Month: July 2009

I say “defend yourself”;
He hears “put up your dukes and fight.”

I tell him to inform himself;
He worries what she may think.

I remind him that his actions may be affecting the little ones in his home;
He brushes me off.

Alright. I’m done talking for now. I’ll be ready to help…

…when he’s ready to hear me.

I dreamt last night that I was in a store with Lindsey, and we were shopping for Christmas stuff. Red and white decorations everywhere, and the store was crowded with people. The store started to close, and the sales people started moving us all towards the doors.

I lost track of Lindsey, and kept getting shoved around by the crowd as we were herded, as a mob, out the doors. I stood there, face up against the window, looking for Lindsey, and still buffeted by the people around me.

I woke up to find Rennie, Lindsey’s Yorkie, sitting on my pillow like a queen, having somehow pushed my head down and off the pillow entirely.

As I type this, there are 13 minutes to go until the #41 bus reaches the stop nearest my house.

Probably not enough time to write a full, interesting story here. Sadly. I have just enough time to freshen up my coffee and walk out to the bus stop.

Morning routine is routine, y’all.

I use my iPhone alarm as my alarm clock. I chose a nice, pleasant sound as the alarm (it’s called “Marimba”) and set it for just a bit earlier than I have to actually get out of bed, so as to give me plenty of time to laze around and hit “snooze” a couple of times.

This morning, though, in my rush to stop the racket my iPhone was making (yes, the “nice, pleasant sound” becomes “a racket” when it jars me out of a deep sleep), I hit “OK” instead of “snooze”. Did not realize I’d hit the wrong button until too late.

Which thought registered in my brain long enough to realize that I was not going to be able to drift back asleep. Either I needed to reset the alarm, which takes some mental coordination to navigate the iPhone’s menus… or just suck it up and get up early.

Here I am, early. Bleargh.

Terry and I sat at a picnic table in the food-cart parking lot at SE 12th and Hawthorne. I had been coming here at least once a week for about a month, specifically for Whiffies Pies. I had finally convinced Terry to come down and try them. He’d brought his wife and teenage daughter but they’d been bored and were wandering off somewhere.

While Terry and I chatted, Whiffies Pie Cart owner Greg Abbot came up and sat down on the other side of the picnic table. He had some food he’d purchased at another food cart and began wolfing it down. I said “hi” but wasn’t sure if Greg recognized me as a regular customer (and regular Portland Tweeter).

Terry looked and asked him, “Is that… tofu? With barbecue sauce?”

Greg said, enthusiastically, “Yes! And baked beans!”

Terry, who is American of Italian descent but is intimately familiar with Japanese culture, was silent. My read of his face was that he was trying to process the culture clash of bean curd and barbecue.

While Terry was momentarily silent, lost in thought, Greg had poked a big block of sauce-covered tofu on a fork, and held it up in Terry’s direction. “Here! Try some!”

Even though this incident happened more than a week ago, I can still see the expression on Terry’s face as it changed from confusion, to a strange mixture of fear and social awkwardness, as he tried to figure out:

1. Who this guy was?
2. Why he was offering Terry food?
3. Food that was a bit (maybe more than a bit) outside of Terry’s immediate cultural comfort zone?
4. From the same fork that Greg had just been eating off?
5. How I knew Greg?
6. And lastly, how could Terry gracefully decline the friendly offer of food without making a big scene?

I have known Terry for a very long time – we were in junior high together – and he is one of the most social, graceful, friendly people I know. I have not known the Whiffies pie master nearly as long, but from what I’ve seen about Greg he, likewise, is friendly and open.

But as I watched Greg’s long awkward pause, the fork in his hand slowly drooping slightly as the seconds ticked off, and Terry’s eyes darting from Greg, to the fork, to me, and back again… I have to admit that it was surprising and funny to see two such normally companionable men struggling with a clash over food.

I can’t help it. I laughed.

Terry, after finally sorting it all out, turned back to me and resumed the conversation we had been having before Greg had sat down. I felt bad for Greg, though I did not say anything further out of fear of embarrassing both of them.

But man… the look on Terry’s face. Priceless.

She cupped my cheek in her hand, leaned in and kissed me. “Your face is definitely thinner than it was when we first started dating.”

I smiled. “Because I’m losing weight!”

She smiled. “Yes!”

I puffed out my chest. “And I’m getting sexier!”

She stepped back, a confused look on her face. “Baby, you were sexy before.”

“I was?”

She tapped a finger against my temple. “It was your brain. Your brain was sexy.”

“Waitaminute,” I said, “I have a sexy brain?”

When did that happen?

It’s funny how life turns out sometimes. Take the case of my friend Kevin: about a half-year ago, he went in to see the dentist about his wisdom teeth, and as things progressed and more and more surgery did not relieve his pain and suffering, it became clear that he, in fact, had cancer. Now he’s on the mend from major surgery to graft new skin and bone into his jaw to replace the parts afflicted with cancer.

I’m probably not saying this well. It’s not funny at all. Very serious, in fact.

I’m just drawing attention to how we don’t really know where events and life is leading us, and what things will become more important later and what will just be a brief interlude. Y’know, sometimes.

One night not long ago Lindsey and I sat down, at her urging, and she helped me map out my finances. Sounds like such a small thing, something normal people do. But it is kind of huge. My financial situation has been on the verge of becoming catastrophic for about a year and a half now, and I have been vaguely aware of it, but managed to ignore it. Ever since my car accident a year and a half ago, things have tumbled more and more out of control.

Up until a couple of months ago, I didn’t really care. I figured it was just me that would pay the consequences; no one else would be hurt, no one else would go hungry, no one else would have to deal with the stress. Yes, my friends would care. My friends would want to help. My friends would hurt by proxy for me, would shake their heads and try to figure out why I let the situation go on as long as I did without facing up to it.

So, duh, I kept it all from them. From you, and Tracy and Ken and my sister and my dad. I was good at denying it to myself; how much easier it was to keep it from everyone who cared about me.

Then I met Lindsey.

As she and I got to know each other, I found that she had reached the conclusion that debt and money problems were something to be dealt with. How novel! She carefully tracked her money, she made plans, she knew how much she owed and how long it would take her to pay it off. She had learned all this through bitter experience caused by overspending and borrowing. Sure, she had made mistakes; more importantly, she had made different mistakes than me. Her default method of dealing with money was not the same as mine. Where I avoided the problem and spent more and more selfishly on myself, Lindsey had gone the other way – she had sent more and more to her creditors, depriving herself of more and more, until she had little money left for food and other basic needs like prescriptions and clothing.

The silly part is that she thinks she is selfish. So wrong. I’m the selfish one; in my head, the credit card companies can piss off, this is my money, dammit, I can do what I want with it!

And as she and I got closer, I realized that at some point, I would have to tell her about my troubles. As we found that we enjoyed each others’ company and saw much to love and care about in each other, I came to the knowledge that it was unfair to hide such an important and stressful part of myself from her. I took small steps, I dropped hints, but I couldn’t take that important first step and be honest about how badly I had screwed up. She and I talked about other personal, intimate topics… but not this one.

In my mind, it loomed as a huge deal breaker. I feared that I could lose this amazing woman, and I would have no one to blame but myself.

Not knowing the extent of my issue, Lindsey offered her assistance. She gave me advice that would be perfectly fine for someone with a less-dramatic financial hole. She told me that she loved me and that she only wanted to help, and her words both warmed me and caused a cold knot of fear to bloom in my guts – What if she found out?

I tried to figure out what I would need to do to fix my situation; I could sell stuff to pay off my debts! I could take on side jobs! I could work overtime! I could buy a lottery ticket! Yeah, not really realistic.

So, eventually, she gently but firmly set a date for us to talk about money. She reminded me that money troubles trip up more couples than almost any other issue. She did not let me avoid taking a cold, hard look at what I owed and who I owed it to.

I needed to face it. Even if it cost me this amazing woman, I need to deal with it. It’s my own problem, of my own making, and no one is going to fix it but me. Regardless of where Lindsey and I stand, I need to pay these debts off.

And I will be better for it.

I still feel the shame of having let it linger for so long. I still feel the fear that I can’t do it, that it’s too big, that I should just run away. I don’t like giving up the power of telling giant corporations to fuck off; but it’s a false power, a temporary lift, because the problem just won’t go away.

And starting today I will be trying a better solution.