| Current mood: | contemplative |
You say it's my birthday
Long overdue, I know. But Saturday was my birthday and I'm now 30 for the 8th time. The math ain't too complicated, even if you've missed your caffeine today.
Thursday I went to Boca to spend the bday weekend with Nanogirl. The drive there was a little strange, just seeing all the damage done by hurricane Frances. Once I got past Indiantown, there were so many trees down on the sides of the road that in places you could have driven over them like a drawbridge or something. Many trees that weren't knocked down were stripped of all their leaves and bark, so they looked like humongous jagged toothpicks sprouting out of the ground. When I got to Palm Beach county, I saw lots more destruction...trees knocked over crushing houses and fences, power poles cracked in half, store roofs ripped off, STOP sign poles bent over like they were made of nothing more than aluminum foil...whew. Glad I wasn't in Boca for that one. Some people went without power for thirteen days! And to think - I was about to jump off a roof after only four after Charley hit us.
Sidenote: There are currently 4 tropical storms/hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic right now, including my namesake (Karl). But I'm a considerate storm and will stay far far away. That's just the kinda guy I am.
So there were balloons awaiting me when I arrived, one of which was (of course) a Snoopy balloon saying "You're HOW old? Ha ha ha ha ha" with Snoopy and Woodstock doubled over with laughter. I got a cool digital camera for my birthday! Woo hoo! I've been wanting one forever and now I have one. Nanogirl is so awesome to me. Also got an "Alias" t-shirt, a Starbucks gift basket with coffee and mugs (from the same Starbucks where Nanogirl and I met...awww), a cool Snoopy snowglobe (pictured above as my new icon) and a Snoopy writer magnet, some Happy Bunny magnets (crude, rude, and fantastic), a memory card for the camera, and an awesome Cold Stone Creamery ice cream cake...sinless sweet cream with bits of Heath bar...yummm.
We went out to dinner a couple of times, saw a good movie ("Cellular," I recommend it for a fast action suspense movie) and hung out doing nothing. There was a scary episode my last night there. Nanogirl discovered ants in the kitchen while I was sitting watching TV. She started swearing and frantically cleaning. To me, it just looked like she was doing the dishes (which she said she'd be doing when we got home). I asked if she needed help, she said no, and so I went back to watching TV. Then she took the toaster oven and started banging it around, banging it atop the trashcan. OK, now something's up.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "Anything I can do?"
"No." Firm and blunt.
Times like this I've just learned to stay quiet and leave her be. Bipolar stuff, y'know. Minutes later, she storms out of the kitchen, picks up her purse, and starts looking through it frantically. After a few seconds, she starts violently shaking the thing upside down so everything starts flying out of it...pens, lipstick, other pursey stuff. I'm looking at her like she's sprouting two more heads and I say, "What is going on?"
"I'm trying to find my Palm!" she says, as if that's the way every person searches for their Palm. She flings the purse to the floor and goes to the front door, finds her Palm sitting there with her keys and comes storming back through the living room and goes into her bedroom.
ooooooookay.
I turn off the TV because - well - I just can't enjoy it at the moment. I get up, pick up all her stuff from the floor and set it and the purse on the table. Then I sit back down on the sofa. Ain't no way in hell I'm approaching her untili she's not in a purse-throwing mood. Thank God she didn't throw the toaster oven.
Later, we talk about it...at length. I'm pretty unnerved by this episode and I tell her. She says she's pissed (no shit) because she found ants in the kitchen (it's a long-standing pet peeve that her Dad doesn't clean up well enough). She's pissed because she went to tell her Dad and his reaction was "Oh, really?" and then he rolled over and went to sleep. Me, I'm so friggin' "aborbed" in my TV show that she can't believe it.
I said, "Listen, I asked you TWICE if you needed help and you said no. If you can't be honest with me then I don't know what to tell you. It's not that I was that absorbed in TV...I couldn't even pay attention at that point because you were having a shit fit. But I don't know how to approach you when you freak out like that. If you want help, SAY SO. Otherwise, don't go bitching at me."
She sat there quietly, then started sobbing, then said that I was right. She was sorry. Was I OK? I answered honestly...I don't like what I saw tonight. It scared me a bit and I don't think it was very appropriate behavior. That was pretty much it...we laid down and I didn't say much more. Slept on it and all was OK in the morning...she apologized profusely, saying she ruined my birthday. I don't think she ruined it. She did taint it a little. Still, I got a digital camera out of the deal.
Ha. Kidding. Sort of.
In a week, we will have been dating for 10 months. Moments like her battle with the toaster oven still make me wonder if this is a relationship I can stay with long-term. That shit scares me. If it happened frequently I'd be out for sure. But that's the first time I've seen her get physically angry/demonstrative. A few emotional outbursts but never crap like that. Till now. Time will tell.
All in all I had a great birthday...since I don't usually celebrate my birthday or care about it for that matter, it was pretty cool. I now have a strange aversion to toaster ovens, though.
PS: Smallville last night? Awesome.
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