It is so strange the way things turn
Feb. 25th, 2003 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j4This entry is going to be a heap of little bits and pieces, a mixture of good and bad, because that's what the last few days seem to have been.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daneel_olivaw arrived on Friday, and it was only really when he actually turned up on the doorstep that I realised how long it had been since I'd seen him properly. Spent a nice evening just sitting around chatting and eating pizza; I ended up flaking out quite early (just so shattered for some reason) but it was nice to just snuggle up in bed and sleep. And wake up and 'snuggle' some more, ahem. :-)
I think at least one of the reasons why my libido seems to be more likely to show itself with people who I don't see so often is that there seems to be more pressure to Do Stuff Now, because the person won't be there to Do Stuff later (though sometimes this works the other way, and the pressure just makes me go all wibbly and useless). Of course the implication of this is that I'm takingsion_a for granted, if I'm just thinking "well, there'll be other times".
The word "procrasturbation" has just popped into my head. I had to share it with you. Feel free to assign it a meaning. :-)
Anyway... the idea of trying to schedule sex just makes me feel a bit icky, to be honest; it takes all the spontaneity out of it, and I think it'd make me feel far too pressured. (Scheduling "quality time" isn't so bad, somehow, as there's no pressure to do anything specific with that time.) But I'm starting to wonder if it's worth trying it, as I just feel more and more guilty about being such a crap girlfriend.
That's the sex and the pizza... I lied about the lies. (Oh, except in that case I didn't lie. But I did. But I ... "Oh dear," said Janet, "I hadn't thought of that!" and disappeared in a puff of paradox.)
Other stuff did happen beside picking up my lovely lovely lovely [okay, that's enough -- Ed.] car. Went into town to try to get the tax disc for my car, only to find that I didn't have the logbook and they wouldn't give me a tax disc without it -- hrmph. Went to Sainsburys to pick up stuff for dinner, only to find that Sainsburys didn't have half the things we wanted for our stir-fry. Had to pick up water-chestnuts and bamboo shoots from the Nasreen Dar instead. Sainsburys did have nice fruit though. When we got home,sion_a and daneel_olivaw made dinner while I rambled on the phone to my mum about the car. :-) Aren't they lovely boys!
That eveninglnr and ewx had a party, which was mostly quite fun -- people spent quite a while rearranging the letters on my velcro t-shirt (a Valentine's Day gift from daneel_olivaw, and we realised in the process that "MINOR CATASTROPHE" is an anagram of "O PROSTHETIC MARNA". ewx should have a photographic record of the latter slogan somewhere.
It was strange being at a party and not drinking -- and the fact that I found it strange suggests that maybe I need to do it more often, or drink more moderately at parties. There were times when I just felt really out of the whole thing -- partly becausesion_a was spending time with a rather wibbly simonb, and daneel_olivaw was with ejde, and lnr was spending more time with ewx than she sometimes does at parties (possibly because lark_ascending wasn't there, as she was visiting cryx. (Phew... think that's everybody.) Not that any of that was a bad thing per se, & I'm not getting at anybody about it (already done that in real life, and shouldn't have done), but it did make me feel a bit odd. Did spend some time being snuggly with lnr though, which was nice.
Giving Fi a lift home in my lovely [stop right there -- Ed.] car was entertaining, especially when we started smelling burning... still no idea what was causing that, though she seems to be running fine now. Thanks tosimonb for navigating me back afterwards -- I'm sorry I'm so dreadful with directions!
Faffy kind of day, mostly because we were all tired. Had a nice fried brunch eventually and thendaneel_olivaw and I spent half the afternoon playing with polishing & fiddling with my car. Well, I was intent on polishing her to a gleaming shininess, while daneel_olivaw looked on in amusement. I was glad of his help to get the headlamp cover off, though, as it was a bit of a faff to remove.
Afterdaneel_olivaw had gone I faffed about uselessly for a while, failing to get job applications written and failing even to update my LiveJournal. Then realised that I should have phoned ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
kaet to sort out meeting up at the weekend, and that I didn't have any of my phone numbers any more since my old SIM got eaten. Fortunately sorted stuff out by email (thank god for near-instantaneous text-based communications!) and we met up later at the Carlton Arms for drinks and a nice chat. I don't see kaet nearly enough -- particularly daft since we live about 10 mins' walk from each other!
I don't know what happened to Monday, everything just seemed to go pearshaped. I felt like everybody was being unbelievably irritating, though in retrospect I think it was me being unbelievably irritable. Over the last few days I've been stopping taking the antidepressants (because I am sick and tired of being on them, sick and tired of not being able to think clearly, sick and tired of having to remember to take bloody pills with me every time I go out for dinner, and sick of the idea that I have to be on drugs to be a normal human being), and I think it's been having more effect than I realised. Perhaps that's why I was feeling more out-of-it than usual on Saturday night, too.
Anyway, I ended up getting into horrible arguments all over irc, and ended up yelling atewx quite unreasonably and getting cross with lnr as well for trying to make me calm down. And then yelling at sion_a after he basically told me that I was totally in the wrong on irc, which wasn't fair either. Spent half the evening feeling miserable and sulky. Sometimes I wonder why anybody puts up with me at all. :-(
In other news, other stupid arguments are still continuing on news, though I think I'm just going to ignore those from now on -- if <lj user="****"> wants to keep on ticking me off she can do so by email, and if she thinks she's going to guilt-trip me into becoming just like her by telling me that she Doesn't Like Me As Much Any More Now, she has another think coming. And <lj user="******"> can just continue vanishing up his own self-important arse as far as I'm concerned.
(No, I wouldn't normally self-censor like that, but these are people with Top Sekrit Double Lives, so I'm not allowed to admit that I have any idea who they are. It would be terrible if anybody found out that ****** ****** is actually ****** ********, wouldn't it? Dear me, yes. Of course, if he really doesn't want anybody to know, he shouldn't tell anybody; but I guess it's more fun to tell a couple of people and then be really precious about how Important a Secret it is. Hell, I used to do that too when I was a kid. It's not even as if I first heard it from him -- it's practically common knowledge in Cambridge!)
Oh well. Life's too short to get too upset about stupid people; like I said, being disliked by people who barely know me is fairly low down my worry-list at the moment. I'm more worried about the fact that I seem to be getting irritated with people I actually really care about, and I think that's something I need to do something about. I don't want to go back onto the antidepressants, but it looks like I may have to.
There were good things about Monday though. For one thing, I got email saying that somebody had paid for 6 months of LJ account for me! Didn't find out till today who it was though -- huge thanks and *hugs* tolnr for being sweet to me, even if it does also make me feel even guiltier for being so horrid. :-/
Other good things about Monday were all food-related, which sounds awful and piggy, but sometimes comfort food is nice. Leftover stirfry from Saturday made an excellent lunch; and then for dinnersion_a and I had pasta with fried onions, mushrooms and bacon, with a good few pinches of sage thrown in, and a couple of (beaten) eggs chucked in at the end. Mmmmm.
So I finally found out who sent me the anonymous Valentine's Day card. Thank you, /.*/ -- I'm very flattered! :-) (Letting you preserve your anonymity in case you're embarrassed about it...)
Also seem to have made up with people who I was shouting at on irc, though I suspect that's probably more due to their tolerance and general nice-person-ness than anything I've done. :-/ It's good to be talking to people again, because I care a lot about them and I don't want to upset them... but I really just don't feel like I'm much good as a friend or a girlfriend at the moment. <sigh>
What's happening now: Completely failing to get my act together with reference to job applications. Dithering about whether to apply for a job which looks interesting, but a) pays slightly less than this one (but for shorter hours), b) looks like it might involve having to do some accountancy training, and c) is only three days away from the closing date so will be a huge stress to apply for at this late stage.
Feeling very woozy and headachey; keep feeling like I'm about to black out, my eyes kind of roll a bit but then they flick back to their normal position and it makes my headache twinge. Not looking forward to cycling home in the dark in this state at all. Time to go home now, though, if we're going to get dinner beforesion_a goes over to see simonb.
daneel_olivaw arrived on Friday, and it was only really when he actually turned up on the doorstep that I realised how long it had been since I'd seen him properly. Spent a nice evening just sitting around chatting and eating pizza; I ended up flaking out quite early (just so shattered for some reason) but it was nice to just snuggle up in bed and sleep. And wake up and 'snuggle' some more, ahem. :-)I think at least one of the reasons why my libido seems to be more likely to show itself with people who I don't see so often is that there seems to be more pressure to Do Stuff Now, because the person won't be there to Do Stuff later (though sometimes this works the other way, and the pressure just makes me go all wibbly and useless). Of course the implication of this is that I'm taking
sion_a for granted, if I'm just thinking "well, there'll be other times".The word "procrasturbation" has just popped into my head. I had to share it with you. Feel free to assign it a meaning. :-)
Anyway... the idea of trying to schedule sex just makes me feel a bit icky, to be honest; it takes all the spontaneity out of it, and I think it'd make me feel far too pressured. (Scheduling "quality time" isn't so bad, somehow, as there's no pressure to do anything specific with that time.) But I'm starting to wonder if it's worth trying it, as I just feel more and more guilty about being such a crap girlfriend.
That's the sex and the pizza... I lied about the lies. (Oh, except in that case I didn't lie. But I did. But I ... "Oh dear," said Janet, "I hadn't thought of that!" and disappeared in a puff of paradox.)
Other stuff did happen beside picking up my lovely lovely lovely [okay, that's enough -- Ed.] car. Went into town to try to get the tax disc for my car, only to find that I didn't have the logbook and they wouldn't give me a tax disc without it -- hrmph. Went to Sainsburys to pick up stuff for dinner, only to find that Sainsburys didn't have half the things we wanted for our stir-fry. Had to pick up water-chestnuts and bamboo shoots from the Nasreen Dar instead. Sainsburys did have nice fruit though. When we got home,
sion_a and daneel_olivaw made dinner while I rambled on the phone to my mum about the car. :-) Aren't they lovely boys!That evening
lnr and ewx had a party, which was mostly quite fun -- people spent quite a while rearranging the letters on my velcro t-shirt (a Valentine's Day gift from daneel_olivaw, and we realised in the process that "MINOR CATASTROPHE" is an anagram of "O PROSTHETIC MARNA". ewx should have a photographic record of the latter slogan somewhere.It was strange being at a party and not drinking -- and the fact that I found it strange suggests that maybe I need to do it more often, or drink more moderately at parties. There were times when I just felt really out of the whole thing -- partly because
sion_a was spending time with a rather wibbly simonb, and daneel_olivaw was with ejde, and lnr was spending more time with ewx than she sometimes does at parties (possibly because lark_ascending wasn't there, as she was visiting cryx. (Phew... think that's everybody.) Not that any of that was a bad thing per se, & I'm not getting at anybody about it (already done that in real life, and shouldn't have done), but it did make me feel a bit odd. Did spend some time being snuggly with lnr though, which was nice.Giving Fi a lift home in my lovely [stop right there -- Ed.] car was entertaining, especially when we started smelling burning... still no idea what was causing that, though she seems to be running fine now. Thanks to
simonb for navigating me back afterwards -- I'm sorry I'm so dreadful with directions!Faffy kind of day, mostly because we were all tired. Had a nice fried brunch eventually and then
daneel_olivaw and I spent half the afternoon daneel_olivaw looked on in amusement. I was glad of his help to get the headlamp cover off, though, as it was a bit of a faff to remove.After
daneel_olivaw had gone I faffed about uselessly for a while, failing to get job applications written and failing even to update my LiveJournal. Then realised that I should have phoned kaet to sort out meeting up at the weekend, and that I didn't have any of my phone numbers any more since my old SIM got eaten. Fortunately sorted stuff out by email (thank god for near-instantaneous text-based communications!) and we met up later at the Carlton Arms for drinks and a nice chat. I don't see kaet nearly enough -- particularly daft since we live about 10 mins' walk from each other!I don't know what happened to Monday, everything just seemed to go pearshaped. I felt like everybody was being unbelievably irritating, though in retrospect I think it was me being unbelievably irritable. Over the last few days I've been stopping taking the antidepressants (because I am sick and tired of being on them, sick and tired of not being able to think clearly, sick and tired of having to remember to take bloody pills with me every time I go out for dinner, and sick of the idea that I have to be on drugs to be a normal human being), and I think it's been having more effect than I realised. Perhaps that's why I was feeling more out-of-it than usual on Saturday night, too.
Anyway, I ended up getting into horrible arguments all over irc, and ended up yelling at
ewx quite unreasonably and getting cross with lnr as well for trying to make me calm down. And then yelling at sion_a after he basically told me that I was totally in the wrong on irc, which wasn't fair either. Spent half the evening feeling miserable and sulky. Sometimes I wonder why anybody puts up with me at all. :-( In other news, other stupid arguments are still continuing on news, though I think I'm just going to ignore those from now on -- if <lj user="****"> wants to keep on ticking me off she can do so by email, and if she thinks she's going to guilt-trip me into becoming just like her by telling me that she Doesn't Like Me As Much Any More Now, she has another think coming. And <lj user="******"> can just continue vanishing up his own self-important arse as far as I'm concerned.
(No, I wouldn't normally self-censor like that, but these are people with Top Sekrit Double Lives, so I'm not allowed to admit that I have any idea who they are. It would be terrible if anybody found out that ****** ****** is actually ****** ********, wouldn't it? Dear me, yes. Of course, if he really doesn't want anybody to know, he shouldn't tell anybody; but I guess it's more fun to tell a couple of people and then be really precious about how Important a Secret it is. Hell, I used to do that too when I was a kid. It's not even as if I first heard it from him -- it's practically common knowledge in Cambridge!)
Oh well. Life's too short to get too upset about stupid people; like I said, being disliked by people who barely know me is fairly low down my worry-list at the moment. I'm more worried about the fact that I seem to be getting irritated with people I actually really care about, and I think that's something I need to do something about. I don't want to go back onto the antidepressants, but it looks like I may have to.
There were good things about Monday though. For one thing, I got email saying that somebody had paid for 6 months of LJ account for me! Didn't find out till today who it was though -- huge thanks and *hugs* to
lnr for being sweet to me, even if it does also make me feel even guiltier for being so horrid. :-/Other good things about Monday were all food-related, which sounds awful and piggy, but sometimes comfort food is nice. Leftover stirfry from Saturday made an excellent lunch; and then for dinner
sion_a and I had pasta with fried onions, mushrooms and bacon, with a good few pinches of sage thrown in, and a couple of (beaten) eggs chucked in at the end. Mmmmm.So I finally found out who sent me the anonymous Valentine's Day card. Thank you, /.*/ -- I'm very flattered! :-) (Letting you preserve your anonymity in case you're embarrassed about it...)
Also seem to have made up with people who I was shouting at on irc, though I suspect that's probably more due to their tolerance and general nice-person-ness than anything I've done. :-/ It's good to be talking to people again, because I care a lot about them and I don't want to upset them... but I really just don't feel like I'm much good as a friend or a girlfriend at the moment. <sigh>
What's happening now: Completely failing to get my act together with reference to job applications. Dithering about whether to apply for a job which looks interesting, but a) pays slightly less than this one (but for shorter hours), b) looks like it might involve having to do some accountancy training, and c) is only three days away from the closing date so will be a huge stress to apply for at this late stage.
Feeling very woozy and headachey; keep feeling like I'm about to black out, my eyes kind of roll a bit but then they flick back to their normal position and it makes my headache twinge. Not looking forward to cycling home in the dark in this state at all. Time to go home now, though, if we're going to get dinner before
sion_a goes over to see simonb.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-03-04 07:58 am (UTC)It's never come up. He introduced me to the concept, way back, and I got my LJ code from someone that he dislikes so I never really liked to bring it up then. Now, I guess I've just got used to having it as a separate part of life. He has ngs and forums that I don't participate in, although I could probably find them if I wanted to (but I don't).
I don't think he'd be hurt to know about it, but then the things that hurt him are things like my being upset or in pain (depression etc) and I hate moaning to him about things and watching him feel bad for me. It hurts him a lot and doesn't help me. So I view LJ as somewhere I can vent. Also, I think it's like a diary, and I wouldn't dream of looking in his diary (not that he keeps much in it, he shows me it from time to time and it's all appointments and astronomical data...).
You're right, most of the stuff in here he'll already know - shopping, appointments, what I'm reading etc. The stuff that he doesn't know is mainly about my emotions, and I like to work them out here and then if I need to talk to him about them I've got them to a coherent state where I can explain the problem without scaring or puzzling him. He doesn't do the inherent-understanding bit, and if I tried explaining some of my madder hormonal moments he'd just be baffled. Believe me, I've tried. It's easier for both of us if I can put it in writing, think about it for a bit, then discuss it when I'm calmer.
I think my fear about becoming no more than Mrs DH is partly my own paranoia, and partly a fear of becoming stereotypical. The more actively I try to remain separate for intellectual purposes :-) the happier I am with the stuff we do do as one amalgamated unit. I think this will become even more important to me when I become "Mum of SC" too; I want to retain enough "me" to keep sane. We do instinctively do a lot of stuff as a gestalt entity, and that's really nice for our relationship with each other, but I don't want to be "The Smug Marrieds", especially when a lot of our friends are still single (not counting those who live with a partner in that definition of "single"). This may be another facet of my "oh my gawd I'm older than everyone else" fear from university...
I do feel a bit hurt by the implication that because I don't want to keep secrets from my partners, I can't have any identity of my own.
Lordy, no, that was never my intention! I know that the way I do things is a bit screwed, but I'd never assume that was the case for anyone else. I voluntarily took DH's name, I'm happy about a lot of the "couple" things, but because of my own neuroses I am being over-protective of my own separate identity. I admire anyone who is not neurotic in that way, and I wish I wasn't quite so bad! I think part of it is a history of "fear of abandonment" - if something awful happened to DH tomorrow I fear I would crumble completely, if I didn't try to preserve that little bit of independence as a cushion. At some point in the future, ideally, I will feel a lot more relaxed about this new identity as Mrs DH and Mum of SC, and stop worrying about who I am. Then I'll be a lot happier.
no subject
Date: 2003-03-05 10:20 am (UTC)I think ngs and other such forums are a bit different; my livejournal is so much my life in a way that ngs aren't. The things I say on LJ are much more personal. I don't honestly think
Maybe he wouldn't care. But I prefer to give him the option.
[...] It hurts him a lot and doesn't help me.
Fair enough, but... I'm not sure how to put this. It's something that I think I need to formalise in my head somehow, and it's something that
And (this is definitely a personal choice so please don't generalise from it) I'd feel like I was seriously failing
Also, I think it's like a diary, and I wouldn't dream of looking in his diary
I wouldn't dream of looking without asking first. But if somebody made it clear that I was allowed to look at their diary, I might look at it. (Though of course you don't know that DH hasn't found your LJ...) I'm making this diary publicly available because that's what I want to do with it. I have a paper diary which isn't publicly available (though I don't really keep it any more -- much of it was only not-public because I didn't have an easy way of making it public!) but if
It's easier for both of us if I can put it in writing, think about it for a bit, then discuss it when I'm calmer.
That definitely makes sense. I dunno,
[snip - identity]
I think part of it is a history of "fear of abandonment" - if something awful happened to DH tomorrow I fear I would crumble completely, if I didn't try to preserve that little bit of independence as a cushion.
I know what you mean... But then I don't think I've ever had independence as a cushion. I always do crumble when relationships end, but I rebound far faster than I should into new relationships because I literally have no idea how to live as a single person. I wouldn't know how to get up in the morning. I wouldn't know how to think.
I'm still me, though. Honest. Whatever "me" is. ... God, you're right, I don't have any identity, do I? :-( :-(
no subject
Date: 2003-03-05 10:46 am (UTC)Basically I think that it's okay to hide stuff from somebody to protect them... Does that make sense?
Perfect sense. The problem is that he will never say "please don't tell me", but I can see from his reaction that it is hurting him, and I don't want to hurt him or make him feel so helpless. Very early on I did tell him some very major scary things, and they did upset him quite severely, and I just felt so horrible for doing that, because I've had umpteen years to deal with them and get used to them, and he hadn't. Nothing in his previous experience of life had prepared him for trying to deal with that kind of thing, and although he tried, it was almost impossible. It would have been worse if I hadn't told him, but that's because I might have done the knife-waving thing without apparent provocation and that would have been awful. [As it is, I honestly haven't felt that bad in the whole time we've been together - he's obviously very very good for my state of calmness. The only times I've shouted at him EVER are when I'm upstairs and he's downstairs so it's a "please bring me" shout rather than a "you bastard" shout. There were a LOT of YB shouts at exBF...] If I felt confident that he would know when to say "please don't tell me" I'd feel happier about giving him that option in this situation.
Part of the point of relationships as I see them is being able to deal with ppl's unhappy times as well as their happy ones.
Agreed. But I think he knows when I'm down anyway, without having to read about it too. I am quite good at telling him, and he's very good at noticing anyway and trying to help, even though he doesn't always know how. I agree with what you've written wrt to how this works for you, I just don't think it would help in our situation. Horses on courses :-) and all that.
I don't think I've ever had independence as a cushion
I didn't, for a large part of my life. Then I made a conscious decision to develop it precisely because I'd had such a HUGE crumbling-into-complete-collapse situation occur. I got used to it, which exBF inadvertently fostered, because he was living 50 miles away and pretending I didn't exist half the time, which didn't help our "togetherness" at all. So DH is really the first time in (gosh, nearly 8 years!) that I hadn't been at least partly independent for most purposes. This is why it's so important to me, and now, with SC and all the hormonal stuff going on, it's even more important. I have "what if he fell under a bus" nightmares (well, you know cycling in Oxford...) and I'm alarmed at how clearly devastating that would be, and then I don't want him to even leave the house, and... become clingy-wife-from-hell (which is another nightmare of mine, along with the Smug Marrieds fear - FFS these are stereotypes I laughed at! Why am I becoming one?). Which isn't helpful to him, our relationship, or my general state of mind. So retaining that tiny buffer of me stops me going insane and chaining him to the bed (hmmmm. Thinks: not a bad idea, for other reasons). (running out of space here...)