2000-12-02
feeling kinda
last night didn't go quite the way i had hoped it would. as a matter of fact, it wasn't even close. as a result, i woke up today in an exceptionally cranky mood. violently cranky, even. and it's been a while since that happened.
i sort of had it in mind that sweetie would come by, i'd put the roast in to cook, we'd have a little nookie time, then eat dinner, and maybe watch a movie or go out to see adam, then fall asleep happy and snuggly, knowing we didn't have to get up early. not a bad plan, right? and even if it didn't work out like that, i was hoping for a low-key, mellow evening. not a fucking chance.
sweetie came in all keyed up - the kind of mood where he talks in the radio announcer voice, because he's putting up some sort of front and doesn't want to sound like himself. [scratch nookie off list] he'd had a rough couple of days, for a variety of reasons. i asked him if he wanted to talk about any of it - 'no. yes. noyes.' [right. he said he was feeling ambivalent.] he makes himself a tall drink, sits down, and starts to go thru the list of things he's been thinking about. [note to self: remember how much he likes to drink when he's in this mood.] the list is pretty standard, the kind of stuff we all grouse about: work, commuting, money, holidays... and relationships. specifically, us. [just for the record, i've been told i have a NYC Times Square billboard for a face... which i guess means it's easy to read how i feel. 8)] and so the discussion starts. i guess i kept a straight face, but the body language gave me away; i tensed right up. i tried really hard to listen, just listen. i mean, if you've had a crappy week, you sometimes just want to vent about every little thing down to the hangnail that's making you crazy, and it all sounds worse than it is. god knows, i've been so worked up after a bad week that i've been known to yell at people for the way they *chew*. i'm just saying.
so we talk, and he's not sure he likes the new 'deferential' me (his word, not mine, and if you know me, you know deferential just ain't in my vocabulary), and things are good now, but there's all that stuff that's happened between us, and some of it is bad, and it's hard to put it all into perspective some days, and even tho we've started something new, it's not like you can really start from scratch with someone you've known for six years. it was interesting to see how much both of us are still seeing the other person thru filters based on the past, reading things into words or actions that the other person didn't really mean. he said some really sweet things that i wasn't expecting, and which meant a lot to me. and i tried to explain that the change he sees is real - my expectations, needs, wants are different now than they were six months ago, and i'm not just saying it to keep the peace - i really feel this way. wouldn't it be nice if you could let someone into your head, or part of it, for just a minute, because if they could see things the way you do, for just a second, it would make so much more sense than trying to explain it in words, which always fail us in one way or another?
after dinner, i decided i was really in the mood to go out and see adam. adam works at eat (and that isn't just my e.e. cummings pretension - they really do spell the name of the restaurant in all lower caps), and he and charlie have just renovated the place, moving and enlarging the bar, and redoing the dining room; i haven't been in in about a month, and i was dying to see the new layout. plus, adam is a hottie, and it's always fun to chat with him. we walked over to the restaurant (i overruled sweetie on driving, thankfully), and hung out for a round or two. actually, it was two. i'm now in the mood to chat about all kinds of things, and sweetie is in no shape for that. we finish up, i pay the tab, and we head home. strike that. i head home, he weebles home.
this is where things get ugly. as he announced at one point, it's amazing how irish he is. he can drink until the cows come home. and then the cows come home, and it's ugly. at one point, he sat down on the floor, and made me leave him alone. the details aren't really important; the punch line is, i ended up sleeping on my couch. i cried myself to sleep, curled up under my wool blanket, with the cats keeping watch. stanz slept on one arm of the couch, and strat vacillated between sleeping on me, and perching on top of a box by the window, statue-like, on guard duty. and even then, two rooms away, sweetie was snoring loudly enough to wake me up.
the dream was, in retrospect, a fascinating pastiche of all the things that were bothering me. in my dream, i was sleeping on the couch because sweetie, in care-taker mode, had brought his ex-girlfriend over to get a good night's sleep. in real life, he's been caring for her after some major big-time abdominal surgery. in my dream, he brought her over to take care of her, and the two of them were sleeping in my bed. so i was relegated to the couch, and cried myself to sleep. he told me that i was behaving badly, and if i kept this up, she would never like me, and why couldn't i just be a little more understanding? [ed. note: i wish i could screenshot my dreams, because sharing the images would be so much better than my feeble attempts to explain them.] i had to let her shower first, and make them breakfast, and when i ended up crouched in the muddy garden outside, crying about being abandoned, he walked back from the car, told me i was being unfeeling about her, and then walked off to drive her home.
oh yeah - and she had the two rings i've lost. i lost them in real life, and in my dream, she had them.
when i woke up this morning, i was achy, crunchy from being curled up on the couch (which is really love-seat length), and feeling gross from having cried so much. i crawled back into my bed for a while with sweetie, to stretch out and get some real sleep, then eventually got up to make breakfast... in the middle of the afternoon. and we had had all kinds of plans and errands mapped out for today, too. i finally woke up sweetie and asked him if he wanted coffee, and wanted nothing more than to stick his fingers in the coffee grinder. really and truly, i was in such a foul mood that i could have strangled him.
when we sat down to breakfast, i told him how i felt, and explained my dream (in a way that made him laugh, fortunately). he had the good graces to be very apologetic, which i said wasn't really necessary. and honestly, it wasn't. because the more i thought about what was upsetting me - the lack of sleep, the misfired evening, losing most of my saturday, not having enough time to do my work and my errands before going to work tonight - what upset me most were my own actions. i've seen him in this mood before, and it usually leads to heavy drinking. god knows, i've certainly had days where nothing but a good bender will help me deal with my life, despite the concommitant pain that follows. and my friends have all been gracious enough to deal with me when i get like that. not only wasn't i just dealing with it, i helped create the situation, by feeding him drinks all night. i wanted to go to the bar and see adam so much that i went anyway. i'm not saying i shouldn't have gone, but knowing how things were going to turn out if we went out for a few rounds, if i'm going to aid in the crime, it's not really right to get cranky afterwards. more than that, i truly beleive it was wrong of me to help him get so drunk. if he goes there on his own, so be it. but does a good friend really help someone they care about get totally wrecked, to the point of being sick? i don't think so. so mostly what i was upset about today was my own behavior.
spilt milk now, and no point in trying to re-write history. but this is certainly one for the lesson books.
