Matrimonial

Today I'm in Erica's wedding, and I'm looking forward to it. Also, I'm looking forward to it being done. I'm really bad at weddings.

See, I've never been very interested in weddings. In college my friends would all sit around the TV to watch that show on TLC, "A Wedding Story." I never did. I never planned my wedding as a child, never paged through bridal magazines, never dreamed of the day my beloved would gently lift up my veil. I mean, when I was a kid I dreamed of being a chemist and used the kindergarten's dollhouse to play "World News Tonight." That's not the same.

So I've never really paid much attention to weddings, or to the frills and extras that accompany them. That makes me nervous. What if I make a smartass comment that takes away from the solemnity and overall girliness of the day? What if I trip and put a big rip in my dress? What if I step on a groomsman's shoes during the dance and wound him?

I can't wait for my wedding. If I screw that up it won't disappoint anyone*. For Erica's wedding, though, for the big day she's been looking forward to for so long, I want everything to be absolutely perfect. Including me.





* Well, it's Mike's wedding too, so he might be disappointed. Although I think he'd laugh at any of the above scenarios.

Word Disassociation

This music video is for anyone who's ever gone "Oooh!" when they hear a particularly neat new word.

Sighs of relief

Well, Liz sent me one more angry email today, telling me how this was all my fault and informing me about some of my shortcomings (she assured me she had many more to tell me, but that she wouldn't "bore" me with it). I'm not sure if it was just venting or if she was trying to bait me, but either way I didn't give in to the temptation to reply. Alec (whose blog is here, and new!) suggested that I do it here since she doesn't read this site, and I might do that. Or I might let it go.

So I celebrated my Liz-free day by apparently not having the flu. For the past week I've been feeling lousy, and every morning I considered staying home. But because I thought that my illness might be a psychosomatic reaction to my Liz-stress I went to work anyway, thinking that it was best to keep busy and distracted. Well, yesterday I read a newspaper article about a virus that's making so many people sick that schools all around the state are closing for lack of students and staff, and this morning I felt like death warmed over, so I called in.

Then I took a nap.

CURED!

Ah well, there's nothing that can be done about the decision now.

I also posted a picture of my newest necklace to Crafty Like a Fox. I've decided to turn it into a community blog, so if anyone wants to join me (and Mike, once he responds to his invite) in showing off your craftiness, just email me at indigojones@blazemail.com. Then I'll know your email and can send you an invite!

Hooray!

The next day

So the last text message I posted last night wasn't the last text message Liz sent me. She continued to badger me, telling me how badly I wanted to sleep with her, and accusing me of just being scared.

When she asked me if I wanted to sleep with her and I wrote, "I don't," she sent me back this reply:

Be honest with yourself. this is the 2nd conversation re this topic and i get ambiguity. its ok, friends is ok, but i think you want (message broken here) , which is ok

What freaked me out the most was when I said, "Let it drop," and "I need to go to sleep," she replied:

Look-you are my best friend and i love you ya dork, so go to bed

Totally affectionate, casual, the type of thing I'd say to a friend after we'd had a minor and inconsequential tiff about politics or what color to paint her living room. Not something I'd say after two hours - yes, literally two hours - of bugging her for sex.

Then she texted me again.

Mike just called, the man is so damn hot

When I said, "Liz, please, I'm trying to sleep" she said:

F u and no more tonight

No sense of boundaries. No sense of having hurt me. And a temper besides.

One of the freakiest things was this message:

I love jim, if i have reason to leave, male or female, its up to them to make me leave. i want to leave - married not so good

I have to make her leave?

Today she sent me an email. She told me that she's taking some time away from me, that she doesn't fight with any of her other friends and she doesn't need this drama. She's sick of being so upset all the time. This, of course, makes me feel terrible, like I'm the one who did something wrong. I've identified this as an emerging pattern in our relationship: she takes advantage of me, we fight, she blames me, I feel guilty and become willing to reconcile.

Not this time. I wrote back, "Fine, I was going to ask for the same thing. You're the only friend in my life I've ever had this much drama with. I think you should keep to yourself until you can get your romantic feelings under control. They are not reciprocated in any way."

Later on, after consulting with my dad the psychologist, I sent her one last email asking her never to contact, visit, call, email, or text me again, and urging her to get counseling. My dad agrees that she's mentally ill. I feel guilty for not doing more to push her into getting help, but I've tried before this and failed, so I suppose this is it. I did it. I'm done with her.

Hopefully this is the last entry I'll ever have to write about her.

I hope it's over

It's 8:37. She won't stop.

Mike called, and made me laugh about it, which I'm grateful for. He also suggested I call the cell phone company and have her number blocked. That's more reasonable than my suggestion of a restraining order.

She keeps texting me. She tells me it was always me she wanted, that she'll always love me, she wants me more than her married guy or the guy she's dating.

Mike called again. I love that boy.

I never knew she experienced more than platonic, friendly love for me. I never knew that her wanting to sleep with me was anything more than infatuation.

It's 8:45 now. I'm texting her once more to tell her I'm going to bed, and that's it.

She beat me to it.

"You ask me what i want, so i say once, its nuts to say forever. i said once cause once is all i thought i'd get. i want at least once daily. goodnight."

At this point I'm blogging as much out of frustration and anger as out of a desire to document.

It's 8:51. I'm going to bed.

Oh boy again

Oh gosh, oh gosh, oh gosh.

Read the post below if you haven't already. This one dovetails with it. All of those texts were ones that Liz sent last night. She's sent ones all today too. Texts telling me she was going to marry this guy she's interested in just so she won't be alone, texts upset that I'm going to be with someone and she'll be alone, texts asking me to promise that we'll be friends forever. I hate fighting with a friend, even a friend as lousy as Liz, and all day today I felt nauseous, shaky, pale. A coworker thought I had the flu.

Tonight it got worse. She was angry that I was getting married, positive that she'd be pushed to the side, upset that she wasn't the most important person in my life (was she ever? I wasn't hers), but mostly afraid of being alone. She outright told me that I was her fallback, that she thought she'd grow old with me if she didn't find someone.

Thanks a lot.

But tonight...in the past 15 minutes...it became clearer why she was so mad. I asked her to just trust me that I wouldn't ignore her upon marrying and she said, "That's asking a lot for my trust. What do I get in return?"

Rolling my eyes but intent to keep the peace I said, "What do you want?"

She told me that I know what she wants, and that I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want it too.

"I want candles, removing clothes, naked bodies against each other, tongue between legs, finger inserted. What would you like to try? Tell me"

I almost threw up. Not because of the lesbian scenario, but at the thought of cheating on Mike, and the thought that my boundaries could be so casually violated. She's asked this before, she knows I'm not interested, and yet, here we go again. Shaking, I wrote back, "I just asked so I knew what I was dealing with. Liz, I can't and I don't want to. I'm sorry."

She wrote back that her married lover is good in bed and the guy she's dating is cute. She'll respect my desire not to fucking cheat on Mike, but she's still not happy about my impending marriage.

I guess we're still "friends."

Whoopee.

I can't handle much more of this.

Oh boy...

One thing I've noticed about being engaged is that it's all my friends want to talk about. My friend Jen is particularly tenacious. She called me on my way home from work last night, again later that night after I emailed her a picture of my ring, and she promised to call me again tonight to get updates about the wedding. As I hung up with her, slightly amused, I thought, That's pointless, there won't be anything new that happens.

I was wrong.

As I was on the phone with Jen I got a text message from Liz.

For those of you who are new to the blog or who don't remember, Liz is my most drama-causing friend. She's carrying on an affair with a married guy, lives with her parents, and occasionally lashes out at her friends for the purposes of stress relief. She basically spent November to mid-January yelling at me and listing the ways I was a bad friend (not seeing the new Harry Potter movie with her on opening night, not driving an hour and a quarter each way to go to the mall with her on a school night), and the reasons I was a bad person (I didn't appreciate all that I had - a job, an apartment of my own, and a boyfriend that lived nearby). We reconciled in January when she was feeling happier, and I suppose we're on good terms now. She still goes through spurts of ignoring me and then expecting me to respond to her favorite form of communication - text messages - immediately whenever she chooses to send them.

Liz can get very jealous. For a long time I was afraid to let Mike meet her for fear that if she liked him she's try to take him. I knew he wouldn't go, but it still wasn't a scene I wanted to witness. I knew that when I told her my news she might be happy, or she might be upset. When the time came to tell Liz about the engagement I chose to email her rather than call her because even if she was jealous or upset she could still type out a fairly civil reply.

Well, her reply was stretching the boundaries of civil. She wrote, Congratulations!!!!!! If you put my in your bridal party, I'll never forgive you! Punish all your friends who made you a bridesmaid! I wrote back that I would indeed do that, and felt grateful that the conversation had gone as well as it had.

Last night, though, she apparently felt a little twinge of conscience because she sent me a series of text messages. In the first one she wrote: Sorry re being a snot today with the bridesmaid joke, i am happy for you, because you're happy, ok?

I was slightly bewildered - after all, I knew she was kidding around. I wrote: I know. And thanks :)

She wrote back: Honestly, if you wanted me in the wedding, i'd do it. again honestly, i wouldn't be hurt if i wasn't even invited to the wedding. thats the whole truth.

That's a whole lotta ambivalence. And really, I already have a bunch of family and friends who are more than happy to stand up in my wedding. But instead, I wrote: Well the wedding wont be for a long time so theres time for things to work out

She wrote: Thanks to you.

Thanks to me, I thought. What the hell does she mean by that? She continued: I mean thanks to you. jims childhood best friend died. i'm very worried. he's quite upset.

Here we go, I thought. She always screws up and then excuses it by telling me how hard her life is. I made the appropriate "Poor Jim" comment and she wrote: Well i won't worry about you then, i just felt like a bit of a bitch with my 'smart' comment. you know i'm sarcastic but i'd be hurt if you had made that joke.

I wasn't hurt until she said that. Why would she send me something she knew was hurtful? But instead of arguing I wrote: Nah it made me laugh since i had joked about the same thing :) At least that part was true - I had joked with Mike that now all the stress I'd experienced from my friends' and my sister's weddings was going to come right back at them.

She wrote: My intention was to make you laugh. if you make me participate, you pick the color, i choose the best shape for me. if you make me participate.

That burned me. Actually, since I have five bridesmaids with a huge variety of heights (one girl is nearly 6 feet tall, while another is barely 5'2"), builds, and complexions I was going to let them buy dresses in whatever color we pick for the wedding, but whatever style they choose. And not bridesmaid dresses or prom dresses either - normal dresses, like if you were attending a wedding. I'm not going to be a financial burden on anyone, and then they'll be sure to be able to wear those dresses again. But, secretly, I expected them to be grateful for my thoughtfulness, not demand it. In both of the weddings I was in my attitude was, "I'll show up and do whatever you want," and I was very happy about whatever say I got in my dress or shoes. So I was pretty miffed.

I wrote: I havent even started to worry about it, its literally years away. Which isn't quite true, it'll probably be in 2007. But 2006 and 2007 are both years, and there are two of them, so...yeah. And I already have my bridesmaids picked out.

She replied: Good i'll be out of the country for the wedding. ha ha. email me re irish music - yes or no. She wanted me to see an Irish band with her. Thank goodness I had an ironclad excuse not to - I'm standing up in my friend Erica's wedding next weekend.

So yes. Liz is my most drama-causing friend. But I wish she would stop injecting drama into this.

This explains a lot...

So...maybe this is why the standardized test scores at my high school are so low.

Whee!

feb18
Originally uploaded by Lucky Haskins.

Welp, we're engaged.

Love you, Michael.