Clandestine

Life Lesson #1

Every once in a while, I do something, and I think to myself, 'Self, that's a life lesson.  Don't do that again.'  And every lesson I learn, I number.  Usually, the numbers are three-digit, like four hundred sixty-seven, or three hundred eighty-two.  Today, I learned a lesson that I think rockets right up to number one, as it crosses over so many different aspects of life.

The lesson?  Don't fight in the morning.

I count myself lucky that I've never had to worry about this particular lesson prior to, well, now.  However, I hope that I don't have to count this particular lesson as being one that I have to re-learn, because damn it sucks.  Here's the scenario:

Last night North and I went to see the Hound of the Baskervilles, as his belated birthday present.  So, he ended up staying over.  Now, usually, on 'school nights', he doesn't stay over.  This is because he has to get up at 'daft o'clock in the morning', with me, when I go to school.  Dublin has expressed that she is uncomfortable with him staying in our house when we're not there, and I respect that.  Er, I try to.  I also don't like it because it makes me feel weird: I'm at work and you're sleeping in?  It would be different if I knew that it was because it was his day off, or because it was a one-off, but he's sleeping in today because he doesn't have any work to do, and is 'tired' and disinclined to do anything to change his work status. 

I'm not explaining this well, and I feel like an asshole.

North is angry with himself for still not working steadily.  He's angry that nothing in his life is sorted.  He's angry that he doesn't have a place to stay - perpetually - and where he's been staying is now uncomfortable to him because he feels that he's overstayed his welcome.  (I don't know if he has, or not, I just know he's been there for four months.)  Now, I can understand all of this.  I do.  I get it.  And I want to help.  I want to make him not angry anymore, in any small way that I can.

What I can't do, is get him a job.  He has to do that.  I also can't get him a place, or make him feel comfortable in the place he's staying.  I can try to make him as comfortable as I can in my world, but ultimately, it's my world.  I can share with him - but only up to a point.  Because really, this 'sharing' is a one way street.  And I can only 'share' so much before I feel like he's 'expecting' or 'taking' - which I don't like.  And it doesn't matter whether he is or isn't - what matters is that I feel like that, and then I feel like an asshole for feeling that way, and then I feel like an even bigger asshole because that future?  You know, the one I want?  I can't see it happening if things like this continue.

So all of this was brewing, this morning, when North asked if he could sleep in and give me my keys later.  I said that I would prefer it if he didn't, and I gave a few reasons:

1) if he was offered a shift this afternoon he couldn't take it because he would have to give me my keys back, which is just stupid

2) I am going to have to do a buttload of work this afternoon for school, and won't be leaving until late

3) if I know that I'm going to be meeting him, I won't want to finish my work, I'll want to hang out with him, thus making my work harder to do, and in all probability I won't end up finishing all of it.  (This said while I busily type on my blog, but anyway.)

He was angry, and got all defensive, saying he was only asking a 'favour' and he'd never asked before - to which I replied, 'Yes, you have, this is just the first time you've asked for this favour recently.'  And that got him going like nobody's business, he was just pissed.  He said I treated him like a kid, and really, I wanted to tell him he was acting like one, but then again, I was acting like some kind of harpy, so we were both in the wrong, I'd say.  In any event, I was bummed.

I took the last train I could into work, having already been awake for two hours, and had an argument - which I lost, because I let him stay.  I just didn't want to fight anymore.  He wasn't seeing it from my point of view, and making him leave wasn't going to get him to see it any clearer.  He would have just been pissed, and less inclined to think of anything from anyone's point of view.

Ultimately, I have come to some conclusions in the past week. 

1) I am moving out on my own.  North is in no position to get a flat, he has no steady income, he doesn't know where he'll be in two months, and I can't support him.

2) I don't know how long I will be able to date North if this state of affairs continues.  I don't care what he does, I just want him to do something.  This for his own sanity as much as it is for mine.  He's only happy if he's working, and that has been so sporadic of late that it's really affecting him.  If this goes on, I don't know how we can go on, because I don't know how long I can be supportive of someone who seems to have little idea of how to proceed in the realm of finding a job.

Oh, just in general, things are a mess.

 

Argh, and Ugh, and other expressions of discontent

Why, oh why, oh why can't anything be simple?  I don't think it's just my crazy head, I really do think that something tells the universe that no one can be just 'happy' for long, and that any kind of continuity must be disrupted.  And I'm not the only one who thinks this.  The Ancient Greeks thought this, and the Ancient Chinese; both have superstitions about 'content' and 'happiness' and how the length of it is directly inverse to the amount of joy felt.  That is to say, er, well... As Shakespeare says, 'the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long, so love moderately'.

I worry about how I am treating my relationship with North, recently.  I am freaking out about the future.  I know I am.  I am freaking out about whether this vision I have, of how our life will be, is based in reality.  Now, I have asked North, if I am alone in this vision, and he says, 'Of course not.'  So it's good, I guess, to get a prompted reply that I am happy with.  But because I want him to say these things *on his own*, I am still disappointed.  I know - wah, wah, the poor thing isn't hearing what she wants to hear and so she's sad - but I can't help it.  It's as if I have been waiting my whole life to take on this role - this 'wifely' role, and now that I have an opportunity to do so, I want to as soon as I can.  So I try, and then when I am frustrated by something (not knowing whether we are going to live together is the big one these days, but it's other things too, crazy things prompted by his a) bad moods or b) fed-upness with my insanity) I go off on this tangent in which I think to myself, 'Self, this is all in your head, this relationship doesn't exist, what's wrong with you anyway', etc etc, and I work myself into a state that increases exponentially until I have gone far enough down the road into crazytown that I'm finally aware of my surroundings, and I turn around and come back to reality.

Bad metaphor, but there you go.

Perhaps it is simply lack of experience.  If I had had boyfriends, real-life, living, breathing boyfriends (as opposed to ones in my head or ones thousands of miles away) maybe I would be able to better gauge what kind of relationship this is.  And maybe, by operating in the way that I am operating, I am doing little more than setting myself up for a big-time heartbreak: and some big time experience.  Maybe this is supposed to be my experience, so that after North and I break up, and I get a different boyfriend (heh, maybe Dan Carter!) I will be able to measure whatever kind of relationship we are having against something that actually occurred.  You know, like, in real life.  With another person.  Who really exists.

Then again, maybe I'm just having an off week.  And this is what I mean about being content.  It's never easy.  And I'm never sure.  I will be, for short periods of time (this is usually the time in which I am not writing on this blog), but then something will happen and I fill feel myself feeling upset again, and wondering again, and thinking to myself that I'm going crazy again, and then you get a rambling post like this one here. 

North and I had a bit of a row on Tuesday, precisely because of one of these little freak-outs I'm talking about.  We were on the phone when I was on lunch break, and he told me about this job that he might do: wherein he will have to be away from London - it's a 'live-in' position somewhere away - and I didn't listen clearly, or he didn't explain clearly (though I'm more likely to lay the blame at my feet) and I got off the phone with him almost immediately.  I couldn't talk anyway with other people in the room, and I had to eat my lunch.  So I did, and then - as he said - I 'went off on one'.  In my brain, (while I was teaching, no less, good to have your head in the game) I became convinced that he was moving away, he wasn't going to come to my sister's wedding with me, he wasn't going to get an apartment at all, he didn't love me, this awful limbo state of affairs that we've been in for the past seven months was going to continue forever, blah blah blah.  Which, of course, was not the case.  But I didn't have time, and didn't give him the chance, to explain.  So when I called him later, and we talked about it, and he said, of course he wasn't moving away for good - just for a few days of the week - that of course he was still coming to the wedding, of course he still needed to get an apartment, of course he recognised that the limbo needed to end, and of course he loved me, and if I had only listened to him for five little minutes, I would have known all of that, and all of my drama was nothing but drama, and why the hell wouldn't I just give him the benefit of the doubt for once.  Which, really, is quite a valid point.

So we solved that, but then I didn't see him that night, and although we had a date planned last night he got a last-minute shift, so I didn't seem him last night either, and he was in a bad mood because he was hungry, and we didn't really talk, and then I just tried to call him now and his phone is off, so - you probably already see where this is going, don't you? - now I'm beginning the spiral all over again.  Except for this time, it begins with: he's fed up with my freaking out and he doesn't want to be with me anymore because I am more trouble than I'm worth.

On days like today, I'm inclined to believe it.

'I love you', 'I love you too'

Ah, words.  I know that this space has beens stunningly bereft of words of late: mostly this is because I don't have anything to rant about.  I mean, there was the little blip that happened last week, when North and I were talking and I realised that I have been doing a whole lot more talking lately than usual.  This led to a discussion of feelings, and North telling me that he would elucidate sometime 'soon'.  Before May 25th, even.  Which is good, because man, I'm worried about moving.  Yes, I know this sounds like a non-sequitur, but I promise it's not.

First of all, I have an opportunity to make some money - extra money - that I would need if I were to be moving out on my own.  I can just barely afford where I live now, and when I move out I know I will be taking on more expense, so the surplus of cash would come in handy.  But, there's a problem with this.  Two problems, really.  The first one is clear: I don't really want to take on more work.  The money would be nice, but I don't want to spend the better part of the next three months marking exam papers.  The second problem is that I might not have to move out on my own.  North and I have been discussing whether we should move in together.

There are a number of reasons why we should.  First of all, I love the guy.  That's not the first reason I gave, but it's the one that really ties all the other reasons together: if we are just prolonging the inevitable by not moving in together now, then we're really just creating more of a headache further down the line.  I don't see myself without North in the future, so really, why put off what I know is right?  We also spend almost all of our free time together.  And, the issues that we are having now have a whole lot to do with the fact that North doesn't feel entirely comfortable in my house, because he isn't entirely comfortable around my roommate.  I know that the issues we are having now will change when we move in together, and maybe not all for the better, but hell, I know I want to give it a shot.

Unfortunately, there's another side to this.  There are reasons why we shouldn't, either.  North wants to have something of his own, before he has something with me.  He's got this bee in his bonnet about living *by himself*, which he freely admits has a whole lot to do with 'stupid pride'.  And while it has something to do with pride, it does not diminish the fact that he's feeling insecure about moving forward when he's not sewn up his own idea of himself.  I don't want him to feel like he didn't get a chance to do something he wanted to do, merely because of timing.  (Although, isn't that always the biggest issue with relationships?)  In any event, this is the biggie.  He is also worried that I will 'get tired' of his mood swings, when he is being a 'miserable bastard'.  I find it hard to believe that he thinks I would have less of a problem with them in a years time -if we wait a year to move in together- than I already do.  He's not going to change, so why would my reaction to them change?  I don't really care about them now, because I know they've rarely got anything to do with me.  And if it's just him working ish out on his own, then he goes about his business and I go about mine. 

So I need to figure out the money situation this week, and I would like to know whether we are moving in together soon.  I don't really care when, as long as it's at least a month before I move out - on June 25th.  So I might be waiting until May 25th for the final verdict on this anyway.

On a related note, North made good his promise of telling me about his feelings.  Its the first time, since I was sixteen - and the first time I've believed someone, full stop- that someone not related to me has told me that they loved me.  It was surprising how visceral my reaction was, and how uncannily normal it was, too.  Almost like I'd heard it, from him, a thousand times before.  Strange, but nice.

Moving

Dublin is moving.

This is a problem.

It's a problem for many reasons, most of them centering around how a)broke and b)old I am.  I mean, just now I have no real financial difficulties, but I have been working on it for a while and am rather proud of my current financial status.  This is not to say that I wouldn't have financial difficulties, were I spending more money on rent.  See, right now we pay £540 each for our flat.  I can just barely afford this.  If I were to move somewhere else, I would want to pay the same amount, or less.  It stands to reason, right?  No one wants to (really) pay more unless they're getting something more - say - a house.  Because they bought it. 

I am not in the financial position to buy a house.

Also, I am not in a financial position to get an apartment on my own because, really, it's more money than I want to spend.  But I don't want to live with new people because, well, I'm tired of living with people.  I'm tired of roommates.  I'm tired of searching for a place and going for 'interviews' and thinking, 'does my life mesh with this persons?', and 'are they always that creepy?', and I've never really been comfortable with the whole 'moving into someone else's life' business.  It's something that I think, by 30, I should be over.  I should be able to find a place that is affordable enough for me.  I should be able to have my own place, dammit.

But I can't.

And then, the thing with North.  He's looking for a place now, too.  Should we start looking together?  I mean, this is a guy who, just 5 short months ago, I wasn't even sure I wanted to be talking to.  And now, now that I'm more sure of him, now I want him in my life and I want him around, now I wonder: when is the right time to move forward?  Everything is telling me that I should cool it, that I shouldn't worry about living with him yet, because damn, he just agreed to come to my sister's wedding this summer and that's a huge step; but I'm still uncertain.  He practically lives with me now, anyway.  So another part of me is saying, what would be different?  How would it be different?  Would it be? 

I'm not so interested in relationship-yardsticks, because I understand that everyone is different.  I am more interested in trying to suss out what I'm really looking for here.  The longer that I stay with North, the more amazing I think he is.  He lives up to my expectations, he does everything that he's supposed to do and more: I just don't know how quickly I want things to move.  The fact that we are both homeless in 4 months time could be the universe nudging us towards cohabitation, but it could also just be a coincidence.

I mentioned, on Saturday, that Dublin might be moving (I didn't know for sure until Sunday), and that it would affect our trip to Hawai'i for my sister's wedding, and he said, 'Well, we'll deal with that when we come to it.'

Makes me wonder if he's wondering, too.

The difference between 'Have to' and 'Want to'

I've been thinking a lot, these days, about obligations.  You know, the ties that bind us to society.  I've been thinking about how there are many fetters in day to day life, and how some of them are more burdensome than others.  Friends have a certain pull, as do co-workers, and the job duties, and the significant others.  Very little of all of this is actually necessary, I suppose, but is part of the social contract.  Er, yeah.  Social contract.  The things that we need to do in order to have relationships with others and keep them liking us, etc.

I've been thinking about this a lot because it's strange, to me, how easily we can slip into finding ourselves obligated to someone without really having a discussion, thinking about what it means, or anything else.  It just kind of happens.  Sure, there might be markers, much like the green sheen that seems to slip over trees in the days just before the new green buds are actually visible, but if you don't pay attention then you might find yourself, one day, confused, standing in front of someone else, wondering what brought you to choose them over - say - a friend or something else that you could have done.  I'm being deliberately obtuse, here, but I am trying to make myself clear, so stick with me.

I have never been in a real relationship before.  I have mentioned this before, even talked a bit about it, but I don't think I've really impressed the significance of this.  I'm thirty.  All of my 'relationships' consist of mere beginnings, they end quickly, and are more like someone picking up their toys and going home than an actual 'breakup'.  Because, (again, as I've said before) how can you 'break up' when you've not been an actual couple?  If you're just in the 'meh, we're dating stage', it's just easier to not call/stop calling/avoid calls than it is to try and explain why you want to not see someone anymore.  This has been the sum total of all my relationships in the past twelve years.  Seeing each other for a bit, then radio silence, signifying the end of the beginning.

Now, because I've never had a real start, I've never had a real anything; I've merely been building castles in the air.  But this is not so, anymore.  North is no longer some abstract idea, some boy-shaped image that exists only in my head, for a few weeks, to disappear into the ether.  He is in my life.  He is a part of my everyday considerations.  As my sister put it, 'Saturdays are understood.'  We spend our time together, and don't really talk about it.

Oh, we talk about our relationship sometimes.  But since our discussion of Feb. 25th, we haven't really.  We decided to do something completely inorganic to try and stem the absolute insanity of my own head (his ex had called, I was insecure, blah blah) and decided that on May 25th we will have a conversation about 'Where Our Relationship Is Going', and whatnot.  North decided on the time frame (three months from when we were talking - six months from then would have meant that we'd have been together for nearly a year) and said, 'Can we make it on a Friday, though, so that after we have this conversation we can go get some drinks and go dancing?' 

Cute.

So, since then we've just been enjoying each other's company.  There are things that will need to be discussed, but they'll be able to happen in time.  (Namely: Dublin may be moving back to, uh, Dublin, and I will have to find a new place to live.  This will happen in August.  This is something I'm worried about.  I don't know how long I want to continue with him staying at mine all the time.  I'd rather have it be 'ours', because it would just be easier.)  And this is good.  I like being able to enjoy.  Sure, I get insecure; i've been on a 'I'm more trouble than I'm worth' kick for the past few weeks (His response is invariably, 'If I didn't want to be here I would have fucked off long ago.' Which, somehow, lacks the reassuring quality I'm looking for.) but they come and go.  Hopefully they'll go, for good, one of these days.

Ultimately, this all means that I've been thinking about when 'want to' becomes 'have to'.  The easy answer is, of course, 'NEVER!  Keep your autonomy!', but I'm not really like that.  Um, my favorite line?  From Romeo and Juliet?  Is '...and all my fortunes at thy foot I'll lay, and follow thee, my lord, throughout the world.'  Mostly because Romeo's response is, 'So thrive my soul,' which somewhat assauges the feminist inside me that cringes at the idea of subjugation, because if it's equal abasement then it can't be all that bad, right?  In any event.  I wonder about when the actual line occurs, when you can't just 'pick up your toys and go home' anymore.  And I also wonder, when the line is crossed, is it irrevocable?  And, moreover, is it a bad thing?

 

Valentines

The Hound of the Baskervilles (Penguin Popular Classics)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

From North.  He got me the Hound of the Baskervilles because it was the first book he ever read, and he was appalled that I had never read it.

Jabberwocky and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions)

Lewis Carroll

The note on the inside of the Jabberwocky: 'You think I spout nonsense, read these laudanum-soaked scribblings'.

The Italian Job [1969]

And he got me the 'Italian Job' because he and Welsh consistently channel Michael Caine when they say, 'Get yer knickers on, get in the kitchen, and make me a cup'a tea!'  This is usually said during our regular Saturday rugby club hauntings.  Which is particularly funny, considering that there isnt a kitchen at the club - and I would just as soon take off my knickers there as take off my head.  So, there you go.

The actual night of Valentines was nice, we went for drinks with Sare before she met up with Super for dinner, then came back to mine and had some take-out chinese.  Which was pretty rad.  As we fell asleep, he asked, 'How was your Valentines day?' and I said, 'It was excellent, thank you!' and he said, 'Good.  Now I don't have to think about it for another year.'  Which was nice - in a backhanded compliment sort of way.  We seem to be past the whole 'will we still be talking in four months' business: I learned last night that North has his own expiry date on relationships.  He calls it the three-month rule.  Mine is the two-month rule.  I asked North, 'But when did we actually start dating?' and he said, 'Ages ago.'  It made me laugh.

I have to say, writing about good stuff sounds so much like gushing that I can't really do it well.  I'm uncomfortable with the subject matter, really.  Not to mention, I'm so much more used to being negative.  While it's a nice change, I don't quite know what to do with myself.

Content

I wish there was another word for 'content'. I mean, it's not that 'content' is a bad word (I'm saying content, here, guys, not content. The state of things being generally okay. Not what's in my pocketses.), it's just that it's kind of bland and blah and makes things seem bad because it is - by nature - a not very interesting word.

Using the thesaurus doesn't help. I don't want to use the word 'happy', because we all know how I feel about someone saying they're 'happy' (shiny rainbow people make me want to poke them with sharp sticks), but I also don't want to say I'm unhappy, because that's not true. I don't want to use the word 'complacent', because that makes me sound like I'm all done and I don't want anything else. I also think that the word 'fulfilled' makes me giggle, so I won't use that; and the rest of the words on thesaurus.com are just too off-putting to use. Tickled-pink? No. Smug? I hope not. Appeased? I am not a god. Agreeable? Aren't I always, even when I'm the antonym of content? Don't answer that.

In this long, roundabout fashion I am attempting to say that I am not depressed, discontented, dissatisfied, miserable, troubled or unhappy. I am the opposite of those things, these days, and that, I say, is good. Things are not all 'gratified' and 'comfortable', of course: I could do with more money, and another day in the week, but both of those things are kind of distant rumbles. Rumbles, I tell you! Like a far-off storm. Not omnipresent clouds. It's sunny here, where I am, and the threat of clouds is doing nothing to wipe the stupid small grin off my face.

So there.

I am pleased that there are only three days of school left until the half term.
I am satisfied that I have a yummmmmy dinner waiting for me at home.
I am grateful for my friends, my family, my day-to-day existence.

But mostly, I am relieved that for once in my life, I don't think I'm waiting for the other foot to drop. 

Some of this is due to North, and his general awesome-ness these days.  He started working for the agency again, so is picking up some days here and there, but has been offered a job by a friend and so is waiting patiently for that to come through - this makes him pretty happy, which makes him easy to be around, because he's not being a miserable bastard.  Which is nice.

Also, the day before the February deadline, we had a talk (don't we always have these stupid talks?  Well, this was another one.  I think something was actually resolved, though.) in which he did a few things that mattered:  1) he acknowledged that I have more of an 'abandonment' issue than he did. 2) he called me his girlfriend. 3) he said, 'we are in a committed, monogomous relationship', in the middle of a rant that was meant to - and did - reassure me.  Since then, I don't feel that we've needed to have so many quote/unquote 'talks'.  We talk every day, we see each other pretty much 5 days out of 7, and this, my friends, is good.  I don't have the sword of Damocles, so to speak, hanging over my head all the time.

I don't like to think that this feeling of pink is due to North.  I know I've had this feeling before, on my own, bereft of any male influence in my life.  But just because this is true does not negate the fact that North is in my life, now, and this changes things.  I can't say it has nothing to do with him; because it does.  And he does generate his own version of worry that I have.  But mostly, in general, the influence is positive. 

Signs

Hopefully I can say this without sounding crazy: I am a person who believes in signs.  I believe that random events that appear to have special meaning actually do have special meaning.  This is not in some crazy metaphysical way, like I think that a nebulous deity is trying to get me to realise something specific, but in a much more personal and significant way.  Personal and significant because it is my twisted and (at times) frightening brain that is coming up with this significance.  (reference last post: birth control)  I have been looking at horoscopes again, so maybe this is informing my issues, but it's funny how often they're coming up relevant these days...

In any event, I'm talking about something specific.

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night having to pee.  I went to the bathroom, washed my hands, and returned.  My flat at night is a little less thawed than glacial, and the water is ridiculously cold as well.  So I get back into bed, shivering, with very cold hands, and snuggle under the covers.  When I've gotten to a place where I think my body temperature has returned to something approaching normal, I reach over to North, putting my arm underneath his, and around his side.  He jerks, pulls forward, and pushes my hand away.  I am too tired to say anything, or really be offended, and withdraw my hand... only to have his hand find mine, hold it, and pull it back around.  Kneejerk reaction followed by reasoned action.

Somehow, this seems significant.  Significant of what, I don't know. 

North and I sort of kind of had a state of the union this past week, as well.  Here's what happened (via an email sent to Jilly):

We had a long talk about my insecurities, and why i'm insecure, which was a bit of a deviation from the norm - usually it's him who's talking about why he's a sad bastard.  It started because we've been invited to a girl's surprise birthday party, and it's on feb 3rd, and I'm a little skittish about it.  I said something about it three different times, and he kind of said, 'yup, I know, you told me before' which launched us into why I kept bringing it up - namely - I didn't think he would go with me at all.  He asked me 'Why wouldn't I?'  I replied, 'Well, if I'm going to use history...' and he cut me off and said, 'Don't.'  I asked him why it was different now, but I don't think he answered me.  In any event, I've been a little weird because he'd not invited me to meet any of his friends, but now he has, and somehow that changes things.  He's in a better mood these days, too, because he now has work, and that's a nice change.  All in all, things are okay.  We speak every day, we (obliquely) mention the future, I am scared to death because the more I see of him the more I like him.  Seriously.  Frightening.  Mostly because I spend a lot of time with him.  Proof:

Monday: called out.  North stayed over Sunday night, so was with me till about 4 on Monday. we watched this dumb madcap british comedy, that made him laugh louder than i've ever heard him laugh.

Tuesday: 15 minutes phone conversation in which we talked about - really - nothing.

Wednesday: met up at 6, stayed out till 12, when he went to go see his mate.  had our long conversation.

Thursday: met up at 5, hung out for a while, then I went to meet Sare for sushi at 7:30, spoke after sushi on my way home while he was getting the bar ready after rugby

Today: will meet up sometime after school, will stay at his (North came down to the pub around 6, I stayed at his till about 11 or so on Saturday)

Tomorrow: will have to go home at some point, but will go out with him and all the rugby kids.  will most likely, also, go home, because aoife might be coming out (Went home, showered, left for the game.  Went to the fundraiser with the crew, North was drunk as a lord.  I was drunk, but not Drunk, if you get me.)

Sunday: pub quiz.  although, he might not come up b/c he has work on monday, but i haven't spoke to him about it yet. (Pub quiz.  Came in 4th for the 3rd week in a row.  Had a nice dinner at mine.  He stayed over.  I'll see him later.)

 

Consensus?  No clue.  Nothing is clear.  Still. 

February deadline approaching.

It's the little things.

Hello!  Hi!  How are you!?!  I feel like I haven't been here for ages!  And really, looking at my last half-post, I really haven't been.  So I'm interested to see how you all are doing, you know, see if everyone's doing well with the start of the new year...  And then begin my rant.

I realised that the reason why I haven't been posting is because there really hasn't been anything that I need to 'sort', you know?  After North and my big blowout on the 14th (or thereabouts) of December, things have been startlingly good.  More than good.  Excellent.  Things have been going so well, in fact, that I haven't had anything to really write (read: bitch) about.  Things were being kept in perspective, I had no expectations (and thus, no disappointment), and if something bad happened, like a miscommunication or an argument, we talked about it and apologised and moved on.  All couple-like.  You know, how you are when you are in a stable, committed relationship?  When you know that the person you talk to every day is interested, cares, wants to make you happy, and all that?  Yeah, that.  Ironically, it is precisely this state of affairs that has led to the problem.

It lulled me into a false sense of security!  I let my guard down!  And, in letting my guard down, I stupidly said some stupid things that were stupid - and I don't know what to do about it.

I have to back up a bit to explain.

North - in his vagabond state - had pretty much stayed with me since I returned from NYC, up until this past Sunday.  I don't mind this, in fact, I rather enjoy having him around.  But I don't live alone.  And Dublin, as wonderful and as gracious as she is, could not endure seeing North every single day for breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner, dessert, drinks, etc.  I don't blame her, either.  Were the situations reversed, I don't think I could have gone for as long as she did without saying something.  So when she did, I talked with North, and things were sorted.  He stayed at ours on Saturday, but not Sunday, and crashed out on Monday (literally, he came over and went to bed at, like, 8).  On Tuesday I had to meet up with him to get my keys (you need keys to lock the outside lock) and so we met up in Croydon.  Where did we meet up?  A pub.  Was he late?  Yes.  Had I already had a vat of wine by the time he got there?  Yes.  Had I eaten any dinner?  Of course not.

So I was drunk.

Okay, not drunk.  I was tipsy.  And North, goodness knows, has a different tolerance level than I do.  Three pints for him is not enough to get him even remotely drunk, and three glasses of wine for me, is, well, more than enough.  So, at first, things were fine, because we were just talking and being silly and having a good time.  But then, you know, my brain kicks in, and I start thinking, 'Is he my boyfriend?  Does he really like me?  I like him.  Gosh, he looks cute.  He's so cute!  And does he think I'm cute?  Does he like me?  Is he my boyfriend?' And on and on, ad infinitum.  Of course, then, I start steering the conversation towards relationship-type things, about how it's weird to spend so much time with someone but still like them, and how it's scary, and I like that I can talk to him about things, and when he tried to reciprocate, or say something about 'intelligence', I cut him off and started quoting from this book that I love and hold dear to my heart and just kept talking and talking - fishing, really, for the answers to the questions that were running around my head.  I didn't get the answers I wanted, predictably.  North is not known for spouting his feelings willy-nilly.  So then I start being all pouty and girl-ish, looking out the window or picking at my fingernails (which, of course, he called me out on. 'If you want to stare out the window and not talk to me, I'll just fuck off and you can drink by yourself', he said, grinning.) and giving him the silent treatment when he said I'd been screechy (even though I had been screechy, no doubt) and messing about on the walk to the train station, trying to trip him up or push him into walls.

Oh, I'm a fucking catch.

So all this happens and you know what I did?  On the train home?  I was obsessing about how much I actually like this guy.  I wrote in my daybook: I am so fucking scared.  I am scared that I might actually be falling for someone.  And I don't want to!  I don't want to because of the half-truths and answers and statements that I have received - I want to be aloof - I want to not care - and when I don't care he freaks* - and - I don't even know what.  Not exactly Proust, but hey, I was drunk.

How funny is perception, though, huh?  Looking back on my actions, I only see how much of a twit I was.  That night, however, I thought everything was fine.  More than fine!  Things were great!  Things were together!  I was a star!  Now, though, I don't feel that way.  For two reasons.

One, he's back to his old tricks.  Wednesday he said he'd see me yesterday, and we'd hang out.  Yesterday, he didn't call when he said he would, so I called him, and he said, 'I can't be asked to go anywhere.  I'm miserable.'  So we didn't hang out.  Never mind that I had told Sare that we couldn't hang out because I was hanging out with North, he was 'miserable' so we couldn't do anything.  He also said he 'might' call me later, he didn't.  Today?  He said he'd call and let me know what he's doing.  Me?  I'm going to go home and be a hermit.  I'm skint, and tired, and I don't want the drama.

Two is stupider, but a bigger deal to me.  I'm almost out of birth control.  And when I got the birth control, back in November, I thought to myself, 'Fat chance, I won't still be talking to North in January'.  I thought this, but I took it anyway.  Better safe than sorry, right?  Right.  Now, though, it's January, and although I'm still talking to North, the situation has not changed.  I'm going to renew my birth control without knowing whether or not we'll still be together when the effing prescription runs out.  This is a frightening revelation.

*Last Friday I was supposed to ring him after school to let him know what my schedule was.  I rang him when I left the teacher's pub, at 8.  He rang back at 9, I missed the call, so we ended up speaking at 10.  He was quite drunk, and angry.  'Where were you?  Why didn't you call me?  A little phone call would have been nice, just letting me know what was going on', etc, etc.  It was a big back and forth, ending in his shouting and threatening to 'fuck off and leave (me) alone, and (I'll) never have to see (him) again', and a whole lot more hullabaloo, then a big apology in the morning.

Hello, and Happy New Year

In lieu of regurgitating what happened on my New Year's in great detail, I will just say this: I limed (see reference for Trinidad) at Sare and Super's with North. It was fun.

How was yours, though? You all had fun? I hope you did.

In other news, I had an absolutely fantastic time in NYC with the crew. It's nice to be able to go back to a place and feel like, well, like I never left. It's good. Homey, even. I had good food at Bratty's and got some good pressies, shopped and shopped and saw a good movie with Jilly, and kicked it with Ms Basque and Tommybomb (just like old times), and chilled with E-Zinda on Xmas morning, and saw the TP crew out on Friday along with Toks and Peej - it was awesome. Short, but awesome. Some pilfered pictures (thanks Lester!) from Christmas day. I'll try to get some more up here soon, but this will tide you over for a while.

A formal Christmas celebration at Bratty's: (Lester's wearing the string of pearls, Bratty's in the green tartan ensemble, and I am wearing the gold - ahem - champagne coloured dress.  We are in front of Bratty's Charlie Brown Tree.)

 

Dorian in Lester's bag...

Aaaand the nogggg (mmm. nog.)

So I hope your holidays were as nice as mine, and that you all have a fun 2007 - I know I'm hoping for a good year. Rabbit, rabbit and all of that.

Cheers!