Beat That!

I just got dumped AND laid off all at the same time. The best part? He did it all by sending just one bullet-pointed email. Impersonal AND efficient. Awesome!

On the bright side, I'll have a lot of free time now.

Oh, and I have 2 tickets to see the Atlanta Film Festivals' Animation Extravaganzas for this Sunday evening at the Midtown Art Cinema (5-9pm). If anyone would like to go with me, let me know.

Grace is not my middle name

As I rushed around this morning, groggily trying to locate my glasses and my cell phone so that I could drive my oldest to his before-school Percussion Ensemble practice and imagining the extra large coffee that I wanted to procure in order to continue to function, my day came to a crashing hault. Literally.

It seems that one of the hurdles in my home's dog-proofing obstacle course -- a heavy, wooden board that spans my bedroom doorway -- conspired with my new Crocs sandles TO KILL ME!





Think I'm exaggerating? Really? Well, as I stepped over the barricade, the extra-wide lip of my right extra-comfy shoe grabbed onto the upper lip of the board, where it held fast as my as my left leg attempted to follow suit.

In what seemed like an eternity, and I swear that everything was moving in slow motion, I realized that I was sailing into the narrow hallway, head-first for the door frame across from me. As I hit the frame and watched my glasses fly off my face, I thought that pain was bad enough... until I realized that I was still in mid-air and my trajectory had changed to falling straight down onto my right kneecap... full force.

That's when slow-mo sped into fast-fwd and I hit the floor with such an impact, my son thought a tree had fallen on the house. He rushed up to see what happened, finding me crumpled on the floor in agony... glasses 5 feet away, cell phone 10 feet away, me in a fetal position and screaming.

His first question was, "What do you want me to do? Call 911?" I told him not to do that, just get me an ice pack. His next question was, "Will you be able to drive me to practice?" Sure, just put a stick between my teeth to clamp down on and drag me to the car. For the next 15 minutes that he had to sit and wait for the bus, he sulked. Nice.

I called my mother, the nurse, and told her what the whole tale I just recounted to you. She rushed out and bought me a knee stabilizing brace. (And an extra large coffee.) I located an old cane made out of a tree branch that I'd had propped in a corner for years (always wondered when I'd need it), took a couple of Advil, then attempted to get my day started... albeit a few hours later than I'd thought.





The first to return home from school were my younger two, who were gone by the time this had happened. Surprised by me answering the door in a knee brace and a cane, they asked, "What happened to you?"

I always like to impart some wisdom that they can share with their peers later. "Crocs are dangerous. Mine tried to kill me," I told them. Once they understood that, there was a pause before the next question... "Does this mean we don't have to go to Tae Kwon Do today?!" Nice.

A half-hour later, my eldest returned home and ran to where I was to see if I was feeling any better. Okay, that's only partly true. He returned home and ran upstairs to play videogames with his brother. He's been home for 3 hours now and hasn't inquired about my knee. Nice.

I'd like to report that I'm okay, but I really can't tell. It's only been 11 hours since the accident and I'm feeling more and more like I've been hit by a truck. First I only noticed my knee, which feels like someone's trying to pry the cap off with a hot poker. A few hours later, my neck and shoulder started to twinge with pain. Now it feels like my whole spine has been shifted this-way and that-way and every joint in my body sounds like a bowl of Rice Krispies. "Snap, crackle, pop!" Nice.

My mother's only words of encouragement when she left here went something like this: "You think you're hurting now? Just wait 'til tomorrow!"

Niiiiiiice.

It's not the quantity that matters

Last week I got a message in my mailbox from my town's police department stating that this week it will be sending a special task force into my neighborhood to write citations for living standards: too many people in one house, RVs parked on lawns, fences in disrepair, weeds, dangerous trees, etc. It's a new branch of the police called "The Quality of Life Task Force" and it's their mission to come around and inspect every home in the area and write up violation warnings, give the residents 3 days to fix said violations, then come back and give citations to those who haven't fixed anything.

(Author's note: Sounds to me like a veiled attempt at looking for Mexican families who sometimes live 3 or 4 families to a house... but they couldn't call it "The Racial Profiling Task Force" and get away with it, so they write up a few white residents along the way to make things look on the up and up. I really figured with my usual luck that I'd be one of dummies to get swept up in this scheme.)

Anyway... Monday as I was reviewing footage, I realized that I was constantly hearing what sounded like thunder booms outside, despite there not being any storm clouds. Then I heard my dog barking furiously at the fence, so I went outside to call her back in... that's when I spotted the squad car across the street and the police officer actually pointing at some weeds and commanding the resident of the house to get the mower. It was a weird moment, until I remembered about "THE QUALITY OF LIFE TASK FORCE!"

I ran to look out my front window and lo and behold, there's a giant dumpster right in front of my house and every person in the neighborhood has already come by and filled it to the gills. I opened my door to get a closer look and that's when a yellow carbon copy sheet of paper that had been jammed in my door frame fell at my feet. I picked it up, dreading what violations were going to be cited (imaging having to get trees cut down in 3 days time, for instance). It was from "The Quality of Life" pigs, alright; but none of the boxes were checked. Instead, scrawled at the bottom it reads: "You're good to go! Thanks!"

Wow. You mean for once in my life someone has cut me a break? Meanwhile, I'm noticing that half of my neighbors have come home from work early and called in reinforcements to scramble and clean up their yards. How I passed, I have no clue.

What I do know is that I now have a giant dumpster outside my house that keeps getting emptied twice a day and is just as quickly refilled by a long parade of pickup trucks, wheelbarrows, and foot traffic. You'd think that a pyramid or the Taj Mahal were being built around here (albeit, a very crappy one). And on the side of that dumpster is the sign that makes this whole thing so amusing...





See it? Look closer...





Apologies for blurriness. It's a challenge to hold a camera still while laughing, but do you see it now? It's the "QUALITY OF LIFE" dumpster. Yes, indeedy. Just knowing that it's a QUALITY dumpster is making my life better every time i open my front door. Once again, unintentional irony never fails to give me the giggles.

Update: How about a night shot of the quality dumpster, taken around 2am last night, when no one would see me and I was too tired to giggle.

April Fool

Girlfriend's log:: Star Date 7-01042007

I've entered into what is becoming familiar territory, after 6 long months piloting this (relation)ship. It's the dreaded MAN PERIOD again... otherwise known as "Negative Nelly has come for a visit." It's not quite set to the lunar cycle, but it's close... by my calculations, it seems to occur every 4-5 weeks and lasts for 5-7 days.

I've been trying to survive for the past several days by laying low, being positive whenever possible (which is difficult, since Aunt Flow was visiting here, too) and only cursing him in private or behind his back. I find the one curse that works best for me is the one that involves me sobbing angrily and saying, "Why am I still dating this guy? There better be mind-blowing sex for me to continue putting up with this kind of cruel shit... I'm talking the mess you up in the head variety of sex, not this 'maybe once in a blue moon' shit that has been going on lately. Oh yeah, there's gonna be changes if I'm gonna stick with this a**."

Where was I? Ah, yes... the blue menace.

This time I almost predicted the events that would happen, yet because I've seen that damned video of The Secret I now have to think, "Stop that or you'll Secret that into your life!" It becomes that snake eating it's tail.

The week started badly from the previous weekend, in which he was too busy doing stuff he'd put off for work to spend any quality time hanging out... a procrastination thing that he pulls slightly more regularly than the man period, so it can't be blamed on the time of the month.

This brought on a conversation that I initiated in which I told him that we needed to make more of an effort to be intimate or we'll both become too complacent to bother with it anymore at all... followed by his admission that he would be totally okay with that, because he never thinks about sex.

Yes, I glanced at his gonadal region. They're still there. I'm just as confused as you are, trust me.

Then somehow the conversation turned to him getting a rabbit. I'm not sure who started that one, but he was full-on enthusiastic about bringing a bunny into his house for about 2 solid days, until he talked to his brother.

His older brother has a knack for fucking a lot of things up just by saying something off the cuff. He apparently precipitated D's cheating on and thus ending a relationship with a girl he loved back in his younger days just by asking him why he was wasting his artistic talents by working at a library instead of staying in art school. Suddenly, D was sleeping with some other chick, telling the girl he loved about it, and she, of course, had to end it. Next thing you know, D's back in art school, which ultimately lead him to impregnating and marrying a highly unstable S&M stripper chick, whom he's still trying to get out from under 13 years later.

This time, his brother was going on and on about how he's going to devote all of his time to his business, so that he can be successful and retire soon, and that he's going to forget about wasting his time dating. (This comes on the heels of his brother dating a woman for the first time in years and finally getting to have sex in eons, and her breaking up with him immediately after that... sounds like over-compensating to me. Time to buy a Corvette, maybe.) Then D said something about all he wanted to do at the end of the day was watch tv on his "42-inches of love," as he calls it. His brother acted all shocked by his recovered workaholic brother's response, the spent the next hour spewing stuff he'd read in "how to be successful" books.

The next day, Dean calls me to tell me that he's not getting the bunny (which was fine, albeit a confusing shift in tone) because it was just another distraction in a long line of distractions (implicating me in that list of "distractions"), when he should be concentrating all of his extra time into his career. In that same day, he'd received a box from his mother of all of his awards and bon mots from his dozen years in his chosen career, which apparently depressed him even more, because he'd been doing nothing towards getting more accolades since his marriage blew up.

D's been extra angry at his estranged wife, because not only did she cheat on him with another guy, but she apparently ruined his "plan" for early retirement... he thought he'd accumulate more awards and fame and be retired by 40. Instead, when the man period hits, all he whines on about is "I never expected to be 37 and having to start over," as if he is the first person to ever have to do such a thing.

I summoned all the powers of positivity that I could muster and said, "Wait, you're talking about Emmy's and awards and all this great stuff... and tons of people already know your name... sounds to me like you've reached your successful status earlier than 40. Maybe the breakup was just an earlier early retirement, making way for your second-life career shift." I even pulled the whole, "There's more than one measure of success, you know. And I don't care if your brother makes an assload of money before he's 50... if he had to do it by living in your parents' house and sacrificing any romantic life whatsoever, then he's a failure. I'm sorry, but it's the truth."

His tone changed a little, but he still was upset that he wasn't scoring more Emmy's... that he only had 2 (and 7 nominations), but of course his mom didn't send him the one Emmy statue that he has left. That's when I saw a pivotal life-lesson moment, and I asked him to tell me the details of what happened to the second Emmy statue. "Did it get smashed at the end?" (Then I told him that I'd forgotten the tale, but I hadn't.)

He proceeded to tell me that his wife had yelled at him "YOU ONLY CARE ABOUT YOUR WORK!" and to prove to her that his work didn't matter, he took one of his Emmys and smashed it. I think I asked if it helped him win the argument or prove anything, which he admitted it didn't. Later, in recapping that conversation, I tried to tell him that he was trying to make a case for how he had to be MORE successful in his work and to devote MORE time to it, yet it had obviously caused his personal life some serious harm... not that I was laying blame on him for the end, just that it was obviously a point of contention between them. He agreed entirely.

I then took the one day a week that he sets aside to train me and I told him, "I want you to use that whole day to work on your business stuff. If you devote one whole day a week, instead of piece-mealing hours here and there, I'm sure you'll see a big difference. We can do my training during 'girlfriend time,' I don't care." ("Girlfriend time" is anything off-the-clock, like the weekend, as opposed to "employee time" or "trainee time." He needs labels and I think he's going to start making me wear a hat and a name tag.)

Guess what happened? It went great, naturally. He was so caught up in his work, he finished everything he'd been putting off for the last year. I came over the next day and he was in such a refreshed mood that he had changed his mind again about getting a rabbit... then we spent the rest of the day picking out bunnies and getting supplies and playing with the furry things (he got 2, but had to return one the next day, because they were fighting).

Today, however, it all went sour when the bunny exchange went down. After the long drive back to the store, we walk in and tell them about the fighting and want to exchange this one for the calmer bunny that shared the cage with the other bunny he's keeping. Suddenly there's all this covert sideways glancing going on between the staff and we hear, "Uh, we don't have any rabbits in the store right now. They're on hold until after Easter, to prevent Easter buying."

"But we were just in here yesterday afternoon and we're not buying, we're exchanging. Can you see if he's in the back somewhere?"

The staff scatter for a moment and one finally comes back, shifting his weight back and forth and scratching his neck awkwardly, saying, "Nope, they've been shipped back to a central location. Store policy." It was all very alien-abduction like. The kid kept trying to make small talk and avoid eye contact, and I could tell he was lying... like they had the bunny in a crate in the back, like it was the Ark in Raiders.

D's positive buoyancy instantly deflated. He returned the troublesome bunny, and left the store empty-handed. I tried to pick him up with talk of going to other places to find another bunny. We drove for a couple of hours in dreary afternoon weather without any luck... 2 bunnies here, but they're already bonded... no bunnies there... a bunch of bunnies over there, but none are neutered and it seemed too shady. Dean grew more and more silent with each passing minute, as if I'd created the bunny troubles, or something.

At the last store, he finally stated, "That's it. I'm done with the rabbit stuff and returning the other one, too. I never wanted a rabbit in the first place. This is stupid."

It was easy for me to see that Dean doesn't handle delayed gratification or changes in plans well at all, and he over-reacts to think that everything is ruined or a bad idea. It's the same thing that my kids do... give up completely if something doesn't go how they imagined it would.

He spent the rest of the day completely silent towards me or just completely asleep, and by the time he woke up, the silent treatment was even worse... which seemed impossible, but there it was.

I finally asked if we could do our training time, and he acted like it was not at all what he wanted, but he did... only to then tell me that he couldn't train me on anything I showed him, because it was all garbage. It was about 20 minutes of that, then he walked away and started putting on things in the bathrooms.

I tried to see what I could do to fix things, but there wasn't anything I knew to do. I went to where he was watching television and finally asked him if he was okay. I'd been hoping all day that the mood would pass after food, or after a nap, or something... but it had only got worse. That's when he pulled the whole, "This isn't working for me," thing.

The "this isn't working" line started back in December, during our second trip to Florida. We'd gotten into a bit of a spat, then he went silent, and when I tried to get him to talk, he pulled the "this isn't working" thing... and about how he's not ready to be in a relationship. Mind you, he practically begged me to be in this relationship with him... and when he isn't having his man period, he talks about how I've helped him to get over his failed marriage and to grow in so many ways. But when it's raggy D, it's like Dr. Jekyll drank the potion... or when Bruce Banner says "you wouldn't like me when I'm angry," and then next thing he knows he's waking up in an alley and his clothes are all shredded.

I had to listen to him tell me how he can't train me, because he can't talk to me like he would talk to other people he'd train because of our dating... and that he can't date me, because he can't talk to me like someone he'd just date... and that he got the bunny to appease me somehow (which I was confused by, yet again)... and about how he has no interest in sex, etc.

Mind you, it's been over 2 weeks since... you know.

I then began my questions, trying to understand the deal... what caused this round of "this isn't working" when for weeks it seemed fine, much like the previous time, and the time before that. This is the first time I labeled it a "man period" and that's when he says that an old roommate of his used to called it exactly that, and how an old ex-girlfriend labeled him as manic depressive, because of this mood shift of his.

So I said to him, "If this has been you for basically your whole adult life, as you seem to be saying now, why are you labeling this moment with me as you not being ready for a relationship? Sounds like you're never ready for one, yet you keep getting into them. And I doubt you'll stop after you're done with me." He agreed, there was some slight lift in the mood at this point. Then I told him that I thought this was also coming on because he's scared about introducing his son to me next week, which will be the first time he's been allowed to see his son in 15 months. He agreed to that idea, as well.

Finally I asked, "So are you just throwing the baby out with the bath water?" To which he said, "Yes, I do tend to cut off my nose to spite my own face on a regular basis." Is this a good sign when you start communicating in metaphors alone? I'm not sure. Hell, I'm not even sure we were using the correct ones. He did seem to calm down quite a bit though, enough to finally come sit beside me at last.

I'm not sure if we're out of the woods yet. We probably won't be until he finally comes around and ...uh... comes around. Meanwhile, I'll just keep walking on these here egg shells.

The Hell???

I'm so confused after watching this, so naturally, I wanted to spread the feeling.

Curds and way too gross

D and I went to a cool little Japanese restaurant tonight that was extremely authentic. Everyone there spoke Japanese, the waitresses wore kimonos, and Japanese families were eating there as well (always a good sign).

The menu was a bit of a conundrum, however, as it contained a selection of many items that never make it to more Americanized sushi places. I spotted an appetizer that looked interesting -- fermenting soy beans -- and said that I wanted to order that. But Dean always wanting to push the order just one step further suggested that we get it combined with something else, as there were a few combos with this item. I agreed and he picked "sticky yams with fermenting soy beans."

Our first item combo -- assorted fish with cucumbers in vinegar sauce -- was delicious, as was the second standby: wakame (pickled seaweed). When the third item was placed in front of us, we both hesitated. Did we really order this? What is it? We could clearly see the pile of tiny brown beans in the center, but they were surrounded by this thick, white goo that was not at all yam-colored as we'd expected.

That's when Dean blurted out, "What the... is that spit?" I tried to shush him as I dipped my chopsticks in and attempted to grab a wad of the beans and slime. But as I pulled the goo towards my mouth, that's when the consistency really revealed itself... clear slime and cloudy white streamers, sticky and oozy, and looking strangely like... like... like...

"That looks like it came from my pee pee," D blurted out in a fit of giggles. (Yes, I'm dating a 5 year old.)

Again, I tried to shush him. Yes, I knew exactly what it looked like, and I was having a hard time trying to decide if I was supposed to put it in my mouth, pour it on my stomach, or give myself a facial... but I was trying not to think about any of that and praying that it would melt like buttery yams in my mouth.

I shoved the ejacu... I mean sticky yams and beans into my hesitant mouth and had to fight the instant gag wave that hit me. It was the best acting job I've ever done since... since... since the first time I had to do that same acting job. All I kept thinking while I tried to gulp down the yuck was, "Hold it together... wash it down with some tea... don't lose your cool, or Dean won't taste it."

After choking the junk down, I thanked him for ruining the experience for me with that comment and because of that, the whole bowl was his... I'd never be able to eat it with that reference floating in my mind (I failed to mention the taste).

The reaction I gave was a clear reference to a previous Asian-fusion restaurant experience in Lauderdale, where I ordered some sort of fish covered in orange sauce, to which D blurted out, "That looks like vomit," and promptly ended my ability to enjoy a single bite of the dish. Since he knew that I'd been using the "that looks like vomit" quote on him repeatedly as payback ever since, he also knew he would have to eat the current questionable slime or never hear the end of it.

He tried to reject the invitation to try his order, flattening himself against the wall of the booth and putting his hands up in an "oh no" gesture. "Oh, you'll eat it... you will eat it," I said... like some possessed dominatrix.

D timidly grappled with the slime, getting it onto his chopsticks, dropping it, picking some up again... all the while giggling like a nervous school girl. Finally, he shoved some into his mouth and held it for a fraction of a second before his expression changed to nausea and he let the sticky liquid fall from his mouth like a girl-gone-wild realizing her dignity was gone.

Then I was able to laugh at long last.

D was surprised that I managed to swallow the bunch I had. "Years and years of practice," I said with a wink... grossing myself out at the same time as I had to laugh. Then I admitted, "That was all acting, my friend... but the worst part were the chunks." At least I have a better understanding how something as vile as bukkake might have originated in Japan... start 'em young on the sticky yams and it's all downhill from there.

Our waitress came back to clear our appetizer dishes and noticed the mess we'd made of the one particular item. "You don't like," she inquired shyly? We laughed more and shook our heads in disgust. She then told us that she thought we were very experienced with Japanese menus when we ordered it, because no one ever orders that. You don't say.

Next time you're in an authentic Japanese restaurant, I dare you to order the sticky yams with or without the fermenting soy beans... and then try to put some in your mouth. Let me know if you spit or swallow... that's what separates the men from the girls (or queens, perhaps).

Patience, grasshopper

We could call this another example of "I couldn't make this shit up if I tried."

Since D and I started getting to know one another, there's been a little thorn in my paw in regards to one person... I'll be specific and let you pass judgment on me as simply jealous, before the tale unfolds. This person was a woman. Shocking, I know.

Anyway, when D became enamored with me (pretty much immediately, as I recall), he confided in me that he compared my correspondence with him to the correspondence he'd received from another woman he was interested in and whom he'd only had slight passing conversations with over the course of several months. He was blown away by how much he and I had in common and how fun and easy it was for us to talk; whereas the other girl's messages were short, few and far between, and left a lot to be desired in their quality.

What can I say. I give good email.

Aside from that, he added that he'd been attracted to her and hoping that he could have a fling with her before each of them left South Florida for other cities. He then told me that because of our emails and great chemistry, he was going to cancel a date that he'd made with her. I told him not to, because he hadn't met me yet, but he was certain that I was whom he was supposed to meet, not her.

Long story short, he ended up going on that date anyway (he called it a non-date, because it didn't end in a kiss, but we all know it was what it was) and then went out with her another time or two before leaving for Atlanta.

He also told her that she could come stay with him in his new apartment on her way from South Florida to Oregon, so she could have a place to crash... and they'd talked about how if it didn't work out for her out west, she'd likely be moving to Atlanta next.

Well, he came to Atlanta and he and after our first "non-date" together, he told me that he HAD to date me. We did have great chemistry, so I completely agreed... though we had to take things slow and work out the details of the boss/girlfriend relationship, since I was also agreeing to be his assistant in getting his business set up here.

Our first week together was totally grand, but at the end came the news... this girl was going to be coming to stay overnight with him. My stomach sank.

When he told me about this person, he never told me who she was, but I was able to figure it out based on how many comments she'd left him in his profile... they were in abundance and looked to be trying to rival mine. Naturally I was curious, so I checked out her profile and found that it smacked of the kind of person who is completely full of themself... and exactly the kind of girl that I try to avoid... the bitchy drama queen who just loves to meddle and stir the shitstorm in people's lives.

I had my best gal pal check out her profile, just trying to express my concerns over D's interest in her, and my pal pegged her right off as my complete opposite... she couldn't figure out why he'd be into someone like her at all if he was also into me.

It turns out that D's interest had been that she was exactly like his ex... and exactly like the girls he'd always been attracted to before his marriage: bitchy and off-balanced. It didn't hurt that she was hot as well, and his buddies were all encouraging him to "do her" for the sake of their vicarious fantasies. He claims he thought she'd be fine to hang out with for the brief time before he left Florida, but he did have enough sense about him to not want a relationship with this person. Still... he did tell her that was interested in her one day when he caught her twirling her hair in the way that drives him nuts... and I could see in his retelling of that tale that there was a definite attraction for him.

I didn't say anything about any of that, however, until he asked me one day if I had a problem with his roommate... another girl and also another former attraction of his from years back. I didn't have any problem with her, because I'd met her and the vibe that I felt from her was that she was a good person... down to earth and genuinely sweet. The South FL girl did not give me that impression at all... and without being able to meet her myself, it really left me feeling uncomfortable. So when he asked if I was uncomfortable with his choice of roomies, that's when I felt it was the right time to tell him who did make me uncomfortable... it also happened to be the day that South FL girl was coming to stay with him.

I was good-natured about it all... teasing that the girl had trouble written all over her and that she was coming up with all of her life's possessions in a U-Haul, uncertain of any real future out west, and to stay at an empty apartment with a guy who made a very decent living. Yeah, I totally could see her envisioning her shit in his empty apartment.

Luckily, because I'd said that to D, he laid clear ground with her that he was very happy with his new girlfriend and he made her get on her merry way, bright and early the next morning. He even said that after his roommate met the girl, she later told him that she thought she was bad news.

Now, if the girl had gone on her merry way to West Coast and disappeared into obscurity in D's life, I'd have been perfectly fine with those events... even though I know many a girl who'd NEVER stand for the overnight thing at all without staying there all night herself.

Unfortunately, the chick wouldn't stop calling D. First it was hours and hours of calling through her whole drive. Then it was weekly, sometimes multi-weekly calls to him, with conversations that lasted for hours. I didn't know about these calls until the day that D finally said, "Okay, I have to tell you this, because I feel guilty about even answering the phone now." When he said she was calling all the time to chat, I asked him to taper off the number of times he answered... answering fewer and fewer times until finally she found someone else to pester.

That didn't work, however, because D said he felt like a jerk not taking her calls. He also thought she was a good person who just thought he was a "great guy" who gave awesome advice and was dismayed that I wouldn't think of him that way. That wasn't true in the slightest. My gut was screaming something else.

I felt that he had an unnaturally strong interest in her (a girl he had nothing at all in common with and really didn't know well at all) due to his lusty attraction for her... and I felt that her interest was motivated by something else as well. Sure, she'd turned him down when he told her that he was interested, but I felt she was trying to keep a constant bridge to him as a back-up plan... if it didn't work out for her out West, she could come to him and have him help pick up the pieces. The sheer volume of her calls and the length of their conversations just wasn't right to me.

Little did I know, but just by me asking D to stop talking to her made him want to talk to her even more. He has an issue with being told what to do by anyone, so when I made that simple request for the sake of our blossoming relationship, he took it as me throwing down a gauntlet of sorts. In his mind, he set out to continue doing exactly as he wished and hoped that the end result would prove me wrong.

As the months went by, she'd call and I'd tell him that it bugged me that she was still calling, but there was really no big discussion needed. I'm a firm believer in not bottling and in stating one's issues. I'm also a firm believer in not making your partner feel uncomfortable ever. If someone makes a request that isn't outrageous (not telling you to get rid of long term friends or family, I mean), then there's no reason why you can't comply. If the relationship doesn't work out, you can always look up the abandoned friend and play catch up, no harm done. If the relationship does last, then it's worth respecting the other person's boundaries... again, within reasonable limits, of course.

Recently, I came to the conclusion that my best approach in this matter would be simply to stop focusing on how much her calls bugged me and start focusing on how she will show her true colors very soon. This wasn't verbalized to D... he had no clue that I was doing this. I did it silently and just refocused my thoughts, knowing that at the very least it would make my sense of humor about the situation much lighter... and at the best, she would show her colors very soon.

I've only been thinking this way for about two weeks now... and guess what happened today? Yep. The pro-active thinking paid off.

Today D was in a foul mood due to some court papers coming his way, so when South FL girl called him, he answered just so he could vent (so he says). Since he was venting, he also told her about my issue with her constant phone calls. Before I'd switched my thoughts over to thinking her away rather than talking her away, I'd said to him, "Do I need to email her and straighten this out?" He'd told me not to do that, so I didn't and instead waited to see how he'd deal with it himself.

Because he was in the mood to talk about everything on his mind today, he told her how I had a problem with his continued friendship with her and her constant phone calls. He claims he was testing her to find out if she did in fact like him more than a friend, or to see if she'd just say, "That's crazy. I have no interest in you." She did neither.

Instead she blew up into a rage over the whole thing and said she wanted to email me. He agreed to it, because of my earlier statement that I was going to do the same, but he warned her that it would be a test... if she said anything crazy, she was gone... or if she was sweet and calm, then he and I would be having words. He thought that she'd heed his advice.

He also "forgot" to any of this to me at all.

I had apparently called him moments after his talk with her and we began chatting about his court issues and whatnots, which made him forget about his conversation about her email. Suddenly, while on the phone with him, I see in my inbox a message from this chick and I interrupt our talk to say, "Uh, D. Why do I have a message from G here?" He said, "Oh yeah, about that... um..." and proceeded to tell me about their talk. He kept me from reading the message until he was done, then asked me to read it aloud. Here's the actual message:


Subject: So...

D just let me in on the little tiddy that he doesn't pic up some of my phone calls because you aren't comfortable with him speaking to me because he let it out long before you two got together that he had a slight interest in me.

Fact: He expressed his interest. I said we were better off friends.

Fact: We are amazing friends. And that's it.

Fact: I have a boyfriend, and wish nothing to do with your man.

Fact: I do not deserve to be involved with ANY of your insecurities.

Your getting all upset and quiet whenever he mentions my name is bullshit. His feeling that he can't speak to me because you get upset because of it is bullshit. I don't deserve to be shoved aside in one of MY friends lives because of some insecure girlfriend that can't get over one thought that is long gone.

I am his friend, and he is mine. You need to do everyone a favor and get over whatever your issue is. You have NO right or reason to be insecure when it comes to me.


I was shocked and dumbfounded, yet simultaneously relieved to finally have confirmation that the chick was indeed psycho. D was just sickened and beside himself. Not only was that message completely uncalled for and offensive, he'd just been proven wrong and owed me a big apology, which he immediately gave without me asking.

Now, if this girl had truly written to ease my discomfort and reassure me that not only did she want to retain D only as a friend, but expressed interest in befriending me as well, I would have been the one eating crow and handing out apologies. I'm a rational person and I tend to expect others to show the same courtesy... but my gut is something I've learned to listen to more and more with age. It's right 99.99% of the time, while my rational side tends to give people benefit of the doubt too often, which then causes me a lot of pain and heartache. I've been a stubborn over-thinker most of my life, but I've wisened and had to learn the hard way that intuition trumps reason.

Instead of befriending me, what she wrote was confrontational and full of accusations that were not only untrue and unhelpful in this situation, but also twisted D's own words to make her "point." Luckily, D was quick to realize his error and to see this person for what she clearly was: mean and downright ugly.

I chose not to respond to her at all. Why should I? I have my answer about her. Instead, D asked for me to forward the message to him so he could reply to her himself. Here's his solemn response:


G,

This is not what I meant when I said it was ok to email S.
This message is aggressive and hurtful.
We won't be talking again.

D


In the meantime, she'd called while we were on the phone discussing this fiasco and left him the sweetest of messages (before she'd gotten his reply, of course), to tell him that she'd emailed me. The dichotomy of her tone was baffling to him, especially when he got to read her final snippy reply to his reaction message:


D... This is EXACTLY everything that I said to you. The only thing I added was that I have a boyfriend, because you asked me to.

If you can't see that this is exactly what I said to you, and exactly what you OKed, then that's your problem. Have fun enabling the problem.


Wow. Mean, self-centered, and completely clueless. Does this sound high school-ish or what?

D is thoroughly nauseated by this experience now and completely humbled. He's apologized to me for his actions and how he'd gotten angry at me before for stating my gut feelings to him... and he knows that he'll never live this down. He really wanted me to be wrong. And if I had been wrong, I definitely would have apologized to both of them... I even second guessed myself repeatedly, but the gut never wavered. Now if anything like this ever comes up in the future and he disputes my gut reaction, my argument will always be one word: G.

Despite the pain of this experience for him, I, of course, find humor in it. Not "told ya so" or anything like that... just how over-the-top her email was to me. Way to ingratiate yourself to your "amazing" friend's significant other.

As an added footnote, she immediately took D out of her self-designed Myspace friends list and replaced him with someone else. He's not even on Myspace anymore --hasn't been almost 6 months-- yet she'd created a thumbnail for him and kept it linked to his professional page and had him listed in her top friends right next to her supposed "boyfriend." She sure didn't waste time getting rid of D though. And when he finally read her page in this new light, he was amazed at how he never noticed how into herself she was... not to mention the fact that she doesn't list having a boyfriend and the guy she's been going on about as her boyfriend doesn't even have her anywhere in his top friends and hasn't left a single comment to her, despite her overrunning his page with daily comments. Scary.

I added the conclusion that her career is as a faux finishing artist and that maybe she had a faux boyfriend as well... and seeing as how her friendship wasn't really what it seemed to D, it's not too far fetched that she's made up everything. (This comment didn't make D feel any better, of course, despite my finding the humor in it.)

I also found it amusing that she has the quote "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people are so full of doubts," by Bertrand Russell in her ABOUT ME section, then goes on to give a dissertation as long as this blog entry here about who she is, what she does for a living, and who she doesn't want in her life. Ah, unintentional irony... how I adore thee.

Is there a moral to this story? Trust your gut... and your friend's gut, too.