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One of the things on my List of Things To Do before I leave
for my summer graduate program was to get my office in order.
Ha. As if my office has EVER been in order before.
Yes, it is SO organized! |
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It's really less an office, and more a small workspace amongst
"the stacks." Stacks of books. Stacks of papers.
Stacks of CDs. Stacks of silly postcards, mail, slips of paper
with notes scribbled, stacks of stuff that doesn't belong
in any of the other stacks. Cleaning up my office isn't really
something I dread, per se, despite the mess. But if I set
out to do it, despite my best intentions, I'm likely to get
sidetracked. Hey, look! Here're my old journals! Oh, so THAT'S
where the pages I've torn out of various home-decorating magazines
went! Wow, no wonder I haven't been able to find any pens!
…And several hours later, I'll still be re-reading my
notebook from the class in Pre-Raphaelite Literature that
I took back in '96 or arranging old floppy discs by color.
This time around, it was The Book of Questions that
diverted me. I got these little books (Questions, Love &
Sex, and Business, Politics & Ethics) about 10 years ago,
when I was working for the Big and gNarly bookstore chain,
and combined them with the "Tell it Like it Is!"
question cards from a board game long lost. We'd break 'em
all out when I had Pagan Tea Parties. Great fun! I've kept
the books and cards around in case I need help coming up with
journal topics for my students, but hadn't really flipped
through them recently. This afternoon, though, I enjoyed the
Introspection and Reflection they prompted. And in true narcissistic
form, I decided to use various Questions (well, some of them)
as Blather Inspiration.
TMI abounds, naturally.
What do you daydream about?
I don't really daydream… I make up stories. Constantly.
I fictionalize stuff that's happening to me, or go back over
old stories I've made up like rereading favorite books. Some
date all the way back to the Mrs.
Crickmore days. I can't believe I just 'fessed that one….
At the beginning of a relationship, do you trust your
new partner unless there is something specific to make you
do otherwise, or do you withhold your trust until he or she
has earned it?
Oh, I totally withhold trust. I trust very few people anyway,
and I only get worse as I get older. I used to feel guilty
about not trusting people more, but after getting burned a
few times, I decided I liked my prickles. When THTM and I
first started dating, boy, I put him through the wringer.
I wasn't taking any chances after DumbAss and Boy Wonder.
Yeesh. DumbAss was the type of boy who would have a full-on
temper tantrum and yell "WHY CAN'T YOU TRUST ME!?"
if I was feeling insecure. Boy Wonder was the type who would
smile sweetly and coo, "You can trust me. Honest"
and then completely flake to grossly irresponsible extremes
with seemingly no conscious awareness that he was utterly
phony. But THTM just let me be cautious and prickly and crab-like.
That helped. In fact, he's the only person I've ever trusted
100% percent. That's a big deal to me.
If you were sick and feeling miserable, would you rather
be by yourself or have your partner with you? Why?
You know the stereotypes about women being stoic and going
about everyday business when they're sick, and men being big
ol' babies…? THTM and me're completely the opposite.
I am a big fat whiney baby when I'm sick. I want ice water
and cool cloths and foot rubs and fresh pillows. I want lots
of solicitous attention and sympathy. I am an extremely high-maintenance
sick person. I'm not sure why… I'm pretty self-reliant,
generally speaking. But if I have a migraine, the flu or hives,
I am convinced that I'm going to die, and just don't wanna
be left alone.
Have you remained close friends with any former lovers?
If not, would you like to have done so?
Eyuuuuuch. I firmly believe that when it's over, it's OVER.
When DumbAss and I split up - i.e. when he dumped my ass because
he wanted to see if the proverbial grass was greener - he
gave me some big song-and-dance about wanting to still be
friends. Yeah. What that translated to was "you stick
around here on the sidelines, and if I don't find anything
better, I know you'll be here waiting for me. Oh, and we can
still have sex too, you lucky girl." I actually had been
hoping to remain friends with his family at the time, but
I quickly realized it would be a highly problematic situation.
For one, my so-called-best-friend The Sycophant was on the
prowl, and had immediately found a foot in the door…
literally. Mere days after the Final Breakup, she'd shown
up at DumbAss's house (where he lived with his parents, mind)
with her dog and a suitcase, conveniently kicked out of her
own house, and managed to move in. Uh huh. The few conversations
I had with DumbAss's mother after that were little more than
her sobbing on the phone to me about what a "brainwasher"
and "white-trash slut" The Sycophant was, and how
Mother DumbAss "was praying" that "things between"
DumbAss and I would "work out" because he was "just
sowing his wild oats" and-
No.
Laughably, Boy Wonder tried to be all super friendly with
me after our debacle. But, strangely, when you've dated a
girl for 2-3 weeks, told her how madly in love with her you
were, had sex once, failed to tell her the condom broke, failed
to tell her you were involved with someone else at the same
time, and failed to pay half the costs of an abortion procedure
because you'd just blown all your money on a new purebred
puppy, then accused the girl of lying about being pregnant
on top of all the previous betrayal, "being friends"
is positively ludicrous. Boy Wonder was either so 1) insensitive
or 2) clueless that he'd doingedy doing up to me and chirp
"Heeeeeey, Dwanollah! How's it going?" at work and
then try to have a friendly chat with me about what he and
his new girlfriend (another co-worker) had done the night
before and how much fun they'd had. Dude…. Finally, one
lunch break when we were - lucky me - the only two in the
break room and he was trying to chat me up, I glared at him
and said, "Quit talking to me. I'm not your friend. I'm
not your pal. If I wanted to hear an asshole talk, I'd fart."
That only shut him up temporarily. Mere months later, when
he was planning his wedding to the girl he'd cheated on me
with, he actually tried to engage my help in planning the
honeymoon. "We were thinking about driving up to San
Francisco. Where do you think we should stay? What should
we go do?" I laughed in his face. "Go look in a
guide book, for God's sake!" I said. What a moron.
Remain friends? Hah. No. Cut all ties. Move on.
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