00-January
It's about to be a new year and a new century. I'm 38 years old. For more than half my life, for virtually all of my literate life, from the time I was 15 until about two years ago, I kept a journal. Sometimes it was daily, sometimes it would lapse, but it was a steady part of my life. Toward the end, it got spottier, because I was spending more and more of my time writing. Letters, email, professional writing. I had fewer and fewer words left for myself. Plus, I ran into the issue my mother encapsulated years ago. A friend of hers said, my daughter tells me everything. She said, and she will, until she has something she doesn't want to tell. That's me. I told everybody everything, until I had things I didn't want to tell. Then I stopped.
It's been like being frozen. I keep thinking, I should write. I should write. But nothing breaks loose.
Recently I started reading on-line journals. Pamie's page "Squishy," Lagniappe, Kymm, and most recently the early parts of Fauve. Lots of very young women out there. I keep getting flashes of connection. Not with Pamie -- she's very funny, and very young. But I hit Fauve and she's young, but she's got similar mileage. Although I guess I show my age when I find myself thinking, at parts of her saga of high school, child, where is your mother?? and at the same point, remembering how futile my own mother's efforts to make me be "good" were.
Tim contacted me yesterday. We have been in contact, off and on, since our sexual relationship ended back in 1992. Funny to think it's been seven years. He brought up an interesting topic and then said, there's too much detail to talk about this way, I'd rather tell you this in person, what are you doing on January 12th? And my heart leapt and my stomach dropped. Nothing, I said, why? He'll be here, he'll be just down the road, he wants to get together, just to visit. He still has the most beautiful voice I've ever heard. Even in IM, he has a beautiful voice.
Rhy would say, but he doesn't have your dick anymore. It's odd how much I haven't told him in the last seven years, how many assumptions he still makes about where I am emotionally, where my heart is, what my vulnerabilities are, just because of things I've chosen not to share with him. Partially because I feel like there is still a door open between us and I am loathe to close it. In those fantasies we spin in our unhappiness, I still have a vision of a future for us. And then I remember what Meg said, that if you are in a situation where a happy resolution requires that someone die, you need to get out. The changes it would take in both our lives to result in our having a future together are that dramatic. It's not going to happen. I should be able to let it go.
The thing that got me started writing today was the juxtaposition of his upcoming visit (his visit, his maybe visit, because his last word on the subject was "this is still in the planning stage, I'll let you know") with a few lines I came across in Fauve's online journal:
Or maybe I would say, there is room, but not much... there's room for a hidden fantasy, for a semi-annual meeting, for an occasional phone call. But he left me, and I got married, and went on with my work, gathered friends around me, raised my child. I took the energy that I had put into our relationship and I put it elsewhere. And it's the same for him. The energy he put into our relationship has gone into his kids, his job, his new store. I built a busy, fairly seamless life. From the sounds of it so did he. On what I have left over and what he has left over, a relationship would starve.
So what is this? A one-shot at the end of the century? The start of a new thing? Right now, it's just a peek through the keyhole.
Wow. That looks weird. That looks really weird.
I'm just back from running kitchen for Yule. This is the most boring event I go to all year. Rhy and I hung out in the kitchen together for five hours, peering at our "betters" through the service door and commenting on their clothing and deportment. There were people who don't know how much fabric it takes to cover their actual bodies; people who don't realize that nobody over 98 pounds would look good in what they are wearing; there was one guy wearing sofa upholstery and a woman in the matching loveseat.
And there was Os, who came in looking his own beautiful self. He's still like a flame to a moth for me. The heat between us can be absolutely scorching. When I left tonight, he was up to his elbows doing the dishes. Didn't have anyone helping him, didn't ask, just came in and rolled up his sleeves and grabbed the scrubby pad and lit in.
Oh, and gave me pistachios.
What else? Craig, Rhy's guy, won the dessert competition. He didn't even mean to enter, and he wasn't there, he was home watching the football game. He'd made butter tarts for my New Year's party and I took the leftover tarts and put them out on the sideboard. When the winner was announced they were cheering for "Craig, Rhy's boyfriend." I called him afterwards to tell him and he was pleased and amused.
And Tirzah's now engaged to marry Frederick. He stood up and got everyone's attention and gave a flowery speech about how she was so precious to everyone and had to move far away, and it wasn't right for her to go alone, so he should go to escort her... but that would endanger her honor, so he should marry her as well. And she said yes. I talked to Fiona afterwards, who used to date him, and she said she and Tirzah had spent hours talking about him, and she was confident that Tirzah knew what she was getting. I said, then why is she?.... and Fiona just shrugged. True love. It makes people stupid. Os was just rolling his eyes over the whole thing and I said, don't you laugh, it'll be you next. And he said, I would have bought the ring already, but I had to buy a new engine instead.
Teach me to keep my mouth shut.
Everybody is offering up lists for the "New Millenium." Well, this isn't the new millenium, but other than that, who am I to start a new year without a list? And a list of books is better than a list of resolutions. So here they are...
Coming soon... do's and don'ts for those contemplating turning their marriages into "open relationships."
We had another mouse encounter last night.
After the leftover Chinese food, James and I settled down in the living room to read our books (I had Precursor and he was working on that last Bradley, Nimisha's Ship.)
Some unknown amount of time passes, it's very quiet, pages turning and each of us getting more and more involved in our books. Suddenly James yells "Ah, shit!" and throws his shoe across the living room. I about jump out of my hide, by then he's run across the room and is halfway behind the TV. It's the mouse again. So I throw the porch door open and start using available cushions to build a funnel leading toward the open door, so that we can herd the mouse outside.
Meanwhile he's moving the TV and stereo and such like. The mouse is under the TV stand. Suddenly the mouse bolts towards me, comes under the cushion and tries to burrow through my foot (which lets me understand why people talk about mice as "running up your leg." Not a pleasant feeling... notice they never say "panicky mouse climbing your leg in terror..." which is much closer to reality). No luck, so it backs up and bolts around me and behind the couch. So next we re-built the chute and start moving the couch. Bolting mouse again, this time around the living room, behind the Christmas tree and along the side of the fireplace. Then with James tearing along behind it escapes into the kitchen and through a hole in the baseboard. Lots of excitement.
Current score: Mouse 2; Humans, 0.
Life is just so exciting! I love it when wildlife comes in to play.
Oh... and tonight, Tim is here, and if all goes according to plan we are meeting at 6 for dinner, and then going dancing. Except that I note that it is now 6:23 and no Tim. I had a message from him at 5 through the switchboard saying he would call at 6... but no. Now I'm wondering if in fact he has gotten on a plane to go home, is lost in the middle of town somewhere, is on a shuttlebus in parked-traffic hell. Rhy is planning to meet us at Lulu's for dancing at 8. I would say so far this is Not Going According to Plan.
I'd put it at an 80% chance he's on his way here and just delayed, a 10% chance he changed his mind, a 10% chance that circumstances changed. And at 7:30 if I haven't heard from him I'm going to put my dancing dress on and go meet Rhy anyway.
No. That's passive-aggressive, right? I shouldn't do that, I should just call his cell phone and say, where are you?
That's what we do when we live in the land of nonambiguity.
What do I carry away from last night?
The vision of Rhy doing her "I'm really cool and funny, so you should like me" dance. She's very good at it, because she really is cool and she really is funny. She also did a little bit of peeing on her tree (this is my friend and we go all kinds of fun places together and have all kinds of shared stories that happened when you weren't around.) And the matching vision of me kind of sitting there thinking how glad I am to have her for my friend, how pleased I am when I get to introduce her to people.
The vision, much later in the evening, of being out on the dance floor and hearing the music change to a song the chorus of which is "fuck all day, fuck all night."
How nice it is to go dancing with someone who doesn't have to be falling-down drunk to be willing to go out and dance. Who doesn't care whether the floor is crowded and in fact would rather it wasn't. Who only marginally cares about the music; if the beat is good, that's enough. Who is clearly dancing for his own pleasure.
How funny it is to have to run things through my but-he's-a-cop internal filter again.
We dropped Tim off in front of his hotel and we had barely cleared the driveway when Rhy whipped around to me and said "Well that looked nothing like what I was expecting!" I said, really, what were you expecting? She said, "darker hair... more hair... more rakish, less completely benign... I didn't expect him to look so much like my high school science teacher. I don't need to be thinking about my high school science teacher that way!" She also commented on how intent he is when he's listening, that he turns his attention to you and focuses, body language and all, just on you and what you're saying.
It's just been all excitement here today. I was in my workshop, and on the phone with Jack (portable phone) when James came in behind me carrying his wastepaper basket, and put it in the sink. So I'm thinking, why is the wastepaper basket in my sink? When all of a sudden he busts out yelling and takes off through the house swatting at something. I'm yelling "don't kill it, don't kill it" and he's just in hot pursuit and Jack is saying "are you okay? what's wrong?" and suddenly, in the bathroom down the hall, it's quiet. James comes back in the workshop with a folded roll of paper from which the head and one leg of a mouse is protruding. I think it's dead.
Nope.
Turns out, he's managed to catch it in a fold of the paper in a way that has it completely immobilized. He's planning to take it outside, and put it down in the snow. It's 20 degrees outside and there is 18+ inches of snow on the ground.
Then I look again and realize that it's a baby mouse. Not more than an inch and a half long (plus tail of course). So he goes upstairs and puts it in the live trap, and I get off the phone and launch into a spirited argument for mercy. Not for making this wild thing into a pet, but for keeping it inside until there's a little bit of a thaw outside. This is a baby, after all.
I won. At least, I guess I won.
So, it's finally happened.
I have a mouse. Upstairs, in the live trap, with food and water. And it's going to stay inside until there is a chance to put it outside in surviveable conditions. Tomorrow, or Friday, or I go buy a cage and make arrangements to keep it as a pet.
Meanwhile I guess I should start making little sweaters, so that when it goes out, it won't catch cold.
Her name is Harriet. From Harriet the Spy, who was always getting into trouble being places she shouldn't have.
Today's mouse story follows a funny mouse note from last week. I came downstairs and there was the mousetrap (we have live traps, one upstairs and one down) open and empty. No bait, no mouse.
I called in to James, "did you take the bait out of the trap?"
"No."
I begin having visions in which we have a mouse living here who is smart enough, and agile enough, to open the sliding gate on the trap, extract the bait (cheese, I was in a classic sort of mood) and waltz off.
"I took the mouse out of the trap," he adds.
"We caught a mouse? When?"
"Before dinner. I took it down the road and let it out."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I figured you would say it was too cold outside to put it out."
And we both laughed. Hah.
Current score: Mice 2; Humans, 2.
James and I did our annual anniversary-moon trip out to the Hotel Strasburg, in Strasburg, Virginia, to coincide with an "open shop" day at Prototype Testing Group (PTG Racing). The hotel was very Victorian. Next year, I want something with a lodge-style great room. I have this vision of a big fire in a big stone fireplace, comfy armchairs, and periodic visits by a waiter bringing hot brandied drinks. This was not that place.
I'll write more about the weekend later. Maybe. In general, it was our usual good, relaxing weekend, with the usual little bits of snapping at each other. Right now I need to go up and clean house, because five days from now, I have company coming that has never seen the place before, and I want to not walk around apologizing. Now, it's not that I think the house needs apology, and my level of housekeeping, even if they showed up today, is not embarrassing. I know how they live too. But I recognize in myself this tendency to walk through the house saying things like "ignore the mess" and "let me just put this away" and I don't want to do that, so I'm going to clean. If you recognize your own neuroses, are you still neurotic?
Here's today's happy-making site. Look, and be stunned.
Oh... by the way...
Current score: Mice 3, Humans 1.
Yeah... well... I'll talk about it later. Right now I'm still nursing the wounds.
I'm a little bummed. I already wrote this entry... a nice long one at that ... and then lost my connection before I had thought to save. So now I have to remember all that stuff. And it was good stuff, too. If this entry isn't witty, charming, and so on, it's not me... it's because of Netscape. Really.
The big story continues to be my mouseadventures. On the 26th of last month, James caught Harriet, we installed her in the live trap with a pile of goodies, and she ate herself full and then promptly escaped.
Mike asked if I felt betrayed. I pointed out that Harriet had not given her parole. I knew she would escape if she could. So no betrayal, but it was a bit of a letdown to figure out who the smartest one in the situation was!
So we went from having a small, hungry mouse in the downstairs wastepaper basket, to having a small, full mouse loose in the kitchen. Not what I'd call a "win" for the humans.
Flash forward to Monday. Now, on Sunday after we got back from our anniversary trip it iced, then snowed, then iced more. There was an inch of ice on the driveway. Monday morning nobody was going anywhere. I was sitting here at the desk working when James came down carrying the live trap. I said, did we catch a mouse? He said no, we caught two mice.
Harriet obviously left with the impression of our trap as a particularly charming all-mouse-can-eat buffet. So when she got hungry again, she came back, and brought her little brother (we're calling him "Sport.") There they were in the trap. Harriet was fairly calm, Sport was having a fit. We put the trap on my desk, put a heavy book on top to forestall more escapes, and there they sat.
But the weather was not cooperating at all with my fantasy of putting baby mice out into a nice dry bed of weeds with some food for the road. Nope. Ice and more ice... I can't even safely get to where the weeds are, and if I did, they'd be several inches down, under ice/snow/ice.
And you go to hell for putting baby mice out in the snow.
So last night I went to PetSmart and got them... well, count me as "strongwilled" because I didn't get them a house. At best I got the mouse equivalent of a cheap hotel. It's a plastic box with a small-mesh plastic grated top (no escapes), a water bottle, a feeding dish, and a nice fluffy layer of bedding/litter.
Now they're ensconced on my desk. During the day they sleep, and at night -- right about 7 -- they get active and start moving around the cage. They spend a lot of time on the roof, they can jump vertically to the top (about six inches, or four times their body length) and then catch their paws in the roof openings and hang out. They seem to be comfortable. If I blow at them they jump down and run around the cage; I think my breath must smell of carnivore.
How do I score this? If I catch them, it's points to me. But hanging out in there with plenty to eat, fresh water and fluffy bedding, the mice don't really seem to have lost. Of course when I finally evict them into the outside world it'll be clear I've won. I guess.
Current score: Mice 3; Humans 3.
Right now they're burrowing under their bedding and then poking their heads up. They really are perilously cute.
So what else is going on besides the mice?
Rhy has submerged. I've heard basically a dozen words a day from her since before the weekend. She's had PMS, she's been busy at work... I think she's having a lot of trouble with the Chris thing. She can't walk away from it, but imagining what it could be like makes her current situation look bad in comparison. Every time Craig isn't perfect, she compares him to Chris. But every time Chris pulls something that feels like one of his old tricks (like planning to be some where and then not showing up) she remembers that there were reasons she chose not to go there. And because all of her friends have their own opinions, she doesn't even want to talk about it.
Me, I have my own opinion, which is that she's just screwed. The fundamental mis-step was in not telling Chris that she was seeing someone when she started. But boy do I understand that! Guilty, guilty, guilty. But that set the whole stage for his "big revelation" and once he'd come out with that, well, there's no good, easy resolution. Maybe not even a good, hard resolution.
Of course, I could be imagining all this... she could just be busy.