Weekend update

Things are not going well on the Ted front. He's made things difficult and is dragging stuff out. He is incredulous that someone would dare to disagree with him, seems to want to teach me he's right, and is pulling the mental illness card. Honestly, do you know of anyone who works harder on mental health than I? I am monitored out the ying yang, am stable with no mood swings or even PMS, and am getting a bum rap. It's too easy to pin things on, but I must 'need help,' with him even willing to go explain things to my therapist(!), because I logically and rationally point out differing viewpoints to him. This per a six minute message on my voice mail yesterday. Jeez, who's obsessive?

I know that if he didn't have BPD to blame, it would be my being female. It's no win.

I did get $60 out of him last week, so I had some success. Enough success. He keeps bugging me that he doesn't want us to end badly, he cares for me and that's why he's so concerned, and he wants us to maintain our friendship. It's the old saying, "If this is how you treat your friends..." He's a fucking control freak with blinders on, I have gotten under his skin with my observations, and it has unsettled him. Yesterday, he called three times, but I only spoke to him the first (except I couldn't get a word in edge-wise), and he emailed me a lengthy, ill composed, and pathetic diatribe with agenda-laden, cherry picked, twisting-my-words statements I'd made in the past and he didn't respond in the least to any of my concerns about how he treated me.

Truly, going on 50 and never been married, exactly what he deserves. I say, "Go away, asshole. Quit treating me like your mother. I don't need friends like you and you don't know the meaning of care. For you, it is control."

On the podiatrist front, I basically have healthy feet by x-ray, well except for pain in the ball on my right foot (and beginning pain in the left farther out), pain specifically in the joint of my second right toe. He said it's a common location for inflammation. He figures it is because we stepped up our walking routine again, so he gave me inserts and told me to buy new running shoes, which I was able to luck into at a decent price with a sale this weekend. The inserts are for my heels and arches. They elevate my foot so that the back of my foot takes all the stress from walking and almost no weight goes on the balls. They seem to work, although they aren't very comfortable and fit each foot in a distractingly different way. He said the inserts, plus mega anti-inflammatories in the next three weeks, cures 95% of the occurrences. So now I know.

Norma and I have walked twice since I got the New Balan.ce shoes and inserts. I do not have pain afterwards or the next morning. My feet are still tender as I go down stairs, especially bare footed, but at least I don't think that exercising is hurting things. Permission to take extra anti-inflammatories is a beautiful thing, too.

It was rainy and overcast over the weekend, so I didn't go out to paint. However, I did read a book from my favorite author, Michael Co.nnelly. I got it last week at a thrift shop. Unusual for me, I went to three thrift shops last week looking for shorts for my son. I think I found only one pair (but found two in two previous trips to one store in the last month, again, an unusual pattern), but I spent much more on myself.

I cannot believe that I bought a comforter set for $30. My current ensemble is from Laura Ashley, one that isn't very frou frou and suited the bedroom's testosterone at the time, but it is nine years old. I cannot believe that part - where has the time gone? Anyway, it is showing some wear on the edges, but I have not been eager to replace it, my comfortable friend. However, I spied a very luxurious set at a thrift store and I learned it had only been there two days. Pattern wise, it is almost identical to my current one: olive green-based oak leaves on one side and gold-based floral on the other. The clincher, however, is that it is custom made Et.han Allen. And it had fresh dry cleaning tags plus four shams. My old bed skirt will work just fine.

I haven't put it on my bed yet, a change I'm working myself up to. Goodness knows, I have enough pictures of my cat or my kid on my bed around here, you're all probably ready for some new scenery.

On the cleaning front, I got a new vacuum cleaner on Free.cycle recently and picked it up this weekend. Came with extra bags, too. Maybe I'll even use it. I have a small one I use sometimes and have a larger one that was P's mother's hand-me-down to him that he rejected. Never used the thing. I hate having it, but now I'll be able to part with it and hand it on to someone else. Good riddance.

Speaking of P. This Monday a year ago is when I last saw him. Good riddance. You may remember a stupid suit hanger and sock he left after that visit? For a long time, it hung on my door knob, then I moved it to the outside molding of my closet. Finally a month ago, I put it in my closet. I mentioned it to Norma yesterday and she made me give it to her. She is a good friend. She also listened to Ted's messages and read the emails, which he even said to show my friends and therapist, as if they would support him. He is absolutely laughable to her; she lost patience long ago. (I haven't posted the emails here because he already knew about blog search engines and would be the type to research. At least he's too cheap to buy a new computer, so research would be a pain.)

And I guess that wraps things up. I want to talk about some excellent documentaries I've watched recently. It's incredible how powerful film can be.

Until then, as Italian misogynist Ted would say, ciao.