4:35 p.m. - 2005-02-10
Vday
Dead Milkmen as the light drops to the west. The sky behind the mountains (on one of our rare sunny winter days) is starting to streak with sunset colours, and the view reminds me what made this such a great house to start with. Then I wander into the other bedroom, which still has sunbeams streaming into it, coaxing all my little seedlings into a foolishly early beginning, and there's another reason, which leads me to the yards, with roses and rhododendrons, daffodils and irises (none of which are in bloom yet, but all are showing definite signs), and the crocuses which are already littering the bed along the fence.
Dammit, I feel all domestic-like when I look at the yard, and the seedlings that haven't yet shown their little faces; peppers, tomatoes, beans, basil, and some other stuff that I've already forgotten, but will be pleasantly surprised by once they're big enough to identify. Yeah, I suppose I could label the pots, but I like that sense of mystery and wonder when the unknown green things start poking through the dirt.
More strike action tomorrow, and that's starting to worry me - we're already past the unofficial cutoff date for spring break; at this point, we've missed enough days that the only way to make up for it is to cancel our break in favour of an extra week of class-time. The instructors want their break as much as we do though, and all the different departments are exploring alternatives. As a class/group, we've decided our preference is to add an extra hour of class every day until we're caught up, (though there are dissenters) but the teacher's union has some as-yet unarticulated problems with that plan, so now we're waiting to hear what they suggest. Personally, this program moves pretty slowly, and if the instructors just jumped things up a little we'd have no problems covering it all. And those who can't keep up? Darwin had the right idea, if you ask me.
Crios. I spend virtually every night with him now, most often at his house. Last week, between cat-sitting and Crios, I spent only one night in my own bed - makes me wonder why I bother paying rent at all. Or else, since my biggest hesitation in getting a roommate is that I hate people, now might be the time to do it since I'd never be around to be pissed off by her. Of course, then if things ended badly, I'd want to be here alone and instead I'd have someone else in "my" space. Fuck, I'm hard to please.
Anyway, I'm not sure where things are going. Sometimes I think he treats me better than I deserve, though that's a fairly self-defeating thought. I'm just not sure that I can learn to live with some of his habits, but I don't have the right to ask him to change them either.
I wish I could get a better handle on my hesitations. Most of them seem to be a result of superficial links to ex-boyfriends, but it's hard to tell what the underlying truth is. For instance, he likes video games. No big deal. Except Derrik liked video games too, and look how that ended... so now the question is this; am I being needlessly worried by meaningless similarities, or is my subconscious trying to get my attention because I'm shying away from thinking about things that really are problems? Am I actively looking for reasons to break this off, because it doesn't fit my imagined profile of a perfect relationship? (except that if you asked me, I don't think I could describe a "perfect" relationship.) I find myself constantly checking out other guys, but I can't see that ever changing, no matter how happy I am in a relationship.
And on a purely self-interested note... I'm not sure I've ever been in a relationship on/around Valentine's day with someone who wasn't a complete jerk. I remember once Derrik made some kind of effort, before we were married, but that was it, and that was... 7 years ago. I've otherwise been single or else dating the "it's all just a sham, and I refuse to buy into it" type of guy. And yeah, fair enough, Valentine's day is an incredibly over-commercialized and materialistic holiday. My objection is to the implicit (or in some cases explicit) promise that some kind of lovely, thoughtful, romantic gesture would occur at a later, non-commercially-imposed date, which never happened.
Me? I did nice, thoughtful, romantic things, with or without external, holiday-esque motivations, over a number of years, for a number of people. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson, and maybe I have. My plan for this year (depending, of course, on what little surprises he has in store) is to make Crios something delicious and give him a nice, long, full-body massage. If his mystery plans interfere with that, then I'll just rain-check it for wednesday, which isn't such a bad thing, as he's been joining me for Yoga (how lovely is that?!) and generally ends up in worse shape than me the next day, so he'll be glad of it, I'm sure. He gets some massage from me anyway, but in the end I'm sure he gives more than he receives that way. See? He treats me better than I deserve.
