Earlier tonight on our local DC area PBS, Happy Holidays in Pittsburgh was showing. Well, fucking a. This was not good timing. I really wanted to watch it as it epitomized everything I love and hate about the city, and when they reached the segment about holiday food shopping in the Strip District, I burst into tears. Will, of course, didn\’t get it. When stuff on tv or something I\’m reading makes me cry, he acts incredibly condescending (in my opinion). I\’m emotional and react easily to what\’s around me. That\’s not something I\’m ashamed of, but it\’s something that makes him uncomfortable.
After having just spent an hour in therapy with my therapist telling me how Will was adding tons of stress to me right now (which really was true but I was trying to ignore), I went home and kind of blew up at him, told him I wasn\’t going to New York with him because we can\’t afford it. What else? Oh yeah, and that\’s he\’s fiscally irresponsible and that I\’m sick of cleaning up his financial problems. Loaning him money, buying $100 of groceries I don\’t even want, paying for both of us if I want to go do something (he never wants to do anything other than go drink at some local bar where he gets love and I don\’t drink much, so he doesn\’t end up paying much there). He thinks it\’s perfectly okay that he spends $200-300 a month on booze and cigarettes and that I have to scrounge together change so that he can do his laundry. He knows he has a problem (um, two-three beers a night and four-five shots of bourbon, minimum, every night) but he\’s unwilling to really do anything about it. I\’m fucking sick of it.
He\’s a completely functioning alcoholic, but he literally cannot get through the day without coffee in the morning, half a pack to a pack of cigarettes, and a huge quantity of booze. You can\’t even get him to try, he goes ballistic. He KNOWS he has a problem, and admits it and says he doesn\’t like it, but of course, like every addict, he \”wants to change, but gradually\” and it\’s okay to constantly be relapsing and it\’s not really a problem and blah blah blah-bullshit. I want to kick his ass. It\’s so fucking pathetic. I thought I was finished with addicts, but apparently not.
It wasn\’t a problem until it started hurting me financially. It wouldn\’t be a problem (well, other than psychologically, etc.) if I weren\’t living with him. Let him get by on his fucking own. And yeah, he\’s had to put out $500 of his own money the past two months for work related things (which he won\’t be reimbursed for until the end of this month) and then $200 odd in doctor\’s bills, but he also borrowed a shitload of money from his father and brother. But he doesn\’t keep track of the purchases he makes and checks he writes, doesn\’t balance his checkbook, and is just completely fiscally irresponsible. He ended up bouncing something earlier this month and he\’s been $70 in the hole since the beginning of the second week of December, which means I\’ve been paying for everything, WHICH I CANNOT AFFORD. Of course, this had to happen just days after I bought my plane ticket to Seattle ($270) and bought his birthday present ($200), so now I\’m fucked, paying for him and myself for everything. He\’s very fond of the phrase \”Shit, then wipe,\” but he\’s 41 and can\’t even fucking do it for himself. I am so angry, god, I think I\’m going to sleep here tonight on the goddamn floor. I don\’t want to see him, I don\’t want to spend Christmas with him, I don\’t want to live with him anymore right now. He\’s getting in the way of my life. I feel held back.
Every time I date someone, I feel like they\’re holding me back. I\’m starting to realize this is because I let them become too involved in my life, and so when I try to break away and have some time and projects to myself, they get pissed that I\’m not spending every little moment with them. I\’m trying to work two jobs, model, take care of a household, deal with Will, see my friends, take care of my body, see all my doctors, launch four new web sites… I just don\’t have time for this shit. HEALTHY people don\’t have time for this shit, and I\’m running my broken ass into the ground. I need a vacation, or I need to move out, or both. Fuck. I love the guy, but he needs to get his life fucking together.
Every time he goes out of town (three times now while I\’ve been living there), I use the time to clean up the apartment, put things away, reorganize so there\’s more room, unpack his boxes from years ago and from clearing out his mom\’s estate, plus get a bunch of my shit done. I went to Pittsburgh for two and a half days and he was supposed to do three things: laundry, hang up some art pieces that we have, and clean out his closet of all the clothes from the seventies up through 1998 that he hasn\’t worn since. That\’s a HUGE amount of clothing, and he\’s been meaning to get rid of it since I\’ve known him. Once he gets rid of it, I\’ll have room to actually bring my nice warm winter clothing down instead of shivering in t-shirts. The entire time I was gone, all he did was write music. WHICH I AM DELIRIOUSLY HAPPY ABOUT, do not get me wrong. He hasn\’t been writing music in so long that I\’ve been worried, but since I got him his new soundcard and we\’ve been hanging out with his old music partner, Roy, more, and we\’ve all been geeking about equipment, he\’s started writing again. Which is FABULOUS, because he needs it and is good. But… two and a half DAYS. All the other shit would have taken all of three hours, tops. And he didn\’t get it done. Irresponsible fucknut.
We\’re supposed to spend Christmas dinner on the 24th with my family. That\’s in less than a day and a half. Right now, all I want to do is break up with his ass. I told him I wanted him to start doing two things: seeing a therapist about all the shit he bottles up and won\’t deal with and therefore drinks himself to a state where he can \”relax\” EVERY GODDAMN DAY, no matter how unstressful, and pooling $200 with me on the first of every month to give $400 in household expenses, which we won\’t touch other than for household shit. He said yeah, that\’s a great idea. But none of it is going to happen. I\’ve been trying for months.
Who knows, maybe by the holidays I\’ll be single like most everyone else seems to be managing right about now. Okay, sure, fine. Fuck it. I get more done without an S.O., anyway… but I think by tomorrow I\’ll have calmed down to the point where I\’ll be willing to put up with his shit some more and keep trying to get him to get his act together. Or just stop bailing him out. Stop buying groceries, start eating out alone all the time. Let him get it together on his own. I\’m so pissy right now. Jesus.
I have a million more things I want to talk about but I\’m starting to fall asleep. I got to bed at 2am last night, was up at 8, and have been working or at doctors or in the car ever since. Dead fucking tired. Lots of new scripts from the doctors. Other stuff. Pittsburgh pride. Nostalgia. Home. I need a home. I feel like I haven\’t had one in so long.
Driving around Pittsburgh on Saturday I realized that my bond to D.C. is like my bond to my Polish Jewish blood. It\’s my heritage. It\’s my family. It\’s our shared history, generations worth. There\’s power here. I could do some real positive damage here in terms of other-bodied advocacy. But this city just doesn\’t have my heart the way Pittsburgh or Edinburgh do, and it never has. My blood, yes. My fury, my passion, my desire for change. But it\’s not now, nor has it ever been, home.
