Just Another Self-Involved Baby Boomer With A Blog

I am about to actually graduate from school.

I’ll have a grad certificate and my Masters and now I have to find a job.  I mean, really have to.  I don’t mind the responsibility, but I am the responsible person. S does what he can, but he is where I was in ’06.  He works part time and goes to school. Thats quite good enough.  As long as he takes care of his responsibilities, I’m just fine with that.

Its spring here.  The weather has alternated between 37 and 93 in the last week.  I’d like it to be about 70 for a while!

 

Yesterday was a big day for S and I.

He is now on the lease.

This means he really lives here and I just can’t (I’m paraphrasing him) call the sheriff and have him escorted off the property.  Like I would.

If commitment is measured by degree of joining in the mundane, he and I have more of that than I’ve had previously. We’ve got linkage via the banking system, he is on the lease, hell – he even indicates our relationship status on social media.  S refer to himself as the “upgrade.”  I think when it comes to emotional commitment and level of emotional accessibility, he is just that.

I think to where we were a year ago.  I had just moved to MD.  I was scared, depressed and feeling really inadequate – that I was a failure for my failed relationship, angry that I’d accepted being treated as less than a valuable person, sad that I was less than a valuable person.

S was living in Ohio and we were looking forward to spending more than a long weekend or a week working at an event together.  He was really patient with my emotional roller coaster.  I knew he had some pretty intense feelings for me, which I felt towards him as well, but didn’t entirely trust based on all the stuff I was going through.  How could I know what I was feeling wasn’t some sort of gratitude for someone who paid positive, loving attention to me?

S and I talked a lot at that point, sometimes a couple of hours a day.  You are kind of a captive audience when you spend that much time on the phone with someone else.  Since both of us were in school and neither of us were doing anything groundbreaking we still had at least an hour and 50 minutes to fill.  So we talked a lot about our pasts, our hopes and dreams.  I’d like to think I got to know S pretty well.

What occurred to me at some point is, S is honest.  He doesn’t make things up that other people really want to hear.  Or to himself.  He gives to the point where people take advantage of him.

 

Us being “S” and I, crazy being people who don’t quite operate in the real world and INTERACT WITH US.

First thing about crazy.  For crazy to survive and mingle with the rest of us, it must have a very efficient cloaking device.  A crazy cloaking device means that crazy can hide among the sane, insert itself into our lives and wreck havoc before we know what hit us.  The cuter crazy is, the more effective the cloaking device.

Because if you know that someone is nuts, you nod and smile and don’t let them have access to your twitter account.  Sure you talk to them at a party – but you don’t invite them home.  If you don’t know they are crazy, they are sleeping on your couch before you can stop it.

Relocating “S” has been traumatic for him.  He really was settled into his life several states away, no matter how lacking it was of things like gainful employment and health care.  ”S” is not a gypsy like yours truly.  He moved once, about 115 miles, from the place he was born to another place (after a girl) about 20 years ago and STILL remembers how hard it was to make friends.  I’ve been trying to facilitate his social life.  I want very much for this to be our place to live. With our friends.

“S” is a super sweet person.  He says he isn’t nice, but he really wants people to be happy.  So when someone approaches him with a need, he is likely to try and fill it.

Me, I give to a certain point – but with most people I’ve got a deep suspicion of their motives.  I have to observe you for a bit before I trust you and put myself at emotional risk.

“S” tends to respond to emotional neediness, I’m like WTF?!

For the most part, emotionally needy has an instinctive sense of which one of us might be safe to gravitate to.

I’ve got all kinds of alarm bells ringing, saying “DANGER WILL ROBINSON! EMOTIONAL QUICKSAND!!!”  I stop answering my phone.

“S” is of the mind “I’m not doing enough, and this person’s acting out is really emotional anguish caused by my lack of doing something to make their life better.  He starts spending a lot of time and energy trying to make them happy, which is never enough.

Now my response to all of this is to carefully consider all that I have seen – and discount it instead of following my first instincts.  ”S” seems to think its the right thing to do, so it must be the right thing to do and he continues to try and fix stuff.  Even in the face of evidence to the contrary.  Enough evidence that I didn’t put my foot down when I should have.

But, lesson learned.  We talked.  We discussed what we both saw leaking out of the cloaking device.  We made some decisions based on doing what was right for us – and the limited free time we have together.  Now we have to deal with the emotional repercussions. Actually, HE has to deal with it – but I’m not too fond of holding the social time bomb.

“S” being almost entirely nocturnal, is sleeping.  I’m supposed to be doing school work, but after a late night (I lasted till 11pm) of school work I’m not enthusiastic about digging into today’s projects.  Plus we have to go exchange the unhappy Xbox, “S”‘s digital pacifier.  Which Calculus, Trig, Chemistry and Poetry has kept him from suckling on.

 

 

 

 

Its been over a year since I wrote here.

I’m not sure where to start.  Its been an eventful year.  So I’ll just bullet point all the major bits.

June 20th I headed off to camp for week of work and fun.  This would be my first event with complete and total responsibility for a crew of people for setup.  I’d always worked under someone else, so I had some trepidation as my crew (way less people than I’d need) was assigned by my boss, and I’d only picked one person myself.

• Camp was a ton of work and initially, fairly stressful due to the scope of work and the lack of crew and my total newness.  There was a bright spot.  I had about 1/3 of one staffer’s time assigned to me and it was the BEST 1/3.  That staffer was “S.”
• R and I went on vacation.  I suggested we go to Gettysburg, what with my recent experience with ghost hunting and his affection for the War of Northern Aggression.  This may not have been the best idea, considering how the South did at Gettysburg.  We did go ghost hunting and had a whole lot of interaction.  I think R left a believer.
• I started grad school.  I’ve managed to kick butt throughout, including winning a best paper at a conference and am in the process of getting some stuff published.
• I put the dead horse out of it’s misery.  I should have known that when we went to marriage counseling that it would be unmarriage counseling.  We tried.  That happened last Fall.  I’ll write about it more now that I’ve remembered my password to this thing.
• I ran setup for another event successfully.  S was on my crew full time and we kicked butt.
• I moved to DC.  Best move I’ve ever made.  Besides the one to the East in ’94.
• Things moved from a friendship with S to something more romantic. Long distance, once a month romantic. And a lot of phone calls, texts, emails, online flirtation – etc.
• I got way ahead of schedule with grad school by taking too many courses and doing my internship a year early. This freed me up to apply for a local graduate certificate program which I hoped to complete during my last 2 semesters of grad school. Leaving my marriage meant losing any safety net I had. Being as employable as possible was/is my greatest priority.
• I worked another event, this time crew for a hotel event.  Technically someone else was supposed to direct things.  I ended up managing all the logistics and staffing while she did creative.
• S came for an extended summer visit.  This evolved into something else which appears to have culminated with his employment and enrollment in college, oh both within walking distance of our place…  More on that too.
• I spent 5 months waiting to hear that yes, I’d gotten in to the certificate program I’d applied to, and gotten all but 2K of it financed through grants from the university AND the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  Whoa!

Which brings us up to today, 13 months since I posted here.

I am sitting on the world’s smallest couch in the tiny apartment S and I inhabit in MD.  ”Tiny” may not describe it adequately.  I think at 369 square feet, it qualifies as microscopic.

But we’ve got everything we need.  Flat screen TV, Xbox, a variety of computers, fast internet, surround sound, comfy bed, lots of light, reasonable kitchen for small people with gas stove and decent cookware, a normal sized bathroom with TUB, a building with indoor parking and security, all utilities included and lots of good retail and food steps from our door.

We’ve also got a incredible network of friends.

I reflect back on the last year and I am just amazed at everything that has happened.  I am so grateful.

Last June (2011!) I participated in some stuff that reminded me of the importance of my spiritual life.  I’ve always kind of been a skeptic of the woo (the crunchy California self-important version) and I don’t practice anything formally religious, but I’ve always had a private spiritual awareness and felt a sense of something much larger and powerful than I.  I’m at loathe to call it “god” because I really don’t like defining my beliefs based on other people’s definition and standards of god.

Seems like thats a personal thing.

Most of the people I’d surrounded myself with in the ATL were rabidly agnostic.  This agnosticism may have been in reaction to all the rabid practitioners of organized religion we were surrounded by.

I needed more balance. I need more balance.

There has to be more than work and the grind.

I think about that on a summer night when the breeze is blowing gently on my skin and I look at the sky, the stars bright pin pricks on black velvet.  It just can’t all end with this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m here in DC sitting in family room of my good friends’ K n G house finishing up the final preparations for a delightful party with a whole lot of other wonderful people I know, that is happening this evening.  This party is why I’m up here so early for camp, which starts on Monday.

Last night K n G took me out to a place called Grace’s Mandarin in the National Harbor in MD.  National Harbor is like Atlantic Station in Atlanta,  but with people, better shops and water. I think Atlantic Station in Atlanta would have been successful if it had water.  Why call something Atlantic Station that is 6 hours drive from the ocean?  Bad planning, really.

Our dinner was amazing.  We had sushi rolls, fun and different sushi and edamane for appetizers and shared a vegetarian dish and a whole lovely local rockfish that was deep fried an in a an intense basil sauce.  It was served on a plate of crispy veggies like it was swimming to us.  We had delicious cocktails, champagne, wine and a plum liquor that was tasty.

Today we just hung out and party planned.  We also worked on some stuff on real Live Angry Birds.  I think we are ready for camp.

Tonight should be very interesting.  L is describing a movie called “The Human Centipede” and I think this will be the theme for the evening.

 

 

Yesterday morning the feline contingent was crowding me for petting while I was a captive audience caused by my morning bladder.

Clarence walked in the bathroom to join in for petting, stiffly, and dragging his tail.

No!

Off to the vet went, before coffee, before shower, before anything.

Turns out he’d likely fallen out of a tree the day before, swelling developed over night in his tail and lower spine and he temporarily lost all feeling and movement in his tail.   Worst case scenario is that this type of neurological damage affects bowel and bladder control, does not resolve itself and can require tail amputation and  help with pottying.

I saw him use the box for one function, but did not see him pee.  Apparently the bladder is more frequently involved than the bowel and will require manual expression for the 50% of cats who do not recover from this.

He was a love at the vet, sweet and purry and not scared at all. Hard to believe that last year at this time he was freshly fixed and just getting used to us, after 6 months of looking in our windows watching our other cats.

I was scared though.  I had to leave him for observation.  He wouldn’t pee in the box, or eat (concerns about GI damage not shown on the tail/lower back x-ray became a possibility) so they filled him full of sub q fluids in the hopes he’d go on his own.  He had to demonstrate bladder control before they released him.

I went home, took a shower, worked on camp stuff and ran some errands.  Called the vet twice, no pee.

Unknown to me the vet staff  were all joking about putting leaves and dirt in the box.  C-man is an indoor outdoor kitty. Maybe he only poops in the box but pees outside (I’ve only seen him do the former, not the latter, in a box) and the hope was he’d go if he felt comfortable.

On my way home, resigned to leaving him for a night in the hopes he’d go or they’d express him in the morning, he pee’d on a towel in his cage in the clinic.  I’ve never been so happy for inappropriate cat peeing in my whole life.

Took him a few days and some prednisolone to recover, but now tail in the air and all is well!  WHEW!!!

My very handsome boy, chilling on the steps

 

 

R, asleep with Clarence, Tommy and Mickey in the foreground

Last May The Elder Feline developed a UTI.  As she lives in the back of the house and does not go outside or gets ill very often, we generally don’t get her to the vet as much as the sicklier of the beasties.

When she started going in and out of the litter box in my office a lot, off to the vet we went.  Sure enough, a UTI.

No problem, Greenies pill pockets and her prescription and she was fine.  But they found a large lump on her leg.  As she needed a dental as well, we scheduled her for a dental and the lump removal.

Turns out it is a mast cell tumor, which are always malignant.

We got the pathology back and we are super lucky.  Its not a particularly aggressive tumor and the margins are clean.  We just need to watch her.

The spousal unit appears to want a Mac as well.  This is just from watching me use mine and having the same gripes with laptop as I’ve got.  I would buy this for him, but this means he gets very minimal Christmas and B day from me, because 2K isn’t cheap.

I arrived back in the ATL on Wednesday in plenty of time to go and get some Mex and be reasonably social, while gasping in the 93 degree heat combined with inversion layer – induced smog.  Yum!

Yesterday I could stand it no more and went to the Apple Store to replace my Dell with something that wouldn’t crack into bits every time I opened it.  Apparently just opening and closing the Dell causes both the hinges and the LCD bezel to fall apart.

Plus the touch pad on the Dell was really bad.  If one was not careful a block of text you’d just laboriously written would mysteriously highlight itself and disappear.  If word happened to autosave you could use the undo button and get it back.  If you’d just written a meaningful post on a social network, say “bye!”

So even though I couldn’t really afford it, off I went to the Apple store.  And came home with a MacBook Pro.

My goal is to set up the network drive I’ve got as a library, move all the files off my desktop I need to back up and eliminate the desktop and my Dell laptop, but use my monitor and a remote keyboard at my desk as docking station.  The part thats a bitch will be Eudora – I’ve got emails dating back to the early 90s through last January on Eudora and I’d like to keep them.

Moving into the Mac has been interesting.  Thankfully, as soon as I register the option, I’ve got 1 on 1 support and they will migrate stuff off my PCs onto the remote drive and the Mac, help me with the overly challenging email (Bellsouth has some email issues on a Mac) and train me on some Mac stuff, as much as I want, all for free.

The Mac has a delicious keyboard. It has the nicest feel and I find myself touch typing with few errors on it.  And no more wandering touch pad issues.

Onwards and upwards!

 

I drive back to the ATL on Wednesday.

I’ll have been gone for 22 days : )

Todays fun includes the Freer/Sackler museum, for which I am very excited.  Its Asian art, and there is something called the Peacock Room that I am very jazzed about seeing.

And then we have a cocktail party tonight, and then I load and go in the morning.  Waaaahh!

My stay with G n K has been really pleasant.  When I made my appearance last Wednesday, it was early enough in the day to relax and help set up for the evenings entertainment, which included a fascinating and fun Australian couple, who K was stationed with in the middle east.

Thursday was HH, but I was just exhausted, and not much fun at all.  Friday was car adventures  and Pho with the inheritor of my old crackberry, P and another late night.

Saturday we toured butterfly prison, pizza with the little people (REAL little people), E joined us and L sang like a birdie with her choir, followed by cocktails and dessert.

Sunday K and little S went to the Eastern Market for fresh veggies, bought fishes at the fish market and G n K threw a delightful dinner party with fresh snapper! We sat out on the back deck, were entertained by a fire in the ‘hood, laughed uproariously, drank far too much (I had a major hangover on Monday) and had a great time.

Yesterday E and I went for Burmese food near her job in Silver Spring.  I’d never eaten Burmese before.  Its got elements of Thai and Viet, Malayian and Cambodian, but its almost mustardy flavored instead of hot or sweet.   Really good!

Happily I’ll just be home for a week or so and then back to a party at G n K’s before camp.  Have to discuss this with R, who may have some potential objections to me departing so swiftly.

The best part?  I’m back up here again in late June, again in July.

I had an interesting thing happen with my internship.  I got a text a couple of weeks ago asking me to send a resume and a cover letter in for a part time data entry position.  Did phone interview on Thursday.

After much thought, I’m not sure I’d take it if it was offered to me.  My concern is that I am being used to do the difficult bits of data entry and analysis that I searched for an automated solution for as my internship project.  Data submitted to the CDC is frequently inaccurate because the process is full of holes.  As this is partially a pilot program, they need good data and are chomping at the bit to document certain programatic milestones.  Yet their program management process is inherently flawed.  So anyone managing the data is constantly struggling to get good and accurate info to a really impatient overseer in the face of many obstacles and accompanied by much angst.

I’m just not sure its worth it.  After the joke of an interview I had on Thursday, I don’t know if I really WANT it. No one has asked me the 10 standard interview questions about creatively dealing with problems, etc, since I was 23.

My thinking is that I will face this kind of stuff as a professional, but I want to be properly compensated for it.  And a part time, no benefit, data entry job – not so much.

 

I’ve got to go back to the ATL some time soon.  No WANNA go home!

Maybe I’ll depart Wednesday.

K n G are just the finest hosts ever.   I’m in the down stairs suite with a private bath letting them feed me and take me adventuring.  I’m trying to be a considerate and observant houseguest in the mean time, but – this is friggin heaven!

My adventures last paused in Philly, where many interesting things happened in the hours I was there.

My GPS had strong feelings about putting me 0n the NJ turnpike after my intentional navigational adventure around NYC on 287.  It sent me through parts of NJ that included passing Satin Dolls, the strip club where Badda Bing is filmed in the Sopranos.  There was an accident on the turnpike and it sucked.  It was super hot and we were there over an hour.  Going no where.

I managed to navigate to my hotel.  I asked how the air was working in the rooms.  Philly was having a heat incident.

To my delight – yelp led me to a Jose Garces (from Iron Chef, dude) protege’s fusiony Mexican place about 2 minutes from the gracious and luxuriously appointed Holiday Inn I was camping out at.  Considering I’d have been happy with Cracker Barrel over Arby’s at that point, I started salivating reading the yelp reviews.

I put on a dress, went over and immediately ordered a margarita.  And chips and quac and a chopped salad and a entire hamachi ceviche with kiwis and cucumber sorbet appetizer.

Mmmm!

After getting moderately useful slumber I went off on an errand for my latest project as directed by my boss in some random part of Philly.  I’ve got 3 tents to decorate for camp and I must make them look less like 20 by 30 tents and more like lush little pavilions with lights and fabric and stuff.  We have a ton of fabric in the camp supplies, but I needed some sheer white, in a lot of yards. Scored 100 yards for 100 bucks!

Now I have a huge industrial roll of fabric taking up an unreasonable amount of space in my Subaru.  Actually its in K n G’s foyer because my car is the house car after they experienced car problems (useful guest with AAA gold card!) so all my odds and ends are out of it.

I still need some colored fabric, but I’ll get that at home.  Nothing I really liked there.