In which I really dislike being emotionally confused.

Tuesday afternoon I spent in the comfort of NLW’s space, building her a mailing list. The Universe wants me to learn my number row, because I keep getting these brief little data entry jobs on computers with no number pad.

After that I spoke with Bread on the phone; he wanted to talk but didn’t have gas to get to town just as I didn’t have gas to get to the country. I ate a quesadilla at AmmZon’s and went to band practice.

After band practice, I sat and talked with PJK for awhile. He’s awesome. And he’s male, and he’s been on earth a little longer than many of the males I know and seems to have accumulated some information in that time, so there’s some nice perspective from him to balance out all my other conversations. I talk to women a lot, and we are, as you know, all crazy.

Men are stupid and women are crazy. I never make blanket statements.

After I left practice, I had three texts on my phone. Gorgeous, Raybo, and Bread, all were at the Hideaway and wanted to see me. So I went there and people bought me drinks. I sang a song with Rockstar, who was doing a solo gig there. Bread didn’t acknowledge me or even turn around to listen to me sing. (That’s not an egocentric statement. Even the dudes playing pool stopped to listen to me sing. So the one dude with his back to me looked conspicuous. Just sayin’. That’s all.)

I let Bindu come in for a bit and used her as an ice-breaking prop to greet Bread.

Later he texted me to say he’d taken his truck back to BoSe’s house and wanted me to come pick him up. So I did. I picked him up and drove back to the Hideway. And then we sat in the jeep and had a big fat weepy talk, where I basically dumped more shit on him and he took it manfully. It breaks my fucking heart.

Finally I said we weren’t getting anywhere and my sinuses were all clogged up and we were out of cigarettes and we agreed that we needed to go back inside and bum drinks and smokes.

I completed getting drunk and sang another song, and then the bar closed. Bread and Raybo and Bindu and I walked up 2nd street at two o’clock in the morning, chatting amiably. We all went to see Raybo’s new house. (It’s lovely, and even has a sauna.) She fed us sake, and I was at that point in my drunkenness where I did not realize that I didn’t need any more booze, so I drank several shots of it. Bread followed me back to AmmZon’s at four in the morning, and we passed out and slept.

A portion of me liked the warmth and snuggling, but the next morning when he was twitching and making noise and in general really fucking up my I’M WAY THE FUCK HUNG OVER AND WANT TO REMAIN ASLEEP GOD DAMN IT flow all I wanted to do was throw his ass out. I’d mentioned I had a little money in the form of a check, and he was all gung ho to cash it and buy breakfast and cigarettes with it. I wanted to go back to sleep until I could wake up sober. I won, but only by virtue of explaining that he was welcome to either shut up or leave.

Around two I was ready to start my day. We went to the bank and I gave him a little money so he could buy some gas. I bought lunch for both of us; he didn’t buy his own. We ended up at AmmZon’s and talked some more.

The gist of it is that he wants me to come back. I asked him if he’d developed some sort of game plan, some angle of attack to address our problems. He said no, not really, but we could make it work. Now. He wants me home now. He hates being out there alone with all my shit, he says. Makes him sad. Either I come home and we work it out, or I have to get my shit out of there ’cause it’s breaking his heart.

I said if he gave me an ultimatum, I’d opt out. He said he understands that but that he can’t wait. I said I thought we should maybe date, talk some more, discuss the concrete steps we might take to getting back together. He reiterated his level of unhappiness and reminded us both rather eloquently that winter’s coming and that it sucks to be alone.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I knew I was tired and depressed and hungover and most importantly on the rag — which is slang for “too stupid to make any life-altering decisions — and I just wanted him to leave so I could take a damned nap. Finally he went off to another business meeting. I told him before he left that I would not be seeing him that night.

I said I’d see him tonight. Out at the farm. Gah.

So I’ve been thinking for the past 20 hours or so, and have discovered this: while I’m physically in his sphere of influence, it seems totally reasonable and right for me to quit my bitchin’ and move home. But when I’ve been away from him for a few hours, I realize that while he’s a fantastic listener, he has not offered me a single concrete solution he’s willing to attempt. He just wants a woman in his house; doesn’t want to be alone; doesn’t want to have a broken heart.

I think I’ve trained him over the years to sit and listen to me vent, and not think about what changes he needs to make. I think he’s learned that if he just patiently takes it, eventually I’ll have achieved my own catharsis and things will go back to normal until the next time. I’ve always required him, in our past conversations, to agree to do this behavior or that one before considering the discussion completed, but his compliance has been lame at best and I ‘let’ him get away with it. I think that on some level he’s thinking that if he just lets me get all my shit said, I’ll come home and it will be like it was before.

I can’t go home. I can’t go home just because he’s hurt. I mean, I hate that he’s hurt, I really fucking do, but going home won’t solve any of our problems. Honestly, I don’t know if they can be solved, even if he suddenly does at once all the things I’ve asked of him over the years… we still have the ‘nothing in common’ issues. We want different lives, period. It sucks, but there it is.

*bangs head on desk*

I’ve finished my data entry for the day and am going to AmmZon’s and then to band practice. After that I’ll probably go to sleep ’cause you ain’t go no problems when you’re sleepin’!