The Sticky Wicket

Long time gone

2008-09-16T16:43:00.005-04:00

So after an absence of more than two years I return. I am once again drawn by the need of writing. I have been writing in my bedside book. But now need to put more thoughts out.

Catchup: In the last two years I moved back from the Caribbean at the request of my then fiance'/boyfriend. Who promptly freaked the eff out and we split. I finished the guest bedroom in my mother's house and redid century old hardwood floors that had been hidden for more than 50 years. Oh, and I lost 25 pounds. Looked great! Moved to Vermont. Discovered happiness grows in VT - Who knew!?!? Vermont men loved me and I loved them. A fireman, an artist, a IT/dj, a beefcake. Done, done and done. Cabot cheese and Magic Hat were also new loves. Finished my thesis and graduated from my two graduate programs. Then He Who Cannot Be Named returned and begged for me back. For no reason other than I am a bad judge of character and an eternal optimist, I broke it off with my ever loving VT cadre of lovelies and took him back. Insert a move to DC where I would work for Congress. Insert a new proposal, a new ring, a "new" man and - no surprise- the same mess and the same issues. Right before I ran my first marathon (no running to running a marathon in 25 weeks!) I realized that it was all over all over again and I asked him not to come up for his next visit. In fact it was almost exactly after our 6th anniversary. The present I got myself? Freedom.

That was last October. I have since regained my normal weight (and even a bit more curves), found amazing friends, have dated all over the district (yes, he had a girl in the wings who is now the "love" of his life), got a new job with a great non profit, moved out of an uncomfortable living situation into my own digs, got braces, lopped all my hair off, invested in boots and heels, went on my first vacation (i.e. no conference, no visiting family, no school break, just fun), got a queen sized bed, splurged on an armoire, joined the low carbon diet (Zipcar), bought a bike, etc.

When folks ask me why I look so happy, how I look so good - I respond with a line blatantly plagiarized from my bartender's stories, "I lost 175 pounds of jerk!"

So that is what you see behind me. The starting blocks on the edge of the pool of life.

"Forget him"?

2006-07-26T11:14:00.000-04:00

Again, I am thrust into the land of trite. Cliche broken heart - where love is turned into a weapon and used against you. Where heartbreak is rehab, and all are made out to be addicts of self inflicted torture - love.

I stare at the phone hoping it will ring (not knowing if I could answer it if it was him.) Eyes drawn to the window at every car noise. I endlesssly comb the email in-box for any hope, to the real mailbox too. I read, and re-read every note, searching for clues, for a grain of hope that I can balance my life on. I hold the phone in my hand every night for hours, number dialed and cry. Cry for him, cry for me. Cry for the loss that he doesn't even seem to have the good sense to realize has/is happening. Cry because he doesn't care. Or doesn't care enough. Hours endless march across the darkend room I have created while I search my head. When I can sleep, I sleep every night with a shirt that no longer even carries the remembrance of his smell. And wake up to cry again.

Intellecutally, I know that I should not be hung up on a man that has knocked me up, left me (2 times), broken my heart, thrown me into walls, cheated on me, embarrased and humiliated me, insulted me at every turn, torn me apart at every seam just to watch me deconstruct.

And yet, I love him. Unconditionally, like I promised. I do love him with my whole heart. I ache for him to love me again too. I dream every moment of a call, a surprise visit where he swoops me into his arms, covers me in kisses and begs for my forgiveness, telling me he loves me true. Where he spends the time to get me to like him again. To court and woo me, to heal every scar in my heart and on my soul that he has made.

I love him. I wish he hadn't used that against me for so long.

I love him still.

What I have been avoiding

2006-07-21T10:03:00.000-04:00

So I have spent this last month of absence in hiding. Hiding from commentary that I might/probably won't want to hear. A year to the date (remember that date would be my 1/2 birthday) DCS turned me out again. A scant month after returning home (which he asked me to do.) So I packed my meager belongings and have been camped out at my mother's house, two hours south of our/his place in Jax. During this time, he attended two weddings (to which I was uninvited) and spent two weeks in Europe (on a trip that WE had always talked about taking.)

Nice, huh?

I have spent the last month pulling up 30 year old carpet, painting, patching plaster, hanging beadboard, sanding, writing, refinishing hardwood floors, working on my thesis and drugging myself into jelly with mindless movie watching. I have also interviewed for a plum placement (10 other people interviewing, don't hold your breath...) the end result? A month later? Still a mountain of confusion, hurt, disillusionment, heartbreak, and one beautiful guestroom at my mother's house. Into which I have moved. Nothing like digging your own grave and then taking up residence.

DCS has kept just enough hook into this poor fish that I am to keep me on the line. Flesh gouged out, mortally wounded beyond repair (?), but on the line nevertheless. I know that "I" am the one letting him do this to me. But my choices are painfully simple. No more anything with him, or let him hurt me for the slim possibility of something. Intellectually, we should all choose and would choose the walking away. How long must one be mentally abused, hurt, manipulated and squashed to move on? Don't you think I pep-talk myself so every night, every moment after I think of him, after I cry for him, after I contemplate the unimaginable? Until a person is here in this situation, it is so easy to say "walk away", but I know now why women stay in relationships of pain and hurt and degrading actions against her. For that one last seed of light buried beneath everything he has done. That seed of hope that he might recognize all the goodness in her and everything she has done for him and come to value that and her to the worth that she is.

I hate being in this same place a year later. I hate knowing that I should walk away, but somehow can't. I hate not knowing how to make myself happy anymore without him in my life. I the the fact that I have turned into the type of woman I despise. I hate not laughing, not having any reason to laugh, that all my smiles are a facade and that joy knows not my life my existence. I hate feeling like a a commercial for depression, knowing that it isn't in my head, it isn't me, but this heinous situation that I can't wrench free of. Can't wrench free and can't find peace in.

I wish that there was a step-by-step guide on what to do. What actions to take to find ones self again. How to get beyond the lonely nights spent watching the ceiling and being to overwhelmed to even cry, or crying for hours. If a girl were to write that book, it would surely become a top seller! It would have to be more in depth that the empty platitudes we all sell each other "Stay busy" "It is for the best" "keep your mind off him" "Find out what makes you happy" "Find yourself again" "Discover joy in the little things" Truly - those are all nebulous garbage spat out from mouths that have no need to use them, so can't realize that they are not really directive advice.

HOW does one keep your mind of it? HOW does one find joy again? HOW does one refrain from hoping for reconciliation? HOW does one find ones self again? HOW do you find joy in a life that is so base in misery for you that you have no desire to be even an idle spectator in that life, much less the participant?

This is not a cry out for medication or counseling, but true baffled lack of understanding on what a person would really need to do to not be in the place that I am now. This place that many have stood before me and will after. This isn't good place, and many people I know have been here. Some stay longer than others, some never leave, some lucky bastards never visit at all. It is like Disneyland of hell.

It is a real shame that a girl like me can wrangle everything in all parts of her life to be most impressive and worthy and valuable, except for the most personal parts of all. I hate to hear well meaning people compliment or praise me for my abilities or education or upcoming placement in Congress, because it only makes me feel even worse that anyone else can see value in me. Anyone but DCS. If I am so great that everyone keeps saying, why can't I keep a decent fellow? Why can't I love a man that is, in fact, a man? Why is every aspect of my love life burning like Atlanta and DCS is Sherman on his march through me to the sea?

On that same note, everyone says the same about DCS, and sometimes I feel like shaking them and saying "He knocked me up and then broke up with me. He is an insulter of women and manipulator. He breaks hearts without a second thought. He sleeps around. That is the real man that you think so highly of!" But how can I go on loving a man that I know all these things about?

I haven't been writing because I hate to see this in writing. It is more pitiful in black in white than just whirling in my head.

I return to my thesis.

Month in - Report

2006-06-21T15:11:00.000-04:00

So I have been "home" for about a month now. The ease of relationship hasn't appeared. In fact, I don't understand - she loves him, he loves her; but it just isn't working somehow. I hate that I can't even detail what is wrong to address solutions, and neither can he, it seems. I hate that our relationship has become the proverbial elephant in the room. I don't know what to do. I am so tired of being unhappy. Tired of everything else in my life being fine, and the part I want most to be great - being the worst.

If I stay, I am unhappy. If I leave, I am unhappy. There is no winning.

If you say that I will get over it sooner if I leave sooner, and this happens to everyone, I will reach through the screen and rip your carotid artery from your neck with my bare teeth.

The whole play house until it is real again isn't working and I want it to work, he wants it to work, it just isn't. And I don't know what to do.

I am so scared. Scared of losing him. Scared of losing myself.

Counting Good Things

2006-06-12T14:33:00.000-04:00

1. Did I mention that I got the more prestigious part of an already prestigious fellowship? I just found that little snippet out last week. Only ten peeps out of the whole world get picked for it each year. I am one of those peeps this year. hoorah

2. So I now have a second hand kayak that will be really fun as soon as I acquire a paddle!

3. I have outlined what remains to be done on the old thesis and have ticked of many of the targets. Pheew!

4. El Gato has been retrieved. Kc and DCS and El Gato make three. It's nice to have him around - okay under the bed anyway...

I just wish I felt more joy and happiness in these things. I am not depressed, life just feels so tenuous and uncertain. Seems to negate the joy of these really effing cool things I have just done or am doing or achieved. I wish there was a guaranteed non fiction book: "How to find Peace and Happiness that You Misplaced One Day"

Join me in Saving Science Friday and Snuffleupagus:
http://civic.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/

Yak. Attack.

2006-06-06T16:23:00.000-04:00

So I fear that I am falling into that trap of never finishing once a person returns home from grad school pre-final finish. I hate that idea too. Motivation is at all new lows. I can't seem to get my garbage together to finish. I just stare and stare and stare at it. This is all a bad thing.

On a side note, I was contacted by the fellowship people if I would be interested in a certain part of the fellowship that is even more prestigious than the what I got already. I am stoked there. I didn't tell them about my lack of motivation.

Put in an appy to a dream (ish) job here in town working at a GREAT conservation place. Having concerns about taking it KNOWING that I will be ducking out in 8 months to rule the world from DC. The concern is that it is a place I would like to work at when I return. I would hate to burn that bridge by leaving. Care to throw in your ideas on this one?

Finally unpacked at the house.

Things are mellowing out with the boy.

Coming to terms with moving away from my great house and my great JEEP and my life to his (our) house, his (our) car, etc.

Bringing a kayak to live with me. Picking it up this weekend. Looking forward to that. It will finish all my funds (read: traded my JEEP for a kayak, that is how little I got for my JEEP,) and I am looking forward to it. After research I decided which one I wanted and found out when I told DCS, that was the one he ordered and was at his folks' house. Mine is, of course, not ordered new. Pre-loved. Red. Little Red Riding Yak.

Drafting small goals for the final revisions. Maybe ticking things off a list will help. Maybe freezing my wireless card will help.

My life needs some structure.

On a side note, I am completely stoked for my girlfriend Chel who just received notice that her designer Asian baby is ready to leave the Cabbage patch! Mr.Chel retrieves her in a month! My other girlfriend Shells is almost done with her house, okay...Mr.Shells is almost done with their house! A typing ovation for the girlfriends that sound like exoskeletons!

Lurching along,
Kc

Celebrate! Celebrate! Dance to the Music!

2006-05-24T10:37:00.000-04:00

Contrary to the whole vagina thing - I am now a fellow.

Okay, not a fellow yet - a finalist, which is what they call the fellows until their first day on.

Everyone was assured I would get it - except me. I was hopeful. They were right.

Please join me in the happy dance.

POV

2006-05-19T10:04:00.000-04:00

So parts of me know everything you have said have said about DCS, gentle reader, are true. And part of me knows that they are this phase he is trying on. I do know that if I was to hear of a friend being treated (an letting herself be treated) like that I would balk and encourage here to leave too.

I love him, beyond reason. I do not know why I cannot go. I sincerely want everything to work out with him and I guess I am trying to put my money where my mouth is. If I want unconditional love, I have to be able to give love unconditionally. If I want a supportive partner, I have to be a supportive partner. If I want him to be a certain way, I have to also be willing to do/be that. That is my philosophy on life (Yes, this never really pans out for me in my personal life, but on paper it is a great philosophy.)

But, enough of that right now. I am really and honestly trying to focus on the positive. Like this weekend maybe unpacking some boxes. Baking a cake. Testing some recipes (I am a test kitchen for a cookbook-to-be.) Retrieving my cat from my mother's house and bringing him home. Getting rid of some stuff on Ebay. Maybe a ball game with the boy.

All good things.

~~~~~~~~~
Thesis Update: Revisions - stalled
Jeep - sold for almost a quarter of what I had wanted. Guess soemthing is better than nothing. And it is off the head of my very true friend that is dealing with it. As soon as I find a notary anyway...

Back on the Wagon

2006-05-16T11:31:00.000-04:00

So, with the crush time of both thesis defense, conference prep, conference, moving, settling, etc. - I have been lost to internetland. Have no fear, recent introduction and fast friend forming with the BEE-YOO-TE-FUL new library has allowed me to reconnect with the web. Got an appy for my favorite addiction - Pottery Barn. Maybe some mindless employ might help. A bit of moola, a discount, and maybe I can make my life seem like the pages of perfection that their catalog implies (yes - I do know that that statement is a head doctor's playground.)

To catch you up:
DEFENSE (said in a sing song basket ball game type voice): done! Passed well too
Conference: presentation went well, conference went well, saw old friends and colleagues, made new ones
Fellowship: find out within the week
Move off Armpit Island: Successful, if you don't count that I couldn't sell my Jeep and the single possible offer is less than 1/3 what I had wanted to get (that is stressing me a bit)

Yes, I am in DCS land. Things have been INCREDIBLY rocky. I am not dumb enough to blame it entirely on the us matter, because I know that moving an loss of home, truck, change in independence and lifestyle, loss of income etc. are all big factors. But of course there are still "us" factors too. Last week (first week home) was bad. Weekend was intolerable. This week has started out better. Please offer up a thought for me, us, sanity, but most importantly peace.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thesis Update:
I have revisions to make. I have some easy ones, and some very difficult ones. The difficult ones are the ones in the writing. All the info is there, just needs to be said different, better. That is the hard part. If I had gotten all the changes made last week and submitted them by this Thursday, I could graduate this year. I won't, so I will finish them over the summer semester, so I won't graduate until NEXT June. They only have one graduation a year. What bunk is that?

Need ideas-help

2006-04-18T10:11:00.000-04:00

Okay my lovely reader-freinds, I need a boon. I am looking for a short, nice quote about family to include in my thesis acknowledgment section. Something along the lines their support and strength allowing me to be all I am today. Or the like. Usually I am good at this stuff - but honestly - my brain is in overdrive an can spare no room for this triviality.

Please help me out here if you have a good idea.

I know that I am overworked, because all I can come up with the Jesus quote along the lines of "Through you, all things are made possible." Zoiks!

Okay, back to revisions.

Oh. and thanks for the hand in lis, my lovelies. I appreciate it. really, I do.

REVISE! REVISE! REVISE!

28 April - 9 full days left.

Where the hell are you...err....me?

2006-04-11T14:42:00.000-04:00

Update:

1. Went home for a wedding.
2. Wedding was for my friends Shell, not the reader here, Chel (but she has exciting life changes going on herself....)
3. Bridesmaid dress was green, but nice.
4. Wedding was beautiful.
5. Found out that DCS was banging a college freshman ("but we weren't together, we were 'working on us.'" Cliche', I know.)
6. Working through the above and the older stuff.
7. Set defense date, April 28.
8. Invited to conference in DC, immediately after defense.
9. Set return to home date: May 7, after conference.
10. Thesis is in draft five, expect to get it to committee by Monday.
11. For a week turn around, during which I will be making my Power Point presentation.
12. DCS will come down for defense and packing me up.
13. DCS will join me in DC for the end of the meeting and a bit of a holiday for us.

I think that is it. Yes, most of those bullets deserve a greater detailing, but I am so swamped trying to get this evil thesis revision done. So this is the extent that y'all get right now.

Back to the revisions.

Think swift, revisions, and committee turn around time for me.

Here we go:

2006-03-08T11:55:00.000-05:00

Let me let you into my whirlwind:

Thesis draft was returned. Not a terrible review. In fact, dissertational level work with an invitation to do so. Not worth another year or two here, though. Declined. This will merely be an overachiever's thesis.
Trip to Florida
Wedding of my best friend and another friend (did I mention that I am the evil genius behind this match?!!?) B'ette party, rehearsal and dinner, decorations and all associated to-dos!
Ben Harper concert

why is this a bit overwhelming? Had my draft meeting with prof Monday evening. Leave Thursday morning for FL. Trying to turn around a draft in...48 hours (with the current writers block that I have,) pack, travel to capital and fly. Upon landing in my much loved Florida at 6.10, I have to get the rental (no DCS is not picking me up, he is wrapping up a conference in Jax) and drive to Jax (3hrs) for a concert that starts at 8. Nothing like starting a supposedly relaxing and fun trip with anxiety and time constraints and panic and and and.

Attitude of Gratitude:

Going home
Seeing DCS
Shell's wedding
Clay's wedding (okay, it is the same wedding...)
Spending a good chunk of time with DCS
Draft not to terrible
Revisions going decently
Pdfs of journal articles I have from my prof - easier to travel with.
Armpit Island nomination for the fellowship

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thesis Update: Well mostly above. The revision specifics mostly center around losing the forest for the trees. I have lots of trees, need more forest. Need less writer's block too, right now! The minor changes have happened, the major results reformat has happened, the major discussion rewrite is currently being worked on.

Wish me forest!

Due Date, Take II

2006-03-05T13:05:00.000-05:00

No, not thesis due date. Baby due date. Yesterday.

*sad*

Due Date

2006-03-04T12:08:00.000-05:00

4 March 2006 - due date

I could be a Fellow! Just one short surgery...

2006-03-03T13:06:00.000-05:00

Please break out your victory dance and dance with me.

I got the endorsement and thus nomination of the Armpit Island SeaGrant program for the highly competitive DC fellowship.

One cut down, one to go!

Each program (32) get to nominate 5 peoples for 30 total spots. Everywhere else it is considered very competitive and prestigious. I am just lucky that no one in my program cares to do anyhting, cuts out a lot of the competition for the various seasonal jobs, scholarships and right now fellowships!

Keep your toes crossed for my next cut which will take place between 6 April and 18 May.

I will try to not asphixiate of anxiety and eagerness in the meantime.

**Disclaimer - this whole post counts as my attitude of gratitude list**

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thesis Update: Prof still has my first draft. Getting antsy. He had some flattering things to say about it, but also mentioned somethings that will need work. Still no idea on time scale for corrections. Please light a candle, sacrifice a chicken or child, pray to the deity of your choice, or generally wish with me that the draft is returned to me soon! And a lot cleaner than I have built up in my head...

Listy!

2006-02-20T17:30:00.000-05:00

Attitude of Gratitude:
1. I am grateful that my draft I is sitting pretty in my prof's box.
2. I am happy that my fellowship application draft is sitting in my prof's box.
3. I am pleased that I am in an upswing of mood today.
4. I am happy to have a clean house this evening (even if I am the opne to have to make it so...)
5. I am astonished and happy that there is another adult being out there that likes mobiles as much as I do. Mainly astonished.
6. I am grateful to have seen a amazingly large and beautiful spotted eagle ray on this morning's dive.
7. I am grateful for milk returning to my refridgerator tonight (after I hit the store...)
8. I am please to add a new celebrity husband to my harem : Peter Wingfield, Methos from the Highlander Series. Hamana.
http://www.wingfieldfans.org/peter/gallery/screencap.asp?img=headshot1&width=500&height=725
9. I am grateful that one day soon I will have the time to remember how to make links. Time because one day soon, time will be my own again. For a while, anyway!

Take me as I am

2006-02-19T12:01:00.000-05:00

I don't know what to do when that backed into a corner feeling occurs. The stay and be treated in a manner I don't like or leave and throw away all hopes and dreams with this man.

There is so much good to this man. Even if I write more often when upset, there really is so much good to him.

I am just so lost on this DCS-centric attitude. The take me or leave me, this is the new me attitude.

GGRRUUMMPPHHH!!

Refusing to spellcheck tonight

2006-02-18T20:10:00.000-05:00

So having my laptop in the office really makes a difference for writing. I don't feel comfortable writing out in the common computers, but prefer the solitude of my office.

DCS thoughts:
I really hate the feeling that I am the only one making any effort here. I hate feeling like the only way I can change the less than positive things in this relationship is for me to leave. I love him so much and envision a life together, so the idea of leaving is obviously abhorrent to me. But then again, I don't know any other option that I have to make change in this. I can stay and accept that I am a person deserving of little to no effort from him, or I can go, and throw away all my hoeps and dreams with him and love for him.

I hate feeling like we can't talk about the relationship because he views it as "pressure," and I feel like if there is anything less than roses and candlelight and positive buoyancy, then he will walk out on me. again. I hate the egg shells. I hate the uncertainty, the insecurity

The thing is, he thinks I am angling for a wedding with him. Am I? Sure! Right now? Hell, no. I wouldn't have him right now if he asked. Why? Ummm... please refer to the above and the archives. Oh yeah...and because I don't know how to trust what he says. I don't trust the "I love yous" and the "I want to have a life with yous" and the "I want you to be my wife in the future." So how can I trust a "will you marry me?" Why? Again, please refer to the archives - or just recall the earlier proposal followed by the walk out, called off wedding, broken engagement, broken heart. Should he ask anyway? Hell yes! He should ask all the time, over and over again until I do trust him, and the time I do say yes. Why? Maybe it will help with that trust stuff. Will it happen? Nope. Why? Because he is self centered, and concerned only about how he feels, not how he makes others (read:me) feel.Like he is quick to point out. This is about who he is, not who he was.

I guess it boils down to the simple matter of trust (to start with.) I don't know how to trust him. And he doesn't know that he needs to be laying it on thick. I wish I had it in me to walk away. I wish I could. Just like the gay cowboy, "I wish I could quit him."

Do I love him? Yes.
Do I want to marry him? Yes.
Does that need to happen right now? No.
Do I want to leave him? No.
Do I feel like I have any control over any of this? No.
Do I feel cornered into a stay and be treated this way and be hurt, or leave and be miserabley heartbroken? Yes.
Do I know what to do about it? No.
Can I just ignore it or let it go and concentrate on me and all that other self-help garbage? Obviously not completely.

Where are you?

2006-02-17T18:37:00.000-05:00

Let’s play count the clichés in my life:
1. Grad Student
Dirt poor
Working hours shifted so that the end of my work day is at 5. AM.
2. Chick
27 and ticking
4.5 years vested in relationship and antsy
3. Education
Concerned that I will end up doing something completed unrelated to my degree.

I haven’t been writing here because I have been writing quite a bit on the old thesis. If it makes you feel any better, oh gentle reader, I have been ignoring my real life friends too. Thesis is sometimes an all consuming affair - like a nasty, jealous lover. All this being said, however, I have pounded out a semblance of a first draft. In fact, I will be printing the beast and delivering it to my professor by the end of the weekend. An entire week of my desired timeline, but seeing as it was completely arbitrary and based off no real understanding of time needed, I don’t think it is too bad. As my mum said “the light at the end of the tunnel is blinding!” I am loathe to get feeling too giddy about the prospects, as I haven’t had ANY feedback from the professor, but still the giddiness lifts my spirits, and buoys my soul.

Speaking of lightness of step, I am stepping lightly after a Valentine’s weekend visit from DCS. Surprised him at the airport (he was to rent a car and drive over) and took him to the waterfall the next day. A lovely evening of cooking together and connecting ensued. The following day (our Vday) was a day at our favorite beach, way up beyond the people and very isolated. We stretched out a blanket beneath the trees and just soaked up the sun, the salt, the love and presence of the other. That evening I created a stellar (if I do say so myself….) Valentine’s dinner to accompany the wine he brought down with him. All in all it was a postcard weekend – Tropical Waterfall, stargazing and full moon with wine by the pool, lounging on the beach and then a luscious dinner to celebrate love. *sigh*

Of course the dropping him off at the airport sucks, but it isn’t nearly painful now as it was, now it is just annoying because I know that I will be back in FL in just three weeks. And then home for good SOON! While he was here we also packed up all but 2 weeks worth of clothes and took all the pictures off the wall to be transferred to the Jax house. I love the feeling of actual planning and movement on the official moving home project. SUCH A GREAT FEELING!!!!

Changes are A-Coming

2006-01-31T09:12:00.000-05:00

I def. feel the same way about internet land staying separate from reality land. I think it is possible for internet friends to become reality friends, but I am not sure the river flows the other way.

On that note, changes are a-coming. So if you lurk here, start posting comments because in a bit (read: after I finish appendices and possibly draft results) I will be moving this site. Again. To a better hidden spot.

Comment now or be lost to these trivial trials and tribulations FOREVER!

Terms and Conditions:
I will post an email address where one can email me offline for the new address, and I hope that my two lovely readers and maybe a lurker or so will make the move with me.

Gratitude List:
1. A two bedroom townhouse in the Caribbean all to myself (as of midnight today.) Downside=more than doubled rent with reduced assistantship.
2. Quiet in my house.
3. Tranquility in my own home, no stress or tension.
4. No cats in the house, so doors can be left thrown open.

In a Tube...

2006-01-30T13:52:00.000-05:00

So, I'd like to start out by greeting my guiltily lurking friend, Yankee. He called last night in a flurry of apologies and upset to confess that he had tracked down my site and had a nice stroll around. Please note this was after we spoke that afternoon about him not doing that. Ian fact, I explicitly asked him not to, when I found him googleing me up.

Second, I want scientist/developer extrordinaire VJ to tell all about the lovely new lobotomy in a tube. I am suggesting that this might be a great valentine's present for loved (but sometimes trying) ones. I am hoping it has the side affects of that anti-despressent prosicline (or something like that.) It induces women to orgasm when they yawn and sneeze. Thank you google and sexualrecords.com for that tidbit. If it has that side affect, I will not only administer it freely to DCS, but self medicate.

Gratitude:
1. The bridesmaid dresses aren't too bad (more on t hat story later.)
2. Good friends, even if I am mad at one for being a bad friend right now.
3. A seemingly endless capacity to accept faults and mistakes and disappointment from others.
3. Sock Monkeys

Weekend to Do and End of Week Done

2006-01-28T13:46:00.000-05:00

To Do:
1. Finish writing Nitrox review
2. Shade Thesis appendices
3. Finish outlining Results/Conclusion
4. Clean my office
5. Clean my house
6. Scan recipes from last year's calendar

Done:
1. North Country with good friend, Yankee, last night.
2. Wrote 1/2 of Nitrox Review
3. Began outlining Results
4. Baked Pumpkin bread
5. Decided and ordered bedroom set for Jax house

Gratitude List:
1. Yankee and movie last night
2. Morning call from DCS from his camping trip
3. Leftover baked spaghetti

Attitude of Gratitude

2006-01-25T12:51:00.000-05:00

So my internet girlfriend Chel posted the following from an article she read:
"Researchers took a group of 100 people, and had 50 people make a daily gratitude list. Six months later, they ran attitude/depression testing on the 100 people, and the 50 people who had been keeping lists had an overall improvement in mood."
In this stream she began tracking a gratitude list in her writing. In an effort to try anything to turn around my mental state, I am also going to do this. I am lucky that this is something I already do occasionally in my head so it will be an increase in times and commit to writing.

Consider yourself warned.

Gratitude List:
1. My thesis really coming together.
2. Swimming with dolphins yesterday.
3. A place to unload my thoughts and two lovely readder freinds that shout back to me from the canyon.
4. Things with DCS turning around.

2006-01-25T05:30:00.000-05:00

Okay, so maybe I wasn't fair and jumped to wrong conclusions about DCS last night. I also thought he was in the hospital or in a ditch. We do turn into our parents. It is so much right now, so naturally the insecurities in this other part of my life decided to pop up too.

Have to get out and dive a site now.

It is too early for a meltdown

2006-01-24T17:06:00.001-05:00

Welcome back to my rollercoaster world. I had hoped, really believed that I would get to leave that world this year, but instead the coaster is full throttle all ready.

Roller Coaster #1

1. "Baby, I won't see these certain women that you have concerns about until you are home with me and we can see them together." "Thanks DCS, I really appreciate the maturity of this and look forward to knowing these women so that I can see that they aren't a threat." INSERT A WEEK OF Kc ABSENCE BACK TO ARMPIT ISLAND "But I didn't know Stacy was coming to the circus too, what, should I not go?"

2. No calls since circus
3. Says he's sick
4. Stacy's away message says she is spending the evening in Jax (which is 2 hrs from where she lives and where DCS does in fact live)

I know that he is sick. I know that she could be visiting someone else. I also know that I could be freaking out for nothing. or everything.

Roller Coaster #2
Roommate, after not talking to me for a month and half (and no reason why), tells me today that she is moving out. In 10 days. So I am stuck in a lurch for rent (which my part will more than double) for the next few months. Did I mention that my professor cut my pay because the project money is out?

I am a sucker for roommates that will live with me until their ship (read:man) comes in. This is the second roommate in a row that has left as soon as mancake started footing the bill.

I need a mancake to foot my bill....

Roller Coaster #3
Conversation with professor about thesis writing timeline. "That is ambitious." "Well, sir, I like to think I am an ambitious girl." "That you are, and crazy. Good luck with that schedule."

I am so OVER freaking emotional bullshit rollercoaster. I want off so badly. And I just don't know how to get off. I want the hell out of Puerto Rico (where I have learned more about people than marine science. And not positively about people, but VERY negative things.) I want to go home to my cat. I want to live with my DCS, who is more like the DCS when I am around than the DCS when I am not around. I want to scream and rant and cry. I am so tired of holding everything in, trying to maintain an inner zen. I want out of here. I want out of the people that seem to surround me. I want friends that treat me the way I treat them. I want DCS to love and cherish me the way I do him. I want to be important to people, valued. I am so tired of being stand in best friend, ace girl while they are low. I am tired of putting out super friend actions and receiving half assed back.

I want out of all of this mess, and I don't know how.

How to make me want to whack you in the head, like the mole game

2006-01-22T15:34:00.000-05:00

Call me, chat 3 minutes, then act like you have to go in a hurry and I am inconveniencing you, when you were the one to call me.

Scoop

2006-01-20T15:15:00.000-05:00

So apparently the whole fiasco (now that I finally have a clear answer as to reason why) of DCS is cold feet. He feared (fears) becoming like his parents - divorced. And in an effort to prevent that broke up with me. The idea of being with no one definitely prevents divorce.

So right before I was to leave to come home for the holidays, DCS calls and asks to see me while I was there.

“Sure,” says I, “love to catch up, grab a cup of coffee, you know.”
“No, I want to see you for more than a catch up like old friends,” says he.
“I don’t want to see you unless it is the beginning of us back together, because frankly, I don’t want to have my hopes up just to be dashed and heartbroken again.”
“The reason I want to see you is just that, to get back together.”
“I’ll be at my mother’s house, feel free to come calling.”

For the two weeks before the cruise, he did come calling. It wasn’t all roses and candlelight, but it was nice. There were some terrible lows in there, but some hopeful highs as well. Then before the cruise he asked me to come back after the cruise to him and us, and our place in Jax.

While on the cruise he emailed me everyday (in an effort to solidify my coming back to him.) And when I returned from the cruise he showed up that very night and I let him whisk me back to our place.

Then a week of contact time. Again, not all roses and candlelight, but favorably positive. In fact, positive enough to ignite that light of hope in my stomach again. Future and marriage were brought back up by him, as well as the DC fellowship and plans. He knows that he has effed up tremendously, and hurt me even more. He has apologized for that and said he would spend the rest of his life making it up to me. He says he loves me, and I hope he does, because I love him.

He got a ticket to come down in a few weeks to Armpit Island and I am looking forward to seeing him. Then I go back stateside for my girlfriend’s wedding and will stay to see him. Then hopefully return soon after that…permanently.

Speaking of that permanence…I reminded him that I wouldn’t be living with a man that I wasn’t minimally engaged to, and that I would be moving back to him or to my mother’s house. At the end of this chapter, I will be moving on one way or the other. I really hope it is with him. He takes it as an ultimatum, instead of the honest acceptance that I have a limit for pain and hurt and heartbreak in my life. I wish he would see it just as that. I hope he can see that I have stood by him longer than most women would and I hope that counts for something.

In an effort to get back on the writing train....

2006-01-18T14:21:00.000-05:00

[a is for age:]
Creeping to thirty

[b is for booze o
f choice:]
hard cider.

[c is for career:]
science, marine. policy, marine.

[d is for your dog's name:]
Hammy (For the great dane I do not own. yet.) Skeeter (he is my dog-like cat.)

[e is for essential items you use everyday:]
Lip balm that I refer to lovingly as "Chap Slap," and some type of fleece warmy (as I freeze easily)

[f is for favorite song(s) at the moment:]"
"Better Together" Jack Johnson

[g is for favorite games:]
Scrabble, Boggle, Balderdash

[h is for hometown:]
I am and will always be a Florida girl

[i is for instruments you play:]
What I will admit to: Bass clarinet. At other points in my life: piano, trumpet, clarinet

[j is for jam or jelly you like:]
Orange Marmelade right now. Apricot at other times.

[k is for kids:]
None right now. Hopefully in the future though...

[l is for last kiss:]
DCS.

[m is for most admired traits:]
Forthrightness, wit, intelligence, creativity, honesty, decisiveness, direction, and aspirations

[n is for name of your crush:]
DCS. Celebrity: Matthew McConahey (sp?)

[o is for overnight hospital stays:]
I have spent most of the night in a hospital once. For Dengue Fever. On Armpit Island.

[p is for phobias:]
Drowning.

[q is for quotes you like:]
"Treat a man as he is, he will remain so. Treat a man the way he can be and ought to be, and he will become as he can be and should be.” -Goethe

[r is for biggest regret:]
Feels like a have a few right now.

[s is for sweets of your choice:]
Not chocolate, not flan.

[t is for time you wake up:]
Varies. Isn’t grad school great?

[u is for underwear:]
Lace boy shorts.

[v is for vegetables you love:]
Asparagus and artichokes

[w is for worst habit:]
Tunnel vision pessimism (but in general I am very optimisitic…)

[x is for x-rays you've had:]
Teeth, ulcer, foot, who knows what else…

[y is for yummy food you make:]
I love to bake. DCS doesn’t like sweets, so I will be looking for someone to eat my endeavors when I get back to Florida…

[z is for zodiac sign:]
Sagatarius!

This list idea borrowed from mipmup.blogs.com

If you want to do it to, please join me, then drop a note and let me come to your page and read yours!

Back again

2006-01-18T11:32:00.000-05:00

Where am I? Has the time in Florida been beneficial to me? Have things settled between DCS and I? How is the thesis?

I am back on Armpit Island.

I think that I enjoyed my three weeks with my mother (which included a cruise, on which I was a visiting scientist.) But time at home always makes one appreciate their own space, just as time alone always makes one appreciate home. I left Skeeter with my mother.

I spent a week in Jax with DCS.

Thesis is painfully behind where I had hoped to be at the end of break. but I hope to pound out through the weekend and get my feet back under me in that department.

I am thinking through the DCS encounter and will write an in depth account next, but in summary: Kc + DCS = garbled, but hopeful.

More to come, but frameworks/appendices call to me!

We'll be right back after these messages...

2005-12-27T10:03:00.000-05:00

Dear gentle readers, I am currently stateside in the land of luddites (read:family) and away from internetland. Please know that you both have been in my thoughts over the holidays and I look forward to returning to writing about my adventures in the second week of January.

Happy Holidays.

"You're just an empty cage if you kill the bird."

2005-12-12T09:17:00.000-05:00

So, I think the anti-crazy pills are great and horrid. I have never felt more apathetic and removed from my own self. It is this weird out of body experience. Like watching me stumble through the motions of a life I used to once live. Odd, but interesting all at the same time. Of course the logical thing would be to go to a doctor and get a different brand of anti-crazies, but since I didn't even do that for this batch, the chance of that is pretty slim. Besides it is intellectually interesting, the remoteness I mean. The great part is the numb feeling, the apathy. It does pull me away from the all encompassing darkness of drowning in DCS despair. So that is a good thing, I reckon.

Apathy even to writing my observations on life, here. So I guess I need to schedule it in, since the impulse has been chemically removed.

It pulls up the valleys of emotions, but it also stunts the spikes upwards too. What I would give to laugh, to feel happiness and joy. (Granted- I know that I wasn't that much inclined towards it before the anticrazies)

Upside? Depression (still hate that word) is the best diet known to man (or me, anyway.) The one thing that brings me positive emotion lately? The morning scale routine. Hey look! I am losing weight. woohoo. Of course my clothes don't fit. My two readers and I could all three fit in my pants. Party in Kc's pants! Still, it got a satisfied smile this morning. (Realizing this is a whole other can of shrink couch worms)It is nice to have even a half ass control over something in my life, even if it just my pants. (Not that I am actually controlling anything, just not hungry...for 7 months.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thesis Update:
Thank God for method. Finally! I think that I have devised a method for this next step. Had some problems with combinations of densities and multiplicative/additive powers and weighted v. unweighted averages, but think things are on a roll now. In fact, I have produced my first Cross-Shelf Habitat Framework for an acanthurid species. Adult, Juvenile, and Early Juvenile. Yay! All I have to do is quartile the densities and shade them in and I have my first appendix entry. Please feel free to sigh with relief with me. (sigh) Thank you. The Holiday break will be filled with doing the other 90.

20 days

2005-12-01T18:48:00.000-05:00

20 days until my birthday. 27. The year that was supposed to be my best yet. The year of graduation and wedding and moving home. Well- graduation anyway, right?

And 18 days until I go home. This will be the first time I have gone home for Christmas in about 7 years. Sure- I would go for a few days, but when I went home it was to mine and DCS's place these past few years. So a month at my mom's house. Yikes.

And DCS called. A few times. And emailed. I haven't been talking, in general. But I did once, on Tuesday. He wants to see me. I didn't tell him I was coming home. *sigh*

Cashed in on my Florida v. Florida State bet winnings. Rent, sushi dinner and a lovely afternoon with my friend Tony.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thesis Update: Had a meeting with my professor, productive. Now just plodding through some stuff. Meeting with labmate to talk math this weekend. Trying to get everything geared up to be productive while away in Florida. And the semester is closing down on my other program. Just have to tidy up my term paper, watch some class and one more exam.

And my other labmate freind just defended his thesis. It will be weird and sad to not have him around next year.

Thanksgiving

2005-11-22T10:34:00.000-05:00

1. I am profoundly appreciative of my mother in my life. She is strong, smart, patient, fiery, no-nonsense, caring, respectable, loving woman. She is a good template that I can hang my own characteristics on. She is my best friend, my role model and fiercest supporter.

2. I have been lucky to be able to study in a place of my choosing.

3. I am lucky to live in a place that many people only get to vacation to.

4. I am very glad to have found two good people out there in internetland. One provokes me to think about my situation from a different point of view, and the other brings succour, helpful anecdotes and sympathy. (I would love to be able to wander through the web world of yours, VJ)

5. I am healthy. More or less. This is more than many can say, so I will not take it for granted.

6. I have a great cat that has been a wonderful companion for 6 years. I will enjoy all my moments with him and hope that he stays healthy.

7. I am lucky to have known great love in my life.

8. I am grateful for the knowledge that time does heal. Even if a scar remains, the gaping wound eventually closes.

9. My friends back home give me a feeling of grounding. I am thankful for them.

10. I am glad to own my dream jeep (1984 CJ7.) Owning it has let me live the dream, and now I am ready to move on from it when I return back stateside (give me something with shocks and doors, please!)

11. I am glad that I have direction and a sense of purpose. This helps me steer my own boat, rather then be dashed every which-a-way by the currents of change.

12. I am fortunate to have a forum into which I can distill my thoughts. Or purge them-unconsolidated.

13. I had a wonderful experience in DC this summer, one that has shaped my direction and finalized my own thoughts on the next step. I am grateful to have had a wonderful mentor and friend there and hope to retain that relationship.

14. I enjoy my adult peer-like relationship that is emerging with my brothers and look forward to years of it in the future.

15. I am grateful for hope.

16. I am more thankful for my recent chemical lobodomy.

Meds or Peace? and Gratitude

2005-11-21T14:52:00.000-05:00

So how do you know if crazy person medications are to credit with a semblence of normality or if it is more of the time as salve option? I am a few days into the meds and don't really think they could work that fast, so maybe it is just time.

I am thinking a lot on gratitude with the upcoming holiday, and I am glad to have two great readers/responders for my thoughts. It is like I yell into a canyon and a voice yells back saying, "hey, you aren't alone. I'm not an echo. Try thinking on this..."

So I am working on gratitude. This will help redirect my thoughts away from the what I don't have or have lost to the what I am glad to have.

Think on this with me. And I will write more later this week.

Random

2005-11-19T12:45:00.000-05:00

So I am not usually into the chain mail/blog tag type thing, but I saw this and thought it was cute. then I did it and was "whoa"-ed by how accurate it was. To the regular me. Not to the me that anyone that reads the blog thinks I am. Or at least more like the me that I usually am, or the surface me, or....ok, enough already, just put in the info!

Your Birthdate: December 21

You're a restless rebel with an unpredictable nature.

Bright but unbridled, you tend to seek out wild experiences over new ideas.

People are frustrated by your great potential, but you love your unconventional life.

You're a heartbreaker. People get attached to you, and then you're gone.

Your strength: Your thirst for adventure

Your weakness: Not taking time for slow pleasures

Your power color: Hot pink

Your power symbol: Figure eight

Your power month: March

The bouncing happy face

2005-11-16T10:08:00.000-05:00

Okay, el gato has been diagnosed with the FIP causing coronavirus. But I will not freak out until he shows symptoms.

I dug through my luggage to find a bottle of prescrips that I thought I remember being there. Zoloft. Not prescribed to me, but people self medicate with alcohol all the time. So last night I popped one. I don't know if the placebo effect will kick in, and just the idea of taking a mood stabilizer will make me stabilize or the actual medicine will do it. I am not comfortable with taking medicines, so taking one that isn't even prescribed to me, is a bit weird. But there is only a month's worth in the bottle, and if it seems to help, then I will get out to the old doctor and get some legitimally.

I hate the idea of being one of "those people" on drugs, just to maintain an even keel, but some people need it, and it may be that I am one of "those people" right now. I am really hoping that this is situational malaise/blues/depression (I hate that word) and will dissipate as I pull my life piece by piece back from the brink of mental collapse (again too lady-like a visual, more like mental implosion) that I am currently flirting with.

In an effort to be personally involved in the rebuilding of myself and life, rather than wishfully hoping for it all to fall back together, I present for the committee's review: "The Better Kc Plan!"

Wait, Wait , Wait. We know you here, you have done this plan before.
No, really, that was just for losing weight. The is the new and improved "Better Kc Plan."
So, what's the difference then?

Well, it goes like this:
1. Drug myself into happiness (or at least away from mleh.)
2. Get my ass in gear at least 30 minutes five days a week (for that more natural endorphin boost)
3. Take lunches away from my data and enjoy the small dock (see, meditation aspect...)
4. Enjoy my little furry cat boyfriend as well as I can (the practice of appreciation.)
5. Enjoy one non data related fun thing a week (movie, event, out for a drink, social aspect.)
6. Feel triumphant for the small victories with my thesis, for each small victory brings me closer to the large one.
7. Be in better phone contact with my three ace girls at home (mental and social aspect.)
8. Try to find one small happiness or apprciation every day. One good thing about being where I am, while I am here.

So there you have it the Mind/Body/Spirit Better Kc Plan. Filled with simple things that I can accomplish, even among my limited resources of armpit island. Got more ideas that I should put into ze plan?

Feeling in control of something in your life, even if it is just a silly list like this, is uplifting and energizing and wonderful (that may just be the drugs talking.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thesis Victories:
3/4 of the way through with the Matrix redo. I expect to be done with it (again) by the end of the week. My professor returns on Tuesday, so then we can chat about the next step. And I have begun writing. In fact, all I have left to put in is a section on ontogeny, the results,discussion and my appendices of tables. And voila. done. It is amazing to see all that I have left to do summed into one sentence. One very approachable, very easily broken down into manageable targets little sentence.

Random Victory for the "Other" program:
I was writing furiously for a term paper two nights ago. Write Write Write. At about 4500 words, I stop for the night. Yesterday, I write some more and outline what I need to put in it to make it to 10000 words. Happened to glance at the syllabus, only 500! Yay, so a month a head of schedule, I am essentially done with ze term paper. One big load off my back, let me tell you. So I am in the sprucing up of what I wrote stage.

Even though they are supposed to come in threes, here is #4

2005-11-10T14:24:00.000-05:00

The capacity a human has for grief and stress is amazing. I watched Birth the other night and thought this. Like foreshadowing of dire events to come, however, it did leave a pall over my days until the hammer dropped.

My roommate informed me that her stray-cum-adopted cats carry feline FIP. It is nasty. It is aerosol. It is contagious. It is fatal.

So my little boyfriend went in for a battery of bloodwork this morning. Comprehensive feline blood tests? Bloody expensive! I hope to hear that he is fine. I will have to ship him to live with my mother if he is, just to get him out of the house. Apparently the idea of having two infectious animals with a healthy one does not lead to the next logical conclusion of getting rid of the sick ones. So I will try to get my lovely orange buddy evacuated from the area.

What do the two thoughts have to do with each other? Every time I think I have hit the bottom... a trap door opens beneath me to a whole new loss, a whole new low I couldn't perceive possible.

I wish I had been stronger. "No, he is an indoor cat, do not put him outside, even if he is on a leash." "No, you cannot bring a stray into the house." "No you cannot bring another stray into the house."
My weakness might have signed the death warrant on my little buddy.

Mental wicket

2005-11-08T19:09:00.000-05:00

So something I have been mildly grappling with (only mildly since it is decently in the distance) is this: Is it better to get a prestigious fellowship after gradschool (this sets you up to get placement with *insert govt agency here*) or to get a job with the agency straight away?

Fellowship pros:
You get that byline on the old resume' "XXX Fellow" (and it opens doors...)
Fellowship cons:
Procrastinate PhD program entry (although the fellowship could help me get into a program...

Agency placement pros:
Well, work. Money. Experience.
Agency cons:
Might not be the exact fit or desire to work there...

These are my mental battles that deal only with me right now.
A taste of what else I think about other than DCS and Thesis.

Fellowship application deadline in March, going to put in for it, no matter what I decide about the mental wicket. Keep the option open, you know? But still the mental gymnastics...

Closet Girl

2005-11-07T14:21:00.000-05:00

So I have four brothers, and my mother is not a girly girl. I was raised to be rough and tumble with the boys and that has made me the hyper competitive, never say die, independent, edgy person that I am. It has also overwhelmed any girly girl that I might have or wish to have. Makes me view any of those traits as shamefully weak. So this tomboy is the person that men fall in love with, when they fall in love with me. That brash, outgoing, opinionated, outboy the boys type of a tomboy.

Over the past four years though, I have gotten very comfortable in being that person, but also letting more of the interior person out. That girly girl. The one who wears pink, and bakes and feels insecure sometimes, and emotional and sometimes jealous and all the more typical (stereotypical?) feminine traits. Then I get a ration of shit about not being the person he fell in love with. Damn me and my multi facets. Damn me for feeling comfortable enough to bring more parts of me into the light.

So the real yick of today's thought is this. When I get hurt or just move on from a relationship, I draw up that strong, independent powerful woman around me as armor. Then some stiff falls in love with that unattainable, cool, aloof, capable, mannish, omnipotent person. And then is surprised as that eventually melts away to reveal another aspect(not a different, just another aspect of who I am.)

So, I guess I would need to put a out a personal ad to the effect of: SWF, 26, in search of SWM, 26+ able to be Prince Charming to both Cruella Deville/Queen Malificent/Eleanor Roosevelt and closet Sleeping Beauty/Cinderella/etc.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thesis Update: I have begun writing! I am tempering my data analysis with bouts of writing, so this has left me with only the ontogenetic stage characterization left to write and the appendices to add (which is what the data is going to give me) and then write a little bit (very little bit) about the results and then carry on in a discussion. Three parts: Ontogeny, Results and Discussion. Granted the discussion is the hardest part to write and the appendices will be huge, but still I am quite pleased with the movement.

Personal Ad addendum

2005-11-07T13:44:00.000-05:00

And Prince Charming will spout such charming ideas as the song included within the link above.

King of Mixed Signals

2005-11-03T17:39:00.000-05:00

Email (from our shared engagement account):

"Love you Kc, still check up on our life together, thinking i may hear from you in this secret place to communicate. I have missed hearing your sweet voice. I miss you and love you, i worry so much when i do not hear from you, i hope all is okay. you are in my thoughts.

DCS"

Really, what in the world does he expect me to do with that coupled with all of the other. The male mind is so out my my intellectual grasp...

Remember that oldish song?
"Should I stay or should I go, now?
If I stay, there will be trouble,
If I leave, there will be double."

The evening report concludes, thusly.

Morning edition

2005-11-03T10:21:00.000-05:00

*sigh* to have a fella like VJ and an ace girl like Chel...

I am being productive, just in other things. My policy program is too easy to ignore, then an exam sneaks up and scares the bejesus out of me, making me drop everything and pay attention there. So thus I am, snapped to attention, furiously reading text, watching class and trying to be up to snuff on "emergy."

No that isn't misspelled. The guy invented three new laws of thermodynamics, and new science word and has never mentioned to the class that it is in fact, a theory. I hope the other "kids" in class aren't suckers and have figured that part out....

That's all folks.

Changing my thesis

2005-11-02T17:39:00.000-05:00

So I think I could write a really good thesis on heartbreak and breakup. Please refer to asschronicles.blogspot.com for a very short study on the topic to be submitted to Nature (c with a little circle around it to protect the commercialism of said journal/magazine.)

Really. A whole sociological science study (of which I have no authority, expertise or experience to write) on why one should not date to therefore potentially break up during grad school. Base (and please don't swipe my stellar research ideas, here...) is this: Grad students don't have time to date, which naturally kills a relationship, grad students move around, which naturally kills relationships, grad students are poor, which naturally stalls relationships, grad students are supposed to be thinking about other things as top priorities, which naturally kills relationships or relationships kill theses. When the break up inevitably occurs, the distraction of it takes too much time away from the work at hand. Productivity plummets. To levels never thought possible before.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thesis update: No work on data this week (didn't see that one coming, didja?!?!) But really I have an exam in my "other" grad program, and I haven't watched class since the last exam. Think good thoughts for me on Friday. And a monster paper to write on MPAs for the other program. Damn you, "other" program. Damn me, overachiever.

Generally this wouldn't be a thing, except my prof is leaving for two weeks, and I expect to be at a place of questioning in about a week. So a week of cooling my heels, right around Thanksgiving (which I will be here on armpit island, alone since DCS won't be coming. Not that he has gotten the balls to say that. But he doesn't have a ticket. Oh - and I haven't spoken to him in over a week. That might play a part too. Almost fell off the wagon the other night, but fate intervened with voicemail rather than voice, at which point I clambered back onto the wagon and hung up. And then tried to smother myself. You can't do that, by the way. Nature intervenes, you pass out and muscles relax before your body expires.)

Best Line

2005-10-31T09:57:00.000-05:00

"*insert name here* you are such a joke, Mickey Mouse has a picture of you on his watch."

Absolutely roaring.

One Fish, Two Fish

2005-10-28T11:27:00.000-04:00

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thesis Update: I believe I am a bit beyond the halfway point for the redo of the data. (But I have had to put a lot aside due to crappy data. I will have to tackle that at the end.)

Letter to DCS

2005-10-27T13:56:00.000-04:00

Dear DCS,

I wrote this over and over and over again in my head last night, and this morning I can’t come up with a single elegant turn of phrase, poignant sentence at all. I went through the engagement pictures and cried; I went through the graduation pictures (that I never got) in my head and cried. I went through the pictures of us doing things that I never let you take because the camera makes me uncomfortable, and I cried.

DCS, I have let you treat me like garbage for six months. I have been patient, long suffering and every other adjective straight out of Corinthians 13. I simply cannot continue our relationship this way. I cannot be putting everything in and not getting anything out. I have let you string me along. And I have lied to myself.

“He is just having trouble transitioning. He is just lashing out at the one thing that he is secure enough in his life to take his problems and frustrations out on. It is like an anorexic; except it is our relationship that he feels he has control over, not food. I know how much he loves me and I will be here for him while he needs this. I will give him my unconditional and endless love and that will pull him through this time.” That is the ridiculous story I have trumped up for you and I have told myself and everyone that has encouraged me that I am worth more than this. I fabricated this lie to tell myself to comfort me because you keep on hurting me.

I understand doubts and finding ones way and all that, but I never thought you and I were mutually exclusive of finding oneself. I never turned you out when I looked for my path.

Everyday I rush to the post, to the email to see if there is a blast from the past style note, a love letter, a sign that things are on. I check your AIM profile to see if you have put in a note like Heather and James had. “My girlfriend is the most AMAZING person!!!! I am CRAZY about Heather!!!!” You won’t even acknowledge the stupid facebook boyfriend link. Every weekend I wait on tenterhooks, just KNOWING that you will appear, like I have for you when you needed that. I have my cell on me like a growth, waiting for your calls. Waiting for you to call me, to verbally throw yourself prostrate before me, having realized the enormity of losing an “us” life, and you beg my forgiveness. Sincere reflection and apology. And I will say, “Oh sweetpea, forgive? There is nothing to forgive now, I love you too. With my whole heart and life, I love you.” A call that I will hear sincere love and it will be backed up with action that makes the words believable. “I love you, come home this weekend. Bring some stuff so we can make this our place.”

Almost every time you do call though, it isn’t that. It is you reasserting that you don’t want me in your life, and therefore don’t want me. How many times and in how many different ways do I need to hear that before I get the message? It turns me cold and abrupt. If you really loved me like you say you do, if you really wanted that life together like you say you do, you wouldn’t treat me like this, it wouldn’t be a multi-month decision making process. It isn’t out of the ordinary for a woman to want to be the first priority to the man that says he loves her or want to be treated like a princess by that man.

You know you never ask me things. I want to know your dreams, what drives you, but you never return the question. I beg you to let me know what I can do to help you regain your footing, your happiness, but you never assk how you can contribute to mine.

I am very concerned that you have this fantasy that if we are meant to be together you can treat me worse than a dog and that later everything will be peaches. I believe that we are meant to be together, but I don’t do the let’s get back together later. I have learned that. If you can treat me in such a manner that I leave, you could do it again in the future and that isn’t something to put myself through again.

I didn’t have to leave you to know I love you. I loved you from the start.

DCS, I cannot be this person anymore. This heartbroken, soul shattered remnant of who I used to be. I am a wraith floating through my own life, broken by you. I need to search for the pieces of my dignity. I need to find where I misplaced my spine. I need to gather the pieces of my life that don’t have you in it and try to cobble a new life out of these. The very thought of that makes me nauseous. I can feel the loss of unborn (and dead) children with you, I can see the Springfield home evaporate, the downtown apartment made into a bachelor pad, and I feel your long cool fingers slip out of my grasp. Hand holding no more.

You say that this person is who you must be right now, but at what cost DCS?

There is no time to dawdle. Ask me not to go. Be sincere. Be the man you want to be. Be the man you see having that life together with me. Come see me. Write me love letters. Invite me home. Pursue. Genuine. Apologize. Realize how close you came to losing me and everything about a life together with us. Be the romantic. Let us plan grad school and work and life and adventure and love together. Let me love you with my whole heart. Love me with your whole heart. Be the man of my today and future, not just my past. Let me be your future.

Love,
Kc

There is no hero left in him, no boldness, no courage. All that remains of a man I fell in love with is a rude, depressed, angry shell. What happens to do this? Is the DCS I know held hostage in a dark closet in his mind somewhere? How do I deal with the statements of "I want to be together with you", "I don't want you out of my life", "you are my future" and this treatment from him?

How easy it is to say, "Oh Kc, just concentrate on yourself now. Let him go." I wish it were so easy. I wish I was one of those people that could say "I wouldn't trade all this pain for never having had to be with him." Because I would. If I could see the now, four years ago, I would have not allowed him to convince me to be together.

I think that this is really it.
How can I let go of someone who is everything to me?
How can I not call?

How do I do this?

Smurple

2005-10-23T13:50:00.000-04:00

It is funny how in this "enlightened" time, we all know intellectually what to do, how to act, what to value. We all say things like "I am worth more than that." "I deserve better." "No one should ever treat me like that or make me feel that way." But you know then comes that crappy emotional side which is the wallowing "that girl." I am amazed and horrified that I have somehow cultured within myself, "that girl." (that being said, I also know that I can't expunge her quite yet.)

"That girl" is the one that writes this page and surfaces once a week in DCS calls, but for the most part, it is the regular Kc that goes about the pressing on in life.

I am very glad to have been able to study here on the island because it is a great location for what I do and VJ's right - the seclusion allows for a more intense dedication and concentration, but "that girl" has to get home. I am very lucky and pleased about my great house and where I live, but "that girl" is definitely hung up on the lack of a bathtub, the sewage in the streets, the lack of hard cider .

Trust me I want to pull "that girl" out behind the house and beat her up too, but then again, sometimes, it is nice to let "that girl" have her way.

It is like a shameful weakness that I have that I want this grand romance, a sweeping love affair, one that sets sail ships and epic poems are written about - but really - what budding scientist can talk like that? That is almost like it would negate any serious work I have or will do.

Mleh.

I celebrate my birthday, may half birthday and now...my decimal birthday!

2005-10-21T12:14:00.000-04:00

Next Major Decimal Birthday is my10000th day on Sunday, May 07, 2006

If I want a freaking tiara...

2005-10-21T10:16:00.000-04:00

Please remember, dear gentle reader, that this is my space to expunge my mental carousel.

My non-internet life is filled with thesis work from waking to sleeping, with a small chunk of time to talk to DCS or write this journal, or even hell, think of something besides freaking fish. So I think it is safe to reassure you that I am being productive. As for making myself "better," that is very difficult to do when I am in a place where I no longer care to be. And I am tired of making the best of the situation. That is what I do, I slather a sorority girl smile on, and press on. But you know what? Screw that right now. There is no way to make myeslf better when one has no tools to do so.

Better:
"Rough day, I just need to sink into that bubble bath tonight with a cider and relax." - no bathtub, no hard cider on the island

"I'll just pop out and do some retail therapy." - town is 45 minutes away and there is no retail therapy on a grad student budget.

"What I need is a quiet space to meditate." - there is no such thing as quiet here.

These are the normal pick me up type activities, but are unavailable here to do. So all my time is spent of the thesis. Wait, I went to the movies once this month. And felt too guilty for not working on my data the whole time.

Obviously I am taking care of what I can take care (i.e. thesis) and trying my damnedest to not spend too much time wallowing, however, if I want to use this forum as my space to admit my insecurities, fears, sadness, hopes, - I will. I am sure it is easy to sit in your ivory tower and call my grief and uncertainty "self-imposed suffering", I know because I have been guilty of the same, but you know - I don't see it as self-imposed. I see this simply as my space to distill my thoughts, fears etc. into a more concise thought.

And if I have aspirations for a tiara to wear when I am feeling sad and let down and hopeless, then I reckon that is ok too.

How to delight me

2005-10-20T16:33:00.000-04:00

Realize that you have been a jerk and that my own life (in terms of thesis) is crap right now and decide that this would be an appropriate time to go from "I miss you, and I love you and I only see you in my future" to effing princess treatment and true shame and forgiveness asking for the behavior you have been doing, which you will stop at this time too.

Is it too much to ask for princess in return for months of stomaching this vulgarly high level of CRAP from you?

Maybe even a public declaration of my endless tolerance and patience and how you don't deserve that or me, but, pheew what a girl I am that I give it to you anyway.

Too bad he doesn't read this.

I just want to be treated like a princess. I feel like I have REALLY earned it. (sigh)

Anyone got a tiara I could borrow to wear to my pity party?

The Sound of Ultimate Suffering

2005-10-15T20:29:00.000-04:00

What am I doing right now? Eating a bowl of plain white rice, with an enormous slab of butter and a glass of white wine for supper. After 6pm.

Warning bells would be going of for my family and DCS. White wine? But you don’t drink white wine. Carbohydrates? After noon? WHITE rice, at all? REAL butter? Who are you and what have you done with Kc? What dominant paradigm has shifted and dumped us all into this crazy alternate universe?!?!!?

Things happen in threes, right?
1= DCS
2= Bump
3= Thesis

Why is the thesis on the list, when you distinctly remember reading that I had finished the major portion of data analysis? Well, it goes like this: Now would be the appropriate time to tell me that my math for the entire matrix I have done needs to be different. yay!

"And that to do your math differently you need to access this info of KF's that, oh look she didn't do -so that needs to be done before you can get these different numbers to use to REDO all the matrix."

REDO the Matrix, you mean that ungodly uncomfortable and unwieldy data analysis I have spent the last year and a half doing? Work on frameworks? No way, now would be the time to do more of f&$%*@$ing KF's work to go back and redo my work, which he should have told me in the first place to do. Which by the way never came up in any of the meetings along the way where I queried if it was being done correctly, as I didn't want to find out at the end (oh wait kind of like I am) that something was wrong, and like I have asked for the past three meetings over the last 6 months about being able to compare the data that wasn't comparable....

"What do you mean you used this data and not that."

Well, Mr. Major Professor, you gave me the database and said - go to work. I used exactly what you gave me to do.

"Hmmm...well let me show you this other stuff. and I have maps and keys and stuff somewhere. and oh look it isn't here, so do this digitizing map crap data first."

Am I ever going to get out of here?

"No"
Dude, you are really killing my done with the matrix high.

And so if you here the sound of Ultimate Suffering, it is I. Hurry – Gather Inigo and Fezzik and come rescue me before I shove my face into the blender.

Weekend to Recharge - For Him

2005-10-03T15:08:00.000-04:00

So I have been scarce because I had an exam this morning for my “other” graduate program. Studied all weekend with occasional breaks to do Martix! I don’t think I fared as well as I would have liked and I can’t get the fax number to work, so I can’t even submit it right now.

DCS needed a weekend to re-center and refocus and reinvigorate and all sort of other re- beginning words. This means he sequesters himself in the woods, alone and doesn’t take calls. Of course I had hoped that he would emerge epiphanized and beg me to join him for the wedding and to hurry up and get a ticket home. Needless to say that didn’t happen. I got an “I realize I have disappointed you a lot recently. You don’t deserve that. I am sorry.”

We have always been very apart on our ideas of apologies. I view apologies as a fix. Sorry means that you wouldn’t do it again given the chance or if it is still broken that you are fixing it. So to me sorry is baseless without the fix. To him? Sorry is simply the observation that he did a dick thing. No need to ameliorate the situation, just observe it.

He is simply floundering. He has been for a while. First it was fear about graduation and growing up, now it is new job and balancing all aspects of his life. Simply floundering. I fear that I am back in a situation where I am treading water for more than myself. Everyone has to swim or tread water for themselves, but sometimes we need help or we drown. Seems like I am back in the lifeguard position of keeping a face out of the water and trying to keep him from melting down. I don’t know that I am doing the best job.

He has realized that he lets himself get pulled in too many directions and doesn’t make time for himself. He doesn’t seem to get that prioritizing his life components will aid in dealing with those demands. Too much like planning. Which he is apparently against now.

I realize that I give a lot of time, energy, and consideration to my relationships with people and have an ever diminishing level of what is acceptable to receive/expect back. Suck it up, that is all they can give right now, that is all you deserve, make the best of it.

I don’t think that I will ever forgive him for uninviting me to his sister’s stupid wedding, for telling me so plainly that I am not family to him, that his family should not regard me as important to him, either. Part of me wishes that I had a capability to hurt him as much as he hurts me, to make him feel as small and value-less as he makes me feel. I wouldn’t – because that is where we differ – I wouldn’t do something knowing it would hurt him. And he can, and does. And then says sorry. Before doing it again.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thesis Update – Of the 4 found data sets, 3 are entered into the Matrix now and the fourth is huge. But begun. I am hoping to have this set in by the end of the weekend (the weekend that I wasn’t even supposed to be here, but stateside at the wedding with DCS.) When I get that set entered, the Matrix will be done, and I can go to the next step – the Cross-Shelf Habitat Frameworks! That step is the product. Yay! Product and bulk of my thesis in the form of appendices! If only I could get there already…

And he became me, and I became he

2005-09-26T13:54:00.000-04:00

So life is irony. The more I am around, the more I realize this. What makes me think that today? Well, I realized that I became what DCS wanted me to be, and he became what I wanted him to be. Unfortunately this leaves a gaping gulf between us still. And that "what we wanted" the other to be, was based off of characteristics from many years ago.

Kc- used to be very independent and free wheeling. Didn't need a man, but enjoyed sharing sections of her life with men. Highly opinionated, strong. Wanted a man that didn't "need" her but chose to be with her. Wanted relationship where each were complete beings that were with each other, but not too lovey dovey, syrupy crap.

DCS - used to be very romantic and persistent in pursuing what he wanted. This was in me and in job/school etc. Used to woo me. Wanted a girl to need him and to need a girl. Wanted a wife, a mother for his children (yet to be had), wanted a grand love affair, worthy of sonnets. He used to be and do all of those things centered around me and us.

Now = Kc wants that grand love affair, wants to marry the man she fell so hard for, believed all his desires for intense committed relations. DCS wants a laid back casual relationship. Doesn't want to have to exert any effort for anything, me nor work. Wants the perfect life handed to him, doesn't want to plan anything. Doesn't want to be responsible for making me happy (but won't take responsibility for making me sad, either)

What do I want? REALLY? I want a man to woo me, to court me, to not take me for granted. I want a man that makes me a priority, the highest priority. I want a man that welcomes me in every aspect of his life (including his sister's wedding.) I want a man that lets me make myself happy, that doesn't make me cry everyday. I want to feel secure and certain in our relationship. I want a man that I can talk intellectually with, do crafty things with, laugh and have fun with, travel with. But most importantly, one that loves me above all others like I do him, and makes it known through his everyday actions and special grand gestures. That seems so...pedestrian...so normal...and yet it seems like I am asking for too much when I put it into view of the "new" DCS.

But when it all comes down to it? I yearn to go home to him, my heart leaps when the phone rings, I scour my electronic mail inbox for any note from him, I hurry to check my postox for the same. I miss him with every fiber and love him with every breath. (And hope with every silent prayer and mantra that this is just a phase and the DCS I know and fell in love with will return one day soon and love me the way he used to and the way I deserve to be loved.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thesis update: I was dome with my data analysis, but was missing a few transects. I was VERY happy about being at that point and looking forward to writing off those missing ones. Unfortunately, I found some of the missing data this morning. Darn it all. so back working all the data through the Matrix. The end, is still in sight though!

Oatmeal

2005-09-24T10:13:00.000-04:00

So I feel like oatmeal. You know, bland, beige, lumpy, tasteless. That is how my life feels. Really. I don't really know how to change it from that either. I am of the school of thought, that if you don't like something, change it to something you do like. Find the problem, fix the problem. However this time, the problem to be fixed, isn't in my hands. So I can't fix it.

Of course I am talking about DCS.

You know right now, this is the weekend he said he would be down for a visit in. As in, "I will visit in September, then you come up for the wedding in October, then I'll come down in Novemeber for Thanksgiving and then you move home in Decemeber." Except he isn't here in September, and I think I have been uninvited to the wedding (But he can't just say "No" he has to dress it up and beat around the bush but not actually say no). And yet, stupidly, I am still filled with hope and love and wanting to be with this man. Who lies to me. Or at least can't keep his word to me.

God, I remember him, years ago, when he was CRAZY in love with me. He would walk to the ends of the earth for me glancing in his direction. He wanted an intense hypercommitted relationship from the get go, I wanted a laid back dating thing, of course he got his way, and I bought into the program (like Amway) and now he wants the laid back casual dating thing, and I am stuck wanting, really wanting that committed grown up we're getting married type of relationship.

Oatmeal. Mucky lumpy oatmeal. I should be turning fricking cartwheels. I am so close to the end of the most laborius section of my thesis data anylysis that I can touch it, but I have no one to celebrate that milestone with. And I fear that he will snatch my coming home away from me too, at the last moment.

I fear. I live my life in spurts of cold, stomach grasping, breath stealing, tearful fear, and etheral whisps of hope that I am trying to harvest to use as a foundation for my life.

I guess the balance between hope and fear is oatmeal.

Dreams - Langston Hughes

2005-09-19T10:58:00.000-04:00

"Hold onto dreams
For if dreams die
Life is like a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly."

And suddenly I remember why I am doing what I am doing with DCS.

Grits Fire, Mormons and Print for Today

2005-09-18T15:39:00.000-04:00

Background: I interrupted a lot as a child, and got in trouble for it.Once after just being yelled at for it, I was in charge of stirring the grits on the stove while my mother spoke with my grandfather in the yard.

I went out to tell mom something, got the evil death look, you know that one. So after about 5 minutes, she finishes and sweetly asks what I need (and why I wasn't stirring the grits.) Well, the stove and by now the kitchen was on fire. I read something somewhere out there in blogland a few weeks ago that made me think of this. Still giggling!

I was raised LDS. This has had serious implications on my adult life. Example: I love to bake. But it is such a dirty secret that my boyfriend and bestfriend don't let out, because that is too Molly Mormon of me. I can't even admit that I like to bake because that would send the family into a rousing chorus of "Families Can Be Together Forever" and waiting for me to return to the flock "Reverently, Quietly."

I don't think it is a cult. That is very judgmental. Faith is great. Faith of any sort under any auspice. As long as your faith doesn't infringe on my own spirituality or choice. My little brother left for the MTC last week. They convinced him to be excited that he was assigned to Provo. He wanted international so badly. It didn't even cross his mind to turn down the offer, and looked so pitying at me when I suggested it.

Today in the life of Kc (and that is my name, VJ, "Kc" sounds like Casey, no changing names to protect the innocent here.): I took time away from my 8-10-12 hour lab days yesterday to stay at home and sit by the pool and have some time for thoughts.

Thoughts:

It is not ridiculous that DCS needs time to grow up, yet also wants time to still act like a kid.
I still want to have freedom and chase dreams too. And I want to chase them together with him.
Maybe if I can be more receptive and open minded to what he needs that will spur him to be receptive to what I need. This mostly revolves around my need to have a commitment from him before I move back into the country leaving behind my house, and paycheck here for an uncertain relationship. (But you know writing it out makes my concerns feel very valid again...) So I mentioned to him last night that my moving home in December does not need to be perceived as commitment pressure as I will not be requiring a reinstatement of the engagement beforehand.
Maybe I am the only one willing to see the other side. Maybe I am the only one willing to bend. How long should I be the only one really in the game?

These were my thoughts.

Dreams

2005-09-18T12:22:00.000-04:00

To do before I die:

Be published in a glossy magazine.
Be published in a serious journal.
Write an article for a travel magazine
Go on a balloon ride over the Serengeti
Visit a butterfly conservatory and let a butterfly land on my shoulder. Or my nose.
Hike in Alaska
Support myself as a writer, scientist, pastry chef
Become debt free and stay that way for at least a year
Be able to save more than ten dollars a month
Visit all 50 states

Restore an older home and live in it.
Go skinny dipping in the South of France, in Spain, Italy, Portugal.
Own a cottage with a view of the ocean
Fall deeply in love -- helplessly and unconditionally.
Ask someone I've only just met to go on a date/go out on a date with someone I’ve just met
Kiss the Blarney Stone
Find a four leaf clover
Make love in a bed of flowers
Go parasailing
Visit every continent

Go wine tasting in Italy and in California
Go on an African safari
See the pyramids in Egypt
Sunbathe topless in the Greek Isles
Get married to my soul mate
Kiss atop a Ferris wheel (preferably a double one)
Get high in Amsterdam
Ride in a gondola in Venice
Design a house, see it built and live in it
Get a pastry license
Go to graduate school for a PhD
Dive the Red Sea
Make love in the rain
Love myself unconditionally
Learn how to play pool.

Visit the Berlin Wall.
Visit Paris and eat a croissant in a bistro at the foot of the Eiffel Tower
Learn to play poker
Horseback ride through the west
See Mount Rushmore
Take a cross country road trip
See a ballet in Russia
Camp under the stars in the west with no ambient light. Or Africa
See the Redwood Forest
Visit Niagara Falls

Things I have done, seen and been:

Graduated from college
Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
Visited the top of the Empire State Building
Slept in an overnight train
Sailed so far in the ocean that no land was in sight
Had a poem published (on the internet)
Saw the Grand Canyon
Went to Disney World
Saw a humpback whale
Lived in a foreign country, alone
Lived in DC
Saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and JFK’s eternal flame
Saw the Vietnam memorial, Korea memorial, WWII memorial, Lincoln memorial, Roosevelt memorial, Washington memorial, Jefferson memorial
Moved out on my own
Owned my dream Jeep CJ7
Learned to drive stick
Skinny dipped in glacier melt water in Alaska.
Played for a live audience
White water rafted in Alaska
Swam in the Atlantic Ocean
Swam in the Pacific Ocean
Visited Norway
Made love on the beach
Been engaged
Been unengaged
Fell in love
Had my heart broken

Commentary

2005-09-16T09:49:00.000-04:00

VJ, are you a Brit? test match? Is there really professional croquet over there?

I know about the control thing and mama thing, I am just saying that I am going to let it be his burden for a while (Oh I will be the reminding wonder!) I am just tired of doping my body up, you know?

Wedding. Mleh. I don't even see it on the books right now (just in my silly ill placed dreams.) I am concentrating on just having a good relationship with him from afar and working as hard as I can on my data/thesis to get out of here. I honestly believe things will improve infinity-fold when we are back on the same landmass, country, city, house. You know?

Birth Control and Kitten

2005-09-16T08:33:00.000-04:00

So I realized that for the first time in almost a decade, I am not chemically altering my body. I got off the pill. I am amazed that my hips seem to be receding, the senseless dark feelings slipping away (now I am only blue for a reason), and (omigod) sex drive. WooWoo!

But my cramps feel like they are trying to make a comeback. Reminding me why I started that darn pill in the first place.

I have been off for four months now and I think this is the way to go (except for that whole oopsy-pregnant part.) So after years of taking all the responsibility for birth control, I am handing control (ok, maybe some at least) to DCS. Ok, not all, but I am definitely sharing that responsibility.

He is in Chicago and caught a Cubs game last night.

Someone dumped a kitten at our back door the other night, and of course it won't leave. And Canada is feeding it, so it really won't leave. It looks like a mini Skeeter (my cat) and of course I am such a sucker. I took it to the vet today to check for communicable parasites and disease and to check on a limp. the limp shifts from leg to leg, so Deborah the vet, is keeping this sata (stray) gata with her for the day to look into it.

I am listening to the Forest Gump soundtrack. What about you?

Aren't weddings supposed to be fun?

2005-09-13T10:54:00.000-04:00

Background: DCS sister is getting married Oct 9 in S. Carolina. Old plan was to come up from PR then and move home.

Middleground: DCS asks me to come up for a visit and do the wedding and move home in December after we have had a spell to work on us and to focus on work (him) and thesis (me) for a strong start/finish. I agree, but told him that I would need an invitation to the wedding, so I am not just crashing it uninvited and unwanted.

Foreground: After a weekend in Charleston with the sister and fam for he shower, DCS busts out with he has some concerns about me being at the wedding and that I would cause undue stress on the sister on "her" day by my very presence. Nice, huh?

Far back background: Sister and FI have dated for 1/4 of the time DCS and I. DCS and I announced engagement, days later, not to be outdone by her little brother, she announces hers. We had set our date a year ago (now) and then she set hers the weekend before ours and told us to move ours. Thankfully she moved hers (to Oct 9). but now it is a moot point, I guess.

She is the one continually making the drama, and I will upset her by my presence? She wanted to fistfight when we first met when I questioned a bird she was telling me about. "Cormorant? really? I didn't know they came this far north! At fist glance it looked like an anhinga to me. Cormorant, huh! Who'd have known... south carolina! We get them all the time in the Keys!"

Foreground: Wedding is in three weeks. I have no invite and it seems like DCS doesn't even want me there. I wouldn't DREAM of not inviting her or her fiance to any party we threw, much less a freaking wedding. And they have been together only like a year! Basic manners were obviously not taught or didn't take with that girl, bless her heart.

Thesis: Finished putting one site through the matrix, and am making decent time on the next site. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel for this step. Thank gods!

Health: I am wearing a pedometer and realizing that I need to get off my fat ass more. But at least my skinny pants fit. If I could get in 2,000 more steps a day... so I am climbing my stairs at home 13 times to simulate the DC stair climb to the condo. The cats think I am nuts. Maybe I am.

Self-righteousness

2005-09-08T16:10:00.000-04:00

I want to write on the idea of self-righteousness. This afternoon, after being blown off by DCS last night (mantra: he is busy too, give him space. He is working) He calls this afternoon. I encourage him to tell me all about the terminal visit (he works with trains, remember?) because I am genuinely interested. And he is so excited to tell of his trip. He got to drive a hopper! He got to load a train! He got to unload a train! These are very exciting things to an office bound economist/business managment fellow. I am genuinely happy that he is having such a good time. Really!

In the dark depths of my head, I feel a tiny bit self-righteous about being the “big man.” You know being honestly happy that he is having a good time and encourage him to go when I hear them yelling in the background, and to have a great dinner with all his new co-worker friends from this business trip (even though he blew me off.) He hurt my feelings, and yet I can still honestly feel happy that he is having a good time. That makes me have a gold star in my head.

Maybe self-righteous isn’t the right word…

No Cute Title

2005-09-08T13:05:00.000-04:00

So yesterday's contact equaled only a phone message that he was doing dinner in O'town with the co-workers he was traveling with. No call later last night. Kind of a shame since there was a 24 hour sale on air fares down to this island from FL.

What am I waiting on now? Seems like I am always waiting on something from him. Sorry way to spend a life, waiting. Waiting for Godot! So Godot aside, I am waiting for him to decide when he is coming down here over the next few weeks and more importantly when I should come up to FL in October. For his sister's wedding. I could just get a ticket, but I don't want to fork out $325 for a wedding that I haven't been invited to (but noticed how quickly I was crossed off the list when he bailed. Now that we are back on (ish) I need an invite to know that I am, well, invited! That idea is of course lost on DCS.

And of course always waiting for the phone to ring. I don't want to crowd him, I want him to WANT to call me. I know he is traveling for work and very busy making those good strong work contacts, but really a five minute touch base isn't that hard. I find time for that for him even when work is a bit nutty.

It is amazing to see that in writing. I have become a girl waiting for the phone to ring. Heavy.

I have started back up on my data analysis though. So hours crunching numbers in Excel in the lab. Crunch Crunch Crunch. Every boring moment of crunching brings me closer to getting outta here!

Spent some time last night organizing a bit. Some of my immediate goals, other than DCS and thesis (maybe that needs a code name too!) are to purge purge my life here (it feels cluttered with too much "stuff") - my house, my office, and to start running. I desperately want to be a runner, but I hate the activity and it hurts. I keep starting out again and again on it. If I could just get decent at it, maybe I wouldn't hate it, and I know that it is really good for you. So I bought new trainers in hopes of bribing myself with white shiny shoes to do it (bad idea in such a dirty town that I live in and run in!)

This is where we live

2005-09-07T13:23:00.000-04:00

940 square feet of loving! One bedroom, two walk-in closets, two full bathrooms (with baths - big thing if you have lived without one for three years!) kitchen, washer and dryer, talk across kitchen counter!

SO imagine a long rectangle, hack off a bit of it for the bedroom (bath and closet) then imagine the rest a big open space. Portion off a bit next to the bedroom, along the front wall and door a kitchen and closet with the washer. Across the kitchen counter/sink island opens the living/dining space. Along the same wall as the kitchen and front door is another bathroom and closet. The opposite wall is all windows. Big beautiful windows. And because we are the corner unit, windows along the bedroom and bathroom walls too! charcoal colored painted and sealed concrete floors and light wood cabinetry, vaulted ceilings and archetectual features. Restored Historic building. {sigh} I can't wait for December to move home, to my DCS and our home!

We have the Valencia bed from Pottery Barn on our wish list and the Manhattan Chair as well. He is refinishing our futon and we ordered a new mattress for it. We both can't wait to have our first home and for it to be less like college kids (crates and psters) and more like the young professionals we are!

Aqui

2005-09-07T13:15:00.000-04:00

I am back on-island. I can’t say that I am thrilled about it. It is very strange to have to pay (flight) to go somewhere where you don’t really want to go. Bleh. I know - life is what I make it. If I don’t like something, change it. But I feel a little trapped. I have to finish my silly degree, and I can’t come home to write, because DCS doesn’t want me there yet. Ok, he says he wants me there, but also needs to have some time alone, to prove to himself he can make it on his own. Adult-style. DCS was completely supported by his folks through university and then moved back in with his mom after graduation, so September 1 was his first day in his own apartment that he pays for himself. The beginning of “growing up” that I thought people did at university.

I spent a few days in Jax with DCS unpacking an moving his stuff into our new place (he says it is ours, but as none of my stuff is there and I am not welcome to live there yet, it feels like it is his place.) We went shopping for the necessities for the new place and discovered that our first big purchases for it need to be drapes/shades/curtains as the lovely large windows that made me fall in love with the place also are right above street lamp level and make the place BRIGHT during the night!

Where are things with us? He is simply scared. Scared of becoming like his parents. Unfortunately his fear of being unhappy and divorced like his folks is making him push me away. Cold feet. I don’t know how to address this other than to suggest therapy. The other part is his desire to make it on his own. I can understand that, I guess.

The plan now? I go back to Puerto Rico (am here) for the semester and we’ll date over the phone and he’ll come down in a few weeks and then I’ll come up in October for a week (and his sister’s wedding) and then he’ll come down for Thanksgiving and then I will move home in December. In the meantime he will start his job there with a strong start and I will finish my data analysis and write a first draft before I come home.

I want this new plan to work. Will it? I have no idea. I have kept pushing back my “that’s it, have to decide by XXXX time” mental deadline back so many times now. I just want to come home. DCS is home. I am so tired of feeling like a transient with no home. I am tired of living in a place that is so far from my friends and loved ones and DCS. I am tired of feeling like everything that is good or will be good in my life has been taken from me.

He wants me to move home without any sort of commitment, to shack up. I know that I shouldn’t do that, leave my job here and my work and my opportunities here for the potential of a committed long term relationship (with a man that used to be the actualized potential.) I know he would suggest against his sister doing such a thing, but doesn’t seem to see why I am not really comfortable doing that for a man that won’t commit to us.

It is hard to just drop the fear I have of DCS leaving again and be the “happy, flirtatious, in-love” couple that he wants us to be. Now. It is hard to drop the fear, the hurt. If he would really commit to the December plan (and he said that was the plan, I just don’t know if he really is going to do it,) I really feel like I could concentrate on my damn thesis, and enjoy the time I have here with my ace girl, Canada, and DCS’ visits.

I'm Alive!

2005-09-06T15:45:00.000-04:00

I have been at a Marine Protected Areas conference/meeting and then in Jax to move into our new place before returning to Puerto Rico. I am back on the island, back in the world of internet and will write a juicy "what happened" tomorrow. Traveling is taxing.

Thank you Chel and VJ for your concern and I will write tomorrow - I promise!

<3

Alternating Current

2005-08-25T15:27:00.000-04:00

I am alternately:

drained and over this entire crap-fest of a summer and excited, forward looking and hopeful about this weekend (okay, this Saturday.)
heartbroken about the loss of Bump and "bucked" up by the thought of nature righting mistakes on its own. And having a baby with DCS when we are really strong and better prepared.
excited to be done with DC and sad to see this time go and have to return to the island.
scared about the DCS and hopeful/excited about the DCS.

I also have this great quote to share which perfectly sums up the way I make decisions:

"When making a decision of minor importance,
I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons.
In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession,
the decision should come from the unconscious,
from somewhere within ourselves.
In the important decision of personal life,
we should be governed,
I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature"
-Sigmund Freud

Bye Bye Bump

2005-08-24T10:22:00.000-04:00

Fuck the clinic that implied I was overreacting.
Fuck the receptionist/nurse who said I shouldn't come in.
Fuck everyone who told me last week that bleeding is normal.
And fuck me for not going with my gut.

Daydream Believer

2005-08-23T08:18:00.000-04:00

Remember this?

"I have this vision, this dream, where he shows up here in DC, unexpectedly, a surprise. An apology, a flurry of "I love yous" and "what a fool I've been" and "Forgive me" and "thank goodness you have such strong love and faith and belief in us." Then a beautiful night out in the big city ending with a reproposal. Or an afternoon river trip to Mt Vernon and doing it there. Romance, adoration, commitment, respect, love. (sigh)I live in a parallel universe called "ideal" in my head."

So I have been thinking about what would my ideal be for the situation of this weekend's visit.

(Yes, I am playing in the recess of my day dreams rather than slogging through the paranoia of dissecting what the nurse meant when I called the clinic for an appointment yesterday and she said to come in tomorrow (today) because the "girl who is better at that type of thing will be in tomorrow." Better at what? I told her about the bleeding at the beginning of last week and the spotting over the weekend. They either have a "let them down easy" or a "how to deal with hysterical (though I think I am rather calm about this) first timers" nurse specialty. Be calm, it is nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Everyone bleeds. Women bleed all the time. My mom bled the whole way through 4 pregnancies. Everyone on the internet bleeds too. The Dr. probably bled. Calm. Calm. Calm. Tranquilo.)

So hence the preoccupation of living in my daydream world instead. It is a little lighter, nicer, rosier place in comparison to the hysteria I trap in my head (rather than let out so everyone can see how overwraught and unreasonable I am about this.)

So fantasy world:

He will know that he needs to re-woo me. To court me again. To try to off set that huge betrayal, that hurt he caused. And he will do the necessary things, not just know them.
DCS prepares for DC visit by having flowers delivered with a warm, hopeful note saying how much he is looking forward to the visit.
DCS comes to visit me in DC (this is the only factual part of my fantasy world.)
Fantastic running into each others' arms at the meeting.
Him hugging and kissing me, crying that he has been a fool, apologizing, and asking to be back together.
Night of soft chatter and great sex.
A leisurely Saturday morning or more great sex and connecting communication.
Strolling through the National Gallery of Art or up to the Capitol or on a day cruise to Mt Vernon Saturday day.
Metro back to the condo together to shower and get gussied up for a swanky, swinging dinner in the district (ideas for great dinner places?)
At my metro stop he will impulsively buy a clutch of roses from the bucket rose guy to give me and ask me out to dinner (and pretend that we weren't already planning dining out!)
Magically (magically, because I don't want to carry a bag with a change of clothes) change from gussied up dinner clothes to jeans and a sweater and strolling shoes (because it will also be a perfectly cool, not sweltering evening) to stroll by the Jefferson Memorial and lounge beneath the Washington Memorial all lit up at night.
Then he will roll over off his back onto one knee and proclaim his love for me and re-propose in a charmingly romantic manner that will make for a perfect memory/story to tell and remember and place my grandmother's ring back on my left hand.
After the proposal when we are chatting excitedly about the future and our love again, he will ask me to move back to the country, and I will say yes.
He will ask me to move in with him into the swanky downtown apartment we found together, and I will say yes.
Then we will plan all the logistics of moving home, setting up a new home again together, laughing, loving, planning the wedding again.
Mind if I insert some more great sex here?
When he leaves (at 4 am to catch his 6 am flight) Sunday morning he will leave a beautiful, long, love letter on his pillow with one of the roses he has drawn out from the vase.

This is the daydream I have gathered around my arms and shoulders and have buried my face in, like a soft, old, well-loved blanket.

Guess what?!

2005-08-23T07:57:00.000-04:00

So DCS is coming up to DC to see me this weekend. Yay! I told him that he needn't bother if it was just going to be more bad or hurtful. He said he wouldn't come if that was his intention. I have my hopes up and my fingers crossed. It is a whirlwind visit too. Coming in Friday night, late, and leaving Sunday morning, early. But one GLORIOUS Saturday.

Keep your fingers crossed with me.

Best Case Scenario

2005-08-22T08:03:00.000-04:00

So I have a "Best Case Scenario" in my head. It is my ideal, my plan. It doesn't always have a reflection in reality.

This is what my Grand Plan was. I will have to come up with another one, I reckon.

Summer 2005 - DC
Fall 2005 - Move back to FL when I come home for DCS's sister wedding, write thesis in FL
Holidays 2005 - Thesis Draft
Spring 2006 - Thesis Defense
1 April 2006 - DCS-Kc Wedding
2006 - find and buy fixer house in Jax
May 2006 - Graduation, Grad Program I
August 2006 - Finish Grad Program II
January 2007-December 2007- DC Sea Grant Fellow
May/June 2008 - Baby, move back to FL
2008-on - Live happily ever after (i.e. find rocking job, renovate/restore home, love and be loved by DCS and have a really well behaved offspring that is crazy about us.)

It was all going to fit so well together, I thought.

Ah well, the best laid plans of mice and men...

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!! (in used car sale voice)

2005-08-21T12:53:00.000-04:00

Cotton, Beauregard, Lee, Jackson, Clayton, Clinton, Cletus (NO!), Houston...

Any other southern male name suggestions?

As for the right thing... the right thing is for him to decide to be with me for me. Nobody else.

Little more than a week until I have to start living for myself only.

Little concerned that I started bleeding again, going to make an apt. at the clinic, even though they just think I am overhysterical about it.

The Name Game

2005-08-19T12:08:00.000-04:00

Boy = Chase Chambers (meaning: Chase=Hunter, Chambers=DCS old family name)
Girl = Bailey Clarke (meaning: Bailey=able, Clarke=scholar, DCS old family name)

Isn't giving a name so powerful? This will be worn for a lifetime. It is like a fairy godmother bringing gifts. What better gifts can I bestow than that of hunting (because we should all be on the hunt for knowledge and love and adventure and life) and ability and scholarliness (they go hand in hand, ability to do, be, live the knowledge rather than just know it.)

That is my thought.

Sidebar: my real name meaning? Why, "Confuser of men," "One who inflames men with love," and "prophet of doom." Depending on the website/book. How 'bout those for real humdingers?

Back to the Brain

2005-08-18T11:48:00.000-04:00

I know that bleeding is normal. I know this. I believe my mother, my Dr., the internet. My irrational running in a circle, screaming "Ai, Ai, Ai," pulling my hair out has ceased. Please ease your mind that the crazy has been beat back into a dark closet in my brain.

Things are coming to a close with my Washington, DC detail. Another two weeks to go. Flown by! I am tidying up my white paper and planning my last few archives days, humping up a presentation, and getting all those ducks in a row.

Does anyone out there in the world at large believe in jinxing? Or self-fulfilling concern or psychosomatic symptoms? Meaning: If you think on something too long can/will it suddenly actualize itself? I wonder about this.

And in a similar vein: How can you tell premonitions/intuition from unwarranted concern, obsessive thought or paranoia? Seems like they are only differentiated after the fact. That being my thought, how can you act on your premonition or intuition?

I pick you

2005-08-18T11:02:00.001-04:00

2005-08-16T08:16:00.000-04:00

Spotting. Am scared.

Was v. Is

2005-08-15T18:47:00.000-04:00

Just to set the record straight, DCS was that guy that every girl dreamt about. I have spent years with a romantic, loving, seemingly perfect fellow.

The taking for granted and junk that I write about is all really a very new development. unfortunately.

One week down, two to go

2005-08-15T15:46:00.000-04:00

So this weekend DCS went to Atlanta to visit with the fam. And of course fam = him not calling me. Even during the best of times it was that way. He doesn't seem to get that it hurts me when he blatantly ignores me for them. He doesn't want to have to choose between us, and that isn't a choice I am requiring, but when he ignores me for them, it feels like he is choosing them over me. He has no idea of words versus actions. He says I am the most important and he loves me, etc. Actions say other things (they say that too.)

He is king of mixed signals. One week down, two to go. No change in status. Anyone care to take bets that he will try to push the envelope? call my bluff? See how far he can roll over me? I hate that it feels like he is doing that. Two freaking measly weeks to decide if it is game on or off. And I get no part of that decision, no power to aid my own campaign, no ability to make what I want, happen.

I live in this world of not getting enough oxygen in my shortened breaths. Not enough sleep in my sleepless nights.

I love him so much, but he drives me crazy.

I have this vision, this dream, where he shows up here in DC, unexpectedly, a surprise. An apology, a flurry of "I love yous" and "what a fool I've been" and "Forgive me" and "thank goodness you have such strong love and faith and belief in us." Then a beautiful night out in the big city ending with a reproposal. Or an afternoon river trip to Mt Vernon and doing it there. Romance, adoration, commitment, respect, love. (sigh)

I live in a parallel universe called "ideal" in my head.

Thought for the Moment

2005-08-11T08:28:00.000-04:00

"Absence is to love what wind is to fire - it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great."
Rochembeau (sp?)

Luddite Question

2005-08-09T15:41:00.000-04:00

So, anyone care to tell me how I make a list in the side bar? Not a list of links(like I have), just a list?

I want to list books, rather than link them, I think.

Thanks for any help you can give this nomadic luddite wandering in the dessert of HTML without a canteen of tech savvy.

The Lay of the Land

2005-08-09T08:04:00.000-04:00

To clarify: I have told DCS that I won't be living with a man again before marriage or having that pretty damn quick afterwards. None of this trial marriage/shack up thing for me, especially if I am moving back to the country for it. And I told him that I could forgive a great many things, but I would not be able to forgive if he lost my grandmother's ring, and he knows that for truth.

So I hate doing ultimatums, but I told him that I wouldn't be moving in with him without the commitment of marriage and that I would have to decide one way or the other by the end of August/beginning of September. So it will either gell together well in the next three weeks, or I have to re-evaluate my life and plans and move on alone with Bump to figure out this newness.

So a funny thing came up this weekend (might be pretty mundane to the world at large, but amusing to me.) Four years ago, before we started dating, I was working in the Keys and bought DCS a silver dive/surf/water sports watch to give him for the following Christmas. I did give it to him, he wears it when he dresses up. So he 'fessed up this past weekend that a couple of years ago he lost the watch while we were in Charleston. Then bought a new one online to replace it quick so he didn't have to admit that he lost my gift. He said it so guiltily too... It was cute that he didn't want to hurt my feelings and had replaced it exactly (thank goodness he kept the box!)

My hand feels so naked without my ring. I wish I could take a picture of it for HNT. there is a little tiny white line and dent around my finger where it used to be.

The BIG weekend with DCS

2005-08-08T12:38:00.000-04:00

Last weekend was the full contact time with DCS. I drove from southwest Florida Thursday night to my mom's and then met up with DCS after he got out of work Friday evening. It was a weekend of a lot of hugging and holding, crying and laughing, happiness and disappointment, but feeling hopeful at the end.

Friday night we did a retro date, like we use to do when we first got together. Chinese takeout under the stars (ok clouds) on the beach. Nice. Very nice. Then the next day we walked around downtown and he showed me where he works now and the places we have been looking at for an apartment. He wanted me to see the area and to have input on the house decision since that is the direction we are headed again. We looked at the model and available apartment in one and the outside of two more. I love them. One is night next to the public library and the other two are a block away, and there is a great park nearby. He mentioned that work was close enough to walk to, or to walk home for lunch with me. The apartments that we looked at have great windows and are really edgy and modern, but retaining a wonderful old Florida feel through the windows and architectural design. Then we went to the beach again for lunch, a nap and then dinner at a great restaurant on the IntraCoastal. Movie rental and quiet evening.

Sunday was a trip down to St. Augustine to galleries to talk about the type of art we wanted in the house (thank goodness there are so many windows that it isn't too much space to fill) and then lunch at a place we always looked at.

It sounds like things are great, huh? but all the good parts and future planning again feel very iffy to me. I want so much to see it happen, but part of me thinks it is a castle in the clouds type thing.

All the wedding stuff for his sister's wedding was out in the house, and there was a couple planning their wedding reception at lunch yesterday, and the tears just come. No stopping them.
Yesterday ended with a talk in the park before my flight. I told him that I would be deciding one way or the other in three weeks when I return from DC to the Caribbean (not in an ultimatum manner or pressuring or deadline, just in a "you should know what I am thinking" manner.) And I gave him back the engagement ring (which was my grandmother's wedding band) and told him that he could make good on it or to drop it (insured) back in the mail to my mother.

I hate feeling so powerless, so waiting for him, but that is all I can do. Let him know that I love him and believe in him, us. Assure him that I do. Work on forgiving him for hurting me and wait.

Wait for a while more, anyway.

Muckety-Muck In the Field

2005-08-06T12:32:00.000-04:00

I work, right now, with the National Wildlife Refuge system. Wild places for wild animals. A great agency. I visited one refuge in the field. Amazing people to work with and out there on the ground caring for the resources of our nation.

I was able to visit a southwest Florida refuge and seine for fish in a fish sampling effort and kayak through mangrove forests and see first hand the hurricane damage of last year's storms, talk management and policy with refuge managers and how they translate from congressional orders and agency to actual workload on staffers. I was also able to tag along and watch an environmental educator for the refuge work her magic with children and adults alike. It takes a special type of educator to actively engage a group from 3 years old to senior citizens.

I count myself very lucky to have been able to do this last week and am very appreciative of the amazing experience I have had.

Thank you Ding Darling.

(and they even considered me a DC muckety-muck with the accompanying treatment. That was cool)

and I talked every evening with DCS and talked out the events of the weekend before (as well as the big issue.)

CRASH

2005-08-04T12:15:00.000-04:00

So, I flew into Florida a weekend early and stayed a weekend late around the week I needed to be in the field. Mostly to see DCS.

I flew in and got my rental (a Barney colored PT Cruiser thanks to the chap that liked me at the desk and decided I needed more flair than a white Neon) and then drove out to the ball park to pick up DCS from a work outing to a ball game. The plan - to have dinner and hang out for a bit before I left to go stay with my mom for the that weekend.

Seeing him in person after all this mess was simply awkward and terrible and wonderful and painful and amazing all together. At times I couldn't breathe and my hand shake (did I mention that my right hand has taken on the Parkinson's like shake since the stress levels elevated?) was on. And he had a bruise on his neck that any woman would call a hickey - which I did. Which he denied (I really don't think he sees other women.) But a hickey is really hard to refute, so then I decided to screw dinner and leave, but I didn't. We went to a place on the river, but I had no appetite. I love crying in public too - makes me feel like I have a firm grasp on my mental stability. But then at the end we were chatting a laughing. It was nice.

Cut away to the parking lot. Cute - him swinging me around and hugging me and kissing me.

DCS "So did you end up getting the same cell phone as me?"
Kc taking phone off his belt to see" Lemme see"
DCS freaking out "give it back...AAAA...(temper tantrum)...."
Kc getting into car, given phone back "What is your issue? what are you hiding?"
In car driving DCS "Nothing, you always make a big deal out of everything"
Kc taking phone again "what is up with this phone that you don't want me to see so badly?"]
DCS reaching for phone, not watching road, CRASHES.

Whatever was so important to him was so bad or so something that he actually CRASHED the car.

Needless to say, I am screaming and sobbing at him "What is your problem? what are you hiding that is so much more important than driving? You CRASHED! What are you hiding? You CRASHED! CRASHED!"

So he investigates, finds it just a demolished tire and sets out to change it. I sob in the car (he took the phone with him, by the way to change the tire and keep it from me.) then I get over it and him. I realize that my car is just over the river and a few miles away. I get my reticule, and leave. Walk over the bridge and a few miles, get in my Barneymobile and leave. He calls I meet him on the way out of town to hand off his parking decal.

He says he's sorry, I am furious and hurt, and shaken, and everything. this is not going according to the plan in my head.

I tell him to get his shit straight and that I can't deal with his issues right now. I tell him to get his ducks in a row or I am not visiting the following weekend (which we planned to stay together and catch up and fix up things.)

then to a weekend hanging out with my mom. That part was nice.

Warning

2005-07-29T08:21:00.000-04:00

Because I will be in the field for a week, I won't be able to write, but I really hope that my handful of readers will join me back on the eighth, as I will have potentially funny or disastrous stories about the DCS weekend, mom, and the field. "Swamp restoration" was on potential item on the itinerary... that should pique your interest!

Note - I need to get a pull along rolling carry on. The shoulder bag/backpack/workbag/suit jacket combo is really rough to hump across DC.

How did it get to be Thursday already?

2005-07-28T08:19:00.000-04:00

So with a whisk of my government wand, I was able to change my Florida field plans to include this weekend. I leave TOMORROW! middle of the day! What happened!?!? I haven't washed clothes, packed, heck, I haven't done anything. Guess what I am doing tonight?

By the way, I am not in love with Apple. My Ipod is jacked and any time I go in to have them look at it, they are full up on appointments and walkins just have to wait, but they never actually get to you. Did I mention that I walk there everytime, in DC heat? 2 miles each way? Yech. On another note - I did get a new phone (let's keep Skeeter the cat away from this one, maybe it will last.)

Talking to DCS last night, I found out that he had just gotten a new phone too. So we coincidentally have new matching phones. Awww...Yecch. But awww...too. a little.

Strange about the BBSR because my ace girl, Canada, worked with them quite a bit, lived out there for years and considers 'Uda home... And the test was a career placement test on monster.com

DCS looks at new apartments and condos today and called last night to find out what specs I want, and questions I want asked. I told him that I was coming in a weekend early, and maybe we could catch up Friday night when I get in for a late dinner. Probably won't happen as he has plans for a suns baseball game. I would really love to see him then. Yes, I know that I get to see him the following weekend for the whole weekend. But a little dinner visit would just be swell.

and mom. Yay! Before I moved to the islands, I was back and forth through home all the time. Now it seems like I go forever without going home. It will be months and months since I have been home. and beach - Where I live in PR we have mangroves not beach, and DC = no beach, so I am really looking forward to the smell and sound of beach. Growing up, during the summer, through my open window I could hear the waves rolling into the beach and the sound of the cars practicing on the speedway. I can't wait to spend this weekend at home!

that is how this morning is shaping up.

As A Complete Aside...

2005-07-27T12:03:00.000-04:00

DCS took a monster.com type place career test. Among other things it said he could be president. He told me this. I agreed with the test, he could be president. He is great at stuff, including (probably) running the country.

Being over competitive like I am, I take the test (not to diminish his recent presidential inauguration, but just to show that I could be president too. He could be First Gentleman.)

My results? No president. I did get coroner, however.

Apparently having a background in marine science, qualifies you to be a marine scientist. And a coroner.

Not president.

I'm just a bill, And I got as far as Capitol Hill.

2005-07-27T07:47:00.000-04:00

So today is a Hill visit. Trying to put a bug in the Reps' ear about the project I am working on. Should be exciting!

Chundered this morning. Yumm! Please let me advise the world at large against taking vitamins on an empty stomach.

Talked to DCS last night and things seem to be really getting back. Thank goodness. It isn't going the way it would have in my head, with an epiphany of "I can't live without you, what was I thinking?!" or a courtship and re-wooing or a reproposal since he nullified the other one. But getting back, nonetheless. And that makes me happy. Talking about shopping for a new place together again like we had planned before the Chernobal event, and my returning from the islands back to Florida.

And I get to see him in a week! I am going to Florida for some field work and I arranged the weekend before and after to stay in the area, so I get to see my mom the this weekend and DCS next weekend. I am stoked about that!

I wonder if women would really make better men, because we know what would be good. What women would want. Or would women being men, just make them unable to get it, because now they are men?

BBSR? Bermuda Biological? Why do you ask? Do I know you in the real world?

Such a Faulkner...

2005-07-26T08:41:00.000-04:00

So I live in the Caribbean, except this summer I am stateside in DC working a fellowship, scholarship, internship, summer placement, whatever you want to call it. I brought "office" clothes as I was going to be working in an office. I am being sent to Florida for a week to go out in the field. I have loads of field clothes, just not here. That is the back ground for today's thought.

I walked to the Goodwill yesterday (2 miles in 110 degree heat index!) to look for yucky clothes to wear in the field. A whole lot of looking, not a lot of finding. I did, however, find great books. At $0.69 a piece. What a deal, right? And the Nicholas Sparks author that DCS likes, so I load up my basket. (The library is closer and free, but then I couldn't mail the books to DCS when I was done with them...)

Too bad I had to hump a million pounds of books back through that heat. But you know I was tagging that all on him! "That darn DCS and his Sparks books..." It amused me all the way home. And this morning too. It did not amuse him when I related the story to him last night.

It should have.

Out to buy clothes, return with pounds upon pounds of books.

Such a Faulkner.

Want to Weigh In?

2005-07-25T14:59:00.000-04:00

It doesn't sit well that my title is so sad. I am thinking about changing it. I have a few ideas. Want to weigh in or, heck, add in?

Homegrown Cannibal (can double as punk band name)
Masochistic Cannibal (yes, cannibal is a theme here. Don't really know why. Bet those arm chair therapists will have a field day with "cannibal."
Sticky Wicket (can double as brit pop band name)

No, I don't play in a band, actually.

What I do when I should be working....

Weekend Quote

2005-07-25T10:36:00.000-04:00

From Eldest Brother, looking at sunset Sunday evening: "Thank goodness for pollution!"

And then there was this article, coincidentally enough...

Okay, thanks Kitty for helping me out there! Anyone know how to do it for real, like the HTML language you have to write, because it wasn't accepting this morning's attempts. Thanks!

I don't really like peas and carrots...just the cliche'

2005-07-22T13:42:00.000-04:00

So my jefe just had his kids in for lunch and to meet the office. 4ys old and 2yrs old. I don't know that I have ever met cuter kids. These kids are the kind I like best and will breed out myself.

Big blue eyes and white, white white hair.

I am in love with his kids.

I want mine to be just that cute.

(Hopefully they got their brains from their mom too. Jefe has had genius moments...setting his tree on fire with him in it to get rid of a spider....spearfishing and putting the caught fish in his shorts to keep them away from the sharks...etc. Have I mentioned how happy I am to be working with him? I am. No questions. He is a hoot and we get on like peas and carrots. and I covet his two bebes.)

But...

2005-07-22T13:06:00.000-04:00

But I did just get a random lunchtime call "Hello, I was thinking about you, I love you, I gotta go now" type call.

The morning calls I anticipate a little (and appreciate a lot), but the random ones that are unexpected, put a big smile on my face. Like this one right now...Does it come through in my writing?

Not too much to tell today

2005-07-22T11:56:00.000-04:00

So yesterday was a long day with a late meeting. Didn't get out of that until 6.45, then it was a work dinner. Didn't get out of that until 9.45. DCS had a work dinner and then went out with his work friends, so there was nothing last night.

Nothing but the most amazing tomato, mozzarella and basil stacked salad EVER.

Voicemail and collapse into bed, first two chapters of Harry, then lights out kiddo.

Round and Round We Go

2005-07-21T08:50:00.000-04:00

All I wanted to do was tell him about this amazingly fun and resume'-able prospect I have that would be really fun for him to do with me. I wanted to tell him Tuesday night, but he didn't call (even though he said he would) and then I couldn't tell him because he wanted to tell me all about his stuff (which I wanted to hear) and then he didn't really have time to listen to me last night. Fine, I understand dinner and all. Really, humans need food. But then when he called back and I said I need 15 minutes, I was jumping in the shower, I'll call back in 15 minutes - he didn't pick up my call.

Dude - I said I was calling back at X time. When he says that, I make myself available, because that is considerate and polite and nice and you planned it out, for crying out loud. He called back 45 minutes later. Little thing right? It isn't hard to call and leave a message, "hey something came up, I'll call you in 45 instead of you calling in 15." that is completely understandable. Simply not picking up for the prearranged time leaves me feeling devalued and abandoned.

Yes, things are very touchy right now. He needs to be careful. Heaven knows I am trying to be extra considerate to his needs.

Too bad that turned into the regular argument of him: "nothing I do is ever good enough." Me: "why can't you simply keep your word? Why can't you be considerate? Your actions affect others."

All I wanted to do was tell him about the visiting scientist program and it be this exciting opportunity for me, that he gets an amazing vacation with me out of it.

I know that Bump (notice newly given code name for el bebe) makes me more emotional and crazy, and it was a little thing. I guess the reason I got so worked up, is that is just another serving of the same old stuff.

Hopefully us talking about how to deal with that type of thing productively will positively affect this in the future.

Point of Clarification

2005-07-20T08:19:00.000-04:00

VJ -I agree with the most real time comment, but I think that there is part of this situation that I have left out. I have lived full time out of the country for a few years now. That makes is VERY difficult, and a very real distraction. Not excusing his behavior - because there is no excuse, just a fuller picture.

I agree with the growing up part. I have always known that. I hope that this point in his life he can realize that this is his opportunity, but that I don't want to be the trial ground for him to grow up on. I want to grow together with him, but not to be the training ground.

I REALLY hope that he will learn from this that his actions and words carry great weight with those he loves. I am not guiltless in that subject, but I know that I have already personalized that lesson from this situation. For sure.

He does want to marry. He does want to marry me. (and please don't read that like I am "that" girl." I am not fooling myself at all. I know this man very well.) We have serious communication problems. In terms of style. He is an INFJ and I am a ENTJ, he is a "harmonious/communicator" and I am a "cognitive/action behaviorist." Those have greatly different communication styles when dealing with issues and stress. And realizing this and how to manage it will really help us. (Please know that this isn't therapy babble, but library research)

And time apart has been too difficult for us. We both thought we could make it, but it has strained our relationship to this point. We are both reflecting now on how to communicate in a manner that is going to be beneficial and understandable to the other without compromising our own person. That is the hard part, how to compromise with another person, but not compromise your own person.

I had a good giggle about the trial marriage and engagements long enough for royalty! I agree whole heartedly. My rules are all based in my own real life. And then my decision on how to preemptively manage situations like that in the future. There is wiggle room in them, I reckon.

For as much insight that I feel I have in relationships right now, I feel like I should be a therapist. HAH! Kind of like that teacher insult: Those who can, do. Those who can't, instruct.

These are the thoughts of this morning.

Rules I Date By

2005-07-19T14:19:00.000-04:00

The originals:

Do not date your friends.
Date nice Southern gentlemen.
Do not date frat boys.

The additions:

Do not live with someone unless you are marrying him.
If you (or he) don't know/decide in a year, it isn't "it"; "it" won't happen - move on.
Engagements should be short.

Today is Tuesday.

2005-07-19T10:45:00.000-04:00

So I had an amazing day yesterday where I was able to explore a federal agency that I would really enjoy working professionally. I was able to pick the brains of women working there and get a feel for what they do and how they like it, and most importantly if they have funding.

My dream placement was filled, but then the person left. So it is open (YAY!), but not being filled due to budget restraints (BOO!), but may open up when I finish my endless degree (YAY!) That is uplifting and hopeful, and my professional friend there that arranged the day was very positive about the way things work. As in - things just work, when you are done with thesis, placement will open.

Let's hope!

DCS had a really great day too, met his mentor whom he got on like peas and carrots with, so I am really happy for him. And we had a decent phone conversation, like really decent, just normal and chatty, not angry and accusing or weepy and whining. Thank goodness.

Is normality too much to hope for?

Wait, Wait, Wait

2005-07-19T07:34:00.000-04:00

So to straighten out a misunderstanding by my one reader, I emailed him to sell the wedding dresses. That is when it became "real" to him, and he seemed to realize that I was taking him seriously and that when he said all that stuff, and kept saying "no", "over" I took him seriously.

So my asking him to sell my dresses that I was storing under our/his bed, was the epiphanic (that isn't a real word!) moment.

More to come.

Limbo

2005-07-18T08:30:00.000-04:00

So over this past week, I have talked to DCS every day. Apparently the idea of actually selling the wedding dresses was eye opening. He says he wants to work us out, I want to work us out, but no working is actually being done.

How does one retrace the footsteps back to togetherness? What are we to each other anymore? Are we still broken up? Are we still engaged? Are we back to boyfriend/girlfriend? Are we nothing? We are in this weird, awkward, sometimes angry, often lonely purgatory waiting room, trying to figure things out.

In my world, if you want something, you make it happen. So I don't understand when he says he wants to be together, but isn't making it happen. This is such a weird concept.

I know I love him and hope that we can re-rail this derailed train and get us moving back to together again.

Remember the California Condor project?

2005-07-15T13:32:00.000-04:00

So I was lunching with my colleague, Hawaii (see everyone has codenames now!), and her NSF intern friend. Let me set the stage: Chipotles, almost done eating we notice the manager snarking at an employee in the kitchen, she emerges with a newborn. All at the table do an "Ewww...baby in the kitchen."

NSF intern then busts out with:

"Babies are so ugly. If I had a baby, it would have to be raised by handpuppets."