First of all, good.
Holy fucking shit, Universe! Thank you, thank you, thank you for sending this wonderful blond man my way!!! This dating thing makes sense now--now that I'm dating someone who actually wants to be in a relationship with me. Someone who actually wants to be in a relationship, for starters--that's a change--and then wanting to do that with me! Wow! Add to it that he's cute and smart and great in bed, and nice, not fake nice, but actually conscientious--actually hears what I have to say, and responds to it. Kinda like a grown-up. But he's also very, very funny--goofy. He kinda reminds me of Mickey Dolenz from the Monkees. And he's a bass player, so the whole "I need to go to band practice" thing is not an issue. Right now, I am happy and I want to take this moment to give gratitude to the Universe!!! Yay!!!
Now the bad.
I'm gaining weight. I'm pretty sure that it's the ritualized eating of dating. You know, we go out to eat, we make each other our best dishes, we eat together....it's different from the kind of eating I do on my own. He's gaining weight, too; he told me. I asked my acupuncturist about it and she said that she thinks it's fins and it should taper off after a while. I do tend to be a stress eater, so I've been wondering if it's the stress of dating (it's not bad stress, but it is very different--sleep in a different bed, sleep with someone else in my bed, try to balance kid needs with my needs and Blondie's needs; talking, talking, talking, etc... It's just different.), but I realized the other day that part of this weight gain might also be about---
The ugly.
I'm not sure where I went wrong with the housemate choice this time. Wait, let me use the right term--the subtenant. She didn't communicate to me that she was going to be taking all of her grad school classes online and that she would be at the house all the time and need the DSL up and running all the time. Nor did she communicate that she's a very early riser, and early to bed, and that she wants things to be super quiet. She did, however, respond to my ad which stated that there are two teenagers in my house, and that there's a rock band that practices in the garage once a week, and that there are cats and a dog here. So, she has been here a little over two months, and waited until she was totally in a crisis over the shitty DSL that I pay AT&T waaaaay too much money for every month to tell me about taking her classes online. And she doesn't want me washing clothes after 9pm, because the washer and dryer are near her door, and she actually wanted me to give her a key to my back door so she could let the cats in whenever they were meowing, because it bothers her when she is trying to study, and she had a fucking shit fit last weekend when I was setting up for band practice, because she decided to start taking an exam on a Saturday afternoon. but she didn't tell me that she was having that problem, nor did she check with me to make certain about the time for band practice....and all this shit fountain (thanks for the term, motormouth) came pouring on my head at 8 in the morning when I made the mistake of walking near her door on the way to take my fucking trash to the garbage can outside. Yes, that's right, in her mind, it's ok to confront me early in the morning (as she's been up for hours) if I'm walking in front of her door to take the garbage from my kitchen to the receptacle in my own back yard. There is no other way to get to the garbage can than to walk in front of her door. Here are some gems from the morning--she said that I never told her it was a "rock" band. Of course I did. I put it in the ad. I told her that it wasn't a good time for me to talk, as I hadn't even had my coffee, and she whined, "Well, when am I supposed to talk to you?" I'm like, "I don't know right now. I'm half asleep! But you need to come around to my front door to talk to me. This doesn't work." And you'd've thought I told her she needed to eat day-old dog poo, the way she looked at me. I said, "You've moved into my house, not the other way around. The bulk of the responsibility of adjusting is on your shoulders." and she said, "Well, you'll never be able to keep renters if you act like that!" And over, and over again I reiterated 1) That it's my house and she's renting from me (not that we are flat-mates, not that I rent from her) and over and over again, I said, "I can't talk right now. I am too tired. I am setting a boundary." And over and over again, she refused to acknowledge that I have the authority here, and she blew through my boundaries. She even got really personal and insulted me. This is a 50-year-old woman getting her doctorate in Psych. You know what the insult was? She addressed me in a really snotty voice, as I set my boundary again, and I said (I felt like I was talking to a child), "Don't use that tone of voice on me." and she said, "You have a real problem with authority and you are transferring it onto me." Fuck, yeh, she accused me of "transference". What the fuckity fuck? Does she think she's the authority here? Does she think she's my therapist? I don't her not to use her "fucking psycho-babble mumbo jumbo" on me.
So, I talked to a new client of mine who is a property manager and she helped me write a very dry, unemotional and businesslike letter pointing out that the subtenant signed a sub-lease with me, that I did provide full disclosure about the rock band, the cats and the teens, that I've done multiple things to resolve the DSL issue, and that, if she doesn't like it, she can look for another place to live, and I will give her her deposit back provided she gives me 30 days written notice. I also made provisions for office hours, and that she must communicate with me via e-mail, and that face-to-face meetings must be scheduled in advance.
I must go now and attend to the needs of a teenager.
And think happy thoughts about Blondie!
