This sucks

I was home the past few days – in the Midwest.  My parents are getting worse.  My mom had such a hard time getting into and out of the car.  She’s in her 50s, which is not that old.  My dad has been eating worse, which is bad for his diabetes.  I think he’s sick of eating the health food and just wants to live again.

I also talked to my sister on the phone.  Her back is getting worse.  She spent 2 months on disability and the doctors say she needs surgery.

My dad’s monthly income is less than the rent.  My mom doesn’t work.  The Midwest is dying.  Anyone who had a chance already left.  What’s left is a pocket of poverty, crime, and substance abuse.  I don’t my parents living in this.  I walked around town the other day – I was the only one outside, of course, no one walks anymore in the Midwest – and people gave me strange looks from their cars.  Maybe because I’m the only one walking, maybe because I’m not white.  For whatever reason, I felt uncomfortable.  I can’t come back and live/work in the Midwest.  I felt insecure when I grew up there.  Why would I go back?  I feel like I fit in more in NYC.

I want to get my parents out, buy a big house in a city that’s progressive, liberal, and open-minded.  That’s my ultimate dream.

Austintaceous?

My job offer in Austin is 45k/yr while my NYC job offer is 65k/yr.  You’d think the clear choice is NYC but given the extra set of taxes (Texas has no state tax), the take-home difference is only $7800 per year more in NYC.  7800!  That’s from a nominal different of 20k!  I’d lose more than 50% to taxes!  Sucks

May the better man won.

Ben you prick.  You rich, white-bread, thin, actuary you.  You won Lisa.  Because you’re funny, smart (IQ in the 140s, sir?  congratulations!), rich, white, and (according to Lisa) “look good naked.”  She never said I looked good naked.

whoa

I was offered a job in NYC today.  It is a consulting starting doing marketing consulting work for, mostly, CPG companies.  CPG.  That’s the industry I was working in since I started working.  I hate that industry.  We sell things that aren’t necessary to people who don’t need them.  It’s not a lie per se, but it’s damn close.  We make crappy claims (though the claims are substantiated–that was my first job out of college, to help substantiate those claims).  We put the word “New!” on packaging and use it as a selling point (it’s hardly ever that new). 

I didn’t like that industry.  But that’s all my experience.  So I got this job in NYC based on my experience.  I was offered (and accepted) a job in Austin doing market research for electronics and high tech (it’s not as sexy as it sounds.  My first assignments will be in white goods, metering, and UPS.  Grrrr…I won’t work on solar anytime soon).

Part of me thinks I should take the job because, as much as I hate CPG, I could learn some useful skills.  Plus, I probably should stay with Pam.  The only thing that makes me unhappy with Pam is that she’s a bigger girl and I’m not physically attracted to her.  In all other ways, things are great.  And isn’t it selfish of me to want to leave a girl because she’s big?  Especially when I’m kind of big myself.

If I stay in NYC, she wants to move in together, but I think I’d rather get my own place because I can’t quite commit to her.  Damn you Lisa, last night I was thinking how much I love you still.

Pam and I had sex for the first time in like 2 or 3 weeks.

Pam and I had sex for the first time in like 2 or 3 weeks.  It’s hard for me to get aroused when we make love, mostly because I’m not that physically attracted to her (I do lover her very much).  Nonetheless, the sex was actually decent.  She feels insecure about her body, so she turns the lights out and doesn’t really show her body.  After a year of going out, I haven’t seen her fully nude in a lit room.  I don’t know about you, but I like to see my girlfriend naked.  I want to see her in her underwear. 

When Pam sits on my lap or lays on top of me in bed, I feel crushed.  I know it’s horrible to say, especially since I’m a bit of a fat ass. 

I see women in the city and I just want to fuck them.  I haven’t fucked in so long.  Isn’t a basic human right?  To feel human, to feel–ironically enough–animal?

Not my friendster

Lisa must have gotten my stupid Friendster invite.  She changed her relationship status to “In a relationship.”  Not that I didn’t know that already from her Facebook.

That wasn’t so bad.

Met Pam’s mom tonight.  She’s nice.  Reminded me of a Midwestern mom, which is to say she’s really nice and friendly.  Compared to Lisa’s mom, she was a lot nicer.  She didn’t know how to use a chopstick, which I thought was cute.

Meet the parents.

Tonight I’ll meet Pam’s mom for dinner.  Pam will be there and she told me that she warned her mother about asking too many personal questions.  Still, I can’t help that her mother won’t be curious about my plans (I don’t have any concrete ones right).  She’ll be curious if I’ll go to Austin or stay in NYC.

Pam and I stayed up in bed late last night talking about – about love, life, our relationship, where it’s going (or perhaps not going).  I think she was sadder at the end of the conversation than at the beginning.

Why don’t I want to stick with Pam?

I sort of went crazy last night and woke Pam up at 2 am and started asking her how she knew I was the one and how she can be so confident in me and us.  She didn’t know I was the one and she’s not confident that we’ll make, but she was willing to go along with the relationship because it was worth trying.

Why do I want to leave NYC and, by extension, Pam?

how much do I owe you?

When can I be free?  How much do I owe you?  I know we broke up over 1 year ago, and I’m over you for the most part, but why do I think about you still?  Part of it is probably due to this blog, where I basically force myself to write about how turmoiled I felt my life has been since our breakup.  But I think it’s more than just this blog.  Before I started putting up these thoughts, I was thinking about probably at least once per day (and, ashamedly, Googling you every so often).

I know I messed up terribly when we were together: I was stressed, I was insensitive, I didn’t take you hiking or camping, I was wrapped up in my pathetic attempt to start a little side business while studying the LSAT.  I know I blew up at you for no reason, other than I felt I had no outlet for my stress.  And I’m sorry.  Deeply, profoundly, irrevocably sorry.  But, over a year later, do I owe anything else?  I apologized to you.  I cried and punched my pillow in frustration.  I lost you.  You found Ben and you will marry him and live happily ever after.  My debt’s repaid.

The thing is, I would guess that you think I should move on, get a life.  You’re right.  You’re also not the one forcing me to write these stupid thoughts.  You’ve moved on.  You’re happy.  I’m the one who is doing this to myself but only because I can’t go a day without thinking about you.

I’m with Pam and we’ve been together since last July.  She’s really good to me.  She’s thoughtful, sensitive, and has never made me feel like I was stupid.  And she gets my stupid Simpsons quotes.  And she laughs at my jokes.  I can let my guard down, for once.  But she’s not as beautiful as you are.  I’m not as sexually attracted to her as I was with you. 

Right now, I’m deciding between getting a job in NYC (and staying with Pam) or going to Austin.  If I stay in NYC, I would still be with Pam.  But we don’t have sex more than once a week.  When we do have sex, I find it hard (pardon the pun) to get aroused.  WIth you, it was easy.  We made love in the morning, in the afternoon, and at night.  You are sexy.  I was so turned on by you.  I was drunk, happy, carefree.  With Pam, we take showers before making love, after we agree that we’ll have sex.  There’s little spark and no passion.  I’m sure she feels it too.  She’s probably with me because she loves me (I love her too) and maybe because she feels like she can’t do better.  I’m with her because I want to be with someone, for once, where I feel comfortable.  I’m sad that the person I feel comfortable with is someone to whom I’m not sexually attracted.

I could just stay in NYC and break up with Pam.  But that won’t work.  She’ll never want to talk to me again and I’ll lose her friendship.  She’s pretty much the only friend I have right now in the city, so I’ll be alone again.  Just like when you broke up with me.  As terrible and weak as it may make me look, I don’t want to be alone.  Being single is one thing but being alone is another.  Lisa, when you broke up with me, I went through a horrible depression, one that I’m starting to get out of now.  But because I’m not as drunk in love with Pam as I was with you, I may never stop obsessing over you.  I need to replace you.  Sometimes when I make love to Pam, I think of you so I can get aroused.  It’s embarrassing and ironic, considering how fat I am and how you must have repulsed to make love to me.

So I can go to Austin and possibly lose the emotionally fulfilling, though sexually frustrating, relationship witih Pam, or I can stay in NYC and grow up and realize that sex and passion aren’t everything.  Or stay in NYC and break up with Pam, knowing that I’ll lose her as a friend as well.  Lisa, considering that I’m in this situation, I think my debt is repaid.  I’ll be unhappy no matter what I do and you’ll still be the love of my life, long after you dumped me and found happiness.  Any blow up or stress I showed you is nothing considering you’ve gotten over it so long ago but I’m going to be unhappy for more than a year after you’ve found happiness.  Maybe I deserve this.  Maybe not.  In any case, as if you don’t know, I’m sorry.  Knowing that I have more unhappiness ahead and more uncertainty in life, I think my debt is repaid.