The Minutiae of Life as a Militant Squirrel

Yay, almost two years since last post. Jeez, it's not like I'm doing anything useful with my life.

Sometimes, I think that in a former incarnation, I was a magpie: easily distracted by all things bright and shiny. Or maybe I just don't want to grow up.

Monday was my birthday, and I am now officially middle-aged at 46, I am told. Who decides these things? Other than various health problems, I still feel like I'm twenty-one. SO THERE. Not much celebrating going on, unfortunately, and I'm a wee bit disappointed that I did not get to enjoy a cake THE SIZE OF A VOLKSWAGEN at work, but I'm trying the gluten-free thing anyway. I should probably stay away from cake, heh. So I guess it's just as well that nobody brought anything, even if it made me pout at the time. I did get a celebratory cheeseburger and cherry pie a la mode at the local diner with Mom, so that was mightily awesome. My friend Amanda flew out from Wisconsin this week and we're getting together tonight, wheeeee! I'm leaving work shortly so that I can catch an early bus.

Tomorrow, Stoli goes to the groomers' to get all gussied up in preparation for Take Your Dog To Work Day, which I JUST NOW discovered is actually on June 26, not June 19. MOTHERFUCKER. I've been functioning under this misapprehension for MONTHS. Well, it's probably better for Stoli to have the extra time to calm down; she's so high-strung. Anyway, since Amanda and I are going out tonight and will probably stay out late, it will be nice to have an extra hour or two to sleep in the morning. It will be even nicer to work from home until it's time to pick up the furball, and then I only have to go in for the staff summer picnic. Woot!

Fannishly, I'm voraciously reading Teen Wolf fanfic, Sterek pairing. Don't ask me why... I haven't watched the show since Season One. I'm not sure if I'll ever get my writing mojo back... it's depressing to think that the well has run utterly dry, but it's been so long since I felt that spark of creativity, I've just about given up hope. I'm reading more and watching less, weirdly.

Hopefully, in my next posting, I will remember to talk about how our entire department was packed up and shipped off to the wilds of East Falls, inside of two weeks. Bit of shock, that.

Hope everyone's having a decent time of it. Cheers!

I've found myself thinking a lot about Kristin lately, probably because it's been about two years now since she divorced me, and let me tell you, just because you're hetero lifemates doesn't mean it can't be just as real and miserable and agonizing as any other terminated relationship.

I don't think a day has gone by in these last two years when she hasn't crossed my mind at least once, even if it's just to think, I can't believe she's not around any more. We were part of each other's lives for twenty-five years, with all the history of growing up together and going to school together and shared holidays with our families.

For the first few weeks, I didn't think I'd ever breathe again.

And then, weirdly, suddenly I felt like I hadn't been breathing at all for a long time, and now I finally could.

That's when I realized that this divorce had been coming for a while, a couple of years at least, and maybe I was just too stupid to see it. I knew there was emotional and physical distance between us, but I had been the one who moved, and so I thought it was me who had to try harder. It never occurred to me that maybe there were bigger problems and she was just using the move as an excuse to push me away.

Now, suddenly, I didn't have to make myself call her and be secretly glad that I got her voicemail. I didn't have to dread any more that she would call me on her way home from court at some point and I'd have to cut her short after an hour because it was it was 3pm and I'd already taken my lunch break, having waited for her as long as I could, then have to hear that tone when she said, "Oh, of course. You're at work," like I should somehow have known exactly when she planned to call. Especially when, in the same conversation, she'd probably already have told me about the three calls she made before she got to me: the three calls that could have waited, and then I could've talked during my break and it wouldn't have been a big deal.

I didn't have to hold my Friday nights in abeyance for her, just in case she decided that she felt like following through on what used to be our traditional night of the week to get together. I didn't have to worry about saying something politically incorrect in front of her pretentious law school friends, or of violating some kind of behavior that she'd later insist she told me about when she had, naturally, done no such thing.

And most importantly, I didn't have to worry any more about why she divorced me in the first place.

Yeah, she never told me.

I got six weeks of the silent treatment before she deigned to pick up the phone one night. Then she screamed at me about how awful I'd been and how embarrassed I made her, and I basically had no idea what she was talking about, but went into automatic crisis mode anyway.

See, I learned something a long time ago with Kristin: her competitive drive overpowers EVERYTHING. Then she went to law school and got four years of training in how to win at all costs, and I just never felt that I could keep up in an argument.

I mean, really, think about it. I could argue with her until I was blue in the face, and whether I was right or not, she would STILL end up backing me into a corner and forcing me to say I was wrong. So then what? Apologize? Grovel? Whatever. Why not, I figured at some point, just skip the HOURS OF UNENDING TORMENT and go straight to the said groveling apologies? Made more sense and was certainly better time management, I thought. So for the last ten years, I stopped arguing with her when she got angry with me for any reason, just backed right down and, like a guy who doesn't understand why his girlfriend is mad but knows he'd better buy flowers and chocolate anyway, I just started apologizing until she got over whatever her snit might have been at the time.

Looking back, this may not have been the wisest method of dealing with things.

And yet, despite still feeling somewhat melancholy about the whole thing, I still can't help but to feel almost . . . glad?

I wonder if other people who have gone through divorces feel the same way.

I'm sure she feels she had valid reasons to be angry with me. I'm sure she even thinks that she made those reasons clear to me. And I know that it takes two people to ruin a relationship, whether it be a marriage or friendship or life-partnership like I thought we had. I'm not easy to love, but neither was she.

And sometimes, I still miss her.

It took me three hours to get to work today, in large part because I stumbled across an accident that must have just occurred . . . an SUV, flipped and still spinning slightly, while the two guys inside managed to actually get the doors open, crawl out, and WALK AWAY.

Talk about lucky days.

I hope those guys went and bought lotto tickets later.

*************

I caught most of the second half of the surprisingly awesome King Arthur last night. The Saxon leader had all the best lines, I thought.

The hands-down winner? After Arthur comes out alone to meet him and threaten his life?

Cedric says thoughtfully: So, Arthur. Finally. A man worth killing.

*************

I got a baby laptop from my daddy for Christmas, yay!!! It's the most adorable little netbook ever!

The only thing I would change is that I would have preferred it to be in my favorite color, red, but you know . . . horses. Mouths. Gifts. Whatevers. I figure I can just get it a red jacket.

Hopefully tomorrow there will be enough time so that I can load it up with fun stuff while I'm here at the office. By which I mean fanfic, of course.

*************

Today I made sure I brought my lunch like a good squirrel. Turkey leg and side of frozen veggies, yum!

Then lucifrix happened to mention in passing "cheese fries" and of course, I'm all like, twist my arm why don't you.

I'm SO easy.

It's just like when someone mentions Chinese food and then that's all you can think about for DAYS.

*************

My Atlanta Falcons won this weekend, in large part I'm sure because the game was not televised anywhere that I might happen to watch it and jinx them. On Sunday, though, I found myself wondering aloud, if you were the three-and-eleven Tampa Bay Bucs, and you're playing the New Orleans fucking perfect record Saints . . . seriously? Do you even show up?

And then they managed to trounce the Saints THOROUGHLY. That was AWESOME.

Of course, later on I found out that the Saints got smashed up the week before, too, which also made me a happy camper, as I bear a Falcon fan's unreasonable seething hatred for our chief rivals.

I still think we should be in the playoffs. Dammit.

*************

Tonight I am meeting Aunt Jinny's partner Claire for dinner and discussion about some problems I think I'm seeing with my mother: above and beyond the usual she-drives-me-crazy kind of problems. I have to make sure I set aside some time to organize my thoughts, as I mean for this to be serious business and not a bitch session ( because after all that is what I pay a therapist for ).

Aside from her general clinginess, Mom's become increasingly withdrawn, fearful, and certainly hostile. She's hit pretty much every one in the top ten of depressive symptoms, and I'm sorry, but I am not psychologically or financially equipped to take over her life ( which I suspect is actually what she wants, anyway ).

Maybe it makes me a bad person, but I am not prepared to run my mother's life for her, just so that she doesn't have to think.

Claire is a doctor, a geriatrician by specialty, and as a family member as well as a medical professional, I'm hoping that she can help me to come up with some kind of game plan that doesn't necessarily involve me being the sole focus. Because I already know I can't handle it, and that's why I'm asking for help.

*************

I defy anyone to watch this and not at least sniffle a little. I'm pretty sure my ovaries were going to explode. But there's something about the whole soldiers-in-Iraq thing that really gets me.

Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure I'm going to hell for it, but when the umpteenth overbearing and pretentious relative said with false sympathy to me at Christmas, "Oh, and no boyfriend again this Christmas? I'm SO sorry," like I had FUCKING CANCER or something, I totally LIED LIKE A RUG and said, "My boyfriend's in Iraq. We're planning to celebrate once he makes it back safely." Cue SADFACE.

And cue annoying aunt-by-marriage doing silent fish impression and then running for the hills.

I just . . . there's a limit to how much patience I have for educating people, you know? And I've been trying to explain for YEARS now why I'm happy being single. I just had. Had. ENOUGH.

*************

So, in recent weeks, I've been *gasp* writing Vampire Diaries RPS slash, because seriously, that is possibly the hottest brothercest since the Winchester boys. ( Although it puzzles me as to why my muse went the RPS route. )

At any rate, I've also become weirdly fascinated with . . . wait for it . . . Adam Lambert.

Why? You may well ask.

I blame astolat and her fucking awesome fic.

I draw the line at actually watching that stupid show, though.

*************

Well, that should do for now. I have notes to make and, in essence, a dinner meeting for which to prepare. Then I will stagger home, probably slapping myself in the face in order to stay awake on the drive, and try to catch the end of the Badgers' bowl game.

Five o'clock is going to arrive all too early tomorrow morning, I'm afraid.

The thing that sucks about being "hetero lifemates" is that sometimes you still end up getting divorced after twenty-five years together.

An old friend of mine dropped by this afternoon for a visit . . . and only just left.

It was a strange, almost surreal evening, despite the fact that we never ran out of things to say -- the way one often does with a grown-distant friend.

I mean, it was nice to catch up and everything, but I found myself thinking so much of the time, "This just doesn't feel real."

He's come a long way, character-wise, since I was seventeen and halfway in love with him. Hell, I've come a long way myself. You wouldn't know it now to listen to me, but I was *so* timid and shy in high school . . . I don't even recognize the person I used to be.

Roy was the skinny kid who wanted to be tough, so he took karate and learned to kick ass -- and hasn't ever used it.

Me? I've been in more fistfights than I can count, in the last ten years or so.

Roy's much more settled, centered somehow. He seems to have made his peace with a lot of things, including himself.

I'm getting there. I can't say I'm completely happy with myself, but then again . . . I've admitted that I'm a work in progress.

Thirty-four isn't such a bad age to be figuring things out.

So I don't know if it's just that it's been so long since we've talked that I've completely lost my sense of connection to Roy, or whether we've both changed so much that we can no longer be friends and will just drift apart. The crush is long gone, and I don't miss it; it's not like I'm harboring unfulfilled hopes.

Maybe it's only that we're different people now and we have to get to know each other all over again. After all, it's been more than five years since we've even spoken or written letters, let alone visited. Our lives and loves and dreams have changed. In some ways we have more in common; in other ways, less. I guess it will just take time.

Well, he's stationed here for six months. I'm sure that even we two, notorious Gemini procrastinators that we are, can manage a few more visits during a half-year's span of time.

So now, of course, I am wide awake when I should be sleepy, and I left my anti-depressants ( which act well as a sleeping aid ) upstairs. I don't feel like crawling up the steps on my butt just to grab a Lexapro. I tried to hook up the VCR so that I could watch "Bend It Like Beckham" before it has to be returned to Blockbuster tomorrow, but for some reason I can't get the fucking connection to thread properly. And now my fingers hurt from trying.

When I rule the world, VCRs and other such equipment will simply plug into the necessary jacks. None of this male-female coupler junk.

Meh. Off to read fic. Not like that will do anything except make me hot and bothered, but maybe it will lead to happy dreams.

God, what a weekend!

( Travel and museums and sex toys, oh my! )

What an awesome weekend. ::: enormous grin ::: I feel incredibly refreshed.