One other Conversation

Sorry for the delay in getting back on this horse. Bringing Bits back from Awkward Central over the Thanksgiving holiday and various writing, gaming and unexpected surprises kept me busy (most good busy). More on some of this later.

So continuing from the previous post… I was still sailing through the end of my week (the Sunday before Thanksgiving) feeling damned good.

But after hanging out with Sif, Thor, Loki and that crew… I kept thinking about how I’d hear The Heroine’s voice when people would say “Just write it.”

See, the bitch about this break up we had (OK… ONE of the bitches about this break up) is that I lost not only the love of my life but I lost my best friend. Sounds trite, I’m sure. But the thing about cliches is that sometimes they’re an excuse and sometimes they’re the truth. As often is the case, the truth hurts.

So hearing her voice like an echo to the encouragement I’m receiving from others got me thinking about another conversation I’ve been having with myself for months. In my mind, I still talk to her everyday. About any and everything in my day. One of those ‘you don’t know what you’ve got til its gone’ things is that you get more than used to talking with someone everyday. It becomes more than routine. It becomes almost necessary. Especially when you can and do talk to that person about everything. Not everyday is serious discussion of life and love, but then again not everyday is romantic dinners and hot, sultry, Alicia Keys/Norah Jones playing in the background sex either. Commitment, serious commitment, is loving and being there for someone through the highs, the lows and a whole lot of middle ground.

And one of the (many) reasons I loved The Heroine is that she was the Perfect Audience. Not the perfect Critic, but the Perfect Audience. At least, she was for me. Not just about my writing, although she was great, but for just any and everything.

So, in my mind, I’ve still been talking to her everyday.

No, I’m not ‘talking to the voices.’ At least no more than anyone else. But the Idea that she might be listening helped. Granted, some days I wasn’t saying kind things, but in my head, I’d still pose questions and offer commentary to her.

I understand that trying to be friends with an ex is tough. Especially when you once lived together. We’re not dealing with a divorce, but we certainly did more than just date. It’s the wonderfully treacherous middle ground in between being able to say “Yeah, this didn’t work but we’re still cool.” and “God I hate you, I never want to see you again.”

And that makes talking to her right now less than wise. At least, talking to her directly.

So, for now. I’m content to keep talking to the version of The Heroine in my head. I don’t expect answers or even good feedback like I used to get. And for real conversation, I’ve still got tons of people to call upon.

But even if I never hear from her in any way beyond polite and occasional contact, I still have an audience waiting in my head, encouraging me to write.

Avatars are funny things. They don’t always make sense or even have to make sense.

Kinda like blogs.

An Apology, A Promise and Good Wishes

Sorry for the previous entry that may have left your regular readers (all 12 of you) hanging, but its a holiday week and there’s a lot going on, so I got a bit distracted.

And since I’m hitting the road for a meal with my least favorite family in order to be reunited with my cat, I’ll be slightly off the grid for a few days.

But I promise that once I get back to CC and I have Bits calm and content in her new home, I’ll get back to my previous ramblings and probably some new ones as well.

Until then, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL. Unless you live outside of the U.S. Then, enjoy the rest of your week and I’ll talk to you over the weekend.

Conversations with Women

So, we’re at plus one week from completing the first draft of BP #2 and I’m still feeling pretty damn bulletproof. Not quite Cloud 9, more like Cloud 8 and 1/4. Everything seemed either great or easily dealt with this whole week. Almost nothing phased me.

Except four conversations I had during the course of the week. It likely would have been five, but my conversation with LL got cut short. Not that these conversations were bad, they just stood out for me. Interesting and expected highlights during a week that was a highlight unto itself.

First came my conversation with the Saint Bitch. We’ve gotten into this habit of chatting on Monday nights as much to break down the weekend in football as to catch up with each other. SB is in a weekly pool that can net the winner over $3000 a week, so she understandably takes it very seriously. She was excited, proud and a little bit jealous of me completing BP#2. Sainted Bitch, as you might imagine, is also deeply Catholic and had been on a retreat for her old high school. Girls Catholic school that she still helps out with. So besides me making bad jokes about a weekend alone with 17 year old Catholic schoolgirls, she explained that she thought of me as a light in her life and had been praying for me that weekend. Yes, it sounds very cheesy, but nothing what her faith means to her, it was very sweet.

So, I of course returned the favor but throwing a bunch of hard truths at her. I won’t go into too many details – this is a place where I overshare about MY life without giving you my name. My friends, I’m going to protect. But the gist of it is that she asked a question many of us ask and I was blunt about her strengths and weaknesses. Not an earthshaking event amongst friends, but it reminded me that you can and should do that with your friends. Nothing says I love you like a swift kick in the ass. But I wasn’t kicking ass in most areas earlier this year. That was part of the problem.

Sainted Bitch still loves me and I’ll get to see here when she comes for a visit after the new year.

Then we move onto Thursday night and my conversation with The Mighty. Here’s where things get amusing. Amusing being: I wind up having a conversation that I didn’t think we needed to have. It started when I made the comment about being extremely fortunate that most of my friends are pretty damn special. Yes I’m biased. There’s no question of that. That doesn’t take away from the fact that I can look at my friends and see their flaws and strengths equally well. (It’s my own I’ve had issues with historically). In making that comment, The Mighty asks “So, what are mine.”

So I laughed and I told her.

I love the fact that she’s alternately super-nice and too polite for her own good but will then shift into asking questions and making statements with the subtly of a sledgehammer on a steel plate. Once I’d paid her the compliments I had in my mind and then teased her about her John Henry like conversational style, she confessed that she’d very likely ask those types of things again. Laughing again, I told her that it takes a lot (or a special person) to get me upset, so if she’s got any other questions, just fire away.

Immediately a thought pops into her head and she tries to shake it but its clear from the err-ing and umm-ing on her end of the phone that it isn’t going to go away. So, I’m thinking that she’s going to ask me something about something I’ve written here. Or maybe something about my family. Prepared for her best shot, I open the door.

Her comment is this: “I’m not attracted to you and I’m never going to want to date you.”

Just thinking about her saying it again makes me smile and laugh.

Don’t get me wrong: The Mighty is an attractive woman. Physically, she’s the type of woman who is really cute with no effort and pretty hot when she is trying. Personality wise, she’s a very sweet and likeable woman. Fun and easy to talk to, when she lets you talk. She’ll admit to being an overly talkative person. And I can say that as someone who can get into the bad habit of cutting people off and dominating a conversation, she makes me look like a monk with a vow of silence. But I like people who make me want to listen to them talk, like The Heroine and the Muses, Fortunate Son and my Brother in Blood and Spirit. So for all these reasons (and the fact I have a functioning penis) I asked the question “Would I be interested in dating The Mighty.”

For many reasons, it came up as a bad idea. Not just the place I’m in right now and being fairly Humpty Dumpy emotionally, but more than that. And while not the most subtle guy in the world, I thought I’d made my intentions (or lack there of) pretty clear. So both The Mighty’s need to say what we’d both been thinking and her apologizing for it was so silly and sweet that I had to just smile and laugh.

I completely understand that I’m not her type. She’s not mine either. But she’s the type of woman, because of her alternating between “I’m the girl next door/I’m a hottie,” has had guys who try to pull the ‘I’m going to be your friend to try and date you afterwards.’ Now, that only works when you state up front “I want this to evolve into something more than friendship” from the get go. I’ve been in this situation and anything less than that doesn’t get it done. Plus she confessed to experiences where she didn’t pick up on the “I’m hopeless for you” vibe coming off of guys and its burned her in the past.

And I get that, and I can appreciate why she’d want to make things clear before it ruins our friendship. Considering that she confessed to not calling me on some weekends to hang out because she thought I was fishing for more, I’m really glad she did. But the whole conversation made me laugh. It still does. So I’m glad she and I cleared up the lack of sexual tension between us. Now I can just use her to meet her hot single friends, which was my intention in the first place. Anyone who doesn’t notice the sarcasm light now flashing, please reboot your brain.

Third on my docket this week was a brief conversation with Sif and the ensuing commentary from her, Thor, Loki and another friend of ours. We were hanging out and as people arrived at different times, I got to talk about BP #2 (only Sif got details, everyone else vague commentary. I gotta protect my property). The joy and excitement that radiated from everyone was like lying in the sun on a beach. You feel aware and alive enough to go do anything, but your simply content to bask in the glow. But here’s the thing that Sif started and other picked up on. I’d make a comment about some movie that should be made or show that I’d love to see or kernel of a story idea and she kept saying ‘So write it.’

I loved hearing it. I believed it. I knew it to be true, now more than ever.

But I didn’t hear her voice when she said it. Or when Thor or Loki did either.

I heard The Heroine’s voice.

Not that she was the only person who ever said that to me. I’ve heard it since high school, from teachers and friends. In college from friends and girlfriends and colleagues. Certainly since then from numerous people in my life. But when The Heroine said it, well, it was different.

And I hate to be cliffhangery (again), but I I have to head out for a bit, but I wanted to get this post up. But at least this way, you’ll want to come back to see what the rest of this ramble is about.