LIFE OR SOMETHING VERY MUCH LIKE IT

I don’t know if I mentioned this, but Andy’s reaction to my reaction to the poisonous spider was, "by the way, don’t worry about going and putting on makeup." Swine.

I just read back over the last few posts, and realized that I haven’t given an update on what has happened with the lizards.

One of the lizards died, God rest his soul. I’m pretty sure that he’ll be appearing soon on Crossing Over with John Edward, though, so be sure to check your local listings for times. The other lizard—who used to have a name, I think, but has long been "leezard leezard"—has gotten quite fat.

The original idea, of course, was to let the lizard run around the house and eat bugs. However, when this was happening, he wasn’t readily retrievable for Charity to play with, so we ended up getting a little terrarium for him. Then, of course, since he was not wandering around, he wasn’t getting enough bugs to eat. So we started purchasing bugs for him, in the form of crickets and worms. Now some of the crickets have escaped.

So, yes, the lizard we purchased in order to get rid of bugs has created a further bug problem. I believe that this is actually the technically correct use of the word ‘irony.’

The war with the squirrels in the yard here has taken on Caddy Shack proportions. It started out with me realizing that the holes in the dirt of all of the potted plants were being caused by this, the cheekiest of animals. The squirrel in question would actually sit in the potted plant and stare at me for a few moments before continuing with his digging.

I soon realized that he was picking the unripe tomatoes off of the tomato plants, and burying them in the potted plants. He tried one jalapeno, but I found it later with a single bite taken out of it. The bitten-off piece was sitting on the ground next to the pepper. This caused me great joy.

He and his cohorts have eaten all of the strawberries as well. I did not harvest a single one.

My great or grand nephew (which is it? I don’t know) is the cutest baby ever. I would like to point out that I have not changed my mind on the whole hating-babies-in-general thing, but he is quite obviously an exception, mostly because he is, in fact, an exceptional baby. His name is Corbin Dante Lane Kusz, in case you’re wondering.

I’ve just finished up my latest freelance project, and am currently trying to decide whether or not to go back to London in November. I’m not sure yet. Among other things, one of my sisters is really sick, and to be honest, I’m scared.

By t he way, I’m not going to dinner with Max after all. Everyone I’ve dated post-divorce has had another woman in his life (usually an ex-girlfriend) who saw my existence as a cause for war. There’s only been one exception, and he was gay. In every single case, I have done everything in my power to avoid participating in the fight. In one case, I didn’t go over to my boyfriend’s house for six months, because the ex-girlfriend was a roommate, and I knew that the only way to keep some semblance of peace was to avoid her altogether.

In each case, the other woman has won the war of her own making. Every time, the men I’ve dated have decided to cater to her, and the explanation has been that she’s not as strong a person as me, and so in some way needs him more. Mind you, I have genuinely tried to stay out of these wars, and have for the most part succeeded. All of the pushing was done on the part of the other woman.

Highlights include the following (mind you, all of these things occurred while we were dating, not before or afterward):

For one boyfriend, I made a book of poetry out of handmade paper tied with raffia. He left this and my other gifts to him in the trunk of his car, because he said that if he brought them back to his apartment, his ex-girlfriend might see them and have hurt feelings.

Another boyfriend continued to let his ex-girlfriend sleep in the same bed as him. (He sleeps in the nude, incidentally.) On my first visit to him, (we were dating long-distance, and had only spent one and a half weeks in one another’s physical presence) I asked him if it was all right if I didn’t meet her, since it was my first visit. He said, "all right," but then allowed her to come over every single day of my visit. One one such occasion, when we were out of his flat, she went through my suitcases. He didn’t have a problem with this.

Let’s see…on Valentine’s Day, I bought one boyfriend a really awful cake from this bakery we’d seen that had the tackiest decorations imaginable. We’d discovered this shop once on the way to a party. At any rate, I called him up and asked if I could bring it by his apartment, and he told me his ex-girlfriend was there, a When I asked him if I could bring the cake by anyway, he got angry with me and said that it was rude of me to want to bring it, because it would hurt her feelings to be reminded of the fact that he was my boyfriend and not hers.

Anyway, suffice it to say that my self-esteem is beyond crucified. I’m not exactly in the mood to date.

So what does this have to do with Max? Well, the friend who introduced us decided, after I agreed to go to dinner with him, that she liked him as well, and started flirting with him. I told her to go ahead, since I’m not in the mood for dating anyway. But as time went on, I realized just how stupid it would be of me to place myself in a situation that had the potential of turning into another female war. And I don’t want to ever feel like I’m at war with this particular friend.

Mind you, I don’t know Max at all, and it would be unrealistic to even think that we were going to end up dating. But that’s sort of the point. If we were dating, it would be difficult for me to walk away. The only thing I can do is to make really bloody sure I never get that far.

He probably thinks I’m insane at this point, because I started out by saying that I’d like to go to dinner with him on the understanding that there was no possibility of any ‘date’-ness being involved, and he agreed because he’s rather a decent guy. He's been beyond accommodating--he's offered to meet for something super casual, given me the option of choosing time, place, activities....then I changed my mind about the whole thing, so I cancelled dinner altogether.

I’ve told the friend about my decision, and about my reasons for it. She said that she was sorry that she’d inadvertently made me uncomfortable, since she had been relying on my initial feedback. (She knows about my recent history with the competition stuff. We had been discussing it the week before she introduced me to Max, and said that it sucked that I'd never had a clear shot at my own boyfriend. So anyway, she doesn't think I'm particularly insane, which is nice.) She is going to keep corresponding with him, which is nice because he really is a decent guy. It makes sense for the one of us who is actually open to dating to be the one to correspond with him.

I know, I know, it seems dumb for me to even worry about something like that when I've just met this guy, but that's sort of the point. I don't want to risk entering a situation which may eventually adversely affect a friendship over someone we've just met.