![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraBen, Robin and the dogs finally hit the road yesterday around 5 in the morning.
And at 6:45am I got The Call: the RV had broken down in Greenfield.
Greenfield!
“It’s either the oil filter or the solenoid,” Ben babbled nervously
More likely to be the fuel pump. Cheap fix but a pain in the ass.
At least they managed to get off Hwy 101 safely.
I was sick to my stomach.
It had already been a tense week what with the ongoing sagas of the RV repair and the van sale, massive Freecycle giveaways mit resulting household chaos, Robin’s general listlessness when he finally realized our departure from Monterey was likely to be permanent. As I hung up the phone I wondered – maybe for the ten thousandth time – why it is that all our undertakings have this disastrous, seat-of-the-pants sense about them. Is it karma or just plain stupidity? Is there some part of our psyche that thrives on tension and stress? I say “our” psyche because we’ve been together one way or another for sixteen years now, and relationships with that kind of longevity become voting entities in their own right, emotional corporations as it were.
What was I like before I met Ben? Not terribly prudent: if you grow up around a certifiably insane person (as I did) there’s a way in which crazy always makes you feel all warm and cuddly inside, and of course random is the best way to impersonate crazy if you’re not really crazy yourself. There’s always been a huge random component to my life. I make critical decisions on a coin toss, I enjoy getting lost.
On the other hand, I am extremely organized and something of an achiever. I earned my health economics degree from one of the top graduate programs in the nation. For two years in the early nineties I was California’s Drug Baby Czarina. I founded People Magazine’s very first website. I’ve sold fiction to Playboy. I’ve pitched projects to James (Titanic) Cameron.
Most importantly – I know the keys are supposed to go in a bowl next to the door. I know my reading glasses go on the desk in my office when I’m not using them, I know the TV remote control sits on my nightstand right next to the DVD controls. If I put a cup down on the desk in my office, I understand that on my very next trip to the kitchen that cup should go with me. When I’m done with the screwdriver, I put it back in the toolbox; when I’ve dropped the phrase morituri te salutamus in conversation to good advantage, I put the reference book back on the shelves.
Ben does none of those things. Every home we’ve shared has been a sinkhole of chaos. It took him ten minutes to find the keys each time he went down to open the Little Store. He is forever misplacing his reading glasses. He can never find the TV remote. For the first decade after we married, I used to nag Ben about this incessantly. I used every form of nagging known to woman from the classic let-me-piss-you-off-by acting-like-your-Mother gambit to the avuncular as-you-know-Benjamin-habits-were-invented-to-free-our-consciousnesses-for-creative-endeavors maneuver.
None of them worked.
In the eleventh year, I opened the Little Store, The Patrizia Museum as Max used to call it, and that became my heart’s home. I stopped caring what my house looked because every third person who came into the store would exclaim, “My goodness! This is the most charming little store I’ve ever seen!”
Store’s gone now. And house in the wake of the Guyz’ departure looks like a tornado hit it.
Ben and I get along very, very well in many, many ways. If he is successful in supporting me for this next year while I’m writing the book – i.e. doesn’t power trip me about my financial dependence – I plan to forgive him for the fact that I had to be the solo breadwinner for that first decade together.
But sooner or later I’m going to end this marriage, and the reason will be that I cannot bear to live in this mess anymore. I find it physically, emotionally, spiritually taxing. I think this whole by-the-seat-of-our-pants ethos is related to the mess somehow. I’m tired of it. I want a home where every balanced thing is in its place.
###
In 1972 The Godfather was staging its initial assault on the American collective unconscious, the Chevy was going to the levy for the very first time and the RV was new. Thirty-five years later, Ben bought it. Then it sat in our driveway for two years, adding to the general Joads On Crack ambiance of our domicile. There was something wrong with its exhaust system – a cheap repair and the RV hadn’t been very expensive in the first place. The excuse was that we were low on cash. That was certainly true. But then why buy the RV in the first place?
“So, do you think that thing’s gonna sit in the driveway forever?” Robin asked me.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “We’re pretty close to the coast. There could always be a tsunami or something that’ll wash it away.”
During the weekend he flew back to Hugo to cure Ali the Camel, Ben got three job offers. “Take the RV,” I said. “Then you’ll have a little nest to retreat to.” And that’s what he decided to do, but of course till the end of February we were both living out the last days of the Little Store. He began working seriously on the RV at the beginning of March; he was supposed to be in Hugo on the 14th.
The mobile mechanic fixed the exhaust and diagnosed a leaky carburetor. Sturm und drang ensues – fortunately in Sea Side lives a little old man schooled in the ancient art of carburetor repair. His phone was disconnected 5 years ago but fortunately by diligently searching through back copies of the Monterey Peninsula phone directory secreted away in a circular room in a locked tower of the Monterey Public Library, we manage to track down an address and… Voila! Carburetor cured. Mobile mechanic comes over again, spends an afternoon bolting and tightening. I sit in my office listening to him try and gun the motor for half an hour. The motor never ignites. My heart is pounding, my brain is swimming. Anxiety? What’s that?
“We’re gonna flood it if I try it anymore,” says the mobile auto mechanic.
“Try it one more time,” Ben answers grimly.
And whaddiya know – the motor turns over!
Then there’s a crisis with the electrical system – the RV has no headlights or brake lights. Then there’s a crisis with the tires, two of which are flat – they’re a funny size that they only sell on alternate Hanukkahs at a magical tire outlet that ever floats like Brigadoon just over the next turn of El Camino Real…
These calamities are remedied.
But wait! We have run out of money! The RV gets some improbably low mpg. The money we have might cover gas but it won’t cover emergencies – for example if the fuel pump broke in Greenfield (just sayin’) – and we won’t have any money until we sell the van. Parades of people come by to look at the van. There are people whose social lives seem to consist of finding items on Craig’s List which they have absolutely no intention of buying and then coming to look at them, making the sellers answer all sorts of stupid questions.
The people who finally end up buying the van are this incredibly nice father and son team. The son is a software engineer who surfs every morning from 5am to 7am; the dad is a former RAF flyer who chaperoned Churchill to and from various important treaty signings and then moved to Carmel Valley – “to get away from the English weather,” he told me. He is incredibly charming and I quite forget I am selling him a vehicle so entertaining is he to talk to until the son apologetically pushes money into my hand: “I can see you and Dad really hit it off, but I’ve got to run.”
This money is more than I ever thought we’d get for my funky old van. It’s divvied up between Ben and me.
I buy some groceries for the van. I take the dogs to the beach for the very last time. I print some pictures for the inside of the van. I’ll miss them, I think. I’ll miss my family.
They take off early the next morning.
###
At 6:40am I hear an enormous crash in the living room: one of Ben’s circus posters had somehow gotten loose from its backing. It had fallen off the wall, its glass overlay had shattered. I look at the poster: Robbins Bros. Circus, it says. There’s a picture of a Mary Pickford look-alike riding bareback on a white horse.
Uh oh, I think.
Five minutes later I get the phone call.
###
At first Robin was very enthusiastic about taking off. “You don’t realize how bad Monterey High School is,” he told me. “I’m not learning anything. Plus there are gangs. Plus last fall these two seniors raped this freshman girl and filmed it and put it on YouTube and she tried to commit suicide by drinking nail polish remover –“
O-kay! I’m convinced. Monterey High School sucks dogs’ dicks.
I am dubious of my own ability to home school successfully, however. I have absolutely no patience. And I’m terrible at chemistry and geometry.
We wanted to keep Robin in school through the end of last week but he pitched a series of fits and then somehow got his guidance counselor to back him up. So his withdrawal was official as of last Monday.
I gave him his first assignment. “You will listen to Dreams From My Father and you will write a 500 word essay: in the first section of Dreams From My Father, Obama writes, "I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds, understanding that each possessed its own language and customs and structures of meaning, convinced that with a bit of translation on my part the two worlds would eventually cohere." How does he "slip back and forth" between his worlds, and is he ever successful at making them cohere?
He rolled his eyes and went right back to playing Grand Theft Auto.
He was depressed, I could tell, though he denied it. As soon as he found out that I had no intention of keeping the house in Monterey, he decided he didn’t want to run off to the circus anymore. “You can’t move,” he said. “I’ll run away. I’ll come back here. I’ll live on the streets if I have to.”
Of course at least part of my motive for leaving Monterey is to separate him from his current posse. Wells, for example. Wells is smart but appears to be on a downward spiral. I can’t “save” him. But I can certainly save Robin.
“A hundred dollars a week!” I said. “That’s not bad for a fourteen year old. So you spend half and you save half. Plus you write it all down. Write down how you hate me and want to sneak back to Monterey! I won’t care. I won’t read it. But this is the experience – well. Remember how Max got all those full scholarship offers when he first applied to college?”
“So what,” Robin mumbled. “Max is the smart one. Max is your golden boy.”
I ignore this. “Max asked me at the time what he should do. Whether he should go to Deep Springs or, say, the University of Pittsburgh which actually has an undergraduate neuroscience program. That’s what Max wants to study.
“I told him, ‘If you go to Deep Springs, you will be off the conveyor belt forever –‘
“Do you know what I mean by ‘the conveyor belt?’”
Robin nodded sullenly.
“Humor me. Describe it in words.”
Robin shrugged. “You’re born. You get a job. You get married. You die.”
“Exactly. There’s nothing wrong with that if that’s what you want to do. Is that what you want to do?”
“No-o-o.”
“Well, okay then. This is your way of getting off the conveyor belt. Robin, you are a damn fine writer. And I am telling you, if you keep track of the experiences you’re having, if you write about them, you will end up with a book and the book will be published because the experience is unique.”
We were sitting in the Noir café throughout this conversation. Robin had ordered an espresso.
“Have you ever had an espresso before?” I’d asked at the cash register.
“Lots of times,” he informed me loftily.
I doubted that but I let him have it.
Now at the table I noticed he had reached for a shaker and was dumping salt into the espresso.
“Uh – what are you doing?” I asked.
“Oh, I thought it was sugar!” he said, abashed.
“Well, you can’t drink it now.”
“Yes, I can!” And he proceeded to drain half a cup of salty espresso.
“All-l-l-l righty, then!” I said. “So about that wacky Obama…”
###
It was the fuel pump. It had gone out because the RV sat in that driveway so long that water had condensed into the gasoline tank. I felt like the backup on The Amazing Race, making phone calls to every tow service and auto parts store in Greenfield: “Do you tow RV’s? No? How about fuel pumps, do you sell them?”
How are you? I texted Robin. Okay?
I had loaded him up with movies and Trader Joe treats before they’d left. Until the VeeDub bug visits The Last Honest Auto Mechanic and gets its engine seal repaired, I am transportation-less, so I couldn’t even drive to Greenfield to hang out with him.
He called. “I’m fine,” he said. “Milo’s pretty bummed though.”
“Did you tell him he’s about to visit the ancestral home of the Blue Lacies?”
“I did. He didn’t care. He’s thinking of running away.”
“Don’t let him,” I said.
“I won’t," said Robin.
###
This already waaaay too long entry would not be complete without a description of an uneasy social encounter. A slight acquaintance of mine had decided to come to Monterey for the weekend.
“Ah!” I said. “Very romantic place, Monterey. So will you be bringing a lovely companion?”
“No,” he said. “I’m coming to see you.”
O-kay.
I’d thought Ben and Robin would be on the road by the time Slight Acquaintance materialized, and that it would behoove me to arrange as many social encounters as possible to distract me from the house’s sudden emptiness. But of course, they were still around and AO actually wanted to come to my house and that made me very uneasy. Had I flirted with him? Was he attracted to me? Was this a date? God, I hoped not: I hate dates, and I hadn’t flirted with him any more than I flirt with anyone else; I like to banter, what can I say?
“Don’t come over here,” I said. “I’ll meet you at the restaurant.”
He had to know I was married. I mean, Ben and I had socialized with him and his wife before they’d gotten divorced – and if any two people needed to get divorced it was those two: Slight Acquaintance, humorous, laid back – okay, passive – except for the shallows of his intense blue eyes in which a whole tribe of monsters larked about; the Wife, snippy, critical, angry. Had he assumed that because he’d gotten divorced, I’d gotten divorced? Or maybe he wasn’t attracted to me, maybe I was presuming –
We had a pleasant lunch. He insisted on paying. I kept him entertained by unreeling the true tale of his Divorce, asking him about his job, asking him about his children.
Then we proceeded to go for a walk on the beach, and I realized I’d run out of things to say. He was not the type of person to actually talk about the beach: “Look at that otter! Isn’t this a cool looking shell? Do you know sometimes pottery shards wash up on this beach and I like to pretend to myself that they’re remnants of the old Chinese fishing villages that were here a hundred years ago –“
If he had been attracted to me, he was no longer. I wondered whether it was physical – my hair too long, my teeth need work. Right now I only have the strength of my personality to commend me, although there’s nothing a haircut and a few afternoons in the office of a nice Tijuana dentist couldn’t fix about my physical appearance. But face it: I have no job, I have no prospects of getting a job (census doesn't really count,) I am far from financially solvent. I’m no dream girl. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be attracted to me – I didn’t meet his match.com criteria – and so he wasn’t.
Not a drop of passion anywhere in this person. Odd, odd, odd. And there I was having to ask him questions about himself, having to service his ego, all because he’d paid for a semi-expensive lunch.
At one point we started talking about middle age. “I quite like middle age,” I said cozily. “The only thing I don’t like about it is that it’s more difficult to make friends. There’s a certain spark that’s missing now. Know what I mean?”
“No, he said. “I don’t.”
He emailed me when he got home. Inviting me to visit him on the Peninsula.
No, no, no, no, no.
I suppose that’s another reason why I find it so hard to break up my marriage. I really hate going on “dates.” If I break up with Ben, I’m almost certain to spend the rest of my life alone. And I enjoy having a partner.
And at 6:45am I got The Call: the RV had broken down in Greenfield.
Greenfield!
“It’s either the oil filter or the solenoid,” Ben babbled nervously
More likely to be the fuel pump. Cheap fix but a pain in the ass.
At least they managed to get off Hwy 101 safely.
I was sick to my stomach.
It had already been a tense week what with the ongoing sagas of the RV repair and the van sale, massive Freecycle giveaways mit resulting household chaos, Robin’s general listlessness when he finally realized our departure from Monterey was likely to be permanent. As I hung up the phone I wondered – maybe for the ten thousandth time – why it is that all our undertakings have this disastrous, seat-of-the-pants sense about them. Is it karma or just plain stupidity? Is there some part of our psyche that thrives on tension and stress? I say “our” psyche because we’ve been together one way or another for sixteen years now, and relationships with that kind of longevity become voting entities in their own right, emotional corporations as it were.
What was I like before I met Ben? Not terribly prudent: if you grow up around a certifiably insane person (as I did) there’s a way in which crazy always makes you feel all warm and cuddly inside, and of course random is the best way to impersonate crazy if you’re not really crazy yourself. There’s always been a huge random component to my life. I make critical decisions on a coin toss, I enjoy getting lost.
On the other hand, I am extremely organized and something of an achiever. I earned my health economics degree from one of the top graduate programs in the nation. For two years in the early nineties I was California’s Drug Baby Czarina. I founded People Magazine’s very first website. I’ve sold fiction to Playboy. I’ve pitched projects to James (Titanic) Cameron.
Most importantly – I know the keys are supposed to go in a bowl next to the door. I know my reading glasses go on the desk in my office when I’m not using them, I know the TV remote control sits on my nightstand right next to the DVD controls. If I put a cup down on the desk in my office, I understand that on my very next trip to the kitchen that cup should go with me. When I’m done with the screwdriver, I put it back in the toolbox; when I’ve dropped the phrase morituri te salutamus in conversation to good advantage, I put the reference book back on the shelves.
Ben does none of those things. Every home we’ve shared has been a sinkhole of chaos. It took him ten minutes to find the keys each time he went down to open the Little Store. He is forever misplacing his reading glasses. He can never find the TV remote. For the first decade after we married, I used to nag Ben about this incessantly. I used every form of nagging known to woman from the classic let-me-piss-you-off-by acting-like-your-Mother gambit to the avuncular as-you-know-Benjamin-habits-were-invented-to-free-our-consciousnesses-for-creative-endeavors maneuver.
None of them worked.
In the eleventh year, I opened the Little Store, The Patrizia Museum as Max used to call it, and that became my heart’s home. I stopped caring what my house looked because every third person who came into the store would exclaim, “My goodness! This is the most charming little store I’ve ever seen!”
Store’s gone now. And house in the wake of the Guyz’ departure looks like a tornado hit it.
Ben and I get along very, very well in many, many ways. If he is successful in supporting me for this next year while I’m writing the book – i.e. doesn’t power trip me about my financial dependence – I plan to forgive him for the fact that I had to be the solo breadwinner for that first decade together.
But sooner or later I’m going to end this marriage, and the reason will be that I cannot bear to live in this mess anymore. I find it physically, emotionally, spiritually taxing. I think this whole by-the-seat-of-our-pants ethos is related to the mess somehow. I’m tired of it. I want a home where every balanced thing is in its place.
In 1972 The Godfather was staging its initial assault on the American collective unconscious, the Chevy was going to the levy for the very first time and the RV was new. Thirty-five years later, Ben bought it. Then it sat in our driveway for two years, adding to the general Joads On Crack ambiance of our domicile. There was something wrong with its exhaust system – a cheap repair and the RV hadn’t been very expensive in the first place. The excuse was that we were low on cash. That was certainly true. But then why buy the RV in the first place?
“So, do you think that thing’s gonna sit in the driveway forever?” Robin asked me.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “We’re pretty close to the coast. There could always be a tsunami or something that’ll wash it away.”
During the weekend he flew back to Hugo to cure Ali the Camel, Ben got three job offers. “Take the RV,” I said. “Then you’ll have a little nest to retreat to.” And that’s what he decided to do, but of course till the end of February we were both living out the last days of the Little Store. He began working seriously on the RV at the beginning of March; he was supposed to be in Hugo on the 14th.
The mobile mechanic fixed the exhaust and diagnosed a leaky carburetor. Sturm und drang ensues – fortunately in Sea Side lives a little old man schooled in the ancient art of carburetor repair. His phone was disconnected 5 years ago but fortunately by diligently searching through back copies of the Monterey Peninsula phone directory secreted away in a circular room in a locked tower of the Monterey Public Library, we manage to track down an address and… Voila! Carburetor cured. Mobile mechanic comes over again, spends an afternoon bolting and tightening. I sit in my office listening to him try and gun the motor for half an hour. The motor never ignites. My heart is pounding, my brain is swimming. Anxiety? What’s that?
“We’re gonna flood it if I try it anymore,” says the mobile auto mechanic.
“Try it one more time,” Ben answers grimly.
And whaddiya know – the motor turns over!
Then there’s a crisis with the electrical system – the RV has no headlights or brake lights. Then there’s a crisis with the tires, two of which are flat – they’re a funny size that they only sell on alternate Hanukkahs at a magical tire outlet that ever floats like Brigadoon just over the next turn of El Camino Real…
These calamities are remedied.
But wait! We have run out of money! The RV gets some improbably low mpg. The money we have might cover gas but it won’t cover emergencies – for example if the fuel pump broke in Greenfield (just sayin’) – and we won’t have any money until we sell the van. Parades of people come by to look at the van. There are people whose social lives seem to consist of finding items on Craig’s List which they have absolutely no intention of buying and then coming to look at them, making the sellers answer all sorts of stupid questions.
The people who finally end up buying the van are this incredibly nice father and son team. The son is a software engineer who surfs every morning from 5am to 7am; the dad is a former RAF flyer who chaperoned Churchill to and from various important treaty signings and then moved to Carmel Valley – “to get away from the English weather,” he told me. He is incredibly charming and I quite forget I am selling him a vehicle so entertaining is he to talk to until the son apologetically pushes money into my hand: “I can see you and Dad really hit it off, but I’ve got to run.”
This money is more than I ever thought we’d get for my funky old van. It’s divvied up between Ben and me.
I buy some groceries for the van. I take the dogs to the beach for the very last time. I print some pictures for the inside of the van. I’ll miss them, I think. I’ll miss my family.
They take off early the next morning.
At 6:40am I hear an enormous crash in the living room: one of Ben’s circus posters had somehow gotten loose from its backing. It had fallen off the wall, its glass overlay had shattered. I look at the poster: Robbins Bros. Circus, it says. There’s a picture of a Mary Pickford look-alike riding bareback on a white horse.
Uh oh, I think.
Five minutes later I get the phone call.
At first Robin was very enthusiastic about taking off. “You don’t realize how bad Monterey High School is,” he told me. “I’m not learning anything. Plus there are gangs. Plus last fall these two seniors raped this freshman girl and filmed it and put it on YouTube and she tried to commit suicide by drinking nail polish remover –“
O-kay! I’m convinced. Monterey High School sucks dogs’ dicks.
I am dubious of my own ability to home school successfully, however. I have absolutely no patience. And I’m terrible at chemistry and geometry.
We wanted to keep Robin in school through the end of last week but he pitched a series of fits and then somehow got his guidance counselor to back him up. So his withdrawal was official as of last Monday.
I gave him his first assignment. “You will listen to Dreams From My Father and you will write a 500 word essay: in the first section of Dreams From My Father, Obama writes, "I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds, understanding that each possessed its own language and customs and structures of meaning, convinced that with a bit of translation on my part the two worlds would eventually cohere." How does he "slip back and forth" between his worlds, and is he ever successful at making them cohere?
He rolled his eyes and went right back to playing Grand Theft Auto.
He was depressed, I could tell, though he denied it. As soon as he found out that I had no intention of keeping the house in Monterey, he decided he didn’t want to run off to the circus anymore. “You can’t move,” he said. “I’ll run away. I’ll come back here. I’ll live on the streets if I have to.”
Of course at least part of my motive for leaving Monterey is to separate him from his current posse. Wells, for example. Wells is smart but appears to be on a downward spiral. I can’t “save” him. But I can certainly save Robin.
“A hundred dollars a week!” I said. “That’s not bad for a fourteen year old. So you spend half and you save half. Plus you write it all down. Write down how you hate me and want to sneak back to Monterey! I won’t care. I won’t read it. But this is the experience – well. Remember how Max got all those full scholarship offers when he first applied to college?”
“So what,” Robin mumbled. “Max is the smart one. Max is your golden boy.”
I ignore this. “Max asked me at the time what he should do. Whether he should go to Deep Springs or, say, the University of Pittsburgh which actually has an undergraduate neuroscience program. That’s what Max wants to study.
“I told him, ‘If you go to Deep Springs, you will be off the conveyor belt forever –‘
“Do you know what I mean by ‘the conveyor belt?’”
Robin nodded sullenly.
“Humor me. Describe it in words.”
Robin shrugged. “You’re born. You get a job. You get married. You die.”
“Exactly. There’s nothing wrong with that if that’s what you want to do. Is that what you want to do?”
“No-o-o.”
“Well, okay then. This is your way of getting off the conveyor belt. Robin, you are a damn fine writer. And I am telling you, if you keep track of the experiences you’re having, if you write about them, you will end up with a book and the book will be published because the experience is unique.”
We were sitting in the Noir café throughout this conversation. Robin had ordered an espresso.
“Have you ever had an espresso before?” I’d asked at the cash register.
“Lots of times,” he informed me loftily.
I doubted that but I let him have it.
Now at the table I noticed he had reached for a shaker and was dumping salt into the espresso.
“Uh – what are you doing?” I asked.
“Oh, I thought it was sugar!” he said, abashed.
“Well, you can’t drink it now.”
“Yes, I can!” And he proceeded to drain half a cup of salty espresso.
“All-l-l-l righty, then!” I said. “So about that wacky Obama…”
It was the fuel pump. It had gone out because the RV sat in that driveway so long that water had condensed into the gasoline tank. I felt like the backup on The Amazing Race, making phone calls to every tow service and auto parts store in Greenfield: “Do you tow RV’s? No? How about fuel pumps, do you sell them?”
How are you? I texted Robin. Okay?
I had loaded him up with movies and Trader Joe treats before they’d left. Until the VeeDub bug visits The Last Honest Auto Mechanic and gets its engine seal repaired, I am transportation-less, so I couldn’t even drive to Greenfield to hang out with him.
He called. “I’m fine,” he said. “Milo’s pretty bummed though.”
“Did you tell him he’s about to visit the ancestral home of the Blue Lacies?”
“I did. He didn’t care. He’s thinking of running away.”
“Don’t let him,” I said.
“I won’t," said Robin.
This already waaaay too long entry would not be complete without a description of an uneasy social encounter. A slight acquaintance of mine had decided to come to Monterey for the weekend.
“Ah!” I said. “Very romantic place, Monterey. So will you be bringing a lovely companion?”
“No,” he said. “I’m coming to see you.”
O-kay.
I’d thought Ben and Robin would be on the road by the time Slight Acquaintance materialized, and that it would behoove me to arrange as many social encounters as possible to distract me from the house’s sudden emptiness. But of course, they were still around and AO actually wanted to come to my house and that made me very uneasy. Had I flirted with him? Was he attracted to me? Was this a date? God, I hoped not: I hate dates, and I hadn’t flirted with him any more than I flirt with anyone else; I like to banter, what can I say?
“Don’t come over here,” I said. “I’ll meet you at the restaurant.”
He had to know I was married. I mean, Ben and I had socialized with him and his wife before they’d gotten divorced – and if any two people needed to get divorced it was those two: Slight Acquaintance, humorous, laid back – okay, passive – except for the shallows of his intense blue eyes in which a whole tribe of monsters larked about; the Wife, snippy, critical, angry. Had he assumed that because he’d gotten divorced, I’d gotten divorced? Or maybe he wasn’t attracted to me, maybe I was presuming –
We had a pleasant lunch. He insisted on paying. I kept him entertained by unreeling the true tale of his Divorce, asking him about his job, asking him about his children.
Then we proceeded to go for a walk on the beach, and I realized I’d run out of things to say. He was not the type of person to actually talk about the beach: “Look at that otter! Isn’t this a cool looking shell? Do you know sometimes pottery shards wash up on this beach and I like to pretend to myself that they’re remnants of the old Chinese fishing villages that were here a hundred years ago –“
If he had been attracted to me, he was no longer. I wondered whether it was physical – my hair too long, my teeth need work. Right now I only have the strength of my personality to commend me, although there’s nothing a haircut and a few afternoons in the office of a nice Tijuana dentist couldn’t fix about my physical appearance. But face it: I have no job, I have no prospects of getting a job (census doesn't really count,) I am far from financially solvent. I’m no dream girl. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be attracted to me – I didn’t meet his match.com criteria – and so he wasn’t.
Not a drop of passion anywhere in this person. Odd, odd, odd. And there I was having to ask him questions about himself, having to service his ego, all because he’d paid for a semi-expensive lunch.
At one point we started talking about middle age. “I quite like middle age,” I said cozily. “The only thing I don’t like about it is that it’s more difficult to make friends. There’s a certain spark that’s missing now. Know what I mean?”
“No, he said. “I don’t.”
He emailed me when he got home. Inviting me to visit him on the Peninsula.
No, no, no, no, no.
I suppose that’s another reason why I find it so hard to break up my marriage. I really hate going on “dates.” If I break up with Ben, I’m almost certain to spend the rest of my life alone. And I enjoy having a partner.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-03-17 06:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-17 09:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-17 08:56 pm (UTC)i think something really great is going to come out of robin's summer with the circus!
also- i had the epiphany that what i most want is a partner recently, and it's because i want someone to share experiences with. i also genuinely like supporting someone on a very close level, and i like being supported in the same way.
this was HUGE, because my personality is always 'i can do this alone.' i mean, i'm a very chatty, sociable person, but i always feel pretty alone- regardless of how many people are in the room and how many people express that they care about me. i typically get along best with people who are the same way.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-17 09:49 pm (UTC)Yeah, I agree. Robin is on the road to becoming a Disney star. Miley Cyrus, watch yr ass!
no subject
Date: 2009-03-18 01:01 am (UTC)Have you ever noticed that the best laid plans always change on a dime?
2 months ago, I never expected to be in New York with a new friend, spending the day checking out apartments. I found an apartment today, a real nice one on the upper east side with 4 bedrooms in a good building. Now, I need to figure out how to make it work.
Jeff
no subject
Date: 2009-03-19 02:54 am (UTC)I can understand how someone being a slob can really be a problem; I was married to such a person (from Monterey/Prunedale, as it happens) and I'm still recovering; it turned *me* into a slob. Still, it seems like if there's so many good things about the relationship, is there a way that can be fixed? Counselling? Does he have ADD? Housekeeper who works for room and board?
Not that you were asking for advice, of course.
good luck.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-19 11:55 pm (UTC)Locked entry. :-)
Ben's never shown the slightest interest in my LJ locked or unlocked actually -- though he likes the other stuff I write. He gets the concept of venting.
it turned *me* into a slob.
See, and that's the real issue. You either nag them incessantly, clean up after them or give up yourself <-- the path of least resistance.
Housekeeper might be a good option when I'm earning $ again. Note that when I'm earning $ again though... He wouldn't spend money on it. And that pisses me off.