July 27, 1997

July 27, 1997

"I do not feel the romance..."

What's On My Mind

Love is on my mind. Or the lack of it or the absence of it or whatever. I don't know how it will be with Colette and I now that we're back together. I have really, really good reasons (which I'm not going to elaborate on now) to believe that we won't be together that long, but I'm not going to sweat it. Colette seems healthier than when she left (two weeks can be enough time for some things) and that's why I asked if she wanted to come back. So, I look at what I've done here in asking her to come back and some of it is missing her, some of it is holding on to a relationship that is unhealthy (at least I'm healthy enough to know it is), and some of it is selfish 'cause I like having her around. Ya gotta recognize that everyone needs a play-partner.

I thought that when we first go together that we had a good chance at making a good couple, and having a good relationship that could lead to a good marriage. I don't think that now. At least the marriage part. I know her better now and she knows me better. We both come back to the table with more knowledge than the first time. We both come back with our eyes wide open as to what to expect and what not to expect. Which is healthy. I also know where Colette's heart lies (with her children). They are living in another state and she wants to be near them. I am not disposed to move from here and she knows that. She also knows that my company does not have operations in that state and that I have a really great job I would be an idiot to leave. She also knows (I'm pretty sure) that we are not going to last that long, and that she will be moving by herself when she can afford to.

I look at what I just wrote and don't feel bad or guilty about it. What we have is more a relationship of convenience and sex than anything else. She and I get on passably well and have pretty fantastic sex, so the friction that was there about how we were going to be able to afford to get her kids from her ex-husband isn't there. She knows it and I know it. Which also means we won't be together all that long. More of a roomate situation than anything else. She has to work to get some nicer working clothes so she can get better jobs and so she can save up money to move. Although who knows.... Maybe things will work out between us and we'll be together a long time, but I doubt it. But for now, I'm just going to go with the flow and let her be and see how it all works out. As long as I don't push her to work on the relationship, she is okay. Which is pretty telling about us during our first incarnation. She didn't really want the relationship to begin with. Or had given up on me when I didn't immediately plunk down $5,000 to give to her lawyers to start the legalities of getting her kids back. Which as it turns out was a good thing to do!

Taking a look at the previous paragraph... it sounds more callous than the one before it, but there it is. We are both getting what we need and neither of us is being used past what we signed up for so I think it's okay. More like a contract. This entry has been very good for me. It has helped me get down what has been crawling around my brain for a few days and helps me get it down on paper (?) and take at look at it objectively. Objectively??? I don't know about that, but at least getting a look at it in black and tan. I never would have thought I would act this way, but I am, and there it is.

Colette just got up about 10 minutes ago (at 2.40P) and is now eating a popcicle in the living room. One thing that I'm not going to do this time is make her get up on my schedule. It will just keep her happier. She plans to go out and get a radiation burn today. I think at dinner I'll bring up some things and have a low-key discussion of how I envision us now. Like we'll get the cable hooked back up when she can pay for it and she can re-activate the health club when she can pay the dues. Put everything on an even keel and basis. Get the expectations out in the open. Just heard the shower turn on so she's getting ready to go burn herself outside.

What's New...

Colette moved back in on Friday. She had been coming downstairs to get things I had forgot to pack and to ask if she could watch Television (what's up with that?) and just chat. She had asked if we could remain friends and I had said I wanted that. I had also said that I wanted to try to get back together after she had gotten herself back together. Turns out she doesn't remember that but no matter. Anyway, Thursday night she called and asked if she could come down and watch TV and I said no but that I would like some company and would like to chat to clear up some things between us.

Well, we ended up talking for hours and she even brought down some laundry to do while we yakked. We talked about the hurt we had inflicted on each other and how we had reacted to it. She thought that I had crapped out on her when the going got tough and I said that she hadn't been dealing with herself and her problems. We also got through all the nasty things we had said to each other before she left. I asked her what she wanted and we got around eventually to discussing what it would look like if she came back. We talked about expectations and my habit of "analyzing" her and those things that get in the way of just letting the other be. She didn't want me running over her with my obsessing about the relationship and I told her that she needed to take better care of herself and to get a job. We couldn't make it on just my salary if we were to do the things we needed to do.

So, after a while I asked her if she wanted to come back and she said she was surprised that I would ask. She thought that she had screwed up so badly that I wouldn't want her around. I said that wasn't the case. We talked about contingency plans for when she gets crazy or drunk (which will happen I'm sure) and she said that I should have just let her sleep it off in the back bedroom. So, if she slips up, that's what we will do. So she moved in during Friday while I was at work and she cooked up some mean Spaghetti on Friday and we have just cocooned this weekend just getting to know each other again. Which has been really nice!!! We're just as compatible in bed as we were and now seem to be even more so. Without the baggage of acting like we are deeply in love, we can just enjoy each other and let it go with that.

So...work last week was a herk and a jerk. Four meetings with at least six separate groups and all the leads from my group at every meeting. We had to do it to sync up dates and make sure we weren't planning a disaster a year from now. Went pretty good except for the first one when I briefed my plan for the meetings and asked everyone if they thought it woud work. They all said no. So I asked what they thought would work and after 40 minutes they got it down and we used that pattern for the rest of the meetings. Sitting with engineers discussing engineering is a real hard thing to do sometimes. I found myself staring into the overhead machines platten (blinding white light) just to stay awake at one point. We got through them okay and on Monday we have the largest group coming in for two three hour meetings I hope will work out. Wednesday concludes the sessions. I have to get a chart together that shows the time relationships of everything and should be in at work today doing that but I think I'll have enough time Monday late or Tuesday to do it. I have to brief my management plan to the chief of my section on Wednesday so that gives me enough time to get my act together. Our scheds have some inconsistancies in them as to what goes on what line but that is easily solved. Other than that, things there are pretty good. Some personnel conflicts but those are dealable.

Went to see shrinko on Thursday to let him see me in my new incarnation of a recovered depressed person and to get some new meds scrips. I told him about last Sunday's depression episode and said that I thought it was because of Colette and what happened and that I was grieving for the loss of our relationship. He thought that was right and also said that he thought that two weeks was kinda short to get over that sort of thing. Meaning that I should not push the grief process and just be at ease with it. Which is also why I think I wanted Colette back. I didn't want us to end.

I changed the look again. I don't like the brighter backgrounds and this one is really very readable. Plus, I like the green border on the background. It's funny, I usually use the Blockquote tag to indent my text from the left border to clear the side stripe. Now in most browsers, this usually looks okay. But, I also use tcpConnect4 and WebSurfer and both don't do the blockquote tag as far to the right as I use it. Maybe there was some HTML rule saying you can't indent more than 3 deep. Who knows. Anyway, with this side stripe as with other ones, in those browsers the text ran into the sidestripe and since I didn't have IE, I thought I would try a new approach. I decided to use a two cell table and adjust it so that the text ran along the stripe. Netscape seems to display it okay. The real beast is that neither of the two older browsers show the table correctly either. Using blockquotes works on some side stripes but is either too little or a little too much for Netscape and IE. So, the moral of the story is, do you best and fuck the rest. You can never satisfy every browser or everyone. Nuff said.

MacOS 8 just came out. I will probably buy it even though I just upgraded to 7.5 a few weeks ago. To get the increased crash protection wouldbe nice but I don't crash one-tenth as much now as I used to so maybe I won't. Plus, the hard storage rqmts for 8 are about 90MB's so I don't think I will anytime soon. I only have a 250MB disk and that would leave me about 40MB's unused. That is pushing it for me. I like a lot of space for when I get in a downloader mood.

Got The Girls playing...again. We've had a great weekend weather wise. The sun has been out and the skies have been clear and the temps have been in the high seventies and low eighties. Mighty nice. I heard geese going overhead last night so I wonder where they are clearing out of??? Canada? Fall seems just around the corner and I'm looking forward to it. My first fall without that damn depression and wet blanket on my head. I truly love the fall and the fog and rain. It did however contribute to my depression. This time around, I hope to enjoy the season without letting it fuck up my head.

Just love.

This has gone on long enough....

Be Joyous!

Smile at me. Smile at you. Similies for friendship.

<A cup of Yuban™ and a smoke or two...>

"I do not catch the spark."

Copyright ©1996, 1997 A.T.Green. All Rights Reserved.