So... read on if you want to know what is going on in my brain this morning.
It gets a bit ugly.
Unfinished novels? There are three. All of which started to fall apart back in '09 and I've never been able to get back on track with them. I've completed one chapter for each one since then. That's pathetic. I can't even put short stories together anymore.
So, this past October when I renewed my domain name and my hosting package - both of which I only still have because that's where I dump most of my Popmundo stuff; character pics, album covers - I realized I was prolonging the inevitable. So this coming October when it expires again, I'm actually going to be moving to a different company (GoDaddy. I think they're the devil but they're way less expensive than my current company, Bravenet.) so that I can keep the Popmundo stuff up and running, but I will not be migrating the Reckless Abandon section.
On one hand, it feels like a huge relief. It's felt like a job for a long time, and constantly getting notifications from my Pages Manager App to update the facebook page have been driving me crazy. The notifications go "What's new with Reckless Abandon?" And I just scream at my phone, "NOTHING!"
On the other, it feels like I'm giving up. I've been running the site for fifteen years. Granted, the last five, I haven't been running a damn thing, but still. Fifteen years. That's longer than I've done just about anything. When I gave up on the one novel, that was hard enough. To give up the entire site, feels like shit. And since I made the decision, I've felt like shit.
And then I started to think about my love life or lack there of. I'm not a huge sappy romantic type, buying me flowers will mostly make me question why you didn't spend money on something more practical. A dozen roses could pay for dinner. Could buy groceries. Not to mention, I don't even like roses. So anyway, not being romantic means the 'honeymoon' stage in any relationship ends for me pretty quickly. I'm talking like three weeks in. While most people are still gushing about how perfect their sig other is and they want to spend every single second together at six months, by day 20 I'm already like, ugh, doesn't this guy have any other friends? I'm a big fan of having two lives overlap, not two lives becoming one. Maybe that's my problem, who knows?
Whatever the case may be, I do bail pretty quickly when the guy gets clingy - or what I feel is clingy. I don't like to be cuddled while I sleep. For one thing, I get superhot when I sleep, and I stretch out. There's no comfortable way to to cuddle when you're on your stomach, one arm under the pillow, one leg bent next to you. Get off of me. I don't like my hand being held while I'm driving. Safety, right! And lastly, I hate - HATE - being held onto when we're out. Hold my hand at the bar, fine. Put your arm around my shoulders for a little while, okay. But when the music is playing and I'm dancing, there is no need to put me in a perpetual hug. I can't freaking move. I'm dancing, you look like you're trying to kidnap me. And this goes double if we're at one of my friends' shows. I'm going to running around getting stuff for them. Frank needs a beer, Panikk broke a drumstick and he left the extras backstage, Erik's glasses slid off his face, the sound guy isn't here so I need to go work the control table between songs.
Yes, a lot of these are totally pointed at my last 'boyfriend.' I use the term loosely because he was a little bitch. He really was. He was really a sad excuse for a man and I think he knew that, that's why he had such temper tantrums about other things. But seriously, dude was a wimp, he was the absolute worst in bed - when things got 'energetic' it hurt him. If you're curious and not afraid of some very specific TMI, I'd love to tell you about it so I can laugh about it again - and when he wasn't being a total pansy, he was a jerk. Honestly it felt like the loooongest relationship ever, despite it only being for the summer, but it only helped me realize what things I really don't like, so I can't regret it.
Anyway, a lot of the things I don't like or don't want, are the reason I dig the Marine so much. He doesn't do those things! He's not super affectionate, but when it is, you know it means something. So much of other PDA feels forced, or like it's an act. Standing in a bar with your arm around me feels like you're defending your territory or something, warning off other guys. I dunno. With the Marine, friends of his that I never met before knew we were together the first time they met me, just by the look we gave each other. That is infinitely more meaningful to me than someone hanging off me. He's all about the little things, whether it's "adult" PDA, like when he'll playfully just reach out, squeeze a boob, and then act like nothing happened, or whether it's something sweeter, like just brushing my cheek and then going back to whatever he was doing. I mean, we even balance each other out on chicken wings (note, I am from Buffalo. They are not "Buffalo wings," they're just damn wings). We both like them tossed in medium sauce and bbq, and I only eat the flat pieces while he only eats the drumsticks. It's perfect.
But, alas, he has taken up with yet another crazy bitch, and every time it happens, it freaks me out. I watch them. He doesn't do the little affectionate touches. He does, however, allow her (as he has with others) to drape themselves all over him when he's in the middle of doing something else. I watch his face, he's completely oblivious to the fact that they're even there. It feels like he's going through the motions with these women, and I can't stand it.
And to show just how into him I am - he smokes. And I'm okay with that. Smoking is a huge dealbreaker for me, but I can overlook it with him. If you knew me personally and knew just how much of a dealbreaker this was... wow. But no, it's all good with the Marine. By the way, he does have a name, but I referred to him as the Marine when I didn't think he was going to be important to me. So, by keeping that moniker for him, I can think of him as a fun repeated fling, and stop myself from thinking of him as Kris, the one guy I actually like that I apparently can't ever have. It's frustrating.
Even more frustrating is the feeling like I'm stuck. I don't get hung up on guys very easily. There's a reason my friends call me the Samantha of the group. Or the Blanche Devereaux. I might have dated myself with that Blanche reference. Whatever. I've told you all before I'm older than most of you. If I don't get a guy, or I get turned down, I sulk for awhile, then I move on. At any given time I have about three crushes, two of whom always mean absolutely nothing and are just an excuse for me to flirt and get dressed up, and the third is someone I might actually pursue. For the better part of the last year and a half... I haven't had any crushes. The Marine stopped counting as a crush last year when I realized that he wasn't just a fling. I should have realized it sooner, after the three years that we'd already been "flinging" back together, but whatever.
And then to add to that... I had a huge fight with a a friend, one that involved a "You clearly don't know me if you think..." and ended with a "maybe this friendship is over."
Basically, she's one of those sanctimommy types. She has the right of way about anything because she has kids. One of the debates we've had was over her belief that people with kids deserve holidays off work, people without kids do not. Apparently people without kids don't have any other family members that they might want to spend time with. She overdoes it with the mama bear thing, and I have given her the childless/childfree perspective on some things she's posted. I've always been very careful to make it not sound argumentative, but more like 'hey, this is where we/they might be coming from.' It's simply me stating that there is another way to look at things and trying to gently remind her that just because she has kids, doesn't mean people who do not are any less important.
Anyway, she posted a status about the woman next to her parking too close in the parking lot, and how her kids hit the car when she were getting in, and how the woman should expect dings for parking so close. "Her fault, not mine." At the end, she mentioned how the woman's space wasn't fully plowed, so the woman really didn't have much of a choice.
I simply pointed out that would actually make it the store's fault.
One of her sycophantic friends added a snide comment about how she hates when she'd loading her kids into the car and someone pulls in next to her. When that happens, she said she takes her sweet time.
I said I'm sure those people just saw the empty spot next to you, they didn't purposely seek you out because your were loading your kids.
That's when my friend accused me of parent-bashing and always disagreeing with her on purpose anytime it comes to kids. Apparently all the supportive comments I've given her, being there for her kids milestones, offering suggestions that we used for my nephew for potty-training when she was trying to train her son to no avail, throwing her baby shower, that's all me parent-bashing and disagreeing.
She then said. "At what point do we just give up and realize we've grown way too far apart. Of course we will always love each other but perhaps our friendship is no longer."
I just wanted to be like WHAT WE? YOU gave up on me a long time ago. The only time she invited me anywhere in the last year were to her kids' birthday parties. Before that? Any invite started off by asking if I had my nephew that weekend, let's take the kids out. So I'm not good enough to hang out with you unless I bring a kid? Oh, but there were the few instances where we'd go out to lunch or dinner. Never anywhere I wanted to go though. No. Her choice. Always. And even if she picked a chain restaurant, it was the location by her house. Two minutes from her, half an hour from me.
She never took an interest in things I liked. I invited her to countless shows when my friends were playing. I managed one of those bands so I was especially proud of them. She never came. When I was dating Mike (who honestly could have been The One) she never met him because she never came to see him sing or out to anywhere we went. She's never seen the Marine, despite the fact that his band almost always plays at this place around the corner from her.
She has always criticized my singlehood, saying I'm too picky. And hey, maybe I am picky, but I'm not going to just settle when I'm not happy. Just because she married the first guy that she dated in college, doesn't mean we're all so lucky. More than once she told me I have to break away from my type, which means she really wasn't paying attention, since I really don't have a type. Yes, I have an inclination toward musicians (One, who doesn't? and Two, this is Buffalo. Almost everyone is a musician.) Once again, if she ever bothered to meet Mike, or the Marine, because these are both guys that were important to me, maybe she wouldn't make such generalizations. Mike looks like Drew Carey, and the Marine... I dunno who to compare him to, but he's no one I would have picked up a bar solely based on looks. I find him sexy as hell, because I dig him, but he's not, like, some huge stud. And those are just the important two. I've dated guys who look like Prince Harry, Jared Padelecki, and Taye Diggs. Yeah, tell me again that I have a type. Maybe if she'd taken an interest when I was like, hey, this is the guy I'm into, I want to get your take on him, she wouldn't make such comments.
I dunno. I've felt hugely unsupported by her for a long time, and I guess I just ignored it. She's right, we have been growing apart (even though now I'm not sure how together we ever were), but it really hurt to have her make it seem like it was my fault, when I've always tried to make time for her.
Gahhhhh. I said this trip through my brain would be ugly. It's sad, really. Anyway. Rant over. Time for breakfast.