Wow!

That was fast - it's 8pm the day before Nano - and I JUST realized it.

I haven't thought much more about my book - I've given the main character a last name, but other than that - that's it.

And oddly enough - I'm not going to think about it. I'm just going to - run with it. How utterly unlike me, and I think I'll give it up in about three weeks and 25K words but I think I'll have a shitload of fun doing it.

I'm going to aim for 2K words a day - I'm sure there will be points where I won't be able to work on it - or where I just give up, but - I'll try my damnedest.

The List - 4 years later

Reposting this - I originally made the list in December of 2000. It's close enough to four years later - and I'm just going to bold all of the ones that I"ve done.

1. Go to Egypt and stare at the stars
2. Sleep under water
3. Cruise all seven seas
4. Visit Africa
5. Bring my family back together
6. Find my passion
7. Write a novel that more than just my friends think is good
8. Have an exhibit of my art in a museum before I die
9. Work for National Geographic as a photographer
10. Go on an archaeological dig for the Mayans or the Egyptians
11. Go into outer space
12. Watch a meteor shower
13. See a comet
14. Give birth…more than once
15. Make new friends
16. Get married
17. Buy the perfect house
18. Learn how to drive
19. Learn how to speak
20. Write like I think
21. Exercise
22. Lose 100 pounds (75..... I'm getting closer!)
23. Love myself
24. Fall in love
25. Never worry about money again
26. Learn how to be empathic
27. Learn how to be symphatic
28. Become a martial arts master
29. Become a ballerina
30. Get a tattoo
31. Learn Japanese
32. Forgive
33. Forget
34. Go through boot camp
35. Make my first million
36. See perfectly
37. Buy a new car
38. Bake a perfect loaf of bread
39. Fly the way I do in dreams
40. Make magic
41. Get a cat
42. Go to New York City
43. Learn how to draw
44. Go EVERYWHERE!
45. Talk to Maya Angelou and Octavia Butler and Alice Walker and Nikki Giovanni and Nsotake Shange
46. See For colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow was enuf
47. Figure out my family tree
48. Become a super hero
49. Let go
50. Hold on
51. Create bigger dreams
52. Ride amtrak across america
53. Have a real honeymoon
54. Treat myself better
55. Speak UP!
56. Let my emotions go
57. Forgive myself
58. Become a better photographer
59. Become a worse doormat (working on it!!)
60. Go white water rafting
61. Lock my hair
62. Go blond (okay - you can't really tell, but it ain't for lack of trying)
63. Get shorter
64. Get taller
65. Play sports
66. Learn how to swim
67. Play a video game
68. Mingle
69. Grow old gracefully
70. Sa y what I mean and what I feel when I mean and feel it
71. Write more letters
72. Write more cards
73. Write more
74. Develop a personality
75. Finish what I start
76. Go out in the country and go camping under the stars
77. Buy a good telescope
78. Feel gorgeous
79. Splurge on myself
80. Go for what I don't know
81. Step out on Faith
82. Gain faith
83. Believe
84. Take singing lessons
85. See Meshell Ndgeachello and Janet Jackson and Jamaroqui and D'Angelo and Rachelle Ferrell and Macy Gray and Nina Simone and Boyz II Men and Jill Scott in concert
86. Complete my music collection
87. Start my music collection
88. Become a collector of things
89. Become less sexist
90. Relate to that which is different
91. Create traditions
92. Grow Up
93. Stay in touch with my inner child
94. Own my own bookstore
95. Create something totally new
96. Be healthy
97. Be strong
98. Be real
99. Get back all the friends I ever lost
100. Stay true to myself…

---

Boy - I've got a lot of work to do!

---

rushed....

So. I'm happy - and guiltily excited. He's happy - and just relieved that he'll have a chance to get some on a regular basis. It's - weird - how big of a stink this whole thing was casuing over our WHOLE relationship - and now - it feels almost right again. I'm still going to call the counselor (maybe today in fact) but - at least I don't feel like dying/crying/or getting a divorce. Hah. I can't never do stuff normally......

In other news - my husband is NOT a registered voter. Can I tell you how hard I'm going to pop him upside the head next time I see him? I'm registered - under my maiden name (I knew there was a reason I never changed the name on my passport). I knew I was, but couldn't remember where I lived when I registered....so - he'll have to drive me to the polls on the 2nd. The big bum.

I'm going home early, as it's Friday, I've got stuff to do but I'm so restless at work that I can't do it - and besides both of my bosses are out today. Kiss my ass.

I hate Indy. I don't think I've mentioned that lately, but this city sucks. I was looking for a halfway good alternative bookstore - and nothing. Nada. Shit on a stick. My best bet is to go to the biggest Borders and hope that living in the bible belt hasn't resulted in TOO much censorship (hah) or just suck it up, go to Amazon, and wait a week.

Hyper am I. Bloated am I as well. I blame it on the three (yes, I'm a greedy sugar loving woman) Long's doughnuts I had this morning. Long's is a local brand - and they are better than Krsipy Kreme. They kinda taste the same, but they are much better in one very important way - they still taste WONDERFUL cold. KK's - if you let them sit for too long - they get all - ucky. but Longs???? yuuummmm..... so yes - my digestive system is currently calling me everything BUT a child of god.

Hmm... cab's taking a while. *sigh* I wan go HOME!

deja vu

"so how does it feel to be in the couple and not the incoming freak?"

Very, very, very odd.

We talked. We cried.... a lot actually. We realized that yeah, we do have options - I don't HAVE to change, and neither does he. I realized that yeah, he does love me - and he confirmed that he always knows that I love him.

Good lord help me, I'm stepping BACK into the lifestyle. I was smoking something yes, but this is CRAZY.

*laugh* And so much fun. Good lord.

psyche

without knowing
her story
how can i consicously
avoid her
pain?

I watched my mother become a virtual Jekyll and Hyde - all for love of a man who after 9 long years of confusion, love, paind and dedication, she finally gave up on. She changed into another woman when he was home, from the one she was when she was alone. During the times they were broken up, she was an entirely DIFFERENT woman - strong, agressive, intelligent, outspoken - and the second she got married again it was like all of her fire just whoosh! gone. By the time I was 10, I hated it. I LIKED my mother unmarried, and I didn't care if we had to live in a shelter - I'd take that woman over any man and any kind or amount of love ever. But she kept going back. Three times. 9 years. What change finally broke her down? Was it the long simmering grief of the first, or last - and with it the sudden realization that she wasn't herself anymore - and that she COULDN'T be herself with him? And that - I think - more than anything else buried in my pysche, is what makes me so hestitant to change myself for love. I don't want to step even the least bit on that slippery slope of reshaping myself into an image that best pleases him - and forgetting (or just plain neglecting) what pleases me. I don't want to change into a wife and lose who I've worked so damn hard over these last 27 years to become. I'm not ready to just fold and become this - other woman. I happen to like the one I already am.

I've no clue what their sex life was like, but I do know that she never taught me that sex was a requirement, prerequisite, or reflection of love. It was somethng that adults did, some something that lead to disease and babies, and something that felt remarkably good - but sex was  love? Never that.  I grew up knowing how to laugh with ease at the boys who told me that if I loved them I would have sex with them - I was never that naive. I learned that love does make sex feel better - but some of the best sex I've ever had in my LIFE has been with folx I don't love in the least - and most of the people that I love most - I've never had sex with. The connection jsut doesn't - exsist for me. At all.

And now - I'm facing more or less the same - comment - but now in a grownup wrapping. He's my husband - and I'm supposed to want to have sex with him, right? Because I love him, right? And the fact that I even question it makes me feel - guilty. Unnatural - broken somehow. And at the same time - I feel deeply resentful of the thought that I will haveto change something about me to please him - and the pressure, and the guilt, and the resentment of my stubborn refusal makes it worse - I mean - how dare I not want to please him, and how dare he demand that I please him and why can't we just get along in peace?

Because he won't change and I don't want to.

And then there's the compromise - of course.  Once or twice a week - nicely scheduled. How delightful. A onerous duty that comes at a certain time is no more a pleasure than one that sneaks up on you in suprise. And perhaps there's the issue - why do I think of it as an onerous duty? Because I'm not interested. Why aren't I interested? That - that is the crux of it. It's not as if I'm sexually repressed - I'm about the most cheerfully phsycially affectionate sensual person I know - I just *shrugs* have little to no interest in the actual dirty. Do I come? Yup - no problems in that area. It's just - *sigh* I don't know. And I feel like finally I'm adult enough to admit it - and I married the wrong man for that particular admission. So - either I change, or he goes.  And both options make me cringe.

aftermath

So. We talked last night. And - it's at an impasse. He can't see himself living for the rest of his life in a low-sexed marriage. I can't see myself faking desire for the rest of my life - and I suppose the ball is in my court - as I'm the one who would have to change. And - it's kinda sad, because in the moment, when it's all emotional and I know that we have just about reached the end of our rope, I'm willing to say or promise anything to keep him there (I guess I do love him deep in the pits of my heart) but in the cold light of morning (or late afternoon as the case may be) -well - I wonder just how much I have to change in order to satisfy him, and whether I should change in order to do it.

I mean - I know me - or at least I'm learning me slowly but surely. I like sex - yes - but I don't like it like I like cheese - something that I want to have on a regular basis and don't think I could ever get enough of. I like it more like I like going to see a big-screen movie - it's fun to do, but if I only do it once a year, I won't really feel like I'm missing anything. Through most of my life, the sex I've had has been - hmmm - inspired by something outside of me. After I left high school, I'd guess that about 10% of the sex I had was sober, and even then it was - an exploration, I suppose you could say. It wasn't something that I felt like I NEEDED - and maybe it jsut was because I knew I could get it anytime I want.  If anything, most of the time it was something I felt like I owed to this other person - fair trade for services (or kindness) given. When I was dating Tasha, sex was how you made friends - instead of swapping trading cards on the playground, I swapped dicksucking across the couch - and really - I didn't mind - it was what was expected. And even then - once I had the freedom in a relationship - and the comfort - it simply wasn't high on my list of things to do with her - or with anyone else.

Then - after not having sex (at least not with a man) for close to nine months, well - I fell into bed, got pregnant, and for a while, swore off of men - more for the fact that the thought of me having a child with any of the knuckleheads I associated with scared the living crap out of me. And if one more gotdamn person tries to tell me that the abortion is the reason I feel the way I do about sex - ESPECIALLY another gotdamn MAN (the women all seem to have more sense) I'm going to slap the taste out of his mouth. But - in looking back over my own sexual history - I've learned/noticed something - even when I was in the height of my slutyears, I never really - desired sex. I desired friendship, and closeness, and snugglies, and intimacy - and quickly found that the fastest way to get all that was to take my clothes off and spread em. 

But that was years ago - and I've gotten older - and more comfortable with myself, and my own worth - and I know that I am worth so much more than just sex - and that I deserve that intimacy and friendship and closeness - without having to fuck someone for it. And so - I've become much more reluctant to have sex (or 'make love') just to satisy someone else.  I'm much less willing to submit my desires, my wishes - especially in such an intimate aspect of  myself - just to keep someone else happy.  I've established boundaries of who I think I am, and who I am happy and comfortable in being - and - I don't know if I'm willing - no, that not true - for him and for our marriage I know I'm willing - but I don't think I'll be happy in the least changing who I am to something that - I'm not - and I'm not really comfortable with.

Maybe it is a power thing. Maybe it is a control thing. But - whatever it is, it's me.

Even still - I'm carrying around the number to my companies mental health hotline. They deal with sexual dysfunction - and maybe, one night, I'll give in and call and ask them to make me want to have sex with my husband. And maybe they will talk me or drug me into it - and maybe I'll be happy and satisifed and still feel like the woman that I am - and maybe I won't become bitter or resentful and feel like the most important part of me is the part between my legs, and maybe I'll get some sort of sense of power from it.  I haven't made a choice yet one way or another - and a large part of it is because I'm forced to wonder - can there be love and devotion and faithfulness and companionship and partnership and - love - between two adults who are attracted to each other - without sex (or with only occasional sex), and without feeling as if they are denying any part of themselves? Or am I an abberation who needs treatment to get over whatever mental block I have that is such a part of me that - I actually consider it part of myself? I like sensuality - intercourse is eh. I love kissing - sucking dick, is eh. I love holding and touching and rubbing and heaven help me if it leads towards sex - it's okay - but it's better somehow if it doesn't. Maybe I'm just still in the humping stage of life. Or maybe I'm regressing. Or maybe I just need to call and they'll tell me that I actually AM okay.

And maybe that's what I'm afraid of most of all.

babysteps

I know things haven’t felt very good lately, and I know things with us aren’t going smoothly – but I don’t know how to fix them and not break either of us.

I can’t – or maybe I just won’t – be sexual dynamo of a woman that you want – that you need. And – I’ve tried. I know you might doubt that, or you might think I haven’t tried hard enough – but I have tried. And.....I can’t fake it anymore. It’s breaking my heart to say this – but I can’t be that other woman for the rest of my life, because every time I have to fake it – every time I have to ‘suck it up’ and just do it – I stop loving you a little more. I can’t understand how something so simple is worth so much to you – and I try to love you in every way that I know how to make up for the lack of being able to love you in the way you want most – and I just fail because it just doesn’t feel like love to me. And I get bitter that you don’t seem to care about how I feel – that you’d rather me fake it – and I react in such childish ways that I feel like I should apologize, but I’m so tired of trying to fit into your image of what I should be – that I just – can’t.

I hate the fact that we barely talk, and when we do, it’s like walking on eggshells. I hate the fact that you don’t even seem to want to say hello, or goodbye, or good luck, or have a nice day, or kiss me, or smile at me – all because I can’t satisfy you sexually.

It makes me feel like shit – like everything else that is good (or that was good) in our relationship is once again secondary to the fact that I can’t make love to you as often or as vigorously as you need it. That everything that is good about me is secondary to the fact that I can’t open my legs often enough or with enough joy and enthusiasm.

And yes – when we first got together, I was more of a dynamo – I can’t dismiss that – though I do regret it, because I think that I gave you false hopes. And it’s making me miserable – and I suspect you’re pretty miserable too. And I apologize with all my heart for that – for the fact that just maybe, you walked into this hoping that woman would come back for all the time and not for just brief high moments in life – or once every sexless three months.

I’ve tried to pin it on the restaurant, and you just being stressed, and busy and just not having enough time to handle the chaos of the restaurant and the stress of our lives together too – but – I can’t take it.

I miss you – we haven’t seemed ‘right’ since I got back from Geneva – and I had hoped that things would be – at least okay for a while. And then – you wouldn’t even sleep next to me for the whole first week I was home – and I still can’t figure out why. Did I do something to you? Did I say something that made you think that I wouldn’t welcome you? Even if it wasn’t for sex, but just to be able to lay next to my husband? Or were you just too tired to climb the steps and get into bed? A couple of coworkers and I were talking about what the first thing we were going to do when we got home – and I told them that I was going to lay in my bed, under my covers, with my husband, and celebrate being home – and I didn’t even mean it sexually – I just meant that being able to hold you and touch you and laugh with you and smile at you and do all of those things – it would just feel right. I would feel at home.

And yet – every time you are home it’s – strained. I feel like you are angry at me, or disappointed in me, and until Saturday, I didn’t think I had given you a reason to act like that towards me – and after a week of silent treatment, I really wasn’t in the mood at all – not in the mood to do it, and certainly not in the mood to fake it so that you could be happy.

And I don’t know what to do. Even if I did take drugs – that would get my body involved, but my heart and mind would still be griping and bitter about the fact that I have to do something again, that in all honesty, I don’t want to do. Maybe I could get counseling to convince me that this is something that I should be doing – that would be right, and would keep you happy – but – it wouldn’t be true.

And I think that is the thing that makes me the saddest is that I feel like one way or another, I HAVE to lie about my true feelings – or at the very least change them and mask them - in order to keep you happy. And that if I let a glimpse of what I’m really feeling out – it’s not going to please you. And I’ve lied to you in this way for so long that it’s TOTALLY my fault at this point – and I can totally understand you being pissed off at me for letting it go on this far – but I figure better late than never. And I hope that you understand that none of it was malicious, and none of it was hurtful – it was all done for your love – I wanted it – I needed it – and I was willing (for awhile) to ignore what my own heart was telling me in order to keep you.

I’ve been thinking about this since I’ve gotten back, and when you asked me if I was happy with you – all of this was on my mind, but – it wasn’t YOU that I’m unhappy with or about – it’s me. I’m feeling like a major failure here – and I’m starting to wonder if my younger self’s declaration that she would never get married was a wise one.

I love you Corey – that I do. But – it hurts right now, and I’ve never been into pain and we’ve gotta talk if we want to fix it – and as much as I hate conflict and confrontation – I can’t take it anymore – and I sure you are sick of it too.

I wrote this all down because it flows from my ‘pen’ better than me trying to speak it ever could – and I can reread it to be sure that what I’m saying is really what I’m trying to say – and I hope that when you read this you can hear my heart speaking to you more honestly than ever before – and respond lovingly.

errors

I know who I am - it's just that, I'd forgotten for a while. Or maybe not forgotten, just ignored the me that I really am.

And then I was free for a little while - free from bills, free from personal pressures, free from expectations, and all of a sudden, I met me again - and I found out that damn, I LOVED me - I missed me. And - I wanted to hold on to me.

But then I came back. And I think that maybe I've been really unfair to the man that I married - because I didn't give him a chance to really know me - instead the only woman he's known has been one trying to squeeze herself into his image of what she should be. From the start - to the middle - to now - I've worked so damn hard to be what he wants - and kept squishing down the comments about what I wanted - who I was - what I expected. And I love him enough - loved him enough - to do that without a quiver.

Then - then we got married. And suddenly - the realization of the longterm effects of this kept rushing in. I would have to do this - forever. Until one of us died - and it got harder. I got more - desparate. I've built myself into a lovely little corner, and it wasn't until I remembered what it was like outside of that corner did I really realize how tight it was. 

And now, I feel frozen and horrible and so very very guilty - because I'm almost sure that the woman that I am, isn't the woman that C married - no, I know she isn't that woman, and I don't think that she is a woman he would have married. And I feel like I tricked him - all in love, and without the least bit of maliciousness - I tricked him into believing that me could make him happy - could keep him happy - could be a good wife (in his image of what a good wife is). And - I'm utterly terrified of telling him that it isn't true - that I've lied, and concealed - all for love - all for his love - but now I remember and love me too much for even his love to be worth it.

And the really sad part is that the warning signs were there - I knew that it would be a hard uphill battle for me - and I hoped - I thought - that maybe my love would make it easier - less - like duty and more like pleasure. And it's all so BLOODY stupid. Why can't I just - do it? *laugh* Why can't he accept the fact that I don't want to just do it? Why do we have to keep going through these stupid cycles of silence and hurt that I know I've caused and the one thing that I could do to ease him through - to ease us through - is the one thing that caused the pain in the first place?

And life is too short to fake it - and that's about where we've reached. I fake it until I'm tired, and he seems satisfied, and I get bitter. Or I don't fake it, and he gets bitter, but I'm - satisfied. Or - in those rare moments of sychronity, I don't have to fake it, and it's wonderful for a while - but between work and silence and general discomfort caused by the last three times - those times come about literally once in a blue moon. And I KNEW this - and he knew this, and we both hoped that love would help us - overcome it.

And I think at the root of it all, this is why I'm doubting if we should have ever gotten married. *laugh* I always wondered what an irreconcilable difference was - what could so split a couple that nothing that they could do could get them over it - and there was no way they could survive the difference - and the difference was there beforehand, and I couldn't - couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that it could be that big of a deal.

I hope he's off tonight - because I have to talk to him. I have to know what trumps in his heart, mind & body........ and I think I know - but I hope I'm wrong.

Survey

And the part that freaks me out the most? I'm NOT upset. I mean, yeah - I worried, and a little confused - but I'm not sad, depressed, scared - I'm just my normal self with what should be a huge worry perched over my head that I am able to be so freaking - calm about it's scary.

Now - on to the survey. ...

 

---

 

Z - Zodiac sign: Capricorn
Y - Yummy food: Good Greek or Lebanese
X - X-rays you've had: Only teeth.
W - Wearing right now: pink cotton shirt, black teeshirt with Pink Panther blowing a kiss at a pink sequined heart, blue jeans, black heels. 
V - Voting for: Democratic party since I have to choose 
U - Unknown fact about me: I have a total of 8 pierced holes in my body 
T - Time you wake up: Of my own free will? after 9am. In order to get to work? 6:45am 
S - Song you last heard: Toxic by Britney Spears (it's my ringtone) 
R - Reason to smile: The sun is shining and it's a beautiful fall Friday.  
Q - Quote you like: See entry 'Litany'  
P - Phobia: Spiders. As usual. 
O - One time on accident: I flashed half a club as I slipped on someones spilled beer - in a white skirt none the less. Thankfully, no stains remained.
N - Number of siblings: 1half (as far as I know).
M - Mom's name: Naeelah
L - Love to watch this movie over and over again: Dogma
K - Kindergarten reminds you of: Slapping the cheeks of a little boy who had no respect for learning.
J - Job title: System Analyst 
I - Instruments: My voice? It's the only thing that's even been vaguely trained.
H - Home town: Chester, Pa. 
G - Gummy Bears or Gummy Worms: SOUR Gummy worms.
F - Favorite song of the moment: Anything that makes me wanna shake my ass. 
E - Easiest person to talk to: Chris.
D - Dad's name: Rayford
C - Career in future: Midwife
B - Band listening to right now: Nothing.
A - Age: 27.

AROUND THIS TIME THREE YEARS AGO, I...
1. was engaged.
2. had been out of the country.
3. just got a second cat.

AROUND THIS TIME ONE YEAR AGO, I...
1. was madly in love.
2. had fallen in love with Geneva.
3. was hating my apartment.

YESTERDAY (as in Thursday), I...
1. didn't want to go home.
2. read a book in one sitting.
3. didn't go to bed early enough.

TODAY, I...
1. was bored until 2:30pm
2. am not going home - instead I'm going to shake my ass.
3. plan on having a roaring good time.

THREE ITEMS I HAVE BRAND-LOYALTY TO ARE...
1. Nothing, actually.

THREE SONGS I KNOW ALL THE WORDS TO ARE...
1. Everything Must Change - Oleta Adams
2. Roll Over
3. I Get So Lonely - Janet Jackson 

TOP THREE LOCATIONS I'D LIKE TO RUN AWAY TO ARE...
1. Cairo!
2. Miami
3. Venice

FIRST THREE PEOPLE I THINK ABOUT ON A DAILY BASIS ARE...
1. Me
2. C
3. my mom

Well....

That was an interesting little trip down memory lane.  I hate the fact that the old entries show up as new ones despite the fact that I ahve them set up in separate chapters, but oh well - I don't feel like reshuffling my diary all about that badly - I just wanted to try to recreate a record of what at least part of the life I've spent with him has been.

And I'm sad to say, that I was lying to myself - or maybe I was lying to protect some stupid image of him that I had created. but no - I'm cutting them short.

I didn't wreck my Madza - he did. We were intoxicated, driving home from dinner, he ran a red light and totaled the car. He was also a little tipsy when he totalled HIS car a few weeks ago - thankfully not over the limit, otherwise he would be in jail. *sigh*

The reason the wedding was delayed wasn't because we didn't HAVE enough money - he didn't pay the credit card bill and they dropped our limit down to exactly how much we had charged on it - a difference of almost 5K. So yeah, there went those wedding plants.

If I'm going to stay with him (and after reading, and rereading, and rereading our vows - I've got to give it at least a little more of a chance) I've got to be honest - with myself about who he is, with myself about who I am - and with him about who I see him as, and who I am.

And I'm not going to front - it's going to be hard as fuck for me. I don't LIKE conflict - period. I'd much rather suffer in silence or run than rock the boat. And maybe that's part of what's scaring me - I CAN'T be silent for the rest of my life - and I certainly can't suffer.

But I'm afraid of what will happen when I stop biting my tongue in order to keep the peace - how could I NOT realize what I've been doing? He'll say something - not that I think he's totally wrong, but perhaps slightly offbase - like his comment this morning about the stupid mexican woman who took up two parking spaces - I saw her stop, leap out the truck and RUN to the house with all the signs of SERIOUSLY having to pee - I giggled a little, to be honest, cuz I've had days like that too - and when he said that - I wanted to defend her - to say that he had no right to call her stupid and that she DID live here and that she had a perfectly good reason for parking that way  - but instead I just bit my tongue - I mean - why even bother? It wouldn't do me any good, it wouldn't do him any good as he would just get that 'There she goes contradicting me to support some stranger' attitude, and the boat would have been rocked. 

And I'm not sure how much of it is 'wisely picking battles' and being mature enough to know when nothing should be/needs to be said - and how much of it is just knuckling down and keeping the peace. Where the hell is that line? And considering that I'm opininated as FUCK - it's going to be really hard for me to develop a line that doesn't end up with us arguing over EVERYTHING - I just don't have the emotional STRENGTH for that. But - I don't think I have the heart to stay silent either.

I feel like I can't talk to him about money because when we first got together, thats the only thing that he did that made me really expressively upset - I'm a VERY Fiscally responsible person (normally) and the fact that he owes utlities SHITLOADS of money (and still does, which is why they are ALL in my name) that he really had no intention of paying back - it bothered me. And I didn't want him to ever think that I would just lean back and support him - he HAD to chip in. And he would be late, or spend the money on something else - or come up with some excuse always - and it truly pissed me off.  And now - I feel like I CAN'T bug him about it (the whole 400 thing is really irking me and since I came up with the number, I don't know why - or maybe it's the insurance.....) because once again - he will think that because that's the only thing I'm getting really upset about - it's the only thing I really CARE about. But that's not true - it's just that it's the only thing I feel totally comfortable to claim that I am RIGHT about - and therefore I am in the moral position to ask him to reach my level.

And this is why I need a therapist - cuz I can't tell all this to my friends - they don't know C well enough to understand all of the magic that is him and to integrate the ugliness that is in him too without losing a measure of the fondness they have for him. I'm afraid taht as I fall out of love (I'm working on the cycle idea) that as the soft cotton of  romantic passionate love and bliss fall from my eyes (surely to return) that I will start to hate him. And each time I fall back in love, there's still going to be a little more hate left from the last time - until even love can't overcome it.

That's what I'm afraid of.

wanderlust

I'm like a pendulum, ya know? I force myself one way, and then the pressure to give in becomes more than the pressure to keep myself up, and a swing madly and furiously and swiftly to the other side.

I've been good, for a long time. Kind, caring, self-sarcifing, sweetly compromising, giving, reading all the right self-help books, trying to become this - person that I felt pressured to be. And my, how the pendulum has swung. I want to be a selfish, contrary, digustingly independant BRAT. I wanna spend money, and run the streets, and play hooky from work, and go crusing with the sunroof open and bass rattling every single window. I wanna wear very high heels and very short skirts and dance for hours with good smelling men that I'll never see again. I want to laugh so hard I cry while sitting in the middle of a group of other wonderfully free fine and exceptional women. I want to be responsible for nothing but me, and have no one depend on me for anything.

And yeah, I know that there is no rule that says you can't be married and do all that. And yeah, I know there are plenty of married women who DO do all of that - and still manage to keep everything happy at home. And maybe, just maybe I can be one of those women - hell, I certainly know that I've got the potential - so why not put it into practice? *grins* I would say that I just don't know HOW - but as I love to tell l - don't worry about the knowing - just DO it.

---

Hm. I was rummaging around in Reader's Choice and saw the suggestion for how to find all of the old entries - I did that on my computer, and guess what popped up? The download of my Wedding Diary. I'm going to repost it in it's own chapter - but hm. I just found that interesting as all get out. I'm rereading it now, and - it's kinda interesting. I wrote some things that I really do think I need to reread now - things that came from ME and that might just help me over this hump.

I went bookshopping last night (at a fullprice store too!) and found a book called 'Marriage for Grownups'. It seemed to have the right blend of humor, experience, and wisdom for me - something to gnaw on and percolate through my head. I haven't started reading it yet - but I figure I'll whoosh through it in one night.

---

Our house is - dirty. Not totally and utterly filthy, as I cleaned the upstairs last weekend, but it certainly needs a bit of work. And you know what? I''m not touching it until Saturday. In fact, I have no intentions of cleaning more than once a week. It's satifactory to me, it keeps most of the nastiness under control, and it eases any guilty stressly feelings I might have about my ability as a homemaker. *gag* Yes, I said that and the fact that I said it is almost sickening considering it's just as much HIS home as it is mine and therefore there are really two homemakers up in there, but hell - I've been throughly socialized in ways that caused be to lose my religion (literally) so hey - it's going to take a while for me to totally free my mind from the bullshit.

And ya know what? The fact that he works slightly longer hours than I do doesn't mean shite to me. We should contribute equally to our home in one way or another, and considering its like pulling fucking teeth to get him to AGREE to give 400 bucks a month to cover his half of the bills (and heaven knows, I'm STILL going to have to ask for it every, single, fucking, month) the fact that he works more isn't bringing anything additional to the home. Am I being too rough? I'm trying to find a balance between telling him that - who cres if you work longer - this is your house too, and if I have to clean, YOU have to clean - and greeting him when he comes home with a cold beer, a pair of slippers in my hand and a seethrough nighty made of saranwrap on. And then I wonder if I even have room to complain - I mean - hell - should I base my satisifaction on what others are lucky to get or on what I WANT? And is what I want asking for too too much?

---

I'm soooo damn tired. I feel pulled like taffy - and my eyes keep twitching. I haven't had twitchy eye in YEARS - side effect of stress, not enough sleep, and too much damn thinking. Work is - whipping my mental ass. I leave work everyday and just start walking towards downtwon to give my brain a chance to come back in out of the cold. I've grown to not want to go straight home every night from work - what's there that I need to go to? No husband, two greedy cats, and a television that is actively rotting my brain. I've got no REASON to go home - esp. when I'm bored and want to make friends (and I certainly can't do that mewed in the house). So I go out wandering - looking for someplace that can be a hangout spot for me - and so far - nada. One Irish pub seems kinda fun - but the bar is set up oddly, so you can't really get a good people watching position. The Noodle is okay - but too many coworkers go there, and I have to admit, I don't wanna be seen hanging out in a bar all lonely only by people who know me. There are a couple other spots - but I haven't been dressed to go to them yet. Hm. I've really developed a higher level of clothing snobbery than I ever thought was possbile for me. My clothes are my armor - and now that the armor fits so nicely, it's become even more important that my clothing present me how I feel that I am - that they give off the correct 'attitude' in first impressions. So - haven't been to Nicky Blaines, or the Olive - I just wasn't dressed to present myself there.

Tonight though - I'm going out to party. Haven't decided if I'm going to go home first, and then go out, or if I'll lounge around downtown for a couple of hours beforehand. *sigh* I SO wish I had some friends here that I could call and we could kick it for awhile after work - but even the cool people I know are work people - and at home, that's a line that just isn't crossed. It fascinates me that everyone is so damn eager to go HOME at the end of the night. I have to admit, I CERTAINLY want to get the hell out of here once 5pm rolls around - but I also most CERTAINLY don't want to go home.

I was considering putting an ad in one of the free weeklys along the lines of - Solo Party Animal looking for a Herd - i figure optimistically that I can't be the only late-20something (EEE!!! Eeeee!!!)in Indy in this position. But of course, my lack of a car severely hinders me in getting around in ANY shape or form, as this is most certainly NOT a bus city. I waitied for damn near an hour last night for a bus (and it's really starting to get nipply) and finally gave up and caught a cab home. 50 bucks a week. for a fucking cab. *sigh*

circles
swooping through my head
the same thougts
of anger
love and dread
i must break free
without breaking him
or me.

planning

So.... I signed up for Nano. Like I say each year - I think I might be crazy enough to do it this time.

As usual, when I signed up, I had no clue what the hell I am going to write about - but I still had to come up with something to put in the 'title' box. I put in 'No Earthly Clue' - and over the next day or two realized that could actually be a pretty interesting title to a book.

I don't think I'm going to try to write fantasy this time - or at least not the out of 'this' world kind, even though with a title like that, it almost begs to be used prettily - bt, I think I'm really going to go straight beach reading.

So far I've got Jessamyn - the main character - she's got a quasi-live in boyfriend, a ferret, and she used to have a very nice job.

I'm thinking of it kinda as a novel of self-discovery (and yes, I'm going to be writing a hell of alot of me and the thoughts and crap I'm dealing with now (plus some wishful thinking) into it) with a little bit of adventure and sex thrown in for good measure.

I know where she's going to start, and I have a rough idea of a few things that shes' going to encounter - but I still don't have a really clear idea of where she's going to end up - which makes it a little more interesting.

I usually plot out almost the entire book BEFORE I set down to write - it takes shitload of time, but it's my way to organize. However, I've noticed that I'll do some sort of freaking plot change in the first third of the book that almost invalidates the road map I've created - which therefore leads me more towards wasting huge chunks of time than really getting organized.

So this time, I'm jsut going to do the high level stuff - character sketchs, climaxes, and maybe a pre-thought out plot twist or two. I already know she's not getting pregnant, raped or married......*grins* maybe briefly kidnapped though - that might be fun. She's definitely going to travel - and I think she might sketch. Hm.

*grins* So - I'm getting excited - it's going to be a real struggle not to Mary Sue her - I have to be sure to come up wih some real faults when I do her character sketch.

Hm. :)

litany

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

skipping

light and flutterly today, light and fluttery today - that's me.

I wanted to wear pink today, but didn't have enough energy to iron it. So instead, I'm in black and gray - matching the sky, I must admit - with a new pair of boots on.

Interesting things these boots - I'm thinking the heel has got to be at least 4 inches - and while it certainly doesn't look that much higher than my usual shoes - my feet ar firmly telling me that they are. I need to find some toe stretches. They are very black and tight and shiny - very catwoman. Not tight enough though, as they keep sliding down my calves. *sigh*

one of my coworkers (married for ten days, the darling girl) told me i looked 'tiny' yesterday. coming from a woman who wore a sive 4 wedding dress, that was rather impressive - and the funny thing is, it's true. I LOOK distinctly smaller - yet I haven't lost a pound, and my clothes still fit the same - but it certainly doesn't look like it. Very interesting sort of fool the eye.

I'm SO damn tired - was in bed by 9, woke up again for a hot second at 11 when C came home, got up this monring at 7. That's what? at least 9 hours of sleep? I've got no reason to have the unholy eyelids of droopiness right now (esp. considering it's ONLY 10am). But - I've been so very tired all week it seems - reserve jet la of some sort? Or more likely, my body is revolting against all the bloody sugar I've been shoving into it. And then, I have been working reallllly long days - I get here by 7:45 and I don't leave until 5, 5:30.....an easy ten hours. I think I might try to leave early today - see if frontloading sleep will help.

I wanted to go out tonight - there is a Wednesday night shindig downtown - but mercy - hmmm.... I suppose if I go home early and take a nap, I'd be raring to go by 10pm - but then, I don't know if I feel like dealing with hoodrats tonight.

*sigh* That's one of the things i don't like about this city - limited places to go (esp. if you don't want to drive or pay 30 bucks for a cab) and the vibe in most of these places is either ghetto as all get out, or so bougie they can't sweat. All i ask for is a place wehre you can shake your ass, have a damn good drink, and some interesting conversation - with people who have more than a little bit of sense. *sigh* Sheesh.

And even if there was someplace I could go, as C has the car (I miss my car) it's not like I could get there anyhow. *flutters hands* light and fluttery.

and work - maybe that's why I'm so tired - work has slowed down enough that I'm not frantically rushing from one thing to another that I have to do - and so I actually have enough time to realize how wiped out I am. And me with no holiday time until Thanksgiving. Ah well - luckier than most, I suppose.

punk

he asked me last night if I was happy. I said I wasn't sure - i wasn't certain enough to say yes, and I wasn't unhappy enough to say no.

l says I should tell him. tell him about what? the fact that I'm not sure I love him anymore? the fact that i wonder if I should have ever gotte married? that's not the kind of things that you tell someone you want to live with - or that you might think you might want to live with - or love. those words seem like a definite ending to me - but i have to tell him something.

earlier today, i was thinking that maybe i cold explain it as an attitude adjustemnt - but heaven knows he's complained enough before about my changing opinions on stuff. no, I'm not the most stable person - but at least i've never claimed to be stuck on the straight & narrow either. so - what sort of attitude adjustment? I *thinks* I don't know. i know that i feel different - I feel - more. i feel more like me than i've felt in a very long time. and maybe i'm a little scared too. i'm scared of the rut that has become my life - and for a glorious few weeks i remembered that this doesn't have to BE my life - and now i'm not quite sure what i want my life to be at all.

OA asked me "Are you just realizing that he is this way? Or are you realizing that you aren't that way?" and - i'm not sure. I think i've always known he was this way - but there was enough love buoying me up that i could ignore it. And i think that i've never been that way - and i was buoyed up enough by love to believe that i would be willing to change. and now? it's just like - whatever man.

but then - i do love him. i just don't think i love him like a husband deserves to be loved. i love him like a friend - a very close friend - a very sexy friend - a very wonderful, kind, lovingingly lovely friend - but - *shrug* that's about it. And maybe that's all the love i've got to give to him - but i know i've got depths of passion in me that are just - cold - around him - and i don't know if it's him or if it's me - or more likely, it's just us.

or it's just me, as i've never had to sustain passion for quite so long. sheesh - it can get tiring - but i can't really live fully without it either. or maybe it's jsut me trying to be not me and all that energy has to come from somewhere, right?

i think that maybe living separate lives would be good for us - it would make when we are together more valuable. but - i wonder if those separate lives would ever really be just one? or - should that even be a requirement?

I can't imagine being like my mother - falling in love so hard with a man that she marries him, falling out of love so hard that she divorces him - and then turns around and does the same thing TWO MORE TIMES with the SAME man. *shudder* No thank you - give me the clean break that lasts or the solid love that endures - that yo-yo shit would drive me crazier than I already am.

so i've got about a week to think in peace as he's working the rest of the week.

i ask myself - do you want to spend the rest of your life with him - and the answer I get is a shrug. a SHRUG. it doesn't matter either way. there is just something WRONG with that.

i suddenly quite clearly understand europeans who stay together for years and never get married - children and all.

maybe i'll get another tattoo.

---

i mentioned the porn thing today on our drive to work.

"Do me a favor - please? Never look at porn on my work computer - it's stupid, and could get me in a shitload of trouble".

he then proceeds to tell me that he didn't do it purposely. *raised eyebrow* Now that - that pissed me off.

"Don't bullshit me - you spent an hour and a half looking at porn."

silence.

"I won't do it again."

hm.

that worried me. he then said that he didn't do it to get me in trouble ON purpose - but that doesn't even make sense. Of course he wasn't trying to get me in trouble. I think he was trying to imply that it was an accidental 'porn-by'. and that worries me. he knows i don't care about porn. so why even try to conceal the fact? hm. am i going to ask him? maybe. or it might just be a few more inches of rope.

November

It's almost november. Which means it's almost Nanowrimo time again. And ya know what? This time I might be insane enough to finish it. I think I'm going to do what I swore I would never do - a chick-lit book. Relationships, money, drama - and only vaguely based on my life and what I wished for. I'm going to have to work hard to be sure that she doesn't turn into a Mary Sue.

This - is gonna be fun.

Damn, I miss having a computer. *sigh* I wonder how much a new hard drive would cost?

parched

i don't love you
today
didn't love you
much yesterday
either
but maybe
tommorow is the day
it will all come rushing
back in
like the tide
after a
tsunami
i don't know
how many tomorrows
will have to pass
before i can accept
the possibility
that the ocean
i'm eagerly waiting
to see filled
again
was a desert
all along
and maybe
that's the point of
till death do us part
the ocean is always there
no matter how dry it
feels

expectations

I actually stayed mostly offline this weekend - off the computer as well. I finally took the time and put together the bed upstairs, as I was making myself even sicker sleeping on the futons on the floor - and from there I was a little whirlwind in the upstairs of the house. Finally unpacked the office, cleaned all the random un-needed crap out of the bathroom, cleaned the bathroom, scrubbed all the floors - I was a real domestic diva whiz-kid. Then, I cooked dinner, showered, and went out.
I actually had a rather good time. The first place I went to (White House), people were way more interested in posing and looking good then they were in dancing - but I stayed there until almost one chitchatting with folx. Finally gave up, and went to another spot around the corner (Lily Pad). Much more entertaining, which a more more dancy group of people - but MY! was I overdressed. Heh. I liked Lily Pad better though, and being slightly overdressed means I stand out in an interestingly quirky way - and it got me a WONDERFUL dance - damn could that boy move.
Had a very good time actually - still managed to make it home before C ( I got in around 3:45 - he got home around 4:15) - and no, he still didn't come to bed. I had been kinda ticked off at him all day anyhow, as he took the car to work and didn't even ASK me if I might have wanted the use of the car on a Saturday - *snort*.
Ya know - it kinda makes me sad, cuz I don't think he cares either. Or - maybe he does care, and he's just so damn tired of trying to force me to show that I care in his ways that he figures acting like he doesn't care is a better option. Or maybe he doesn't care, and just enjoys living rentfree. Ohh... that last one was mean - not untrue, but still mean. *sigh*
I should have talked to him yesterday - I acknowledge that fact. He had the whole day off, and - it was I suppose as good a time of any to sit him down and ask what the fuck is going on. I think I know what his answer is going to be though - he's exhausted. That's been his answer for everything for the last month and a half, I don't see it changing anytime soon. *sigh* I need to stop making assumptions - to stop faking it even in the least. I'm still debating on how much I should call him out - I know that he is going to hear a nice little piece of my mind for being stupid enough to look at porn on my WORK computer - and I'm going to totally disregard the fact that he did it less than an hour after we had sex. *shrugs* sadly enough, I rather expect that - I can handle that sort of - dissatisfaction, I suppose you could say, but you will NOT threaten my livelihood. I do that well enough on my own, thank you very much.
Ah. I don't know what the hell I'm saying.
I know that I'm tired though - and I don't know how long these rants/blabjobs are going to continue, or where they will end, or how far they will extend. But I'm tired. I'm tired of lying to everyone, including myself, about how I feel and how I react and what's really going on in my head. It's finally got downright sickening - and I am too fucking old (and I'll never live long enough) to fake it. Every second of life that I live should be as real, and as pure, and as perfectly me as I can make it. And ya know - for a good minute I thought that something that I could get from others for faking it was worth it - the respect, the impression, the idea - I thought that the closer the idea of who I was in those peoples heads matched who I thought they wanted me to be - the better off I'd be - the stronger relationship we would have - the more pleased they would be with me.
But you know what? It didn't do anything but hurt. I don't know anyone now who actually KNOWS me - cuz I've been lying to everyone and to myself for so long, that to rip free the lie would lose anything I might have left. I'm bold enough to rip it off for ya'll - but not IRL - not just yet. And it's not like I'm some hideous monster. I'm not perfect - and I'm sure as hell no angel - but dammit - I'm good. I'm intelligent, lovely, sexy, fun, witty, funny, blunt, sarcastic, compassionate, listening, rocking, bitch/lover/child/woman. And somehow, I'm thining more people will dig me for the woman that I really am than would ever dig me for trying to be the woman they wanted me to be.
And maybe - maybe a lot of that is the root of my troubles with C. I'm not - simply not - going to fake it anymore. Maybe it'll make our relationship stronger as I peel away the facade I didn't even relize I had built and he gets a good look at the real me. Maybe it'll be the straw (boulder) that breaks the camels back if he decides that the woman under the facade is even less of the wife he wants me to be. Maybe he won't care, won't notice, and we'll keep traveling through this odd ass limbo until I grow the huevos to say no more.
*sigh*
I'm not sure - what's right/normal/expected here - and I think that I am so damn laid back that my normal response is - wayyy underrated for what going on. Like the aforementiond porn thing. He gets out of bed, to go downstairs and work on some recipes. I log on to my computer this morning, and have a raging spyware infection. Spyware usually comes from two things - downloaded music and porn. I check the cookies - and yeah, he was looking at recipes for about an hour, then at porn for about an hour and a half - which he wrapped up with a visit to his favorite adult site - adultfriendfinders. What's my reaction going to be? I'm going to tell him to NEVER look at porn on my work computer again unless he WANTS me to get fired, and leave it at that. I'm not going to comment on the timing, nor am I going to mention the fact that I know exactly which sites he went to. Is that underreacting? Am I setting him up? Am I setting myself up? Should I be worried? Should I care?
Should I have to ask that he chip in with the bills now that he has this nice cushy job? Or should he volunteer to start splitting stuff? Since he wrecked his car and is now taking 99% of my car's time - would it be okay for me to ask him to start paying for the insurance? Or once again - is this something that he should volunteer to do? I feel - naggish - asking him, and feel like a damn doormat for not asking him - mainly because I don't know if it's - okay - to ask. What sort of things are part of the give & take of marriage and being partners - and when do you draw the line and say - I'm not a partner now, I'm a sugarmamma? Of course - he did pay for getting my clutch replaced - but at the same time - it did burn out while he was driving my car - and considering that his commute is close to an hour and mine is more like 5 minutes - him driving it did acclerate the destruction - but does that make up for not helping with the standard household bills for close to 9 months, or is that just something that's expected? Ar there any kind of rules here? Or do we just have to make them up as we go along?
*sigh* I'm so bloody fucking tired of it all. And yeah, I really would like to run away on a work sanctioned vacation. Complete and utter abdication of responsibility there, but dammit - it would feel better than this.
quick memory that I want to note: last night, either right before or right after we had sex (I think it was right after, but before the sudden urge to do some work) he was talking about how wonderful his life was - great job, great wife, great prospects - and he said (jokingly, true) 'Wanna have kids?'
I shuddered - the sudden flush of abject HORROR at the thought of binding myself to him for life (as becoming co-parents does) stunned me. I mean, yeah - I know how I feel about having kids - but instead of the usual 'I can't afford to have kids' that flashes in my head at the thought, I got a new one - 'I don't WANT to have kids with you'.
It's strange - how I think I want to keep this, and I have absolutely no clue why.
I went back and looked at the wedding pictures - and it breaks my heart, because I think I may have been faking it.
We had a huge arguement the night before the wedding - when I told him that I've been telling him for the last year that if he couldn't accept me as who I was at the moment - with the awareness that I might change - then there was no use of us getting married - and even then, I had a sense of - futility, maybe? A feeling that I would never e good enough, sexy enough, out-goinging enough, eager enough to satisfy him - and it would only be the love that would blur his - our - vision enough to keep us together. Once that fades, my word - what disilluisonment would set in.
I try to remember why I married him. And all the reasons I can think of - aren't mine - or are so damn trite and petty that I wonder what kind of weed I was smoking to think that they could carry us through 40 years together - fuck, 4 years together.
I mean - what keeps a marriage strong if you doubt the love? Can you recreate it? And what if you're not sure that you want to? What do you do then? What do you do when you are married to a man that you aren't sure you love, that you aren't sure loves you, and you're not sure if you want to love him anymore anyway? I suppose you could try to recreate the love, but if you really are done - isn't that going to make the final breakup even harder - considering that you've been faking it trying to make it? What if you do build up the love, and find out that yeah - I really do love you, but I absolutely cannot stand your ass? Then what? you break two hearts? Or - just maybe you bring back the love, and it's golden and beautiful and it lasts for the rest of your natural born life and you wonder exactly what sort of crack you were on back then in the early days.
And ya know - that's what I want, but I don't know if that will make me happy. Because I really don't want to give up - I'm not a quitter. But I just plain don't care enough to really feel like exerting any effort to hold on - and beyond the love, I don't know how to start giving a shit again.

Carefree

So - I like it. I do. I like it hard, public, nasty and dirty. I like it with a touch of passion, a shitload of spice, some exhibitionism, and a lotta forbiddeness. I like it with Arab men, black men - very odd or very fine white men. I prefer it when I'm drunk, and have really no desire for it when I'm sober....and I don't really have a problem with that.
I dream about it the way I like it. The heat - the passion - the fire. I don't wanna talk about it, I just wanna do it. I had a dream like that last night - some guy I met on a beach while I was vacationing with Chris & his family. We snuck off and started rubbing and kissing and touching against the side of a little beachhouse - and when I got so wet that I thought my head was going to blow off, I stopped because I decided that I wanted to be in bed, so we snuck into a back bedrooom. Thinking back over it, I don't think we ever actually had sex - it was just the buildup to it that was so damn satisfying.
Once again - transience. If I'm only fucking you once - it doesn't really matter how well you do it, or if I wanna do it with you again - it's done. It's over - and I don't have to worry about trying to make it perfect or right or endlessly talking about what makes it better or different or what I like or what I don't or ANYTHING. It's just done.
And if I decide the next morning that I really never want to set eyes on you again - well, hell - I can do that too.
But what - just what if I think that I do want to see you again and instead I get cast aside like I say I can cast aside all of those others? That would suck - and that's something I never have to worry about being married - he can't just drop me because he doesn't want to see me again. We're stuck together, for good or for bad - for life. Well - he could drop me, and I could drop him - but, ya know - it's different now.
Sometimes I wish I wasn't married and sometimes I wish I was and until I can be all of one way or another I'm going to be confused at least half of the time.
And god knows, I'm so fucking sick of TALKING about shit - especially when I know that he's staying silent and withdrawn just to force me to talk. I'm not big on relationship style conversations - I'd much rather bring up a problem, work to a conclusion, and be done with it rather than having to rehash it over and over, and fucking over again. I have to build up the energy to talk. I have to gather myself together and build up the actual desire to sit down and listen to him babble on in his pseudo-intellectually superior matter about stuff I wouldn't even CARE about if it didn't matter to him - and actually force a bit of interest out of myself over it.
Maybe I don't like talking because I feel like I'm lying. The latest issue that we 'need' to talk about - that I know I'll have to bring up (mainly because I'm curious - I could really care less) is the fact that I've been home for *thinks* 5 days and we've yet to sleep in the same bed. *shrugs* Not that I really care, as I almost appreciate the fact that I haven't had to have sex with him yet, but at the same time it's odd. And even more odd is that fact that I really do care about his withdrawal - more in the way that I would care about a friend who suddenly stops hugging me when we greet each other than I would be expected to feel about a husband who normally doesn't come home until 2am and tells me he is surrounded by gorgeous women who hit on him all day and don't believe that he's married.
I wouldn't be hurt if he was cheating on me - I would be more relieved if anything. An easy out - a way to escape.
And see - I feel like a horrid horrid woman - a cold, unloving, unworthy of being married woman even thinking such things (much less having the ovaries to write them out) to say it - but it's true. And it's been that way since before we got married.
I downloaded the rest of my diary - everything before the great disappearance that is - and I think I'll take the computer home this weekend and read over it and see if I can remember what convinced me to marry him. And maybe I can remember some of the overwhelming love I apparently felt at one time - and maybe I can bring it back to life.
Maybe it's just that I was gone for so long - and everytime I called to talk to him, all he wanted to talk about was the Spot. And - I'm amazingly proud and supportive and shit of him, but really *shrugs* I don't care. And maybe that's the problem, at the very root of it all. I'm disconnected (you notice how I am focusing totally on me? because this is my shit, my issue, my problem and he just happens to be the poor soul who married me first) and I don't know if I really want to connect.
I've never had many friends for this very reason - it's HARD for me to care enough about someone to be truly interested in them. I'm a very only-child kinda person - on the fringe, very self-centered - yet generous as hell - just don't expect it to last forever. I make a fabulous friend, a wonderful host, and a craptastic wife.
And I don't know if I care enough to want to try to change.

continuation.

I've been married for 6 months, 2 weeks.
No, he has no clue - and it's not really a crisis. It's more confusion.
I try to bring back those feelings that I had right before we got married (ignoring the huge fight we had the night before, and the night of) and - it's just blank. It's empty - like there was never anything really there.
I tend not to trust myself - especially my feelings - because they change so damn much. And when it comes to my feelings about others - the feelings that I have that impact others lives - I'm even more - dainty with expressesing them - because once they come out, it's utterly impossible to take them back.
I feel broken sometimes - like i will never - can never - have a solid, intense relationship. That I back away - mentally or emotionally - when it just becomes all too much - when it starts asking more of me than I am comfortable giving.
I've been seriously reconsidering my desire to have kids because of this - a husband, I can leave (not easily - but I can leave) if I truly can't handle it anymore. Children - no matter how old - are for life - and it would kill me to leave them because otherwise it was killing me.
What the hell is going on in my head?

not sure....

I've found that doing what I want - even more so - just being me - makes me happy.
That not worrying - not even caring about what someone else thinks about me or what I'm doing - besides me - makes me glow - literally.
And - I like that.
I've been - mulling, I suppose is the best word - over whether I should have gotten married. Don't get me wrong - I do still love C, and I don't think I'd like to live the rest of my life without him - but at the same time - I don't like the feeling of being possesed.
I want a man to treat me like I'm not his.
I want to be able to treat a man like he's not mine - it makes it more precious - more valuable - more - transient, I suppose.
I want to move out of the States so damn badly that it hurts. I'm happy, I suppose, to be 'home' but - *sigh* there are so many little things that drive me crazy about here - not even the politcal climate just the social climate - and make me miss Geneva so badly that I almost want to beg to be sent back - crappy weather and all.
I might still have a chance to move to Italy in the next 4-6 months. Maybe. I can't get anyone to give me a straightforward yes or no, which of course keeps my hopes up. I'm willing to sweat, suffer, cry, stress, hate, and work 13 hour days to get the chance to go - and I'm willing to do that despite the fact that I know it might not make a difference.
C just opened a restaurant about a month ago. It's going really well. So well, in fact that he's talking about staying for at least a year.
If I move out of the country, and I have a way to make it, I might never come back.
And I don't know if I really want him to come with me.