Irritations @ Work

Really had enough of the men at work lying when I ask a question they don’t know the answer to. It’s irritating and makes me want to slap them. Just say you don’t know, okay?

Today was just the latest example. I need to do a very specific thing that I’m pretty sure can be done but I’ve not done it and want to know the best way to accomplish my goal without causing anyone to blow a gasket when they have to make changes behind me.* I ask the self-proclaimed “CAD expert” in the office and he gave me an answer that was so full of bullshit I can still smell it.

Did he think I wouldn’t notice that his answer was crap? Does he think I’ve learned nothing in the last 25 years working in this industry? Does he think I’m a moron and will try to make it work “his” way? Fuck no. I’ll be on the Autodesk CAD boards online if anyone needs me and I won’t bother asking questions I suspect they can’t answer in future.

* Which brings me to my next complaint – stay the fuck out of my drawings! If you want changes, just ask instead of going in there, fucking things up and then apologizing later. It really pisses me off to have to re-do someone else’s work when I could have done it perfectly myself in a fraction of the time. AND when things are changed and I go back in some time later I don’t know what’s been done and since y’all can’t seem to agree on anything the layout is totally different and I have to waste my time asking even more questions and making myself look stoopid, and I hate that more than just about anything. Less than puking, but more than picking up dog shit. Gahhhh

 

One Year Ago Part Four

A year ago I was posting about how I hate curry (one of the top posts on this here blog, strangely enough) and pissed off at the narc’s efforts to pry every penny he could out of my bleeding corpse.

I was fighting the narc’s indoctrination, the voice in my head that dictated my every move based on what would or would not please the narc on any given day. He was making preparations to go work on his boat, leaving me alone for a few days and I had planned my escape. I was tied in knots, anxious not about my escape plan, but about how he would react and the possible consequences.

That Thursday, Awana and I traveled over to The Valley and found my home and had her hauled back to The Coast where I set about making modifications and moving in. The narc was due to be back some time between Sunday and Wednesday, but I knew it would be sooner because he was always hoping to catch me doing something he didn’t approve of, and that was pretty much everything.

Everything that could be fit into Awana’s van and my car was moved out of the narc’s house on January 20, 2013 and of course the narc had to try to make a scene when he came home to find my Fuck You note, but I handled it okay and was able to spend my first night in my very own space with not too much stress. I didn’t die or have a heart attack or have to explain a nasty public scene or any of the other horrible things the narc had trained me to worry about.

So much has happened in the past year, and all of it has been good. Or at least a Learning Experience 🙂 No catastrophes, I’m not living under a bridge or starving or in some kind of danger as the narc told me would happen if I ever didn’t have him to “carry” me through life. I have a good job, a warm place to live where everything is just the way I like it, I eat what I want, watch TV, spin & knit, go to the dog park, anything I want to do, any time I want to do it. I can talk on the phone with anyone I choose to with no interrogation afterwards. If a friend invites me out to do something I can go with no worries about narc consequences. I can visit friends and family at any time, even staying overnight with no worries that I’ll have to pay a price when I get home. No one is forcing me to eat or do anything that makes me unhappy. No one is laying guilt trips on me or beating me with words or denying me basic comforts like heat in the Winter. No one is beating my dog or threatening me.

I woke up today (again) with an indescribable feeling of unreality. As I looked around the dim room (it was not even 0630, damn you, Revy!) it felt like a dream and I was afraid I would soon wake and find myself back in that narc-made hell. But, no! This is my life now and it is fabulous! Can’t say that enough!

There was a Big Storm on Saturday, making travel unpleasant so Awana came over on Sunday to stay for a couple of nights. We went thrift shopping, out to eat, watched part of Dexter Season 6 (LOVE me some Dexter!) cooked, and generally amused ourselves doing what we like to do. And you know what? I can do it again today, or tomorrow, or next week. It might not sound like much to those of you have never lived in the shadow of a narc or similarly disordered person, but just being able to cook a meal of my choosing at a time of my choosing, letting the dog lick up the drips, listening to my choice of program on the radio, it’s all still a bit unreal and feels like an amazing luxury.

On Monday I deleted the old email account and changed every name and login for every account I’ve accumulated over the past 10+ years. My old ID is gone from the internetz.

Life is good!

 

Facebook Part Two

I had half resolved to de-friend Dave. When I went to my FB account, he was gone. It appears that I am blocked. Interesting! I wonder if his wife saw his message to me? I wonder if she’s angry that he tells other women they’re in an “open relationship?”

I guess I should be upset that he beat me to the un-friend/block move, but I’m more relieved than anything else. I kinda want to know what happened, though 🙂

The whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Uh…no pun intended…

 

Narc in the New Year

Well, that didn’t take long. This was in my inbox this morning:

I don’t know if you are getting my messages. Hope so. I still hold out that we might be able to at least talk again someday. Despite all the heartbreak of the last year, I still miss your loving kisses and sharp wit. I love you.

I’m getting counseling which has helped identify destructive character traits – the hard part to swallow is how simple it is to change from a critical, destructive path to a compassionate one. If only…………

I’m practicing meditation, which I have always been skeptical of. Once again, if only……. But the main tenet of meditation is to not get hung up on the past, nor worry about the future. As you might imagine, I have a harder time with that part. It’s very effective for sharpening your mind and relaxing your body.

I have you to thank for getting me here, though I wish with all my heart it could have been different. I think of you everyday, You are everything I ever wanted in a mate and I have only myself to blame.

I wish you the best. No doubt you will prosper, you are a survivor, one of the things I love about you the most. I think about my attitude, the hurtful things I’ve said and done and I am humiliated. So very sorry to have hurt you.

A note from you would be very nice.

Your lover forever,

michelangelo 

Oh, pah-leeze! I don’t even know what to say about this steaming pile of shit. He’s a new man now, eh? He’s meditating and getting counseling? He now understands how easy it is to go from Mr. Hyde back to Dr. Jekyll? He thinks of me every day? How sweet. He knows that I’m a survivor and will go on? Fuck yes, I’m a survivor! And I have already moved on to a much happier, more prosperous and fulfilling life than he can even imagine.

It just makes me tired. I don’t even feel outrage that Gmail can’t reliably block his bullshit.

I’m in the process of updating everyone with my new address and cancelling all of my old accounts. I put up a single post on the old blog saying that my readers don’t know the whole story and inviting them to drop me a note. I left the post up for 24 hours and then deleted the whole blog. I knew it would come up on his live feed because he refused to take my blog links down even after I asked him to. I got two responses. Guess that proves without a doubt that his story about why I left is good enough to ensure his friends stay loyal. Whatever.

All of my old blogs are now gone and my website will be down soon, too – still need to copy some stuff off it for future use. There are many login IDs to be changed and mailing lists to update, but I expect it will all be done within a week, including closing the irritating Gmail account. New Year, New Me 🙂

 

“Diagnosis”

I wasn’t going to post today, but this just landed in my inbox (yes, he’s still blocked):

I was diagnosed with PSTD on Monday, also chronic depression. The counselor, who is an expert in both, says I’ve been affected this way since my first accident. The official psychiatric diagnostic manual requires about five indicators from a list of about fifteen. I pegged the chart, with all fifteen. Good news is, this fine woman tells me she has cured every case of PSTD she has had, which includes five years of treating soldiers on a base in Southern California. A cure means a 100% healthy emotional life. Hard to imagine.

Today I went to the Lincoln county mental health clinic to see what they have to offer. They are much closer than the other option, which is an hour away, in north Lincoln City.

Some nice people here. And I think visits to them might be covered by my insurance. I’m not one to change in mid-stream, but we’ll see. I talked with a counselor for an hour and every few minutes, she’d politely interrupt to say “that’s another symptom of PTSD”.

The psychologist I visited today has a note on her white board that says “be grateful to everyone”. I am grateful to you, for kicking my ass so hard I finally did something.

Hope all is well for you. Give Sabu some love from me, please. 

Ain’t that sweet? 11.5 years of torturing me has led him to this epiphany today. He’s grateful. He has an official diagnosis.

Big fucking deal. I told him all of this years ago, but my opinion isn’t worth the paper he uses to wipe his ass, even though I was living with the fallout and begging him to do something about it.

Is this supposed to be an excuse? An apology? An open door to reconciliation? WTF? Am I supposed to feel guilty for leaving now? Should I now view leaving as a great humanitarian act instead of the flight for my life that it was? “100% healthy emotional life?” Should I go running back for that? Again, WTF?

I can’t tell you how pissed off this poisoned missive makes me. No diagnosis in the world excuses the way he treated me FOR YEARS! He doesn’t get to nod and say, “well, I suffer from PTSD and depression and that’s why I was such a dick to her. She should have stayed and helped me…” Oh, hell no!

Fuck you, narc. Fuck your “diagnosis.” Fuck your finally taking my advice and getting insurance and treatment. Fuck you for thinking you could interrupt my Fabulous with your narc bullshit.

Just. Fuck you.

 

Just like we’re friends or something

Had a new e-mail from the narc when I checked after my second nap Sunday evening:

[his pet name for me,]

Jim has two cats that moved from his neighbor’s to his house. One is a big male and the other is a tiny female. His wife is allergic to cats, so they both live in the garage.

Recently the little female was caught killing a bird in their bird feeder (what do they expect?), so it has been decreed she must go to a shelter. She is the sweetest little thing, so I told him I’d take her rather than send her to the pound.

If you think you might want this kitty, you should contact Jim. I will take her otherwise, though the princess Pookie will not like it one bit. She is coal black and smaller than Pookie.

[Jim’s e-mail address]

love you,

m

Really? I went NC on June 20. He has not heard my voice or received an e-mail reply to anything in over three months and now he’s sending me this? Like I’m just going to forgive and forget?

Oh, sure, I can contact Jim about the poor kitty and leave the narc out of it completely, but WTF is he thinking by even sending me this?

Wait. I know exactly what he’s thinking:

• Appeal to her soft heart with a sob story about a cat and she’ll open the lines of communication
• Insert something about poor little Pookie and how unhappy she will be
• Make sure the message is “from” someone she’s likely to respond to
• Put in something about the nature of cats and how they’re unfairly demonized
• Don’t forget to sign it with “love” to let her know all is not lost

What a bunch of crap! I do tend to respond under these conditions, but not to him, and not to someone who might report back to him about me or inadvertently give away information I want to remain private.

Loser! Nice try, but it ain’t gonna happen!

On an unrelated note: took Lil’ Dude in for his procedure. Left Sabu in the car while I took kitty into the vet’s office in his carrier. Got him checked in, signed up and went back out to the car. Sabu was very concerned that I returned without her little buddy. She’s been giving me the stink-eye all day. Except during lunch, when she was begging for bacon! off my panini. Will report back when Lil’ Dude is home and the meds wear off 🙂

 

The lies we buy

Chumplady has posted today inviting all us Chumps to share in the comments the stupidest lie we bought from our abusers. I posted one story from my days with ex#2 in the comments and it brought up another humiliating experience. In the interest of getting this off my chest, I will relate it here.

It was just before Memorial Day weekend and ex#2 (herinafter referred to as D because that’s easier to type quickly) came to me with a fantastic (in his mind) proposal for a Holiday Camping Trip – the secretary where he worked had invited “everyone” to come to her family’s house near the Coast to camp in their yard. It was a big Family Tradition and only the best friends and family were invited. We would camp and cook over a fire and do all the Fun Stuff we didn’t get to do in the Big City where we lived. My son was about 10 and loved to go camping. I didn’t like it much any more because D made it miserable for me, but that’s another story.

I had a funny feeling about D’s relationship with “Sondy” as he called her, but I didn’t trust my gut and had no real proof. The whole thing sounded strange and I really didn’t want to go but he insisted that we had to go together as a family and in the end I gave in and off we went.

We were to meet at Sondy’s apartment and follow her to the house. Surprisingly, D knew the way, although he said he had never been there before. My gut was screaming that he was lying, but it was too late to back out now.

We arrived at her apartment and D bolted from the car like his pants were on fire, skipping up the steps and knocking on her door. No hesitation about looking for the number, no doubt about the right door. He had obviously been there before. H and I followed him and went inside.

Sondy had two teenaged children, a boy and a girl, and her apartment had two bedrooms. Imagine my surprise when there was a big bed, all made up with frilly covers in the space where a breakfast table would normally be set up in any normal apartment. D gave the bed a significant look, then gave Sondy a significant look and I could taste the tension in the room like spoiled cheese on my tongue.

I wanted to puke, but made nice and soon we were off, D distracted and following Sondy’s car down the highway. I made a snarky remark about how he seemed to know right where she lived and he made a lame reply about it not being my concern. They were “friends,” after all. Huh.

We arrived at Sondy’s family house and D immediately abandoned me, giving instructions for me to set up the tent, etc. and took a walk down by the creek with Sondy. My son followed along, so they didn’t have any privacy, which clearly annoyed D, but what could he say?

I was introduced to Sondy’s family who all gave me pitying looks that I didn’t understand. D followed her around like a love-sick puppy all afternoon until another man showed up. He was introduced as Sondy’s “friend” and when I asked D later who he was he said, “he’s safe,” which didn’t mean anything at the time, but struck me as very wrong. D was in a foul mood after the Other Man arrived and followed Sondy around with angry eyes, still ignoring me completely.

Oysters were prepared for dinner (which I HATE, a fact that D knew well) and everyone stood around drinking and having a great time, again, totally ignoring me. I felt worse and worse, my stomach in knots, waiting for something to happen. It felt like a bomb was about to go off.

A little later D followed Sondy into the house and when he came back out his face was softer and he once again looked at her with love in his eyes.

The brick finally fell onto my head and I realized that D got me out to Sondy’s house so that she could tell me that they were going to be a couple and that my son and I were out of the picture. This little camping trip was to audition him for her family! She lost her nerve and refused. I put H to bed and joined him soon after, crying myself into a stupor.

D came in and asked if I was alright. “Oh, sure! I’m just FINE!” I replied. He disappeared out of the tent and didn’t come back until I was asleep.

The next morning I demanded that we leave. He argued with me that it would be rude if we just left but I insisted that I did not want to be where I wasn’t wanted. I was not comfortable with those people, especially Sondy and I wanted to go home NOW!

This was the first time I stood up to him and he was confused. The weekend was not going as planned and he was frustrated and irritated. I packed up our stuff as he continued to schmooze and act like nothing was amiss. He made a lame excuse about me having a headache and we went home.

He made some choice comments on the drive back, but I ignored him. I was exhausted but thought I had won some sort of battle. After all, he came home with me, didn’t he? I didn’t have the nerve or the words to confront him at the time, but I finally did just days before I moved out. His response? “I am not having an affair with Sondy! You can’t prove a thing!” Yeah.

What a Chump I was! He continued his affair with her until I moved out and for some time afterwords as well, but I never had any Actual Irrefutable Proof so technically he didn’t have an affair, right? So said the Narc, but that’s another post.

Sigh. I feel better now.

How about you? Did you swallow a shit sandwich to keep the peace that you later realized you shouldn’t have? Do tell!

 

One last chance?

Yesterday just before Quitting Time, the following appeared in my inbox. The subject is “My Love:”

[his pet name for me],

Last week, I took your saddle to Barb’s. She has a long-time friend who has horses and has been looking for a spare saddle for visitors. They will keep your saddle and use it occasionally, but it is still your saddle. If you ever want it back, all you have to do is tell Barb.

She was impressed with the saddle.

I think of you every minute of every day and hope you are doing well.

Miss you very, very much.

No lower-case signature this time.

So, let’s run this through the Narc Decoder and see what he’s really saying, shall we? A little entertainment on a slow Wednesday.

He was Up North launching his boat somewhere near Olympia, WA. I heard about it from a blurb on another blog – I didn’t go looking for the info 🙂 Seems he can manage just fine on his own – I wonder if he finally got a job?

Barb is the wife of one of the Narc’s oldest friends. The saddle was rusty and mildewed because the Narc would not allow me to keep it inside the house because all horse tack “has poop on it, no matter how well you say you clean it.” He said the same thing about the wool and bunny fluff, too. He resented anything “horsey” and bitched at me until I sold my horse. That saddle and a couple of bridles are all I had left after having horses for 20+ years.

Anyway. I’m sure Barb was “impressed” with my rusty, mildewed, Cordura Western saddle. When she tacks up her $10,000 Dressage horse with English (made in England because she only has the Best) gear, worth more than my CAR, yeah, I’m sure she thinks of my old saddle and is “impressed.” What a load! Sure, it’s probably good enough for “visitors,” but it ain’t anything special and anyone who looked at it would laugh at his absurd statement. And I’m supposed to drive up there to get it if I ever want it back? WTF?!? Whatever. If it gets used, that’s fine with me.

The more important message here is that he’s telling me he’s giving away my stuff and if I don’t come back soon it will all be gone. I told him when I left that he is free to use, give away or sell whatever I left behind. I meant it. Really. This is just another thinly veiled attempt to get me to communicate with him.

I think of you every minute of every day and hope you are doing well.

Miss you very, very much.

Yeah, right! I wonder what he thinks about? How good it felt when he made me cry? How much he enjoyed beating my dog? The joy of getting new stuff and not having to pay for it? How about two cooked meals a day? Opening the fridge and finding it stocked with all of his favorite foods? Does his miss having his laundry done, the house cleaned and the lawn mowed without him lifting a finger? Sex on demand?

Yeah. The truth is that he is doing whatever the fuck he wants to do, likely painting me as the villain in some Tale of Woe that he spreads among his “friends” and prospective victims and I really don’t care. There’s a picture of him sitting in a boat with a woman, head down to avoid the photographers, at the annual Boat Show, so maybe he’s found someone else to mistreat? I can only hope!

I do wonder if anyone asked about me and what he said if they did. I thought some of the people liked me well enough, but I could be wrong about that, too. Some of them are Nice People and it kinda sucks that I had to give up everything to get away from him, but there ya go – the victim loses again and again just to stay sane and healthy.

 

The Narc and Garbage

Usual disclaimer here: I am not a trained therapist, I speak only of the Narc I lived with for 11.5 years, any resemblance to an abusive person in your life is really, really sad, etc. etc. etc.

The Narc has very definite views on waste and garbage, which on the surface are very Green and respectable. My views are similar, so you would think we would be on the same page about this one thing, right? Nope, but you knew that if you’ve been reading here for awhile.

So, basically, we both believe in recycling and re-using whenever possible and throwing as little “away*” as we can. The Narc refuses to pay for garbage service, preferring instead to have three plastic trash cans that he hauls to the dump twice a year in his truck, along with whatever other big stuff needs to be hauled off. He insisted that the load must weigh 400 pounds because there’s a flat fee for up to 400 pounds and he is a tightwad.

On the surface, this all sounds sane and reasonable, right?

When I moved to the Coast into his house four+ years ago, the cans were almost full of his building scrap and whatever else he couldn’t compost or burn. Of course there was packing material that couldn’t be recycled** and assorted odds and ends that moved but should have been tossed and the cans filled all the way up and it was time for a Dump Run.

You would have thought I’d committed some awful crime the way he carried on. First, he insisted that I be the one to load the truck (this would become a theme that ran throughout future Dump Runs and caused many, many arguments) to show that I was responsible. He gave me a long lecture throughout the loading process about how it should be done and how I’d only been there a month and here we were already going to the dump and how it was going to cost him a fortune in dump fees and how irresponsible I was for having so very much to throw away, blah, blah, blah. It was torture.

Once at the transfer station, we weighed and The Rules for Dumping became the topic for the next half hour along with a continuous litany of my sins against the planet with “my” garbage, and on and on.

When we drove up to the window to pay and the trash weighed less than 300 pounds, I got a lecture about “forcing” him to make a trip with so little trash, we were wasting money, blah, blah, blah. I offered to buy another can (he had a freakin’ HUGE flat-bed truck – it could have held a dozen or more garbage cans!) so we would have more weight next time and that earned me a lecture on the Evils of Plastic. All I could do is suck it up and keep my mouth shut until the next Dump Run where it would start all over again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

You may wonder why I remember this event so clearly. I wonder, too. It all came back to me in a rush yesterday as I was cutting veggies and tossing egg shells into the garbage can and I was mad all over again about his Rules about waste of all kinds. I wrote about just one incident in the post called I hate curry.

“Wasting” food was a cardinal sin as far as the Narc was concerned and a constant source of anguish for me. Every vegetable peel, every spoiled whatever earned me a lecture.

He would make a big production of “cleaning out the fridge” in order to lecture me. I had to sit and watch while he took the items out one by one, demanding to know how long it had been in there, forcing me to tell him what it had been intended for, how much it cost, and on and on. I started throwing things out that looked like they were thinking about going bad whenever he was gone for an hour or two, stashing the bags in my car for disposal at work so I didn’t have to listen to him chastise me. Sick, I know, but what could I do?

The whole Garbage issue is still with me today, even though I have access to trash cans that are paid out of my space rent. It’s not all bad – I try to buy as little packaging as possible, recycle as much as I can, and not throw food away (no compost pile here) but every time I make a decision about it, I think of the Narc and his Rules, which makes me angry all over again.

* There is no Away – it all goes into a landfill where it never really breaks down, but rots and poisons the environment for all time. I won’t get started on that rant because I have not exactly been as “green” as I would like to be the last few months.

** Recycling was another hot button for a couple of reasons:

He “once had a friend” who visited a recycling facility some time back in the ’70’s who said if any recycling containers came in that looked like they had garbage in them, everything in those containers was tossed in the garbage (not recycled at all) and consequently the Narc didn’t really believe that anything was truly recycled, and anyway, there has to be a market for the recycling, and did I really know where the “recycled” materials were going?

The recycling had to be delivered to the transfer station because the local garbage company would not pick up recycling if you didn’t pay for garbage service, even if you only filled their can once a month. Same price, no matter how much garbage you actually produced and the Narc was not about to pay for garbage service. Also, he drove right by the transfer station every time he visited his boat. Right.by.the.place. Not even one block out of his way, but directly off the highway he had to drive to run an errand that he routinely ran. Asshole.

 

He’s still at it…

The Narc is still trying to woo me via email. I changed my phone number and expect to be getting increasingly distressed notes in the near future until I can shut down the old email address. I assure you that I’m not dwelling on this crap, just posting it here for amusement and educational purposes 🙂

Today’s subject line is “Communication:”

Ok, I understand you want nothing more to do with me. To sad for words.

The garden is beautiful, your hard work has paid off. As you suggested, the front row is filled in with wild flowers (the green house remains fallow). There are two perennial plants that look like Queen Anne’s Lace – they are different but similar.  You explained what they were once.

Your blueberries are big and blue. The comfrey is huge. The mint is the bee’s favorite. Sitting on the porch and watching them is an afternoon delight. Pookie likes that part best.

Killer has moved in – at least two nights, I have seen him in the dark front room, though he runs away like lightning. He’s in the yard a lot since the dogs are gone. Pookie is delighted and scared at the same time.

Are you sure you don’t want your saddle? It seems so much a part of you.

Much love, my lovely woman.

your man, until I die,

[his first name, all lower case]

Sigh. Really? Let’s take it one thing at a time.

Ok, I understand you want nothing more to do with me. To [sic] sad for words.

“You’ve made it clear you won’t respond, but I will keep trying because I haz a sad and need some diversion from my pathetic little life and you’ve always been good for that. Maybe I can make you cry in sympathy…”

The garden is beautiful, your hard work has paid off. As you suggested, the front row is filled in with wild flowers (the green house remains fallow). There are two perennial plants that look like Queen Anne’s Lace – they are different but similar.  You explained what they were once.

“Ignoring all those hours I harangued you about working in the garden, directed your every move, demanded to choose every plant and where to put it and then chastised you for doing it all wrong, I want you to remember all the hours you put in making the garden plot the envy of the neighborhood and regret that you no longer have that kind of space to plant in now. The greenhouse that I built, bitched about and harassed you about paying me back for (including my “sweat equity”) is now empty because you are no longer taking responsibility for it – here’s a little guilt for you. I forgot, yet again, to pull all the carrots and now they are in bloom, again, making me crazy because they are Worthless Weeds and you are not here to clean up this mess. I have to do everything myself and it sucks.”

Your blueberries are big and blue. The comfrey is huge. The mint is the bee’s favorite. Sitting on the porch and watching them is an afternoon delight. Pookie likes that part best.

“The garden you worked so hard on is in full flower and don’t you regret leaving yet? You’re missing out on both weeks of Summer here – even Pookie the cat is enjoying the warmth and dry weather. Aren’t you sorry yet?”

He hated the comfrey and refused to let me brew comfrey tea for fertilizer. He didn’t want me using rabbit poo, either. It’s oregano, not mint. Doesn’t look or smell remotely like mint. And he claims to be a Master Gardener!

Killer has moved in – at least two nights, I have seen him in the dark front room, though he runs away like lightning. He’s in the yard a lot since the dogs are gone. Pookie is delighted and scared at the same time.

“The neighbor’s cat has finally moved into the house at night now that the dog is no longer here and I’m getting pretty pissed being woken up in the middle of the night, thinking there’s an intruder. Pookie is not amused and it’s all your fault for torturing that poor cat yet again. If he pisses in the house I’ll really be mad!”

Are you sure you don’t want your saddle? It seems so much a part of you.

“Even though I made you give up horses and keep your saddle outside in the shed where it got moldy and rusted, I want you to come pick it up so I can beg you to come back. I can make you forget who you were when you met me, just like I did before, and I’ll start by reminding you that you were once a cowgirl. You always liked that about yourself…”

Much love, my lovely woman.your man, until I die,[his first name, all lower case]

This is just complete bullshit. He couldn’t show his love when I was there in front of him begging for it, but now his notes overflow with this shit. He could go on and on for HOURS about how inferior I was, how it would take eight of me to keep him entertained, how ignorant and ugly I was, my hair, clothes, everything just so wrong. Does he think I’ve forgotten the reason I left? Is he high? Is it wrong to think, “yeah, I’ll outlive you, asshole!” ?

Oh, look! A spinning wheel –

It was a fantastic weekend, really! Yeah, I know the formatting is all screwed up, but it’s getting late and I have spinning to do…