| sunday hometime: relationships; rd28 |
[Jul. 9th, 2006|11:44 pm] |
| [ | *part* of my current mood is: |
| |  contemplative | ] |
| [ | soundtrack of the moment is: |
| | inhead, Tine Turner, "What's Love Got To Do With It?" | ] |
aftershower deodorant application moment: j has left me her white-and-lightblue dove unscented sensitive skin fragrancefree invisible solid 2.6oz 74g 2.99-yellow-cvs-pricetag deodorantstick (Unilever) to finish, because she rolled the tip up a bit too high above the rim one morning this past week and it snapped off and is all crumbly and yucky now -- that happened to her last fall too -- so i have just finished off a stick of her deodorant (seems a shame to waste, and it's unscented, which works for me; powderbabyfresh morningjasmine would feel goofy, but i might do it anyhow) --
i noticed, while using it for several days recently, that it had snapped off partly because it had gotten down to the little plastic prongs that hold the stick in place, had snapped right at the point where the prongs end -- no point telling her, because she's off this brand and style now anyhow, and would probably see any analytical comment as an implicit noodgy criticism that she could have avoided snapping it off by being more careful or something -- but i actually think it's a design andor stick formulation flaw -- still, i didn't actually see how far above the rim it was sticking up when it snapped; she probably lost or discarded all or some of what snapped off...
my own deodorant could easily wait the two or three days left in hers -- it's the same stick i've been using since roughly september, likewise from the cvs -- New Speedstick 24/7 Non-Stop Protection Clean Blast Deodorant 3oz 85g by Mennen (Colgate-Palmolive), the one a. likes/liked the smell of (it was the thing that was onsale at cvs when i was out of the prior stick...) -- given the discussion a. and i last evening, it strikes me this morning that even though the most intense part of our relationship ran nine months, a full gestational period as it happeneth, early october to late june, the nearly daily deodorant stick has now endured longer -- one of life's ironies -- sometimes if i know i'll be home alone all day i deliberately let my armpits reset, or something, by not using it that day -- but still, it must get used a good five times a week, and that for maybe ten months now, on the low twenties of uses per month, probably somewhat past 200 by now -- and it's still not gone; with these sticks it's hard to discern from the design how much is left till the bitter or unbitter end -- still, must be getting close, really, though; the thing definitely feels quite topheavy at this juncture --
***
right after j leaves to let the dog pee across the street (i'll catch her up in a sec), i look at her predeparture suggestion in her walletslot for a bill to pay for the sunday times -- her purse with halfpropped wallet peeping out are right there on the diningroom table -- and as i fetch a five i spot a postcardformat flyer i got in the mail in june -- what's that doing there, it was by my computer after i got it and i'd not noticed it missing --
it and an adjacent slip of paper prove upon a moment's examination to be two phonelists, from the last two times i've left my phone attended (when i fell asleep a week ago thursday evening about 9pm, and some other occasion when i forgot it at home during an a. weekend two months or so ago because j had my schedule all discombobulated that day and i rushingly left without it while trying to make a bus and boat) --
on later inspection, they're lists of numbers out of my call logs -- i am annoyed, and take them both, at least for the moment --
the one from earlier this year is a slip from the scratchpaper pile just inside the kitchen door, with lists of phone numbers in pencil from my three call logs (incoming, outgoing, missed), and annotations next to each one:
no ans., A--------'s cellphone, some guy, not working, foreign voice, work, TSC [car insurance co.], "good news" doesn't go through, Sprint, car service --
and rnl's number, which i have not called since last july but is still in my phone in a june 05 incoming entry because i will actually flatout pick up such a small number of different phone numbers in the course of a year rather than letting them go to voicemail for id and triage, and meanwhile the system automatically stores the last twenty numbers of incoming pickedup calls: rnl's number has a j-jotted arrow next to it, but no name; ok, rnl changed to a noname novoice generic electronic greeting in march 05 after j found out her cell number when rnl suggested i leave a when-i'll-be-home msg for j from her cellphone before i had one, and then of course rnl freaked when she got a call the next day, even though i'd warned her that night to take her first and last name off her message for awhile in case j got the number off caller id or something and called her, but rnl had poohpoohed my concern -- yep, call me cassandro -- and does the arrow mean j called that number, or not? or that she recalled whose number it was, or not? whatever! wonder if there's no name still on her message from a year ago; haven't called it since before i went to zurich late last july, but then again she's probably still playing warcraft constantly and has had no energy or sufficient inclination to do anything with her phone greeting --
anyhow, continuing our catalogue of cell log rape (boy, has j gotten angry over the years if she ever thought i was even accidentally finding out some small crumb of information related to her that she just didn't want me to know... ok, we humans are hypocrites, stop the presses, now i win a nobel prize for humanchemistry...) -- hmm, the robineggblue postcard that i hadn't noticed had disappeared from next to my keyboard -- i think i must have left my cellphone there that night i fell asleep for a few minutes, definitely under half an hour, on the couch, and the card must have been close to hand at a moment when, sneaking in my room twenty feet from the couch i was dozing on, she'd have figured i might well waken any second and catch her -- no time for anything not immediately to hand -- and it's a much shorter list, bet she only wrote down a quick selection of more intriguing numbers, or was interrupted by me stirring and gave up after a few -- here are her notes [and my comments in square brackets]:
[her own cellnumber, crossed off], some man [greg notes that it's actually her own cellphone number from the period of late 04 till very early 06 -- how soon we forget...], [my work number, crossed off], Diamond Management [probably some audit or sitevisit i did where i had to do a precall; that happens a fair amount], [some other shop-assignment-related number not crossed off or annotated], some woman --
ah yes, i recall that last one: someone emailed me the friday before last and asked why someone was asking for me at her number; j actually called that number up and asked for me there, first name and last name, and i had to explain to j, a day or two later on a morning dogwalk, that it was sort of embarrassing and silly to have me emailing and explaining that my wife was looking through my cellphone and calling up numbers to check on me: but i wonder whether that made me look better, or worse, or some of both, to the person called? and i also wonder if j was chagrined about having done that and getting called by me on it, and likewise whether she believed what i told her about the quizzical email i'd gotten about it -- she seemed like she believed me, but did it make any impact really? well, she doesn't have a romantic life of her own or even an approximation, all her choice, how she's dealt all the cards, so why wouldn't she glom onto the one that she left me to create independently? besides, as she says, 'all's fair and sometimes i want to know what i want to know so i know where i stand' -- that of course is when she's not saying 'i don't want detail! do not tell me!'
enough on that! shit! wonder if i should put the two listbits back or not? they're hers after all -- keep them for a bit and let it percolate...
***
no starbucks this morning, j decides -- instead, the same bakery coffee cheesecake place from last sunday, where j argued with them about giving her a weensy baby cheesecake when she'd previously gotten a large slice from a real one -- this week, no cheesecake; better for me, anyhow, not as strongwilled as i'd like to think sometimes (though i try) -- just double espresso (me; i like my flavors straightforwardly intense sometimes, with fakesugar to balance the coffeebitter component), j cappuccino with cinnamon (caffeine version of what barkeeps call a 'girly drink,' but i like it too now and then; italians invented stuff like that, latte and so on, to get kids to drink coffee) -- anyhow, yet again bribing me for weekend home, she buys -- and meanwhile the dog likes sips of both drinks on the sidewalk outside the store, laps them up from first a small puddle of espresso i pour just outside the door on the citywalk, and then from the other side of the table a spooned dollop of cinnamon milkfroth on the lickspot -- the tops and bottoms of the opened and emptied fakesugar packets skitter quite an impressive distance really across the floor, under the effects of the ceiling airblaster --
but before that, thirty seconds after we enter and sit, a greyhaired uppermiddleclass guy comes up from another table inside to ask about basenjis -- all the attention ones gets with this dog; i'm so unused to being a trendoid, but it seems these things are taking over the world all of a sudden: "is that one of those basenjis? african or something? is it true they're barkless?" etc. etc.
and just three minutes later a large lady in bathing suit and knit top with her daughter in swimwear pause to canineinteract, as initially invisible hubby buys some version of sweetened white flour from the counter at the rear of the store -- the littlegirl wants to play and talk, but mom says dissaprovingly-trainingly: 'they're reading their newspaper!' and drags her twenty feet down by the door that hubby will emerge from -- but two minutes later the pair are back, mother apologizing that her daughter saw i wasn't really reading the paper, as mom had claimed, and hence had insisted on returning for more dogtime: cute --
the whole time i'm sitting there, i jot pre-lj notes for this morning's and yesterday's events upside down over the top of the masthead and then into the lightblue water-dominated photo above the fold on page one of the morning's nytimes --
on the way home, j stops in the cvs and i hold the dog: bored with the brick side of the building i leant upon eight days back, i pace twentyfive feet to the fence side of the property, to lean against the white but slightly raindirtied fence -- and with a squeak and a lot of give it informs me it is simply a symbolfence, a sixfoothigh aesthetic prop, not strong enough to protect and defend (fence/fend), as a wooden fence might once have done: it's barely strong enough structurally not to blow over in a bad storm, wouldn't really support my full leaning weight without major torsion: cheap, thin, and hollow as it is, it is able to stand there looking like something it isn't quite: and in this place and time what would be the point of de fence --
i talk to and partly tease the dog, who whimpers and whines and pulls if j disappears for longer than he feels she should -- "anxiety! anxiety kitty! you're anxiety kitty! o no, separation anxiety! it's horrible! poor baby! little woosboy! you're so damn tough, aren't you, killer? waaaa waaaa waaaaa, give the baby a bottle" etc etc
***
cut from 10am or so to 4pm or later: j offers to do laundry, which normally i do separately: she says she has a nearly empty load about to go in -- so i gather things and nearly find myself giving her the summer robe and pajama pants from the black bag i brought home from midwood last night, but then i recall and check: yep, they smell so smoky -- nope, forget that, pretty likely to become an issue -- i hide them instead, making a mental note at several points over the next hour not to forget to wash them next time, while giving her instead a couple of stray pants and shirts from the week that i didn't do on friday, my only homealone day during summer term --
***
dinner argument -- rd28:
let's try it without the dialogue format i think i have always or nearly always used since beginning this intermittent series in january 05 --
after figuring it'll be ok, she's acting pretty good today and this weekend, i decide simply (i.e., without checking, or feeling out, or asking permission, like intimidated woosboy of old) -- simply to give the dog my empty saucesmeared pastabowl to lick on the livingroom floor (she knows i have diabetes and eat very little carb, to good effect over the last year, but still always fixes pasta for dinners, just as she always did: goes back to italian grandma sunday dinners i attended a few of in the early 80s; well i rarely have more than one or two meals a week with her these days...) --
anyhow, she starts right in: he's my dog, you're training him wrong, he should only eat in the kitchen -- she's always been into avoidance rules, got it back when she was dumping mom's booze down the sink --
i stay calm, not upset, stand my ground: basically i say she can follow that rule if she wants, but why do i have to do the same? i don't make her try to follow my rules, i point out -- i note that she gets very annoyed if she thinks i'm saying something that constitutes 'telling her what to do' even if it's just my own analysis and not being stated as action-conducing let alone hortatory or normative or mandatory --
but she insists that her rules must be followed, and that i not only have to say they're fine for her and not necessarily bad at all, but that i should say, right here and now, that i will follow them, and that they are the only rules any reasonable person would follow -- why hadn't i seen that all along (i exclaim sarcastically, clapping hand to head) --
angry, she counters: you never listen to me, that's why your life is a mess: i'm reality based, you're stubborn and won't listen --
etc. etc. etc. -- limitations of memory mercifully keep this concise, but i have had this same basic discussion several hundred times in the last decade? fifteen years? with variations, quartercentury? only i tend to approach my side of the argument differently now: twenty years ago, it was logic i emphasized: in the last five years i have tended to emphasize the interpersonal inappropriateness and selfdestructiveness of being so assertively controlling -- but just because you are good with words doesn't mean you get your debate opponent to agree that she see things your way -- cementbrain, as she used to call her grandmother when annoyed with her -- sokrates learned dialectic from arguing with xanthippe, though, so what the heck --
***
still mulling a. conversation last night; not done; but since we're on relationships and relational stuff today, it seems, this much did occur to me: not late in the evening, because that annoying j conversation was distracting me from dinner till bedtime (she acted nice later in the evening, as if nothing had happened; she's kind of nuts, really) -- but definitely i was thinking about this stuff with more equanimity earlier in the afternoon:
let's look at the big picture and the history a little --
i was down the maybe-she's-the-one path with rnl a couple of years back now -- and in fact even wondered that briefly about my first outside relationship, with k in 03, as wildly dissimilar as she and i are in some ways, temperamentally and in terms of backgrounds and interests -- there's no full-life companionship there, though is an interesting and in many ways good and nice person, and when she and i were both commiserating about our spousal problems that was an attractive way of making oneself feel better --etc. etc. -- and that is a kind of love: there are all kinds, even though people (perhaps especially women, one seems to notice?) often want to draw some magic shining line to partition off pure/true/absolute/lifelong/soulmate marital love from every other 'lesser' kind --
but why did i think, for a few weeks in late spring 03, about the idea of theoretically being with k instead of j, despite being fully aware of all things i am interested in that she is not, etc.? -- hmm, let's mull: dunno, guess i am a momma's boy a little, have to watch that, and yes i certainly want to be connected: have to think about how to do that without trying to force any relationship into that the-one template -- also, partly it was the pain of feeling rejected by j (2002) and wanting to move beyond that --
ok, yes, i realize that what i did with the rnl thing (04-05) is not just not good, even though she and i both ratcheted up there together and were therefore coresponsible: and why not good?
(1) that's forcing things, (2) it's too much pressure for both people to put on themselves and each other, (3) things change sometimes for good reasons andor bad, and (4) you have to look at where someone is in her life (often people are in all sorts of transition -- not to omit yourself from that set, duh -- and who knows what what people will end up doing and where and how) --
so what's any appropriate relationship about if not obviously protomarital or already marital (i.e., "the one")? it's about people finding out what they can get from and give to one another in various areas -- and what i ought to do right now is try not to worry about forcing anything into particular forms, or into avoiding particular forms -- to try not to worry about what situations eventuate down the line -- that's a good way to think about how the g./a. relationship evolved, and it future tracks since a. moved it to friendship-only/sexless --
i have been thinking for awhile now that, rather than that "who-is-the-one" relational model that many people seem to have (especially women? -- at least in my experience, i.e. talking with people over the years...), i really should instead think of people as i have long thought of books or authors or ideas: that is, i should strive to be interactive and inclusive, to be and get and give all i can by interacting in different ways with different people, about stuff i am interested and good at, without reference to romance or nonromance, and without trying to forcibly engineer some marital template that would give me a settled relational solid point to which to jump from where i am --
everybody in possible protodivorce mode tends to do that: gin up something to jump to, to avoid losing the stability and structure of a settled relationship by trading a new one for the apparently broken one -- but that's why so many second marriages fail: both parties are trying to press something quickly, to get settled again, because they are in midlife somewhere and want to get back to settled as early and easily as possible --
yes, in a sense a. is a latethirties divorcee, given the nature of the something like sevenyear relationship she had with a lifepartner down till about six years ago; when it broke up she went into relationally fallow 'exploring judaism' mode for several years, till she moved to nyc a year back now and started looking for a hetero relationship --
hmm, read this over another day and think and write some more in a subsequent entry probably: hope it makes a little sense, as hasty and concise a statement as it is for something fairly large and impt --
***
didn't write up the nine damn chicken reports, naughty naughty -- will get up sixish or so and do them before the alberta canada office opens (11am my time, long before my class at 1250) -- i was too busy with relational stuff, what else is new, hey it happens --
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deshilholles's journal
