Shut up phone

I've had trouble sleeping, so I constructed last evening to maximize things because this morning I needed to get to a school assembly and present some awards for my Old and Esteemed Women's Organization. What is it about the best laid plans?

The phone rang at 11:30. In fact the home phone rang and I must not have heard it for a while, then the cell phone rang immediately after. Remember I am drugged when I am asleep! And I am not a phone person!

I answered it to find Sal, a non-Ara.bic Leb.anese guy I dated 4.5 years ago, who was quite surprised I was in bed 'so early.' (As I remember, he was a 9pm guy.) I began dating P the day after I'd had enough of him. There were many, many reasons to stop dating him, but him rejecting aspects of me made it justifiable, although he didn't think that should influence the whole picture. Him liking the rest of me wasn't quite enough for me. He can be quite entertaining in his self-centered company. He took me to some nice places and went to some fun places at my insistance. He is wealthy and comes from an even wealthier family, all extremely highly educated. If he weren't so 'woe is me' and 'let me tell you how you could improve,' he could be a good catch.

Sal and I have loosely kept in touch. He worked in this area, then took a position with his government job to work in Iraq for two years (he called and emailed from there), then got to pick his next position and he went to a place where he'd wanted to live for a very long time: TX. I don't think he stayed there for a year before he came back here last summer and he began calling me again right before he left TX. That didn't satisfy, so he wanted another world tour. His SA and French opportunities didn't pan out, so now he's in our other war zone. He's a civil servant who has become a wanderlust. Prior to these moves, he'd been in this area for twenty years.

Sal is always looking for something to make himself happy, but he brings his dreariness along and makes it impossible. He likes the way I make him feel, as I listen to him and remember things. He considered me to be parallel to his best friend quite quickly. A real feat. If he had not rejected me, I could see still caring.

I have told him how he hurt me. Then last summer, I reminded him how he had hurt me. Twice when he called while in the area (once coming back from Iraq, once last summer), I have told him that I would not go out with him. When he called last night, I was drugged, not wanting to get angry/assertive and wake up all the way, not that I'd ever spoken to him in anger before. I was really conscious of just being able to return to sleep when it was over. It didn't seem to register to him that I'd spent the night before awake with a puking son. As always, it was self-centered. As always, he asked me out for next time he came to town. (I am assuming now that he is coming home on leave some time and has something specific in mind.) Not wanting to rock the boat and wake up, I replied that perhaps he should ask me closer to it, as I could not say now.

Why can't I just tell the guy to go away again? I did last summer, said I was uncomfortable with his calling. I was drugged and desperate to not get upset and not be able to sleep. He's gotten himself into another pickle of a job and is longing for something else. I can't be there for him. He had a Yahoo email. I have no idea if he has access to it, but I guess I should go that route. I wish I could more completely convey how he hurt me.

Then the phone rang at 7:30 this morning and I was only up because of the school awards gig. It was someone from the singles club. We'd gotten together once a year ago for the butterfly exhibit: her, her henpecked new husband, and his 9 yo son. I had met this couple once or twice and had already characterized her as a rather controlling bitch, but I am always out to prove my impressions wrong. The day at the butterflies, she and her husband went very slowly through the exhibits. The kids went very quickly. The way the couple acted, I was the third wheel with them, so I became the much needed babysitter, then of course she didn't like that I'd gotten out laser tag to entertain them. I couldn't win. It was just a strange and uncomfortable day and I never thought I could have a rotten day with the butterflies.

She then began with the idea of getting together again, as they live on a river over an hour away. I'd just put her off and she in her control freak ways never got the message. So she called at friggin 7:30am to tell me that she was throwing her stepson a camp over birthday party Saturday and he was dying for J to come. Huh? She had to call at an odd hour the day before to tell me how important this was? Sheesh. She said she knew it was late notice and would be a lot of driving. The last part was the nail in the coffin. I would have to go over and back twice, during a bridge opening even, for at least 5 hours on the road in 95 degree heat. Nope. I told her we had other plans and the control freak dared to act put out. I plan to sit on my ass and save gas money.

Both of these conversations point to how polite I am and how me saying 'no' doesn't seem to stick. I am too gracious on the outside and fume too much on the inside. With Sal, I don't really care if he feels rejected. With the control freak, I care, because she has quite a mouth and pull with the social group and I don't feel like being bad mouthed.

Okay, nobody read this far and I will be returning to my cave. With the phones off.