I'm an evil bitch.

I got home early-ish on Saturday. Normally I will go from work in the morning to the gym for dance class and stay there to run on the treadmill and the rowing machine for another hour, but it was a particularly vigorous class and decided I wasn't going to over do it (big stride for me: exercise is usually all about over doing it).

Lucky me my mom and her husband are getting dolled up to go out...the tip off was the mass of hot rollers in my mother's hair. They're going out with my aunts and in classic "I'm entitled to everything" mode I invite myself along. Even though I am sitting there wondering how little I can get away with eating. When mom calls to change the restaurant reservation to add one more there is no reservation. My aunt forgot to make it everywhere else that we try is booked too.

Mom and Aunts were trying to figure out now that I am coming where they can possibly eat that will have something vegetarian on the menu (yeah...I'm one of those crazy hippy freaks who won't eat a dead animal) and I try my hardest to let them know they can pick anywhere...even a steakhouse and I'll find something on the sides menu. But instead they pick a family chain restaurant... the kind with old toys, old signs, and old pictures decorating the walls trying to make you think that you're eating in your grandfather's den or something. I had resigned myself to ordering a veggie burger. I hate ordering veggie burgers in restaurants 'cuz they charge you about 4 times what it costs to buy it frozen at the grocery store and make it yourself...but whatever. I hadn't eaten all day figured I could have a few fries and half the burger with lots of diet coke and be pretty good.

Turns out...they've taken it off their menu. So my choice was pasta, or pasta, or....pasta. Yeah, that was not going to happen. So this is where the ungrateful bitch part comes in...no veggie burger, pasta that I won't eat served with over cooked veggies I won't eat and I start doing the grumble fest. My mom always wants to be helpful...everyone wants to be helpful when we go to restaurants: "Oh look did you see they have (fill in with some random veg item off the menu)". Oh my no I didn't I've suddenly been struck illiterate because I don't have any animal protein in my system. It is kind of sweet, except that after 500 times it gets very very old.

So when I notice no veggie burger I start to grumble. And I must have grumbled one more time than necessary because my mother snapped. Normally she won't do that in front of other people, even family, because it kind of detracts from that whole "we're a perfect family" facade. But I got an earful of how I always do this at restaurants, I say that we can go anywhere and then I start complaining about having to get "just a salad." She was totally right and I stepped up to say as much. I'm not even sure why I do it. Do I want the "poor her" attention? Am I trying to pave the way for an excuse of why I didn't eat much? I honestly can't figure it out. If it was a grumble-fest because I was dragged out to a family gathering when I didn't want to go I could understand, but I invited myself. So what's up with that? Not to mention I am too old for shit like this. (I'm too old to be living with my mother and her husband, but that's a different discussion all together.)

I'm an evil bitch...that's all I can figure. An ungrateful, doesn't treat her mom well, spoiled horrible person.

Mom sulked for most of the dinner. I got up to "wash my hands" and pinched myself in the bathroom stall in punishment for my horrid behavior (this is not something I normally do, it just seemed appropriate). And I ended up ordering a salad with no chicken...I always hate that part of ordering..."I'll have the Whatever Chicken Salad, but without the Chicken please." Worse than that...my mom asked for the chicken to be given to her...to take home! (How embarrassing)

Inner Nature and "just friends"

I've just finished reading "Tao of Pooh." What struck me as being particularly enlightening considering my recent perdicament in my personal life was the parable of the gnarly old tree.

A man has on his land a huge old tree with knotted wood. It is so huge that he wishes he could cut it down to use as lumber, but because it is so gnarled and knotted it would make terrible lumber and would be too hard to cut down. The man is very disgruntled because of what he sees as a useless tree. But the Taoist looks at the tree for all of the value it has outside of being potential lumber. It is unmoveable and therefore a wonderful testiment to nature, it produces shade in the hot summer, and bares fruit.

Basically you only see something as valueless when you are trying to force it to be something it is not, when you are not respecting it's Inner Nature. Hoff applied this to respecting one's own Inner Nature and therfore learning where you "belong" (he does of course discuss changing one's self for the better in later chapters so don't fear he's advocating a caste system). But I think in keeping with the parable...we must respect other's Inner Natures.

I was trying to make The Man that I was interested in something he was not (namely interested in me) I was seeing him as having value to me only as a potential new boyfriend or rebound relationship. He will never be one of those things for me, but this doens't make him a bad guy, but he has been relegated to the "just friends" category and that has an extreme amount of value in itself. Maybe it's not particularly "Inner Nature" in the Taoist sense, but I have had a enormous peace of mind since I realized that and have noticed a change in my attitude and interactions with The Man.

Put my foot down

So...I went out to lunch with the X. My plan was to have a discussion over food and give him my explanation of why I can't sleep with him anymore. It's not that I don't care about him...I just want us to be friends.

Yeah, that didn't work so well. The lunch place was so crowded there was no way I could talk to him about personal stuff. So I waited until we were back at his place. I had let my nerves get the best of me and I was beginning to think that I wouldn't be able to mention it. Until he gave me "the look." The "what-can- we-do-for-half-an- hour-before-you-go-back-to-work" look. This time I wasn't giving in. I kind of just blurted out that though I'd been having fun with him sleeping with him is making me feel bad about myself. I wish I could have explained more, but as I say...nerves. I assured him that it was "me not you" and left it there.

He seemed to take it okay and asked if we could still hang out as friends once in awhile. I imagine this means that he's okay with my decision, but I am also guessing that this "fuck buddy" arrangement was never going to turn into him asking for me back. Which, just to clarify, I never would have done, but would have made me feel better about the situation. In the "at least he didn't want me just for sex" way. Alas...he did just want me for my body.

I feel a lot better now....my New Years Resolution 5 months ago was to take better care of myself. I have now come to conclude that this includes emotional well being as well as physical.