I had an exam today, one of those two-hour ones designed to test just how much you have actually paid attention in class. It was in my European Movements class, and I think I did fairly well. We’ll see. I also watched an interesting Polish film about the making of a film about a main actor who is killed during principal photography (not on the set). Was it life imitating art, or art imitating life? I’m not sure we find out, actually.

After that, I confirmed with the prof that my essay on naturalism and the Stanislavski method of acting was still an acceptable topic. It is, and so I took a little trip to the library to pick up a couple of books on the method, one by Lee Strasberg, who was/is the main U.S. teacher of the technique. He taught James Dean and Marlon Brando, among others, and founded the Actor’s Studio, which now gets most of its publicity from that ubiquitous “interview” show with the unctuous James Lipton. Ultra!

Hooray for indoor plumbing!

Throughout October, Esso worked around 88 hours of overtime, on weekends, weeknights—pretty weird times for your basic run-of-the-mill 9-5 job (or in his case 7-3:30). As a result, he didn’t come to visit me much. On the one hand, it was freeing, not having to worry about cooking for two again and cleaning up for two again. On the other, well…you get the idea.

He wasn’t supposed to be working much more overtime for a few more months—at least not until the next outage in February—but he worked 10 hours yesterday.

Granted, I’m working a lot on weekends (9+ hours yesterday, 7+ hours today), so it’s not like we were going to get a whole ton of time together, but any time is good, really. I miss my husband, my friend.

So, why would he deliberately decide (and remember, he’s the one with the car) to work overtime and not come visit? MONEY.

And as Cyndi Lauper once sang, MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING—even plans.

We had our family pictures taken on Sunday, and they turned out really well.

I’ve been asked to pick up an additional 5 hours of work this week, which is good, because I need the money.

I’m making progress on a paper that I was worried about.

The salmonella outbreak on campus affected over 100 people, but I was, thankfully, not one of them.

Esso is coming to visit me again this weekend. I probably won’t get to spend much time with him, but any time is good. I miss him, and I miss our cats–especially my Mo.

Still no new tenants for the downstairs unit have been found. I’m starting to worry I’ll have to move because I can’t afford the utilities. The gas bill is…phew! I could not have expected my neighbours to move out so soon after I moved in.

I’ve had a little time to play The Sims 2, which I didn’t expect. It’s been a blessing.

Things are good…stable.

…once. He was funny and smart, and we were always able to see each other’s side of an issue, even if we didn’t agree with it. We were friends for over 17 years before he decided that well…apart from the obvious, I’m not sure what he decided about me. What he actually said to me seems like a lot of claptrap designed to cover a kernel of truth he has been hiding from me: he no longer likes or respects me, and does not want to be my friend.

As much as this truth hurts (and make no mistake, it’s like someone shoved a redhot poker in my heart), what has made me angry, made me want to scream and punch the walls is the way he went about throwing our friendship aside. See, instead of calmly telling me several months ago that he thinks our lives and minds have diverged to such an extent that he can’t overcome them, he kept silent and waited. And waited. And waited. All the time he waited, a resentment was building inside him, and inside his wife, whom he adores.

I have had the luxury (and believe me when I tell you I am aware of just how lucky I have been) to return to school to finish my degree. It took awhile to convince my husband, and since then, he has not only supported me wholeheartedly, but when I have had low moments of thinking I may have bitten off more than I can chew, he throws me back into the saddle with pep talk and a little of his perspective. He loves me, he wants me to do well, and he knows that my experiences are not always going to be perfect. There are going to be times when I complain, and times when I am exhilarated. I share both with him, but I did not share both with my friend.

Most of the information my friend got about my life was from this blog. Several months ago, I acknowledged that very few people are reading it, and almost no one was commenting. This was seen as a complaint on his part, but I wasn’t complaining, not really. In fact, a part of me was very relieved. When you don’t have an audience, you don’t have to write specifically for them.

As the months went along, I found myself busy (by my standards), and in those moments when I actually had a chance to sit in front of the computer for something other than a quick e-mail reply or note-taking in class, the things that were bothering me, that I had ignored in favour of enjoying and savouring the good stuff as I experienced them, came back to me. I didn’t always write from a “oh, poor me” perspective (as I saw it); sometimes, I just remarked on things. For example, I live in an old house, and old houses are prone (I grew up in one) to having different problems from newer houses, from lack of shower facilities to potential rodent issues. I wrote about these, and my friend thought they were the childish complaints of someone who should have known better.

I wrote about my schedule, and his wife decided to put her two cents in. Essentially, she said that my life was easy compared to hers. She detailed some of her commitments, and there are a lot of them. I replied, as respectfully as I could, that I couldn’t do what she does, and I don’t make apologies for it. I write for myself, I’m happy, and I have a right to complain if I so desire. She then sent me a very tersely worded reply that said all I do is complain, the picture of the person I am is becoming clear to her, and (not in so many words) I need to grow up. I did not reply, however, Esso saw her comment and called her motives for writing it into question, whereupon my friend blasted the both of us and effectively terminated our friendship in HIS replying comment.

I phoned to say I didn’t know where all this vitriol came from, and to correct some of his information. I had to leave a message on his answering machine. Whatever I said made no difference to him, but he took the opportunity to e-mail me back and detail in gloriously high-handed, condescending language how he has been feeling about me.

I have not replied, unless you count this post.

I cried most of Friday, and not the dignified fat droplets of tears with the occasional sniffle, but full-out wailing, gnashing teeth, stomach in knots, screaming into my pillow–the kind of crying that, when you’re done, makes you look like you spent 5 minutes in the ring with Mike Tyson. And then I stopped, because I realized I was not crying for the loss of my friend, I was sobbing like this because I had been emotionally destroyed by someone I trusted to love me and support me.

The friend he was to me in the past is not the person I’ve had much contact with in the last few years. He has become judgmental, condescending, and self-righteous. I did not detail every little thing I have been going through, but I detailed enough that he got an incomplete picture and formed judgments and “perspectives” on my life, and yet, he never actually SPOKE to me, not once. Even in this mess, he terminated our friendship based on the actions of our spouses, rather than on anything I actually DID in the situation. He hid behind his wife’s attack on me, until my husband leapt to my defense, at which point, he did what he has long wanted to do–drop our friendship like so much garbage.

This type of passive-aggressive technique makes me angry. It was exactly this approach that had me on my guard at my last job, and I left it to get away from a passive-aggressive co-worker.

I am better off without this “friend,” and I know it. Am I better off without the friend he used to be to me? I’m not sure. I sure do miss the guy I could talk to about nearly everything, and I miss the in jokes and history we shared. I suppose I still have the memories, but now they are tinged with bitterness.

As Jerky would say, “Meh.”

Tonight, my nephew’s school choir sang “O Canada” at the London Knights (OHL Hockey) home game, and he invited me to come along. I enjoyed myself. The Knights won 6-3 in regulation time agains the Owen Sound Attack.

Owen Sound’s team is very strong offensively and they scored twice in the first period, but in the second period, their defense fell down, and the Knights scored 4 goals. The coaches used the strategy of pulling their goalie in the last minute and a half of play, and it backfired on them–TWICE. They took Davenport out, and the Knights managed to score into the open net at about 0:59.9. This made the OS coaches put the goalie back in, but after a few seconds of play, they pulled him again. Once more, the Knights got a chance at the puck and scored; that was at 0:39.6. They put Davenport back in, but by then, it was all over. They gave away two extremely easy goals, thinking their offense would be overpowering.

My nephew was wired tonight. I’ve never seen him more fidgety or greedy with the food. I remind myself that he is nearly 10, and that with everything that has been going on with his dad and his new soon-to-be stepmom, the kid’s got a lot of pent-up anxiety. I know how he feels.

At the game, I saw some of my old volunteer colleagues from Rogers Television recording the game for the channel. I wanted to go and say “hi” in between periods, but it was clear they were absorbed in their work, and I didn’t want to intrude.

I want to go again.

As I explained to my grandmother, I’m not enjoying very much leisure time in the next month. With the exception of 2 or 3 miraculous days, my life will be thus, weekly:

School: 23 hours
Work: 20-25 hours
Sleeping: 49-55 hours
Transportation (including wait time): 9.5 hours
Studying: 20 hours
Eating: 6.5 hours (approx.)

…leaving me with 29 hours a week to play, catch up on e-mails, answer phone calls and perhaps socialize, approximately 4.5 hours a day. Which sounds like a lot, until you realize that 4 of those hours weekly are on campus at the library between classes, and then the remainder are on Monday nights, most of the day on Tuesdays and Thursday mornings. Not much socializing going on. If you want to get in touch with me, you’d better send me an e-mail…lol.

I’m still in therapy. It’s been over a year, and there seems to be no end to it. In this time, I have felt free to talk about all the hurt and pain I have carried from childhood. Initially, I thought I would be talking mostly about my relationship with my father, but as it has turned out, most of my issues stem from my relationship with my mother. It makes sense, in a way, as I cut all ties with my father back in 1997, and even though he abandoned me and my sister P, he was never the all-pervading influence my mother was and is.

There is a part of me that wants to emphasize what a great person my mother is. She’s a hard worker with a great sense of humour. She feels things deeply and has remorse for past actions. With other people, she is tolerant, affectionate, thoughtful, respectful, loving, forgiving, compassionate….

With me, she is only those good things when I behave in the manner she believes I should. When I’m at work, and I need to bring in or book 5 appointments, there are a number of ways I can go about attracting business; in the end, it doesn’t matter which option I choose, so long as I have booked or brought in 5 new customers. With my mother, the end is not the only consideration; one must do things in the exact way she prescribes. To do things differently means I receive the silent treatment, the disappointed sigh, and in extreme cases, the verbal chastisement designed to correct my wayward path.

For several years now, I have only told my mother about opportunities in my life when I have already made the decision to accept or reject them. This distance (for lack of a better word) was brought on over a decade ago, when I chose to follow Esso to his new job and give up school. Of all the decisions I have made in my life, THAT is the one I regret most. I do not regret being with Esso, or living in the city we ended up in; what I regret is that I allowed my mother’s will to dominate and supercede my own judgment. As it turned out, Esso and I moved back to this city after three years. That’s three years I might have had to complete my degree and be employable in a sector besides retail. The time I have lost in between has been coloured with fear, and doubt, and a need not to piss off my mother. Last summer, after four months of therapy, I recognized that although my mother thinks she has my best interests at heart, what she is really pushing is her own agenda.

I was never allowed to make a mistake and not pay for it–no matter how minor. If I was less than totally compassionate, respectful and grateful with others, I heard about it until she lost breath. If I voiced a judgment about someone, I would be shamed and humiliated in front of my sisters. I was never allowed to pursue the activites that interested me, and in fact, those very activities were of the kind that seemed to threaten my mother’s hold on me; those where I was allowed to be free and creative. She said I wanted too much out of life and was going to be disappointed if I didn’t become more realistic and practical.

P and I have both come to the conclusion (seperately) that Mom doesn’t trust our abilities to make the right choices: me, because of my impulse control problem and ADD, and P because of her determination to be treated properly. I’ve seen P continue fight when she was too proud to admit she was wrong simply because her “opponent” had been condescending to her.

A part of me feels the need for a real break from her; from the anticipatory and actual tension I feel when I know I have to be in her presence. I have felt entirely de-centred and discombobulated since our Thanksgiving, and it’s been hard to concentrate on school and where I’m going after this. I just don’t know what to do. Up until that day, I felt powerful in my Self, as if I was being true to myself for the first time in a long, long time; that I was accomplishing what I feel I need to accomplish. Since then, I have questioned myself constantly. I have questioned Esso, as well. But all the while, I keep hoping Mom will come in, tell me I’m right, that I’m doing the good things and that she is proud of me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that, so I am going to have to work towards not wanting or needing her that way.

You Are a Red Crayon

Your world is colored with bright, vivid, wild colors. You have a deep, complex personality – and you are always expressing something about yourself. Bold and dominant, you are a natural leader. You have an energy that is intense… and sometimes overwhelming. Your reaction to everything tends to be strong. You are the master of love-hate relationships. Your color wheel opposite is green. Green people are way too mellow to understand what drives your energy.

What Color Crayon Are You?

Your Karaoke Theme Song is “YMCA”

You’re the type of person who can’t have fun unless everyone else is right there with you having a blast. You have an amazing knack for figuring out what people want, and you don’t mind going the extra mile to make them happy. The spotlight is something you enjoy on occasion, but you prefer that not all the attention is on you. If you’ve gotten people to sing or dance along with you, then you’re song is a success. You might also sing: “Macarena,” “Hot, Hot, Hot” or “Stayin’ Alive” Stay away from people who sing: “The Greatest Love of All”

What’s Your Karaoke Theme Song?