Lunchtime

Ten minutes to blog, so here we are.

I’ve been thinking about, you know, my life, and I’ll tell you the toughest bits are some odd ones. I have this cognitive dissonance that just rings my bell sometimes. I’ll be grocery shopping, and out of a habit I taught myself, I appraise items based on if he would like them or eat them. I see his favorite treats and I almost toss one in the cart. I’m out with friends for hours and I reach for the phone to text a quick check in. And I have to stop and remind myself, over and over and over, that’s now how it is, anymore. It’s nice to not have to try so hard. It’s nice to not have to strain and reach and be so mindful. But it still hurts in a hollow way, like when you’ve a loose tooth and been pressing and tugging on it for ages and you’re so used to the hurt and the soreness and the irritation. Then, finally, it’s out and the mature tooth is coming into place. It hurts because it doesn’t hurt, and you press that spot a hundred times a day, so used to the pain it still hurts even when it’s gone, but it hurts BECAUSE it’s gone.

It’s so strange to still be in contact. He talks to me like normal, sometimes. We’re arranging the sale of our house and we email and text about odds and ends. And I don’t know what to equate it to, because it’s so odd. We’re breaking up, but we’re still working together toward this common goal.

 

In Case of Questions

He broke up with me in front of our therapist, said he didn’t want to try. Didn’t want to be married. Didn’t want to be married to me. It felt a terrible sort of right, that the year was dying and the light was dying and the marriage was dying. It would take two weeks for the light to come back. Two weeks of asking myself if I’m okay and I am but I’m not but I mostly am. This thing that I tried to keep alive for years was finally dead. And it was dead because I wasn’t feeding far more than my share. And he didn’t feed it at all, and so it died.

I feel good, in a way. I know for sure it wasn’t me. I know it was him. I tried. I tried incredibly hard. And when I asked him to try back, to come halfway, not even all the way, just half, he didn’t want to and couldn’t and gave up.

I don’t like not being wanted. It is, however, far superior an experience to appear as lonely as I feel. To not pretend and make excuses and hope and hope and hope for time and attention and to receive a fraction of what I give.

Now all I want is to be on the other side. I don’t like packing up my things and making arrangements and living in this half-place where we still own things, together, and still have things, together, but we’re not together. The house is slowly clearing out and it feels like a race. Like I need to prove that I really am okay with this, and I can not-care and be as relieved as he is. He found a place and is moving and will move out/in before me. I don’t like it. I want to win. But so far he’s winning. He has a place to take some of the bigger furniture, and the house keeps getting emptier.

I asked my friend if I should make my new year’s resolution be ‘get divorced’ but she figured since it was already in process, that doesn’t count.

 

The Smell of Spring

I put my bag in the wrong cubby at dance class last night. It was the cubby that had an open back, and was apparently where the scented plug-in room freshener was located. Now, my bag has been swamped with scented room freshener. It has been wafting this aroma all day, and I do not want it. It is terrible, it is strong, it is too soapy, and it is giving me a mild headache. So far, my tactic of glaring at my bag while coughing pointedly has yielded no results.

 

St. Patrick’s Day

On this, most American of holidays, the one where we take a religious icon and . . . .drink in his honor? I like to make an Irish Car Bomb, or Irish Car Firecracker because I always do half measures. A bi of Irish whiskey in a shot of Irish cream, dropped into Irish Guinness and drunk as fast as possible.

It’s silly, but I do like it, on this day. Once a year. It makes me silly, and nostalgic for like, 3 years ago, but it’s a fun thing. Plus, the booze makes my fingers warm and assists me in ignoring the passage of time as I vacuum. You’d be amazed at how quickly stair vacuuming can go when one is gently “illuminated”. Happy holiday.

 

Personal Aroma

This is not, actually, going to be wildly inappropriate. I just like to have a signature scent, like perfume. I used to wear a Calvin Klein perfume, but they discontinued that subset of the line and I thought it was too young for me, anyway, after a good few years. I tried another one, this time by Marc Jacobs, but there was an undertone that I thought I could ignore. Turns out I can’t ignore it.

So now, I am trying an Issey Miyake perfume. I know this is riveting information, so try to take it slowly so you don’t get overwhelmed. I have a tiny sample in my pocket, and two spritzes on my sternum. Now it’s a question of if I want to smell like this all the time. I’ll know if I like it in a few hours. The ultimate question: does this give me a headache/make me sick?

And you guys, I really want to have a new perfume. My house, while beloved, smells faintly of the cigar smoker who was in residence prior to us. I need to smell like me, and not my house. And especially not like my house’s previous residents.

This perfume is pretty floral, pretty rosy. Not sure how it’s going to turn out.

 

Polar Vortex

I HAVE NO HOT WATER. This is not okay. We knew our water heater was having some issues, so Nikolai called the company, did their little test, and ordered the missing part. The best guesses, given some little education, were that one of the elements had gone flopsy and needed to be replaced. No big deal. Except, the part isn’t here yet, and the other one seems to be flipsy, rendering my post-workout shower (that I was totally looking forward to savoring) into more of a test of my sturdiness of character.

I heated water on the stove and washed in a sink. THAT IS NOT THE SAME AS A SHOWER. I’m clean, but it’s not the same. Gah. I will accept your pity and sympathy, now.

 

Home Improvements

Today has been a day of samples. Which means I’ve tried out two. I slopped down some floor paint to see if we liked the color, it’s sort of a medium blue/gray? I think it’s too close to the lighter blue/gray we have on the walls. We’ll see, it might dry differently. Next up is the pickling stain I’m trying out on the beams and ceiling. I like the pickling stain! It lightens up the wood and makes it paler, instead of the golden-yellow  it currently is. We’ll see about the floor paint. I know, my life is riveting.

 

Virtuousity

After weighing myself on a whim and discovering that my corporeal form’s relationship with gravity had become more loving when I wasn’t looking, I made a decision. More exercise! Less eating! Less drinking of not-water! I ate less ALL DAY TODAY and took an entire exercise class. After all that good behavior I really wanted something sweet so I mixed cranberry cocktail and 7 Up. I just need something sweet, you know?

 

What is Going On

Before 10 o’clock a.m. this fine Thursday morning I have spoken with both my parents, at length, on the phone, completely separately, about facets of rape culture and our society.

I explained to my dad the basic fear all women feel, and how we all have to assume every man is a threat to us until proven otherwise, and that it wasn’t fair but it couldn’t change until everyone taught their children not to rape. He scoffed. He’s not a bad guy, he just doesn’t believe it. I think he would rather I wear modest clothing, as if sexual attraction was why rapes happened. As if I could ever protect myself enough to not “make” someone attack or rape me. So that was a fun start to the day.

Then my mother called and we chatted about things, eventually coming around to a friend who had ranted on Facebook about a marketing campaign that uses women to sell food. The women are never fully dressed, and mostly seem to be an attractive backdrop to the food that gets artfully, seductively dropped on various body parts. My mom also scoffed at the idea that the marketing campaign is affecting the friend’s daughter’s self-image, instead saying the parents are responsible for grounding the girl in a strong sense of her own attractiveness and worth. I mentioned that a woman can be told over and over she’s beautiful, but if she can never see a portion of herself reflected in the media and called beautiful, she’s not going to believe it completely.

What is even happening today that these conversations happened? Geez. It’s not the most fun I’ve ever had.

 

Kitchen Miracle

Three days ago, while mixing chocolate chip cookie dough before baking it into a large blob I could cut tiny adorable hearts out of, I went to add the egg. I did everything normal, tapping the side of the egg against the flat of the counter just like I’ve done truly thousands of times before. I quickly moved the egg over the bowl and separated the halves to let the *nothing* inside fall into the bowl. Nothing. Nothing? The egg in its floppy, classically eggy entirety was lounging on the countertop. I guess I was just too strong for it? 

After a frozen moment of debating my options, I decided to scoop the egg off the countertop into the bowl I held just below the edge. It worked, the cookies came out fine, all this after Nikolai came rushing downstairs after I shrieked in dismay and followed it with promptly shouted, “EVERYTHING’S FINE.”