What Happened Next:
Sorry I feel the need to bitch about this so much, but I am keeping optimistic, and I do need at least one source of ventilation.
I do enjoy the fact that these recent stories have more good than harm in them. That is a personal rarity.
So yes, Yesterday, the day finding out about the disease.
I spent the day at the water park with my mother and sister, and The Girl met us there. Almost immediately, she was on my back, me carrying her through the pool, just like I would always carry her anywhere just to have her as close to me as I could.
Afterwards, we went to a bookstore -- our mutual downfall. As we shopped for books with/for my sister, The Girl tended to constantly display any of the following traits: Leaning on me; Hugging me; Walking with her arms wrapped around me from behind; Walking while holding my arms around her.
I began to feel pretty good, what with Our Time finally beginning. (I have actually been looking forward to this moment all summer, and she's only got two weeks left before the official Gone sets in.)
So, upon returning home she took a bath, and I brought home pizzas, and after TV and food, we retired to the guest room, where she worked on a notebook while our stay-in friend spent his time computerized. She recommended I go to bed... and I stood there... and she asked if I was tired, and I said no. However, she was busy, our friend was busy, and having moved the majority of my things out by now, I had nothing to do, so I figured I would go to bed anyway, until she offered to let me rub her back (as I said, any chance to be close to her). So I did, and all the while she was text messaging with her friend The Contaminant, and once I caught on I just went to bed only slightly sad, knowing that she does have Things To Say to him.
At 5AM she woke me up (honoring my request) to say good night, and that I should know that while our stay-in friend leaves for a week, she is going back to see Him, to prove to him that things are okay and that she still will be his friend and, at least in my state of mind, fuck him silly, since... well, they might as well. The worst is done. (Again, for the record, this is my jealous-guy mind, and quite unlikely to be true.)
And so we talked a bit, about whether or not the person who passed along to him was his girlfriend: "No." (Relief -- The Girl's still got at least going for her.) "He broke up with her Sunday night. When I came into town." (Cunt.)
And also talked about these fucked up mixed signals she sends, which she did without thinking, and she is sorry, and will pay more attention to Not Doing That. (99% of me was really hoping that she would say, Oh, wow, I have been treating you a bit poorly, haven't I? I really suppose I should pay attention the the people I care about nearby, while they are actually nearby, shouldn't I? -- but I do have to be realistic and accept that the actual resolution was the best one.)
Now one curse of being who I am is, once I wake up, I cannot go back to sleep. So, at 5AM, I decided I really ought to leave, else I would stay up and talk to her and she really needed to go to sleep. So, I grabbed my shit (all of which is in a satchel) and walked out. Problem was, my shoes were in the guest room where, I assumed our guest was also trying to get to sleep.
No worries, I had no idea where I was going, so I may as well just drive around and blow off steam. I thought of getting a pack of cigarettes (Now That We're Grown Up, This Is What We Do Rather Than Cutting Ourselves) and realized, No shoes, no service. So I thought, Hm, where can one go without shoes? I toyed with the idea of driving west. Just go towards California until the car gives out (which really would not have been far, as it is out of both coolant and oil, and then realized, the Only Place I Can Go, of course, is a Buddhist temple. So I jammed onto the interstate and drove out the a temple that I know of about an hour away, and asked what I could do to help the man at the door.
Now, this was an experience. Dialectic limitations made simple shores interesting.
"Take." Umm.... "Take." I am meant to pull a water hose from the carden to the front-end of the temple, and "Here," I am meant to hand him the hose, and "Pull," I am meant to pull the hose out the length of the parking area. "Hot hot hot," because it was.
He held out a pack of Marlboro Reds and offered them to me. I've read Buddhist text that actually mention specifically as something monks don't do (not that they are forbidden to do -- obviously -- but that they just don't), so I was taken aback and took one after all, and lit it off his own.
Fucking Reds, I was lit in a moment. He offered me another, which I declined. "Smoke bad huh?" I don't know what to say. They guy is eighty years old and a monk... what, I'm going to tell him she's doing something wrong? But if I didn't answer a question, he would repeat it until I did. Yeah, smoking's bad. (I almost also said, But it's also really good, isn't it? But I figured that would open up a whole can of vocabulary and sytax that I just felt was unnecessary.)
My favourite thing about the time there was that without too much effort, he managed to convey to me that he would like me to tell him the number to the humane society.
"What... your number? Phone?" You... you want my phone number? "There is book..." He held his hands out like a book, then pointed to a cat and said Take. I could win a gameshow, having guessed what all of that meant.
Despite the fact that he would tell me things to do and I would just be completely lost, I did manage to water most of the flower gardens and trees and grass, and I did help him move some things (like a few tables), and we even dug up a tree and moved it. Also, as we walked, he leaned down and picked up a bottle of strawberry soda out of nowhere as far as I could tell. I walked around with that soda for a good while until I was able to express to him that I had no way of opening it, and so we walked around trying nails and boards and knives and finally got it open.
And I saw his cat and ate his food (Lao cooking, he expressed to me), and walked until I had blisters (let's be fair, they were given a head start by the seven hour trip to the water park yesterday) and until those blisters burst open. A bit gross, and I really had better wash them before gangrene sets it, but I never thought of how much a relief that could actually be.
Now I limp to avoid getting dirt ground into it, as opposed to limping in pain.
Anyway, I had better go.
Sorry I feel the need to bitch about this so much, but I am keeping optimistic, and I do need at least one source of ventilation.
I do enjoy the fact that these recent stories have more good than harm in them. That is a personal rarity.
So yes, Yesterday, the day finding out about the disease.
I spent the day at the water park with my mother and sister, and The Girl met us there. Almost immediately, she was on my back, me carrying her through the pool, just like I would always carry her anywhere just to have her as close to me as I could.
Afterwards, we went to a bookstore -- our mutual downfall. As we shopped for books with/for my sister, The Girl tended to constantly display any of the following traits: Leaning on me; Hugging me; Walking with her arms wrapped around me from behind; Walking while holding my arms around her.
I began to feel pretty good, what with Our Time finally beginning. (I have actually been looking forward to this moment all summer, and she's only got two weeks left before the official Gone sets in.)
So, upon returning home she took a bath, and I brought home pizzas, and after TV and food, we retired to the guest room, where she worked on a notebook while our stay-in friend spent his time computerized. She recommended I go to bed... and I stood there... and she asked if I was tired, and I said no. However, she was busy, our friend was busy, and having moved the majority of my things out by now, I had nothing to do, so I figured I would go to bed anyway, until she offered to let me rub her back (as I said, any chance to be close to her). So I did, and all the while she was text messaging with her friend The Contaminant, and once I caught on I just went to bed only slightly sad, knowing that she does have Things To Say to him.
At 5AM she woke me up (honoring my request) to say good night, and that I should know that while our stay-in friend leaves for a week, she is going back to see Him, to prove to him that things are okay and that she still will be his friend and, at least in my state of mind, fuck him silly, since... well, they might as well. The worst is done. (Again, for the record, this is my jealous-guy mind, and quite unlikely to be true.)
And so we talked a bit, about whether or not the person who passed along to him was his girlfriend: "No." (Relief -- The Girl's still got at least going for her.) "He broke up with her Sunday night. When I came into town." (Cunt.)
And also talked about these fucked up mixed signals she sends, which she did without thinking, and she is sorry, and will pay more attention to Not Doing That. (99% of me was really hoping that she would say, Oh, wow, I have been treating you a bit poorly, haven't I? I really suppose I should pay attention the the people I care about nearby, while they are actually nearby, shouldn't I? -- but I do have to be realistic and accept that the actual resolution was the best one.)
Now one curse of being who I am is, once I wake up, I cannot go back to sleep. So, at 5AM, I decided I really ought to leave, else I would stay up and talk to her and she really needed to go to sleep. So, I grabbed my shit (all of which is in a satchel) and walked out. Problem was, my shoes were in the guest room where, I assumed our guest was also trying to get to sleep.
No worries, I had no idea where I was going, so I may as well just drive around and blow off steam. I thought of getting a pack of cigarettes (Now That We're Grown Up, This Is What We Do Rather Than Cutting Ourselves) and realized, No shoes, no service. So I thought, Hm, where can one go without shoes? I toyed with the idea of driving west. Just go towards California until the car gives out (which really would not have been far, as it is out of both coolant and oil, and then realized, the Only Place I Can Go, of course, is a Buddhist temple. So I jammed onto the interstate and drove out the a temple that I know of about an hour away, and asked what I could do to help the man at the door.
Now, this was an experience. Dialectic limitations made simple shores interesting.
"Take." Umm.... "Take." I am meant to pull a water hose from the carden to the front-end of the temple, and "Here," I am meant to hand him the hose, and "Pull," I am meant to pull the hose out the length of the parking area. "Hot hot hot," because it was.
He held out a pack of Marlboro Reds and offered them to me. I've read Buddhist text that actually mention specifically as something monks don't do (not that they are forbidden to do -- obviously -- but that they just don't), so I was taken aback and took one after all, and lit it off his own.
Fucking Reds, I was lit in a moment. He offered me another, which I declined. "Smoke bad huh?" I don't know what to say. They guy is eighty years old and a monk... what, I'm going to tell him she's doing something wrong? But if I didn't answer a question, he would repeat it until I did. Yeah, smoking's bad. (I almost also said, But it's also really good, isn't it? But I figured that would open up a whole can of vocabulary and sytax that I just felt was unnecessary.)
My favourite thing about the time there was that without too much effort, he managed to convey to me that he would like me to tell him the number to the humane society.
"What... your number? Phone?" You... you want my phone number? "There is book..." He held his hands out like a book, then pointed to a cat and said Take. I could win a gameshow, having guessed what all of that meant.
Despite the fact that he would tell me things to do and I would just be completely lost, I did manage to water most of the flower gardens and trees and grass, and I did help him move some things (like a few tables), and we even dug up a tree and moved it. Also, as we walked, he leaned down and picked up a bottle of strawberry soda out of nowhere as far as I could tell. I walked around with that soda for a good while until I was able to express to him that I had no way of opening it, and so we walked around trying nails and boards and knives and finally got it open.
And I saw his cat and ate his food (Lao cooking, he expressed to me), and walked until I had blisters (let's be fair, they were given a head start by the seven hour trip to the water park yesterday) and until those blisters burst open. A bit gross, and I really had better wash them before gangrene sets it, but I never thought of how much a relief that could actually be.
Now I limp to avoid getting dirt ground into it, as opposed to limping in pain.
Anyway, I had better go.