Dostoevsky

I had a lot of head clearing to do this weekend. Not only was there the fun and games with Mr. Zips which, after a two-hour, very late night phone call still needs to be worked through but at least we've determined that we want to work it through. But Thursday night the wonderful Peeps decided to play catch with my mobile phone, knocking it into a useless oblivion. And then, Friday, Napolean (shocking!) pulled a passive-aggressive move on me and in my fabulous state of mind, I flew off the handle and wound up swearing and slamming doors. (I'm sure that will come back to haunt me in my annual review...)

So, yeah, it was a rough week. To rejuvinate from it, I went on a lot of long walks this weekend. It was definitely nice to see my neighborhoods leisurely, all of the kids out playing basketball in their driveways, moms & dads weeding or washing cars, older folks hanging out on their porches drinking coffee and tea. Sometimes, it's really nice to live in a quiet, bedroom community.

On one of my rambles, I noticed a bunch of white spraypaint graffiti on mailboxes and walls. One word, repeated over and over. "Dostoevsky."

What?

Why would someone tag "Dostoevsky" in the middle of Watertown, MA? What is the state of mind of the late-night, drunken teenager that s/he wants to invoke the name of the Russian existentialist novelist? Why "Dostoevsky" and not, say, "Green Day?"

Every time I feel like I'm standing on the ledge of sanity, have had a rough week and I'm ready to pull my hair out, I see something that reminds me I'm probably not as bad off as I thought.

Five Stages

How quickly can one go through the five stages of grief? Because I'm pretty sure I'm hitting a new record.

I think Mr. Zips and I have broken up. I'm not sure. I might be sure, except he left tonight in order to avoid confrontation and then had to hang up before we resolved things because his phone was dying in a technological mirror of passive aggressiveness. (See - this is anger.)

He said we had to talk. Work some things out/through. This is something I've known for awhile. But why on Earth he would bring this up the day I flew back from a really long trip away is beyond me.

I've spent the evening sobbing hysterically, getting sick, making bargains with myself and The Universe, obsessively calling him, and basically falling apart. Oh yeah, and drinking bourbon. Tomorrow's gonna be fun at work.

I'm not sure whether the ignition for this particular discussion was the talk he had w/ his friend Dentist Boy the other night (funny how every time they see each other, Mr. Zips and I have to have a "discussion"...) or the fact that I texted him from the airport. I was killing time and thought it might be nice to send him a postcard. Unfortunately, his address was written down in my planner, which was in my suitcase, which was somewhere between NWA check-in and cargo hold. So, I texted. "19 Street Name, Holyoke?" I was off by 7 digits. This makes me a bad girlfriend. Never mind that I am still sending birthday gifts to my BESTEST friend in the world somewhere around Halloween b/c I can't remember her exact birthday and I'm too ashamed to ask or the fact that I can't for the life of me remember the last name of my Aunt Susan and Uncle Bob w/ whom I had a fabulous dinner on Saturday. But not knowing the exact street number of my boyfriend - that's breakup fodder.

OK - so maybe I haven't progressed through the stages yet. Maybe I'm stuck on anger.

All this said - all night long all I've been able to think about is how funny Mr. Zips is, and how caring. And how he'll bend over backwards to be nice to you. And how much I really, truly, and honestly, love him. And how much it sucks that, in the grand scheme of things, that might not always amount to much.

I have no idea what I'm going to do or how I'm going to sleep tonight in the same bed that he's slept in the last four nights.

For fuck's sake - being in love really REALLy fucking sucks.

Irony

For the past three days, I have been bitching about the "hospitality" service here at the Hyatt Regency. Now, usually, I love the staff at Hyatt hotels - they've always gone above and beyond. But not so much at the Twin Cities variation. There's no concierge, the bellstand has been constantly vacant, and my room has been less than cleaned. Used glasses are left on tables, no fresh soaps, yesterday the bolster pillows weren't even put back on the bed.

But today, I am very glad the cleaning crew sucks.

Background: I have been wearing the same pair of earrings for about three years without change. They're Celtic trefoils my brother bought me for Christmas and I adore them. I know it's boring to wear the same pair of earrings day in and out, but we all know about my fashion sensabilities.... Besides, they make me happy.

Two days ago - somewhere between waking up, schlepping two big FedEx boxes to the convention center, putting up our booth, working out, showering, and taxi'ing to St. Paul, I lost the right earring. I pretty much gave it up for dead.

Today, while I was doing crunches in front of the TV, I noticed something shiny over in the corner near the bed. No way, right? Housekeeping vaccuums, right? Wrong.

This kind of luck never happens to me. I'm going to bask in it.

Twin Cities

Well, here I am in Minneapolis - I've walked so much in the past three days that I swear I've worn my sneakers out. And all that walking - I've been so hungry! So I'll either get back to Beantown 20 pounds lighter or 20 pounds heavier.

If I were a good blogger, I'd have brought my camera and could share pictures of all the sights I've seen. But, alas, I am not. So you'll just have to imagine it for yourself.

I'm traveling w/ two sales guys, both of whom are nice and both of whom are wierd. We went out for dinner last night and it was a pretty decent time. But, I've got to tell you, when we left the exhibit hall at 3:30 this afternoon, I didn't leap right out and suggest meeting up again tonight. Of course, they didn't either. Which makes me wonder - do they talk bad about me behind my back? Then again, if they do, do I care?

Spending so much time w/ people I wouldn't necessarily call "friend" can be a bit taxing. Because you want them to like you because, well, it's human nature. But logically you know it shouldn't really make a difference either way.

Aren't people funny?

The one thing I have to say for Minnesotans, though, is that they are really - really - friendly. A woman stopped me on the street to help me find the Walker Museum (fabulous place!), my cabbie pointed out his high school alma mater as we passed it, and the yoga instructor at the gym offered to meet up with me for lunch if I was lonely. (To bad I had to work during lunch hour - it could have been fun!) If it didn't get to be 26 degrees BELOW zero for WEEKS at a time in the winter, I'd think about moving here.

Then again, I'm not sure if I have it in me to be as nice as a Minnesotan....

Control Issues

I've been thinking a lot about "control" the last day or so. Probably because I was IM'ing BBB and, in a moment of frustration, typed "I DON'T EVEN CONTROL MY OWN HOME."

It was, as I said, a moment of frustration, and not entirely true. Allow me to explain.

Last week's much anticipated vacation was great except for the realization that I'm going to have to pour a lot of money into my car's Air Conditioning Unit. Enter Kalesy's money issues.

So, while the time off was great, it wasn't quite as restful as I had hoped. Add to that the knowledge that this week and next will be crazy. Napolean's in town this week and meeting after meeting after neverending meeting are going on - many of which are forcing me to recall that scene in Dangerous Liasons where Glenn Close talks about stabbing her fork into the palm of her hand under the table all while "smiling pleasantly at everyone around me." Insult to injury, I'm travelling next week and we all know how well I do out of my comfort zone.

The other night, I found out Mr. Zips would be staying until Friday a.m. And instead of dealing with that information like an adult and asking if perhaps it would be OK to shorten the trip by just one night, I swallowed my discomfort and smiled pleasantly.

It's not that I don't want Mr. Zips around. It's just that I felt like I hadn't been asked - I'd been told - what my living situation was this week. And since I become a total fanatic when I'm trying to leave the apartment for an extended period of time, this info really threw me.

I stewed and stewed and grumbled and IM'd in capital letters. Then, last night, on the way home, I decided I had to say something about it and worried the whole way home about the fighting and tears that would go down.

So, I asked him if he could crash at a friend's on Thursday. No problem, he said. In fact, it's probably better if he just goes home.

Boy, don't I feel like an ass.

I'm not suggesting that everything is all better. I still have a lot of my control issues to work out. As, I'm sure, does he. After all, he's trying his best to control situations so that I don't fly off the handle like a raving lunatic and throw Tofu Curry around the kitchen. (Yes, it's been known to happen, much to my eternal regret.) But he can't really control that - nor should he have to. I guess it comes down to me controlling my responses to situations and not trying to control him. Or us. Or whatever.