S and I had a fabulous date last night, and she has her mother's car today. We woke up early to snog a bit at her place, then we raced back to my place to pick up N and drive her to the airport. Spilled coffee in the passenger seat of S's mom's snazzy new car on the way back, and had this cranky moment of realizing I couldn't even pass on apologies for the mess, 'cause S's mom doesn't know we're dating; wouldn't expect me to be in the car.
N's going to Miami for a week or so- another conference, and one I've usually gone to with her before I got this damn job. Kinda tense ride- N and I are having a hard time the last couple days about shared space. We've been dating six years, but only been living together 8 months or so.
It's a funny-looking 98-year-old house. She came up with the down payment, and I'm supposed to be paying down the principal. In practice, we're just managing to cover the mortage and bills most months. Her bedroom is in the basement, mine on the second floor, and our living spaces are pretty much separate, with the main floor our shared kitchen and a workspace mostly used by her.
Initially, we were going to put a door up between her space and mine, but it's just another expense and we haven't even got cash together to fix the roof yet...
So far it's been working out pretty well. If she's got a lover in the basement and
I'm with a lover upstairs, we can each just barely hear each others' loudest screams from our respective spaces if we keep the music low.
Everybody asks about that, about bringing lovers home, but it's been much less an issue than money, neatness, or what temperature we keep the thermostat at, and even those issues seem pretty resolvable- we're reasonably good at listening to each other.
With her outta town so much this past year, though, we haven't yet got much practice with daily stuff- just the ordinary minutae of being around each other. We haven't yet got a consistent system, for instance, of signalling approach to each others' spaces within the house. Most of the time we knock, yell a request to one another, or even phone upstairs/downstairs. Sometimes we don't. Yesterday, after a long, difficult couple hours of us both setting up the 5th computer in my space (don't ask) to scan some documents for her, she came up without signalling, and I reminded her.
Problem one: - I've not been mentioning that it bugs me- just filing away my minor irritation when she doesn't knock or ask. I get used to being asked, then all of a sudden she just appears beside me one time outta twenty. Disconcerting, but utterly minor in the overall scheme of things.
Neither of us is a privacy fiend, and we don't have any real secrets from each other. Still, the break in pattern is irritating; feels rude or presumptuous in ways it wouldn't if we'd established other habits. I suspect I'm more rigorous about it -always knocking or asking before I come down to her room - because most of my living arrangements have been shared, whereas she's more often lived alone.
Problem two: I was snarky about it.
Instead of telling her gently that I'd rather we worked out a pattern of signalling approach that we could stick to ALL the time, I mimed knocking, greeted her as she came up the stairs with "Hello, can I come in?" Not spectacularly big-time snarky, but not uber-gentle, either.
Problem three: N really needs uber-gentle these days, and it seems these things always come up the day before she leaves on another trip. Almost as if leaving in the middle of a tiff between us is easier than leaving when we're being loving, comfortable and easy with each other...
N's going to Miami for a week or so- another conference, and one I've usually gone to with her before I got this damn job. Kinda tense ride- N and I are having a hard time the last couple days about shared space. We've been dating six years, but only been living together 8 months or so.
It's a funny-looking 98-year-old house. She came up with the down payment, and I'm supposed to be paying down the principal. In practice, we're just managing to cover the mortage and bills most months. Her bedroom is in the basement, mine on the second floor, and our living spaces are pretty much separate, with the main floor our shared kitchen and a workspace mostly used by her.
Initially, we were going to put a door up between her space and mine, but it's just another expense and we haven't even got cash together to fix the roof yet...
So far it's been working out pretty well. If she's got a lover in the basement and
I'm with a lover upstairs, we can each just barely hear each others' loudest screams from our respective spaces if we keep the music low.
Everybody asks about that, about bringing lovers home, but it's been much less an issue than money, neatness, or what temperature we keep the thermostat at, and even those issues seem pretty resolvable- we're reasonably good at listening to each other.
With her outta town so much this past year, though, we haven't yet got much practice with daily stuff- just the ordinary minutae of being around each other. We haven't yet got a consistent system, for instance, of signalling approach to each others' spaces within the house. Most of the time we knock, yell a request to one another, or even phone upstairs/downstairs. Sometimes we don't. Yesterday, after a long, difficult couple hours of us both setting up the 5th computer in my space (don't ask) to scan some documents for her, she came up without signalling, and I reminded her.
Problem one: - I've not been mentioning that it bugs me- just filing away my minor irritation when she doesn't knock or ask. I get used to being asked, then all of a sudden she just appears beside me one time outta twenty. Disconcerting, but utterly minor in the overall scheme of things.
Neither of us is a privacy fiend, and we don't have any real secrets from each other. Still, the break in pattern is irritating; feels rude or presumptuous in ways it wouldn't if we'd established other habits. I suspect I'm more rigorous about it -always knocking or asking before I come down to her room - because most of my living arrangements have been shared, whereas she's more often lived alone.
Problem two: I was snarky about it.
Instead of telling her gently that I'd rather we worked out a pattern of signalling approach that we could stick to ALL the time, I mimed knocking, greeted her as she came up the stairs with "Hello, can I come in?" Not spectacularly big-time snarky, but not uber-gentle, either.
Problem three: N really needs uber-gentle these days, and it seems these things always come up the day before she leaves on another trip. Almost as if leaving in the middle of a tiff between us is easier than leaving when we're being loving, comfortable and easy with each other...
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[Edited on Feb 15, 2004 10:45AM]