Maxed Out

I haven't written about it, because frankly I don't know how to present it, whether from my point of view (which I have been told over and over that it is WRONG) or from the correct point of view from friends and family (which doesn't make me feel any better) or the secret insecurity I've been harboring the past couple of days.

So I'm writing my thoughts as they come. Welcome to my mumbo-jumbo brain.

Christopher has been depressed. Not in the ways I claim to be circumstantially depressed every now and then, but medically, clinically, brain-not-chemically-firing depressed. We've been locked in a pattern for the past two months where he mentally and emotionally slips away, I'll call him out on it, and then he swears everything is fine and he puts on a show that I'm not even sure he believes. And then the effort he's been making will peter out and it begins again.

My grandmother got really sick in January. My family was speaking of her in weeks and months as opposed to years. Whats-his-face lashed out at me and temporarily halted my world. I wanted to lean on my boyfriend, but he wasn't there. He wasn't answering the phone calls nor making any phone calls. He was sleeping all day and awake all night. We stopped spending the night together because of his sleep schedule. I got angry (typically my first reaction) and called a friend who said, "Oh, he sounds really sick." And she was all concerned over him while here I was, angry because I was feeling abandoned with his incommunication.

So I went over to his apartment and forced a talk on him. He was meek and small and didn't say much and admitted to even less. I asked what kind of girlfriend he needed from me: someone to support him or someone to hold him accountable. He said supportive. We talked about what makes him feel better. He said going to the gym. He signed up for a gym memebrship and I bought him a year's subscription to Men's Health. He did quietly thank me for coming over and squeezed my arm when I was leaving.

The next day he called me and said he's been up since 8 am and has been applying to all sorts of jobs all day. Good, I thought. Situation fixed.

And downhill slope begins again. He wants to see me, but doesn't want to leave his apartment. So if I ever want to spend time with him, I have to go to his place and sit on his couch. I begin to hate his apartment. I detach. He starts getting colds one after another and I'm not surprised because he isn't eating or sleeping regularly. That was the one thing my therapist asked me when I started seeing her. Every meeting: Am I eating and sleeping regularly? "Yes," I said. "Good," she said. "You're fine." By this standard, Christopher is not fine.

After not seeing Christopher for a couple of weeks, I stop by his apartment at 3:30 on a Sunday afternoon. My plan was to kidnap him and take him out to his favorite place to get some food, sunshine and interaction. He answered the door in his boxers, clearly sleeping. I turn the shower on. He gets back in bed. I tell him the plan. He tells me to turn the shower off because he's too tired to go. I begin to cry and say I need this from him. He says he needs sleep. I dance around the depression word again because he'll never admit to him, but he agrees he's been "mopey" this year. I cry and say he never comes over to my apartment anymore. We used to cook dinner together and watch TV, but he doesn't do that with me anymore. He swears he will this week: Monday or Tuesday. He asks me to leave so he can go back to bed. When I linger, he goes ahead and pretends he's sleeping.

A week goes by. I stopped by with several job leads. Every day he sends me a text saying he's got a cold and can't make it for dinner because he's going to take a sleeping pill to sleep off the cold. I've never heard of nasal drip incapacitating anyone to the extent it's taken hold of him. I'm understanding Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. But on Sunday we had made tentative plans to go out to dinner. 6:30, 7:30, 8:30 rolls by and I haven't heard from him. He doesn't answer the phone and I know he's sleeping. But I'm angry (again my first reaction). He can't make a single effort for me, yet says he wants me in his life. I feel rejected.

I send him a text that states this sleeping excuse is old and his behavior is unacceptable. An hour later I lessen the blow with saying I'm acting this way because I'm tired of having my feelings hurt. I get no response. I go to bed.

Close to midnight I get a text from him that says he really was sleeping and it's not an excuse. I can't read the emotion of the message so I call. He doesn't answer.

A few minutes later I get another text from him. He wants a break because he's not feeling it and he knows I'm not either. I laugh because this is the second time I have been broken up with by text. I hate texting and I was only able to do it again this year. I ask him to define "break." Does he want space or to break up. "Space," he responds "And I told you I didn't want to be serious."

That's my version.

Family and friends tell me that he's so depressed that he is unable to feel at the moment. That I shouldn't take it personally because he would be like this with anyone. It's not my fault and I didn't do anything wrong. They say he was depressed from being unemployed a year before he met me and that being with me gave him a high during which he was able to function. But now the high is wearing off and he's going back to being depressed because it's been an additional 9 months and he is still unemployed. Unemployment has run out and his parents are enabling him by paying his bills. His credit cards are maxed out.

Each one of them expresses concern for him. But me? I'm angry.

And the secret insecurity? Maybe he just doesn't like me.

Gimme a Break

"Crying is the refuge of plain women. Pretty women go shopping."

--Contessa Luchhino, The Good Woman

Christopher and I are officially on a break. It's been a long time coming. I'm okay, I really am. I'm kinda tired hearing myself bitch about the situation, so you'll have to stay in the dark for a little while longer.

I think I should go shopping.

A Little Less Conversation

When I first moved to the city in 2006, the apartment I rented was down the street from Christopher's. Having met him two weeks into working at my new job, he was all I knew of the city. I originally wanted to move uptown to the north part of the city, but Christopher and others insisted that Midtown was the trendiest place to live, so I followed suit.  

Driving home from dinner on Sunday, Christopher and I passed through our old neighborhood in Midtown. I looked at the abandoned city hall in disgust. "I don't miss this place at all," I spat.

"I don't miss [scary nickname] Kroger," he added. 

We pulled up to the light were S claimed he was mugged several times. Now I know that if he was really mugged, it was because he was trying to buy drugs. "Hey, it's Valentine's Day. Let's see if our prostitute is out tonight," I joked.

We both stared out the window, looking for her. She's been working this corner as long as I have lived in the city and she was even featured on an episode of Cops for giving a guy a blow job behind the Church's Chicken on this same corner. 

"There she is!" Christopher pointed.   

I sighed. "No, that's not her. Our girl is skinny. Crack skinny."

"But that girl is still a prostitute."

I looked at her hair, "No doubt."

"Well, is that her?" He asked, pointing to a dark figure dancing across the intersection.

"No, that's the crack addict with the deformed hand."

"Oh! The one with the cup?"

"Yeah, him."

The light changed and we headed back to our apartments located uptown, where I wanted to live all along. It feels good that my seedy past is left behind in the seedy part of town.  A visual representation for my emotional past. Like I can literally leave it where it is and all of that tangible and intangible nastiness can just mingle together.

Sextistics

Full of dinner and wine and chocolates and all of the other Valentine's Day cliches that I love, Christopher and I watched another TLC documentary last night called Sextistics: Your Love Life. It was absolutely fascinating because it contained all the information that I've ever wanted to know about American love. Part of me wanted to geek out and write down all of the statistics as they appeared for discussion on my blog, but I withheld because Christopher was sitting next to me. I thought if the statistic was really important, I would remember it.

Without further ado, some cold, hard numbers about American love:

• Men and women will fall in love on average seven times in their lifetimes. This is a surprisingly large number.
• Being in love has the same brain chemical equivalent as being high on cocaine and heroin. Dopamine and all that jazz.
• Women will kiss an average of 79 "frogs" before finding their mates. I find this number oddly comforting, probably because my number is somewhere in the 40s — 60s. I have a little padding room.
• Women have sex with an average of nine men in their lifetimes. Oops.
• Men have sex with an average of 12 women in their lifetimes.
• 44% of people have had sex in a car.
• 10% of people are virgins on the wedding night.
• 25% of all couples do not consummate the wedding night, presumably to some giant number of glasses of champagne imbibed at weddings per year, something in the millions.
• There are 4,100 engagements per year in the United States. I think this number seems a little low considering our population is 330 million according to the Olympic opening ceremony statistics.
• The 51% divorce rate is true. However,
• If you get married in your forties, the divorce rate is 7%.
• Marriage in your thirties: 16%. I did all kinds of mental fist pumps to this number, because it's practically impossible for me to get married in my twenties at this point and I can totally work with 16%. Statistically, I will probably not get divorced!
• And finally, marriage in your twenties: 77% divorce rate. Suckers.
• Men have over 4,100 orgasms during their lives, while women only have roughly 1,400. I narrowed my eyes and looked at Christopher and said the huge difference in numbers is due to men not taking the time on women. Christopher didn't miss a beat and said it was due to men masturbating more.
• Couples in their twenties have sex eight times a month.
• Couples in their thirties have sex six times a month. However, if they have children, this number is reduced to four times per month.
• Good news is couples in their forties have sex six times per month, so sex will increase as the children age.
• People will kiss for two weeks of their lives. I scoffed and said I pretty much already nailed that number with this one guy from college.
• People will orgasm for 150 hours in their lifetime. Total brain melt!

So there you have it, some pretty interesting numbers. I was below most of the statistics, so I have some life to live as long as I don't sleep with anyone else for the rest of my life. And then I'll still be above average on that one.

What do you think of the statistics? Too high? Too low? Spot on?

He wasn't lying after all

Number of phone calls received from a certain lawyer: 5 and counting.

Number of phone calls avoided: 5 and counting.

All About Me (and my blog)

1. How long have you been blogging? Since April of 2003.

2. What made you start? I was in college and recently single (again) and also drinking a lot. A lot, as in I would probably be hospitalized with alcohol poisoning if I ever tried to drink that much again. I had more drunken stories per week than most people had in a lifetime.

For this blog, I got dumped by my boyfriend of a year via text. The one that I quit my job and left my friends and moved cities for. I was home for exactly 3 weeks before I was unceremoniously dumped. I'm still pissed off he used that method, but I think now that it says a lot more about him than it does about me.

3. Who inspired you? My ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend that I hated kept a blog that was pretty personal, detailing her injured feelings from his afflictions. She had a link to it on her AIM account and I snooped with abandon. It was glorious. One day I thought, hey it's free and I can do this too.

4. About how many hours a week would you estimate you spend on your blog? Not much. Probably not more than 2 - 3 hours per week.

5. What kind of experience or background do you have with writing? Let's see. I founded my middle school newspaper. Skipped a year of English in high school. I was the editor of my high school newspaper. Went to college for journalism, but eventually changed majors to English due to some requirement— I think I didn't want to take any more foreign language classes that I needed for journalism. I also wrote for the independent paper that was prestigious and nationally ranked. For my English major, I took every class from writing humor, to translating books to film scripts, to technical writing. I ended up in the technical writing field today. Blogging is my creative outlet since I have none at work.

6. Talk about how you come up with blog topics. Where do you get your ideas? My blog posts are typically conflicts that I'm trying to work out, or stories that I think are worth telling.

7. What or who inspires you and your blog? There are a handful of blogs that I could just eat up for the writing. I love Life Goes On, I Think. I'm a new convert of Hope Dies Last. I used to really like This Fish, but she doesn't seem to have her heart in writing anymore. I loved a little Wordpress blog called Copasetic Fish, but she went private. Do you have any recommendations for me to read?

8. Where and/or how do you do your brainstorming for your blog? I usually have them planned out in my head for a few days before I commit them to word. I'm most often struck with a post while I'm driving, so I'm not in a position to write it down.

9. Do you have any blogging rules or guidelines you follow? Comments are an open forum on my blog, so any negative or hurtful ones will stay, with exception of any pejorative remarks against any race or gender or sexual preference. But I have never encountered any of those.

I also commit to write for myself and not around any comments I may receive, although I know I'm not doing that right now by avoiding certain topics.

10. Is there anything you will not blog about? This is one of the only things I have in my life that is all about me, so I don't really express interest in politics or even current events.

11. Do you have any sort of a publishing schedule in terms of day of week or topic? I aim for three posts a week. I'm pleased with myself when I can hit five. I rarely write on the weekends.

12. How many drafts of potential blog posts do you have right now? Not many. Maybe 3.

13. In what medium do you draft your posts? Ha! Notepad. That's right. Word gets on my nerves. I like the simplicity of Notepad and I'll even insert any blog formatting or links using HTML code instead of using a WYSIWYG editor.

14. How often do you completely scratch or delete drafts or blog post ideas? I'm so calculating in my thinking that it rarely happens. I know I've deleted one post on here, but that's about it.

15. If you had to leave your blog in your will to another blogger, who would you choose? I would bequeath my blog to Two Drink Girl, my oldest blogging friend. She already has my user name and password, so that is one less step. However, since I never met her in real life, I probably would need someone to tell her I died.

16. Are there other blogs that you feel are similar to yours in content, style, or voice? The topic may be overdone, but I enjoy reading all relationship blogs or posts about love and boys. Do you have any recommendations?

17. Has anything surprised you since you started blogging? The amount of support I receive from strangers. It's not something I receive a lot in my life, so I'm always surprised when someone I don't know cares enough about me to root for me. Also the number of people who have admitted they've gone through similar circumstances. It was the inspiration for our blog book You're Not The Only One.

18. What are your goals or plans for your blog going forward? To just keep trucking along without falling into a vortex like I tend to do when I get unhappy.

19. Do you make any money from your blog? I have a setup with some company where I receive $5 per post that I write on their chosen topic. I use it about once a year when I'm feeling broke and I always note it's a paid post. I really should utilize that more.

20. What blogging system do you use? Blogger! It was the first one I came across in 2003 before Google bought it, and I refuse to change my web address and move. If I had to start a new blog, I would go with Wordpress though.

21. How did you come up your blog name? It came pretty easily when I was dumped and without hope.

22. How many blogs do you have? What was your peak? I currently have 2. The most I ever had was 3. It got too confusing to manage that many.

23. Are you having as much fun as when you started? More! I love the connections and friends I've made!

24. Where do you find other bloggers like you? I'll go to the blogs I read and raid their blogrolls. I also try to read those that link to me or comment.

(BTW, I love this Blogger feature that lists blogs according to updates. My blog reading is much more efficient and I get to read so many more people!)

25. What’s your one wish when it comes to blogging? I used to always want to meet and date a boy blogger. But now that I've tried it, I'm pretty turned off by the inferring posts. They were about me without stating my name, but then again they were negative so I'm glad I wasn't listed anyway. AND WHO BLOGS ON MYSPACE ANYWAY?

My wish would be to continue meeting new people through my blog and making new friends.

Translated Upon Request

I've had a hard time getting out of bed this week. First I realized that I have now officially been at my "new" job for longer than I was at the job I got laid off from. I like my current job and, more importantly, they like me, but I loved my old job. I felt special being at my old job.

At my old job, I was an editor with my own magazine. My picture was in it with "Editor-in-Chief" in below it in captions. I was responsible for writing the marketing for an entire line of global products. My words were translated in French and Spanish. Sometimes after work I would go into the store and look at the boxes on the shelves and see tangible proof of my work.

My current job is altruistic in nature. I get paid more. My commute is cut in half. I am one link on a very long chain that saves lives. My writing is now translated upon request.

Maybe it's my ego not getting fed. My work goes into a vortex that I'll never see again. Maybe it's that I'm at a job where again nobody really understands what I do and my parents couldn't even tell you my company's name. I just don't feel as special.

Today marks the one-year anniversary from being laid off from my razzle-dazzle job. I'm sad. I miss my co-worker whom I've shared two companies with. He's still there and told me this morning that the company is still laying off people and closing divisions, although he's still employed.

I was worried the first two rounds of lay offs it had, but I made it through them. My V.P. made a huge speech about how he was working with a bare-bones staff and that our division was safe from future cuts. And then the third round came and I was called in my boss's office at 7:30 a.m. and escorted out of the building by 7:45. I was in the unemployment office by 10 am. It turned out that I was the only person in the entire department of 40 people that had been cut.

The pain of being professionally dumped still stings. The company let me down easily with a nice severance package and a promise to answer late-night booty calls. It never stayed over though.