3.12.2007

dahling, shall we retire to the salon?

my gay gay gay living room. what do you think?


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posted by faux chink @ 11:47 PM 1 comments

3.08.2007

Life After the L-Bomb

Its been over a month since I last wrote about my ongoing relationship with Ron (read, you cynics… ongoing… haha). A lot has happened, and such with the rest of my life of late, it’s been something of a roller coaster. i have seen us get into at least two more significant altercations over things, and I at least, realizing some basic things about what a relationship is all about… that is simply...hard work. You have to grant me though that I have been under a tremendous amount of stress here in February, and now bleeding into March. My “house blessing” is on the 18th and I have been in a mad dash to finish it all. Working basically double shifts (one real work, the other doing stuff at my house)… has sometimes honestly made me an irritable, crazy… bitch. But all I can think now though, is for some reason Ron has over looked those things and given me another chance, many times. Because I have indeed come close to blowing the whole thing up I have to say… but oh well… I knew when I was getting into this thing, that it would be completely new territory. What is it to love someone and to have them love you?
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The first time Ron told me he loved me, it was on a voice mail, and as part of an apology for him not calling me back. I guess I was tired that night and irritable but basically I called him, he said he was talking to a friend and would call me back in something like ten minutes. After an hour I gave him a call and he didn’t pick up, and then another hour later he called and apologized, but I was already asleep. Well, since it was late late at night my suspicious distrusting mind wandered and the next day I was VERY angry with him and more or less accused him of running around … with not much evidence of course. I have come to realize one thing about my Ron, the cell phone has been the heart of many a problem between us and when it comes to missed call, dropped calls, call backs, etc… I need to learn to just breath a little when it comes to Ron. I never in a million years would have thought I’d be one of those crazy bitches who can’t deal with not getting called back when told they would. I mean, granted there is a degree of respect that is entailed in doing what you said you would do… but still, I got way too worked up on it. Well basically, I think I just needed to vent because I was just soooo angry, I called him back and apologized a few hours later and he sort of just blew it off. That’s another things about Ron I have realized. Either he really likes me or he just can’t be phased… I think it’s a little of both. I don’t think I will ever truly fully understand this human specimen… but I have to say its been fun trying.
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Anyways, everything seemed fine until the next day when I called him and told him that this coming weekend might be trying because I may be expected to work Saturday and maybe even Sunday… well, later in the evening, he called… and completely out of left field he started accusing me of running around, using the excuse of work as a catch-all to go see someone else. I was floored, and I did all I could to “prove” that that wasn’t true. And then he said “and now you know how I feel when you accuse me of stuff”. Hmmm…. That’s another thing I am realizing about my Ron, he will never let you off easy, and if you do happen to cross him, well… I’d just move out of town. Haha, oh my, what have I gotten myself into? Anyways, Ron asked me if I realized what he said the other night on voicemail… immediately I knew he was talking about the “I love you” he uttered (since I had also gleefully played it over and over to my friends only the day before). I repeated his words to him. And that’s that… after he revealed his ploy, for some reason I wasn’t pissed off (although now I am kind of irked that he would play with my emotions like that) and I realized that now it was safe for me to say… Ron, I love you.
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And what great timing, the next week or was it the next next week, was Valentine’s. And I had a surprise! People who know me, realize that those I am interested in, I can truly lavish attention and care on… usually not in an outlandishly monetary way as in expensive gifts or fine dinners, but simply the lavish-ment of time and care… often meaning making things for them. I know a lot of people think home-made gifts are tacky and a sign of being cheap… but for me, home-made gifts are only given to people you really care about because the payment you forked over was the most precious thing you have… time. Like the Christmas lamps I made Ron, I made him a Valentine’s day gift… a “strawberry” fruit bouquet, studded with orchid flowers and gummi lifesavers and macadamia nuts.... all stuff I know he likes. I made it the day before V-day and my real surprise was to drive up to East Texas when he works (four hours away) and surprise him with lunch! Haha, I’m just glad this little surprise didn’t come off as a strange stalking move. I just wanted to express to him that I really did appreciate him coming down EVERY weekend (that’s at least 8 hours of extra driving a week!) to see me… to see little old me. So I took a day off on V-day…. Woke up before the sun rose and started my way to Marshall, TX. Honestly the drive wasn’t that bad… lots of chips and cigarettes later, I got there. And to be honest, the whole plan, went off without a hitch. Ron was floored, and if what he said is true… he couldn’t stop telling his friends of what I did. I do love him and for some reason I’ve come to realized I want to make this work. Where it might lead us I don’t know, but I want this to work.
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Of course, that must have been one of my most bi-polar weeks… as V-day was a Wednesday and I was just riding on clouds that day. Even that evening for our usual Wednesday night dinner ,now singles (except one heehee) dinner, I was completely high on life… feeling completely fulfilled. Finally Friday hit, and another communication problem that to be honest blew my top. Also remember that at this same time I am doing the final column encasing work on the porch and honestly just going out of my mind with stuff to do! So on Fridays, when Ron is driving in, he usually calls in the afternoon saying so. Well, the thing is, I called him five times over five hours from 5 pm to 10 PM… and every time his phone rings and then goes to voicemail.. usually meaning he isn’t by his phone, etc (but its on.. this is important). Well basically as the hours roll pass… I just FREAK out… I’m so worried that something BAD happened to him that I am just freaking out…. Even going to dinner with my friends didn’t get my mind off of it and I was just SOOOOOO worried. I even stopped by him and Cathy’s house and talked to the roommate and she said she didn’t see him. Again, I was sooo worried and it was really beginning to frighten me. FINALLY, after I was about to call his family’s house in Tyler, I call his cell again and he picks up. When I heard his voice… my immediate response was a “Where are you!!” with such emotion that it shook me honestly. I tried to collect myself as he explained to me that his phone had died, and then he had lost his phone and had gone on a wild goose chase to find it and wasn’t going to be able to make it to Houston Friday. I guess I was just so relieved to hear him alive that it didn’t occur to me until later… if his phone had died… why did it ring and then go to voicemail when I called five times over five hours!!?? This small detail made me angry ANGRY again that he might lie to me.
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What happened the next day went way over the top. I was already frazzled by being worried to death Friday night, and added on to that the SHEER STRESS of simply just having too much work on the house to do… I was COMPLETELY FREAKING OUT! Well… guess what… Saturday morning I was ok, when I talked to Ron the night before he said he set out for Houston Saturday noontime and he’d call me when he was setting out…. Meaning he’d probably leave around 9 or 10 AM. Well… guess what… no call. I was just PISSED now. He eventually called my around 2 PM… I was SOOOO angry with him… justifiably I still think…. That I just blew up and basically told him I wasn’t sure if we were working out anymore and that I needed some time alone and that he probably shouldn’t come down to Houston this weekend. Looking back, I completely over-reacted. My main concern is that when people say they are going to call… they will call (it’s not like we’re just doing the initial dating game… we are a couple and we should start “respecting” each other… to me, that’s a sign of respect). Phone inconsistency with the dead phone and voicemail.. you know honestly I can over look that because I wouldn’t wanna say that I broke up with what is probably the best thing that has happened to me in these terms over a detail like the workings of a cell phone. But it was just the CUMULATIVE effects of everything I was under that just made me lose it.
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After I hung up, I realized what an asshole I was. Funny enough though, I have to say though that there was a strange sense of “relief” in thinking… hey, oh my… does this mean I am “single” again. Haha… I am such an asshole. But no, I realized that I missed Ron incredibly that weekend. It was suppose to be one of the happiest weekends. Ron was coming down for Chinese New Year, he was going to meet my parents, he was going to become ever more so part of my life…. And then I freaked out. Great time is life isn’t it?? Going to Aunt Annie’s house without Ron, going to the temple, seeing the lion dancers, getting the red envelope… without Ron… made me cry inside and bawl on the outside. That Saturday turned out to be one of the worse worse days of my life, and that night I resolved that I would not be the one to throw this relationship away as if it were put out for recycling. I was going to let myself fall into love and potentially be hurt, but I would not be the one to put up walls around my heart. Almost five years ago during that very brief “relationship” with Danny, I realized for the first time something like mutual attraction, infatuation, maybe love. I fell hard. But then shortly I fell out of love just as swiftly… and now, years later… it makes me question what really is that meaning of the tattoo I got to symbolize that occurrence in my life. A winged heart bursting with flames, one wing out-stretched, the other folded over, covering its body in protection. I want to stretch out both my wings.
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The next day I went to go work on my house… to FINISH the porch. All day, I thought of Ron and then that evening I called him and apologized. He was actually feeling ill so he said that we should just talk during lunch the next day. So the next day was a holiday and I did the last minute things to the porch, and during lunch, Ron came over. We didn’t really talk much about “the” issue…. We made up in our own way I guess. But I told him… I missed him so much, and I over-reacted. I was angry for something valid but I let my stress go overboard. Ron gave me another chance.
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Ever since that day, my relationship with Ron has been a “real relationship”… its not always fun, but at least from my end, I know it to be full of love. I think about him half of my waking hours, hearing his voice makes me smile, holding him is all I want to do. He still turns me on with the greatest ease and I am still sooo into him its crazy. I plan my up-coming life with the house and everything with him IN the picture. It’s silly, making this house has been very much like building this relationship with Ron … somedays things just don’t work your way and you become so frustrated and angry and TIRED. But somedays things just work, and you see something AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL in front of you. If I haven’t said it enough, I want this man in my life, if he’ll have me and can put up with me. On my Valentine’s Day card, I wrote something to the effect that all I had to offer him was honesty… my bare soul… good and bad, for him to judge to see if he wants it or not. Hmmm, I’ve completely fallen for this man, despite my better judgment.
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We’ve have had half a dozen weekends over the course of time this entry spans, and two mid-week meets, one Valentine’s… the other just this week when he came into town to see a concert that the roommate had gotten tickets for. He (without much any help from me) landscaped my front yard and he has put up with my bitching and fatigue over the house. Ron is very economical about saying “I love you” and the only time he has said it without prompting is that one time on the phone (as opposed to me, once I say it, I append it to every email and toast) but he does things that make me realize he if nothing else, likes me very much so…. He’s a little actions speak loud kind of guy… he makes dinner, makes dessert, but little gift he stuffs into my bag, washes my clothes, landscapes my yard (haha.. ok, not all so small)… and well, not small either… he spends 8 hours of his valuable time on the road to see come see me…EVERY week… he has not missed a beat since the beginning of the year. Some stupid movie said, well… you know, love is like getting a house… you don’t always get your dream house… but you know, you sometimes get pretty darn close to it. There are things that concern me when it comes to Ron, and in a strange way they are things that concern me because they illuminate to me what kind of person I am.
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I told Ron the other day over beers… dating him has made me realized what a “bad” boyfriend I can be. That all the time I am thinking, what am I doing to fuck this thing up and why am I always the one being angry at him? Why am I always the one going psycho? Hmmm, go figure… maybe its because I love him, I want us to be “us” so bad that I guess I am a little over-zealous. My parents know about Ron, they haven’t really met him but I told them about my issues that day when he didn’t call after the night I freaked. My mom that day basically told me I needed to just chill out and deal with the situation calmly… advice I obviously didn’t take because I blew my top two hours later. She also said something strange and she said you have to realize that people can change their minds on a dime sometimes and that’s just how life is. Hmmm… I think I’ll have to sit on that. A few weeks later when she noticed I was still seeing Ron on the weekends, she asked how we were and I said we made up, and she told me, that if someone has wronged you, you give them only a certain amount of chances before just throwing in the towel. I understood what she was saying but replied in a an interesting way. I told her that she should also consider the situation where its always one person in the couple thinking something is wrong with the other person… always one person… in the end… when does it end really “their” problem…. And you realize its “your” problem?
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I love being with Ron. It’s a challenge sometimes, being always busy myself, and him sharing a place with his nosy roommate (whom over the last few weeks, he has REALLY gotten pissed off at for always being there and not given “us” enough alone time). But we’ll see… relationship is hard work.
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The other day over beers, Ron said something interesting… he said that he had been single so long, that its also an time of adjustment for him to… to relearn again what it means to be in a couple. For me, a lot of these lessons are new. And I have told him, I’ll fuck up things, but if something is wrong… tell me. I am naturally an un-observant person and without somebody directly saying something I will not consider it. And for me its hard to think any other way because I express all MY needs and concerns that I sometimes don’t understand why people let things “slide”. But you know, just another thing to work around.
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If Ron and I ended tomorrow, I’d survive like I always do. I probably wouldn’t date for a very long while again… or in a weird way… maybe it wouldn’t take so long. I have learned so much from this man, be them intentionally taught or not. I have learned about myself greatly and the things that make me tick. Like renovating a house for the first time, a lot of things just don’t seem to work out the way you planned, and a lot of heartache, confusion, and plan exhaustion is often the result… but with true love and concern and genuine sensitivity to the nuances of things… there really is something beautiful being built… not just a house, but a home…. Not just a boyfriend, but a partner in life.
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posted by faux chink @ 2:35 PM 0 comments

3.05.2007

Will the real Bob Villa please stand up?

man, it has been a while since my last post. real apologies. so much have transpired this past month. again, a greta emotional upheaval of sorts, mostly i have come to realized, primed by the stress i have been going through with renovating this house. i will speak about my emotional rollercoaster life in another entry, but now... for your visual titillation, a few pictures of all the work that has gone on at my house, the past month. as i speak now, i am less than two weeks away from the house blessing... and MOVING IN! finally, almost after four months from when i bought the house... haha. is there a record for not moving into a house that you bought? enjoy... it has been a learning experience for me... but i think i've had enough.
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these detail some of the last processes of finishing up the porch... you know, that thing that made me go mad crazy over the holidays. well, it reared its ugly head again in february as i struggled to finish the last things of the proch, like laying down the planking, encasing and finishing the columns, and building the steps. i have to say though, my folks REALLY helped me out on this endeavor, they themselves built the whole stair. i seriously would have gone totally crazy without them. i realized that those lucky and fortunate in life, are so not becuase of the whims of fate but it is by the conscious efforts of those around them who love them, that they are so fortunate. that day when my porch was completely done... it totally got to me and i broke down and cried... out of happiness, that people around me have been sooo helpfuy and have put up with me being an asshole sometimes. it just got to me... haha... i have been under SOOO much stress, happy or sad, i have been able to turn on the tears very easily the past few months. i just can't wait when it's all DONE! but doesn't the outside just look.... FABULOUS! it's so fucking cute!
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just some random pictures of furniture pieces i am refinishing and also the finished bedroom, a.k.a. storage room for all my SHIT!
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Ron helped me out on landscaping the front yard... ok, hell... he did it. what a man.
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i love my boyfriend
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the living room. the first few picture show the "professionals" knocking down half on my living room ceiling... reason being that after trying to fix up esau's fuck up with my ceiling... well, i fucked it up even more. sigh... just start fresh. and man... professionals know what's up. they knocked that baby down in 20 minutes and put up the new stuff in an hour! the pictures following detail my process of putting yp the multi-layer molding, two bands of molding with a middle layer of textured gold wallpaper.... nice huh? very nero's palace i think. befitting a crazy like me. oh... sorry, i forgot to take pictures when we were painting the room... but as you obviously see... it's red.
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posted by faux chink @ 11:12 PM 0 comments