Happy Birthday Hubby

Today is my husband's birthday. Unfortunately, he's in SF to attend his best friend's wedding (it sounds like a movie, I know). Which, I keep telling myself, is great. Of course, selfishly, I can't help but wish he was back home.

I guess this is what happens when you've reached a certain level of trust with a person. You begin to get used to the fact that they're always there. Last night, I hardly slept, as I kept tossing and turning at the sudden expanse of bed space I had, feeling dissatisfied that there was no one to fight with over blanket custody. Early morning, I kept imagining I heard strange sounds (bells, footsteps, etc.) which I know aren't really real since I'm usually deaf to these sort of things (with numerous instances of people banging on the door to which I was blissfully unaware of) but without Alex, it seems even the smallest things are intensified and my mind takes care of the rest.

But while it's only a brand of fear laced with loneliness that I have to contend with at night, it's really the emptiness in the mornings punctuated with silence that drives me insane. I will be the first to admit that I'm a spoiled spouse - Alex wakes up earlier than me everyday so that I can have a few more minutes of sleep and then courageously negotiates, bargains, blackmails (entices, begs, entreats, forces) me to consciousness with kisses and hugs and other R rated promises. And while I'm barely capable of thinking, much less speaking in the first few moments after I wake up, he's always smiling and puttering around so that when I do my morning rituals, there's always some sort of sound - TV, Alex humming, Alex talking on the phone etc. For obvious reasons, I had to learn to actually set my own alarm clock on the cell phone, and if you've tried negotiating for an extra 5 minutes with an emotionless (cruel, cruel) device, than you know it's not really as fun. What's worse is that I'm beginning to feel suffocated with the quietness around our apartment. Even when I turn on the TV, it seems as if I'm just deluding myself since I know, I really do know, that he's not there.

This wasn't always the case of course. Once upon a time, I lived all by myself for several years and the lack of sound was something I valued, rather than abhorred. I even remember that in the first few months of my marriage, I had problems with all the noise and the lack of space. Now, I've changed so much that I can barely recall how that felt - that annoyance of being too crowded, of needing a certain level of silence.

And so I wait. Alex will be back next week (yay) and everything will be back to normal (I hope). I just have to survive several sleepless nights and quiet mornings while waiting for his return.

Get Hostile

I've been Hostile sober for at least 4 days now (counting the weekend) or 3 business days (coz weekends don't really count, since I have no net access) and while my productivity has improved (including having the time to set up a new blog, and finishing [not well] a story) I can't help but feel that my afternoons are strangely empty. The problem with the game, aside from the obvious addictive nature of it, is that, just like in any community, you find yourself being 'friends' with the virtual characters you meet. And since it is a game, it's inevitable that feelings will be involved. In my case, I met a guy who I actually liked and loved playing with, but due to a certain confluence of events, we ended up having a fairly nasty exchange in cyberspace.

It sounds dumb now, I know.

But it doesn't change the fact that me and guy are 'enemies' (and if you're wondering why I keep quoting these things, it's just coz I'm uncomfortable leaving it unquoted when I don't really know the guy beyond Hostile) and have avoided each other in the small little community. Which is why I stopped (oh, and yeah, I wanted to be more productive too). I care too much and theoretically, I know I shouldn't. It's just a game. And I don't really know him. And even the basis of our fight was really stupid.

So I left to cool off hoping to come back caring less. And while a part of me doesn't really see the need for me to do something drastic as leaving an entire community just because of one guy, I've realized it's been the hallmark of my life -when I reach a certain level of attachment I back off.

Now, whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know. Maybe when I'm less afraid to get hurt, I'll have the courage to figure out an answer.

Me and Story

Right now, I'm trying not to feel ridiculous with posting things in the blog when I haven't really told anyone that I have a blog in the first place. I think it's because I'm giving myself a trial period of sorts - if I can somehow write posts consistently, it won't be as embarrassing to tell my loved ones I have one instead of the disappointing blog friends and family have come to know me for which is hardly ever updated.

So, here goes my trial post number 2.

___________

Me and story have had a love hate relationship for the past two months. At certain points, I love it, others moments, I feel it loves me, and still sometimes, we just hate each other with a passion. Right now we've hit a wall at the theoretical last chapter forcing me to do the unthinkable - I started editing the previous sections. Running currently at 4K++ words, I, in theory, should have just rammed through the stupid barrier before editing as, in the past, going back and worrying about the little details always succeeded in making me less interested in the story than I am with its tenses. Unfortunately, I really don't know what to do after the wall, and short of hurling a particularly heavy object in the literal sense, all my metaphorical ramming and hammering have not been the least bit successful. Times like these I can't help but wish I was more like Dean, who could see the end and a vague sense of how to get there, or like Nikki, who could make the ending work either way, or like Andrew, who could take a sablay ending that could leave a sophisticated reader reeling with the layers of interpretation.

I remember a time when I didn't have problems like these. Recently however, I've had major issues on almost all the endings I have in the not so distant past - which just goes to show that either I was just deluded before or I have a limited amount of endings in me and I've used it all up. For obvious reasons, I don't like considering both options. But with me almost done with my first editorial pass of story with still, no clear ending in sight, it seems like both options could equally be true. And if they are, what then?

Here's to hoping I somehow don't end up writing some trashy, trite, vaguely poetic (but not really) bunch of paragraphs as a short cut.

The Ending I Wrote For Now - An Update

It is trashy, trite and not even vaguely poetic. Aargghh.

In The Beginning

All right, I'm back at blogging. For now, at least.

It started with me actually finding a nice blog skin with a color pattern I actually loved (yep, I'm a sucker for shades of green against white). It's not perfect though (the blog description is too right-sided and it affects my sense of well-being), and I suspect that I'm subconsciously trying to overwhelm the image of red roses in a vase with the phantasmagoria of page elements and images, simply because I'm not tech-savvy enough to delete the image from the html code.

Let's see if I can actually keep up with the blogging habit.