His female friends

I love the comments much more than my posts. A recent post had some interesting ones.

Let’s see if I can remember what I wanted to say. I’m so lamebrained lately.

My husband has lots of female friends. I don’t get along with very many of them. I told him it is because he is so oblivious to the obnoxious things they say, he is willing to be friends with them when they’ve driven off most other people.

But he’s not oblivious enough to get involved with them. He’s been friends with each of them for years, through times when he’s been single and each of them were. Either nothing happened, or he’s too embarrassed to admit it. Because now, about some of them, he says “there’s not enough Everclear in the world.” If he were single, I’d be grossed out if he hooked up with most of these women. (We are talking personality, not looks, although none of them are stunners.)

Both of the ladies I complained about in “Communication” live 8 or more hours away. He knows these friends mostly from Grateful Dead shows that they’ve seen together. He had not had much contact with them until we started going to a camping music festival. N lives near it and B has gone with us for the last two years.

N had a very long term boyfriend who died of a drunken stupidity a little over a year ago. I do enjoy her company a lot although she is somewhat negative about her friends. When her boyfriend died, I actually sent my husband on a plane to drive back with her, for a visit.

I have no illusions about what either my husband or I am capable of under stress,  given each of our histories. Also, I hear those stories about times of grief. So I did instruct him “no sex.” I don’t think that was a problem.

However, the car she claimed was “fine” at the start, kept catching on fire!!! on the trip. (WITH MY HUSBAND IN IT!!!) I repeatedly advised her to ditch the worthless car and fly home. Instead, she spent a lot of money on it and had to stay longer. By the time her trip was over, this was our fault. Sigh. This is according to her pattern. In her home town, she has bitched out her friends who were trying to help her to the point where they don’t do what they agreed to at all. (Well this is my theory of what I hear, anyway.)

B seems permanently single. I enjoyed her at first but she’s so freaking abrasive, and if you complain she says she’s joking. She bosses people around all the time and gives a disclaimer that you “just have to say no and suggest an alternative.” It’s very tiring. I’m practicing for the next time we see her, I’m going to constantly say “Hush. Just hush. I’m not joking around, just hush.”

B hooked up with someone the first year she went to the festival, a guy I’ve talked to there for years and really like. They live about 3 hours apart. Sometime over the next year, he was supposed to phone her. He called too late, after she’d already left town on business, and that was it, he’s done, she was no longer interested. Luckily they were able to be civil at the next year’s festival. He didn’t seem all that broken up over it, actually.

I don’t have very many friends and I don’t see them very much. I was going to say I don’t have many women friends but I’m not sure that is true any more. But they don’t like to talk on the phone either. (YES! I HAVE SUCCUMBED TO FACEBOOK!! and all of a sudden I have local friends again. But you can see why I need this anonymous blog too, because I could turn this nasty mouth on them next. )

My husband seems to be trying to turn these women into my friends. It’s possible he is trying to get *me* to listen to them talk on the phone. N is not so bad. B needs to talk about plans every single day for two months before our trip up there.

My husband has local women friends. T is another Grateful Dead fan and comes to that festival with us. She narrates constantly. (I think I used to do this and I’m sorry.) If no one is talking she just describes what she is doing or what is happening. She’s also a bit bossy. One time we went to a local camping festival. I was bored so I let her boss me around for a while, and we moved her camping equipment over here, back over there, for about an hour. The boys, who knew better, just watched as we tried to move the easy-up shade while it was still partially expanded in the bed of a truck it was not fitting into.

She’s okay but I can’t take that much of her. She calls and talks to my husband for hours. I don’t mind as long as she doesn’t try to talk to me, which she doesn’t. I truly do not worry about him and her. They had plenty of chances before I came along, and she likes younger, more athletic men, who she finds at concerts and flirts with. It’s fun to watch. She used to be a beauty, but we’re all getting old. Still, she has the moves for a quick flirt,  from years of practice.

T is fun sometimes. But she talks during the music which means I end up leaving my husband standing with her while I go WAY OVER THERE. Jeez, I’m not here to listen to you talk about how you flirted with the sound guy. To give her credit, T seems to have stopped trying to engage me in conversation during the music. This is one of my worst peeves, a sin, and I think he should tell her to be quiet but whatever… as long as I can get away.

There are few enough female Grateful Dead fans in the world that I’m trying to keep the peace with these. I told the husband, about B, “you made her think that I don’t like her. Which is really awkward” and I started talking very quietly, almost whispering “because I don’t like her.”

I emailed B that the husband and I were fighting about something that didn’t involve her, and I was sorry she got caught up in that. I have not heard back. I don’t know if he has. We have a trip planned with her in May; we’ll see if she cancels. N was supposed to go also, but I think she is cancelling due to travel costs… I’m torn between finding someone else, and having extra dancing space at the show. We already paid for the tickets after all

My husband did have a lot more local female friends when I met him. Most of them were barflies. When I met my husband he went to the bar most days. When he stopped coming for a while, some of the employees came to check on him. Two of these women in particular used to come over to the house all the time.

One of them, C, was just horrible. I’m having trouble remembering exactly how, because I ran her off almost completely, years ago, by bitching my husband out horribly every time I had to be subjected to her. Maybe she also noticed I hate her. I don’t know. She has a boyfriend for the last several years and we have not heard much from her, but she called for computer help the other day.

Let’s see what I can remember… Oh, she went on disability because she knocked on a door wrong, so as not to scuff her new nail polish, and hurt her little hand. She was a total drunk, on Miller Lite, every day. She would repeat herself endlessly when drunk.

One time I went to her condo to help her with her computer. She gave me this drunken show… she said “don’t ever swear at a man, because once you open that door…” At this point she takes her bathroom pocket door, and slides it open dramatically. “you can’t close it again.” She closes the door dramatically. She did this at least 7 times in a row.

She had glamour shots of herself lining the stairway in her condo. She looks like a drunken white trash Liz Taylor (skinny version.)

I think one of the turning points was when she phoned, on something like our anniversary, and wanted to come stay over because she had a fight with her boyfriend, and his condo is in the same building. AND HE SAID YES. Oh my god the fight we had.

I don’t remember her ever flirting with him, but she did tease some single guy and then accuse him of something or other.

So yeah, I ran C off. The other one was L. I liked her a lot, actually. She was fun to party with, and we partied way too much back then. She liked good music.

Back then people used to come here to drink. Often, and a lot. L used to come over and do things like sit on my husband’s lap (he was then my boyfriend of less than a year). I was not worried. I really didn’t see him getting involved with her. So I used to just take a picture. I think this made her mad. After a while she started claiming that she could not come around, because of me, which was just plain not true.

Then, when I was working for my husband’s business, she told some people we know online that I “fucked for food.” So… pretty much that was done. He talked to her from time to time but kept a distance. I don’t think we have heard about her for years. She also seems permanently single. She has one friend who is incredibly nice, and loyal, and will do anything she says. She told us she won’t get involved with him because he is “too short” (He really is short.) That also put me off of her…

My husband has one more local female friend that comes to mind. They are concert and brewing buddies. Her husband does not “get” live music. She’s sweet, I love her. I like her husband, too. He is really loud but he says the things I’m thinking, about politics, and such. I wish we saw more of them. But not enough to pick up the phone. Maybe in the spring time… They live nearby and we used to drink a lot together, but now we are all old and go to bed early.

I can’t think of an ending for this post so kthxbai

I couldn’t make this stuff up.

The cliff notes for my job:

I have a “real boss,” Bubba, who has not spoken to me more than “hello, here’s that stuff” for years. I cleaned up the web site, and Bubba told someone he was busy answering calls because of all the information I destroyed. I knew how many calls he was getting and often eavesdropped, so I knew it was a lie. I mentioned this to crazy web lady (Imelda) who I was still friends with at that time. She mentioned it to the big boss (Cheesy). Imelda claimed that Cheesy  wanted me to offer to answer Bubba’s phone. I did. It felt like a dare. They gave him a new “real” line to give out selectively because his time is so important blah blah blah.

After this happened, they gave me a “foster boss” (Swell Guy). Swell Guy went from easygoing to hardass, with nothing in between, about a year ago, and made me sign a paper about my job. We fought some.

Then I got cancer. Swell Guy and I met with another person in June about my telecommuting schedule. We have not had a conversation since. He sent me one email in the fall about some spreadsheet. He sort of winces and smiles when I see him in the hallway. I quit responding to that, putting him on a list with Bubba, Imelda, and Cheesy. (As well as Betty Boop who is not this story.)

Today, Bubba’s phone rang. This happens about once a week and is usually about newspaper subscriptions. I looked at the phone and it said it was coming from Swell Guy.

I answered the phone and Swell Guy said “what are you doing answering Bubba’s phone?” I told him I’d been answering it for years, and offered to give him Bubba’s real number. He said “no, I’ll just walk two doors down and talk to him. How are you?” (Yes, he’s two doors away from Bubba.)

I said “Okay.”

He then started blathering and I just let him go on. He said “You look good, I mean, I see you around in the hallways, and you look good, ** well why don’t you give me Bubba’s real line”.

I said the number.

He repeated it and blathered a bit more. When he was done and about to hang up, I said “bye”.

** He did not pause here for me to say anything. Hopefully he realized how lame it is. He’s supposed to be my boss, he signs my time sheets, I have been in cancer treatment since May… and he has “seen me in the hallway.”

Supervision by not being around, that’s how they roll.

Communication

I don’t like to talk on the phone very much. Or maybe I’m out of practice.

What I really don’t like is to be put on the phone with people I don’t know and have nothing to say to, just to “say hi”. It’s awkward and boring. However, over the last few years, I’ve given up on not being bored, and have tried to relax when people blather at me in person, instead of plotting my escape (to the bathroom if necessary.) I’ve also made an effort to talk to some of my husband’s friends and family on the phone, because it seemed to be something he wanted.

After my surgery, we were expecting a couple of house guests. One of them, N, had been due immediately after surgery, supposedly to help out my husband, but canceled. Luckily, it turned out my husband didn’t need to do that much extra for me, since he already cooks and shops, and we don’t bother much with cleaning.

N has a tendency to be days late, for visits, and hours late, to meet at a restaurant, so I was not surprised. She shows up for the second half of the second set, for concerts. She would also visit someone in another city, and would be driving a rental, so it was somewhat flexible.

So she was going to come sometime in the next few weeks, and another friend was due during the same time period. So in spite of post-surgical pain, I tidied up the guest room, which meant scooping laundry and papers into piles and boxes, where I would have to start all over at sorting them out, later. (This is the only space in a three bedroom house that is really mine. The rest of the house is full of things you never heard of, that any of half a dozen people might want to buy, if they knew we had them. Apparently quite valuable and impossible to throw away.)

I dusted. I don’t think I vacuumed.

My husband was due to go out of town for a few days, during my first week back at work. I had a thought one day, and said “I sure hope no one comes to stay while you are out of town.” He said “what if it is N?” I said “well… if that is the *only* time she could come, then I *guess* it’s okay. But I’d rather no one come then.”

A few days later I was asleep on the couch, and N called. My husband went into the kitchen to talk to her and I slept on.

When we discussed the conversation, which may have been that night or the next day, he said she was coming the same day as he left town, after he left, during the middle of my work day. I said “oh so that was the only time she could come?” and he said…      ….    “I don’t know.”

I was very irritated. I reminded him of our earlier conversation. I wanted him to find out if she could come a different time. He refused to present it like that. He told me he was going to tell her not to come those days because I “need my alone time”. I reiterated that it was okay for her to come if she could not come another time, and he refused to tell her that.

He called her, he told her not to come then because I need my alone time. She said that’s okay, she could come on Saturday. On Saturday, she called and said “I can’t come because of the amount of time on the rental car.” (How did she figure that out on Saturday and not earlier?)

So I figure she thinks I’m an evil bitch, now. I had a fight with the husband over this. During the fight, he said “you told me to never under any circumstances put you on the phone with anyone.” I asked him how long it had been since that had really been true. I admitted I had said it NINE YEARS previous. I told him if that’s all the effect all my trying had on his opinion of me, I may as well stop bothering. (So my new policy is, in fact, do not put me on the phone with anyone.)

Meanwhile, hubby’s other friend B, was on business in a nearby town, and due to drive down for the weekend. It turns out there was a medical emergency of some sort with a relative, who has since passed away.

(It seemed to me that it was actually the late stages of an ongoing situation, and when she arrived on the scene, she decided to poke her nose in and try to bully some insurance people around after it was way, way, too late. But whatever. In some sort of weird denial, she tried to talk me out of parts of my cancer treatment. “Oh you don’t need surgery then.” She later emailed “I hear you are having surgery after all.” No, that was always the plan. Talking to B on the phone was an exercise in me comforting her, about me having cancer. It drained me and I did learn to avoid it.)

So B was due for the weekend after the husband returned from being out of town. She called either on Sunday night or Monday night, I forget, to say she didn’t come.

I remember the night I was supposed to meet B for the first time. She was in town on business. Hubby told me we were to have dinner and she would phone. At 10 pm we had cereal and went to bed. She later said she had thought it was a “maybe thing.”

I remember when we were 1.5 hours late to her house when she was not *at* her house, because our plane was late (that’s available on line, right?) and she got mad because we didn’t phone her. I tried to get hubby to phone her. He refused. So it’s not all her, but it’s still irritating to me.

Lately, B has been leaving messages on our answering machine. The husband has not been returning her calls. She emailed *me* and asked if anything was wrong. I told him, he said he’d call. That was about a week ago. He didn’t call. He said he’d email. He didn’t email.

She phoned yesterday during the day. She asked him why he had not returned her calls, and he told her (and repeated it to me) that he won’t talk on the phone when I’m in the house anymore because I quiz him on every aspect of the call and get angry if he gets anything wrong.

Never mind that he works (not much though) at home, I leave the house for 9 hours every day, and she has one of them new fangled cell phones.

I only got angry at him one time in recent history. It had nothing to do with B, it had nothing to do with never wanting to talk on the phone.

I emailed her condolences about her relative. She replied, mentioning that “we” stopped returning her calls, and asking me if I still wanted to be her friend.  She said “I know we had some friction last year, but honestly feel that these things are minor and should not prevent us from having fun in the future.”

On the trip she refers to, on several occasions, she insisted she knew what I was telling her, and refused to listen when I told her she wasn’t getting what I was saying, until the 4th time around. She almost cost herself a day’s extra car rental, and generally bossed me around til I was sick of her. It wasn’t minor to me, it makes me cringe at the idea of our next trip to a concert. Which she mentioned, and said “but I wonder if you really want me to come.” Is this a trick question??

I explained to her a little bit about arguing with the husband and misunderstandings. It’s not about her, so I bet she won’t understand.

Just tired

At radiation they keep asking me if I’m tired and I say “yes but it’s February and I’m always tired in February”.

I’m gonna have to start blogging from work or something.  When I was on chemo, I was tired, but I was laying here at home with the laptop on my chest, having to stay awake in case anyone instant messaged me a question. (That must have happened at *least* three times in 6 months.) So I did some blogging and figured it was fairly safe.

Now, I have to stay in my office in case anyone instant messages me a question. I’ve been paranoid that they might be spying on my network traffic, but I’m gonna give up and start going to hulu from work, and blogging my ass off too. I’m SO FREAKING TIRED of this job. This week I’ve been listening to an audio book but I’m almost done with it.

Tired, incoherent…