By Katrina Rasbold
| Katrina's
NonSoapy Journal
By Katrina Rasbold |
|
May 16, 2002
2:30pm
Hey, just because I didn't list the guys that you folks think are hot doesn't mean I forgot them!! :) I did forget one favorite hot guy, however, and that is Tom Selleck. Wow. I never watched Magnum PI, but I could sure recognize his value in the hot department. He is just...perfect. *sigh* I thought I had it bad when he was in "Three Men and a Baby," but when he showed up on Friends as "Richard," it was all over. I never needed an eye exam so badly in my life!!
May 16, 2002
8:34am
A couple of neat thoughts:
Christiane Northrup (Goddess on Earth) quoted someone as saying this and I thought it was wonderful:
"We are all the Mothers of God for God is continually needing to be birthed into this world."
She also said:
"Women work from a premise that says, 'There is something worth living for.' Men work from a premise that says, 'There is something worth dying for.'"
May 16, 2002
8:32am
To wax into Seinfeldian mode for a minute, What Is The Deal With Barbie's Hair? Thirty years ago, when you got a Barbie, if you touched her hair in any way, it went from being satiny, smooth and beautiful to being platinum, 2-am-waitress-at-Denny's fuzzball. Now, with hundreds of different Barbies on the market, if you touch her hair in any way, it goes from being satiny, smooth and beautiful to being platinum, 2-am-waitress-at-Denny's fuzzball. In our modern age of technological advancements and the infomormation highway and CD's and electric cars, why the hell can't Mattel fix Barbie's damned hair? Can you order new Barbie heads somewhere like on The Simpsons? Would you want to since they are just going to explode into a white fright wig again anyway? WHY CAN'T WE FIX THIS??
May 16, 2002
8:30am
I’ve spent the last two
agonizing weeks (yes, I only thought it was 3 in the post below) trying to get
the site back up again after our registrar misdirected our name servers (in
short, that means they sent the url out into cyberspace to be attached to
nothing). Tried to move to a
cheaper web host and they could never get the url attached to anything beyond
the home page for the new web host. It
couldn’t connect up to the site itself, which was uploaded there.
They said it would resolve in 72 hours and it’s been two weeks, so I
finally gave up and went back to my old web host.
*sigh* Now it’s going to be until the weekend or Monday, they tell
me. I miss you guys.
So basically, I still
don’t even know if you can read this or not.
I’ve taken the time to work with Joe (my son) on a site redesign, which
should be up in the next month or so. If
you see blue on some of the pages (like this one), that’s why.
I actually got out to the
movies a couple of weeks ago (if you’ve read me for any length of time,
you’ll know that I loooooove movies) and saw Blade II.
A full review will follow later (it rocked), but it really got me
thinking about movie guys.
You know, there are some
movie guys out there who are just really, really hot.
I don’t think I could rank them and play favorites because they are all
hot in so many different ways that they can’t even compare.
I used to be a Tom Cruise
woman, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that he’s just too pretty for
me. As one of my favorite movie
characters, Todd Wilkensen/Vinnie Antonelli would say, “I like’em, I dunno,
kinda dirty or somethin’.”
I fell in love with Richard
Gere in Pretty Woman and Somersby (now THERE was a depressing movie!) and he
gets to be my intellectual love. I
don’t believe the hamster stories at all and I think he’s still really hot. I haven’t seen his new movie and was frankly surprised he
had a new movie (I really thought he was finished with Hollywood and living with
the Dali Lama or something), but he gets ranking.
I just watched “Biloxi Blues” and I would almost give Matthew
Broderick a nod here, but while he’s a really cool guy and a fine actor, I
can’t get any heat stroke over him and this column is about hot. Same for Christopher Walken.
Great actor, great dancer, weird guy, just my type, but not hot.
Tom Berringer got me going
first in the movie “Eddie and the Cruisers” and I floated around in a cloud
for The Word Man (“Words and Music, Baby, Words and Music”) for a few years.
Everyone else was torn up about Michael Pare, but I was all over Tom.
“Shattered” firmed it up for me.
Tom Berringer is hot.
Al Pacino is way beyond hot. He’s white hot, nuclear hot…plowing into the sun hot.
“Serpico” was where it started for me.
The image of him banging one of those old black telephone receivers
repeatedly onto the cradle screaming, “Don’t waste my MOTHER F—KING
TIME” is burned into my head. He
only improved with age and “Devil’s Advocate” showcases how you can be old
and hot at the same time. “Looking
For Richard” showed me that not just the characters that he plays, but the
actor himself is cool. Rrrroooowwlll.
Clint Eastwood is the
opposite. Clint was totally hot when he was talking to the trees in
“Paint Your Wagon.” If I were
Elizabeth, there would be no contest between Ben and Pardner.
Ben would be boozing back at the bar in no time.
The Sergio Leone movies marked it in stone, climaxing (well, almost) when
he threw the chick into the hay and did his business right then and there.
“Dirty Harry” and “Every Which Way But Loose” kept it going and
“Pale Rider” showed that a Ghost of the Cloth could look so good.
After that, he continued to be a cool actor and I was still attracted to
him in a grandpa fetish kind of way (I may have married a younger man, but I
spent years and years with an older man thing).
Just saw “Space Cowboys” and he was still really great, but hot only
in a comfy kind of settling down way. Not
a hot, hot way.
Johnny Depp has always moved
me in a profound way, starting with “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” (which
also encouraged this fat woman to move into a single story house) and pressing
right up on through “Chocolat.” He’s
just never NOT good and NOT hot. “Dead
Man” and “Ed Wood” and “Cry Baby” (OH MY LORD, “Cry Baby!”) and
“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” all showed him in his many faces and they
were ALL hot. Like I said, I
like’em kinda dirty or something.
George Clooney.
My God. I mean that as
exclamation and the statement that he is my God.
“O Brother Where Art Thou” was the pinnacle and “Oceans Eleven”
sealed it fer sure.
Christopher Reeve got me
with “Somewhere in Time” and made me cry for a few years.
“Superman” nailed it even further and “Death Trap” and “Rear
Window” just kept it going. Paralysis,
Schmaralysis…he’s hot.
Charlie Sheen.
Let’s talk dirty (and I think he probably would).
From the second he first cracked his knuckles for Jeanie Bueller all the
way through “Spin City,” he’s been consistently hot. “Young Guns” proved he could be hot on a horse.
Michael Douglas got me with
(get ready) “The Streets of San Franscico.”
Screw “Miami Vice”… Douglas had the handle on hot long before Don
Johnson took off his socks (amateur). When
he showed up again in “Romancing the Stone” it was all over.
Hot was continued. “Fatal
Attraction…” are you kidding me? Who
noticed Sharon Stone was flashing her stuff when Mike was in the room?
He just does “tortured soul” so well.
His finest hour, in my humble opinion, we in the white tux doing back up
for Billy Ocean in “When the Going Gets Tough.”
Kurrrrrrrrrrt Russsselll!!
I fell for him in “The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.”
I’d love to hear him whisper “My name is Ssssssssnakeee” in person.
Mel Gibson.
I didn’t feel much in the Mad Max movies, but he definitely got my
attention in “Lethal Weapon” and “Forever Young.”
Dennis Miller might seem out
of place, but considering that he was in “Bordello of Blood” and considering
that I like to talk about him, he fits right in.
Dennis Miller is so tremendously hot.
Hot hot hot.
Of course there are more.
There are always more. These
are just the ones I dreamed about last night.
May 12, 2002
10pm
So here I am, almost three weeks (I think, if I'm counting right--it seems like forever) since my site went down. I can see it under the right url, but Joe can't in Canada. I sure hope this rectifies soon. Regardless, I can at least update now, so you'll be seeing more of me if you ever see me at all! I have a lot of idea of things to talk about, so you'll be hearing from me off and on. Take care!
May 7, 2002
What a month.
No exclamation point. No
fanfare. No bells and whistles.
What a month. It’s been such a challenge to stay centered and not fly off
on one tangent or another. We’re
starting our third week of another layoff for Eric.
When we found out about it, we were extremely exhilarated.
We’d been sending a lot of energy to being guided to our best past
where we can best be on purpose and celebrate life instead of participating in
the ongoing struggle. When he got the word he’d been laid off, it felt like
a big push in a different direction. The
same day, he got a call from our local phone company offering him an opportunity
to interview for a cherry job. It’s
local, so no more weeks away and visiting on weekend.
It’s a direct hire rather than contract work, so with it being a union
shop, there’s not so much of a chance he’ll be out of work so often.
He is so well trained and has obscure certifications that most
technicians don’t have, but telecom just isn’t a thriving field since the
dotcom companies died and pulled their accounts.
Phone company people said he aced the interview and they had to offer the
job within the company for 5 business days first, but they knew no on was
qualified and it was just a formality. That
was four weeks ago tomorrow and not a word.
His contracting company had assured of more work coming, but nothing.
He’s able to get unemployment benefits, thank God, and
My God, I’m watching the
Laverne and Shirley reunion and I was just reminded of how in love with Carmine
Ragussi I was. Ahhhhh.
He loves me so much…still.
Anyway, we have unemployment
benefits and his disability from the Air Force and so far, that has patched up
the holes where we needed them. I
refuse to think about next week or the week after.
Now it’s all about looking up and seeing the roof over our heads and
looking in the fridge and seeing food there today.
So far, so good.
We’ve stayed afloat
emotional for the most part. It’s
been great to be together and we’ve been able to work out a lot of family
issues that had been tabled until a more convenient time.
It’s been a nice run this time and sometimes, he’d get down and I’d
bring him up and vice versa. Today,
I seemed like a lot of the tension and frustration just pooled together for us.
It wasn’t a particularly bad day…just edgy with both of us feeling it
and trying not to step on the other one with it.
Maybe I’ll take him his Saudi Arabian kaffiyeh
to wear while he’s drinking rum and coke and smoking on the front porch.
That always cheers him up. I
think he’s actually hidden it in fear I’d do something unseemly to it.
Paranoid.
It hasn’t helped that my site has been
down for 5 days and who knows when you’ll actually get to read this.
I made the unforgivable error of attempting to move the site to a less
expensive server that Joe (my son) has been using and loves.
I signed up, switched over and never saw my site again.
After working on it for about 2 days, I gave up on the new server and
decided to go back to my old one, who I’d just paid for the month, so I knew I
was still “in” and found out they had dropped my account by accident in the
interim. Got that set back up again and now the third party in this
mess, my registering company, won’t switch my domain name off of (I know you
guys can say the name, you saw it enough times trying to see if the site was
back) “Secured-net.net,” the cheap, floozy company I was cheating on my old
company with. So my site is safe
and sound on my old company, who managed to find it again, but the www.eyeonsoaps.com
part is floating around with a server that doesn’t have my site on it and
can’t seem to get my site on it. Evidently,
it takes up to 72 hours for this all to sort out and since I just found out what
was wrong today and set it right, there might be a bit yet to go.
In the meantime, I’ve been working on a new format for the site with
Joe, who designed the original Eye on Soaps.
It’s been nearly 3 years, so I guess it’s time for a change.
I can’t believe all the changes we went
through during that time. At first
it was a nicely neutral beige and black, but it was hard to print, so after
wrangling with duplicate everything in print-friendly black on white, we went to
the classic grey and white you’ve come to know and love.
Now it’s time for a change and we all know that change is bad, so write
to nice fuss if you want or give cuddles if you like it.
I hope to have it up this week, at least the surface job.
I also want to get the actor and character bios shaped up soon.
Saw a great bumper sticker today.
Usually they irritate me a bit, especially when people need to blast
their personal beliefs all over the back of their car to entertain me at stop
lights. Then there are the uber-intellects
with threats to flick boogers on my car or, when they don’t even know me
declining to slap me because shit splatters.
Nice. I seldom see one that
catches my eye in any way. The last
one that did was “Big truck, little dick.”
This one actually made me laugh out loud, “Fat people are harder to
kidnap.” Heh heh heh.
I closing, I hope tomorrow finds a better
day than today. Today wasn’t
tragic like it could have been. There’s
always a heedful of terrible things that could land in a day and make it worse,
but it was tense and the fears that take you away from faith in the process are
nipping at us a bit and neither of us really wants to talk about it. I’m disappointed that my one attempt to save money on the
site turned into disaster. About 10
people are religiously clicking on the globe, but the company only pays out when
you have clicked enough to hit $50 and after the nearly 2 months it’s been up,
we’re only at about $27. I’m
afraid I’m going to have to grab a couple of popups for the site and I don’t
want to, but have to do something or I’m going to be going back to work just
to have enough to run the site. That
means even less writing time than I have now. Yeah, I’m whining and trying not
to. It’s just a pain to even have
to think about it and I miss the days when I could afford to just do it out of
the goodness of my heart and foot whatever bill comes up myself. I’ve been so fortunate that some faithful readers have been
sending regular donations and that alone has kept the site going thusfar through
the tough times. I am so grateful
to those folks!! For them
especially, I want to do all I can to make the site nicer to visit.
I’m just glad that all of you are here and I can feel you even if you
can’t read me yet. I’m praying
that I’m back on line again soon and can have that contact made in cyberland
as well as telepathically.
May 1, 2002
1:00pm
Yikes! A month! I'm really sorry for taking so long. A full report will follow, but suffice it to say, with Eric laid off, it's been really nutty here and I haven't had much computer time, not to mention that my computer has been having fits that can't seem to be resolved and will have to be lived with rather than fixed. Oh well. I guess if I can be eccentric, so can my computer. For now, I have a hypothetical little question for you and certainly, it's only hypothetical and has absolutely no basis in fact or life whatsoever.
So, if your, let's say, "husband" or any other hypothetical person in your life that you trust and adore, who you know has an insatiable curiosity about things and cultures and such were to, I dunno, decide to start aggressively learn to read and write the Arabic language and orders a Holy Koran (written in Arabic, mind you)
Back really soon! I'm just super, super busy!
Love,
April 3, 2002
11:30
My kids are insane.
I don’t know if it’s because of a generation of children becoming
immune to an onslaught of negative images on TV and in movies (although Tom and
Jerry were pretty doggoned violent, as were The Three Stooges) or if the real
world is so scary now that stuff unseen doesn’t compare or WHAT, but my kids
have NO respect for the necessary childhood (and adult) fear factor.
Delena, for instance.
When I kick my way through the knee high trash in her room to kiss her
goodnight, she’ll be sprawled out on her bed, no covers, curtains open with
that gaping maw of a black window just open into the night, closet door slid
wide open and HER HAND AND AT LEAST ONE OF FEET HANGING *OFF* THE BED, WELL
BELOW THE BOX SPRINGS CUT OFF!!! I
mean, there could be ANYthing under that bed, just waiting, and there are her
unsuspecting little appendages just hanging there like worms on hooks.
Dylan sleeps all the way over to the
wall that is next to his bed in the crack!!
Who know what could reach up there with its spindly fingers and take a
jab?
I really, really need to raise them
better. I’ve failed. Me? I’m on my
side, body securely covered by blankets (having checked under the bed for
monsters, etc), all blinds are closed and the closet doors are securely against
their little wall friends. I HATE
(that’s right, strong word/strong emotion) sliding closet doors…I want a
knob and a click when something turns that knob and comes out of it to eat me.
My dog likes to hang out under my
window at night. My windows are
horrible in my room. They are maybe
18” wide by 6’ tall. Little
slender things that only custom blinds will fit.
You can’t see shit out of them but anything out there could see in just
fine. Then
I’ve got these odd basement windows on the other wall (I neither live in nor
possess a basement), short and wide things
that are way up high. My room is a
corner room and the fence terminates at that corner of the house, so the dog
goes to the fence, calls all of her degenerate dog friends to the fence and
says, “Watch me freak her out” and then she’ll start this low growl,
followed by a vicious barking session. Then
all the dogs roll onto their backs and kick their feet up and down in the air,
holding their sides and rolling with laughter.
I know they do. I’ve seen
the mushed down grass on the other side of the fence where they roll around.
I hate those dogs. MY dog is
the instigator, though. I am not
sure what I did to her to deserve this. Maybe
she’d be laughing her dog ass off at the pound. Ha ha HA!!
I was thinking of something in our last Full Moon circle and I brought it up. Isn’t, technically, any time after my period ends, Premenstrual for the next period? Don’t you hate it when you’re having a perfectly valid argument and some man says, “Are you getting ready to start your period?” And you are. God, I hate that. Like my menstrual cycle somehow makes them NOT wrong. Dr Phil says about marital conflicts, “Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?” What? Like those conditions are mutually exclusive? Without one, the other dies like a fish out of water. Silly Phil. Silly Phuckin Phil. He’s a man. Smarter than most. But still a man. Not to slam’em cause Goddess knows we needs’em, but damn. Dammmmmmn.
April 3, 2002
10:00am
Yes, it's true. The last post had a LOT of pages trimmed from it lest it incriminate those who would subdue me. OK, so I'm a softie who does air *all* of the Rasbold laundry basket (basket?? literally and figuratively, my laundry is more like a landfill) so I deleted and then just didn't have enough motivation to rewrite it to not sound so choppy. Sorry, guys.
To make amends, I have written a prose for you:
I opened my mouth
To sing my joy
But instead
I screamed
Loudly
And I can't seem to stop
Which makes typing a real bitch.
If I worked harder, I'm sure I could fashion a haiku out of that, but hey, it's my week off. Besides, Nurse Ratched prefers prose (lower to whisper) and we don't want to upset her.
In other worlds, here's some great bathroom prose for you:
It's hard to make a comeback
when you haven't been anywhere.
- Written in the dust on the back of a bus, Wickenburg, Arizona.
-----
To do is to be. -Descartes
To be is to do. -Voltaire
Do be do be do. -Frank Sinatra
- Men's restroom, Greasewood Flats, Scottsdale, Arizona.
-----
At the feast of ego, everyone leaves hungry.
- Bentley's House of Coffee and Tea, Tucson, Arizona.
-----
Make love, not war - Hell, do both, get married!
- Women's restroom, The Filling Station, Bozeman, Montana.
-----
God is dead.
-Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead.
-God
- The Tombs Restaurant, Washington, D.C.
-----
No matter how good she looks, some other guy is sick and tired of
putting up with her shit.
- Men's Room, Linda's Bar and Grill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
-----
If voting could really change things, it would be illegal.
- Revolution Books, New York, New York.
-----
If pro is opposite of con, then what is the opposite of progress?
- Men's restroom, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.
-----
Express Lane: Five beers or less
- Sign over one of the urinals, Ed Debevic's, Pheonix, AZ.
-----
You're too good for him.
- Sign over mirror in Women's restroom, Ed Debevic's, BeverlyHills,
CA.
No wonder you always go home alone.
- Sign over mirror in Men's restroom, Ed Debevic's, Beverly Hills,
CA.
-----
What are you looking up on the wall for? The joke is in your hands.
- Men's restroom, Lynagh's, Lexington, Kentucky.
That was compliments of Georgia.
More later,
April 2, 2002
12.42pm
*sigh*
Although I've had some funny little things happen to me this week that I want to
share, mainly, this entry will probably be a great deal of bitching since I'm in
a pretty dark place right now and I'm trying to find handholds and footholds out
of it. One of the best ways for me to figure stuff out is to write it out or
talk it out and since talking it out isn't really an option due to limited
venue, writing it out is about all that's left, so just bear with me or skip
over the bitching parts. I said before I was tired of whining, so I have
reverted to bitching.
The kid news has been up and down this week. Nathan started peeing in the
toilet, which is a really big deal. The pooping still isn't working, but he
stays dry at night without a diaper and goes on his own most of the time through
the day. An effortless potty-training was a miracle I did not expect. I figured
my last child would punish me...which he does, just not in that department. I
can sum up his week by telling you one event that pretty much typifies
everything else. Don't get me wrong. He's a very, very sweet little boy and I
adore him, but my goodness! He is definite creative in his "busy"
nature. I wanted to clean my room. Nothing big, just make the bed, vacuum, wipe
down the bathroom. Delena and the two boys were on the boys' bed (I am praying
hard for a set of bunk beds to come my way because they are getting too big to
sleep end to end in the twin as they do) watching TV, so I told Delena that I
had the child gate up to the rest of the house and needed her to let me know if
Nathan broke through it so I could keep him out of trouble if need be. About 10
minutes later, I came through to get some Pledge to kiss the dresser with,
passed Delena still on the bed sucking her thumb and watching Nick Jr and found
Nathan through the gate, standing on a chair in the dining room over the turtle
tank (semi-aquatic) with an empty bottle of chili powder in one hand and an
empty bottle of rubbing alcohol in the other. Needless to say, I did not have
happy turtles.
My turtles are rescue beasts. I bought one at a yard sale for $5 because they
had him in a tiny tank (we're talking about 6" x 10" - one of those
plastic jobs) with no water. He was pretty big already, maybe about 5"
across the shell. At the next yard sale, I found a gigantic aquarium for $20, so
I bought it for him and set him up. I named him God because of some story by
Descartes or Dante or Terry Pratchett or someone who speculated that the God was
a turtle. I toyed with "Clothahump" after the turtle wizard in the
only fantasy series I have ever enjoyed, "Spellsinger" by Alan Dean
Foster. Deciding that Clothahump was too cumbersome, God it was. A few months
later, a co-worker called me up, knowing I had God (I had a lot of fun telling
people who knew I was Pagan that I'd found God, but that's another story), told
me she had found a big turtle in her yard and that her husband was going to kill
it if she didn't find a place for it. (nice guy) So she brought turtle #2 over
in a Fed Ex box and I introduced them. Being a Star Trek NG fan, I stayed with
the whole omniscient turtle them and called him Q. Q didn't respond well to
having his access to the world limited and began storming back and forth over
the tank, trampling the docile God in his wake, so I had to put Q in turtle jail
(the small take God had been born in, evidently) until he chilled the hell out.
I did, of course, verify that Q was a semi-aquatic turtle as well, so I knew his
storming was a tantrum rather than the more ominous "drowning." He
stayed in turtle jail for about 2 days, then was opened into the wide expanse of
the big tank and the presence of God. He was much more cooperative by this time
and in a matter of months, God had made Q his bitch (they are both males, I
believe, so it's best not discussed further). They have been buddies ever since.
I would have given the turtles to a school or other notable facility some time
ago except that Joe made me promise to take care of them for when he returns to
the states, so here they stay and I do my best to take care of them. When Nathan
was 9 months old, he was pulling up on a dining room chair, it lost footing and
smashed into the big turtle tank, wrecking it. That had to go into a little 10
gallon aquarium, where they have been for about a year and a half. They had room
to move around and visit and such, but it was a bit cramped once you got the
giant rock in there that they need to climb up onto to get dry (hence the
"semi" part of semi-aquatic). My friend, Shelli, wuvs my turtles
(despite me illustrating what vile, horrible creatures they are as pets with the
stankiness of turtle poop in the water and having to change the water once a
week) and if Joe were not so into them, they'd live with Shelli in nothing flat.
So on Saturday night when we celebrated Full Moon, Shelli came in with his big
honkin aquarium for the turtles!! I think it was their reward for surviving the
chili powder and rubbing alcohol dowsing. Fortunately, I caught Nathan just
after the act, swiped the turtles out of the horribly acerbic water, showered
them extensively in the sink and scrubbed out the tank. I didn't see any
evidence of harm to them (plenty of fear, tho) and they seem to have weathered
it. They were quite active for a day or so afterwards, though. I have learned
from this that turtles are capable of expressing fear AND happiness. When I got
them into the big tank, they both thought they were Busby Berkeley swimmers.
The other weird thing that happened is that I went to the post office on
Saturday and was positioned in line behind a very angry old German man. He was
very tall, had only a few teeth, not a lot of wrinkles, so I would not have
guessed his age accurately (he told me about 4 times that he was 64) and
beautiful blonde hair. He persisted in bitching about everything from the cost
of postage going up again (I asserted that I still felt 37 cents was a bargain
for schlepping my letter across the country and he was not pleased that I
disagreed with his wrath) to the post office daring to only be opened for 4
hours on Saturday and have only 2 clerks working. He ranted in a combination of
heavily accented German and English, mostly at me for having the advantage of
being right behind him. His breath was about 90 proof (this was around noon and
no one can smell like that by taking a shot or two in the car on the way into
the post office, so I'm guessing we not only had a
drinking/driving/anger-management issue, but also a morning drinking (or
continued drinking) binge going on. Maybe he walked. He then started to cry a
lot about leaving Germany when he was 9 in 1943 (and since his math isn't adding
up, something there is suspect and 1943 would indicate FLEEING Germany rather
than just leaving it, I'm betting) with his mother and father who, I have been
told, are now 90 and 88 and live in a home (more tears) and he remembered
crossing the bridge into Zurich (Germany was referred to as Deutschland and I
was grateful to have somehow acquired a knowledge of what that was) and he was
sad that he would never see his beloved Deutschland again. Then it was time for
him to mail his stuff and he was on his way.
Another really disheartening thing happened this morning and I'm going to do
something I've almost never done and take advantage of someone not having a
computer or computer access to rant about them. A friend of mine that I have
known for many, many years and only recently (well, a year or so ago)
reconnected with after losing touch for a while and I were talking by phone this
morning and she mentioned that she was starting to explore her bi-sexuality. I
was intrigued because it was about the fourth conversation in a week's time that
concerned bi-sexuality or lesbianism and I told her so. As the conversation went
on, she asked me if I felt I was bi-sexual and I told her no, that while I could
recognize a woman as nice looking and had opinions about what a beautiful woman
looked like, I had never been particularly attracted to a woman and figured I
was 100% heterosexual. She went off on this tangent about how I, like all people
who considered themselves to be heterosexual, was just in denial and working to
suppress my natural bi-sexuality. I pulled back for a second because I am very
aware that I'm in a really hormonal state right now and I'm overreacting to a
LOT of stuff, so I didn't want to take wrong what she was saying. I calmly told
her that I had thought about this quite a bit and had no inclination to suppress
any particular sexual urgings, but mine all ran directly toward the male of the
species. She kind of "harumphed" and said that it was "classic
denial." I assured her it was classic heterosexuality and that I found it
insulting that she would presume to know more about my sexuality than I do. I
also suggested to Ms Politically Correct that it would be the height of
insensitivity to insist to a totally gay man that he was secretly suppressing
his desire to be with women, but for her to tell me that I am only
heterosexually expressing myself because I'm afraid to be bi-sexual (her actual
words) was OK. I did my best to be kind and to understand that she's probably
feeling a little defensive of her new frontier, but I really found myself
getting a little pissed off about this. When she heard this in my voice, she
immediately suggested that I was getting upset because she was hitting a little
too close to the truth for my comfort. (??!!)
For whatever reason, I am serious inviting conflict and freaky interpersonal
challenges lately. Like the good student of life, I'm trying to figure out the
lesson behind it all, but I'm stymied, I'll confess.
I have got to figure out whether to fight or flight on the issue of expectations
of others. I have long ago leaped the stumbling stone of needing people to
fulfill unspoken expectation. What an exercise in futility and frustration THAT
is. I try to be very direct with people now about what I expect from them and
overall, not to expect much from them unless I have directly asked something of
them and they have agreed to do it or if they offer it. For some reason,
I've felt absolutely bombarded by instances of people telling me they will do
something and not following through. [Disclaimer: The last time I posted about
not following through, a lot of my friends and readers got super paranoid that I
was remembering something they mentioned in an obscure e-mail and hastily wrote
to apologize for whatever they forgot to do. I'll guarantee that if you are
reading this, you probably aren't who I'm talking about since most of the
offenders don't really give enough of a shit to read anything I write. It ain't
you.]
Example: Yesterday, I had made plans to go out to lunch with my buddy, Georgia.
We do so about once every two weeks and always have a good time. Since I'm
stranded here at the house with kids the whole week (Eric takes our car when he
leaves for work for the week and doesn't get home until Friday), I particular
enjoy getting out and breathing nonkid air with a good friend, good food and
good conversation. We're usually only gone for about an hour or two, but it
really cleans my brain out and puts me in a good place. I was looking forward to
this for about a week and made arrangements with Josh to baby sit. I even paid
him up front for it so he could buy some things he wanted and reminded him of it
on Sunday. Since he always, always goes to bed at the crack of dawn, I didn't
bother waking him to watch the kids until about 15 minutes before Georgia was
due to arrive. When I went to get him...no Josh. In fact, no Josh anywhere in
the house. He hadn't told anyone he was leaving, which he usually does, so I was
a little alarmed. I called his girlfriend, who lives about 20 minutes from here
and left a message. Sure enough, he called back about 10 minutes later and said
he'd gone to her house the night before so he could visit her. (?!) When I asked
him about the babysitting, he said he "forgot." He wasn't particularly
apologetic, even when he apologized, but was actually kind of pissy that I could
blame him for something totally not his fault like "forgetting." *slow
burn*
Eric smokes. That is a fact. It was a fact when we met, although more of a pack
a day fact than a 2-3 a day fact like it is now. Personally, I'd prefer he
didn't smoke, primarily because I am a prior smoker (is there anything more
pious?), I don't like the smell and I don't like the example it sets for the
kids. I also don't like the physical effects it has on him. All that aside, I'm
at peace with him smoking because he did so when I met him and I didn't really
set out to change him. I'm definitely over it. What I'm NOT over is a few of the
side effects. One is that he is desperately angst-ridden about smoking. He very,
very much doesn't want to do it, beats himself up about it and repeated fails at
quitting. I've never seen a human self-flagellate over something to such a
degree. I really, really feel badly about him beating himself up so badly about
it. What hits me wrong is that the only thing I've ever asked him in regard to
the smoking was 1) Don't do it around the kids or let the kids know and 2) Don't
leave butts around. I KEEP finding cigarette butts in my herb garden right by
where he smokes. His brand? Yep. I do have it on authority that it's NOT him, so
it must be those pesky CIGARETTE GREMLINS WHO LEAVE BUTTS ALL AROUND.
Ha! I've already run out of steam. There are so many more injustices to bitch
about, but I'm just...tired. I need... Wow. I can think of about 50 or so
endings to that sentence beginning. I'll shake this off and figure it out. Right
now, I'm just tired.
Mood: 
aggravated
Music: Kris Kristoferson - Sunday Morning Coming Down
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