I am not a huge fan of cohabitation in relationships.  Did you know that statistically speaking, you have a 50% greater chance of divorce when you engage is such activity before there’s a ring on your heathen finger?  I tried it once before and oh boy was it a mess. Now that I am older and approaching the big 3-0. . .well, I just wanna make sure I don’t go outta my way to make the wedding bells stop ringing sooner than they have to, you know?

For my situation, things are a little out of the ordinary.  BF lives on the evil south side of my beloved city.  I live on the north side.  Fine.  He drives to work, and his gym is by my house, and he seems cool with not going home till the wee hours….but then again, he’s paying a mortgage on a home he sees just about never.  And I’m paying rent for a place that he pretty much lives in.  Combined we are wasting over $2000 a month.

So the topic, after nearly two years of dating and some pretty rough stuff that we are still working through, has been inevitably brought up.

So what’s the issue you ask?  You decided to stay in this relationship you foolish girl!  Make it work!  Make a commitment!

The issue is that BF is Chinese.  Me?  I’m like 10th generation German American.  BF’s folks are off the boat.  They speak Cantonese.  They do not eat pizza.  They do not dislike me, but they would much rather BF was dating some nice, pretty Chinese girl who knows how to make rice in a pot rather than a rice cooker.  Not this skinny, blond gweilo with a big mouth, weird food and who refuses to iron their son’s work clothes.

(Er, can you tell I”m a bit insecure about his fam?)  Anyway.  BF supports his rents.  They own a home, which they rent out.  Dad is “legally” blind and lives on disability and mom works the graveyard at a factory.  BF owns his own home and they live in the basement, where he added a full bathroom and kitchen.  Brother lives upstairs.

I now live on the main floor with BF for a trial run of this living arrangement.  Much to my surprise over the last couple weeks, BF’s parents essentially ignore that I am there.  Dad smokes upstairs in our kitchen and bathroom.  They watch TV in our living room.  They take out our garbage, wash our dishes and make our bed.

THIS FREAKS ME THE FUCK OUT!

BF doesn’t get it.  I have lived alone for 8 years.  I love coming home and my tv is on the channel I left it.  My clothes are scattered in a mess about my bedroom and my bed  is never made (really, what is the POINT?)

I am trying to adjust, truly I am.  But I really just hate it.  I hate not having ANY privacy.  Not even in my own bedroom.

So either I move back to my own place (which I still have, mind you, at least for another month or two) or I get used to mommy washing my clothes.  Is this how ALL Asian families are?  I love his parents.  They are very sweet and they have, really, been very, very nice to me.  But I don’t want them in my bedroom.  I don’t want dad smoking in my kitchen. I don’t want brother drinking my beer. Period.

Is there a compromise?

there’s something about your best friend, a tattoo parlour, and spilling your guts.

Everyone should do it.

Pics later.

Interestingly, despite my preoccupation with recent events in my crappy little love life, the rest of the world keeps moving on.  Even if I am stuck in a rut.  I went on my first grad school interview the other day.  I think it went okay.  Well, I know it went really well at the start, then I think I answered one of the final questions badly.  The rest of my answers my interviewer had smiled, nodded encouragingly and discussed my answers with me enthusiastically.  She then went on to review the Master’s degree curriculum with me and went a step further to explain how I would be probably better prepared to get into the Doctorate program when I was through with my masters and would even be a step ahead of my straight-doctorate entry classmates as I would already have a year of practicum under my belt and an additional degree to begin my alphabet soup.

Then she went back to questions and when I answered one, looked at me blankly.  I knew it was a bad answer.  Sigh.  Hindsight is 20/20, don’t they say?  Hopefully it won’t be held against me.   Hopefully the 4.0 I’ve had the last 2 years, my personal statement and my recommendations can nudge that icky answer to the side.  I go in a few weeks to my next interview–this one at the school I REALLY want to go.  But a back up acceptance would be good!!!!

In other news A, his mom and I are booking our trip to China this weekend.  I’m excited about the trip, not quite as excited about my relationship.   I feel like I am consciously making the decision to not make a decision.  Which is basically the same thing as making the decision, only without my heart really being in it.  It’s preoccupying.  And a little hard to explain.  On one hand I think it’s a bad choice to stay here with him in this ickiness.  On the other, I just don’t have the energy to leave.  I keep hoping I will fall in love with him again, that I will be able to look past it all, and forgive him, but in my heart, I know I never will.  I feel as if I am betraying myself for the sake of ease and comfort.

It’s as if I am staring out of an invisible cage of my own creation.

I’ve been thinking lately about my relationship and all the drama of the last couple of months. A would like to pretend nothing happened and that cute little girl in Malays ia who thought she’d be marrying him never existed.  He wants me to move in with him, marry him, blah blah blah.

I don’t think I could be less interested.

I check his email constantly now.  And not because I’m looking for him to disappoint me, but because I’m HOPING he will.  Because all I need is that push to get me to put things into action.  On one hand I don’t want it.  And honestly, I don’t think I will find it.  I know he hasn’t been calling her and she hasn’t been texting him like she used to.  I know, I check.  I know there are no emails unless they are from an account I don’t have access to, which I know he has.  But mostly because A just doesn’t have the balls.

I think my biggest fear with staying with him is that he is only doing it because he doesn’t know what else to do.  Not because he wants ME, per se.  Sometimes I don’t think he actually even knows me at all.  He just doesn’t want to ever do anything that might ever hurt anyone’s feelings.  I would rather he be a man and say what he wants and make a DECISION.  But then, this is what I am asking from a man who needs me to tell him what he wants for dinner on a given night.

This state of limbo sucks balls.   My ambivalence is palpable.  And I’m beginning to think when I say “I love you too.” that it’s nothing more than a cheap lie because I am too scared to be alone yet.

We’ll see.  Maybe the tide will turn, and as time goes by, it will get better.  From listening to others though, I am not expecting it to.  I’m just not into it anymore.  I want someone who respects and appreciates what I want out of life.  Not just a sidekick who just goes along with whatever I say.

I’m sure I will keep you updated.

Well, I am working on getting an actual camera in the coming months (Turns out Uncle Sam owes me a sizeable chunk-o-change!) I currently am mostly using my camera-phone as it’s images appear to be of better quality than my shitty, 3mp, ANCIENT Easy Share.

Anyway, I could go on and on about my excitement over the camera I am getting, but my point in this post was a picture I took with my crappy little camera phone.

Yes, yes, I know, it’s not a great picture.  That’s not my point.

I just loved this piece.  I don’t know why it struck me so. A and I went to a Museum for Mexican Art recently and I turned the corner and saw it. I must have stared at it for five minutes, captivated. Perhaps it’s just the drama of the last couple of months-I loved the raw, edgy, vulnerability of the piece. The shiny steel, the sharp edges, the bleeding heart – it all seemed to encapsulate how I’ve been feeling. I related to it. Is that weird? I loved it. I just wanted to capture that wave of emotion I rode as I stared at it.  I even thought it was mildly symbolic, locked behind it’s glass enclosure, safe from the world at large.

Maybe that’s totally corny. But it’s genuine. And that’s really all that counts.

Strange thing happened today on the way to work.  I stopped outside a building across the street from my office building to have a smoke before work while sipping my coffee.  I toss the cigarette aside and head off to cross the street when a bike messenger rides up next to me.

Him:  Hi, I’m Brian.

Me: Hi.

Him:  You busy?

Me: On my way to work.

Him:  Wanna smoke some weed first?

Me (laughing):  No, sorry.  I don’t smoke it.  Thanks.

Him:  Okay.

Rides off.

Bizarre.  Was that supposed to be a pick up line?  Do I look like a pot head or something?  Perhaps it’s time for a make over.

Well, another sleepless night has taken its toll.  I am B-zilla today, thank you very much.  At 5 to 5 my boss calls and asks me to come to his office.  He hands me some “revisions” and says, oh you can stay late tonight, is that okay?

No, no, that is not okay!  I am tired!  I want to go home and crawl on my couch!!!  Is what my brain screamed.

But, being passive aggressive as I am, said, Sure Boss, so long as it’s not too late.  My lips were pursed as he “walked” me through the revisions, explaining them to me as if I was a five year old with ADHD.  But not before he made me stand in his office for a few minutes while he checked his voicemail.

Sometimes people just make me wanna pull my hair out.  Luckily the changes were not exactly complicated, and me not exactly being an idiot, I was out before 5:30.  Trudging through the freshly fallen snow on busy city streets to sit next to one of the previously mentioned men who feel the need to take up 3/4 of the L seat to a rum and diet coke, a cigarette or two and a HOT shower.

I feel better.  I will feel even better after I crash on the couch with some popcorn to watch Lost.

I am SO GLAD tomorrow is Friday.

Dear Men-who-ride-CTA,

I adore you, I do.  Some of you are rather nice to look at in your suits and cute beanie hats warding off the chill of this freezing weather.  But why, when you sit next to me, a tiny speck of girl, must you feel free to stretch yourself out so that you take up 150% of your allotted seat space?

It’s just that I don’t like being pressed into the wall, unable to move my arms and legs.  Unable to grab my iPod from my coat pocket to change the ABBA song that my boyfriend uploaded to my iTunes.  Can you not direct your body to the aisle, where you will not be forcing some small, unsuspecting girl to scrunch up to an even tinier size?  Can you not fold your paper or magazine in half so that your arms are not stretched out over my lap and I have to passive-aggressively crack the cover of my Christopher Moore book just a tad so as to try to make you realize that I too would like to read?  That what I would like to read is my book, and not the left page of whatever it is you are reading?

Please.  Respect my space.  My need to not have you flung over 50% of my seat.  I know that the CTA does not provide lazy-boy like reclining on our commute.  Why don’t you?  I realize your legs are longer than my own, but must you sit with them in a wide V so that you are constantly rubbing up on mine? That’s all I ask.  A pleasant ride home from work on a freezing day where I am drowning in a down-filled coat and becoming irritated because I am sick of hearing “gimme gimme gimme a man after midnight. . .” yet cannot change the song because I cannot possibly squeeze my hand into my pocket.

There’s nothing quite so cathartic as a lunch-time shopping spree where you find jeans that fit you like a glove and make your butt look great. Doesn’t hurt that the $180 price tag is cut down to $49.99 (who cares if they are SO last season?) and you happen to have a $50.00 gift card for the store. That just encourages you to buy sweaters that look great with said jeans and even a dangly pair of earrings. A girl can never have enough butt-enhancing pairs of demin. Never.

I woke up today and decided I’m sick of feeling sad and depressed.  It’s time to get on with life.  I am in school full time.  I have a full time job.  I need some (forgive the corny cliche) “me” time.  I have class tonight and won’t be home until 10 and A decided he would not come over.  I need my sleep he says.

Tomorrow I think I will ask him for a night off.  Maybe slowly ease myself into being alone again.  Just in case I don’t find a way to deal with what he has done.

I also think I will look into joining a gym.  Exercise can’t hurt eh?  Endorphins and what have you…