You were still standing there when the smoke cleared

And I've done it again. I ducked out for almost a month without positng.

I'm very enarly done with the second draft of my novel. It's being beta'd right now and I'm getting excellent feedback. I had set the goal to finish by the end of this month. I've got 70 pages left and one day. It's not going to happen. I ought to be at it right now, but I'm having trouble focusing. I think i need to turn off the internet. That might help me.

I've been applying around to other jobs too. I need more money. I don't feel like a help at all. Guitar Hero is working at Kitten's restuaruant and making money hand over fist, and from what I hear, isn't even that great a waitress. I keep hoping they'll have a spot open up there. I'd like to work with Kitten and have similar hours too.

My cousin Lovey has a job now, and I am really proud of her. I am hoping she'll get her car in working order soon and we can have a couple days to hang out. It isn't much fun that she lives farther away now. I keep trying to convince her to move up here and go back to school. I think she wants to, but is nervous about how her family would feel. I understand that.

Speaking of not much fun, living with Guitar Hero is becomeing worse and worse for me. I think she is even getting on Kitten's nerves, although she bears it with her usual philosohpy. I appreciate that about her.

Turns out she's a pretty sensitive girl, and most of you know I have the sensitivity of a blunt axe most days. I don't think I could sugar coat something even if I tried. So those days when she comes home and is crying or stomping around or feels like she needs to take an hour and a half long bath are trying to me. I try to ask her what's wrong, and I do my best to be gentle when I suggest that soemtimes maybe it isnt as bad as it seems. I've been wasting my time.

The other day she was upset about her schedule for graduate school and I offered to help her. She not very politely refused, I think she thinks since I am not in school right now I must be an idiot. I hope we all know better. She got to talking to me and I asked her why she didn't get a degree in what she wants to do, rather than get a degree in something she doesn't really like to do but will bring her comfort. I offered the opinion that maybe she should try and make herself happy first, and worry about the money as it comes to that.

This, I know, is a philosophy of a starving artist, but I'm one, and she wants to be one (albeit of a different kind) and I thought maybe she just needed encouragement. Not so. She told me she has too much on her plate to deal with me making it worse. (Not that I see what she's got going on. A job, school and her not girlfriend she just dumped - but isn't that the way life goes?) I asked her why she didn't sit down and deal with her problems now, while she has friends like me and Kitten to support her rather than making it worse by putting it off. Wrong thing to say, apparently. She slammed her glass on the kitchen table and started yelling and cursing at me, told me to mind my own business and ran out of the house crying.

I really didn't mean to upset her. I felt bad. For about six hours.

Then I came home and she wanted to have a talk with me. She took to hours to pretty well tell me that I was a terrible person. Her list of complaints were as follows, minus the cursing, crying and general profanity, which I don't feel necessary to repeat here:

I get in her business and she wants me to stay out of it (Okay, stop talking to me about it, right?)

I am in general a person she doesn't know if she can trust, because she doesn't know all about me. (I told her I'm an open book, and I wondered to myself why she would move in if she didn't trust me.)

I am too blunt and can't be nice about things. ( I agree here, I don't soften the blow very well. But I am never intentionally mean to her...)

I am trashy because I speak my mind. Mind you, she doesn't blame me, that's the way I was raised. (that made me angry, I respect the way my grandparents and mom raised me. I kep my mouth shut and lit a cigarette to keep from yelling about that.)

I have no self respect because I used to be an alcoholic and drug addict. It's worse because I'll admit it. (this really made me angry, but I held my peace here too.)

I am a manipulative person and I have both her and Kitten under my thumb ( I asked her how she thought I was manipulative, or what she thought my ends were, but she just cussed at me and started crying again. I think this was to broach what I think was the main point, which follows)

I have bad blood for her because she and Kitten had a beautiful relationship before we started seeing each other. (Here's where I have to confess to cruelty. I've long suspected she held some lingering attachment to Kitten. I told her point blank I had no reason to resent her, I was the one married to Kitten and I would never have suggested she move in if I thought Kitten had any lingering vestiage of affection for her, which I know she didn't. I'm not stupid. There was never any question of love between them. It was a couple of dinner dates and sex once and nothing else. She really cussed and cried at that. I almost felt bad)

I am a wiccan and I am going strait to hell and she's put up with me doing witchcraft in the house long enough. (This annoyed me mostly because I am not technically a wicaan, it had nothign to do with her thinking I am a busybody. Also, the only time she has ever seen me practice is at my wedding, which she was a part of, and which she knew would take place. I practice in private. Plus, its my house. I set a fire in the back yard and dance naked in it if I want to, but that's neither here nor there....)

I am a drama causer and all I want is to make people unhappy and angry with each other.


After this little speech, well, long speech I calmly told her I hjad never intentionally set out to hurt her and of course I would stay out of her life if she wanted me to, but that she needed to admit I had never done anything but offer my friendship to her, and that I would continue to do so for the sake of everyone in the house.

She told me I was a cold person and she couldn't believe I wasn't upset at all the things she said (believe me I was, but sometimes its better to wait and be angry in private, I think)

I told her if she wanted me to not be her friend I understood and that in return for staying out of her business and personal life like the not friend she wanted me to be I required her to stop crying so loud I can hear it on the other end of the house (an attention getting technique that usually works well for her) not take any more 3 hour trips to the bathroom to indulge her rage (some of us like to use it too, you know) and that she was no longer allowed to stomp around the house and snip at everybody for things that weren't their fault.

She got real mad and called me cold again. I told her I wouldn't waste my time or energy when I had time off just to console someone who didn't like me, and I definately wasn't going to have her suck up all the time I have off making my home a miserable place.

She said okay and then she says "Well, I guess that's how I say its going to be, so there, we've got that settled." I almost laughed. I followed this by almost falling out of my position on the couch when she came over and asked for a hug! I couldn't believe it.


I was really angry when this first happened, but I've had a week to cool off about it, and now I'm thinking it's almost funny. I've lived with people who don't like me before but I've never lived with someone I know doesn't like me who perists in telling me they like me when they act like they despise me, and make it a point to tell me how bad a person I am.

Kitten asked if I wanted her to get her out of the house. I told her no. I figure she's made her bed, and she can lay in it. Word at the water cooler is that she won't have her job much longer and I'm interested to see how she reacts when that happens. She certainly won't be able to talk to me about it. Either way, I figure she'll move on in her own time if she's meant to, or she'll come to see that I was right about a lot of things and maybe she'll unbend and try to be reasonable. I can be forgiving for a lot of things.

She wasn't raised up the way I was, and she's really naieve, so that accounts for a lot of her ideas and actions. She says she's never met a person like me before, and I venture to guess that she'll meet a lot more like me if she stays out of the little town she came from and lives in a bigger city like ours. Trouble is, most of them won't give her the benefit of a doubt.

I've kept quiet the last few days and she seems content not to talk to me. I don't feel its much a loss, really.

It does make me a little sad that she's turned out like this, but that's the way things go some times.


In happier news, my mom and Punk are completely different creatures now that they live apart and there's been a startling burst of maturity from both of them. Mom and I have been spending a lot of time together lately and I actualyl enjoy her company now. She seems to be coming into her own at last, and I like it.

Kitten and I have made a new friend, her name is Copper Top, and we like her a lot. No doubt she'll show up in some of my posts in the future, I expect she'll be hanging out more as time passes.

I haven't given up the idea of moving, and I occasionally go looking for homes in the area of the Pacific Northwest we want to move to. I think we can make it there in the next five years if we try really hard and if I get lucky with a publisher. We're putting the money back for it, so it looks like no second honeymoon any time soon, but it can wait. I like the idea of us picking out our home and moving to it together, like the excellent team we are.

That's all the news from me, for now, and I hope you all are doing well.

Incidentally, I hope the above gave you a good laugh, most of you know me better than my in eprson friends and I hope you know I'm not looking for sypathy. I got that out of Perpet the night after it happened. And it made me laugh, like I do now. I just thought it would give you interesting perspective into the mind of our dear Guitar Hero. I hate to admit i like writing about her. She's such a new experience.

Imagine, we're not even a big city and she is in culture shock. It makes me worry how countryfied I seem when I travel. I hope to heaven I can maintain some sense of cosmopolitanality (is that a word? I'm making it one) when I go other places.

Love you all.
AG/xx