Sometimes talking to an ex can be a good learning experience. You can look back on how you've changed and grown in the interim, and how they've changed as well and how wisdom and time heals all wounds.
Other times, though, you learn a few things that fill you with a small amount of pain and a considerable amount of regret.
I share one such story.
(HMB and COG are talking by IM, two years after parting ways.)
HMB: Looking back, I regret nothing. You were a good influence on me and everything felt very natural and relaxed. So I'm happy we spent time together.
COG: Aw, now you're making me blush. ^_^
HMB: False modesty?
COG: Well, I have a confession to make. But you have to promise not to be angry.
HMB: Yeah? What's your confession?
COG: Well, remember our second year, when all my friends were having kids?
HMB: Yes, I do. Lots of babies that year.
COG: Well, I felt really left out and lonely. So I stopped taking the pill and tried to have a baby for us.
HMB:
COG: But I never got pregnant. Boo.
HMB:
COG: Why aren't you saying anything? You're not mad are you?
HMB:
COG: I probably shouldn't have told you. I'm sorry. I screwed up.
Do us a favor Luv, Stick yer 'ead in a bucket a kick it!
So, gentlemen, that's how it is. Until Grissome.... resurfaces, I'm the acting president, and I say starting with this... anniversary festival, we run this city into the ground! :D
Do us a favor Luv, Stick yer 'ead in a bucket a kick it!
So, gentlemen, that's how it is. Until Grissome.... resurfaces, I'm the acting president, and I say starting with this... anniversary festival, we run this city into the ground! :D
2 Neighbors both figure into this story, so first, a little background on each.
Neighbor girl who I will call "panda" constantly has boyfriend over for kinky sex. Or at least that is what we have all kind of assumed is going on, based on the sounds issuing from her room and her occasional apperances in the communal kitchen.
Other neighbor who we call "waterboy" has the strange habit of leaving his room during the middle of the night to get a glass of water. This in itself wouldn't be all that weird, except, that he already has a tap in his room with drinking water (his room is adjoined to a bathroom) but seems to prefer the kitchen water instead. Whatever. Anyhow, it is an old building, our pipes are loud, and everyone in the flat hears when he turns the tap on at 1am.
I have, of course, the supreme luck, to have the room nearest him. And I am awoken by his nighttime strolls every evening. So finally I came up with a plan. I have this creepy featureless white face mask from a halloween costume, and one of my friends suggested I put that on and scare him one night.
Last night I heard a door open in the hall at waterboy's usual time. I heard the tap turn on, and a glass filling. "Now enough is enough!" I think, and donning a hooded jacket and the blank white mask, and I figure I'll jump out on him and give him the scare of his life! It will be great fun and a good payback for the countless nights he has woken me up.
I unlock my door quietly, waiting. I see the kitchen door opening and quietly wait in the shadows. Door opens completely and I jump out, completely surprising my victim-- who turns out not to be Waterboy, but instead, Kinky Panda, who is, inexplicably, standing in our kitchen at 1 in the morning, wearing only a skimpy trenchcoat, which she's vainly trying to hold closed with one hand. WTF?!
Shit. She screams bloody murder when she sees me, and I have to tell her 3 or 4 times who I am, even after removing the mask, before she composes herself.
Finally she just shakes her head, shrugs, and goes back to her room and her boyfriend, wishing me a "good night." Never asked me what I was doing up at 1am with a mask on. Given her own nocturnal activities, she probably didn't think twice about it . .
~ L A D Y S O T H ~
"I rule out nothing. Nor, I imagine, do you."
"Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside . . . "
"Hail Strahd, Lord of Barovia!"
When I was a kid, my father drove most of the time. He is not a good driver. He is aggressive, and worse still, he is unpredictable. Riding in his car we've been pulled over a few times by police and on more than one occasion we've had a close call with a potential collision that was averted with split seconds to spare.
He generally drove significantly over the speed limit (which isn't too bad as long as you're predictable) but he was also erratic (which was bad given that he drove too fast). He'd make lane changes with minimal warning, and pull out of side roads relying purely on engine speed to get the car out of danger's way rather than signalling or waiting till the coast was clear.
My brother once commented on this, saying "When Dad's driving, it makes me wish that cars had deflector shields."
Now my father is in his seniority and I am an adult. More often, you'll see my father riding in the car and me driving. Time has dulled my father's reactions and he is no longer as bold as he used to be. This sudden burst of age-related temperance has made him very conservative as a passenger in a way he never was as a driver.
In fact, he is now a worrywart when it comes to traffic.
"Don't drive so fast! You'll never be able to brake in time!"
"Don't pull out now! The other drivers might not see you and they'll hit you!"
Recently, I was invited to a party by a woman I've known for just over a year. I meet her at parties and only recently I have come to acknowledge that I find her very attractive.
I went to the party with a gay male friend. He's good fun but he's no Johnny Depp, therefore I do not find him attractive. I take him to parties because he recently arrived in the area and doesn't know anybody.
At the front door, my striking female friend greets me and my gay male friend with a peck on the cheek.
We go into the main room, and when we're out of her earshot, my gay male friend spins around to face me, eyes agog.
He says in a hoarse, dry mouthed whisper:
SHE IS HAWT!!!
I found this hilarious.
In the interests of honesty over modesty, I will declare here that I am an experienced veteran in the sport of watching attractive women settle down with somebody else. In this specific case, if Striking Female Friend does actually end up together with Gay Male Friend, I think the sheer scientific significance would entirely outweigh any fleeting personal regret.
Had a bit of a madness check this morning. Called a costume shop to commission, what I believed was, a fairly simple asian-style costume robe, maybe around the 200 range. They've called me back today with an estimate of 850, minimum, given the fabrics involved. . .
One of my friends put it best: "850's a heck of a lot to pay for a glorified bath robe."
the real madness check will be if I actually decide to go for it. . . haven't decided yet, may check out a few more shops first (!)
and why isn't anyone updating this thread? Certainly there are more than enough things in our world today to inspire daily checks of fear/horror/madness.
~ L A D Y S O T H ~
"I rule out nothing. Nor, I imagine, do you."
"Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside . . . "
"Hail Strahd, Lord of Barovia!"
Dinner this evening was a glass of port and a delicious French cheese which I had never tried before.
I am not quite sure what type of cheese it is but it is creamy and mellow and faintly tart, with a ruddy orange rind.
I would check the label if I could find it, but it's gone missing. I am starting to suspect I have inadvertently eaten the label along with the cheese.
@HMB-- yeah, that one doesn't sound too "follow-up" worthy. Other fish in the sea and all that--sometimes stuff just doesn't work out. sorry to hear you had a lousy evening.
I had a madness check with a young man on a date once. We went out to eat at a pretty nice restaurant and he was very short on conversation--wolfed down his meal in about five minutes-- and then spent the rest of the date just staring at me eating across the table. Very weird.
Its fine to be socially awkward on a date or nervous or whatever, but to just stare, or to come out with rude remarks like that-- well, there's no need.
Also, I know its probably Old Fashioned of me or whatever, but I still think its rude to take a call during a date. Put your phone on silent!
~ L A D Y S O T H ~
"I rule out nothing. Nor, I imagine, do you."
"Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside . . . "
"Hail Strahd, Lord of Barovia!"
I watched an episode or two of Reno 9/11 while eating dinner (which was stir fried okra with beef). Then I went to bed and tried to go to sleep. This was about 10 p.m. or so.
Suddenly, and I cannot even begin to explain why, I had a horrifying mental experience that I can only describe as a "porn nightmare".
This was kind of like imagining the inside of your eyelids are a theater screen, and somebody is projecting nonstop bongo footage onto the shiny surface. RIGHT UP CLOSE. If this was an actual theater and you were watching, say, the televised Presidential debate between Richard Nixon and JFK, it would be close enough for you literally count every last pore on Nixon's nose. We're talking that intrusive: millimeters at most. Only it's not a Presidential debate that's showing, but some sort of ungodly inchoate mass of writhing bodies all pulsing and straining together like some sort of infernal machine.
The lighting needs work, too - it's all offensively bright and garish and absolutely nothing is left to the imagination.
Worse still, I gradually became aware that the horrendous hallucination was not confined to just my sense of sight. The less said about that, the better.
The effect was modestly novel for the first 20 seconds, and then it became deeply disorienting and visually unbearable (imagine a bright light being shone in your face as you're trying to sleep, only with moving pictures). No matter what I tried to do I couldn't make it stop. Opening my eyes didn't help. Turning on a light didn't help. I went to the bathroom and the orgy followed me there and ingratiatingly helped me flush the toilet and then followed me back to bed.
After midnight or thereabouts, the whole trial entered an almost existentialist phase of sheer unthinking terror because this was when I realized something inside me was doing this to myself. I was effectively blind and deaf and I was almost sure to wake up with pinkeye and moreover I couldn't figure out what could have triggered this or why I couldn't just curl up in the fetal position and go to sleep whimpering and shivering like any other condemned miserable reprobate.
AND THEY WERE ALL ENJOYING THEMSELVES AT MY EXPENSE, THE SWINE.
I eventually staggered my way downstairs to the kitchen and pushed about three or four tumblers of Grey Goose vodka down my throat. The visions remained as intrusive as ever, but by the time I lay down on the sofa exhausted and weeping, they had morphed from sweating heaving human bodies to tumbling swarms of army ants rolling through the forests. I can deal with ants. They're not my favorite choice of nighttime viewing, but it was pretty interesting to see how they form tunnels and chambers using their own bodies and also unlike orgies I do stumble across ants all the time in real life.
The upshot of this is I'm not allowed to watch Reno 9/11 anymore.
