back in the old days when I was living in Grand Rapids and he said “your problem isn’t depression, or a mental issue; but men.” And he said it so plainly and to the fact I guffawed at him later on thinking he was full of crap. But when you examine my life and look at all the minute details at it, everything surrounding me has to do with me and or the problem with men. Either I’m pining for them, moving cross country for them or basically injecting some male into my life as making him into the circle that is me is going to change and make everything better.
I would always, ALWAYS give friends a hard time and put this front up about how you should never let a man run you down or let a man run your life and here i repeat the same pattern my sisters before me have done for thousands of years.
And it’s NOT because I’m a femi-nazi and it’s not because i hate men (i generally do like and get along with them more so than with women) but romantically, i suck major dick (ahahahah) at relationships and it’s pretty obvious when I’ve been in three failed ‘adult’ relationships leading up to living with each other that I am doing something wrong.
This is also not to say that the men involved are blameless or that they are the trouble maker, no, it’s me that makes the bad decisions and it is i who must pay the consequences.
Perhaps it’s said that I watch too many effing movies, but the one I adore and comes to mind often is Dream for an Insomniac which I KNOW I’ve mentioned before. “Anything less than extraordinary is a waste of my time.”
I feel love should be like this: passionate, caring, compromising, and willing to do short of murder for that person. Your knees should get weak when you see them and the tension and the chemistry between you and he/she should be thick enough that you can here the cackling in the air. I’ve shared so many moments in my life with someone and felt that, for a brief minute and I want to capture that feeling and bottle it. I want to keep it by my side and make it available to me 24 hours a day seven days a week.
I’ve said this before and I’ll keep saying it till one day i believe it. I feel like I’m fighting for my own personality and discovering who I am. Derrick said after we had gone and gotten his tattoos one night, that they made him feel more like himself and more confident, and he’s right. I like the look of metal after it’s been shoved into my body.
Paul and i are still together and are attempting to work things out. He wants me to promise him forever and a day, and I can’t promise that. A lot of shit got fucked up within the last year of our relationship and I’m not sure where this is going to go. We are not getting married though I do wear the promise ring he gave me until some concrete decisions have been made and some work has been done on us. Things could work out, things could not, it’s all up to the hands of fate.
I remember years ago when I was dating Miguel and he said to me “I love you but I’m not in love with you” and I always though they were one and the same. It wasn’t until as I got older and realized that I have loved many people (and loved many men) but i have been in love with only a scant few. Alan. Danny. Paul in the beginning. I believe that being in love with someone lasts for a lifetime, even if you grow apart. But you can love someone as well and not be in love with them. As I grow older, I see that I care more for about being in love than loving someone and being comfortable in that relationship. I would feel like I was missing out on everything in the world.
Of all the mundane things in the world, love isn’t one of those things you want to fuck up.
———————
As you can see, the new modgirl.net is up. None of the links are working and I’m still working on the back end. I just got really effing tired of seeing the same crap day in and day out and wanting to continue writing and putting it off because I had not done the site yet. Fuck it.
History often repeats itself.
x0x0x0x
lisa

dear old mom

earlier this evening, after speaking to my mom for about a half an hour, i hit the “end” button on my cell with a heavy heart. this has become a common occurrence when speaking to her as of late.
>it seems that earlier this week, when she was visiting my brother in Peoria for his basketball game, she had awoken up the morning after the game with a burst blood vessel in her eye. This was due, i find out from her, to her diabetes and this was not the first time this has occurred. When she arrived home back to grand rapids, she had emergency laser surgery done on her eye to repair the damage.
it was then she dropped the ball to me that she had wanted to up our plans and move in with us this year.
paul and i had talked about this previously prior to the bombshell this evening, and while i accept my mother is getting old and sick with her diabetes, i don’t know if i can accept the responsibility of her issues. i know, that the guilt deep down inside of me is pushing to do this out of fear and out of the fact that it feels like (to me) i neglected my father during his last few years on this earth. i know i know, everyone says it is not my fault and things work out the way they are, but i feel that the longer i fight to save my mother from herself and from killing herself (she was on suicide watch mid-last year), i find myself sitting in my car alone going, “I’m too fucking young to handle this”.
please don’t get me wrong, i love my mother. and i will admit that my fathers death was a blessing in disguise as we have been working on being close as a mother/daughter for the first time in years, i feel like i can’t breathe and i feel like I’m being suffocated every time something close to commitment of anything comes on. it doesn’t matter if it’s taking care of her, or paul or the goddamn dogs, i just want to break free and be alone.
on Friday afternoon, i drove to my shrink’s office with a heavy heart. after my conversation with Dr. B the previous week, i have been more silent than usual. not silent in writing but silent in communicating verbally to those around me. she and i had talked about this all the previous week about how when I’m asked what is ‘wrong’ i say nothing. the perfect example is when i walked into her office that afternoon and she and i sat there doing the “stare” for a good five minutes before i opened my mouth.
in all honesty, when I’m talking to her or to paul, or hell to anyone that cares, when asked what is wrong i always say ‘nothing’ because it is true — there is nothing wrong. my mind is often blank (so i think) and i just stare off into outer space. this has become more apparent as of late and those around me say they want to know what’s up and why I’m not communicating with them.
i don’t have an answer and i don’t have one major issue that if i talk about it, it suddenly becomes this catharsis of “wow, don’t i feel just fucking better”. it just simply, to me, isn’t that easy to discuss.
i had said to paul in many ways i was angry at my shrink for talking about things in the past — because it brought them up to light and it was issues i didn’t want to revel. things that are in the past and better left unsaid. however, my own behavior in the last year or two has shown that keeping it down deep inside is not the best solution, no matter how much i try and say it is. i often tout that I’ve worked past all those previous issues when I know i haven’t. it’s like, as paul pointed out, there are two me’s. the one that is angry and the one that is calm.
this got further discussed between Dr. B and I as I had told her that the words “hurt” “kill” and “stab” often pepper my vocabulary more often than I like. When I don’t like something or feel intimated, i often say “I’ll hurt you” and most particularly to paul “I’ll stab you”. I’ve often had thoughts of hurting people when I was angry and in the past I used to hurt myself. I remember when I was a child I used to sit there with needle and thread and only going through the first few layers of my skin, sew my hands together. I used to pull out big chunks of my hair (often from behind my ears where it wasn’t noticeable) by twisting and pulling. Dr. B. said I sound like a bully and she was right. But why was I acting like a bully?
In my younger years, I was often intimidated by those physically and mentally stronger than me (so i thought). I wanted to be liked so bad that hell, when I lost my virginity, it was due to peer pressure and not due to the fact that i had actually wanted to fuck that guy. Of course, years of beating myself up over it coupled with what I truly wanted were used to punish myself for what i had done.
Dr. B. says that having a vivid imagination or fantasy life is sometimes very healthy. If you do not act out in that fantasy life (you know, like i wouldn’t really stab paul even though I keep using it as a line of defense) it can help deal with anger. Many people say there is a fine line between fantasy and reality — and while often I feel that I often cross that path, acting it out inside my head is often a good release for whatever I’m feeling.
i never understood people who are ashamed or afraid to admit hey are seeing a shrink or are on drugs of any sort to make their lives easier. I have not qualms about facing reality and knowing that i have “issues”.
definitely something to think about.
x0x0x0x
lisa

sadness you crave

before i start ranting and raving, you will notice (if you are paying attention) that i have now put the goddamn cam up again. i don’t know what possessed me to do it other than the usb can i had was pissing me off and i had to have a cam again so up went the old greyscale parallel port one. so you get noire lisa — and yes i really am that pale. you will also see the lisa-patented barrette in action. and yes, i do have a nose, but what do you expect from greyscale?
this will also be a very sad and depressing mea culpa type of piece. if you want to be depressed like me, go look at my list of mp3s that i have currently playing. You’ll be tragic in no time.
this entry will be loaded with irony up the ass. and i think if you only the reason why it’s ironic, you’ll get it. but if you don’t get it, then i can’t explain it to you.
hahaha. that’s just fucked up. but it’s true.
so i awoke this morning with a strange sense of depression. it was weird to me, at least, because when i awoke i was lying on my stomach and i could feel the depression embrace me like a bird flying overhead. in a sense it’s partly hard to describe, but i just felt it slowly come over me and i got up and called myself silly for being a dumbass. this wasn’t depression like “oh god i just want to go and die, my life is so tragic *backofhand to forehead*”, this was just like, i was sad. just very very sad.
so I’ll begin at the begin.
point a: I’m taken.
point b: I’m taken.
someone once said to me you “you are so very taken!”, and i guess being in serial monogamous relationships for the past 10 years can do that to a person. i used to bitch/moan that i never had a bf in my early 20s and now i can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a boyfriend within the last five years.
one of the aspects of having someone being your bitch is that, well, free sex. and the love and cuddling and all the other shit that comes with relationships, including the arguments and the make-up sex and shit.
so yah, then you can like be single and stuff. and being single can be cool cos you can date whom you want and do what you want and you do not have to answer to anyone but yourself and don’t have to worry about hurting someones feelings. but then there is that empty feeling of being alone and not having someone around when you need someone to talk to, and then you get older and suddenly your 30 and the only thing you’ve accomplished in your life is this black book and list of fuck buddies.
okay maybe that is a bit drastic, but you get my point.
[crank! my dream complete!]
i have musing lately how no one seems interested in me. i know i know, i have pauly and i shouldn’t worry about it, but the thing is, as a human, I WANT TO BE ADORED! i want to be worshipped from the ground level on up — but the thing is, I’m taken and i should be very happy that i have someone who adores me, but deep down i know it’s not enough.
i bitch to my friends that it’s always about how I’m treated as pauls other half and as one of the guys, I’m not treated like a person or even better yet, a female. to be honest, that hurts more than anything. i feel sometimes asexual and with no feelings because the only person who seems to appreciate me for being attractive to their eyes is my own bf.
Don’t start picking apart at my logic, cos it will gets you none :]
moving right along, i have guys i flirt with but there is always that very very safe assurance that nothing is every going to happen anywhere along the way. like my friends rob and moe. we flirt all the time and it basically means nothing because we’ve gone from that line of friends to brother and sister. sleeping with them would be like sleeping with your sibling, and i am not from Alabama, so lisa isn’t going there.
Saturday night Ivette and i got all dressed up to drive to Baltimore to see my friend mandyplay with his band at some rinky dinky bar in Fells Point (like 25 people would have been overcrowded for this joint — that’s how small it was). It was a hard won fight with paul to go out that night, mainly because of his age and his lack of driving skills, we haven’t done much of anything since we’ve been to VA — and I’m really hoping that will all change when he turns 21.
So Ivette and i dressed up in bar clothes, not knowing what kind of bar this was, and well, we were overdressed, however, since it was fun to dress up for something other than a special occasion, i didn’t care. Now, mandy pandy is a long standing friend of mine that i met via TLC (go figure — he’s a fan of my site and I’m a fan of his music — much ego stroking here) and we started talking on AOL IM back in the day and he was fun to flirt with, and we had swapped pictures of each other and spoke on the phone and the whole nine yards. I like Mandy because not only was he witty and got my bad jokes, he had the same music tastes as I do (everything Brit baby!). Since Mandy was also from Miami, I wanted him and Paul to meet because I wanted Mandy to fall into the Moe/Rob categories where I could flirt with them and have nothing be taken seriously. I wanted to do things with Mandy without Paul getting into that obessive/jealous category. I just wanted some freaking FRIENDS goddamnit, that were mine and not pauls and mine and not work related. And yah, it felt good to have someone think of me as being attractive.
Silly me to think that.
Being taken and all.
Ivette and I were hanging out at the bar, drinking and watching them warm up before playing and Mandy (as promised) played a few bars of “I wanna be adored” as promised, and I was happy sitting there drinking my sierra Nevada (i had four and was pretty tipsy). Mandy was busy with band stuff so Ivette and I talked about men and other shit, and then the Skydivers played.
Overall, for all the technical problems they had, the set wasn’t half bad — it was pretty good in fact. Mandy and co launched into a full rendition of “I want to be adored” by the stone roses (unrehearsed) and I was so happy I almost started crying (having missed the roses in concert and thusly anything live, even a cover, makes for one happy lisa). After playing the song, Mandy pointed to me and said something like “This one is for you baby!” Shortly after, they finished their hour plus long set, we all headed back into the, what would be called the “green room” and talked.
Something changed — whether it was me or the tension or atmosphere or the fact I kept drinking and chainsmoking, i don’t know what changed. My heart was aching because I had left my cellphone in my car and I knew paul was calling every 15 minutes but on the other hand i wanted to be adored and that is what I came to Baltimore to do.
I went from teasing Mandy to ignoring him and having more fun talking to his bandmates Rand and Mike. It was like I wanted to be adored by Mandy and on the other hand I had a boyfriend and I wasn’t willing to take things any farther than flirting because I valued my relationship too much. But Mandy was pretty much ignoring me and talking to Ivette and whether it was something i blew out of proportion or not, but on the way home I said to Ivette “he was hitting on you, wasn’t he?” and she said “Yes.” I slunked down in my seat and just stared out at the landscape of 95 on the way home to my fiance.
i started beating myself up inside for even thinking those thoughts. For the most part, Paul and I are really happy and I know Paul satiates everything I need, but my own thirst and trouble with being committal drives wedges in us which starts fights, which ends with me curled up in the bed just reading to make the thoughts go away. There are weeks/months that I want the whole happy nine yards with Paul and then i get in moods and I want to fuck shit up.
So i was in a mood to fuck shit up.
Ivette and I waited around like two groupies for them to finish loading mandy’s car. There were talks of grabbing food but by now it was going on 2am and home was over an hour away. If we left at that point, we would be home at 3:30am at the earliest and if we went for food, even later. Paul would be furious and I wasn’t sure how far I wanted to push the line at this point.
[hello frantic frauds of verse.]
Mike dropped us off at my car, in which it was required of Ivette to undo her boot to grab the car key. I jumped in the passenger side, since I had much to drink and drove to meet Mandy back in front of the bar.
When we pulled up in front of Mandy’s car, paul and i were arguing on the phone. He pissed me off so bad i started slamming my StarTec against the dashboard and Mandy just watched wide-eyed. He asked if we were going to go to breakfast with him, and I said no, his royal highness is demanding that I come home now. He said “fine. I’d like to take you two out to dinner some time. ” I said “Who, me and Ivette?” and he said “Yah.” I said “Um, why?” Mandy replied “for no reason, i just want to.” Mandy looked at me and said to call him anytime i needed him and told Ivette to call him too. With that, Ivette pulled a u-ie and we went home.
The car ride, which we were quiet and I was coming down from my drink induced buzz, was interesting. I felt stupid for thinking that getting adored was dumb by someone not your own boyfriend. I was no longer a high schooler looking for the man of her life, I was a 28 year old female preparing to get married to her fiance. I should be fucking happy and given any other person in this situation, they would be fucking happy too.
But I’m not and I don’t know why I suddenly felt sad today.
I of course, being me and all things that are me, woke up this morning with that sadness that just crawled over my skin. I got out of bed and fed Wednesday and thought about it some more. Ivette and I talked about it pretty intensely last night on the way home and she assured me I wasn’t being dumb for being angry and sad at the same time. It is a pretty human concept to want to be loved and adored by others around us. We all want to feel like we are the bomb shit yo.
Thoughts started drifting into my head about this pseudo rejection that had occurred (in my eyes). I hate being rejected by anything, especially men. It does not matter if I want them or not, if they reject me, it hurts my fragile psyche and then starts all the self-doubts that come sliding in (I’m too fat, I’m too aggressive, I’m too this I’m too that).
I hate this shit. It’s so 1986. GAH!
[which you feel is which you are, what you are is beautiful]
I won’t lie and say that a part of me hasn’t entertained the idea of starting something with Mandy if I were single. It has. That’s only human and for me it’s perfectly normal to do the whole “meetsomeoneandlivearelationshipwiththemin30seconds”. But, something always stopped me from even really going to that point. Maybe Paul’s threats of cutting my tits off has something to do with it. I’m not sure.
I know a lot of what I am/have been feeling goes back to that whole shit with Mike Norton back in 1999. When I *assumed* something and Mike rejected me on the play ground in Memphis. That time period takes us back to when Paul got his shit together and finally got the balls to admit he was in love with me, but that is neither here nor there.
I’ve attempted to bring this up with various therapists over the years and the words “responsibility”, “living in a dream world”, “act your age” seem to ring a few bells at this point and time. So they dope me up on 300mg of Effexor and tell me to live a happy and prosperous life.
I’m angry and I can’t explain why I’m angry. I’m sad and I’m pretty sure why I know I’m sad. I feel boxed in and can blame that on a 100 and one different things. Pauls bitching about freethinkers and I wish I had an answer because I know this is only going to keep going on and on.
Paul and I talked tonight and I postponed the wedding till 5/2002. He assured me that we can have the wedding whenever we want and he knows that he doesn’t want to mess with the little girl dreams. I wish I had answers, but only the thoughts of Danny telling me how non-committal I am and how I should just be happy. I’m being overrun by exboyfriends who keep seeing the same pattern and I of course, think I am fine.
not verbatim, but you’ll get the drift – “Why is it that every time something happens, you’ve got to throw up on your goddamn website?” – Jeff Z, another guy I had met via IRC and “assumed” that something was going to happen — got rejected when I was visiting him in Pennsylvania, Christmas 1997.
I’ve got a crack in my heart,
x0x0x0x
lisa

memory lane

October was a freaky month.
>my mother was on suicide watch, i didn’t see the shrink, i got promoted, my brother racked up a few bills, paul started a new job at AOL, Wednesday got bigger, an uncle died, I went to a spa, kethcame to visit.
That is stuff I can remember.
i should have been recording this, i should have been writing this done, but i wasn’t and i didn’t. but it’s a free country and i was getting sick of people emailing me and calling me asking me if i were alive or not, and i am; so i finally sat down and finished this damn thing.
one note on the design, if it looks even vaguely familiar, it was one of the first “professional” designs i had done by a friend of mine nearly two years ago. i realized it looked much better than anything i had done recently and so i modified it and threw it up. tada. aren’t you glad you waited? i also gave up on blogger. it was pissing me off.
rituals
every Friday night, paul, moe and I head to Logan’s Steakhouse. It has become such a ritual, that we even have our regular waitress, whom knows all of our orders and doesn’t bother bringing us menus anymore. We adore her so much, for her birthday, we tipped her 150 bucks. This is how loyal we are to this joint.
Moe ditched us last night and went out to see Circque de Sole with another friend so we got a few other people to come hang out with us. We should have known it was bad when our waitress wasn’t working, the soccer moms had taken over and the wait was nearly 1.5 hours to grab a table. Since we were all planning on seeing Bedazzled after dinner, we decided to take a stroll over to Barnes and Noble to look around.
I knew Moe should have come with us.
As soon as we walked in, I did a double take to to my right and saw someone who looked suspiciously like my ex, Alan. If you would have told me that nearly 10 years after we had started dating I would be having panic attacks about seeing him still and convincing myself he was still the one, in every day reality i would be laughing in your face. When the truth hits the fan, I was hiding behind the audio books watching this guy like some stalker, peering over the racks looking to see if it was him or not.
What was it that caught me off guard? The way he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket.
I’m not kidding.
I wish it were something that would have been more pronounced, like actually looking like him or something else other than flipping this wallet out of his back pocket, but it wasn’t.
That disturbs me.
What is even more disturbing is that I’ve been having slideshows in my head of previous exes in the last decade since I met Alan before this encounter last night. I had a dream last weekend that one of my best friends Josh ended up with me and cheated on me with some girl I knew back from when I was working in San Fran. I’ve been having quick flashes at the weirdest times of guys I’ve dated seriously (and not so seriously) of smells, instances, little things that are reminders of my time with them.
You would think, wouldn’t you, that after all this time I would be over Alan? Why does he keep holding a strange hold over my life.
I’ve been down this route before. i talked about it a couple of years ago when I had thought i had seen Alan at a restaurant Michael and i had gone to.
so realistically, the chances of Alan moving from mi->ca->va the same times i have are very slim to none.
i know this.
but that doesn’t stop the heart beating wildly and the thoughts going crazy in my head when i thought i saw him.
I’m going home to Michigan in December to see my mom and touch base. paul thinks I’m crazy for feeling like i do because this is the here and now — but the really scary part is, i used to think the last 10 years of my life meant something — and i wonder if all this time if i kept myself in some sort of blanket and protection about Alan and i’s breakup — if it was all just one delusion set upon by me?
wouldn’t that be a fucking bitch.
x0x0x0x
lisa

friend is a four letter word

i’m slowly becoming disgusted with my “friends” both locally and online.
i’m not quite sure what’s been setting me off lately, but i just can’t tolerate people who are NOT doing things for themselves. I’m becoming disgusted because my “friends” who seemingly supposed to like me for “me” tend to like me for the fact I have a car, i have money (and often pay their way) and that my house is always open. i recently put an end to one person who was doing that to me (and had found that they were backstabbing me in the process of my and paul’s generosity). i don’t like people who use people and i don’t like the way some of my so-called-friends have been using us.
i brought this up with someone, whom i found out later, was backstabbing me in the back. i was upset and angry after everything i had given this person that they could, with such little disregard, turn around and treat me like this. it was not just me, but paul as well as now that we are together, we are singular entity, not plural.
as i’ve stated before, i’ve had very little disregard for politics and for politicking. in many ways, i’m too honest with my own assessment of myself and others around me to even think about doing this professionally. this singular reason, for being honest, is the reason why i’ve never succeeded in doing things or obtaining higher positions in my previous employment. my old employeers knew, that i knew things about them (their dishonesty, their own lack of moral fiber). this is why i never understood “big business” because half the fucking time it’s kissing some major ass.
no one, simply, wants to hear the truth. we live in this glass world fed digitally by the internet, radio stations, television stations and paper media. all too often, with my 10+ magazine subscriptions coming in a month, my whore-like attitude towards reading online journals and blogs (though i never read that many more than once) and my consumption to know, i feel more comfortable in my little shell. So you can plainly see, why if someone lies to me, betrays me or does anything to hurt me, i cut them off at the quick.
i’ve often been called a cold-hearted bitch because once i break up with someone (rather platonic or intimate), that’s it. there is no more good byes there is no more hellos. i grab my shit and leave.
and that is the the end of that.

pre-honeymoon

do you know the sudden bliss of being able to sit in front of your computer in your undies and not having to worry about a 14yo pubescent boy looking at you? Of course not. But NOW I DO! thank god!
paul’s parents have long come and gone today, taking brian with them for the evening. they probably felt it was best that paul and i were alone since we had not been alone for nearly 6 weeks. we had the usual hot passionate sex in the living room that left us both breathless and while i love brian dearly, i am DEFINITELY not ready to have someone else in this household.
things went really really really well with mommy and daddy sullivan today. so well, i got to drive their brand new 2k durango (it’s in chili pepper red damnit, same color paul and i had chosen) and damn can that baby VROOM VROOM. so it seems i’m in with the sullivan family. i get this weird feeling that they are currently torturing brian all about me, but you know, being paranoid would sort of precedes that. tomorrow (or shall i say today) mommy daddy and brian and i are going to DC for some fun and excitement (while paul sits home and works *winkwinkwink*).
apparently from paul the jury is still out with me. but i mean COME ON here. i’ve got their son being amazingly respectful and polite (training — the lisa way).
i’m a shoe in.
newsies
this is just some quick updates. first off, there has been another rash of non-subscribers to the mailing list (a freaking lull really). but i had to clean it out with some of the bounced messages i got from non-working accounts. please remember there are TWO mailing lists: one where you can *discuss* me or one where you can just get this damn thing by email ever ytime i update. you choose. it’s that simple. no really, i’m not kidding. it’s that simple. and i know the damn forms work because i DID have someone subscribe to it recently :b and hey, if you want off, you need to email me and let me know.
secondly, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, i do own my own webring called indie diary and i have actually gotten submissions for it (big surprise there). since i finally cleaned up everything out of my inbox, the ring is working and ready to go. so go join you idiots!
thirdly, lately i’ve been obsessed with referrers (how people find my site). and i gotta tell you, its damn scary to see how often i come up in serach engines for sex related questions, but not just about vanilla sex, some sick ass shit. since i won’t bother putting those down here (i mean, really, we are talking a few extra thousand hits a month from these damn things — ben is right: i do talk about sex a lot. or enough of something considering one of the bounced email messages i was getting was because one of my subscribers email was being scanned for specific words before relaying on to her. VEDDY INTERESTING). but what i did do, is start linking back to sites that link to me. i have removed search engine referrers, referrers from my other domains, referrers from wired.com and commercial websites and anything internal from modgirl.org. the list is small right now, however, i do know that there were other sites that had me linked that i can’t find now. so if you are linking back to me, let me know and i’ll add back to you. i’m feeling generosity ooze out of my bones today, lemme tell ya. but no seriously. you can see the small list here.
However, this is something pretty cool:
i had gotten added to yahoo.com a few days after i submitted my site to their directory (which from what i heard from some friends of mine is damn quick!). and apparently, if you do searches for lisa diary OR lisa chronicles not only do i come up BUT i come up in the top position. someone asked me whose ass i kissed at yahoo, but to be honest, no ones and i have no affiliation to yahoo whatsover. it’s just kinda neat.
and lastly
i’ve been updating my book enteries as promised. Since i haven’t gotten any feedback from anyone, i’ve been back to buying the same old trash day in and day out and adding it as i go. yes, those books are read one after the other. and yes, i’ve been good on doing reviews for them at epinion.com. i WAS doing them at amazon.com, however, jeff bezos and his cohorts ARE NOT UPDATING THE REVIEWER PAGE. *ahem*. so yah, i thought about doing stuff locally but that’s too much fucking work for me being lazy and all. but i’m also reading cleopatras tome (1500 pages) and its one of those books i read inbetween books. so really, my mind isn’t always in the gutter. so please go search for any of the books listed and read my reviews. i’m just all cool like that.
sub hatched open.
all 118 are believed dead.
aren’t i just full of love this morning?
x0x0x0x0x
lisa

the in-laws

in a scant few hours (less than 12 at this rate), paul and brian’s parents will be descending into the NoVa area. In the same vein that I am comfortable in being me on the other hand, I’m completely freaked out. Generally, as with parents — I haven’t had to meet any for quite some time, I can be quite confident in being “me.” But i’ve been noticing lately, with the changes my body has been taking (yanno — stress) subconsciously i’ve been totally on the wire about meeting mommy and daddy Sullivan.
I don’t know what it is — by all accounts (brian and paul reassuring me) I’m much better suited for paul than his previous girlfriends but if the plan is to marry this man (which, last count I am) then I should feel fine in meeting them. But as the hour grows later and sunlight will be peeking shortly, i’m scared as hell. maybe it’s my own lack of parental influence in my life (as i was saying to jen tonight, i was brought up by my mother to be self-assured and independent. this simple fact, my independence, has been chronicled throughout my life: my mothers journal when i was a mere child and my own chronicles of my life starting when I was still in grade school up till now). the recent death of my father and the new role i’m now playing in my mothers life (as erma bombeck had once said — how does the role of parent to child and child to parent shift so quickly in our life?), i’m finding there is more out there i’m missing on that I hadn’t known. partly due to my own stubbornness and my own quest to be solo in a lot of my adventures that I have taken.
i’ve had several conversations with friends recently about their own lives (me becoming more aware of these people — bad lisa for not being up to date on everything) and they keep telling me “you don’t know what you have till its gone” (about me asserting that maybe i should be living alone for some time) and i recognize that they are right. i don’t know what kind of life i had envisioned for myself but i *know* that without Paul in it, i wouldn’t t be who i was right *now*. I’d be completely different. And realizing sitting on the couch with him just how important he is makes it all worthwhile. Thanks Jen for tonight and for allowing me to recognize what everyone else already knows.
i’ve been doing a lot of reading lately (and I’m currently scarfing down the 1500 page tome on Cleopatra — ugh) and not writing. I’ve always had all these excuses about WHY i haven’t written and with my updating about once a week now (and always on a saturday/sunday — funny that), i keep putting off these projects that sounds so good in my head and i keep using the excuse of “well, brian is in town and i don’t want to start anything with him here as it’s hard enough to keep things together having to worry about him and paul” and yadda yadda yadda.
the last few days, i’ve been feeling more stressed out than ever — not in my body but in my brain (thank you to the makers of klonopin and buspar for making me not so erotic) and my whole sudden attitude of “caretaker” has been taking over with definite scariness. suddenly i was not just responsible for *me* but for paul, brian, my brother and my mother. and here i am at 28, screaming, “what about me!! godammit”. my mother had mentioned a few conversations back that i had changed so much within the time i had left Michigan (a scant 3 years ago — and so much that has happened in that 3 years) and how grown up i’ve become. and it’s true. i have become more grownup in ways i never thought possible. i don’t know when the roles had shifted, but it’s true. and i think that it’s not just a “me” thing but subtle changes that everyone else sees and recognizes in themselves.
so i was thinking today, that today would be a good day to say thank yous, apologies and what not to various people. and while this may sound mushy or cruel and maybe mean, it seemed appropriate with everything going on:
dad:
while you are no longer on this earth, and while i’m still working out the details of your death in my head, i want to tell you as i had on the phone so many times before, how much i did love you and wished i had gotten the chance to know you. i want to tell you that you were important to me as a person and i’m so very sorry i never took the time out to get to know you as i had. i know that you are still with me, as i wear the charm around my neck of your ashes, but i want you to know that your belief in my own abilities and allowing me to explore those possibilities as an adult means more to me than you’ll ever know. i miss you dearly and while i wish you were here on earth for me to say this to you personally, i know that you are at rest and at peace.
mom:
i love you more now then i did when i was teenager (big surprise there). I want to thank you for helping me becoming assertive, independent and being able to voice what i say without being afraid to speak my mind. i want to thank you for being an incredible role model to me for showing me that being a woman of strength doesn’t mean you have to be a bitch. i also want to thank you for allowing me to make my mistakes and recognizing them later on while knowing that i would see the right way later down the road. I want to also tell you that I love you and that I’m sorry for not being more in your life when you needed me and that I’m glad I finally stopped being stubborn and got over the past issues to make the first contact with you. i have realized the importance of family and want to make sure that you are there for me as i plan on being for you for the rest of your life.
jeff:
my big “little” brother. you know me more indepth than most people will ever know and would ever WANT to know. i want you to know that i believe you have the talent and the charisma to do anything that you set your mind to and that while sometimes i may be harsh or “mean” to you, it IS for your best interest 😉 All i want for you to be is successful in whatever you choose to do and that I’ll support you both emotionally (and obviously financially) in all the endeavors that you choose to do.
paul:
my black knight in shining armour. in the short time we’ve been together (going on almost two years now — geez!) we’ve been through A LOT. more so than probably most people go in a lifetime. and through it all, despite our threats that one of us is leaving (its scary when your fights with your SO become the local joke yanno?) people keep saying that there is something about our relationship that makes them want to have one too. we have something very special that you don’t find everyday and i know that beneath it all, it is what keeps us together. I know, that even when you are being a self-centered little prick and I am being a fucking bitch, that we love each other very much. Thank you for being there for me emotionally and physically through all our rough times, for encouraging me to do things other people wouldn’t have the tenacity to survive through and for putting up with all my shit. I love you with each growing day and will always love you with just as much intensity till the day I die.
keffkeff:
probably one of closest female friends i’ve had in a long long time. you’ve become my sounding board in all things men, gossip and general chitchat. i love your vivaciousness, your strength and your quiet charm. your levelheadedness, your ability to relate to me on many different levels often is the strength *i* need to keep me going. I love you like a sister and hope that our friendship remains this close through our lives.
michael:
my non-blood-related brother. i thought of you tonight and because of that spurned this memoir of sorts. i wanted to tell you, mint aside, that i love you and even though we haven’t kept as close contact in recent months as we used to, that you are always in my thoughts. you supported me through so much in the last four years that so many people would not, and like my mother, allowed me to make my own mistakes and to live by them. thank you, from the bottom of my heart for your generosity, your kindness, your humour and your ability to show me what love was really like. i miss you dearly and hope to see you soon.
jen j.:
you’ve become the second female person in my later years that i grew close to. i admire you for your independentness, your cool-headed objectivness and your ablity to let down your hair when needed. you were one of the driving forces for me to get through my day and the sanctuary i needed when i needed someone to talk to. i want you to know that i will be there for you when needed and that i hope we grow closer with time.
moe:
thank you for being you. you are god and the keeper of my domain (literally!). thank you for also being there when i needed someone to talk to and for allowing me to vent when needed. i’m so very glad you moved to NoVa.
rynsey:
you have the best intentions and the best heart. i know that sometimes things seem really hard when they really are quite simple. i think you have the ablity to do whatever you choose to do and i want you to promise me that you will act on those talents and go with it. i believe in you and you will always remain my special lovah!
and now, to say things to people i’m having “conflicts” with:
sillz:
while my words may have stung and i apologize for hurting you, i don’t apologize for the words i had stated. i know that there was probably a nicer way of saying them, but sometimes i’m not a nice person and i recognize this in my own self. taken with what i had said with a grain of salt, we all want you to succeed however what you say to anyone and how you act are two completely different things. we want you to be indpendent and self-serving and i’m worried that you are falling down the trap that most women do. i want you to be happy (i honestly do) but at the rate and path you are continuing on, your true heart desires just don’t seem to be what you say they are. i applaud you for taking the chances that you have on many aspects but while i don’t agree with what you are doing in many areas, the simple chance of coming to a new country with literally nothing in and of itself is extraordinary.
ciannait:
i went to your website today and read something you had posted on the loss of a friend whom you had known that many people loved while you yourself had not gotten along with that person. i thought about our past and while we don’t see eye to eye on many things, i have realised that it seemed silly to continue on with this polite anomosity we have towards each other instead of just putting down the walls and being sincerly honest with each other. I recognize that we may have many things to learn from each other and if i extend the laurel branch, are you willing to accept it?
brendan/sam:
i still have not figured out, in all these months, why sam is so heated against me. in all honesty, i cannot think of one singular thing that i could have said or done that could have pissed her off. this also seems to be a mystery to many others whom you have been friends with in the past so now i’ll ask publically: why? to be honest, i’m tired of all the bickering and gossip that goes on in the circle of people we are friends with. but there has never been a direct conversation as to why. and if one of you can tell me, i’d be greatly appreciated.
FirstWorld/Slip.Net:
I’m still trying to figure out, after nearly a YEAR, why you keep coming to my website. I don’t know exactly what you’ll think you’ll find or simply you find this amusing but it is frightening to me to have the same employers who fired me for “hacking their nt server” (what a fucking joke) has the audacity to keep visiting my site. maybe it’s not the same people but someone else within the company who likes reading this. if that is so, then so be it. but here in lies the irony: i now work for the company you are purchasing your circuits from. In fact, the cheap ass gear you gave to your employees, i handed to the engineer you’ve been working with as a “gift” (he thought it was amusing). You also know, very well, that I had grounds for suite for unlawful termination. However, that would have required me to stay in Cali, which like the horrid two years i put in with your shitty company, was not worth it. Your business ethics, your choice of hiring AND firing procedures (amusing how my exit interview consisted of THEM telling me i was hacking their servers and that i was lowering their morale — how trite can you get without a shred of proof). And it’s also amusing that I was able to confirm your firing decisions from within the company prior to said firing. It is with sheer joy, that I’m happy that tech stocks have gone down.
And lastly to my readers:
I want to thank each and everyone of you for coming here. for reading. for offering advice even when it wasn’t asked for and for simply being there for me as a general consensus. TLC has turned 2 in July, and while it’s birthday has gone without fanfare and digging up archives of the old crap, it is with happiness and some sadness that i am able to be me. thank you all so much. you’ve been part of the family i never thought i had.
x0x0x0x0xx0x
lisa
as to why this was written:
jen and i had gone out tonight for a much needed girls night out. my almost total seculision in the rabey-sullivan household was driving me batty and i had not spent time with jen in quite some time. sitting with her at the table tonight over dinner (and both of us being hit on by the waiter and the gm was amusing to be sure) and telling her for the first time in a long time how i felt on differnet subjects i realised most of my conversations have been taken over email/irc/icq/aim or this journal. i had not told, someone face to face other than paul, how i really felt. after the breakdown of LWE, keth and i had spent some considerable time discussing the weeks events and i realised that most of my information was political: in the sense that everyday when i speak to someone it was with an agenda — no matter how minute. the poltical skills i thought i never had were becoming abundently clear as time progressed. and i really realised sitting with Jen that i really didn’t like the person i was slowly becoming. I was becoming someone who I had never liked — and this realization was becoming more clear with recent events both at home and at work. While i know that i can be incredible hard on people and hit them when i’m feeling defensive (that is one of my more “popular” traits it would seem) a lot of the anomosity that was being stirred up both on irc and in real life was being dumb. i never tell people what i really think of them or what i want to say unless it comes to the breaking point (as danny and paul both say to me quite often: you simply don’t talk). there were questions i had been wanting an answer to and had simply wanted to asked but never did. Paul, in particular, thought it stupid (and i can see why) to keep digging up the past. But the thing is, to most of the people I addressed in conflicts, i am in contact with them in some form or manner — even indirectly. and seeing them, even in a virtual format, brings to minds said thoughts and questions that i never address because it is the past and we should all move on right?
there is no hidden agenda on my part this time. the receipitants can choose to ignore this, which is their right and fine by me if they so choose (and i would not disagree with in being such a public matter) or they can address me privately. i have addressed them publically because i know they either a: visit my website or b: are subscribed to the email version of the journal. i know it will be read at some point or time while this is up. now that i have finally stated what should have been said so very long ago, my conscious is clear and i can move on knowing that i was willing to take the first step. even if none of my questions are ever answered i at least feel better letting them know, in my own way, that this was worth it to write.
and now i slumber.
nini.
x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x

twilight as seen by me

the last few weeks have been a surreal experience. suddenly i’m seeing myself in positions and places and acting in this strange netherworld that i didn’t think belonged to me.
i’m in this very strange place and it’s called being 28.
the rock and the hard place — the times i told paul i was leaving and today i come home and he prepares a bath for me, makes me a screwdriver (75% oj, 25% absolut), and lets me soak away the stress with harry potter (cause for divorce? she reads harry potter your honour). exes swinging back into your life and everything else in between.
brian’s leaving here in a few weeks. both paul and brian have been bugging me for “what do you want” as their mom wants to buy me something for taking care of brian and of course of pauly. taking care of someone is second nature to me. it feels that way. its like all those times i never asked for help and now i’m giving it and asking for it.
jeff and i have been going through some rather intense conversations lately on the status of my mother. the other day he and i spent an hour on the phone while i flipped around my sparc at work doing stuff. it was so much easier with a headset on to work and to talk. and my mom. at 58 she’s struggling with things i’m going through now and i want to reach to her and say it’s okay because i’ve been there. and she says to me “i cannot ask for help.” and before when she did ask for help, i ignored her because it was what i did best. and i kept coming home from work this week thinking about her and calling my brother. she’s broke. her job screwed her over. and i said JEFF! i buried one parent this year, I can’t go through another one. I just can’t.
sometimes i want to be free. i’ve always felt like a bird. relationships were temporary, measured by months and years invested and shuffled away to another spot where i couldn’t access them. and i think about all of them all the time. alan. danny. justin. and i wonder what they are doing right now at this very point in time and i wonder if they are happy? and i wonder why i care so much.
andrew said to me tonight ‘it always amazes when people think it’s so hard to find me.” and i said “get over it, i’m in my happy place” someone remind me, if i ever meet him, to bring him a box of crayolas.
love is blind.
love is good.
i had always envisioned that when *I* got married and had kids, i would have a family i never had. i wouldn’t have the bs and the bullcrap i had gone through. and i would create this stable environment where they could feel like they could belong. when i’m trapped i keep giving myself this out. jeff told me to set up seperate bank account and start saving money and if paul pissed me off, i would have enough to leave. and i’m thinking “yanno, it can’t be like that. we are in a relationship and yah things can get horrid but that is normal” but i run run run run run run when things get horrid and here i am.

bodice rippers

brian and i had been walking around bNn tonight (last night?) when i confessed my passion for bodice rippers. jackie collins, judith krantz — the whole strong woman whose been beaten, raped, damn near mutilated but by the time she’s 30 she’s the owner of her own successful company, beautiful, thin and perfect to the bone. And, you can’t forget, that in the end, she always gets her man.
i think those damn things are probably part of my problem. though i haven’t admittedly picked up a good old fashioned bodice ripper in ages (though jackie collins has released a few new books and i’m trying really hard not to read them), it brought to mind tonight after having sex with paul, part of my problem.
you see, i’m a reader. a voracious one at that. some freaky guy in texas has been keeping a book list since he was like four (there is of course the obvious link but i can’t find it now). and most of what i read, obviously has impact on my thoughts and feelings. and i’ll read anything, that i will, being the book whore that i am. i’ve already finished harry potter and the sorcerers stone and have books 2 and 3 on order with amazon. books by f scott fitzgerald, terry pratchett, and a biography on cleopatra sit on my bedstand (amongst others).
this all has to play about my idea about love and romance.
of fucking course (you knew this was going to be cliched didn’t you?)
i’ve always had this ideal — this man, who would come and take my blues away (like calgon — but with a penis). and every man i have ever dated and met has always lived short of that ideal because DING DIN GDING he doesn’t really exist. but he’s safe enough to make real and happy because then no one can touch me.
except for paul.
paul is a lot of wonderful things. pauls is also a lot of nasty things just as i am full of wonderful things as well as some very horrid things. for the last few days i’ve been in a snitch about something. there is no rhyme or reason to what i’ve been being in a snitch about just that I have been and that is important to this dialogue.
paul once said it would probably would have been better if i had a guy that was just a dog. because then that way everyone would be happy and i would stop bitching.
which is to say, that i say i want one thing and expect something else entirely.
(and this would suffice to say go on with the rant on why i generally hate the female species but i won’t go there).
I keep forgetting that relationships take work. and they take time to mature. i’m not talking about the passion here (insert oblig REM reference), i’m talking about understanding, love, friendship, and trust. Most, with me, does not come easy. YOU HAVE TO EARN IT BABY!
So yeah, i totally hate our media. i keep thinking of the “friends” episode where monica proposes to chandler, and i’m thinking “why don’t I have that?” and then it takes a ton of bricks to realize that i do have that. Pauls not fucking perfect. Well, neither am I. but together, we are perfect.
We have our bad days and we have our good days. and some days are better than others. But the thing is, we want to make this work. We want to make this relationship — really last and not be a flash in the pan of lust and hot sexors every night. And that some days I’m gonna want to either love him to pieces or rip his penis off and other days he’s going to want to chop my tits off.
BUT THAT IS US.
I mean, that is us, in a nutshell. because we are a real couple with real feelings, everything gets amplified. this isn’t something that is going to be solved on page 10 and our relationship isn’t going to end when the sweeps are over.
and that my friends, is what i can’t gel in my betty paige looking head.
like most people in america, i’m deathly afraid of commitment. but i’m also deathly afraid of being alone with 10 cats. i’m afraid of making the wrong decisions, the wrong choices and the wrong everything. i want my life to be a bodice ripper where everything gets worked out and my whole world will be boxed up neat and clean and set off by page 300. but real life isn’t like that. and that’s what i need to learn. that paul isn’t some schelp that i can abuse/use and that i’m not some sextoy for him to abuse/use. and we are both slowly coming to terms that that is what the problem is and that is what is making it scary and wonderful all at the same time.
because we are willing to make a stand with ourselves and willing to say hey, we love each other. this is going to work.
there are a million and one reasons why i love paul. and the best one i can think of that describes how i feel is that when my face is smushed up against his chest, THAT is home. it’s not the things around us or where we live or where we stand geographically to each other. it’s how i feel when he’s wrapped around me at night. what keeps me sane, through all my turbulent moods especially when it comes to men and relationships, is how paul treated me when my father died. his love and his understanding was what i would have wanted IDEALLY that having it happen was a dream come true.
the bottom line is, most people don’t know how to make a relationship work. because it’s hard. because it requires you to care about someone else and to provide for that person and frankly, i don’t think most people, hell adults, can make that kind of relationship work.
If i were to choose any one couple that best suited paul and i, i would have to say he was my rhett butler to my scarlett o’hara. but to those of you who are hip to GWTW, you know that Rhett leaves her at the end of the book. WRONG! In the sequel Scarlett, she does get her man.
Like me. 🙂