Remember the shift?

Well, it's shifting back.

Rees is happy.

Scenes from a sidewalk...

Looks like someone had a rough Saturday night on my street...


































(Thanks to Leahtard for the photo-op idea.)

Hanging up the oven mits

With the insufferable Virginia heat, it is all but impossible to cook in my non-airconditioned kitchen during the summer. So I fear that this will be my last project for a few months - chocolate cheesecake bars.












See you in September, Mits! You will be missed.

Escape

"Huh? Why are you leaving? Is it because I'm a bad person?" TB Player was still half asleep.

Sigh. "No. I just can't sleep. I want to go home. Wanna come lock the door behind me?"

I couldn't really explain it, but I didn't want to be there. Lying in the bed with a body pressed up against me was nice, but the thought of waking up and having him do nothing but mumble grumpily, or worse, say something downright insulting, was more than I could bear.

There has been a shift.

I'm not sure why. Is TB Player showing his true colors, or is the boredom of his summer break manifesting itself in a negative way?

He says I'm too sensitive. I can't take a joke. I know that that's not true.

The more I try to explain to him that I don't like listening to him put himself down all of the time, the more he does it. The more he calls me sensitive, the worse I react to every negative comment he makes.

I'm clinging to the way it was in the beginning - fun, excited about each other, treating each other like gold... it was so easy. I really quickly felt like I could depend on him, and definitely recognized how valuable it was to find someone that I was so comfortable with.

I don't know where to go from here. I'm exhausted, and while the idea of being single again doesn't exactly thrill me - it was nice to have someone to hang out with every night - there is a weird sort of relief associated with it too. I'm good at taking care of myself.

But am I giving up too easily? Relationships take work, right? Isn't that what they say? By defaulting back to singlehood am I just dooming myself to always be alone?

"Pet the kitty for me when you get home..." he mumbled as I slipped out the door at 2am.

"Sure..."

Novelties

For someone who has been single for as long as I have, it's easy to forget that certain situations even exist in life. So embarking on a new relationship has been full of pleasant surprises that, while they may be normal for others, have been novelties for me.

Take Sunday, for example... T.B. Player shows up for a day of hanging out, iced coffee in hand.

"Oh, no!" I exclaimed, "You already have one - I was going to see if you wanted to go grab coffee. Boo. Can stop back by there so I can get one?"

"Uh, that's like a mile away," he hesitated.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's no big deal. I don't really need one."

"Rees, I'm joking. Let's go."

"Oh! Right! Great, let's go get me one too. Yay. Um... I don't have any cash, can I borrow a dollar?"

"Take two and throw the other one in the tip jar."

Big smiles all around.

Now, I know that to normal, un-relationship-challenged people, this would not be an unusual situation. But for me there are a few great things about this little exchange. First, I'm not used to having the men in my life be so agreeable and want to make me happy. Even my father would have bitched and moaned about going back to get me a coffee too. Second, it's not usual for me to be so comfortable as to actually ask for the cash. (I know this sounds crazy since it was just a dollar, but it's true.)

Read on...

Last night, T.B. Player came over to hang out. We had no real plans, just sat on the porch and had a beer. Pondered what to do for dinner. Watched Jeopardy. Continued to ponder dinner. Lounged lazily on the couch. Got sucked into a celebrity version of the Price is Right, realized that there was no way that we could leave the house while this was on and decided to order Chinese. Then we happily snuggled on the couch while watching a supremely bad movie that I had rented a few days earlier.

Again, I realize that for a large part of the population this is just a normal Wednesday night, but for me the casualness of it all was wonderful.

Today capped it off...

While grabbing a sandwich at home for lunch, I made the mistake of sitting down on the couch. Ten minutes later I realized that I would be perfectly content to not move for the entire rest of the afternoon, and that I had no desire to go back to work for the afternoon. I decided to call T.B. Player for the sole purpose of whining.

"Hey, it's me. I'm just calling to whine about not wanting to go to my meetings this afternoon."

"That's cool, but can I call you back in like five minutes? I'm walking to my car and my hands are a little full. But I'll call you back and you can whine all you want."

Ok, this exchange definitely should not seem extraordinary... until you make this little connection. T.B. Player had a rehearsal this afternoon and a concert tonight, so "my hands are a little full" actually means that he had a double bass slung over his shoulder and under his arm, that he was carrying a stool in his other hand, and somewhere in between all of that he was also juggling a full tuxedo and musical score. Yet he still picked up his phone when I called.

I'm thinkin' he's a keeper.