Dilate: to describe or develop at length

My therapist asked me today if I felt like I was in any better of a place than I was the last time I saw her. She wasn’t actually referring to my overall well-being at that moment, she was alluding to the issues I’ve been having regarding some unrequited feelings I had for my ex. As I’ve discussed here, he and I were going to try to do the ‘friend’ thing, although never in my history of breakups have I ever maintained a friendship with one of my ex’s. Ex’s are ex’s for a reason, and I’ve never really felt the need to check up on any of them. Most were not good men – one had a serious drug problem, one had a serious liked-to-throw-me-around problem, another was a delinquent, a fourth was emotionally unstable and others had their own issues that I’ve all but repressed. But this one was different – he and I started as friends, developed romantic feelings towards each other and after an arduous road, we got together. The first half of our relationship was the happiest I’ve ever been; the second half was the most depressed.

He moved out about a year after he moved in, and I’ve spent the last 10 months or so wondering what the hell went wrong. How could something so great, turn into something so miserable, in a years time? It’s painful to clean out the old emails and text messages with the words of doom in them and it’s harder still to think of what used to be. But I was a different person then, and he is a different person now. Despite the issues of our relationship, he expressed interest in wanting to try to remain friends and in hindsight, I think I agreed to venture outside of my norm because it was HIM. Any one else and I would have told them to check their own oil and get the hell out of my face. But since it was HIM, I couldn’t say no. Despite the fact that I still cared for him deeply; despite the fact that I KNEW it was going to be excruciatingly difficult for me; despite the fact that I realized I was doing it more for him, than me.

On my way to work today, I was listening to the cd’s that have been in my dashboard since I bought my car, and came across an old favorite. It used to make me tear up out of sadness and remorse, but today, it made me feel….DIFFERENT. Like, instead of being the ‘you’ that the singer sings to, I was the singer, singing to you. I wasn’t crying over the proverbial spilled milk, instead, I was just letting it go…Letting go of the what-if’s and the why’s and the what could I have done differently, and instead, recognizing that sometimes, you just have to walk away.

So this afternoon, when my therapist asked me if I felt like I was in a better place emotionally, I told her that I felt like I was making progress. Not better, per say, but on my way there. The friendship door is still open, but I’m not going to be pushing any issues or following up with HIM, and I expect that if he truly wants to be my friend, he’ll treat me like one and not just want to chat in order to appease his own curiosity. I mean, he can read my blog to do THAT (and I know that you do….), but a real friend goes deeper than the superficial. A real friend would know more of what’s going on in my life than what I choose to broadcast to the masses, and a real friend want to be there for me when I needed them. Anything less just isn’t ‘friendship’, in my eyes.

 

My newest realization

I’m learning an interesting lesson in life as of late. It seems that forward momentum isn’t necessarily a fast thing, even small steps continuing in an upward trend can be considered as successful when you’re building something. Previously in life, I always felt forward momentum was an immediate thing – it took energy and perseverance and your goal could be quickly reached if you just put enough effort into it – but I’ve had a couple of experiences as of late that are blowing that entire theory out of the water. Albeit in a great way, but it’s still slightly disconcerting to be this far out of my typical comfort zone.

So, I’ve met this guy, and I gotta say, he’s pretty awesome. We’ve been taking our time getting to know each other, getting comfortable with each others sense of humor and our similar interests and we’ve reached a point where we’ve been talking for a few months and we’ve finally decided and managed to set up some time to spend together. We live a few hours from each other, but truth be told, I’m really OK with that. My reasoning behind that insanity is that I often manage to force people into a relationship, well before it’s the right time for either of us to do so. I get so enamored by anyone that indicates even the slightest interest in me, that I immediately think he’s THE ONE that will heal my heart and the issues I’ve blamed on loneliness for years and years. Yet thanks for therapy and some time alone for introspection, I’m realizing that *I* am the only one who can heal my issues, and that I shouldn’t expect anyone else to do that for me, and with that knowledge I gotta say that I’m totally confident, comfortable and excited about the progression of this situation.

I won’t call it a relationship, because it isn’t one, or even anything resembling one, as of today. We’re building a friendship from scratch, and it’s just lucky that we have enough in common, and enough mutual interest in each other that it’s continuing to move forward into some next steps, whatever those may be. There are already a few other tentative plans on the horizon where he’ll either come up here, or I’ll go down there and I’m excited about getting to spend some face time with him, but I’m not anticipating or expecting anything, which is a huge change of mentality for me. My desperation to be loved usually triggers me to freak out and get too deep into my head when in situations like this and I loose all logical thought and rely entirely upon my emotions – which often prove to be disastrous on most occasions. But! I’m not going to do that this time! It’s too important, and there is more than just companionship involved here; my ability to find happiness within myself is my main goal. Anything after that is just a bonus.

 

Time to grow the eff up

I never finished college, one reason being that I had a tragedy in my life that pretty much shut me down for a while, and the second being because now that I’m an adult, with a home and pets and shit I have to take care of by myself, it’s harder to find the time, energy and cash flow to go back to school. With that said, I tend to have a buttload of respect for those who DO find the time and energy and cash flow to go back. It’s admirable because I know how difficult it is, and I seriously give those people credit. However, my statements above are with the caveat of how said person should take this shit seriously because it’s not High School anymore.

Flash back to approximately 22 months ago – without going into gory detail, a friend of mine from HS moved into my parents house with her two children as she was desperately in need of a place to go when drug addiction problems reared their ugly head. My parents are good people, so they took them all in with little more than a second thought, hoping that they could be the rock for her to stand on, long enough to get her legs back underneath her. My parents, being the awesome people that they are, sat down with her and discussed things like being able to support herself and her children financially, and what it was going to mean to be a single parent and that they wanted her to take full advantage of the situation and better herself. My mother raised my sister and I alone for a number of years between her divorce from my father, and when she married my step-father, so she knows a little bit about what she’s talking about. So, my friend, we’ll call her Lucy, was told she should take the roof my parents were keeping over her head as a blessing, and spend her time trying to get her shit together for the sake of her 2 kids. Work and save some money; go to school and earn your degree. Sounds easy enough, right? My parents pick the kids up, take them to football, make them breakfast, lunch and dinner and even babysit when she has class or work, without much of a fuss. But here we are, almost 2 years later and NOTHING has changed, as far as she lives her life. Yes, she’s been taking classes, but she fails 50% of what she takes, she still leaves her young children in the care of the drug addict – WHO USED TO TAKE THEM TO GO SCORE – and she is still the same irresponsible, immature girl that she was in High School, when I used to have to wake her up in the mornings. Except now, she’s in charge of ruining two additional lives, not just her own.

Children and parenting are privileges in my eyes, not rights, and I take that responsibility seriously, which is why I’ve managed to stay child free for all of my 30 years so far. It’s been a purposeful choice and I’ve been lucky enough to not have to think about it any deeper than “Oh, it’s time for my pill!” I realize that not everyone who gets pregnant PLANNED for the baby, but I feel that if you do have a baby, and keep it, you need to step up to the plate and be a PARENT. Life changes when you become responsible for someone else’s well being and you have to stop making the stupid, selfish choices that we all make when we’re younger. And those stupid, selfish, irresponsible choices are what brings me to my point.

Lucy neglected to “finish” at least one class this semester and needs to complete an assignment, that she’s had ALL SEMESTER, in order to receive credit for the class. It could be said that I’m a decent writer, and it could also be said that I like to help people out when they need it, so I suppose that is why she asked me, however, I learned that my version of ‘help’ was different than hers. I ended up getting a bunch of links and notes from her semester of class emailed to me, and deciphered that I was expected to write the whole damn thing myself. All six pages. In three days. With no help from her, the one who took the class. While she was out on Friday night, drinking away her self inflicted sorrows revolving around the drug addict that she can’t seem to, or doesn’t WANT to let go of.

Typically, I’m the first person lined up to help people that want to help themselves, but I’m not an enabler. I’ve played that role, it sucked and I cried, a lot, and by writing her paper FOR her, not WITH her, I’m simply enabling her ongoing, irresponsible, self destructive behavior. She has managed to not complete either of two tasks, with any measure of success, in the last two years, and frankly, the lack of progress is wearing on both me and my family. They opened their hearts and their lives to her and her children without asking for much in return other than for her to get her life on a forward track. They’ve been subjected to hearing her yell at her kids, when all they want is a hug; they’ve watched her treat her one child as the golden one, and the other as the red headed step child, and when confronted about it, they’ve dealt with her getting defensive and nasty and we’ve all had instances where if a child is being talked to by any of us, she will point blank step in and contradict anything that was said by an adult. Even when it comes down to whether hitting someone is right or wrong. She’ll argue one point with you, but if you change your stance, she’ll argue THAT point, as well. It’s a constant battle and I’m getting the shits of fighting all of the time.

This is my year of NO BULLSHIT. No romantic bullshit, no dating bullshit, no friend bullshit and no family bullshit. If someone would tell me the story of my life, I would probably suggest to them that they are batshit insane and to avoid these crazy ass situations – but advise is always easier to give out than it is to take.

 

I reap what I sow

I’ve heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same things, over and over, while expecting different results. And as logical as that may sound, it’s proven to be a lot more difficult to follow in life than you might expect and by definition alone, I’m most assuredly insane. I’ve become accustomed to living my life in a certain way, looking for certain things, surrounding myself with certain people and trying to force things into my life that I should just allow to fit naturally. I tend to take the ‘get a bigger hammer route’ and beat things into submission and shape.

An ongoing topic for me relates to my boyfriends, and lacks there of. I’ve spent the better part of the last 10 years in a relationship with one man or another; they’ve all ended prematurely and none of them ever left me with more than I gave. At my therapists suggestion, I’m trying to take stock of my decisions from the past, analyze them and see where I’ve allowed inappropriate behavior to rule me, and where I’ve inappropriately chosen a situation to be in. A common theme that I’m noticing is that doing things the same way is getting me the same results, so I’m thinking it’s time to try to break free since they’ve managed to provide me with little more than momentary comfort and lasting feelings of rejection. I’ve spent too much time and energy in my past trying to MAKE a relationship work because I was always looking to someone else to fulfill something that which I have been missing – Love. Love is complicated though, and you can’t expect it from someone if you don’t have it for yourself and that has been, and continues to be, a painfully hard lesson for me. I’m not totally convinced I’ve learned it en total just yet, but I am recognizing that I can’t find what I want from life if I don’t appreciate myself and respect myself enough to demand it.

This is not meant to badmouth my ex’s. In fact, each and every one of them has taught me a lot about myself and I would not be on this journey to self discovery had it not been for them all. That is also not to say that they were good relationships or were entered into for the right reasons. I fall for all of them immediately upon learning that they had even a small attraction towards me and I throw everything I have into then nurturing a relationship that had little chance to begin with. I’ve chosen men who are emotionally unavailable, unable to deal with life on life’s terms and/or were just a plain bad choice. One was more intelligent than me and one threw me into walls; one was never able to let me in and one was not able to live his own life, latching onto me like a parasite. My point is that my same actions created, ultimately, the same results.

To fill some of the open time in my life, I’ve been spending a lot of time in my gardens this year. I have a veg garden that’s already yielded me zucchini for zucchini bread, a couple of cherry tomatoes as snacks and has more peas than I could eat almost ready to pop. I have day lilies blooming in full force and beautiful blue hydrangeas filling up a bed on one side of my house. A large patch of Black Eyed Susans are opening their petals to the sky, one yellow bloom at a time, and there is a cattail reed forming in my fish pond, after 3 years of having the plant itself. When I’m planting or pruning or harvesting, my efforts are with the intent of assisting my plants to manifest into stronger, and healthier plants. The long term is my goal now, not just the immediacy of what I have TODAY. Gardening is teaching me patience and appreciation – I cannot make pea pods ripen any faster than nature intends and I can’t make the day lilies show their beauty after the sun has gone down. Nature runs on Nature’s time and nothing can alter that – be it to speed or slow it. One must simply go with it and allow things to happen in their own time and nature is proving to me that the time and patience involved in doing something RIGHT, is almost always worth the results.

This time, I’m not jumping into anything, not even a pool. In fact, I have no interest in dating at this current time because I am too focused on me. I have one guy I’m talking to and it’s on a really nice, mellow level. He’s funny, intelligent, gets my humor, artistic, can deal with and throw out a little endearing trash talk and I gotta say that I’m really enjoying his attention. It’s obvious there is interest from both parties, but neither one of us is stressing about making anything HAPPEN. Things either will, or they won’t and it’s been a refreshing change of pace to get out of my head when it comes to guys, lately. If he doesn’t call me for a day or two, I know it’s just because he’s busy and sure enough, I hear from him as soon as he has the time. In the past, I would worry myself over not being in constant touch; assuming something had changed in the day since I last spoke to whomever the him of the moment was; but today, I’m cool with it and actually kind of appreciate hearing from him more so than if it were a constant thing. I’m not basing my schedule on him, much less basing my happiness on him or what he does or doesn’t bring to my life. I’m simply enjoying the conversation, the attention and the flirting. Oh, how did I ever forget how much fun flirting could be?!

My long story shortened here is that sometimes, a person has to take a good solid look at themselves and what they do with and in life. It’s hard to accept blame for your shortcomings, and it’s even harder to be aware enough of them and, to actually do something about them. I’m all about growing emotionally and learning how best to allow the universe to bring me what I need out of life and I’m now working on allowing good things into my life, in whatever their form, and just taking the time to see what develops. Instead of buying a root bound plants for that instant gratification, I’m germinating the special things directly from seed – lovingly placing them in soil, watching them sprout, watering and giving them the sunlight they need to grow into beautiful things, all by themselves, in their own time.

 

I’ll cry if I want to

Tomorrow is my 30th birthday and I am having very mixed feelings on the whole deal. On one hand, I’m thankful to have reached 30 with no real health problems, financial problems, or family problems. On the other hand, I expected to be further along in life than I currently am and it’s really a downer to face reality. People tell me that I am being crazy, and I say No Shit, but it’s a true and legitimate way of feeling – besides, grappling with my self distortion is a daily thing for me.

To give you a little background into how my mind works – I had expected to be in a serious, committed relationship on its way to marriage by the time I turned 30. Now here I am, oh-so-single, lonely, and so off-put by my past relationship choices, and all of their subsequent failures, that I am doing what I do best and shutting down from the concept all together. Letting people into my life requires a lot of energy from me and after a bad string of friends who screwed me, I decided against allowing anyone else in for a couple of years now, because letting down my defenses is one of the hardest things for me to do. So here I am, and I’m finally hitting the big 3-0 and the highlight is that my parents are taking me out to dinner. I’m so far away from the things that I want in life, it’s overwhelming.

I grew up thinking thirty was old, like most people who are young feel, and while my perception of “old” has changed as *I* have aged, thirty still always seemed like the right age to start finding a life with someone significant. Not to mention that I am of the age group where the greater percentage of people I know are married and/or have kids. I see their happiness and yearn for it yet, I’m feeling less and less confidence in the choices that I have made in life, ergo, I have less confidence in the things that I thought I wanted, too. I don’t want to start the self fulfilling prophecy role, where I say I’m gonna end up as the crazy cat lady and I then actually turn into one, but at the same time, it’s really difficult to try to remain optimistic when you see the things you wanted most in life drifting farther and farther out to sea.

Maybe it’s my milestone birthday, maybe it’s just a bad day for me emotionally or maybe I’m getting hit in the face with a serious dose of reality – I honestly don’t know – but I do know how I’m feeling tonight, and that is sad, lonely and pretty hopeless. I want to crawl into my bed and not come out until next year, with the hopes that my life will magically fix itself and all of my self inflicted feelings of abandonment and desertion will just go the hell away.

 

Lonely and bored

Today I was disappointed. Not that I was expecting to NOT be disappointed, but there was a small piece of me that hoped perhaps the situation may change, or had changed or would change. I had hoped. And perhaps that HOPE was my ultimate failure in the situation. I think some of my greatest disappointment was because I was supposed to hang out with an old friend, instead of being alone tonight. Again. But I was bumped, despite the fact that I’ve vowed to not let anyone bump me anywhere, anymore, and it’s left me feeling more discouraged and alone than I honestly have felt in a long time.

As I’ve begun to bring up here, I have depression. I think it’s important that I start talking about this because a) it will help me and 2) it’s important to let others know that they are not alone, and that depression is not something that you can talk yourself out of. I take medication to control the chemical imbalance, and I see a therapist often to help control and try to make sense out of the thoughts and things I make myself believe. Due to my depression, I am fairly sensitive emotionally, at least when compared to most people on this planet. My feelings get hurt easily, I often fear that the inflection in someone’s voice is negatively reflected towards me because of something I didn’t know that I did, but must have done, and I don’t handle disappointment well at all. In my head, disappointment feels similar to your best friend telling you that you’re an asshole, always have been, and that they never want to see you again. It’s almost heartbreaking in a way for me and it’s incredibly difficult for me to cope with. Especially when I am disappointed over an event that I was very much looking forward to.

My one ex and I, the man that I thought for a very long time was THE ONE, have started speaking recently and we agreed to try to rebuild a friendship. Obviously, the complications of having been in a relationship are HUGE, but I stuffed them down as best as my semi-sane mind is able, cried hysterically to my mother on the phone the night before, and showed up today hoping for the best, but telling myself that I was expecting the worst. It’s unfortunate though, because even though I say I expect the worst, I still always have this WANT to be surprised. And I hang onto that sliver of hope with white knuckles as if I’m in possession of the secrets to solving all the worlds problems, and when I realize I’ve only lied to myself, it sadly causes me to fall harder than if I had expected nothing at all. He and I’s relationship isn’t so easy. I will admit I still have feelings for him – I mean, I almost fell in love with the man the moment I met him and I put myself through so much sadness and heartache for him for so many years, I don’t know how I couldn’t….no one else has ever come close, and I fear no one ever will. I had resigned myself to the fact that having him in my life in some capacity was better than none, but after the disappointment of today, I’m not so sure that I was right about that.

I know he’ll probably never treat me like he treats his other friends, and having slept together in the past will sometimes make that situation strange. I get that and I can even say I understand. But I guess I still WANT him to look at me in the way that he used to; and I still want him to think I’m worth “it” enough to actually spend time with again. I want to have back what he used to bring into my life – the music, the humor, the happiness and the crazy-ass-but-hysterical random conversations that we’d have – and it kills me when his actions trigger the negativity inside of me to rise up and take over. Perhaps it’s my depression that does this to me, or maybe I’m just a negative jackass, but every time I heard him say that he was sorry today didn’t work out but that he wanted to hang out some OTHER time, my head just said “lies, lies, lies” in retort.

So, here I am, spending another night in the sole company of my beloved pets. I am thankful for their presence, as being entirely alone is probably something I would not be able to survive tonight, or any night, truth be told, but despite their devotion and unconditional love, I still can’t shake off the insignificance that I feel. It seems that I continue to put myself into situations where I can only be disappointed, and I think it’s slowly breaking my spirit. Ok, so maybe not so slowly. I have a lot of ME to work on still, and I know that I don’t have the strength to try to build a romantic relationship with a person, but I’m beginning to wonder if I ever will again, or if I should even try. Disappointment wreaks such havoc on my emotions and mind that I question everyone that comes into my life and whether they will let me down or not – and tonight my disappointment pains me so greatly that I feel myself drawing into my little protective bubble, blocking the world out so that I can spare myself more potential pain in life. I’m an expert at putting on that fake smile and happy go lucky attitude that I show the public, even though I cry myself to sleep at night when I’m alone. I used to dream of getting married and having children and a happily ever after family story; now, I dream of nothing. It’s better for me to expect nothing, after all, than to be disappointed.

 

Predictable

I had the first conversation in probably 6 months with my ex last night. All told, it was about 5 minutes or less because I forced it to end, but it was still probably the hardest thing I did all day. If it isn’t inherently obvious, I still have a lot of unresolved issues with the end of my last relationship. From my standpoint, the relationship did not end because there was a lack of love for him; in fact, even today, I still love him in a very real capacity, somewhere along the way though, I believe he lost his love for me. And the where and the when is what I feel I need to know – that is what I feel prevents me from being able to let go of what was, and try to move into regaining some sort of friendship with him. At least that’s what I tell myself. Although beings that I’m STILL in therapy, still discussing the loss and anger that I feel over ex boyfriends and the lack of emotion my family as a whole shares, which is why I’ve always felt I should stifle my emotions down, thus causing my issues with NEEDING someone to vocally and physically need and want me in order to feel useful and worthwhile, deducing the emotional relevance of situations such as this are not my forte. That sentence took me 6 months to learn and I’m still not able to say it out loud.

We had a nice, albeit brief, conversation and short exchange of texts last night, and I will admit that it felt good. It was nice to hear his voice, and to be able to genuinely wish him well and to let him know that I DO miss him. I miss his unique sense of humor that never failed to make me laugh or at least look at him sideways, I miss ‘us’ and the fun we used to have a long time ago when we were together, and I mostly miss the friendship that we had, all those years ago. It seems like its been an eternity, things have changed so much, and I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to where we were…but it was nice to have the opportunity to say hello.

If *YOU* read this, please know that I understand I had plenty to do with the way things ended. I apologize for the bullshit that I put you through – looking back at this point, I can see how difficult things must have been at times. Thank you for sticking through as long as you did. I don’t know where exactly it was that you decided it was over in your mind, but I will say that it hurt me more to have you at arm’s length than it did to have you maintain your “radio silence” in another state. Funny how emotions work, isn’t it? I am doing OK – emotionally and mentally – as I am in a much better place than when we last talked. I’m obviously still working through things, as I told you last night, but it’s only because you meant so damn much to me, on so many levels, for years…a friendship with you is better than never speaking to you again, but last night illustrated to me that it can also still hurt MORE than never speaking to you again. As Ani said “Baby, you’re right as rain about the benefits / But you might be wrong about the costs.” Heh, I remember when you introduced me to that song…

Soon, I hope the benefit will outweigh the cost…….soon.

 

Unrequited Couches

The decor of my house is best described as eclectic. Not in the mishmash of 60’s metal and formica and dumpster dive victories kind of way, but rather of hand me downs and hot deals, somehow all managing to coordinate in my indescribably decorated home. Everything goes together as I tend to stick with wood and a basic palette of browns, muted blues and tan/yellow, but items come and items go around here when better opportunities arise. Thank the heavens above for slip covers. Who ever invented those things deserves a medal, or a lot of money, or at least a hug.

I’ve been gifted 2 couches at this point, and recently re-gifted my original couch to my dear Walter. Now I have my new couch on it’s way into storage and the old couch from my parents cabin is coming to live with me as my new new couch. It’s big and cuddly and less formal styled as the one I currently have. I like oversized things more than this low rider of a seat so I’m sending this one into the basement and starting with my third couch in a years time. But I’m happy about it – I am just as content with a new to me thing as I am with a brand new thing. Except for clothes. I love new clothes. And shoes – definitely love new shoes. OOH! And bags. I have quite the obsession when it comes to bags…wow….uh….but I digress.

Today, I spent 4 hours of my day with my father and step father delivering, setting up and leveling a new fridge, and then drinking beer while I emptied the old fridge into the new fridge, then they hauled the old fridge out and took it back to my mom and step fathers house. Most of the day, my dad and step father got along really well. At times, they even humorously, and perfectly unintentionally mirrored each other. My step father cut his finger on the new fridge, and my dad cut his a little later when he was stupidly trying to pull glass out of a dark hole in my basement. My dad finally tired of my step father running the show, and by late morning had started trying to take charge, since he’s a little better with the movement of large objects than my step father tends to be. Which is ironic as all hell. They even both, at separate moments throughout the day, looked at me and made a face as if to say “Listen to THIS shit!” and I smiled knowingly back at both of them. If only they knew.

So anyway, the reason I got the new fridge and the reason behind all of this fridge story was that my mother and step father found a fridge at Lowe’s that was a brand new $1200 fridge on sale for $600, and they’d take another $100 off if my parents took it that day. My mother was salivating at the size of the deal and just couldn’t bear to leave it for someone else to snatch up! so she called me and asked me if I was interested. A brand new fridge sounds great, especially since mine was a hand me down that was about 20 years old. While it still worked fine, it was OLD. Despite the randomness of it all, the really funny part of the deal is that they were in Deep Creek Lake – approximately 3 plus hours away. In a strange twist of fate, however, they had a trailer with them, as they were taking a new couch to the cabin, and they were supposed to be bringing me the OLD cabin couch home to be my NEW NEW couch. Capiche?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining since I just got a brand new fridge for 60% off MSRP, but I think I’m pretty much worn out from the swapping of items for a while. I’m ready to sit down and enjoy what I have for a minute and be thankful that I don’t have to worry about any huge money pits for the next 10 years. New car, new dishwasher, new fridge, new couch! Today, I got a brand new fridge and some step father/father bonding time going on, and all in all, it was a great day, but the MAIN reason for the weekend was to bring me my new new couch. So tonight, I’m listening to my new fridge make ice, still impressed with the light in the freezer and the digital display in the door, but yet something doesn’t seem quite right. Across the room, piled haphazardly on the chair, since I have almost no where else to put them for the moment, I’m staring at a pile of pillows that belong to my new new couch, the body of which still resides in DCL.