I’m at work and lacking sound judgment due to a bizarre sleep deprived transitive state. Instead of resting, like my body desperately wanted to, I spent the day cleaning in preparation of Pandora’s arrival.
I continue to marvel at my unholy plants. Guess how many times I’ve watered them this year? Excluding today, three times. Three! And it’s April. April!! These aren’t cacti either. I’m talking about a whole wall of my apartment living room filled with tropical plants of various sizes. So is it normal that they need water only once a month? I’m not even convinced they need it once a month. I just do it because it is so unnerving that I don’t water them and they refuse to wilt or go brown. My apartment doesn’t have a moist jungle atmosphere either. It’s as dry as a bone! Those plants are as tough as nails. Or something else entirely. The big ones are between eight and ten feet tall and are squashed uncomfortably against the ceiling. I was the tallest creature in the apartment two years ago but now the plants dominate.
As a special cleaning bonus, when I went out onto my balcony to shake out some throw rugs I discovered the whole area is a cacophony of pigeon shit. That’ll be an enjoyable little project for an upcoming sunny day.
Tangents, tangents. Ok. So, there won’t be a breakup this week. Well, there won’t be a planned breakup anyway. The timing is bad. The day on which I finished school is a date Merle has been looking forward to for a long time. To break up with her mere days after my last exam is a cruelty I’m not capable of. And I know it’s not going to be easy. If I try this week, I bet she won’t leave. “Listen to this guy make excuses”, right? Well, fair enough but I don’t think so. A definitive neural network switch has toggled somewhere in my brain. It’s going to happen. It won’t be nice or clean and I want some distance between us before I do it though.
When Merle and I come together after being apart for a couple of months it is like two grinding stones meeting for the first time. We react to the unpleasant ridges that have developed and accumulated while we were apart and there is violent sparking and rubbing as we carve our way into our old familiar volatile groove.
One thing I enjoy about seeing Merle after a long time is that, even though she is fearless and uninhibited in virtually any social situation, she is unable to look at me when I approach. I make her very nervous and she drops her eyes and blushes. It happens when we meet randomly somewhere too…
Anyway, during our last conversation before she left she actually didn’t sound too thrilled about visiting. Intriguing. Maybe it was just the reaction to the loud sigh I let out at the start of the conversation. She did say she was looking forward to the sex though. That’s nothing new. In our six or so years together I can’t recall a single instance where she rebuffed one of my advances. Well, I am looking forward to it too. It’s been a long time. I’ll be going home in a few hours to her. It will be a repeat of a February scene, from which, vivid images still linger. She’ll be there, naked in my freshly washed sheets and super soft blankets. After being alone for two months, it will be, well.. tempting. Maybe she’ll be wearing one of my shirts because she likes when I tell her to take it off. She’ll smell like coconut or strawberry because she knows I love those flavours of body spray much more than any perfume… I’ll take my time but I’ll be selfish. It’s what she wants though. The inevitable culmination is fucking. An activity that will continue throughout the week. She’ll fall in love with me again and suffer a separation anxiety crisis when she leaves. One more iteration through our familiar, cyclic pattern.
I haven’t seen live music in a while. At least I have someone to go with now.
The Ancient Undergrad 
My brother lives in Toronto and has huge problems with pigeons. It took over six hours for his roommate to clean off the shit on their balcony in their last apartment! (Well, ’cause my brother is bigger and told him to do it!) That stuff is toxic too, isn’t it?!
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Can’t decide if you’re now just being mean and selfish or not. Hmmmm. If you’re going to stay together (no matter how long or short that is), I hope you can find it in your heart to figure out the things you like about her and keep them in mind when you are visiting. I feel weird saying this to a stranger…but you posted about it and I feel compelled to respond.
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My plants never last. Remember my Garfield Chia pet? Yeah he has a dried up mass of “hair” now. It’s discusting. I need to clean that up. I don’t have a green thumb.
Ew. Pigeon shit eh? Birds don’t visit my balcony Maybe it’s a good thing. Except we don’t get pigeons up here.
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Imagine spending a week together, no sex allowed. Would it change your perspective any? (My Emily Dickinson avatar is scornfully looking down at me…”you base heathen!”). These questions should be considered. I agree that having some distance can make it easier, and I can’t blame you for waiting a bit. See what this week brings, and if it still feels the same way (sex excluded), I would say don’t let it go much longer. It’s just going to feel ever more difficult as time goes on. To thine own self be true.
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p.s. After submitting that comment, I felt a bit bad. I hope you know that, as your readers, we see only a small and limited part of your relationship, your daily mental state, and what really goes on between the two of you. I/we have no room to pass judgment or give advice, really–it is just reacting to what is seen portrayed here, though it seems like what you do write is pretty honest and realistic. My own family does not approve of my fiance’, though I feel most of that is due to them having been part of fucked-up and now divorced relationships as well as an innate racism (he is Latino, we’re white). Do what you need and want to do, and you seem to know what that is. It’s human nature to want to give advice and want to control the universe. At least my own human nature, and I admit that I’m pretty crazy. Best of luck to you, and have fun getting in on if nothing else. Sex after a long period of abstinence is totally the best, whatever may be going on in the relationship.
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I want to tear down this post. I hate the way it sounds and feels. I congratulate and apologize to anyone who makes it through the shit and to the end.I’m at work again. Merle’s at home. I need to break free. claustrophobic. frustrated. destructive.Particularly good comment above. I always appreciate advice even if I don’t accept it. My skin is thick and patience is deep. I don’t think I could be offended by well intentioned criticism, no matter how harsh it be.
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Yah, what Emily Dickinson said. Do what you gotta do. Just remember that no matter what happens, you’ll be fine and she’ll be fine (if she’s as outgoing as you say she is). If you stay together, find the joy/happy/cuddly stuff. If you don’t, then know there is a female out there somewhere that likes anime’ and biophysi-whatever-it-is-you’re-good-at as much as you and that you’ll live and love comfortably-forever-after in a city-as-yet-undetermined, watching your kids play hockey at a local rink and loving every minute of it. Again, like Cinnamongirl said…”To thine own self be true”…there is only one of you and every single minute of your life PRECIOUS.
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that home-school comment made me laugh. My best friend was home-schooled, and I love him to pieces, but he is just a bit…odd. this girl was not home schooled, we actually met her through speech team in high school (she was part of another county then us and one of our “rivals”). the strange thing being that her sister is really social and well-adjusted. some people are just super-freaky-smart and can’t relate to other people–i think she’s one of ’em.
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wow… lots of advise. bleh. Most of us know how wonderful sex can be after long or short bouts of being alone. The hard part is about making it romantic or not. Based on the posts that I have read, well, I don’t know if it should be encouraged, making the act one of animalistic blah blah. However, since it will probably be your last coupling, do you make it special and memorable? Tough call. I don’t envy you. Ok, I envy the sex, haha, actually I can’t really complain, it hasn’t been that long.
I am jealous of the plant life. Mine, just get to a basic size and drop off growing, they don’t die or anything, just dont’ seem to grow either.
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I adore house plants, especially ridiculously large ones that have mutated and are trying to take over the world – one living room at a time. Because I lead a cursed life, all of my green friends are determined to stay shrimpy and brown, no matter how lovingly I care for them. Break ups are funny things. They do not like to submit to planning. I think that you will know precisely when the time is right, and Merle is most receptive; then it will be a matter of you having the wherewithal to follow through. Good luck. May you find what you really desire from life, and desire it strongly enough to pursue it.
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