VomitAttack

Warning: Welcome to TMI Thursday, where I will overshare about projectile vomiting. My excuse is that I live alone and have no one to share these things with as they happen. But that's really just a rationalization. I don't like to suffer in silence, and would probably write about this even if I lived in a house full of people. If I'm going to go through hell, I at least want to get a story out of it. Even a not very good one.

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It started on Tuesday night during my tennis match with TennisGirl. It was an early match, 5:30, so I drove directly from work and carb-loaded on the ride there. (I usually like to have some sort of pasta about an hour before I play.) I had some leftover tortellini I had made on Sunday. This was a new type of tortellini, in a plastic package in the Italian section rather than the frozen kind I usually get. It tasted great-- way better than the frozen kind. I don't know if the tortellini was bad or if I caught a bug, but I don't plan to eat any more of the leftovers.

As we were playing, I could feel my stomach getting upset. After the first set (I lost a close one, 6-4), I had to excuse myself to go to the bathroom, which I never do in the middle of a match. My head was hurting, I was nauseous, and I was feeling chills. After a few games in the second set (I was down 2-3), I told TG that something was really wrong with me, and I couldn't continue. I was feeling really bad. On the way home I had to pull over to the side of the road and throw up. It was very sudden, and although I was able to open the door and hurl on the ground, some of it got on the inside of the car door. Yuck.

I came home feeling sore and exhausted and immediately curled up on the bed, in my sweaty tennis clothes, and slept for two hours. Then I got up and had to shower before going to bed proper. I had to cut my shower short because I couldn't stand up anymore. It was a rough night. I got up twice and vomited into the toilet. The first time the heaving was accompanied by pains in my chest (an air bubble?) that felt like a heart attack. I lay on the bathroom floor, sure that this was The End. Surely death couldn't be any worse than this? I must have been quite a scene, because my cat came into the bathroom, mewing, trying to console me.

After that I took some Pepto Bismal, hoping that it would calm my stomach. Instead, what it did was add a little color to my next vomit attack at 2:00 am. I'd heard of "projectile vomiting" before, but this was the first time I'd ever really experienced it. I don't recommend it.

Meanwhile, trying to sleep in bed, I was in so much pain that I couldn't get comfortable. Even the cats were bothering me just by snuggling up against me. I kept having to shoo them off the bed.

In the morning I transferred to the couch, but was still in a lot of pain. I called in sick to work. I was afraid to take painkillers because they often upset my stomach even when my stomach is healthy. I finally tried an Excedrin, and it really, really helped. I was able to eat and keep down some chicken soup for breakfast and lunch. I took a two-hour late-morning nap. I was still queasy, headachy, and weak all day, but I no longer prayed for death.

I watched TV and napped all day. In the evening K and I had our mid-week phone call, 1.5 hours, and afterward I felt good enough to finally go out to the garage and clean the puke off the inside of my car door. Good times.

I'm at work today, still feeling slighty queasy and headachy, but on the road to full recovery. My stomach was growling all morning. The good news is that, in only one day with the stomach flu, I lost three pounds. You heard it here first: lose three pounds a day with the Snarkbutt Diet of Gatorade, chicken soup, and Excedrin.

Happy Konversation

I haven't had much to report lately, since my life has been happy but boring (that is, boring to the outside observer-- as happiness frequently is.)

On paper, there's really not much different in my life from a few weeks ago, when I was crippled by depression, except that I've stopped taking my antidepressants. Maybe they were just fucking with me. I had a nice evening at home last night, alone with the cats, and watched a Netflik. A week ago that would have brought me down, but now I feel fine.

I had a good weekend. It rained most of the time but it was a nice excuse to stay home and get some chores done, sleep in, talk to K on the phone. I also played some tennis.

I told my brother on Saturday that K and I had a short call this week: just under two hours. He laughed and asked what we talk about for so long. Other people have commented that they couldn't imagine being on the phone for that long. It's hard to summarize what we talk about, but the time seems to fly by. We talk about everyday stuff, like where we went, who we saw, what we ate; news & stories about our friends, family, cats, and people we know; discussions of books we're reading, movies we've seen; work (we're both librarians); ideas about human behavior, religion, politics; past stories from our lives; our own relationship & plans of what we'll do next time we see each other. I've always said I wanted someone I could talk to, and she definitely gives great conversation. Maybe the best I've ever had.

On Sunday she made an unplanned call and we talked for another two hours. It was perfect timing, right after I had got home from a tennis match, showered, and was about to start the laundry. That made me happy. She's already booked her plane tickets to visit me in June, and with our trip to Vermont in May also booked at a B&B, she's financially committed to the next two dates. Which means she can't dump me for at least two months. So I've got that going for me.

With regard to my other relationships, I've decided to simply lower my expectations. I'm not ever going to be as important to other people as I want to be, so I might as well let it go. This is easier said than done, of course, and I have no idea what's really behind my happiness right now. I'm just going to enjoy it while it lasts. If K and I break up, I'll jump off that bridge when I come to it.

Shocking Revelation

My funk of last week seems to have subsided. I'm feeling much better this week, perhaps because I have a lot more going on. Or maybe whatever emotional virus I had has run its course. Whenever I come out of something like that, I always feel a bit silly. I'm slightly embarrassed because I don't know why I got so worked up about things.

I stopped taking my pills, so I wonder if part of the problem was some sort of negative reaction to them. Ironically, I'm happier knowing that I'm not putting drugs into my system, even "happy" drugs.

Anyway, today I want to make a shocking revelation! Anyone who knows me knows how ambivalent I've been toward the whole issue of procreating. As I've gotten older, I've become much more interested in raising cats than children. I've turned into a curmudgeonly uncle who is not kid-friendly.

But recently I've realized that I'm tired of watching TV and playing computer games. I think maybe that's a sign that it's time for a new challenge, a new project. Time to grow up. Time to have kids.

I'm getting way ahead of myself here, but K is the first woman I've ever dated who I could imagine making babies with. (I never even felt that way about my ex-wife.) So that kinda feels like a Big Deal.

Duovert

As a problem solver, I'm trying to figure out what has caused the nosedive I've been in this week. Everything seemed to be going along great, and then-- WHAM!-- depression. The greased pig of happiness has run squealing from my grasp.

So let's make an inventory.

The seeds were sown last Saturday when the whole charity trivia team thing started. This situation has been affecting me disproportionately, and I'm trying to figure out why. I'm hurt and angry, and want to express this, but I can't really tell my friend about it, because I don't think we're close enough friends yet to have a fight. So I'm stuck and I'm not sure how to proceed. I definitely don't want to go to the event as a spectator, because I know I'll just be resentful and won't have any fun, but how do I back out gracefully? What sucks is that I really wanted to do this. I imagine them having to pull teeth to get people to participate, and I want to! A lot! There aren't many ways that I feel useful to people, so when I can help out a friend with a charity event, and can have fun doing trivia stuff too, I really want to take advantage of it. But they're making it really hard for me to participate. What really angers me is that his wife's blithe comment for me to "round up the troops" and start my own team was (unintentionally) mocking me. Maybe she has no problem rounding up her own troops, but I am not that popular. Especially in light of my insecurities from last Sunday, and not being able to find one person who would go on a walk with me.

As recently as Tuesday, I was still telling people how great my life was. I couldn't decide if my terrific mood was the result of the beautiful spring weather, things with K going so well, or my antidepressants starting to kick in. I was worried it was the latter, because I don't like the idea that my happiness is dependent on a pill.

Later that night the communication problems with K started. She didn't get my email, and as we were talking on the phone about it, her cell battery ran out. So we missed out on our mid-week phone call and her last chance this week to send me a long email. She was busy the rest of the week.

On Wednesday I had a night home alone. It was the first time I noticed that I was bored with all my usual solitary after-work activities: TV, computer games, etc.

On Thursday I stayed home again. Because I had twisted my ankle in a tennis match last Saturday, I couldn't go to the tennis workout. More boring TV, etc. and it was bringing me down.

Friday morning I was in full depression mode. My spirits lifted momentarily, but when I couldn't figure out anything to do Friday night, I was despondent about my fifth night alone in the past six. To use Sims terminology, my "social" meter was dangerously low. I actually tried playing The Sims for the first time in years. I played a few boring hours of having my little computer character go to the bathroom, take showers, cook, clean up messes, and go to work. Sometimes he was too depressed to call friends. This is too much like my own life, I thought, and went to bed.

Saturday morning I scheduled an emergency meeting with my shrink. Something was definitely wrong with me. I could feel the depression seeping out of my pores, like sweat. I whined at him for an hour, but it didn't make me feel any better (like it usually does.)

The only scheduled thing I had all weekend was my league tennis match at 11:00 am on Saturday. I was looking forward to it, and hoping the rush of endorphins from exercise would snap me out of my funk. My ankle wasn't completely healed, but I wore a brace and hoped I could at least get a good workout. I was at the tennis center at 10:55. By 11:05 my opponent hadn't shown up. At 11:10, I called him and left a message. At 11:25 I decided he wasn't coming and left. This has never happened before. I've never had anyone stand me up without even a call or something. He's an older guy, and I hoped he wasn't having some sort of emergency.

My missed tennis date couldn't have come at a worse time. I came home, completely despondent. No social life, no tennis, no idea how to proceed next. I took a nap, simply because I didn't want to be conscious and deal with any of this shit. After my nap I called K, and we talked for the next three hours. Ironically, with all the things that have been happening this week, K has been the only area of my life where I'm not feeling insecure. I'm feeling really good about us. I just worry that I'm leaning on her too much. I learned that lesson when my wife left me-- don't depend too heavily on one person.

It's funny how there's always something to prevent me from thinking in absolutes. So often I want to think, "No one likes me" or "My whole life is falling apart," but then I remember the things that are working, and I can't in good conscience finish the thought.

For example, the good thing about this depression is that I know I'm not too dependent on the antidepressants. Apparently, my happiness is not dependent on a pill. So, in a weird way, that's kind of a relief. Lately I've been having the same kind of headaches I had when I was first on them. Which is weird because I hadn't felt that way for weeks. This morning was really bad, much like I had the morning K was visiting and I took a sick day from work. It's so bad, in fact, that I think I'm going to stop taking them. I know I shouldn't keep doing this, going on and off them, but if they're not working, why put myself through this? I'll just skip a few days and see if my mood improves. One of their side effects, ironically, is depression, which makes no sense to me.

In addition to all of this, one of my tennis opponents has not gotten back to me so we can schedule our match for next week. My opponent from yesterday called me, and he just totally spaced our match. It's not clear from his message that he wants to play at all. My contractor won't call me back about a few house projects I'd like to get estimates for. I've left two voice mails for him over the past two weeks. I asked a friend to go walking today but she didn't want to. Some of the people I turn to in crises like these have been especially busy lately, and it doesn't look like that's going to end any time soon.

None of these things, by themselves, would necessarily get me down. But put them all together, and it equals one unhappy Snarky B. Things are a little better today, so maybe I'm coming out of it. As a result of this, I've decided I need to make some changes. I need new friends. I need a larger social network. I'm going to look into some volunteer opportunities. I'm even wondering if maybe I need to make some more drastic changes. As of next month, I will have been living in Snarktown for 10 years. That's the longest, by far, that I've ever lived in one city continuously. Maybe I should move to K-tropolis. I know I'm getting way ahead of myself with our relationship, but it wouldn't necessarily have to be about her. I could move there for the change of scenery. Even if things didn't work out with K, I'd have a larger pool of people and activities to draw from. Maybe it's time for me to try out the big city.

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A conversation I had with K helped me to realize where I stand on the introvert/extrovert scale. (One of the things I love about her is how we learn from each other.) She said that sometimes a good friend will invite her to a party or group thing, and the friend will consider that "seeing" her. But she doesn't consider group time as quality time with that person. I'm the same way, and I realized that what I really am is a "duo-vert." I don't recharge by necessarily being alone or by being around people, I recharge by processing things out one-on-one with someone close to me. I most prefer the intimate kinds of conversations you have with familiar people. That is what I crave; the kind of social connection I need to be happy.

I also think it's interesting that if you say, "duovert," it sounds like "Do-Over(t)." I like do-overs, too.

Ankle Imbalance

There's been a dip in my mood this week.

Three out of the last four weeknights, I've stayed home alone and watched TV. I'm getting bored with it. Ordinarily, I would have gone to the tennis workout last night, but my ankle is still gimpy and I wanted to give it time to heal. I have a league match on Saturday.

Is that really all it takes? One missed tennis workout and I'm feeling crappy about my whole life? Am I always just one twisted ankle away from depression?

There have been some other factors. I'm still upset about the trivia team thing from earlier this week. The latest is that my friend emailed to say he doesn't think he has room on his team for me. They're carpooling to the event, and I'm invited to come along, although I won't get to compete in the trivia contest. I can pay my (charity) money like every one else, but just to be a spectator. But I love trivia. I'm a librarian, for chrissake, I'm loaded with useless bits of information! So I'm trying to decide how to proceed. Do I show my annoyance and boycott? Will that make me look petty? Do I just swallow my pride and go along? Can I afford to have pride when I have such a tenuous social life? Is this really about pride, or about getting along with people?

K and I have not had as much contact this week as we'd like. I emailed her on Tuesday, with the plan being that she would email me back during her slow Tuesday evening shift. But my email never arrived. She called me briefly that night, and it took us a confusing 10-minute conversation before we figured out that she had never received the email that she was expecting from me. The email where we discussed when to have our mid-week phone call. So that messed up our communication schedule and we missed our chance to talk. (She did eventually get the email, at 2:30 in the morning, 13 hours after I sent it. Another example of the Universe trying to keep us apart.)

So I've had too much free time this week, I'm getting bored with my usual solitary hobbies, and I'm anxious about my social life. The weekend is almost upon me, and once again I'm under pressure to figure out how to be social.

But as the day has gone on, I've started feeling a little better. Work is mostly fun and I've made three people laugh today, so that's something.

Mechanical Bull

K asked me last week how long I had dated AG. When I said four months, I could see her calculating. She wanted to know if we had surpassed that mark yet. I found her competitiveness cute-- she wants to beat AG's time on the Snarkbutt mechanical bull of relationships.

Determining a couple's "anniversary" can sometimes be tricky, especially when you were friends first and proceeded as slowly as K and me, but we both decided that our relationship started on Dec. 20, the day I visited her after we first started talking about dating. (The day of our first kiss, I just realized.) That was our first date weekend. So that would make our four-month anniversary next Tuesday, April 20.

I calculated that I dated AG from Feb 21, 2009, to June 28th, 2009. That's exactly four months and one week. So if K and I can stay together until Tuesday, April 27, she will have beat AG's time. I think that will make her happy. Which makes me happy.

It's hard to know how these two relationships compare though. Is four months of long-distance dating the same as four months of local dating? Obviously, we don't see each other as often. Technically, we've only had four dates, but each one has lasted 48-72 hours. When we do see each other, it's an orgy of communication and, er, other stuff. When we're apart, we email and talk on the phone a lot more. In some ways it's easier to get to know someone when all you can do is talk for hours and hours. On the other hand, we're less privy to each other's everyday moods and idiosyncrasies. She still hasn't seen my bad temper, yet, for example. (Although driving for 6 hours together to Vermont will be a good test of that.)

I need a long-distance-to-local relationship comparison chart. What I don't need a chart for, though, is to know how much more connected I feel to K than I did to AG.

God, Government, Goats

If I believed in a God that interferes in human events, I would have to think that She/He/It is against my relationship with K. Starting with the first snowstorm that delayed our first date weekend, to the second snowstorm that postponed her visit for two weeks, to the flight delays and time change that limited our time together, it seems that natural forces have been trying to keep us apart.

Last night K told me that she got her tax return back from the IRS, and it was several hundred dollars more than what she expected. I guess she had forgotten to include a certain tax credit, so that nice folks at the IRS did it for her. Since we're planning so many travels to see each other this summer, she was worried about how she would pay for it all. But the IRS stepped in to help out.

What I conclude from this is that God is against us, but the Government is for us. Or maybe God is just trying to test us.

Whether our love is an abomination in the eyes of God-- or we're just being tested-- is yet to be seen. But we're going ahead with our plans to visit Vermont next month. We're both really excited.

A friend of mine was talking about a vacation she's taking with her husband to Vegas next month. She said that thoughts of Vegas are what keeps her going during bad days. That's what vacations are for, she explained. You think about how much fun it's going to be, you have fun, then afterward you have the memories to look back on. I like that attitude, and it supports my theory that you don't always have to live in the moment.

So my mantra the next six weeks will be: Vermont! It makes me happy to think about it and plan for it.

K and I have been talking about visiting cheese farms in Vermont, and one of the sites I looked at had a picture of happy dairy farmers holding up goats.

I told K I wanted to visit a place where we could frolic with goats. So she emailed one of the farms and asked if they had goats, because "my boyfriend particularly requested that we see goats." The farm replied that they had two goats, one who had learned to jump the fence and make a nuisance of itself. Sounds wonderful.

But the most exciting thing about this story? She called me her boyfriend!

Vermont!

Loner

As the distant youngest of five children, I've always been sensitive to being excluded. I spent much of my childhood wishing I could play in the big kid games, but having to watch from the sidelines. Or not even getting to watch at all. I was usually not invited to hang out with my older siblings and their friends.

So I was a little upset this week when the wife of a good(?) friend invited me on Facebook to participate in a charity trivia contest. It's an hour away, and I'd like to play, but I don't have a team. When I asked about getting on a team, it was casually suggested that I "round up the troops and sign up." I don't know what "troops" I'm supposed to round up, but considering I have such trouble rounding up one person to go on a walk with, I'm not sure where I'm supposed to find five people who will drive an hour with me to a charity event.

The thing that upset me is that my friend, the husband of the organizer of the trivia contest, has a team, but he didn't ask me to be on it. I was not included. This couple is part of a clique of 5-6 people that seems to do a lot of stuff together. Some times I am included in their group plans, but most of the time, it appears that I'm not. (Frankly, I get the impression that people in this group just don't like me.) I emailed my friend, and he said they probably had room for me on their team, but it still bothers me that they didn't think of me before that.

I should probably stop blogging about this, because the more I think about it, the more worked up I get. I'm good enough to provide financial support for this charity event, but not good enough to be included on their team? At first I was really receptive and eager to help out, but now I'm feeling resentful and contemplating not going at all. Which will only hurt me more than anyone else. The more I boycott such social opportunities, the more they will exclude me from future events. This is yet another example of me needing other people more than they need me.

The thing is, I don't really have a right to complain that I'm not included in plans they make with their clique. Because I'm not in their clique. I don't even know if I want to be in it. Many years ago, way before SnarkEx, I tried getting involved in my brother's church. I complained to my sister-in-law that I didn't feel like a part of it. She said, "That's because you're not a part of the church." It was true. If I want to be included, I have to put in my time. I have to get involved. I have to commit.

My problem is I've never been good at joining groups. I've tried. Over the past two years I've tried joining meetup groups, atheist groups, volunteer groups, the unitarians. (I'm still doing that last thing, but only about once a month, and my heart's not really in it.) I'm just not a "group" person. I prefer one-on-one interactions, or at the very least, small groups. It's probably no coincidence that two of the biggest passions I've had in my life have been individual sports: wrestling and tennis. In both of them I didn't have to rely on teammates, and they didn't have to rely on me. I'm not a team player.

So I can't have it both ways: I can't exclude myself from activities and then complain that people don't include me. But I don't know where that leaves me. What's the solution? Besides petty bitching on my blog?

I've spent a lot of my life entertaining myself. I'm not one of those people who constantly needs to be around others. I need people, but I also crave my alone time. I still haven't settled the question of whether I'm an introvert or extrovert. But as things get more solid between me and K, I worry that I'm going to just stop making the effort to hang out with other people, especially when I feel slighted or excluded.

Indecision

It's a beautiful weekend in Snarkville. Sunny, 70's. It's a perfect day to go for a walk, but I'm having trouble deciding how to put one together.

First of all, who should I go with? I run through my roster of walking friends. I already asked friend X earlier this week, and she said she wasn't sure if she had time, but wanted to see how much she got done on Saturday. Should I ask her again or let her call me? I just saw friend Y yesterday, and he's overworked. Friend Z is married and often busy with domestic stuff, plus I just saw him on Wednesday. Friend A is out of town.

If I were married or living with someone, this would be a no-brainer. I'd go for a walk with my partner.

The second issue is that I twisted my ankle playing tennis yesterday. It's swollen and I'm walking with a limp. Maybe I should stay off of it instead of taking a walk?

The third issue is timing. When should this walk take place? A nice morning walk is good, but it will be slightly colder then and it's less likely that any of my walking partners will be up for it. Most people like to sleep in on Sundays. But if I go in the afternoon, I might miss out on my weekly talk with K. She said in an email yesterday that Sunday afternoon would probably be our best chance to talk this weekend.

Speaking of K, yesterday I had my first moment of insecurity in several weeks. I've been telling everyone how great things have been between us lately. She's been paying me more attention and I've been good at not letting stupid worst-scenario fantasies take hold in my brain. But yesterday I felt a possible vibe of her pulling away a little bit, which is bound to happen during the ebb and flow of a relationship. I worry that I pushed things too far and made her uncomfortable.

I guess it's a good sign that these moments of insecurity are getting further and fewer between. Here are the good things I can focus on:

• She told a friend of hers who invited us to brunch last week that I was her "boyfriend." That's the first time either of us has dared to use the BF/GF label. (But I don't think she's entirely comfortable with it yet.)
  
• We're going to Vermont in May. Our first trip together. She's putting her mad organizational skillz and energy into planning the trip. We plan to visit the Ben & Jerry's factory, tour cheese farms, and go hiking.
• On our way back from Vermont, she wants us to stop off and see her sisters so they can meet me.
  
• After Vermont, she's planning to visit me in June, which means we're taking the unprecedented step of planning two visits out.
  

These are all good things.

Back to Real Life

Somehow over the past seven years I have come to associate vacation time with leisure time at home. I get so much time off every year (and believe me, I don't take it for granted!) that I really enjoy having time to hang around the house, run errands, get projects done, and otherwise goof off. There's something thrilling about being home and not having to work on a weekday. It reminds me of the idle days of summer vacation as a kid.

So it almost feels like I didn't get a vacation at all last week, because I was traveling most of the week. I only had one weekday at home (Monday) and then I was off visiting family and then seeing K.

But it was a great week. Things with K are better than ever. I know I say that every time after we see each other, but it continues to be true. There may have been some moments that were not perfect (maybe some times when I felt a hint of getting bored), but that just makes it more real and less of a fantasy. Other moments were pure fantasy-turned-reality, like when we lay down together on a blanket on the banks of the river. I walked my ass off as she dragged me all around the city. (She claimed I still had some ass left, though.) The weather was beautiful and we got ice cream three days in a row. It was my first ice cream of the year. I also got my first sunburn of the year, a moderate pinkening of my nose and forehead.

On the whole, we both had a great time. Now we're making plans for next month and further into the summer. We want to take a trip together. I'm feeling much more secure about us. I'm not fretting about whether or not she's into me. She definitely is. So I'm able to enjoy the relationship more.

The week was a nice break, but this morning I had to return to my real life. The one where I work 40 hours a week, commute an hour each way, and live alone with two cats. Where I have to expend so much energy to make plans with friends, schedule tennis matches, or just get out of the house. Since I was gone all week and weekend, I have a lot of chores and errands to attend to. (Last night when I got home I noticed some (very minor) water dripping from the ceiling fan in my living room onto my coffee table. WTF? Is this another major home repair?)

I'd been anticipating this vacation for so long that I hadn't really planned for life after it. On the one hand, I'm a little overwhelmed by all the little everyday stuff I have to catch up on. On the other hand, I don't have any plans outside of the house, so I have to start hitting the phones or email to fill up my social calendar. The pressure to plan my social life never ends.

But the whether is beautiful, I had a lovely weekend with a woman I adore, and we're making plans for the future. Summer vacation, outdoor tennis, warmer weather, and my relaxed summer work schedule are all just around the corner. Because of all the things to look forward to, this is one of my favorite times of the year.

All in all, life is good.