"It Doesn't Mean My Monkey Doesn't Love You"

I can't believe I'm going to use a song called "My Monkey" but damn does it stir up the feelings, so here goes. Please watch/listen to the video at the end. It's not country.

I just started in the DBT aftercare group last week. The regular DBT group is mostly educational, not process, and is much stricter about "therapy interfering behaviors," so no one else can intentionally or unintentionally sabotage other people in the group. Aftercare is more process and allows people who have been through the educational course several times to discuss how to further use the skills in specific ways in their lives. Of course, I can't divulge anything about what happens in group or even who is in it, but I found myself talking a bit about how I have dealt with anger differently in my relationship with the Professor than I did in previous relationships. In fact, every time I talk about getting angry or upset in this relationship with Moneypenny, he asks me why I couldn't have done that with him. The short answer would just be that I grew up. This post is the longer answer.

My monkey gets busy sometimes

My monkey's got a lot of stuff he's gotta think about

My monkey gets tired sometimes

My monkey wishes he was something you could live without

Cause every monkey needs alone time

To eat bananas in the sunshine

It's feast or famine it's a fine line

It doesn't mean my monkey doesn't love you

This in part Moneypenny actually taught me while we were dating. I can't say that he actually said these words, but the general picture was "You need to learn how to be on your own. I have friends of my own and things I like to do that don't interest you and I'm going to continue to do them just like I did before we got together and you have to learn to deal with that." Sometimes I think I might have learned that lesson a bit too well because I think it can hinder me in dating but that is a post for another day. 

I like my alone time. At least 25% of my decision to stop dating for the time being is so that I can spend time by myself. I like being able to do whatever it is that I want, at my own pace, or nothing at all. I like being able to choose the show or movie I watch, the food I eat, the music I listen to, or to read a book, without ever having to think about what someone else will want to do or what they will think of me. 

This makes it easier to give other people alone time when they need it. When I was with Moneypenny and we would fight, I couldn't do that. At all. When he'd say that he needed time, I'd give him an hour and I had a difficult time even doing that. I distinctly remember one fight where i kept texting and calling him after he said that he needed time and he told me that "time" at least 24 hours. Oh my gods, that was a fucking eternity at the time. I know that I probably still do not give people as much time as they might need or I have to say "Ok, just so you know, the ball is in your court here" before I wait, but I'm not like I was with Moneypenny. 

But it isn't just during fights that I know people need time and try to give it to them. Yes, when I'm visiting the Professor and I want attention, especially sex, or when I'm texting him to try to find out what is going on, I do bug him when he'd probably rather me not. On the other hand, I could, and still do, leave him to do his own thing. During the first bout of him falling in the hole last fall, he would apologize for not doing more with me and I would shrug it off. Yeah, I'd have been more than happy if he was jumping my bones that whole time or even just talking to me, but I was usually able to keep myself busy. I was an only child after all. I also knew that it had nothing to do with me, which I think is the real key. I knew that there were and are plenty of times when I'm happy to be by myself, which has nothing to do with how much I love the people I don't want to be around, so the same thing is probably at least partially true for the people I love who need alone time. 

My monkey gets frazzled sometimes

My monkey has an ulcer and a stressful time at work

My monkey gets bitter sometimes

My monkey's not the only one who's acting like a jerk

And while he doesn't like to name names

And he's not trying to assign blame

It's hard to focus on his own game

It doesn't mean my monkey doesn't love you

From the first time I heard this song, it just stuck with me. This guy I went on a few dates told me to check out his nerdcore and nerd comedy spotify playlist and most of the music can help put me in a better mood at work, on days when my music is pissing my off for some reason. I kinda think that it could be from the Professor to Ginger and/or me, from Ginger to the Professor and/or to me, and from me to ...well, lots of people. 

When I look back, I think that most of the moments in my life that really changed how I saw the world and how I thought involved it being pointed out how selfish I was being and had it demonstrated how different the other person in the situation experienced things. Couple this with my writer-ly desire to know what is going on in someone's head and I am often trying to see situations from the other viewpoint. It can get much harder when I am arguing with someone because my own anger can overpower my desire to give a shit about their view point or experience but sometimes I can still keep it in mind. 

Two things that men have said stick out in my head. Now, I can't remember what exactly we were talking about, but I remember a conversation a few years ago where Moneypenny told me that he just lets go of about 90% of things in relationships that bother him because to him they aren't a big enough deal to bring up or to fight about. Of course, that means the things he does bring up are actually the most egregious 10% of the things that bother him, so it kinda sucks if the other person does nothing about them or won't budge on any of them. From being the one sitting on the other side and not budging on most of those things, I can say that when he brought up the 10%, I thought they were everything he had a problem with so I wasn't going to give in on everything. The bigger point though was that he didn't bring up every little thing that bothered him and he asserted that this is what most men do.

Recently, I was listening to the afternoon radio djs where I live, both married men, and they were discussing the recent study from Rutgers and University of Michigan that said that a husband's general happiness was directly related to how happy their wife was in the marriage. While researchers said this might be in part because a wife happy in the marriage might do more for a husband, the quoted researcher said "Men tend to be less vocal about their relationships and their level of marital unhappiness might not be translated to their wives." The older of the two djs definitely agreed with this, talking about how rarely he brought up things about the relationship that upset him, while his wife generally will and it feels like to him it is almost always what she thinks he is doing wrong. And here's what he said that stuck with me the most: "Who wants to hear nothing but what they are doing wrong all the time?" That was another one of those slap in the face moments for me. I'm pretty aware of a good deal of my shortcomings and I sure as hell don't want to hear it. That really got me thinking about how the things I say when bringing up problems either are what's wrong with the other person or could be perceived as such and how often that is the conversation instead of something positive about them.

When I was with Moneypenny, we had several arguments that lasted until dawn. I couldn't sleep on my anger. I couldn't keep my mouth shut. Hell, with him, I often still can't. Early on, probably from observation and trying to do things differently this time, and in large part just because Ginger allowed me to benefit from her years of experience, I learned that attacking the Professor head on just made him retreat. He wouldn't fight you back but he also wouldn't come back for quite awhile. Now, I won't even claim to fully understand why this is, though I can guess that some of it has to do with how he was raised, but I knew that what I had done before wouldn't work. At first, it was the roles that kept me in check. And sometimes the desire to be able to discuss things without being so angry I would cry, since somehow me crying means that people tend not to listen to my words. Through trial and error, I've learned that sometimes I need to do a "reasonable mind" activity, dishes worked well when I lived with the Professor, to bring me out of emotional mind, or to just sleep on it. What these things really give me is enough space to calm down, let my mind process everything and figure out what was justified, and then find a better time to bring things up. After all that, usually I can say it in a better way, hopefully one that is about the situation or about how I feel and not about him. 

A few weeks ago, over text, the Professor and I got bitchy at each other about the weekend plans and how we were going to plan out things going forward. Finally, I said that I thought that at least one of us was cranky and needed a nap (he said probably both of us) so I was going to go and I would talk to him later. When we talked about it two or three days later, the discussion looked more like "I'm worried about how this is going to go. Knowing the things we know now, what can we do to make this work better for everyone going forward?" 

My monkey gets angry sometimes

My monkey says a lot of things he doesn't really mean

My monkey gets lucky sometimes

My monkey thinks that you're the bestest girl he's ever seen

He says he'll stay with you for always

It doesn't matter what the job pays

Cause everybody has their bad days

It doesn't mean my monkey doesn't love you

One day I came home from a short morning shift and Ginger said, "You should be really glad you had to work this morning and you weren't home because I thought the Professor and I were going to have it out." Apparently, the Professor got up, all grumpy and cranky, like he is when he first wakes up. When he went into the kitchen to get himself a cup of coffee, she heard him yell, "Goddamn it, who the fuck left the bag of coffee open?" [There are a few things that drive the Professor crazy and Ginger doing forgetful things is one of them. Ginger thinks, and not wrongly IMO, that she ignores alot from him so he can just deal. I'm sure you can guess who left the coffee bag open when she kindly made me coffee before i left for work.] Ginger was cranky and tired after working all night and her, quite uncharacteristic, response was to yell back "It's just the coffee. If you're going to be a dick today, I'm just going in my room to read." When the Professor's unreasonable anger is met with anger, he tends to be taken aback and reevaluate the situation. This was no different. After her response, it was no longer such a big deal. Sometimes we say stupid shit in the heat of the moment, not always even big stupid shit, but just little stupid shit.  

When sleeping on it doesn't work and I end up playing out all day in my head all the pieces of my mind I'm going to give the Professor when I see him next, I tend to have one final thing to help me not act like a complete bitch- seeing him. This probably sounds like sappy honeymoon phase shit, and maybe it is, but it still works. When I see him, it is much harder to be mad at him. Mostly because I'm trying to figure out how to maneuver things so that he'll be taking my clothes off and being a bitch can backfire spectacularly for getting me that goal. hehe. But seriously, it feels like the anger is a fog that is burned off by the appearance of the sun. 

When they got together, the Professor needed a place to stay and Ginger made him promise to stick around for a year, though she was somehow surprised several months later when he called him her boyfriend. She told me that at first they'd have blow-outs every couple of months, but that those had gotten farther and farther apart, until it's more like once a year. It was a release valve on the relationship and in the end, they would both say that they cared more about the relationship than about not being vulnerable. 

For both of them, being vulnerable is a much bigger deal that it is to me. Most days I still feel like I'm a walking open wound. Less than I used to, but more than most people, I think. While neither of them have said directly to me that our relationships, even the different ones we have now, are more important than being vulnerable, I think that they've shown it. Right about the time we started talking again, Ginger wrote a post on Fet about her shortcomings in relationships, that she wants a lot and thinks in the moment that it's possible but often has to retreat when it gets overwhelming, because she doesn't realize that things might not be working until it is already overwhelming. While she didn't write that post just for me, I know she laid bare things about herself that aren't pretty in a place where I would be sure to see, so that I might understand. She made herself vulnerable. Things with the Professor ended as a primary relationship when he flat out said "Yes, all the things you say you expect this to be are valid and justified and what I promised and what you deserve, but I can't give them to you." Just the fact that he said that outright was a big deal for him, given his history. That honestly could have been the end of it. But when I came to get my stuff, he cried with me, admitted that he didn't know what it would be possible for us to have but he didn't not want me in his life. Recently, as we tried to talk about what we wanted in this iteration of our relationship, we admitted that this 'breakup' was different because usually we kinda hate our partners by the time we decide to end it. Usually his relationships end with him being either mean or distant, "but I still have alot of love for you and I'm trying to do things differently this time." Once again, I can't judge things based on how vulnerable that would feel for me. Things work much better for me when I focus on what that feels like for them, where that comes from, how difficult that might be for them. 

Now, of course, all this about how well I deal with conflict with my partners is in comparison to a me that was 15-12 yrs younger, differently medicated, and much more still an impulsive teenager. This is also mostly a Moneypenny vs the Professor comparison as I am still rather clueless about handling conflict with Ginger and, oh man, don't even get me started on how poorly I handle conflict with TyRoy. I largely attempt to avoid conflict with both of them, though I think that method would still be preferable to Moneypenny. Sometimes, I think that I'm just too tired to fight anymore, at least like I did with Moneypenny. I have a long list of things I'm supposed to do, half of which I don't get to, and nowhere on it does it say "fight with the Professor." When I walk out of rooms instead of fight, it's not so someone will run after me, though I have to say checking on me after awhile is appreciated. No, it's because I don't want to have the fight right then and I need to get my shit together. It's about me acting right. Generally, I think the biggest difference in the fights are about me acting right, instead of just acting on how I feel at the moment. 

So here's the full song for Jonathan Coulton's "My Monkey"

Ok, and now for the funny geeky shit- For PAX, Jonathan Coulton changed "My Monkey" to "Wil Wheaton." This video has shots of Wil Wheaton cracking up too.

 

"That I know more of the stars and sea than I do of what's in your head"

It's Beginning to Get to Me- Snow Patrol
I want something
That's purer than the water
Like we were

It's not there now
Ineloquence and anger
Are all we have

Like Saturn's rings
An icy loop around me
Too hard to hold

Lash out first
At all the things we don't like
Or understand

And it's beginning to get to me
That I know more of the stars and sea
Than I do of what's in your head
Barely touching in our cold bed

Are you beginning to get get my point
That all this fighting with aching joints
It's doing nothing but tire us out
No one knows what this fight's about

The answer phone
The lonely sound of your voice
Frozen in time

I only need
The compass that you gave me
To guide me on

And it's beginning to get to me
That I know more of the stars and sea
Than I do of what's in your head
Barely touching in our cold bed

Are you beginning to get get my point
That all this fighting with aching joints
It's doing nothing but tire us out
No one knows what this fight's about

It's so thrilling but also wrong
Don't have to prove that you are so strong
'Cause I can carry you on my back
After our enemies attack

I tried to tell you before I left
But I was screaming under my breath
You are the only thing that makes sense
Just ignore all this present tense

We need to feel breathless with love
And not collapse under its weight
I'm gasping for the air to fill
My lungs with everything I've lost

We need to feel breathless with love
And not collapse under its weight
I'm gasping for the air to fill
My lungs with everything I've lost


I know it's the crazy and yet I often can't stop it. If you'll believe it, this is actually the best that I've ever been in a relationship. If you thought me walking out without saying anything last week was playing games then....you really wouldn't have been able to deal with me even a couple of years ago. Just ask Moneypenny. Of course, one of the most common complaints from people in relationships with borderlines- that we are manipulative, that we play games. But I don't mean to. I wasn't trying to play games. I just knew that if I said one single word I would start to cry and my experience is that that is also seen as being manipulative or playing games, or just completely ignored because I'm too emotional to even talk to at that point. You know, because dismissing me will make me less emotional. 

It's not like you are the only one who has mood swings. It's not like you are the only one who deals with things that I don't see. Except I might tell you those things. I have no idea what is going on with you. Just as you, you have to be strong, don't really have access to emotions in the same way that I might, or even that Ginger might. Then it gets piled on that you are a man, that you are Dom, that you are Daddy, and now that you are Master. All that pressure must be overwhelming. I would imagine it doesn't leave you much room to breath sometimes. Fuck, most of the time. As if your asthma wasn't enough, the literal manifestation of all the things that leave you gasping for air. 

It can feel that way for me sometimes too. Monday, on a day when I was already suicidal, I spent hours looking for houses or duplexes with enough bedrooms, with the features that we wanted, and in the price range. But I don't know this side of town and so most of the ones that were in our price range got shot down. I mean, of course they did. Our price range is not very big. While my work has been saying that I might get more hours on a client after a meeting with the family this weekend, it is just as likely that I'll lose that client altogether. I've been sending out applications for real full-time jobs but with little luck. I've spent the last two days freaking out over how I'm ever going to possibly pay my way. Then work this morning was frantic and crazy-making. 

So it should come as no surprise that when I teased you about not watching shows without me, that I wasn't going to give you the password unless you promised on pain of hairbrush, and you replied Just tell me or don't, that my response was....full of curse words? over the top? dismissive? passive aggressive? Hell, I think the only thing surprising should have been that it hasn't happened sooner. I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner. Usually, I crumple. But today I couldn't. I still have another work shift. I still have more shit to do. And when I get home, I'll still have more shit to do. 

I'm thankful and grateful that you apologized. And, in a minute, I'm gonna apologize for blowing up. Text is just a shitty medium to convey tone in and I'm sure that you didn't get that I was trying to be playful. We've both been on the other end of this particular dust-up. And just like you've been before, I'm tired and spent but I still have to go on. Even when I don't want to. Even when I don't know how to. Sometimes that means that my mood swings wildly or I'm a complete bitch or that I'm completely fucking borderline batshit crazy. Or all three at the same time. Sometimes I can see the train barrelling towards me and I still can't stop it. Hell, sometimes I don't want to stop it. But at least I'm telling you this. I hope that someday you'll be able to tell me something as well. Even if it is at what you think is the exact worse time possible. 

So My Therapist Says, Vol. 3, Monogamy Edition

The idea of monogamy hasn't so much been tried and found wanting, as found difficult and left untried. - G. K. Chesterton


I should start off by saying that I am aware that my therapist's job isn't to be my friend or my yes person. Those of us who go to a mental health professional do so because we feel there is something wrong. Especially when dealing with people with bpd, therapists often have to point out to a client that the way they see the world not only isn't the way that most other people see it, but it also hasn't been very effective for them in the past. On the other hand, therapists have grown up and lived in the larger mainstream culture, just like the rest of us. For example, it wasn't until 1973 that homosexuality was removed as a mental illness from the DSM. I don't think that all the mental health professionals before 1973 who treated homosexuality as something that people needed to be cured from or treated for were stupid or wanted to do harm. I think they lived in a society that believed that. I also think that they also treated gay people who displayed a number of mental illness and addictions and thought that their sexuality was the cause of those of those problems, instead of those problems being a result of being gay in an intolerant society. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that I understand that my therapist is trying to open up my eyes to a more effective and healthy way of looking at and living in this world, but I think that she is still of this world with all of it's assumptions about what effective and healthy look like.

But this isn't just about stuff my therapist says. It actually started the day before my last therapy session, when I went to see my psychiatrist. To her great credit, her medication check-up sessions are 30 minutes and she often talks to me even longer than that. At this meeting, after we talked about my medications and a few other issues with the bipolar, she complimented me on my rainbow gay pride bracelet and she asked me a question that will be familiar to any bisexual person, "So do you date both men and women at the same time? How does that work?" I explained that many bi people are monogamous within their relationships but their next relationship could be with a man or a woman. I also said that I preferred non-monogamous relationships, though not because I am bisexual. While she was both respectful and genuinely curious about how I felt on this, I knew she probably did not agree. At one point, she asked me, "Do you think that now that you're using the [DBT] skills, that things are going better, your self-respect will increase and you'll start to think that you deserve a monogamous relationship?" I was pretty stunned, too stunned to really explain that I've never preferred non-monogamous relationships because I didn't respect myself. Instead, I talked about the book I've been reading, Sex at Dawn, which uses sociology and evolutionary psychology to question modern assumptions about marriage, monogamy, and human sexuality. I'll explain farther down what I wish I could have explained to her, but first let me get to my conversation with my therapist.

Yesterday, I had my individual therapy session. We ended up talked a good deal more about my developing relationship with a sexual dominant. We'll call him Dom Chaney here. He's in a non-monogamous marriage and, if he and I did begin a physical relationship, it would be his secondary relationship. I've known this since the beginning and am perfectly fine with that. At this point, I want someone I am sexually compatible with and I think that having a serious LTRPR (long-term romantic primary relationship) would be a trial by fire at this point for all my new skills. So, this is fine. Not surprisingly, my therapist questioned me a great deal on this. She started out by saying that she is coming, in large part, from being a therapist who sees couples everyday and she's never, professionally or otherwise, seen a non-monogamous couple who were both equally happy for very long with a non-monogamous relationship. I really wish I had been quick enough on my feet at this point to tell her that is because the couples that are happy with their non-monogamy don't need to see a counselor, and that there is too much stigma for most people to come out as non-monogamous to their friends or family, but I didn't. She also asserted that she wanted to see me in a happy relationship with someone I'm in love with where I can get 100% of what I needed [sexually]. I did interject here to tell her that I see no reason why I can't be in a happy relationship with someone that I love that isn't monogamous, as well as that I think it's unrealistic to expect that you will get 100% of what you need from anyone, sexually or otherwise, whether or not you chose for that relationship to be monogamous or not. Also, it's way to much pressure to be expected to be someone else's 100%. She did not seem swayed by this argument. She also went on to speculate both that no-strings attached sex was unhealthy and that there's a danger of becoming too involved emotionally when in a friends with benefits situation, which seems to  leave sex in a long-term relationship as the only possible healthy option.

I know that I will probably never change most people's minds. But I'm writing this for myself, so that I can put how I feel about monogamy and non-monogamy onto paper in a comprehensive manner for use in the next conversation I have about this, so that I don't regret all the things I didn't say in the conversation.

In addition to my own experiences, I think that the biggest contributor to my non-monogamous ideals, before reading Sex at Dawn, has been reading Dan Savage's advice column since I was a teenager. Through the years, he has answered many letters from people who are in long-term relationships with people they truly love, who they have built a life and a family with, but, for a variety of reasons, are not sexually compatible with. Sometimes this has happened because they were not honest about their kinks, with their partners or even sometimes with themselves, before the became committed. Sometimes it is just being with someone for so long and the waning of sexual interest. Whatever the reason, Savage discourages cheating, which, when found out, will almost always be much more hurtful than the current situation. He usually does suggest that the person talk to their partner about non-monogamous options. In a NYT article from last year, Mark Oppenheimer explores Savages views about monogamy, including that it is to everyone's detriment to ignore that it is often much more difficult that we are led to believe and:

“Given the rates of infidelity, people who get married should have to swear a blood oath that if it’s violated, as traumatic as that would be, the greater good is the relationship,” Savage told me. “The greater good is the home created for children. If there are children present, they’ll get past it. The cultural expectation should be if there’s infidelity, the marriage is more important than fidelity.”

For me, reading Savage's columns all these years, as well as reading his books and articles about him, opened my eyes to the idea that long-term partnerships are much more about the stability they provide, not just for children, if there are any, but also for the people inside them, than to be the end-all-be-all relationship in your life.


Before I wrote this blog post, I asked a few of the non-monogamous people I know to give what their answers are to the questions asked and concerns raised by my psychiatrist and therapist. Dom Chaney just explained how he and his wife had gotten to this moment in time. Without quoting him directly, my sense is that within their almost two decades long marriage, they opened up to each other about things that they wanted to explore and found ways to make that happen, both together and apart. This is something that I've run across several times in speaking with older people in long marriages. Not so much that their marriage needed "spicing up," but that either one or both partners had desires that had been left unexplored when they made the choice to marry, to not let this very special person slip away for wont of the road untaken, but at some later date they were able to be honest about those desires and their partner was either turned on by the idea as well, or accommodating enough to let them explore that. For TyRoy, it seems to be a combination of not wanting the obsessive love that requires one person to be everything to you sexually as well as a sense of sexual adventurousness. I would also venture to guess that he avoids people who require monogamy because of past bad experiences. Of course, I only obtained the opinions of men before I did this and mainstream culture believes that men and women do not think the same way about sex. I'd be curious to hear the opinions of any women who are in or who prefer non-monogamous relationships.


As for me, coming to non-monogamy was it's own journey. Like most people, I thought that monogamous relationships were the only way to go. I also bought into the romcom ideal of one's romantic partner being the ultimate relationship in their life, that if that person wasn't 100% of everything to you there was something wrong, that sexual infidelity was the ultimate betrayal and reason to end a relationship. When I was in monogamous relationships, I was possessive, crazy jealous, and checking up on my partner all the time, as well as scared as hell to completely reveal my own sexual desires because I might lose them, which would have been a disaster in my eyes. But being up my partners' asses all the time didn't help the relationship. They often felt the need to be secretive and lie, while still continuing the relationship, both out of fear for what new crazy would develop at the time of break-up. In addition to this, these "monogamous" relationships were never monogamous in practice. I cheated in all of them and I now know that most of my partners did as well.


When I was about 25, feeling like I'd missed out on all the sex I should have been having in new ways and with new people, exploring first dating and fucking non-exclusively and then exploring more committed but open relationships, I started to feel free from all that crazy codependent shit. I found that when my partners didn't feel like they would definitely lose me by being honest about their desires and actions with other people, I could trust them more and be that crazy jealous person less. I also felt more cared about when they still kept coming back to me, in spite of the fact that they could be with someone else. I also found that I didn't necessarily have to sacrifice being cared for or even loved just because the relationship was non-monogamous. Yes, there were times when I just had sex because I just wanted to have sex. But more often than not, I had friendships or romances with these people. Some of them I still do. Just as I didn't care less for them because I couldn't get all my need fulfilled by them, I don't feel like they cared less for me. Also, just because I would be open to developing a long-term partnership with one of these "friends with benefits," I don't feel like I have to do that or that I'm losing out when that is not the direction it takes. I still value the sexual and romantic time I had with TyRoy and I do not feel like that is diminished by the fact that he and I did not get married. I also don't love him less (love, not in love) or feel that he loves me less just because he loves and is in love with is current girlfriend. It does not have to be a zero-sum game.

I will stipulate that this does not mean that things have always gone perfectly, that I haven't overreacted to perceived (or actual) non-honesty. It doesn't mean that my sex partners have always been honest. Ultimately, the thing that ended my marriage was that my husband wanted to be monogamously committed to another woman, though it was not someone he started a relationship with open and honestly while in our marriage, but a woman who he loved before he ever met me who had finally become single herself. It seems like that could happen whether one is in a monogamous relationship or not. But, overall, I have found negotiated and open nonmonogamy to be the best way for me to negotiate the jealousy and codependency that I had in previous romantic relationships.

Dom Chaney asked me the other night what I thought my preferred non-monogamous long-term relationships to look like. Though I was less committal when I answered him than I am now, I think I'd rather have a monogamish situation, than a truly poly relationship. I want someone in an everyday relationship, every night in my bed, to be my partner. If that person and I were highly sexually compatible, which would include him being sexually dominant and me meeting whatever kink he had, I imagine we would have small dalliances outside of our relationship, but not necessarily anything long-term and on-going outside. If either of us had a kink that we couldn't get met in our relationship, I imagine we would have on-going relationships outside for the purpose of getting that need met. Either way, I think that the biggest components for me would be honesty and honest communication. I'm not as worried that my partner has needs that I don't or can't meet, as long as they express that. I'm not as worried about my partner having sex with someone else as I am about them not telling me about it. I'm not any more worried that my partner will leave me for someone else because they were allowed to have sex with them than I would be if we were monogamous and they weren't. And I do not begrudgingly agree to non-monogamous situations because I don't feel like I deserve all of the love and attention of one person. Maybe I do it because I think we all deserve to be honest about wanting love or attention or sex or kinky play from more than just our primary partner and to be honest about the fact that many, if not most, of our romantic partnerships are not monogamous in practice.

While I'll get to the rest of the things I think we should be more honest about when it comes to monogamy and human sexuality when I finish Sex at Dawn and write a blog post about it, I want to leave you with a few quotes from it:

"Monogamy is not found in any social, group-living primate except-if the standard narrative is to be believed-us." p 64

"Think about that. No group-living nonhuman primate is monogamous, and adultery has been documented in every human culture studied-including those in which fornicators are routinely stoned to death. In light of all this bloody retribution, it's hard to see how monogamy comes "naturally" to our species. Why would so many risk their reputations, families, careers-even presidential legacies-for something that runs against human nature? Were monogamy an ancient, evolved trait characteristic of our species, as the standard narrative insists, these ubiquitous transgressions would be infrequent and such horrible enforcement unnecessary." p 98  

Now That It's Over - Everclear

Now That It's Over - Everclear

Yeah right!

One, two, three, four

Break down, shake for me
Nothing ever is the way you want it to be
Nothing even tastes right now that it's over
Break down, shake for me
Don't write words unless you want me to read them
Nothing really matters now that it's over

Maybe we can be friends
Now that we're older
We can have fun like we did in the early days
Now that it's over

Yeah right!

Break down, shake for me
Nothing ever seems the way it ought to be
Nothing ever seems right now that it's over

Yeah, now maybe we can be friends
Maybe we can be closer
We can have fun like we did in the old days
Now that it's over
Oh yeah...

My bad dreams just don't seem the same
Baby without you
I wish you were willing to accept the blame
Yeah, for everything you do
My nightmares just don't scare me now
Baby without you, yeah yeah
I wish that I could find the words to tell
In the best way possible, you and your friends to go to hell

Yeah right!

Whoa, breakup time is never easy to do
Nothing ever ends the way you want it to
Nothing seems to make sense now that it's over

Yeah, now maybe we can be friends
Yeah, now that you're leaving
You can be nice to me
Maybe I'm dreaming
I am a lot better now than just okay
Maybe I am just wakin' up in my own way
Now that it's over
Now that it's over

My bad dreams just don't seem the same
Baby without you
I wish you were willing to accept the blame
Yeah, for all the shitty things you do
Nightmares just don't scare me now
Baby without you
I wish that I could find the words to tell
You to politely go fuck yourself
Yeah, now that it's over...

Every break-up has two sides. I made lots of mistakes, huge mistakes, heart-breaking unforgivable mistakes. I won't say I fucked him over as bad as he fucked me over, but I think that it'd be hard for a stranger who heard both side, or just watched it like a movie, to say who did worse. Either we are both villians or we are both victims. But it doesn't mean that we both don't still have, and shouldn't have, a shitload of pain and anger. This song could come from either of us or both of us.

I never thought I'd be divorced before I was 30. I never thought I'd be divorced. I never thought I'd be married.

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

"Our D-I-V-O-R-C-E becomes final today."-Tammy Wynette

October 2007 to February 2009. That is as long as my marriage lasted. It's bittersweet.

I've been trying to pickup and organize my living space (basement) lately, a little at a time. Last night, I finally got around to putting honeymoon pictures into the photo albums I'd bought for my mom and I. Yeah, I've been either distracted or lazy for at least a year. I had put photos into albums for BT's grandmother and mother, even sent a small album overseas to BT himself, just never got around to doing my own. And I'm guessing Mom won't want hers now, but I wanted to get it done and then put away. It was nice to remember that short but amazing time we were together, the things I probably never would have done without him, but they were just memories.

I tried to get to bed early. That didn't work so well, but I still got myself up early to get ready for court. Shower. Dress. Passed up wearing the black dress slacks that I got married in. Put on a necklace and perfume bought with love by someone else, makeshift amulets to protect my heart and spirit. Make-up to cover the acne caused by the new drugs and to make myself look more serious in front of the judge. I snap several pictures of myself before I go, to see if I look different after all of this is done.

Alone, by my own choice, I drove to the courthouse, parked, found the courtroom, and a seat in the gallery. It wasn't quite traffic court. More glossy wood than that. But not quite the courtroom of "Law & Order" either. I was early. I was trembling, shaking, nervous. I'd never been in a courtroom before. Settled in with a Newsweek on top of the bright yellow folder that held all my divorce documents, the signed decree of divorce that had arrived just the day before in the mail.

The judge was an older, slim, white haired gentleman, infinitely patient with the people who's cases were before him. Very few people had lawyers. The two cases before me were uncontested cases where only one party came to wrap things up, just as mine was. Just give the decree to the judge to sign and the settlement to him to review. Take the stand to answer his questions, full names, where and when the marriage occured, affirm incompatability, is the wife returning to her former name, do you think the settlement is fair and equable, thank you. Then file the papers with the clerk and send a copy to the other party.

It was pretty easy, all things considered, easier than many folks' divorces. Probably because we are both broke and poor and don't have children together. On the other hand, I have to say I feel like it shouldn't be easier to get into this contract than it is to get out of it. Then again, hopeless romantic that I am, I am a huge supporter of prenuptual agreements. Make arrangements when you love each other, to avoid fighting even more once you hate each other.

I left the courthouse feeling slightly more free and much more settled. I have a certain amount of closure, even though I'll always have unanswerable questions. I rode back home, listening to Ani, who he claimed was just another man-hating feminist singer, in response to my distaste for the unflattering, only-good-for-sex picture that one of the musical groups he liked painted of women. *Sigh* But it's over now. Back to the life that is my new normal. Change out of my dressy court clothes, so that I can do some yard work. I have to pick up more shit. Only this shit is from the four-legged variety of dog. It's smellier, but less emotionally toxic.

Rock Paper Scissors - Ani DiFranco

What seems like a lifetime ago, I did a bunch of things to drive BT away, I think because I thought it would be easier to deal with my guilt over the things I'd done wrong if he hated me or was at least mad at me. At the time, he said that nothing I could do or say would make him hate me and nothing would make him give up. Well, the second part obviously wasn't true, but I can't blame him for that. When he left, I said the same thing back to him, that I'd do anything to be with him again, that I'd wait forever, that I'd take him back under any circumstances, all the things you say in those desperate moments when someone you love leaves you. It's not to say that I didn't mean it then. But there's only so much a person can take and eventually one has to move on. This song really hits at the heart of how I feel on giving up right now. Yes, I know, I love Ani DiFranco. We can talk more about that later.

Rock Paper Scissors - Ani DiFranco
it's rock paper scissors as to whether
i will get over you at all.
it's hand against hand
and both hands are mine.
it's standing in a circular line,
which is not to say that i'm not also happy.
a happy meal with a surprise inside.
surprise, surprise is another bright light in my eyes,
exposing all the stuff i'm not calculating enough to hide.

this melancholy that i carry makes me feel so grown up
at the kitchen table doing shots of resignation.
i never thought i'd see the day when i would i say i give up
and tame the stallions of my wildest expectations.

but i do not want to know you this way,
surrounded by so much pain.
but how am i supposed to let go of you this way,
like a bird into the sky of my brain?

i think i could accept all these dark colors
as just part of some bigger color scheme
if it wasn't for that drippy string quartet of sadness
underscoring each smiling scene.
yeah desire drags me right out of myself
like a gas soaked rope tied to a piece of coal.
and i'm getting pretty good at looking at the bright side
while the flames ripple on the sand and swallow me whole.

but this melancholy that i carry makes me feel so grown up
at my kitchen table doing shots of resignation.
i never thought i'd see the day when i would say i give up
and break the stallions of my wildest expectations.

but i do not want to know you this way
surrounded by so much pain
but how am i supposed to let go of you this way l
ike a bird into the sky of my brain.

Post I Don't Want to Write

So I've been MIA lately. And I've written this post a thousand times in my head over the past couple of weeks, trying to find what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it. If I wrote the latest version of everything in my head, you'd be reading it forever. So I decided that I'd try to be as short and blunt about it as I can be and then I'll revisit topics as I want and as I see fit. But mapping this new landscape is like creating a topography of sand dunes- it feels impossible because everything is always shifting. But I feel I can't write about anything specific without laying it all out, so here goes:

When we last left our heroine, she was trying to get it together to work this job that she hated but she was back with her husband, the newly returned soldier, so she thought she could do it.

So, I went to hang out with BT before I was supposed to go back to the job I detested. While it mostly went well, I was really anxious about going to the job. Finally, he and I talked it over and he was going to let me get off without going back to that job if I started looking for another job starting that night online while he did stuff around his place. But he wasn't feeling well and he wanted me to leave. I wasn't happy about that. I spiralled out of control, allowing my anger and the depression to take over. With pills and alcohol, I tried to kill myself. BT ended up calling the police because he was worried that I was too far gone. The cops took me to a local emergency room and then I got admitted to the hospital I was in last year. I was there for the better part of a week, during which my parents and BT visited me when they could. TyRoy was worried about me and I kept him updated on my condition over his voicemail. The couple of times we actually talked while I was in the hospital, we fought, in all honesty because I was being difficult about making the most of the treatment there. And I asked him not to visit because I knew that it would only cause more trouble with BT. My doc put me on a new medication- LITHIUM. It's typically used as a mood stabilizer for people with bipolar disorder, which isn't really my diagnosis, though obviously my moods do need some normalization. But it sucks, sucks, sucks. More about the lithium as we go.

Almost as soon as I got out of the hospital, BT and I started a rollercoaster of arguing and making up then arguing some more. I won't try to act like I don't bear some/alot of the blame for that. Because of both times that BT had lied in the last year and the secrets/lies that I was keeping at the time, I have a difficult time trusting any men, especially BT. So when he left me because a (female) friend had called about a (male) friend of theirs who was in a bad way and needed BT's help, I was distraught and thought he was cheating with the (female) friend. He kept wanting time away from me, which he said was a result of not being comfortable around anyone since coming back from his deployment. It was horrible timing for me. Not only had he said the whole time that he was gone that he'd want to be with me 24/7 when he got back, but I really didn't want to be alone after the hospitalization, while I was still getting adjusted to the new drugs. As those first couple of days out of the hospital went by, I started experiencing more and more severe side effects connected to the new drugs. I felt physically weak and ill most of the time. And I wasn't feeling any better mentally, especially not after we'd fight. I still just wanted to die.

Things came to a head when I came out with the secrets I'd been keeping and the few lies that I had told and told again. As I was already feeling worthless, revealing these things made me feel not only the betrayal of my husband but also like a worthless slut whore. As these things are already sore spots for me and my depression, it all made me feel even worse. And BT just wanted me not to be around. During this conversation, I gave him my rings and told him that he deserved better than to be married to a whore. For quite a while, he wouldn't let me leave until I'd taken the rings back and promised that I wouldn't hurt myself. I would do neither. I left the house but came back. At that point, I took my rings back. After more squabbling, he made me promise that I'd be around to "do the paperwork" for a divorce. At the time, I thought this was more about the "being around" than doing the paperwork.

I let him know when I got home that night but then I didn't hear from him for two days. When I finally did, I found out that he was serious. He said he was done, couldn't forgive the lies I'd told, couldn't deal with the fighting, and just wanted a divorce. I went to his place to change his mind but he texted that he'd already left there. I decided I would just jump off a local bridge. I was tired of things that didn't work. But then, as I was mustering up my courage, sitting in my car in a parking lot, a group of young men and a couple women, all dressed in camo uniforms (BDUs?) started pulling up. While it would be the first time that I cussed up a storm about something military, it is definately not the last. I feel like I can't get away from military shit lately, which only reminds me of BT, though I'm trying to change that.....We'll see how it goes. Though I have no idea what branch these people were with or what the frak they were doing there, I figured they would probably not let a distraught woman jump to her certain death, so I drove home. And started the long slow.... well, less march, more....sit to get through the darkest part.

TyRoy has been a good friend through all of this. I met him because he was going through a divorce and needed a friend. He understands what it's like to have to give up a relationship that you don't want to leave. And, while he warned me about his lustful nature when I'd ask to come over, he never actually tried anything, at least not until I put out that I wanted something. He just let me be someplace that wasn't home, with all the reminders of BT, and held me and talked to me. BT let me know a week after the initial breakup that he'd moved on with his (female) friend. Even though alot of people in my inner circle have suggested that I make this breakup and divorce as difficult and painful as possible for BT, I figure they don't have to sleep in my body with my brain running every night. I've already done enough in my life that I regret, things that just add to my "I'm a horrible person who deserves pain and death" mantra. I don't want to add hurting someone that I love very much. His life has been hard and so has mine. I did horrible things to him and he did them to me. But I have to be responsible for my actions and I don't want to do anymore to cause pain and suffering. And, to tell the truth, I still want to be with him. I'm trying to leave him be and I do hope that he is happy and I'm doing my best not to do anything that will even look like it's attempting to sabatoge his new relationship. Including trying to tell his mom that I'm the reason we broke up and that she should accept this new girlfriend.

As for me and my life, well, I'm working on it. I didn't move from the couch in my den for a week after I got the news. Then I made the trip to see my Gram with my Mom and got to spend a little time with my ex, who I think is in jail now. But it gave me other people to worry about, which is something. I started doing a bit more. Spent time with TyRoy and got laid. Alot. The side effects started easing up. The drugs intensified the tremor that runs in my family and, though that hasn't eased up, I am pushing myself to do things and deal with it. I still have a low appetite but I'm just trying to eat when my family eats. While I crave soda, I know that my body needs more water while I'm on the meds, so I try to alternate a can of soda with a 32 oz glass of water. And, thankfully, the "fog" is mostly gone. I still get spells, but I'm not completely out of it all the time. So I decided to start looking for work. Until I find a job, I'm going to try to keep somewhat of a daytime schedule and do stuff around the house to help my folks. And, once I start working, I'm going to save as much as possible, so that I never have to feel like I can't just go whenever I want.

Ok, so that wasn't as short as I was hoping but there you have what's happened lately. I'm sure I'll write more about what I think these things mean and what I've learned, or at least am trying to learn.

Year Ago Today (or yesterday by now)

I got married a year ago today. In Vegas. It was the happiest day of my life. I was full of plans and dreams and hopes for the future. I knew that my husband would soon been gone, for training and then for deployment. I knew that I would miss him terribly. I knew that it would be an immense burden on the both of us, to spend our first year as a married couple apart, with him dealing with the day in and day out realities of living and fighting in a war zone and with me having do to deal with the day in and day out realities of not really having my partner to lean on when things got too much. And, while I'd never discourage any military personnel for doing their job and I know that it is a job that I could not do, I've never been one of those "ra-ra" military types. I don't seek out men and women in uniform to have relationships with and, in many ways, I'd much prefer to just stick with civilians.

Over this past year, I really have tried. I've tried to get my own demons under control enough that I could be productive enough for the both of us, to keep his life running in the states while he was gone. I tried to keep the plans that we had made going. I tried to keep my own life going on the paths that I wanted it to go on. I tried to be a good person, a good wife. But it never seemsed to be enough. Enough to change the situations that he created on his own end. Enough to stop me from my own retaliations. Enough to keep me sane.

This week has been the perfect storm of bullshit. I had so much stuff that I wanted to accomplish. I thought that my stellar performance of moving BT's stuff to the place that he was going to stay once he returned at the end of the week would be the beginning of a good week. Of course, I hurt myself in the process so some of the more physically taxing projects that I wanted to get done have been slow going. While I did make it to the appointments that I made for myself Wednesday, just as things were starting to look up, I found out that my uncle's white cell count is down again. My mom had to leave almost immediately to drive the three hours to help take care of him. If he was less stubborn, one of us might already be out there helping him all the time, but he wants to do as much of this on his own as he can. While no one is talking about putting him in the hospital yet, we all know that it is a possibility, which will put off his next round chemo even longer.

Then last night, I stayed with TyRoy, feeling much too fragile to stay at my folks house with only my step-dad, who wouldn't notice if I had a techno-disco party in the house, much less if I left. Somehow, it only deteriorated into fighting. I was/am worried about getting the paperwork for the divorce from BT through, especially as everytime I talk to him he tells me about another new assignment he might be getting which will take him away from the metro area. My original plan had been to do the paperwork myself, take it to the country clerk, take his copies to him, take him to the bank where he could get his notarized and we could also take my name off his bank account and then we'd submit the papers to the court. Since only one of us has to be at the court for the hearing, if everything is signed and nothing is contested, it should be a walk in the part after that. But I suppose I was hoping for a bit more time after he got home in which to take care of the papers, like a week or two. In dealing with my uncles's health at the moment, just having moved BT's stuff out, our anniversary, and BT's return home, I just am not emotionally up to the task of doing this right now. But I felt all this pressure to do it RIGHT FUCKING NOW, as early as going and doing it Saturday morning when the bank was open. It was just too much.

Today, I had appointments all set up. I even got up, dressed, hair done, the whole nine. But I made the mistake of sitting down and watching TV in the 30 minutes that I had before I had to leave for my first appointment. I ended up sleeping through both of them. With my day feeling like a waste and the spector of my anniversary hanging over my head, I just took some pills, not enough to hurt, but just enough to wipe me out. Everytime I woke up, I took more and went back to bed. TyRoy found me curled up in the comforter, completely out of it, when he got home from work. I just don't know what to do anymore. I don't know what to feel. I don't know what the "appropriate action" is. And I don't know what the fuck I"m going to do once I finally get all the stuff with BT and I sorted out and over with. I had all these dreams and hopes. But they all involved him. Hell, all my dreams and hopes always seem to involve some man and my relationship to him. I don't know what I'm going to do when I have to find out what I want for myself, from myself.

I miss that day a year ago when I was the happiest woman in the world.

Song BT Referenced Yesterday....

I thought I would share, for the non-country music listening readers out there, the song that BT referenced yesterday in our IM chat. It's been on heavy rotation here on country radio and I knew that as soon as he heard it, he would say that this perfectly described the situation between TyRoy, him, and I- that TyRoy had plans to "make me his" and then taken advantage of a moment of weakness in BT and I's relationship.

Do You Believe Me Now?- Jimmy Wayne
Do you remember
the day I turned to you and said
I didn't like the way he was lookin' at you?
yeah
How he made you laugh
you just couldn't get what I was sayin'
it was my imagination

(Chorus) So do you believe me now?
I guess I really wasn't that crazy
and I knew what I was talkin' about
Everytime the sun goes down
he's the one that's holdin' you baby
yeah me I'm missin' you way 'cross town
so do you believe me now?

I'm kickin' myself
for bein' the one foolish enough givin' him the chance to step in my shoes
ohhh He was bidin' his time
when he saw our love was havin' a moment of weakness
he was there between us

(Chorus) So do you believe me now?
I guess I really wasn't that crazy
and I knew what I was talkin' about
Everytime the sun goes down
he's the one that's holdin' you baby
yeah me I'm missin' you way 'cross town
so do you believe me now?

oh yeah, I bet now you see the light
oh yeah, what's the use in bein' right...
when I'm the lonely one tonight?

(Chorus) So do you believe me now?
I guess I really wasn't that crazy
and I knew what I was talkin' about
Everytime the sun goes down
he's the one that's holdin' you baby
yeah me I'm missin' you way 'cross town
so do you believe me now
yeah so do you believe me now yeah

Everytime the sun goes down
he's the one that's holdin' you baby
yeah me I'm missin you way 'cross town
so do you believe me now?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhWQLrFeKX8

No one ever has clean hands. There were plenty of times when TyRoy admitted to me that he was hoping to not give advice that was purely self-serving. There were many times that he gave advice that worked against his own interests, that was purely to help BT and I, though of course BT saw/sees this as just more of the larger plot. But, with the TyRoy situation, the proof is in the pudding and he and I are not "together" as a couple, nor do we have plans to be. Neither of us will say never but this is how things are right now.

But the proof is in the pudding with BT as well. He can make excuses and he can say that he did things out of anger or retaliation or whatever he wants. But he still did enough on his own to end the relationship, without anyone else's help. So while he and Jimmy Wayne throw their own pity party, the only song I could think of was this.....

Alibis- Tracy Lawrence
she knows every move that a man could make
she knows every trick in the book
she knows how to give
she knows how to take
cuz so many times shes been taken a fool
by those

Chorus:
alibis and lyin eyes and all the best lines
lord knows shes heard them all
shes been cheated on and pushed around and left alone
lord knows what ive put her through
and boy you can bet if a move can be made
she knows how to make one on you

she once thought that love wasnt just a game
her feelings once came from the heart
one day i gave her a wedding ring
in one night i tore all those feelings apart
with my

Chorus:
alibis and lyin eyes and all the best lines l
ord knows shes heard them all
shes been cheated on and pushed around and left alone
lord knows what ive put her through
and boy you can bet if a move can be made
she knows how to make
her own

alibis and lyin eyes and all the best lines
lord knows shes heard them all
shes been cheated on and pushed around and left alone
lord knows what ive put her through
and boy you can bet if a move can be made
she knows how to make one on you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrO1up8IBNc

Also see the song There is No Arizona http://whatsbehindtheeyes.blogspot.com/2007/12/there-is-no-arizona.html, in reference to promises made that never came true, though I am happy to report that, for various reasons, MP has made a reappearance in my life.

Sorry for all the sad country songs.

And, yes, someday I'll take the time to learn how to do the linking correctly, but right now I'm lazy. Deal.

Done With His Move

Today I moved BT's stuff out of my folks' house. While I did have quite a bit of help, I still feel like I did a great deal of it myself. While the money was his, and rightly so as it is his stuff, I made the reservations and rented the truck in my name and on my debit card. I do have to give major props to TyRoy for getting up hella early on a Saturday, skipping his pancakes, and helping me pack up the truck. Also, big props go to BT's friends and landladies who practically unloaded the truck themselves while also being very very nice to me, despite all that is going on.

BUT I'm super proud of myself for all the driving and parking of the big scary truck. While I know that I probably scared some fellow drivers out there today, I did park the truck myself, including backing it up to my house completely unassisted.

I even took pics from either side so show that I was "in the lines" of our driveway. (Only half of the full concrete drive you see is "ours" while the other half belongs to the other side of the duplex.)

Of course, the day was not without its problems. I did alot of crying. I also fell off the back of the truck and did a face plant in front of BT's friends. Now my right shoulder and ass cheek are pretty sore. But, for the most part, I did this myself, or at least with my own inititive and planning. I think I deserve a big hug and lots of kisses and, if I could give them to myself, I would. When we have to be strong, we can be.

Horrible Chat with the World's Worst Army Wife

Yes, I'm airing my dirty laundry. Yes, I am 14. I don't care. I needed to get out the conversation but I didn't want it biased by me saying "he said this", when I said just as bad of shit.

[Chat started on the instant messenger of my cell phone. Because of the lag, the answers don't always go with the questions]

BT: hey, sorry I have not contacted you for awhile. everytime I have gotten online, the connections has sucked, and i haven't been able to IM you

BT: I am still in Iraq [redacted because you don't need to know anymore]

BT: I plan on contacting mom when I get there

BT: As for the Uhaul and everything, that is fine. and thank you very much for moving all of my stuff for me

Ava: I thought when you said 4 days that meant 4 days until you were back in the States.

BT: It was supposed to be, but our flight kept getting pushed back

Ava: I really don't want to hear your thank you about moving your stuff. I just want it gone.

BT: Well, you sould like your in a great fucking mood

Ava: I'll call your mom and let her know. But she's talking about moving her surgery. Can you call her from where you are?

BT: No, I'm on lock down

Ava: I've spent the last week w/no word from you, and your mom calling me, crying, twice a day

[Switch to computer]

BT (10/3/2008 12:58:59 PM): I'm sorry, she should remember from when I went to Kosovo, how it is with the lack of ability to comunicate, I am sorry that she is being like that, I will call her as soon as I get to the states

Ava (10/3/2008 12:59:49 PM): I don't think you understand how much that whole gallbladder/kidney stone thing hurts and she's going to put off surgery only for you to tell her that you don't want her there.

Ava (10/3/2008 1:00:09 PM): Have you made arrangements with Pam and Angela to pick you up next Friday?

BT (10/3/2008 1:00:48 PM): there is nothing that I can do, I can not make a phone show up out of nowhere

BT (10/3/2008 1:01:02 PM): yes, I have made plans for someone to pick me up

Ava (10/3/2008 1:01:04 PM): Then why didn't you do it before?

Ava (10/3/2008 1:01:17 PM): Someone?

BT (10/3/2008 1:01:42 PM): cuz I didn't have 3 and 1/2 hours to wait on a phone

BT (10/3/2008 1:01:57 PM): yeah, one of my best friends [redacted] is coming and gettting me

BT (10/3/2008 1:02:15 PM): no, nothing is going to happen, she is a lesbian and has a girlfriend

Ava (10/3/2008 1:02:31 PM): None of my business anyway

BT (10/3/2008 1:02:48 PM): just letting you know

Ava (10/3/2008 1:02:55 PM): Will you sign papers if I arrange to come out to the house in Lawrence or to meet you someplace after you get back?

Ava (10/3/2008 1:03:25 PM): Oh, and thanks for the warning that there were going to be 8 footlockers coming.

BT (10/3/2008 1:03:27 PM): as much as I don't want to, yes, I will

BT (10/3/2008 1:03:40 PM): sorry

Ava (10/3/2008 1:03:48 PM): If you didn't want to, you shouldn't have done what you did with the money and with Army Woman and with M

BT (10/3/2008 1:04:25 PM): me and M are just friends now, there has not been any kind of sexual talk between me and her

Ava (10/3/2008 1:05:05 PM): Except that you told me you wouldn't talk to her and you broke her heart to beginw with with the whole engagement thing. But whatever.

Ava (10/3/2008 1:05:17 PM): So, you and Army Woman back together? It sure looks like it from the pics.

BT (10/3/2008 1:05:28 PM): no, we are not

Ava (10/3/2008 1:06:08 PM): You do know that you are going to come back to a negative bank balance, right?

BT (10/3/2008 1:06:33 PM): how negative?

[redacted-no one needs to know those details]

BT (10/3/2008 1:08:01 PM): well, they are calling my flight, I have to get going

Ava (10/3/2008 1:08:10 PM): fine.

Ava (10/3/2008 1:08:22 PM): bye. be safe. you want me to tell your mom for you?

Ava (10/3/2008 1:08:30 PM): so she doesn't cancel her surgery?

BT (10/3/2008 1:09:02 PM): if you could, just tell her that I will be leaving for class shortly after getting back, and she wont be able to spend much time with me

Ava (10/3/2008 1:09:14 PM): i'm not lying

BT (10/3/2008 1:09:20 PM): it won't be a lie, and when I get to a phone, I will call her

Ava (10/3/2008 1:09:38 PM): fine.

Ava (10/3/2008 1:09:48 PM): safe flight

BT (10/3/2008 1:09:50 PM): thank you Adriene

Ava (10/3/2008 1:09:56 PM): fuck you

BT (10/3/2008 1:10:21 PM): your really are fucking unbelievable, you know that?

Ava (10/3/2008 1:10:29 PM): I am???

Ava (10/3/2008 1:10:34 PM): After all this bullshit?

BT (10/3/2008 1:10:40 PM): I am trying not to fucking fight and shit, and you are saying fuck you to me?

Ava (10/3/2008 1:11:01 PM): bc I want you to fucking act like you are thankful instead of shitting on me and us every fucking chance you get.

Ava (10/3/2008 1:11:08 PM): Words don't mean a goddamn thing

Ava (10/3/2008 1:11:25 PM): you pissed away every good thing you had.

Ava (10/3/2008 1:11:40 PM): now all you have are 8 trunks of shit

BT (10/3/2008 1:11:42 PM): you believe what you wish

BT (10/3/2008 1:12:51 PM): oh, and I want you to listen to a song, called Do You Believe Me Now, I believe it is buy a guy named Jimmy Wayne

[Singer asks ex-gf if she believes that her 'friend' had the hots for her now that she's with the friend and not with the singer- reference to TyRoy]

Ava (10/3/2008 1:12:51 PM): all your stuff will be there when you get back to P&A's.

Ava (10/3/2008 1:13:08 PM): No body wants him. Not even him.

Ava (10/3/2008 1:13:18 PM): Nobody wants me, not even him.

BT (10/3/2008 1:13:52 PM): funny, that you say that, cuz I do want you, but whatever, I have to go, I love and miss you bye

Ava (10/3/2008 1:14:09 PM): love you too bye

One Week

One week from today, my husband of a little less than a year come back from Iraq.

And I won't be there to greet him.

It's a decision that I've thought long and hard about, that I've agonized over. But I can't do it. The contract has been broken. Probably irrevocably.

I do not want to mislead anyone into thinking that I am without blame. If anyone threw down the first glove, it was me. I fully accept the consequesnces of those actions and was sure within myself that they would lead to the end of the relationship. While what I did could be considered "the one thing he told me not to do, above all other things", his reaction was the same. However he continued to act like it was nothing that should effect the relationship, that we could still go on with our plans when all the money that we'd been trying to save was gone.

For the last few weeks, footlockers have been arriving with the mail, though some I had to go get myself from the post office. Here is what he has to show for his time gone:

Eight Large Black Footlockers

And that's why I won't be there to pick him up in a week. We both knew what we had to do to make this work, or to even attempt to make this work. While I followed the agreement we made for all except this last little bit, tried to be the best wife I could be according to the rules we set out, he chose not to for almost all his time away. I hope that whatever is in those footlockers are worth it.

Drama Night in Hoosierville

-Argue with your husband
-Your ex calls to see how you are doing and apologize for acting like an ass the last time you saw him. He also tells you about how he got arrested on charges of driving a stolen vehicle and then assaulting an officer. But at least he got rid of the gun before they pulled him over. Allegedly. Oh, and he loves you.
-Your husband's ex's submissive, who tried to get you to kill yourself a few months ago while hiding who he (the sub) was, attempts to apologize. Sub hits on you as well.

I'm hoping to never have a night like this anytime soon.

Almost Honest- Josh Kelly

This afternoon, I caught this song on a live show on cable. I'd heard this song in the background of some TV show and I thought it was beautiful, though I didn't think too much about it.

But I guess it fits nicely with things now. I've been thinking a great deal about honesty this weekend. Some of it has had to do wih Mon Parrain. Most of it has had to do with the future of my marriage and how to translate what I feel like is my non-monogamous nature (or just my penchance for using sex to fill the void, even when that sex isn't advisable) into the safe, stable home that I want to create for my husband, who deserves a safe stable home after all he's been through. Of course, it also reminds me of not only how and why I've not always been honest with my loves, but why those around me might not have always been honest either.

Mostly, tonight, I've listened to this on an almost constant loop through youtube, singing and crying. Wow, when put that way, it seems kinda pathetic..... oh well. Enjoy.

Almost Honest- Josh Kelly
So in the meantime
You'll be resting on my mind
For the last time
I will leave myself behind
In the evening
Raise a glass and tell some lies
Make a pass, impress another girl,
She was easy on the eyes

She was easy
And so was I

My reflection
In the window when I ride for Chicago
She is on the other side
Take a picture
Write a letter to my love

Well I was almost honest
I was almost honest

Been a long time
Since I've laid with you in bed
Conversations, full of words you never said
I got your message
But I didn't hear the ringing bell
I gave into the loneliness
But I didn't give up nothing else

Which direction
Down this highway that I ride to Atlanta
She is on the other side
Take a picture
Write a letter to my love

I was almost honest
Well, I was almost honest

Yeah, Oh oh oh Hmmmmm

My reflection
In the window when I ride
Could not save us
But I swear to God I tried

Take a picture
Write a letter to my love
I was almost honest
But I was almost honest
Cause I was almost honest

Youtube
Live-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fUkeALT3Uc
Video- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPjp6Kv4W7Y

Misstatements....

In the beginning
BT (8/27/2008 4:30:06 AM): no, I have already admited that I had not been truthful to you in the past, but I have been since then

Later
BT (8/27/2008 5:34:27 AM): like last night when you accused me of talking to [name redacted, we'll call her Ex-Fiancee], then flat out saying you don't believe me?
Me (8/27/2008 5:34:52 AM): That was because there were parts of convo's that didn't belong to our conversation
BT (8/27/2008 5:34:57 AM): I swear to you that I have not been talking to her
Me (8/27/2008 5:35:02 AM): Which had happened before when you were talking to her.
BT (8/27/2008 5:36:56 AM): yes, some conversations I have had have been about sex, but it has been about sex in the past, with a couple of my ex's or are still friends of mine, and who have moved on as I have, and are now either married, or engaged, or have boyfriends, but that is how we have always talked with each other, we know that we did not work out, but we still give each other shit, and play around talking about shit like that

Later still
BT (8/27/2008 5:41:52 AM): and in that new honesty, have to be honest that the other day, yes, I did lie to you, it was one of them that had the cam on, but she was letting me see her kids, and one of them was the boy that I had to be tested before, that wasn't mine
[During a previous conversation he'd typed "hmmmm, your cam went off", or something to that effect, and I knew it wasn't a part of our conversation. He said that it was the cam his Grandma and his neice were using to talk to him on, but I didn't really believe that. Turns out I was right.]

Am I going crazy? Does any of that actually add up? I know BT will be mad as hell that I"m airing our dirty laundry but.... when you put those parts of the conversation together, it just doesn't add up to me. (And just so he doesn't think that I'm being entirely unfair, there are other bits of the conversation that don't make either of us look good and that point to various other bad things that both of us have done lately. I'm not trying to avoid those things and if BT wants to post those on his blog, he can. I'm just focusing on the part of the conversation that blows my mind and confuses the fuck out of me.)

And, I'm sorry, I just couldn't find a good song about lying to go with it.

Angry All the Time

"Angry All The Time"
(best known as sung by Tim McGraw & Faith Hill
but written by Bruce Robison and sung by him and Kelly Willis)
Here we are
What is left of a husband and a wife
four good kids who have a way of gettin on with their lives
I'm not old but I'm getting a whole lot older every day
It's too late to keep from goin' crazy
I got to get away

The reasons that I can't stay
don't have a thing to do with being in love
And I understand that lovin a man
shouldn't have to be this rough
You ain't the only one
Who feels like this world left you far behind
I don't know why you gotta be
Angry All The Time

Our boys are strong
the spittin image of you when you were young
I hope someday they can see past what you have become
I remember every time I said I'd never leave
What I can't live with is memories of the way you used to be

The reasons that I can't stay
don't have a thing to do with being in love
And I understand that lovin a man
shouldn't have to be this rough
You ain't the only one
Who feels like this world left you far behind
I don't know why you gotta be
Angry All The Time

Twenty years have came and went
since I walked out of your door
I never quite made it back to the one I was before
And God it hurts me to think of you
Before the light in your eyes was gone
sometimes I don't know why this old world
can't leave well enough alone

The reasons that I can't stay
don't have a thing to do with being in love
And I understand that lovin a man
shouldn't have to be this rough
You ain't the only one
Who feels like this world left you far behind
I don't know why you gotta be
Angry All The Time

You tube:
Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tUe8xJpK8E
can't find a good one of Tim McGraw & Faith Hill

When this song first came out, I really thought it was probably one of the saddest songs about a couple breaking up ever. It's weird because it's sung by men (with women adding the harmony in both versions) but it obviously isn't from the man's point of view, or at least it isn't all from the man's point of view. I think it probably harkens back to an earlier time in musical story telling where males did all the singing and sung songs that were stories told from whatever point of view the story was. In the comments on Youtube for the video, someone asks who it is who is angry. The response was that they both are. Even if you think that the song is all from the point of view of the woman, I'm pretty sure that she's angry too, at least alittle.

But I think that sometimes we don't know how to get out of our anger. Especially those of us who have so much of it, those of us who's first and primary response in any situation is go get angry. And when one person is angry, it's hard for the other to stop and step back, to not get angry themselves. I also think that our first response is to defend ourselves, to defend our position, but that really does nothing to diffuse the situation. As Dr. Phil would say, "Would you rather be right or would you rather be happy?" Then again, sometimes there is nothing you can do to diffuse the anger. Sometimes nothing you do is going to be right. And then I don't know what you do.

You Should Have Seen It In Color- Jamey Johnson

I said "Grandpa what's this picture here?
It's all black and white. It ain't real clear.
Is that you there?" He said, "Yeah. I was 11.
Times were tough back in '35.
Thats me and Uncle Joe, just tryin to survive
a cotton farm in the Great Depression.

If it looks like we were scared to death
like a couple of kids just trying to save each other
You should've seen it in color.

Ohh and this one here was taken over seas
in the middle of hell in 1943 in the winter time
You can almost see my breath
That was my tail gunner, ole Johnny Magee
He was a high school teacher from New Orleans
and he had my back right through the day we left.

If it looks like we were scared to death
like a couple of kids just trying to save each other
You should've seen it in color.

A pictures worth a thousand words
But you cant see what those shades of gray keep covered
You should've seen it in color

This one is my favorite one.
This is me and grandma in the summer sun
All dressed up the day we said our vows.
You can't tell it here but it was hot that June
and that rose was red and her eyes were blue
and just look at that smile, I was so proud.
Thats the story of my life, right there in black and white

And if it looks like we were scared to death
like a couple of kids just trying to save each other
You should've seen it in color.

A pictures worth a thousand words
but you cant see what those shades of gray keep covered
You should have seen it in color.
You should have seen it in color
Yeah a pictures worth a thousand words
but you cant see what those shades of gray keep covered
You should have seen it in color

You tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBk07l2aKrE

When I first heard this song, it made me think of my own grandpa. Not that we ever had a conversation so in depth, but I remember us going through the pictures before his funeral that we'd lay out for the viewing. I think it might just have been something for my uncle to do to keep himself even busier than he already was. But we now all have pictures of him in our living spaces. One of my favorite ones, the one that is hanging by my bedroom door and came with me when I lived at TyRoys is one of him and my grandma sitting at a kitchen table, with my mom, aged probably six, squirming in between them. Even though I'm sure I'm not a great judge of how I look, I know that I can see myself in all those faces. And in my grandfather's James Dean-y handsomeness and charm, I can see BT as well. (No, we aren't related.)

My grandma's grief conselor told her that it was a good idea to put of pictures of my grandpa around the house, partly as a good reminder and probably so that it wouldn't catch her off guard and hurt her more when she did see those things. At the house, I always sleep in "the guest room" and, since it became the guest room, the head of the bed has been surrounded by beautifully framed pictures of our family at different fancy family functions (weddings, parties, etc, not alot of them in my family). (Sidenote: You'd think this would get in the way of having sex in that bed, what with being surrounded by pictures of my family and all. But it doesn't seem to.) No one had warned me about the grief conselor's advice, but I wasn't freaked out by the fact that there were more pictures of my grandpa around. What did freak me out was the quilt on the bed. I don't think I had ever seen the quilt before. It was a quilt handmade by my grandma, on their 38th anniversary, with embroidery about their wedding date and their children. I lost it right there and then. This last visit I was looking at the picture of my uncle and my grandfather, at my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary party and I almost lost it again.

But I heard this song twice today. And what stood out was that he uses the same chorus to describe him and his wife on their wedding day- "And if it looks like we were scared to death, like a couple of kids just trying to save each other." Reminded me of BT and I. A couple of kids just trying to save each other. I could sure use some saving now.

You Used To Love To Dance- Melissa Ethridge

You Used to Love to Dance- Melissa Ethridge
Lying in a city night
A million fingers tingling my skin
Out there in the sea tonight
I thought I saw you clutching your sin
You rolled me over long ago
And told me you were strong enough to go
You needed more than this lover's dream
You need the steel and the concrete beams in your life
In your life

We laughed and drank in the jukebox light
And we tore the rug in that downtown dive
Every Saturday night
For fifty cents we'd dance all night long
And each new tune we said that's our song
Oh it felt so right
Well ecstasy ain't free
But compromise is chance
I remember how
You used to love to dance

They told me you have found your love
You moved in locked up and put out your blues
Well all God's children got to grow up
And play house make vows to hang up their shoes
Do you sit and talk over coffee cups
Do headline mornings satisfy and fill you up
I kept your eyes and your cigarette kiss
You couldn't keep the lies the adrenalin bliss in your life
In your life

We laughed and drank in the jukebox light
And we tore the rug in that downtown dive
Every Saturday night
For fifty cents we'd dance all night long
And each new tune we said that's our song
Oh it felt so right
Well ecstasy ain't free
But compromise is chance
I remember how
You used to love to dance

I'm gonna go out tonight
I'm gonna drive up to the hill
I'm gonna dive on into those city lights
And I'm gonna dance, dance
Dance till I get my fill

We laughed and drank in the jukebox light
And we tore the rug in that downtown dive
Every Saturday night
For fifty cents we'd dance all night long
And each new tune we said that's our song
Lord it felt so right
But ecstasy ain't free
And compromise is chance
I remember how
You used to love to dance

As anyone who knows me knows, I tend to live my life in a weird parellel to the art I consume, though I'm going to be using the word "art" quite loosely here. While I'm not quite sure if this is the real reason, I'm going to blame it on being a relatviely smart kid with lots of ideas and more access to books, movies, music, and televison than I even did my peers. While in some ways the art I consume does tend to mirror my views on life, it also tends to point out to me and make more concrete in me ideas that were only half-formed before. And I have to credit this art with sometimes getting me out of funks and leaving me with that nugget of inspiration to help with later funks as well.

This song is one of my favorite songs by Melissa Ethridge. I was not quite a teenager when she came out of the closet and it was quite a big deal at the time. For a young, rock-loving, wanna-be musician like myself, who was also starting to realize that she might be not-straight as well, she was a huge inspiration. I remember taping her MTV Unplugged when I was 12 on the spare tv and our beta VCR. (When we sold our 3 bedroom house before we bought another home, we moved into a 2 bedroom apartment. Because my mother didn't allow me to have a television in my bedroom, I could only watch something other than what my parents did on a different tv in our living room. Needless to say, it cut down drastically on me watching things I shouldn't.) I was reading a couple books on Bruce Springsteen and his early career at the time for a school project and I was overjoyed when he was on her Unplugged special, singing "Born To Run" with her. Within the next year, I bought all her CDs prior to Yes I Am, which I already had.

I think I always liked this song because it spoke to something I had always felt. I never wanted to "settle down". I wanted to be wild and crazy and live an unexpected life. At the time when I got this CD, we had just moved to the suburbs of this Small City and I was surrounded by this suburban dream of a nice house and nice job and nice family. While I knew several girls in high school who had big career-oriented dreams and ambitions for their lives, I didn't know any of these girls, or at least was not aquainted with them and their dreams, in the middle school where I started out. This was the place where, in the first class of my first day, my partner on a class exercise said that she was happy that we were done with it with time to spare to talk about the really important things like guys and make-up. Needless to say, even though I knew we had moved here so that i would get a better education and live in a better neighborhood, I despised it. In fact, I dreamed of the day when I turned 16 and got my first car so that I could disappear again into the Big City we had previously lived in, where I would live a precarious existence, having to finish high school and work enough to live on my own. But even in high school, where I knew some very ambitious college and career-oriented girls, I don't think I ever really knew anyone, male or female, who wanted to embrace the messy, not well-off but comfortable, and full of artistic integrity life that I wanted. That I still want to this day, though I knew now more of how hard it is to have that.

I also liked this song so much because I already felt betrayed by this time by people in my life who I thought would want that kind of life but didn't. I guess you grow up assuming that the people who instill certain values in you are consciously instilling those values in you and that they themselves will live by those values. Also that you assume that the way of life that you adore when you see it in someone else and that you aspire to in the future really makes the person living it happy and will always make them happy. None of that is really true and I think now that feeling that way largely comes from being a kid and not realize that the people you put on a pedestal are up their because you put them there not because they should be. Because really no one should be as we are all human, with all the messy, illogical, contridictory desires, flaws, hopes, dreams, and mind-changing that comes along with that. But at the time, I felt betrayed by this. (To be honest, still do sometimes.) For so much of my life, my godfather, who was one of the closest males to me during my young life, lived in the city proper and dated multiple women at the same time. I loved his freedom and the life that he had. When I was 8 though, he met and fell in love with a woman who he would marry and settle down with over the next 2 years or so. It probably didn't help that she had a daughter who was just a year older than me. When they started living together, he moved into her house in the suburbs. After a disasterous vacation two family vacation, we all kinda lost touch. So, at 13, even though I knew Ethridge probably wrote this song about a female lover who left Ethridge to settle down properly with a man, I felt like it was about my godfather settling down, giving up what I thought of as a privileged life just to settle down and have a family. I kinda had similar feelings in regard to my uncle marrying and staying in the same town as my grandparents over the course of my high school years.

Recently, as I've been trying to decide how to proceed in my life, I 'rediscovered' this song while listening to an MP3 disk with lots of different albums on it. It still strikes a cord with me, though for different reasons.

I guess it was the love of that non-settled down lifestyle that made me agree to marry BT, the fact that being with him seemed to promise that I wouldn't be "settling" or "settling down." While it was that craziness and chaos that led to so many of our problems, I have to admit that it was also what brought us together. And, to compliment what my grandmother said about how he and I are both dreamers and don't always live in the real world, I never felt like I would have to "grow up, play house, make vows to hang up [my] shoes" with him. In addition to just having an open relationship, I felt like I had found someone who I could share all my dreams and fantasies with, that I wouldn't have to compromise who I really was, even though I knew we'd both have to compromise on other things. While he wasn't the first to want to marry me (or the last, as it's turned out), every other man who wanted to marry me wanted to "settle down", to have that sort of very stable household and family. And, in some ways, I know now that played a role in BT wanting to get married as well. But he was happy with the ways in which it would be crazy and messy and unstable, if for no other reason than I am all those things. But I think he was, and still is, one of the few guys who didn't see me as a project, as something to be fixed, even though, on the other hand, he never thought I'd be "like this" forever. And when he was around, I wasn't, which only reminds me of another song lyric, "Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes/I thought it was there for good so I never tried." (Leonard Cohen's "Famous Blue Raincoat")

I think that "settling down" part was probably a large part of why I couldn't have stayed with TyRoy. MP recently said to me that he thought TyRoy had been giving me something which he thought he had to give me in order to keep me but that, in truth, I wasn't ready for at all. I think that's probably true. There was this big house and this comfortable life there but, whether this is true or not, I always felt like that came hand in hand with being a dutiful wife, even if we weren't married at the time. As TyRoy pointed out to me last week when I said that I never felt like he chose me but just chose to be with someone, I wasn't the only woman who wanted to live in that house. That might be true. But I would have been just as happy to not live in that house, to have stayed with my folks'. I only moved in for the period of time I was there because it was easier for us to see each other and because I thought he wanted, needed, a person living there with him. And though I might not have conveyed this as much as I wanted to, I wasn't trying to get with him, wasn't trying to be his girlfriend/wife, wasn't trying to get a commitment out of him, though I was happy, if hesitant because of experience, to take it when he offered, when the "other women who wanted to move in there" were actively working to get a commitment out of him and were actively trying to move in there. And I guess, in the begginning when things are all shiny, and after my ordeals with lies and ommision with BT, I thought I had found someone with whom I wouldn't have to "hang up my shoes" either because he wanted the openness but wasn't jealous and had shown himself not to be a liar (even by ommission), so I ignored the trade-off. "Compromise is chance", right?

And the final thing about this song, right now, that gets me, is about the jukebox. Even though I'm quite a horrible dancer and have yet to be broken of the tendency to lead, I still love to do it and don't get to do it often enough. But I love the image of two people dancing. And two people dancing to a jukebox just seems to be this terribly romantic image that I can never get out of my head. The kinda messed up thing is that I can only think of a handful of times that I've danced with my male romantic partners or a person I had a romantic interest in of either sex. I know that I've probably danced more with my uncle than I have all my romantic partners or potentials combined. I actually can't think of a single time I danced with BT. And while I'll never forget the night I met BT just because it was the night I met him, I'd always remember it for another reason if he and I had never gotten together. As in the song, the place was a dive, a little bar overlooking the highway and the river, where you had to be buzzed in. And they had a jukebox, though I doubt you probably got 3 songs out of fifty cents. But someone, probably my uncle or his boyfriend, did put some money in it and played some songs. And I danced with my uncle to Patsy Cline, who both he and my mother love. And whenever I see a couple dancing to a jukebox, I think of that.