A Heart's a Heavy Burden

I’m trying not to freak out about next week. I am working on two commissions for scarves, trying to get them done by Christmas, but I really don’t think I’m going to make it… one for sure will be done, and that one is a higher priority because the first commission said the scarf is not REQUIRED by Christmas, but it would be nice. When I talked with Becca about my hours when I was hired, I was very clear in that I didn’t want more than 10-15 hours, no matter what. I was assured that it would NOT be an issue because there were so many people hired. Next week I am scheduled for 26 hours. Including a day I specifically said that I couldn’t attend because I have my super important program meeting for school that day. Ugh. Steve reminded me that it’s just my crappy part-time retail job that I don’t care about, but it’s still pretty stressful. I have this uncontrollable sense of guilt for any remote feeling of letting people down or putting them in a bind. Heh.

 

 

 

So on top of 60 working hours next week I also have another tattoo appointment, which Laura has graciously decided will be a free session (mostly because I’ve been paying $250 per session and providing a generous $50 tip for her each go – tattoo artists often get shit to zero in tips), my program meeting, AND a regular face-to-face session for school. Oh, and my urology appointment that will probably mean I am late to BBW that day. DEEP BREATHS.

 

 

 

I’m a bit sad because working means that I am missing Christmas dinner with Steve’s sweet grandpa on Tuesday, going up north to visit Steve’s family (most notably his sister and her kids) on the weekend, and possibly some of my own family’s Christmas on the 24th. But! I will at least get SOME family time that day (I feel like it’s unlikely that I will be working that full day but I could be wrong), and most important of all, I get Christmas Day with Steve. It will be amazing. I bought him so many great gifts this year!

 

 

 

Things on the relationship front have been pretty good. I’ve been working on not being as aloof (with 50/50 success tbh), and Steve and I had an opportunity to discuss what we simply call my Autism – because that’s really a fair diagnosis – when he was having a bad day and I was trying to comfort him. He got a phone call from his dad in the middle of it and THAT was when I learned he was going up north the weekend of the 21st/22nd, unbeknownst to me until that moment. During our conversation he pointed out that I completely shut down when I am processing surprise information. In light of that revelation I actually burst out laughing. See, when I was with Dan all we ever did was explode. I feel like I am a talker, an arguer, a let’s-work-this-out-don’t-you-dare-walk-away-er. When Steve made me realize that apparently in reaction to being a yeller, I have actually moved to the other side of the spectrum. As a person who feels incredibly self-aware (and really, just aware of everything in general) it is rare that I don’t know something about myself. I thanked Steve for helping me realize that, and now that I know this information, I can work on it. I still tried my best to explain how me processing information is extremely rigid and I don’t know HOW to be there for him when I am struggling with a change (a CLASSIC part of my Autism), which was his primary concern. He was upset that I was being selfish and stopped trying to make HIM feel better because I decided my problem was more important/urgent. We discussed that because Steve gets mopey less often, I have less practice in working through things that send me into Reaction Mode. Dan was a pouter, a moper, a crier… all for attention. He wanted me to coddle him, to hold him, to remind him over and over again that I cared about him. It got to a point that I was so annoyed with him any time he behaved like that, I would start screaming at him, telling him to suck it up. I have dragged him down stairs, I have left him sobbing in hallways… I didn’t have it in me to take care of him that way. I am not a touchy-feely person, and comforting someone when they believe I have hurt them in some way, when they are behaving so dramatically, and ON PURPOSE, is too hard for me. Dan would admit that he would act in those ways so that he could provoke a certain reaction or a certain phrase for me. He said he relished my efforts to make him feel better so he would draw out the attention as long as he could. Which in turn would absolutely infuriate me. Tangent aside, I still struggle with the fear that Steve will begin behaving the same way because he craves attention from me. I realize that while it speaks to how people will do anything for attention. But I am also aware that this type of pattern shows that I don’t provide enough attention, enough affection. Which isn’t good. I need to fix that.

 

ETA: I just received another payment for a scarf,  this time without the buyer discussing it with me. hope she doesn't want the scarf before Christmas because... no.

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First off, I would like to say that I think either half the people answering the question are liars, or only the "good" ones are answering, because I know A LOT of people who snoop on their significant other. I even know a girl who didn't want her boyfriend talking with this one girl, so she'd go into his email and facebook and delete any messages or emails she'd send him.

I don't think that you should snoop on your partner, no. It causes a lot of issues. I've read some of Steve's texts before and he's done the same to me, but never out of suspicion or anger. I remember him saying something to me a few months ago like, "If you read my texts, whatever you do DON'T go into my drafts folder. It's where I keep my list of gift ideas for you." And I haven't, because I know it's true.

The interesting thing about him is how trusting he is. He's like the perfect person when it comes to showing resiliency. He discovered his girlfriend was cheating on him with his best friend through their comments to each other on MySpace. Not messages, COMMENTS! Who knows what the hell they were messaging each other?! Most people would then be wary of the next social networking addict. But he's not. We're both very open about what we're doing. Anything we ask the other, we answer. Once I made a stupid drunken decision (something like, "HEYYY WE HAVE THE SAME PHONE LET'S EXCHANGE PHONE NUMBERRRRS." I think. He might have asked me.) at a party with some douche, and when Steve asked who I was texting and I told him the story, he (rightfully, especially considering he's straight-edge and thinks drunk people are stupid) got angry with me. With no qualms I immediately texted the guy saying that we should no longer speak (he had been texting me a lot since the party, but only like one-word texts) because we had no reason to (which is true), and deleted the number out of my phone to show that I didn't mean any harm and it meant nothing to me. And all was well.



Now, I'm not perfect. I HAVE been snoopy before.

When I was with Dan, there was a serious lack of trust and we snooped on each other all the time (granted, we were together from the ages of 16-21, therefore started young). For me, I felt justified. I found lies everywhere I looked. One of the biggest lies was when I should have been smart and called it quits, but I'm a ninny. We were going to school four hours apart and he hadn't called me for a few days. I signed into his facebook to get a friend's phone number that he lived with, and being 18 and curious, I checked his messages. In there I found several between him and an ex, which hurt a lot because 1. He was NEVER close with his ex. They met in MEXICO on a mission trip, didn't live near each other, and didn't yet have licenses or cell phones and therefore rarely talked. 2. He went many stretches of time without any contact with me at all. The most recent one was dated the previous day, apologizing for not calling her back AFTER TALKING TO ME (when he'd always say he was tired and wanted to get off the phone, etc.). I confronted him; he outright lied about it, even after I told him I was staring directly at the message.

There were hints about him visiting her "again." When asked about this, he said she was referring to a long time ago and wanted to see him but he wouldn't. Of course, not believing him, I signed into MSN and started a conversation with her. To be fair, she sounded like she was only interested in hanging out and was totally open to talking to me, knowing who I was. What I learned from her was that he went to a different state to visit his friend and herself. That he drove like 6 hours to see them. When he couldn't be assed to even talk to me.

I was so mad that if he'd been present, I might have seriously scratched his eyes out. I was RAGING. We talked for like three hours as he tried to convince me to not break up with him. And eventually I relented. And then spent another 3 years of the same old shit. After we broke up but I continued to live with him for a time, a bunch more stuff I never knew about came trickling out of him. He thought it was funny, how much he lied to me.

I guess I have some issues after Dan, but I trust Steve. He's given me no reason to be suspicious of his behavior, so I treat him that way.

I just feel like I have too much to do and no time to do it!

Fage (fa-yeh) yogurt really is as good as they say. It tastes lightly like cream cheese, vs the strong sour cream taste of most plain yogurts. And it's thick, almost fluffy, vs regular yogurt's terrifying desire to separate into liquidy goo. Now my question is: do I eat low fat, no fat, or full fat? I know leaving natural ingredients is good for you (and if you must drink milk it should be n low amounts and full-fat, thankfully I don't like milk), but the full-fat version of this gives you 80-percent of your daily saturated fat intake D: The ingredients for my single-cup-to-test-it-out-cause-it's-really-expensive are grade A pasteurized skim milk, and live active yogurt cultures (L. bulgaricus, S. Thermophilius). That's it. So I assume the difference is in the milk? Or should I eat soy yogurt. Yogurt is important to me right now because a serving is very filling for me, and because I need good vageeny health. I know the yeasty stuff won't affect my UTI problems, but I like to think a healthy vagina is a happy vagina either way :P

I feel like there's so much I need to do on TEH INTARWEBS lately. So much replying and reading and finding cute things and emails and Facebook and Tumblr and blogs and ahhhhh! I feel like if I didn't have this time at work to take care of it all, I'd never be able to keep up! And I have my knitting to do and things to watch!

Speaking of watch, Steve and I started a new series on Netflix called Noein. It reminds me a LOT of Shakugan no Shana. It's only one season as far as I can tell, so it's a nice short anime we watch when we get a chance. We were both skeptical at first because the art is kinda... bleh... sometimes, and they were weird about 3D and apparently only had a budget to make computerized houses. Haha. But when the Shakugan no Shana feel kicked in, I started to really like it. One of the main characters is the same voice actor for Simone from Gurren Lagann, and they're practically the same character in emotions and traits. SO MUCH ANGST AND SELF-DOUBT XD

I'm almost done with one side of Joe Waid's scarf. The symbol is a bit more than halfway done and I intend on finishing it tonight, and hope to have the whole scarf done and posted by the end of the week! Next is thinking of what fun thing to do on his birthday besides give him gifts!

Steve and I did recruit-a-friend not this past friday, but the one before that, and we already hit level 60 on Sunday XD It levels you SO fast! But because of that, we didn't spend enough time in each area and therefore have shitty gear. As a current druid it's okay because healing is ridiculously easy compared to 2 years ago as a healy druid, but I hear that they're being nerfed. Woo! A challenge! :D Steve turned COMPLETELY into exactly what he said he'd never ever do: be a WoW kid. He loves it. But he loves it like I love it: because of the play time with each other, and our friends. Not because raids run yo life and are SRS  BZNS. He's so funny sometimes in instances because he doesn't understand why people are in such a hurry. He's also wary because of my horrible memorie of WoW + Dan, and Dan obsessing and playing it every free moment and ignoring me and life in general. Which is true, I am very tightly wound about the subject sometimes, but I've been working on not letting the past affect my present in that regard. Just because there are a lot of douchebags out there who love WoW more than you doesn't mean it's going to happen to everyone.

Oh, and I guess Dan texted me the other week, asking how the kitties were. I went into a rage for a moment and almost texted him back some violent poison, but then I realized that text-bitching at him to never talk to me is either passive-aggressive, pointless, or both. So I just ignored it. But I stewed about it off and on for a few days. What nerve, being such a dickhead and then thinking you can wait a couple months and text me like nothing happened. FUCK YOU.

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE

RAGE RAGE RAGE


I effectively utilized my anger coping strategy of "Venting to friends" (sorry, terrible joke with myself utilizing work vernacular) with Bre to keep from sending almost literal venom into Dan's face. I thought of a million horrible but omgsogood things to say to him, trimmed it down, ALMOST sent it, but sent it to Bre instead, who helped me calm afterwards.

I'm so helpless to his play at power struggles that I feel like I'm going to explode. Hopefully I can get him to give the account back, and then I will forever remove him from my life and all will be well.

*Exasperated sigh.*




P.S. the funny coincidence? His little brother Michael, whom I adore to DEATH, texted me, thanking me for his bday gift  and card ^_^ I mailed him some moolah this weekend. I love him. He told me the other week that he brought ( Pwny ) to college.  AWWWW! He's so great!

-Getting excited for Deathly Hallows! I've decided to quick knit up a ribbed scarf, in HuffPuff colors o' course!
-Probs going to reread the 7th book if I can this weekend!
-It's my birthday the same night DH comes out, and I'm super excited to see what Steve got me!!
-There's Dan drama afoot. He told me a couple weeks ago he might be able to get my kidnapped toon back to me. I told him the other day it's not THAT, it's that in merging our account he effectively made it so I will have to rebuy the discs, which I do not want to do. Then he FLIPPED OUT because I wrote "I DO NOT WANT TO REBUY THE DISCS PLEASE LISTEN" in all caps and APPARENTLY that was being a bitch.
( No wait, here's a screen of our convo )

I mean, yeah I'm kinda pissy, and snarky. But not to the extent which he is saying. And "bitch for no reason"? Uhhhhhh I have PLENTY of reason to be a bitch. I also kind of feel like we are having two separate conversations. I hate him.