Yes, That Just About Sums It Up

This has certainly been a theme of the last two months: 

W.  H. Auden wrote: “Between the ages of 20 and 40 we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity.”

Via (what else?) The Happiness Project.

I See...Dirt, Part 3

So far while moving into the warehouse I have employed a traditional cleaning method that the woman in my family have used for generations, or, to put it another much more accurate way, my mother's method, which is to say you go along on your hands and knees on the floor with a wet paper towel, or just your hands if you can't find a paper towel or are way too impatient to wait for the return of the boyfriend you sent off on the errand, and you stuff anything that looks important in your pocket and you mop up all the rest with your damp-and-getting-drier-by-the-second paper towel. It's just as backbreaking and mom-like as it sounds but you get fabulous results in a surprisingly short amount of time, although this method has been known to put you out of commission for the entire next day, but (according to my mother) that only happens to weaklings. I was 22 before I learned that people used vacuums for HARDWOOD FLOORS. For things you could SEE. My mother would have been on her knees picking that clump of dirt up with her bare hands and stuffing in her pocket faster than you could say, "The vacuum is..." (Usually, the end to that sentence, at least living in the sorority house, was: "...clogged." Once we took it to the vacuum place to get it fixed and they swore they'd found a softball in there.)

You'd think things like swiffers and clorox wipes would have been the best invention for my mother and I since sliced bread, but that thought would be wrong. For someone who doesn't really clean much, I have very strong opinions about it, and I've always had much better results with a plain paper towel or just my hands, (following my mother's example) and I've been known to wash my hands 15 times in an hour instead of just finding the damn paper towels because I keep picking up dog hair clumps and then wanting to eat, which also happens about fifteen times a day (again, for both myself AND my mother.) If the paper product industry depended on us, they'd be broke in a matter of months.

And it's even WORSE in the BATHROOM. I don't use even use washcloths, preferring instead to just splash water on my face and then drip dry into a hand towel, and I'll even use my fingers for TONER. The plus side of this method is, if you're using, say, apple cider vinegar for a toner, and you get some on the counter, you can just wipe it up with a paper towel and then keep going for a second or two and then you've cleaned your counters. Marvelous. (My mother bought a packet of cotton balls once in 1985. That packet is still in the cabinet below the sink.)

Along with her electric razor that has a missing chunk out of the razor blade, which hasn't been changed since 1985, so it takes a big chunk out of your leg when you're racing through shaving your legs because you just learned how. NOT THAT I'M STILL BITTER.

I See...Dirt, Part 2.

So, how do *I* shave, because I'm way too self-conscious yet to shave in front of my boyfriend and I'm terrified of making his gigantic shower work without him? Glad you asked. Backing up: how did I do masks before the mirror in the bathroom? (Which, ironically, is one of those little suction-cup mirrors you put in the shower for guys to shave in?)

Well, before this, I was doing it at work.

You read that right. Whenever I thought I needed a mask, I'd bring it to work, carry it into the bathroom, put warm water in a cup and bring a few paper towels, and camp out in a stall. It's only five minutes--the equivalent of a coffee break. Not difficult or fraud-y. (You can use your smartphone for a mirror, at least if it's not broken, or really any vaguely reflective surface will do. Is the top of the toilet well-scrubbed? What about the shiny stall walls? Etc.)

So when I realized I could use the same method to SHAVE...well. You can guess where this is going. I remembered the technique I learned in the slums of Ensanada: you don't need running water to shave if you have lotion. I had a few false starts (things that DON'T work: sunscreen, creamy face wash, olive oil, argan oil) before I realized that those disposable "blade-with-solid-lather-bars" are the absolute best thing ever. The first time I did it I forgot to bring paper towels into the stall, so I just used the toilet seat covers to wipe off the lather. Worked great and almost ZERO stubble rash, which is a miracle in and of itself. Related: I'm generally a natural-ingredient girl, but for some reason the faker and more gel-ier the shave gel, THE BETTER. Damn those silicones. Anyway.

I finally told my boyfriend I was doing it, braving embarrassment at telling him I was too embarrassed to shave in front of him, because I realized he might notice me staying shaved and never actually performing the action and *starting down a rough road*.

Most boyfriends, or men in general, might not notice or think anything of it if they did notice, but my boyfriend is one of the most observant and connected men I have ever met. He has "sensitive female" levels of perception ability. I *love* this about him, of course, because it allows us to have entire conversations in which the subject is never mentioned--essentially starting in the middle of a thought process--leaving the people around us rather confused, which of course is half the fun of having inside jokes in the first place. But we get to create them all the time. Moving on.

There is one thing that he is absolutely male about, however: he is much, MUCH, messier than I am, and everyone that knows me in real life is shaking their head right now and wondering just how messy could someone be? And that answer is: MESSY.

He's a genius, of course. He doesn't SEE dirt, just as I'm sure Einstein didn't see dirt. I am unfortunately either not a genius, or I am too steeped in female culture or social expectations or SOMETHING, because unfortunately, now I see Dirt. (It only took ten years and some very helpful and compassionate sorority sisters. Shoutout to Bergie, who was the nicest and most gentle person to ever approach me about the fact that my room...smelled.)


So, I'm used to filth. I can hang, as the kids say. I slept in the same bed as my DOG for several years, and he was occasionally incontinent. Yes, really. But now? I see Dirt. How do I handle it? Glad you asked! Stay tuned.

I see...Dirt.

If smart phones are good for anything, it's amusing yourself in the bathroom while your mask dries.

I have recently moved in with my boyfriend , who is living, temporarily, in a (barely) converted warehouse, which only goes a part of the way toward explaining why I'm standing naked in what amounts to a gas station bathroom smearing $65 face mask on my skin, but damned if I'm not going to stand here for the recommended five minutes, which is why I'm typing this on my smartphone. I put some on my elbow, too, for good measure. The mask, not the phone, and I didn't put any mask on the phone, although the screen is so broken I'm not sure I could actually worsen the condition and a good mask treatment might even be an improvement. My elbow, which has some kind of recurring bite on it and itches like crazy, is stinging a bit after the mask, which I think is a good sign.

The only reason I can even do this here is because there's finally a mirror in this bathroom, which only happened yesterday. You read that right. No mirror in the bathroom. Before this I did my makeup in the big mirrored doors of the IKEA wardrobe in our bedroom, which means that I often splashed water on my face at night, THEN trekked, raccoon-eyed, two rooms over to the big mirrors, so I could put lotion on the correct smudges and not in my eye. I'd have installed a mirror in the bathroom awhile ago except we can't even seem to keep TOWELS in the bathroom, much less a mirror. (No, really. Three other guys live here too and one of them purloined the mirror and set it up by the only window in the place by a live outlet, because two of the three have beards and they needed to shave in natural light. With electric razors, obviously.)

This is what happens when you move into a barely converted warehouse. My boyfriend refers to it as "the Danger Room", or the DR for short, which is confusing if you have spent any time in the Dominican Republic, which he has and I haven't, so there you go. It's much like living in a medieval castle, or in a third world--I feel like I need a lit candle to walk around the place. (Much better, too, if I had flowing robes a la Maid Marian.) It's confusing and challenging and AWESOME and I LOVE IT. Stay tuned.

Charlotte Gray at Bending Breath

I found the book "Charlotte Gray" in a shared library in a hostel in Tokyo at 3 am because I couldn't sleep, and I read it all in one sitting and brought it home with me on the plane and haven't read it since, but have thought about it many times. It remains a mystery in my head, a mild obsession, a faint itch that I COULD scratch if I wanted to, but choose not to. I like it almost better as a mystery.

Also, "found in a shared library in a hostel in Tokyo at 3 am because I couldn't sleep" is one of those incredibly pretentious things you only get to say a few times, and I am damned well going to take every opportunity to do so. I'd say I'm sorry about this, but I'm not.

Also: I have no idea how I found this blog, but I read her obsessively. I don't think she even knows I exist. Another mystery that I like to leave as a mystery.

“Memory is the only thing that binds you to earlier selves; for the rest, you become an entirely different being every decade or so, sloughing off the old persona, renewing and moving on. You are not who you were, he told her, nor who you will be.”  
 

-Sebastian Faulks, Charlotte Gray

Via this post at Bending Breath

Give me a 13 foot pipe and a place to stand, and I shall move...THIS SUITCASE.

Or, Why You Should Never Throw Anything Away.

A nice weekender bag just wasn't going to cut it. I was about to leave on a week long trip, covering business AND a wedding AND some time just bumming around Long Island. I needed a suitcase. A REAL suitcase. I had one of those, but...oh, dear. Hadn't I just moved?

On the plus side, I located it immediately, in the morass of things that is my stuff, piled up to the rafters of the warehouse I've just moved in to with Entrepreneur. On the negative side, it was...at the top of a 15-foot stack of boxes. Mounting the neighboring drafting table brought me within wishing reach, but...my arms weren't quite long enough. Then I braved climbing directly onto the upper strata of boxes, and managed to reach the handle button, which extended said handle, which seemed like victory...until I realized I'd just extended the lever arm in the wrong direction. Now I'd have to apply much MORE force to lift the suitcase above the sides of the box holding it, and I wasn't sure the upper strata were balanced enough to support me, plus me working against my own weight, without toppling over like dominoes and taking me with them. Not the ideal start to a week long trip of any kind.

Fortunately, I had resources; namely, one very smart boyfriend, and also, one 13-foot conduit pipe that I've carried with me from place to place for the last two years for gawd knows what reason except that you just never know when you might desperately need a good 13-foot pipe, and they can be hard to lay your hands on at a moment's notice.*

Entrepreneur's solution: Tell girlfriend to stay where she is. Grab your girlfriend's 13-foot pipe. Utilize already installed girlfriend, precariously but firmly balanced on the closest access point to the suitcase, as the fulcrum.** Have her thread the pipe through the helpfully popped-up handle. Direct her to utilize all of her non-existent upper body strength and push and HOLD the pipe as high as possible above her head, against your force. Stand back and haul that lever DOWN. Et Voila!

Optional finish for extra style points: As you hand your girlfriend the high flying suitcase, remark offhandedly, "When facing a problem, always remember your Archimedes."

*Very smart boyfriends can ALSO be hard to lay your hands on at a moment's notice.

**This stunt was performed by a completely unpaid nonprofessional on a very uncontrolled course. Do not try this at home.

Survived Hell!

HOORAY!


Getting called a tw@t in front of my mother really put the cap on it, I think. But! It does not matter. I escaped with all my fingers and toes--I don't think I left more than a few brain cells behind--and I get to live with a pretty awesome guy and really, just surviving, and knowing I never have to go back, is a wonderful, blessed, thing.

Also! I got to go to LA and NYC and see some awesome people get married. That was pretty nifty. Shoutout to a navy blue dress I bought at a thrift store that I think was meant to be a nightgown and has now carried me through six weddings, with at least one more to go. Best fourteen bucks I ever spent.

About "From the B-Sides"

Tri-Tip, the other day, took time out of his busy work schedule to hound me for posting ARCHIVES. (Direct quote: "We demand NEW content!")

"But they ARE new content, at least to you," I said. "Those are all unpublished drafts of posts I never finished, or wasn't sure what to do with. Figured the time had come to make them work for their keep."

"Ah," he said, without missing a beat, "then they're not archives. They're B-sides."

And so they are.

From the B-Sides: Blues Lyrics

It's a warm summer night, but that computer screen glows cold/
This space you put between us is really growing old/
Talking to you is less appealing than mold/
So when the dealer comes around again, tell him that I fold

Written about the LT, sometime in spring or summer 2009.

From the B-Sides: Cooking for the Then-Boyfriend

From last year:

I had kind of an off week last week--tired, not really into much, feeling like a failure--and Roommate (before she was Roommate) came over in the middle of it and looked into my fridge. "Hold up," she said. "You...went to the grocery!"

"Yes!" I said. "There's cheese, and bread, and even some lettuce mix."

She gave me a priceless look of amazement over the back of the door. "Wow," she said, "you HAVE had an off week!"

HA. Whatever.

On the plus side, I totally packed a lunch for myself today of FOOD that I bought at a GROCERY STORE, including SALAD with dressing and leftover pasta that I totally made ON MY OWN, with mainly-homemade sauce, thanks to the aforementioned dinner that I cooked for Boyfriend.

(Menu for Boyfriend Dinner: Two pork chops, of such high quality that I just cooked them in butter, salt and pepper, and a little garlic-from-a-jar. Wide good noodles from TJ's with a sauce of sheeps' milk yogurt, Nancy's sour cream, and leftover parmesan sauce from Safeway. Lettuce mix with dressing. Yes, it feels fancy to ME, okay? Okay.)

From mid-year 2010, cooking for AZ.

From the B-Sides: On My Lust List for Spring

Oh, man.

From summer 2010. And I STILL want them!

From the B-Sides: On Changing and Being Changed

I wrote a post last year about being a partier and dating a partier, and I didn't publish it partly because I hadn't finished it, and partly because I was worried about my mother's reaction.

I need coffee. Hang on.

In my next life, I want to write like Tom Chiarelli. Why is there no Esquire Magazine for women?

Speaking of, the editor for Cosmopolitan, Ms. Kate White, is really an excellent writer. She has at least two non-fiction books out and a whole series of whodunits with a freelance writer (sound familiar?) as the protagonist, and they are really good.

I would totally read an entire magazine written in Ms. White's voice. She treats women like they are literate, independent, sane. Exactly how Esquire seems to treat its readers. I understand that Ms. White cares about Cosmo and I understand that one woman can't--and really, shouldn't--change a working magazine formula, but it is still slightly disappointing, like seeing someone you know and respect marry someone you know is no good for them.

(Tom Chiarelli is not the editor for Esquire. Just one of their more senior and important contributors. He writes a lot of advice pieces, but not advice columns; more longer non-fiction pieces that hope to show, instead of tell, young men how to be a man.)

Yes. Well. Although much of his advice (at least some) is non-gender specific, and I don't always agree with him, I do wonder what he would advise young men to do in these kinds of situations, both a) I've written a very casual and normal piece that I'm terribly worried about publishing because I'm worried about my mother (and, to be fair, my father as well, although he is less of a threat because he is less inclined to call me about it and also works much farther away) and b) I'm in a relationship that is changing me, and I hate it.

Let me be clear: the man is not TRYING to change me. He simply is, by virtue of being himself, and me being myself (by virtue of: GOD what a ridiculous phrase. I'm not even sure what it means.)

Ahem. The man is not at all trying to change me. (I've been THERE before and I know what that looks like. This is different.) I am reacting in some way that seems to be pre-prescribed by either my hormones or the socialization I can't fully rid myself of or the alignment of the stars and the moon or SOMETHING, and whatever that SOMETHING is, it can go jump in the Sound in December, as far as I am concerned, and never come back. (Writer's note: I almost used the phrase "I am simply reacting" and then went back and took it out. Whether you are writing an email, a powerpoint presentation, a blog post, a letter, whatever, you should NEVER use the words "simply" or "just". The minute you find yourself using them in your speech, stop immediately and figure out what you're really trying to say. Those are weasel words, passive-aggressive words, and they make you a hypocritical coward faster than you can say "Pharisee".)

(Back to the point.)

It's an old joke: A woman marries a man hoping he will change, and he doesn't, and a man marries a woman hoping she'll never change, and she does.

I don't WANT to change. I don't want to be changed by him, and I don't want to want him to change, if you follow me. So far I may be succeeding at point three, but occasionally failing at points one and two, and here would probably be a good time to add some nouns, because this sentence is going to get ridiculously complicated quickly if I repeat the word "change" every five words, and you'll start to think you're listening to Obama's 2012 presidential campaign.

In a nutshell, I will post the body of the original post I wrote, because it fits in neatly AND now I'll never have to finish it, and I've already published the parental disclaimer, and so now by writing sleight-of-hand and I am fully blameless and can publish this post with equanimity. HA.

On Being And Dating a Partier.

Hanging out with moderate drinkers is sure different from hanging out with serious drinkers. For comparison: the Blonde Squad are moderate drinkers. The CTC Crew are serious drinkers. (And that's not all they do with their disposable income, I'll just put it that way.)

I've been trying to walk this fine line with my mother (and father) about the amount of partying that I talk about in this blog, not because I'm worried about their judgment or approval, but because they'll worry, and they'll want to talk about it, and I don't know how to communicate to them that they may be correct on some level to worry, but that talking about it would be like talking about why most girls under 30 aren't married yet or what Twitter does, exactly, or trying to explain Snark. It's not that they're dumb. (They're both better educated than I am.) It's that it's a generational phenomenon. I feel that what drives their worry is the fact that I am failing at life, that I am somehow an outlier who is terribly unhappy or unsuccessful or drinking some secret pain away or staying out because I can't bear to be home, and that may be true, but if it is, then the entire generation under 35, and most of the generation under 40, has the exact same problem and perhaps we should ALL go to more therapy and go to fewer bars.

Are bars the new psychiatrist's couch? Is shouting over your friends and chasing members of the opposite sex the new cognitive behavioral therapy?

Because my generation--and the one right before me, say--pretty much INVENTED binge drinking. It's what we do.

Put another way, partying is something that happens among a certain age group who has a fair amount of disposable income and a lot of free time, with no dependents, and is obviously sad about life, because why else would they drink that much?

Seriously, you put a lot of really gorgeous people in a room together who don't know each other, for a big party, and suddenly people are pounding the shots back like they're water. WHY? Why do we do this? Is it social anxiety? Are people afraid of something? Getting to know other people? Getting to know themselves? Are other people not going to like them? Will they know what to say? (I'm aware that paragraph is very poorly written. Sorry.)

So if I have a strong belief that I should live my single life and my relationship life in very similar veins--and I have a very strong belief that I should--then I should be able to go out with my partner, right? And I've made a practice of doing that very successfully. For many years, a shaping policy on my dating life has been that I won't date anyone I can't go out with. I shared that with my mother recently and she said, "But Miss Dear, you won't always want to GO OUT. You'll want to spend time at home!"

I pooh-poohed this idea, which is generally par for the course.

But dating partiers is hard, too. There's a lot of parties. People flirt. People get drunk, and do stupid things, and get jealous. I turn into a hag. It's not good. Or my date turns into a jealous asshole. (Editor's Note: Both have happened to me relatively recently, actually.)

One of the things that broke up the LT and I at the end of the relationship is that he still wanted to go out, in the GO-GO-GO atmosphere that is hard-livin' young professionals that spend every waking moment not at work on a ski mountain or on a sailboat or on a motorcycle or jumping out of airplanes, and I wanted to have more dinners out and see more live music (usually the symphony or jazz) and dance more.

Also, partying that much feels, after awhile--even with the slightly more sophisticated verneer of jazz and dancing and live music, which really only means that you get a cheap red wine hangover instead of a cheap whiskey hangover--childish.

CHILDISH. You're not doing anything. You're not contributing to society, you're not doing anything creative in your off hours. Whether you're on the ski slope or in the ballet audience, you're not doing anything good for society, and yes I DID just equate skiing with ballet. Are you CREATING the ballet? No? Then you're not spending your leisure hours in any more productive fashion than the dude who smokes pot every day and lives in the snow. (I'll buy the argument that there is more POTENTIAL for creativity for the person who attends ballet, but that only counts if they then use that generated creativity.)

And going to fancy parties and drinking with a really nice view is a kick in the pants, true, but it's not any more productive than skiing unless you're in the market for a rich husband or the best networker ever.

The point I am trying to make here is that now I am suddenly hanging out with a lot of boys who are heavy drinkers and it's WONDERFUL, but I'm not ACCOMPLISHING a damn thing besides wearing out my liver and looking really good at night. The last two dates Handrolled and I have had have been specifically about drinking, as in, that was the entire plan for the date: "Let's get drunk and watch movies and snuggle." To be fair, I LOVE this activity. But when it's the GOAL for the date, I feel like we shoot past "happy energetic tipsy", which is what everyone is aiming for, and go directly to "Blackout Express", which means that some part of me SOMEWHERE has a good night but I don't get to remember all of it in the morning, which is no fun.

Zaphod Breeblebox's Gambit: When you send a drink down the hatch and it seems to have no affect, so you send another one down to see what the first one is doing, and now they're BOTH ignoring you, so you send a third drink down to see what the first two are up to and that one seems to have some affect, so you have another drink to keep the party going, and suddenly you're wasted and you never got to even enjoy being tipsy.

And it's not only Mr. Handrolled. Two separate members of the Blonde Squad suffered from such serious hangovers this weekend that they slept half their hangovers away, and let me emphasize that that does not normally happen to these girls. I'm seeing what seems like a RESURGENCE of heavy drinking all around me and it makes me feel partly responsible.

God, I missed my calling. I should have been a false prophet. I'd have been amazing. My eyes already glow blue anyway.

The long and short of it is that I thought, until I wrote all this out, that I was suddenly wanting to stay in and party less because Mr. Handrolled was starting to party so much more, and so he was pushing me in the opposite direction, and he was going to be mighty disappointed soon when the party girl he liked disappears for Shrewish Hag, and suddenly I'm thinking it's not his fault at all. Which makes me feel slightly less crazy, and also makes me think that my dates (and my friends) really are drinking this much to either dull pain, or have more fun, which is all well and good but I'd like not to depend on it. Can I be the same fun party girl without drinking quite so much?

And to really put the lid on things, it's possible I'm only thinking this way because I went to my first chiropractic appointment today and I feel old.

From the B-Sides: Only Child Syndrome

I just want things to STAY WHERE I PUT THEM, he said.

I agreed.

I'm touchy about my cereal, he said. I have to keep a box just for me because I go crazy when the level is different from where I left.

I understood.

From the B-Sides: Randoms

Me, to the bartender: "Whiskey and Ginger, please."

Bartender takes one look at me and snorts. "Yeah, I bet you ARE a Whiskey Ginger."

Me: "Is that like a whiskey-FUELED Ginger?"

Bartender: "Or a Frisky Whiskey Ginger?"

Me: "Wow."

Kit, introducing me to a friend of hers: "And sometimes, Aarwenn lets you come over and bounce on her tramp!"

I meant to say "Give you a ride" and switched halfway through the sentence to say, "Drive you home", and this is what came out:

Me, to Entrepreneur: "Okay, so you need me to ride you home?"
Him: "Um...is this a trick question?"

Me, to Sales Guy: "You had him take the day off work so he could help you lay tile in your basement? That IS a good friend."
Sales Guy, defensively: "Yeah, well I bailed him out in LA when he got busted for possession, so as far as I'm concerned, he's still in the hole."

"Bobby": Yeah, not drinking yesterday was a big feat for me.
Me: "Yeah, I don't think I've accomplished that since I had the swine flu."

Death and Taxes (and coffee)

It's a BEAUTIFUL day here and I got a new, free, blouse! I feel pretty classy sitting here in it.

Roommate has switched Bux stores, and she doesn't have to go in quite so early anymore, which means that occasionally I drop her off at the new store on my way to work, and get a free latte out of the deal. This also means that she and I get to trade witty banter in the car, which is a fun start to the day.

This morning, as we left the house, I looked at us--she in her full on Sbux black and me in my charcoal gray blouse and black pants, both of us compulsively wearing our aviators--and laughed.

"What?" she said, grinning.

"Someone who didn't know the culture at all would assume we were going to a funeral," I pointed out.

She laughed. "SO true. It's all sunny, and there's spring coming and bluebirds singing and--"

"--rainbows popping--"

"--right, and people are happy and smiling and probably wearing pastels, and here we are in full on BLACK."

"The Ex-Goth in the Entrepreneur would be proud."

And then, a little later, we weren't far from her store and I court death by pulling a fast left turn in front of oncoming traffic, because, jeez, we were on our way for COFFEE and that can't wait for things like safety, am I right?

Her: "Turns out, we WERE dressed for a funeral!"

Me: "We had no idea IT WOULD BE OUR OWN."

I Can See Why Non-Destructive Testing Is So Popular

It has not been an easy month.(tm)

It is perhaps accurate to say that I have experienced stress levels higher this past month than I ever have before. At one point Entrepreneur offered to take me to the shooting range and I said, "No. I can't be around guns right now."

It's calming down, though. Thanks, in no small part, to Entrepreneur, of course, and his friends, and support network. They have been the best support network ever, not because they actively went out of their way to comfort me (although many did) but because seeing stability and functionality at its most basic level, implemented on the cellular level, was a light at the end of a long and dark tunnel, a logical proof that I was not slowly going mad, that the chaos and destruction I saw in my own life every waking minute was not required, that I didn't have to live in that land forever. The Blonde Squad (tm) also helped enormously, of course, and they should not feel like an afterthought. I grasped moments with them like a woman swimming the Channel would grasp breaths between chops. After all, it was partly the presence of Entrepreneur in my life that made things so stressful, because if he hadn't been who he is the breakdown of law and order would not have happened. Of course, if Roommate hadn't met Her Lady, either, this also would have never happened, at least not all at once.

I don't mean to be cryptic. Entrepreneur is Water, and Rommate's Lady is Oil, and never the two shall mix, which Roommate and I could have dealt with...if we hadn't gotten ambitious and tried to make Salad Dressing.

In fact I owe Roommate's Lady a debt, really. Just by being herself--the constantly chaotic and destructive person that she is--she pulled out of Entrepreneur everything that I was unsure about and set it up in front of me like a barrier; she built a barricade between me and my love for him and I had to knock it down, brick by goddamned brick, in the presence of witnesses.

She also forced me to see Roommate as Herself, not as the woman I'd been imagining all these years, especially the past few years, when I'd been so close to her, Roommate's Lady is a magnifying glass, a crucible, the Devil's Funhouse Mirror; she magnifies everything ugly and unsure about a person and displays it back on them tenfold. If Roommate and I had been actually married and had to get a divorce, it could not have been worse.

(Well, probably it would have been, honestly. I've never actually gotten divorced.)

It was as bad as it was with Handrolled; I had to not only break up with him, but also divorce in my head the person whom I was with him, and him only; I had to examine all my assumptions about him and explode them, one by one. Destructive testing is...destructive. WHO KNEW.

It was worse with Roommate and Roommate's Lady, in point of fact. Part of it was the surprise factor. At least I knew the breakup with Handrolled was coming.

Roommate and I are still roommates, for the time being; we may continue to be for some time. We've hammered out a truce. And we always knew our roommate relationship would be temporary anyway, at least for some definition of "temporary".

The scars, however, are permanent.

I Feel Virtuous When I Walk My Dog, Too.

Also, your word of the day is: Virtuous. As in, "Aarwenn sure felt virtuous listing all the solid food she'd already consumed that Monday." (Future versions of this sentence may include the word "fateful" before "Monday", but of course we can't know.)

Used first in my presence by one Entrepreneur, re the same subject matter. Some people may have hi-fived, I believe I initiated a fist bump, because I am a dork and kind of a douchebag. A much more appropriate conduit of mutual physical recognition, I realize suddenly, would have been a pat on the back. Fooey.

I Flounder.

Breakfast: Granola bar, office coffee. Elevenses: Beet juice with chia seeds, and chicken terrine, cold cuts, and broiled mountain cheese from Cafe Presse. Late lunch: Bimimbap and seaweed soup with beef broth. Clover-brewed Sumatra. I'd make some funny comment, but I guess I'm just all over the map today.

My coworker, on hearing that I had been to Olympus Spa and gotten the scrub and moisturizing package: "Oh, that's my favorite, too! But I always feel like a big fish. A big white flabby fish, you know, because those women all have such lovely golden skin and here I am in all my flabby whiteness on a SLAB while they rub me down and fillet me."

Then much later, smelling my seaweed soup: "Mmmm. That reminds me, I should get back there soon. It's time for another flounder treatment."

Me, laughing: "Is THAT what we're calling it now?"

Her: "You prefer Halibut Treatment?"

In Which I Write About Titan, Part The First

I'm going to post about Titan here, for many reasons, and, (Spoiler alert) if you like dogs, or know me well, or know TITAN well, or cry easily, make sure you’re in a private place, or skip this post until later.

(Don't say I didn't warn you.)

Ready? Okay, pet owners, and everyone: I'm writing this all out because at some point, you will need to know how to deal with a dying pet, and...everyone's reactions will be different. Your reactions, whatever they are, or will be, ARE SO FUCKING VALID, because...well, read on.

For those of you who don’t know, Titan had an unexpected, and very scary, unknown  event happen to him on Saturday night. All I know is, I watched him—in what seemed like slow-motion—collapse, rear end hitting the ground first—in my apartment hallway. And when I ran to him to help him up, he vehemently shied away from my touch.



It was then that I realized his pupils were beyond dilated and he was temporarily blind and also had lost any control of his hindquarters.

I screamed at him for a while, in my apartment hallway, giving him orders: Do NOT die on me, you fucking weakling, I should have left you at the pound 13 years ago, if THIS is how you repay me, get the FUCK up, don’t you do this to me. DON’T you do this to me. I have to go to a fancy party in an hour, I did NOT plan on putting you down tonight, don’t you leave me here, on Earth, without you, DON’T YOU LEAVE ME HERE, I can’t live without you, I CAN’T live without you, DON’T YOU FUCKING LEAVE ME, YOU FUCKING BASTARD!

Then I realized I probably wasn’t accomplishing anything and bodily forced him into my car.

I fought my broken clutch on my way to the ER, through the stop-and-go traffic of the Wallingford section of 45th at 7:30 pm on a Saturday night, thinking my dog was going to die at any second. In case you were thinking about trying that soon for your own amusement, my advice is:
Don’t.

Many, many, things happened after that, including me carrying on with life*, not sure if my dog was going to make it or not. On Saturday night, it seemed like he would; they assumed he had ingested some kind of dog neurotoxin (which could be a LOT of things in your medicine cabinet, including NSAIDs) due to the rapid onset. Which also made sense to me. (Note: Two patients who came in after me had to put their cats down, and let me tell you—it was a small office. The obvious pain was...a little awful.)

Back to Titan: They were going to keep him overnight, pump him with fluids and activated charcoal, and run some tests. Fine. Okay. I went home and did the fastest primp job ever, trying to cover up my swollen eyelids. (LOTS of yellow-tinted eyeshadow primer, ladies.)**

2 am Sunday morning, they had tested for every known dog toxin under the sun and were no longer sure what had happened. Obviously pancreatitis, possibly pancreatic cancer, probably some colitis, we’ll call you when we know more. We’re not sure he’s going to make it; we don’t know what’s wrong. That was...a rough night. Shall we just say.

At 8 am Sunday morning, they still didn’t know what had happened, but he was improving; Sunday afternoon, even more promising; Sunday evening, he was *totally* surviving! Stable! Talking! Talking quite loudly, actually! Please come pick him up before we all go deaf! (Titan has his own language, as everyone who has met him knows. Still haven’t found a damned interpreter.) Except...we (the vet) don’t know why he had that event, and you should probably take him to see a neurologist, because problems that cause Serious Neurological Events don’t usually fix themselves. (Excuse my black comedy; it’s a survival mechanism. If you’re offended, fuck you.)

So, after meeting with the veterinary neurologist (yes, I am now the kind of person who gets a neurologist for her *dog*--and we won’t make any jokes about how I probably need it more than he does) I know the truth: he probably has a few months of high quality life left, maybe even a year or longer***. I know what symptoms/turning points to look for, and I have options A, B, and C at every one of those turning points, if and when they happen****. How he’s doing: he’s doing fine right now—he’s sleeping a lot, but he seems happy and comfortable, and he has plenty of appetite, once I got the right food*****. I’m crossing my fingers.

How I’m doing: I feel…fey. I mean, I thought in the middle of Sunday that I was going to have put him down RIGHT THEN, so…when he got better, and I didn’t have to, I felt incredibly relieved, but also pretty apprehensive, like: I have no idea what happened, it could happen again, what the heck am I going to do, when will it end, when will I *know*, what if, what if, WHAT IF. And now, after the neurologist, I have some answers, which, on top of the incredible sense of relief I had after he unexpectedly improved, has made me almost manic******.

This man has been my lifeline for the past 8 years, since I graduated from college. He has been my anchor. My rock. My guiding star, my reason for living, my boyfriend, my priest, my ball-and-chain, my roommate, my heating blanket, my reason for cursing, my expense, my sacrifice, and now, he has emerged as my rather slow-acting…heart. The outward extension of my emotions, my lightning rod, my canary in a coal mine. He’s the most wonderful, and the most frustrating, experience I have ever had. And while he’s very alive right now, at some point in the next year, he will die.

So: expect me to cycle rapidly through the “stages” of grief at some point in the next few weeks/months/years, and by “cycle” I mean “I may experience any of them at any moment, at any second." I’m thinking about carrying color-coded flash cards, so I can just hold one up when I know what I’m feeling, which in ITSELF assumes that I’ll know what I’m experiencing, which is a big assumption. For example: yesterday my ski gear didn’t fit, because I’ve lost weight, and I was so pissed that I was losing that much weight that I hurled my motorcycle boot against the wall and left a dent. (Hope my apartment super isn’t reading this. Hi, James!)

I hope you get/got to meet my Man, and I hope I don’t take it out on you too much, and I hope you can understand if I do.

Thanks, everyone.

*Yeah, I carried on with life. I'll go into that in maybe a next post. I'm certainly not done writing about this subject, I can tell you that. LOTS of emotions to go through. Shout-out to the Snowshoe Gang, who were incredibly supportive when I showed up at Victrola, so unstable that I was breaking into pieces and re-healing all at the same time.

**Like I said: your reactions, whatever they are, are VALID. I chose to go on with life, and I'll talk more about that in a separate post. Shout-out to the Roommate, my mother, and various love interests, both present and past, all of whom have been unbelievably supportive at this crucial time.

***I will happily go into the medical details for anyone (medicine specialists, pet owners, or just the plain nosy) who wants to know. Message me.

****That poor vet. She must have thought I had gone insane, I was so mathematical and logical, but she never said a judgmental word, and went out of her way to discuss, and re-discuss, every possible option with me. I want to take this moment to say that one of the bright spots of this episode in my life has been the extremely high quality of veterinary care I have gotten, from both Emerald City Emergency Clinic and the VCA Veterinary Specialty Center of Seattle. They made me feel like I was the only patient on their books; I called and re-called, and they took as much time as I needed; it was like I had a private team of vets devoted to just my dog. I cannot say enough good things.

*****Twelve hours ago he still wasn't eating. Turns out he just didn't like his old food anymore; a simple hack, a simple thing to fix, not the heart-breaking episode it might have been. If this happens to you, pet owners, try switching up the food a few times before calling the ER. AGAIN.

******I'm fascinated with everything he does, with every move he makes. It's a little strange, but I'm adjusting.

AZ and I: Still Friends, Thank Goodness

*random work chatter over IM, and then*

Me: "Okay, I'm going to get some coffee."

AZ: "Good luck!"

Me: "I don't need luck. I got skill."

Me: "...that is the biggest lie I have ever told."

And then, a few hours later...

*more chatter, and then*

AZ: "...dammit. As usual, please forgive the spelling." (Author's note: I once got him this coffee mug. It is the most accurate description of him available.)

Me: "Hey, at least you spelled 'congratulations' right!

AZ: "That one's an easy one for me. I can sound it out."

Me: "Most people spell it with a D. Those people should be taken out and shot."

AZ: "Hehe."

Me: "Aww. That's so cute that you think I'm kidding."

AZ: "HA! That's why I love you. You are batshit crazy about all the right things."