Tag Archives: General Rambling

Hanging pictures on the floor

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We’re hanging pictures on the floor. As one does.

Obviously, we’re not really hanging them since they won’t hang on the floor. The wall was measured and then the floor was cleared to make room and the floor was measured out. Bits of masking tape were used to mark the corners.

I brought in the pictures from the living room, a few at a time. I am acutely aware that I must not break any or drop any. It, of course, makes it so much more dangerous, me having this knowledge. I place them carefully on the floor (outside the area marked, of course) or on top of each other.

The pictures are laid out on the floor. They are changed. There are too many of them. The top right corner doesn’t look right – too many small ones. The order is changed. And changed. And changed again, and on.

Eventually, they are right, it seems. It seemed that way to me before now but now, after the final few changes, it seems right. The wall (for it is not all of it) is measured and masking tape used to mark the point where the pictures will start.

I bring the first one in. The picture is positioned and the nail point secured. The nail is hammered in and the picture hung. It is the first of very many. They are all photographs of the same woman. I go and fetch the next one (in order, as they will be positioned on the wall at the top) – the first row first – as they are positioned on the floor.

Nails are taken out sometimes as they won’t go all the way in. Or, rather, enough of the way in to allow the picture to hang correctly. Everything is, almost, very precise. Each picture is hung, not in a moment, but in a minute or two, placed, centred on the nail, hanging perfectly. Row after row.

It takes some time.

Then we are to unveil the sofa and move it back against the wall – the wall where the pictures are.

Ah, but wait!

‘I don’t want you think I’m a maniac’, he says, ‘but I want to clean the pictures first’.

‘Of course I think you’re a maniac, but a lovely maniac’, I reply, smiling.

The pictures are cleaned. The covers are taken off the sofa. It is in two pieces and they are slotted together. We do this and push it back against the wall. It is perfect. Of course it is perfect. It’s F’s flat.

I think that, tomorrow night it will be three whole months since we first met. It seems it cannot be true. Surely, it is longer than that?

I told him I loved him last night, when we had got to bed. He answered that he knew I did. I was pleased as it means he can see it even by the things I do.

And I do. So much and, when I’m with him, I am not scared. And, as he was on the ladder, banging another nail in the wall and his shirt rode up and I caught a glimpse of his stomach and looked at him, I also thought that he is a really sexy guy. It’s perfect. Well, not perfect but perfect all the same. And he loves me too and, sometimes, I feel I must be the luckiest person ever!

Sometimes, I get scared

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Irrational feelings, these, I know.

Just like going to by fresh prosciutto (I might not be understood and look a fool in front of the busy queue), going to a hospital (they might spot something is wrong with me and I might never leave), going to a garage to have the car fixed (they spot me as a fool and stitch me up), etc.

These are, indeed, irrational feelings and, although I know them to be so, it doesn’t stop the feelings and, sometimes, I feel like a deer caught in car headlights – doing nothing would seem to be the correct answer, which, of course, it is not.

And the same is true for the current situation.  What if we have nothing in common after all?  I mean to say, right now, there is the move, Farmville and so on to keep us ‘occupied’ when we are together.  OK, so we both like the cinema and films but you can’t be doing that all the time.  He has books but I would say that they’re more ‘coffee table’ books than real books.  He loves music whereas I just like it.  What shall we talk about?  What will we do?

And, right now, we don’t spend all day together.  We do different things because we live in different flats and so, for a number of hours during the day we are in our own flat (in his case the new one or the old one) doing things or, in my case, sometimes, doing nothing of any importance.

But what if we HAD to spend all day together?  In the same place, in a constricted place.  In a flat with only a couple of rooms.

Let’s face it, I am lazy.  I will happily lounge around all day (and then be completely unhappy that I have wasted the time).  From a list of things to do, I may do one or two.

I’ll do that right after this cup of tea, I say to myself.  But, then, I think, I’ll just have another cup of tea and then do that.  And then I run out of time and so, from the list, if I’m lucky, I will have done up to two, no more.

How will that ‘fit’ with F who seems to be busy doing things all the time (mainly cleaning and stuff which a) I hate and b) I’m not good at)?

Maybe, I’ve been thinking, it would be right to do as he says, i.e. NOT move in together.  But how do I reconcile that with the thing that, to be a ‘complete’ relationship, we should be living together?  Am I saying this just because I’m frightened of what he may see and what he may not like?

Right now, of course, being with him is enough – even if we don’t talk or do anything in particular.  But later………

And so, sometimes, I get scared.

Cartwheels

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I could have turned cartwheels, there and then!

I went over to his old flat.  He was packing.  Still.  Although he had packed a lot.  He had said to me that the place looked like a bomb [had hit it].  And it was true.

Boxes and bags were everywhere.  He was struggling.  What to pack?  What not to pack? Only one box left – so what needed to be done now and what could wait until later.  Several times he had said he was worried about the new flat being too small.  I said it would be OK.  What else could I say?

But, by the time I got there, I could see that he was quite unhappy.

‘This is why I said we could not move in together’, he said, his voice trembling and obviously upset.  ‘I don’t ever want to do this again’.  He rubs his hands on his head.  It almost seems like he is going to cry.  I want to go over and hold him and reassure him and cuddle him and take all the pain and anguish away.  I don’t as I know that he would push me away – he’s right in the middle of packing – there will be time for that later.

‘I know’, I replied, ‘I DO understand’, thinking of only last night and the comment about me finding a flat for him in my building and knowing that, right now, with the trauma that this is causing him, he is not really thinking straight but only from moment to moment.

‘I wish I could help you more’, I said, meaning every word but knowing that there was nothing I could do.  This was his thing and I had to let him do it in his way.  The only thing I could and can do is to be patient and understanding, which is what I am trying to be.

‘I’m sorry for you’, he said at another time.  ‘It’s OK’, I replied, ‘don’t worry about me’.

‘One day is good and the next day is bad’, he added, to explain the roller-coaster that he is currently on – but it needed no explanation.  ‘You don’t need to say ‘sorry”, I replied, ‘I understand and I’m still here, aren’t I?’

And I did understand and he doesn’t need to say sorry – not for anything.  And I think he appreciates the fact that I am there and with him, even if I can do nothing.  I don’t want him to feel totally alone in all this and I think he doesn’t want to feel that either and I think, from what he says, that it does help that I am there, just to be there and to be someone that he can cuddle and kiss when he needs it.

‘If you don’t mind’, he adds later, before we leave his flat, ‘I will stay with you until the 18th (when the wardrobe and bed are delivered) and I can go from work to the new flat and tidy and organise and then come over to yours.’

‘Sure’, I reply, ‘I told you before, it’s not a problem at all and it’s the least I can do to help’.  It may only be for a few weeks but, for me, they will be weeks of “almost perfectness”.

But that was the moment I could have turned cartwheels.

You did your best

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The days all blur into one but I think it was Christmas Day.

I’m cooking the ‘chicken’ thing, etc.  I wash up a few things as the kitchen isn’t that big and, anyway, F is on the computer.  I go and sit with him and he asks, ‘Have you washed up?’  He is obsessed with ‘clean’ and ‘perfect’ (just check out my Farm on Farmville – he did it and you can see that it’s very ‘organised’ and tidy).

I reply that I had.  He looks over.

‘You did your best’, he says.  Bastard!  But he still makes me laugh :-)

I am a little confused; We all change, apparently

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“I need to know how to get the comments posted in the same way as they are on your blog?”, F asks me.

I am astounded by the fact that he knew about the blog (not that it would be difficult) and also that he has said nothing up to now.

Thoughts race through my head.  What has he read?  How long has he been reading?  Has what he has read made a difference as to how he feels about me, given that I have been, sort of, quite open about how I feel?  Why hasn’t he said anything?  Is he angry or not?  What should I reply to his question?

Of course, he knows about blogs.  He’s signed up to one.  The one that his boss does.  But that’s about work.

I think: How stupid am I not to have told him.

I think: But what if he asks me to take it down?  How can I?  It’s part of me, it’s something I just HAVE to do.  And, although I can be anonymous somewhere else I can’t (or is that don’t want to be) too anonymous.  After all it’s about my life.  It involves my friends, my life, my interests, my love.

No, it’s ‘don’t want to be’.  I don’t want to give this up.

Later.

As I get dressed I think about what I have dreamt.  For a moment I think of it as if we have really had the conversation before I realise that it just had to have been a dream.  Part of me breathes a sigh of relief.  Part of me thinks I should do something.  Part of me thinks I should leave well alone.

To put it mildly, I am a little confused.

________________________________________________________________________________

I have got some spots on the inside of my legs, around the knees.  A couple of nights ago, they were really hot.  So hot and uncomfortable, in fact, that, lying on my side I could not put my legs together.  I thought it was just something that would go away.  It hasn’t.

I told F.  He had a look.  He decided that it was because it was dry skin.  He said I needed to put some cream on it.  I was going to put some hand cream on it (as that is all I have in that line of product).  He told me no and gave me some of his body cream (I still fail to see any real difference – but what would I know?).

As I was putting it on and rubbing it in (because I so hate the feel of the skin afterwards – so greasy like, as I used to say to V, dipping yourself in chip fat), I said that I didn’t understand why it had happened as I never had this problem before now (apart from my hands but there’s a good reason for that).

“We all change” he said, in a voice that sounded more he was saying this as if a mother to a child, “I didn’t have hair when I was eight”, he added as he walked out of the bathroom.

I just laughed.

Not the Bad Guy here.

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‘You didn’t tell me’.  Maybe I’m being a little over sensitive but it seems so accusatory.

I want to say.  No, why would I?  You have his number/Facebook contact/email address.  I don’t live with him any more and we haven’t been together for over a year.  What the fuck do you want from me?  It’s not like he’s my responsibility any more.

I don’t say that.  I don’t say anything like that.  I just get angry.  And frustrated.

What did you think?  I was going to post it on my Facebook account?  Or send an email to everyone I knew?  Or telephone everyone?  And say what, exactly?  He didn’t even want to tell his parents (and didn’t for the first day or so) until I persuaded him that I should phone his sister and I would make it OK.

In fact, until today, I didn’t even know what had really happened.

Apparently he had a stroke.  But he’s only 43!  He tells me (after I email him about someone else saying that I hadn’t told them and telling me what he had wrong) that it was a localised stroke, brought on by stress, apparently.  Yes, I know about the stress thing.  His colleagues at work made sure I knew as I sat by his hospital bed.  It was one of the reasons I stopped going.  They were definitely accusing me of bringing it on.  They said (in my hearing) that it was the stress of the break-up.

So, for the record – we broke up for reasons of trust.  And he didn’t make any effort to enable me to trust him any more.  It was both of us, of course.  But he had plenty of opportunity to try and make it right and I’m sure I would have listened.  It may not have changed anything but you never know.  But, then, after he didn’t appear to want ‘us’ to continue, I found that I didn’t either.

But, anyway, I only found out a day after he had been taken to hospital.  So, what do you want from me?  He didn’t even want to tell me!  He didn’t even tell me about the fact that it was a stroke until after someone else told me!  And that was only today!!!!

I’m not the bad guy here, you know?

To be continued………

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It’s not mentioned.

‘We’ll watch a DVD’, he says, looking through the DVD collection I have. ‘Is Gomorrah good?’, he asks. I reply in the affirmative. But his mind is elsewhere.  ‘I’ve never seen it’, he says.

He returns to the kitchen table without a DVD.  He starts talking about his flat and what needs to be done.  About how he is worried about this thing and that thing.  He goes and gets his flat plans and we start talking about where things should go.  He uses ‘we’ a lot.  ‘If I get the library, we can put it up’, he says.  ‘Then, we can move the CDs over the Christmas period’, he adds.  See, there’s the ‘we’ thing.  I smile and nod and agree.

We talk about the fact that the television doesn’t actually need to be in the lounge whereas the music set-up and the pc (part of the music set-up) should be in the lounge.  ‘Yes, my music is more important for me’, he states.  I nod and agree for I know this to be true.

We talk about the CD racks.  I suggest a solution.  ‘But that will leave a lot of empty space’, he worries.  ‘Yes, but, F, since I’ve known you, you have bought more than one CD every week.  Unless you’re going to stop doing that, you need space for the new ones.’

He knows that to be true and we talk about how the CDs can be spread out.  I come up with a solution for the television in the bedroom and we talk about how the set-up could be in the lounge, now, without the TV.

>He has bad dreams every night.  Not exactly nightmares but, as he calls them, suffering dreams.  Ones that cause distress rather than actual fear.  Situations that are unpleasant or uncomfortable.  Every night, he says, although some of them he can’t remember.

We don’t watch a DVD in the end.  We talk only about his flat, making plans for how it is going to work.  He is worried that it is too small.  ‘Where will I put the oven’ he says.  I don’t know what he is talking about but say that I’m sure it will all be fine, in the end.  Later I work out that he means hoover and tell him that is the correct word.

He keeps apologising for going through all this again.  I reassure him that it’s fine and I don’t mind and he doesn’t need to apologise.  But, ‘I’m sorry’ keeps coming out, from time to time.

We go to bed.  I am very tired.  But I want to make him feel good.  I point out that it is two months today since we met.  He apologises for not remembering and says that he keeps getting the days mixed up and can’t remember whether it’s the 12th, 11th, 9th or whatever.  Again I tell him that it’s OK. [I text him this morning to say how the last two months have made me very, very happy].

I want to take him in my arms and make everything OK.  I kiss him gently but with passion for that is how I feel.  And he responds.  I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to be with him to be kissing him to be there, side by side and he is in my arms, and I squeeze him tight, trying to tell him, through my actions that it will be fine and that he has me.

Later, he apologises again for the fact that he is ‘stressed out’ and, again, I tell him that it’s OK and that it will be fine in a month or two, when things are done, when he has moved in and is more settled.  I tell him that I understand and that I have been there and know what he means.  It’s all I can do.  I tell him that, in any case, he has me, to hold him and cuddle him and squeeze him and be there for him.  And he knows that – I know he does.  I’m not going away any time soon and I think he knows that too.

And, so, it was not discussed further.  And I couldn’t mention it again, even if there were moments when I wanted to.  It will wait but it certainly does need to be discussed at some point.  At some point when he has moved into his flat and when he feels more settled.  Discussed, so that he understands my feelings about it but not argued over.  At least, I hope not.  But, yes, it is to be continued……..

The Right Thing To Do

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I wonder why I’m here. By this I meant, originally, why I’m here, in this meeting, where they are talking in two foreign languages – the first being Italian and the second being engineering, which is as foreign a language to me as any other, proper, language.

But after what F said last night, I even begin to question this in a bigger way; making it a bigger, broader question.

Why am I here, in this place, at this time? For what purpose? What am I here to achieve? Or, if not for me to achieve, for someone else to achieve, through me, perhaps, maybe, kind of?

I am an ‘all or nothing’ guy. Perhaps. Maybe.

Or, perhaps not. Given a choice or, rather, given no choice, perhaps I would settle for less than ‘all’ but more than ‘nothing’, if less than ‘all’ were the only thing on offer. But, even if less than ‘all’ were the only offer, would I just go with less than ‘all’, convincing myself throughout that this ‘less’ could be turned into ‘all’ in time?
Am I, or would I be, deluding myself?

At what point would I wake up to the reality? The one where I know or come to know that ‘all’ will just not happen.  At that point, what will I do then?  Will the time in between now and then be too long?  Will it have been a waste of time?

I want to say ‘Tonight I’m not going to come over’. I want to say it but the actual thing (i.e. not going over) is NOT what I really want, of course. I only want to say it for effect – to effect some change, some uncertainty. To give back what I felt; what I feel, what I still feel.  Uncertainty. Change. Fear.

But that’s just ‘playing those games’ and I swore I wouldn’t do that this time; I don’t want that this time; I have no time for that this time. Time is short – and none of us need this; neither of us need this.

And so, whilst listening to the two foreign languages and the games that are, almost certainly, being played out in this very room, I contemplate the right response; the one that won’t leave me too vulnerable, won’t limit my choices, won’t need me to go back on my word, won’t add to the pressure but also the one that gives me the ‘all’ I crave.

Or, maybe, gives me the ‘something’ that is, surely, better than the ‘nothing’ it could be. Or is it?

So, I toy with the options.  There’s the being upfront and honest option.  There’s the saying nothing and just getting on with it option.  And there’s the response option‚  I prefer the first or the second.  But the second will make me continue to feel as I do, not unhappy but unsure……….and frightened.  Frightened of what may not be or, maybe, what may be, especially if it doesn’t come close to what I actually want; or do I mean ‘need’.

I don’t think I can do the response option since that opens up the game and I definitely don’t want that.

He had a dream last night, where something had changed and his boss was not happy with the result but did not tell him directly but, rather, told someone else.  He said that this was typical English.  Where we are so polite but don’t actually tell the truth to people face-to-face.

I said that we weren’t all like that.  But, of course, we are.  He said that we were, meaning most English people were. But it’s not just the English but the Italians too!  Although perhaps the English are more practised at it and, therefore, appear to be much better.

If I am to prove that I am not like that, I guess I have to chose the upfront and honest option.  Say it like it is.  Roll over with my belly exposed and hope, yes, very much hope, that it is the right thing to do.

Update: We text.  He phones.  Is everything as it was before?  For him, maybe.  For me, well, yes and no.  Yes because nothing has really changed and no because the future has changed.  But, as I listen to his voice I remember looking at his face this morning, just before I got up and thinking how much I love him.  And, maybe, that ‘less’ is worth it after all?

Needy or not?

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‘I like you a lot’ he writes, after he explained that he is not good with words.  OK, fair enough.  He doesn’t want to wear out the three words and, anyway, actions speak louder than words, as we all know.

I missed him last night, even if I did get to bed at 2 a.m. and went straight to sleep (aided by a few glasses of wine).  Still, it would have been nice to have been able to curl up to him and kiss him, softly and tenderly.

Perhaps, even if he were to see this blog, it would hold little interest for him.  His thing is music.  Mine is words and, more often than not, written words rather than spoken words.  We kind of compliment each other, which is good and as it should be.

And today he will be so busy, working into the night, probably.  And so, it is likely that we won’t be together tonight either although I hope we shall be.

If necessary, I will go to his place (providing I have had some sleep first).

In the meantime, we text and chat and call.  We both have jobs that we take seriously (even if I don’t have so much to do most of the time) and we’re both good at what we do, even if he enjoys his more than I enjoy mine.

And, today, I have been busy with clients again.  We spoke as they left.  He is preparing stuff but won’t start the main work until about 7 p.m.  He doesn’t know what time he will finish.  I said that I was going to get a couple of hours sleep and then I could come to his place, if he would like, as long as it wasn’t 2 in the morning or something.

He then suggested that, if I would like, I could come to where he is working and get the keys to his flat, go there and then he could come later….if necessary, I could even go to bed and he would call me when he arrived home so that I could let him in.

He wants this as much as I do.  I actually said that it’s if he wants, as well, as it takes two of us.  But he doesn’t want to appear so needy, even if he is needy.

He makes me smile.  I will call him later, after I have slept.

And, so, I replied to his text of liking me with ‘I guessed that as actions speak louder than words’.  And then reminded him of what he had said (about everyone looking for the same thing) and said that maybe, hopefully, we had both found it!

He laughed (in text form).  And then the call later with the suggestion of me going round, before he gets home.  The same as I wanted last night, the same as he wants tonight.  And, once again, I am happy.

>At least, when he has done this week, he will be less busy with work and can concentrate on his flat and painting and decorating and buying the furniture, etc.

And he should start to relax a bit and things should become easier.