A Cyclic Poem

Nightmares again...

I'm sure I've had a post at some point titled "Nightmares again..." since that's the only time I seem to post these days, and by "these days" I mean every six-eight months.

I finally turned my EE in to Child Support Enforcement.  I did it last October or so (see, if I'd blogged about it, I'd KNOW when it happened.)  He'd disappeared again and I used that as an excuse.  See, I couldn't FIND him and the only way for me to find him and make sure he wasn't DEAD was to turn him in so THEY could find him for me.  It was for his own good.  Really.  I was worried about him.  Really.

And he was fine with it.  So he said.  He understood.  So he said.  And we remained as we had been before, cordial...even friendly. 

Then came last week.  He called and wanted to take Sydney to the lake for the 4th of July weekend.  And during the course of that conversation mentioned that he had a court date on July 18th.  And that he thought he would go to jail.

Well, I felt badly for him (as I was meant to) and said, (and I quote..:) "I'd hate for you to go to jail, I wish I could help."

He calls me the next night (this would be Tuesday) to tell me he'd spoken with Child Support and all I had to do was sign some papers, get them notarized, take them to the courthouse and that would mean that I wasn't "actively pursuing" child support and that would keep him out of jail and he'd get his suspended license back.

(Yes, you heard me right, he screwed up and forgot that he hadn't mentioned the whole suspended license thing when he asked to take Hope for the weekend.)

(I told him I didn't think Hope should go and he was all like, "I'm a great driver" blah blah blah.  So I told him I'd think about it.)

He calls late Thursday to ask me about it.  In the meantime I have called Child Support (for the very first time since I filed because I really didn't want to know) to find out about his court date.  Turns out he didn't have to have his license suspended, doesn't have to go to court until October and wouldn't have to go at all but he HAS NOT CALLED THEM ONE TIME in all these months to work something out.  They've sent him letter after letter asking him to come to office and work out a payment structure.  So they finally suspended his license.  I asked him why he thought he had a court date on the 18th and he said he thought he'd seen that date on something somewhere.  Ugh.

So he berated me for an hour.  He got angrier and angrier and meaner and meaner because I wouldn't say I'd save him.  He told me all kinds of horrible things, I can't even talk about it yet.  Not even here where I've had nothing but safety.  I'll tell the rest tomorrow (yes, there's more.)

****

But I have nightmares every night.  Last night I dreamed that he was high up on a wooded hill shooting down at me and Hope.  That he wanted to kill us both.  I do not know how to make these nightmares stop. 

I think he'd be happy if he knew that.

Familiar Territory

This has happened before.  First with Jon and then with Stalker Boy.  Things got started, then I didn't know how to stop them.  With Jon, the feelings have never quite gone away, but I think that's more due to the alcohol brainwashing that went on, and less about any real feelings.  I thought I was in love with him, and maybe I was in some sort of sick way.  But it happened this same way.  I met him, then a week later I was consumed by him.

Stalker Boy was a bit different, of course.  I did actually try to do the right thing (after doing the wrong thing and getting so involved so quickly) but he wouldn't accept it. So that ended badly.

This new thing, what I would call a rekindling, has also happened so quickly.  Almost overnight quickly.  I've enjoyed texting and some mild flirting and felt like it was all good, after all, he lives across the country!!  He was a childhood friend and everything.  But suddenly there's all this soul-mate talk and although the sexual talk is titillating and fun (after all, it's  now been YEARS for me) it doesn't seem to be the sort of thing that should go from FB to email to texting to being physically together so very quickly!

But as with most men I develop this sort of bond with, he says all the right things, pushes all the right buttons, appeals to all the senses in a perfect way.  Almost like he knows me.  But that might be the problem.  Do I turn myself in to whatever these men want me to be?  Am I still so insecure that I can't say no, or this is going too fast?  He's told me repeatedly to tell him if he's crossing a line, going too fast, doing or saying anything that's making me uncomfortable, and what do I do?  I don't tell him, so things escalate because the only feedback he gets from me is to keep going.

He's not the handsome kid he was in high school anymore, either.  He's balding and looks a little older than his real age.  I don't know that I'll even be attracted to him in person!  Probably not, me being me...

*****

And my friend, the one who was having the affair, had the abortion, used my abysmally.  Well, she finally divorced her husband because she found out HE was having an affair.  See, it was okay for her, but not for him.... and I've always been attracted to her husband, and now he's calling me to talk about our kids getting together.  And he's one I could actually really see being with.  I know, I know...the affair, but if you knew this woman...

So  I wonder what might happen with him if I let it.  But I don't think I could.  Despite the fact that I don't much like my ex-friend and his ex-wife, it still seems to breaking some sort of girl code to date her ex.  Don't you think?

****

I've really gotten bad at blogging.

Facebook

I met this guy on Facebook but it turns out to be a guy I knew and sort of dated in Middle School.  (over 20 years ago!!)  He lives in Oregon now, has two kids, is rather newly divorced and after a week of texts, wants to come back to Atlanta for a week in January to rekindle our "romance."

Am I crazy, or is this a bit of  rush job?  He seems very nice, he likes to talk about sex quite a bit, plays in a band, but apparently had a hard time keeping his job and smokes a good bit of pot.  Nothing wrong with any or that.  But what on earth does he hope to gain by coming to Atlanta?  He's already talking about marriage and soul-mates and karma. Ugh. 

How do I continuously get involved in this kind of thing?  I don't know how to tell him not to come.  He said he ordered the plane tickets the day he asked me if I was going to be in town toward the end of January (who knew it was a loaded question?) and now I can't really tell him not to come because he has family here and it would sound stupid.  But he wants to take me to dinner and then out for some mind blowing sex afterwards, and even thought I TOLD him I'm not interested in sex, he seems to think he'll be the one to change my mind.

Men.

I don't know what to say.  I'm completely floored by the outpouring of advice and support from my dear friends.  I'm SO GLAD nobody advised either a) shaving/waxing the whole thing bald or b) attempting the  "gucci coochie."  (Although I will have nightmares about "tailfeathers" and the possibility of accidently shaving off essential body parts.  Thank you very much, GraceD and Michelle.)

Danelle and Carol, thanks for the  reminder!!  I do have a stray breast hair (and found another as I was finding it again tonight) which I have, for the record, both plucked and shaved over the years.  I'm going with plucking since shaving too near the nipple might violate Michelle's essential parts rule. 

GOOD POINT, Joe.  If he's critiquing the merchandise on his very first trip to the candy store, he's a very,very bad boy and won't get to go back inside.  EVER.

Phyllis.  IF the situation comes up where he might get "whisker burned" I will be laughing so hard it will totally kill the mood!  Thank you very much!

SAT Word of the Day points go to GraceD for using both "mons" and "hirsute" in the same comment.

Gulf shores trip

It's been a while, but now I can blog from my phone!!!

Hope left yesterday with her Gramma.  They're going to Florida for a WHOLE week!  Won't be back until next Saturday.  I'm already so bored I don't know what to do with myself.

I'm writing you see, because I'm supposed to write copy for our new website at my work.  And I can't write anymore.  I'm not saying I was ever a writer of great consequence, but after four straight years of writing every single day, I was at least used to putting words on paper, so to to speak.

After a full three years of not blogging at all, I can't seem to write anymore.  Nothing comes to mind.

I can't write anything beautiful or descriptive and I spent all my time going, "oh damn...what's that word I'm looking for??"  and then frantically checking dictionary.com for all synonyms for "vista" or "create" or "beautiful."  There aren't that many.  Not really.  Because you have to use words most people will know, not saying people are stupid, but still, using words like, "pulchritudinous" is asking a lot from your average reader.

My boss is cheap and wanted someone already on our very small staff to write copy and since I did some short descriptive sentences for some pretty pictures for a marketing brochure, he volunteered me. 

I didn't put up a fight.  I love to write, and how cool would that totally be???  Writing for money, and it would be fun and I would have an excuse to NOT do the work I don't like doing.  But its HARD!  Much harder than I thought.  Writing for fun is fun.  Writing for work is not fun.  It's like college papers all over again.  I sit and stare at the computer screen (in the former case it was the typewriter) and hope inspiration will come.  I send things to Brian periodically, because I'm the Queen of Overused Commas, and he edits me quite nicely.  Except he's busy, and so I don't think would or could tell me if what I'm writing is GOOD, or just OKAY.  Or sucky.  Which I suspect it is. 

Now I'm totally freaking.  Deadline looms, the 18th, for the first draft.  My boss will do a  complete rewrite on everything and then I'll have to rewrite his writing.  And the whole process will repeat until he finally decides I suck.  I was doing alright until it came to rewriting the bios.  Everyone wrote their own and so the tones are all different and there's no cohesiveness to the information.  But some people have like, NOTHING good to talk about, which is hard, and some people have SO MUCH experience and degrees in the industry, its hard not to write a book!  Try cutting 25 years of experience and 3 degrees down to two short paragraphs.

So I have five days basically, to write the rest of it.  Pressure pressure.  I'll end up pulling all nighters just like in school.  With the end result getting a giant "F" courtesy of the evil English professor (my boss.) 

And with Hope gone for just a while, I can blog.  But I think blogging is actually and excuse to NOT remote into my work computer and work on the website.

Ugh.

I keep staring at the pictures of the last two "relationships" I've had.  Both have profiles on Yahoo and both check in on a daily basis.  One frightens me and the other fascinates me.  I avoid leaving a trail so I don't think either of them know I've been looking.  Although I wasn't so very savvy in the beginning and so I can't be sure.  The fascinating one checked in on me twice, the frightening one never.  But the frightening one would know how to cover his tracks.  Funny how that works.

*****

I'm so damn tired of the drama at work.  I adore Dana, I love her, I haven't had such a close girlfriend in a very long time.  I went to a couple of gay strip clubs with her.  Did I tell you that?  We had fun.  And I fought hard for her when she quit.  She lost her freakin' mind on Monday, decided she's quitting and put in her resignation the next day.  And I couldn't stop her.

That was a month ago.  I fought for her.  I'm nobody, really.  But I know what she does and I know how to ask, and I got her a little more time.  She quit without having another job.  She has two kids.  She lives in an expensive part of town so her kids can go to good schools.  She didn't look for another job the whole time.  We all thought, we being only the two of us I guess, we thought it would never happen.  She was just going to be around forever and things would slowly go back to normal and Satan (our boss and President of the company) would forget she quit because although his pride wouldn't allow him to ask her to stay, and her pride wouldn't let her ask him if she could stay, somehow by ignoring the whole thing it would just go away.

But no.  She's really leaving.  I was sad and upset and depressed and scared and worried and angry.  All the things you are for a friend who's been treated unfairly.  I've talked and cried, cursed and complained...hours and hours of it.  I've done it at home, through texts, at work, via phone and email.  I've done it for a month with her now.  Longer even. 

This must make me evil.  But I want the drama to end.  Her last day is next Friday.  And I'm glad.  Not glad like gleeful glad.  I'm just so very very tired of dealing with the drama every single day.

See, it's all very political.  Everyone at that place tells me everything.  The HR Director looks on my like another grandchild and tells me EVERYTHING.  I know things I really ought not to know and I hate it sometimes!!  So I know things I should have told Dana, if I'm her friend.  But things I have responsibility to my job not to tell her, like if they found out I told her than I'd lose my job.  So I can't tell her things I know and I can't tell people at work things I know, about her.   I can't complain about her, even when I think she's doing the wrong thing, because people in my office are just dying for me to say something bad that they can go running to her with.  She's so volatile, she'd believe anything.  So I have to be very very careful.  ALL.  THE.  TIME.  With everyone.

It's exhausting.

*****

My direct report's nickname is "Chip."  It's hysterical.  Only Dana and I call him Chip, but it's because every single time Dana and I take a break from work and chit chat for a second, Chip appears.  We figure we've both been chipped.  Whenever we're within a certain radius...say eight feet...the master chip in Chip's head goes off and he comes LEAPING around the corner to catch us goofing off.  It also works with emails.  And phone calls.  And once?  I had this dream and Dana had the same dream, we were both taken aboard a spaceship...and I think we had our chips upgraded that night.  Now Chip can tell when we're talking when he's not even in the building!  We wonder what will happen to our chips when she leaves.  She made me a special tin-foil hat in case it implodes or something.

Chip is manic. Like a complete maniac manic.  Worse than me on my worst ebay spending spree manic day.  But today I out manicked him.  It was funny, really.  Usually when he asks me for 497 things all at the same time at 4:45 in the afternoon, I make nice eye contact with him, smile and assure him I'll get it all done.  Today, after they took away all Dana's duties (well, actually they pissed her off and she quit doing most of her job, accept the part that dealt with training me) I had way too much to do and way to little knowledge with which to get it done.  So when Chip walked in today, I was the one with 497 things to ask HIM!!  It was funny as hell, he didn't know what to do.  He floundered for speech and I just went on and on.   And on.  (I can speak very quickly at a high frequency for quite a long time on a single breath when it's necessary.)  He looked confused and left the room as quickly as possible.

Never try to out manic me.

*****

I feel better today, obviously.  Nothing changed.  Nada.  But I just feel better.  I guess depression really is chemical.  When I wrote that last post, I thought I wanted to die.  Things aren't great, but they'll improve at work.  The drama is getting to everyone I guess.  SIX more days!!  Plus, get this!  The one guy at work I was ever interested in?  Yes, she got him.  I don't mind really, because I wouldn't have known what to do with him had I been the one to get him...but STILL!!

*****

Thanks, Margaret and Tonya, for reading and responding yesterday.  I needed so badly for someone to hear me.  I knew there was nothing you could do to change things or fix me, but I needed to be heard.  I'm so grateful to you both.  You will never know how much.