![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
They weren’t kidding about that heat wave.
I ventured forth around 9 yesterday morning to spritz the garden. It was in the high 70s: soupy but bearable. I even had some thought I might go for a run.
By the time I finished watering half an hour later, it was pushing 90°.
###
Came back to the house.
Immediately got into a fight with Max.
His response to the carefully modulated email I’d written him about plans for getting together while he will be here was, Let’s play it by ear.
Well, fuck you, you miserable, ungrateful twerp! thought I and immediately began searching for ways to get the $$$ I PayPal-ed him back. Alas! Too late.
So instead, I wrote him a note! Fine. Let’s not see each other while you’re here. Enjoy your trip.
And blocked his number and email account on my phone.
Ensued a looooong exchange of emails that took up most of the afternoon. He purported to be absolutely mystified by my "overreaction."
I was hurt and furious because to me "let's play it by ear" is another way of saying, I might want to wash my hair. Plus why would he assume that I'd put my own life on hold to be at his beck and call?
Eventually, we were able to work it out, and I unblocked him.
I do love him loads and loads and loads, and generally he’s a good son.
But c’mon. Pul-leeze.
I think he was actually mad at me because when he was complaining about $$$$, I’d pointed out to him that his money crunch was a completely predictable consequence of his own decision to get his own place and continue in graduate school.
“Look, Max,” I said, once we were talking again. “I really try to watch my mouth around you since I feel like practically everything I say on a personal level gets broadcast in your mind through the mouth of this giant Balinese puppet, Kali the Destroying Mother. But some dots connect into a picture that’s just too obvious to miss.
We are able to talk about many other things just fine, though, and I'm happy about that.”
“Mom, I totally get what you're saying about worrying that everything you say to me has to be filtered,” he replied “And I do get frustrated by I told you so's. But what's more of an obstacle is when you shut me out by saying, Fine. Then let’s never talk to each other again.”
Well, yeah. That I gotta cop to.
Poof!
You no longer exist in my world.
It’s an effective defense mechanism.
###
My kids are indispensable. A handful of friends are indispensable. That’s the Inner Circle.
But everyone else?
It’s kind of as though day-by-day life is a theater play with roles—the work buddy! the activities buddy! the pedicure buddy! the crush!
There are an awful lot of people one can cast in those roles.
And when one of those people blows his or her lines, you fire them and cast someone else.
Maybe that’s the difference between acquaintances and friends.
I’ve always maintained that you can get very, very close to acquaintances; you can even love them after a fashion.
But there are limits to how far you can take those relationships, and those limits are perfectly clear from the start no matter how much you may pretend otherwise.
My friend Bibbit used to say, “Everyone gets two calls at three o’clock in the morning. But the third time they call, I don’t pick up the phone. Unless it’s you, dear Patrizia. You get four calls!”
As it happens, I’m not the type of person who’d ever even make one call at three in the morning.
I think maybe that’s one of the benefits of keeping this particular kind of a diary.
But maybe that’s the salient distinction between friends and acquaintances. Maybe, however much you enjoy an acquaintance, however upbeat the good times, an acquaintance is not someone you call at three in the morning. Because instinctively you know that acquaintance will never have your back.
I ventured forth around 9 yesterday morning to spritz the garden. It was in the high 70s: soupy but bearable. I even had some thought I might go for a run.
By the time I finished watering half an hour later, it was pushing 90°.
###
Came back to the house.
Immediately got into a fight with Max.
His response to the carefully modulated email I’d written him about plans for getting together while he will be here was, Let’s play it by ear.
Well, fuck you, you miserable, ungrateful twerp! thought I and immediately began searching for ways to get the $$$ I PayPal-ed him back. Alas! Too late.
So instead, I wrote him a note! Fine. Let’s not see each other while you’re here. Enjoy your trip.
And blocked his number and email account on my phone.
Ensued a looooong exchange of emails that took up most of the afternoon. He purported to be absolutely mystified by my "overreaction."
I was hurt and furious because to me "let's play it by ear" is another way of saying, I might want to wash my hair. Plus why would he assume that I'd put my own life on hold to be at his beck and call?
Eventually, we were able to work it out, and I unblocked him.
I do love him loads and loads and loads, and generally he’s a good son.
But c’mon. Pul-leeze.
I think he was actually mad at me because when he was complaining about $$$$, I’d pointed out to him that his money crunch was a completely predictable consequence of his own decision to get his own place and continue in graduate school.
“Look, Max,” I said, once we were talking again. “I really try to watch my mouth around you since I feel like practically everything I say on a personal level gets broadcast in your mind through the mouth of this giant Balinese puppet, Kali the Destroying Mother. But some dots connect into a picture that’s just too obvious to miss.
We are able to talk about many other things just fine, though, and I'm happy about that.”
“Mom, I totally get what you're saying about worrying that everything you say to me has to be filtered,” he replied “And I do get frustrated by I told you so's. But what's more of an obstacle is when you shut me out by saying, Fine. Then let’s never talk to each other again.”
Well, yeah. That I gotta cop to.
Poof!
You no longer exist in my world.
It’s an effective defense mechanism.
###
My kids are indispensable. A handful of friends are indispensable. That’s the Inner Circle.
But everyone else?
It’s kind of as though day-by-day life is a theater play with roles—the work buddy! the activities buddy! the pedicure buddy! the crush!
There are an awful lot of people one can cast in those roles.
And when one of those people blows his or her lines, you fire them and cast someone else.
Maybe that’s the difference between acquaintances and friends.
I’ve always maintained that you can get very, very close to acquaintances; you can even love them after a fashion.
But there are limits to how far you can take those relationships, and those limits are perfectly clear from the start no matter how much you may pretend otherwise.
My friend Bibbit used to say, “Everyone gets two calls at three o’clock in the morning. But the third time they call, I don’t pick up the phone. Unless it’s you, dear Patrizia. You get four calls!”
As it happens, I’m not the type of person who’d ever even make one call at three in the morning.
I think maybe that’s one of the benefits of keeping this particular kind of a diary.
But maybe that’s the salient distinction between friends and acquaintances. Maybe, however much you enjoy an acquaintance, however upbeat the good times, an acquaintance is not someone you call at three in the morning. Because instinctively you know that acquaintance will never have your back.
