Update: she read the thread. She says there's no phone sex going on.

Well Sharon, last night I heard the unmistakeable hint at it at 2:30 AM from the other room... the answer to the questions "where are you and what are you wearing"... which all men know are precursor questions. (You might not know that since you have next to zero experience with men and sexuality. Your little recent life exploration not withstanding.)

Sharon, if you want to do that from now on, go down to your car. Now THERE'S a good reason for you to have that car. After all, you got it thinking it would make you more attractive to men... RIGHT? That's why I drove it back from Long Island, serving your every little need again, to make you more attractive?

Look, Lumberjim was right. If I hear that kind of shit coming from the other room, and the doors are plenty thin by the way, I will fucking come in there and throw your fucking phone out the fucking window.

She had no comment on the idea that maybe figuring out that I wasn't the one for 11 years would have saved some of the prime of my life. She suggested she wasn't playing me and then said she has been figuring this out since January. She said my idea of making some extra money by playing music was a huge disappointment to her. And then I threw her the fuck out.

Hey Sharon, how much does your new boyfriend make? Is it enough for you, is it "fair", or will you end up casually insulting him every day too, until he's a shell of a man? Are you going to constantly lord it over him too, the fact that you (probably) make more money than he does? Is that going to eat into your psyche every time you think about it, the way it has with me? And if not, will you take back all the shit you've put me through?

How much is enough, Sharon? How much will make you think you're happy? Is there ANY amount? Is there anyone more money-hungry than you in this world? Do you think it has made you safe and secure?

How could I think the anger phase wouldn't affect me? I'm loving it!

I see a familiar pattern. Because you love someone you do everything you can for them. Everything you can think of to make them happy, safe and comfortable. You do it because you feel it's the right thing and just a natural way of showing your love.
But the one that loves the least, controls the relationship.
So when the one you've given your all to, rejects you and walks away from the relationship, you're angry. You accuse them of using you all along and that may not be true. Were they deceitful by accepting your efforts that you gave so willingly? By allowing you to do things they didn't ask for? After years of you giving are they so accustomed to it they take it for granted? I guess the answers have to be answered on a case by case basis and nobody can do it for your case, but you. I only caution to be honest with yourself and not shoot yourself in the foot.

UT,

I'm very glad to see you getting this stuff out and said rather than just letting it blow past you or trying to ignore it.

We're here with yah, buddy (if you'll permit me the courtesy of speaking for the bunch).

*sigh*

And now, in the dark of night, half of my rant was undeserved and partly wacky imagining... see how the emotional coaster goes?

And I told her so; and I apologized for it, in as much as "it" may not be completely over we both know that it's emotional cleansing.

Even if I go astray, I prefer to write my thoughts here, and to write about it a little here. Why: it helps me to get my head together, but it's also sharing it all with you semi-publicly, because this is what happens in life. Now I am understanding it better, now anyone else who cares to read will understand it better. Advantage, us.

Enjoy the view on the way up,
Scream WHEEEE on the way down.
This too shall pass.:)

givers and takers
 

yeah, bruce, yeah.

toad is the giver....bad play.

toad....you cannot win as the giver when the taker wants to leave. you threw her out? wow

if she reads this thread, then you probably should not post the particulars of what your problems are. your friends are here to support you, but details make people uncomfortable. ...sometimes. that is, you shouldn't use this as a medium to communicate with sharon.

get over her as quick as you can.....step back and be as honest with yourself as you can, and with her.

as for the bit about you two never really getting hot enough over each other to have phone sex......

chemistry........heat

ever meet a girl who isn't that pretty or doesnt have such a great bod, but you still get a semi from? that's chemistry...go get that, ut.

and knock the bottom out of it nightly!

no offense ladies......just tryin to pep the man up.




oh, and that picture is not even close....must be of the west coast lumberjims


lumberjim = cross between drew cary and keefer sutherland

Well "throw her out" meant out of the room, I should have written it better.

sharon
 

toad,

Don;t thin of this as being rejected, or being left.....never say to her "you left me"

and don't try to change to make her stay!....just let her get out of the way.....she's doing you a favor, really....the next 1.567 years will suck, but you'll be more careful this time and get a girl that is a little more zesty for you.

here's how i see you two:

if you two weren't clicking for eleven years, then you knew it too, but accepted it. You can't really blame her for doing something about it. she needs to respect you enough to not hang the other guy in your face, and you should try not to be resentful and petty.

But get her out of there pronto....and start dating immediatley.....just do not fall in love for at least the above mentioned time period of 1.567 years. after that, fire at will.

chin up!.....back straight!!! .......suck in that gut!!!!!

( this shit your going through is the real reason you've been losing weight.....subconsciously you knew you'd be on the prowl again soon.....)


Pass the viagra!

WAITING
 

yeah, cougar....there is that......but i'm just thinking if he says that the relationship is loveless, all he has to overcome is the danger of wallowing in his lonliness. he's basically over the love thing. I say get out there fast because that will take his mind off of

Re: WAITING
 

you forgot to finish the sentence. Having money? Control of the remote? What?

waiting
 

...sorry, I was abducted by aliens...been gone for 4 1/2 weeks, but when I got back, I see almost the same time on my clock......wow. you should see the moons of Jupiter right around sunset...woooo-wee!


-to continue:

......take his mind off of the rejection he must feel.

and yes, definately take the high road.

All of this assumes that, as cougar alludes to, you are yourself at this time.....ARE YOU?

Ljim

I'm coming around. When Syc and I went to Atlantic City on Saturday, I had great moments of clarity and felt like I was large and in charge.

I'm a dude in transition anyway. Before this whole thing, I was losing weight, and my goal was to get more confident and then upgrade all my bass gear, and start looking for a band to play out with.

Dunno if it was flat-out mid-life crisis stuff. Don't care, I'm still gonna do it and I'm still excited as hell by the idea.

What I think is that I haven't been me for years, and now the real me is going to return, with a vengeance, to kick ass and take names and chew bubblegum.

However, this whole "date" thing is totally foreign to me... I never really dated much. I've always just found girls/women to kinda latch onto. (Note to self: this might not be the best approach)

Toad - I already think all of these things of you.

The toilet seat - lid and everything down. Nothing is more icky to find a child playing with toys in the toilet.

Toilet paper - sits on the counter next to the toilet on top of various magazines.

Perfect guy - Heck if I know. I've got my BF for now - he seems to work.

Look out groupies...oh, the humanity!;)

Yeah, I never liked the idea of dating, either. The whole idea is stupid. Why should I want to get into an intimate relationship with someone I don't know?

My strategy has always been to get to know the person first. The sex and intimacy usually grows from there after a while, but the bonds are stronger because you were friends first.

Conversely, sometimes it's hard to look romantically at a person if they've been your friend for so long.

Do what works; neither way is "right" or "wrong". Dating has its bonuses, as does letting the relationships grow from friendships.

For real...Toad was in the zone. We had a real good time...didn't talk about the whole divorce situation too too much. I tried to keep the focus more on Toad post-divorce.

Yeah, you know...I never dated a whole lot either. I would just meet someone and we would click. Though Rho and I were friends for about 3-4 months before we started dating.

Just take your time, get the fuck out more, and start meeting peeps. It'll come to ya...that, or I'll set you up with classy escorts.

For now, just worry about getting YOU up to snuff. There will be plenty of time for dating later.

Depending on the person, and the amount of damage already being borne, sometimes a little bit of emergency repair is needed before one can honestly evaluate and then do the necessary work to get one's head in order for a committed relationship.

Dating allows you to do that. The fact that someone shows interest in you, and perhaps will agree to some intimate contact in the course of said dating, can be a tremendous bolster to a damaged ego and/or broken heart. Sure, it is only temporary, but until you can have some practical demonstration of your inherent desireability (for some reason, people seem to base a large part of their self worth on feedback from others), it is really difficult to have the proper balance of emotions and insight needed to take larger steps toward a healthy head and heart.

Summary? Getting laid can really pick up your spirits and make you feel like a man again after you've been dumped.

Retard beat me to it, but exactly. If you become friends with someone first, you might be less likely to jeopardize that friendship for romance.

Me personally, I was always willing to take the risk. My rationale was always "Life's too short to take the chance." And it cost me a few dear friends, but then again, I had some very good relationships, including the one I'm in now.

I just hope you're not translating "divorce" to "failure," Tony. Judging from your description of the marraige, your life will only improve once the cheese-grater-to-the-brain effects are past. In that sense, this is not failure at all, rather it is the most significant progress toward bettering your life you've seen in a while. You'll have to take a few bites of the shit sandwich occasionally, but most real progress is hard-won.

I have had several friends who have been in unrewarding relationships and marraiges... not necessarily the fault of either party. Even from the outside I can see this. I make it a point never to poison the relationships, but when the relationship dies of natural causes, I quietly celebrate for the friend whose life is about to improve.

hot pastrami
 

oops...hit the wrong button.....started a new thread called hot pastrami....sorry!
here's what i meant to post:
""""""
right on.....that's it....and that's all.......

oh, and make sure to brush after the shit sandwich!

Ljim
""""""""""""

Cool! Toads gonna rock out. What kinda music are you thinkin about?

big head toad and the monsters
 

oooooooooohhh! I play guitar! I'm in Pa! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhh!

who else!?

I can see it now:

~~~~This weekend at the Tower: Meatloaf with opening act "The Cellar" featuring Undertoad!



PS: UNDERTOAD:
noun. A form of anxiety, the chief feature of which is an overarching fear of the unknown in general and one's personal mortality in particular.

Example Citation:


"[Timothy Findley's] genuine self-doubt is forever near the surface, threatening to pull him down, and if not destroy him, silence him for good. This is his personal undertoad.
—Quest (as quoted by Anne Soukhanov in Word Watch)


Backgrounder:
The word undertoad comes from the phrase Under Toad which was coined by John Irving in his book The World According to Garp. In the book, the youngest child, Walt, is constantly being warned to "watch out for the undertow" while playing in the surf, but he mishears the word as Under Toad:

Garp...realized that all these years Walt had
been dreading a giant toad, lurking offshore,
waiting to suck him under and drag him out to
sea. The terrible Under Toad.




Subject Category:
Sociology - Anger and Anxiety

Posted on July 21, 1997

Don't know yet...! People my age tend to wind up in oldies cover bands, but I could be happy playing anything except death metal.

Jim, have you played out before?

(The Garp bit is exactly where I took the name from.)

Re: givers and takers
 

oh, bullcrap. use it if ya want, UT. people communicate theraputically in group..or moderated...situations all the time. just because this is cyber doesn't invalidate it.

You can cut that talk right the fuck out! :) I must be reading too many Dave posts.

What the fuck are you talking about, old fart?

Talk about your GTG opportunities ... I'd appreciate it if you try to book into venues where they don't metal detect at the door ...

Hey, what about the possibility of a Cellar Jam band. Lumberjim might not have been too far off an idea, even if only to have an excuse to hang out and noodle around.

I'm way rusty, but do have current access to Native American Courting Flute, Chinese bamboo flute, and an assortment of frame drums including a cheap-ass bodrhain (and some rattles shaped like fruits).

CELLAR JAM BAND
 

yeah, i'm ok to jam, but not good enough to play out......I work too many hours too. ( car business)

who's the drummer?

I have a drum machine, along with Wolf's assortment.

I write lyrics and "sing"...I'd be down with it.

If we can figure out what to do about the delay, I could play guitar synth over the Internet.

We'd then be a Broadband Jam Band.

I'm in for general background vocals and simple harmonies.

Here's something I read today about relationships that I thought was very well said by one Dr. Stephen A. Mitchell.

"The cultivation of romance in relationships requires two people who are fascinated by the ways in which, individually and together, they generate forms of life they hope they can count on. It entails a tolerance of the fragility of those hopes, woven together from realities and fantasies, and an appreciation of the ways in which, in the rich density of contemporary life, realities often become fantasies and fantasies often become reality."

I wish i'd known about this place when my fiance dumped me.
I was on deployment in New Zealand. She played up, enjoyed it so much she gave me the arse (and genital warts courtesy of her new boyfriend) .
I could have done with a support network then but time became my friend.
I'm okay with myself now although i still struggle with the timing when trying to introduce the topic of STD's into the courtship process.
I spend my time now cultivating as many friendships as i can.
The kind of help and support needed during this type of crisis is seldom found in just one friend.
I also set (after the dumping) a bunch of achievable goals (physical and mental ) so, even though my thoughts were crazy, i was still getting results toward recovery.
I can still remember the day i realised that not only did i feel good physically but i was in a good mood as well. i kinda woke up and looked down and wondered where my gut had gone.
Joining a tennis club also helped.
At first i didn't want to burden my friends but i found they were excited to help ease the burden and some of the best companionship came from the least likely people.
Good luck UT

May the hand of justice of the universe have seen to it that hers are WORSE.

If you're talking to me Wolf then cheers for the sentiment. Guys are basically unnaffected but girls have to have regular tests forever to facilitate early detection of cervical cancer.
In an ironic twist, this served to alleviate the grief associated with a long term relationship breakup.
I'm just being glib as i'd have preferred the extended grief over the alternative, of course.
I gotta admit i was quite surprised and relieved to see a response to my post. I imagined a lot of sharp breath intakes and raised eyebrows followed by a subconscious decision to abandon this thread.

Actually, my first response on reading your post was "ohmigods, the poor sonovabeetch" followed almost immediately by "hope hers were a lot worse."

Thanks. Not to put you on the spot but at what point during courtship would you like to be informed of your suitor's um.. baggage?

That's a tricky one. I'd just say "before sex".

Well, Monday and Tuesday were met with no lingering low emotional points and no outbursts of irrational anger, and I'm more optimistic than ever this morning, looking forward to my new life.

Having this thread here has definitely helped, both in getting good words from people and in writing down what I thought was going on.

To surviving and thriving, onward to 2004.

(lifting my glass)

To Undertoad, kicking ass and taking names.


A La Salute!

Sounds like your in the groove, Skinny. :D
BTW, when you get this orchestra together, I'd like to volunteer for groupie control in that I've had experience.
There was a band called Children of the Night that played this area and the Jersey shore. A couple of the guys stayed at my house when they played in this area. Another band called Hyjinx would practice at my house once or twice a week. Both bands caused groupies to show up at my door, sometimes when they (bands) weren't even here.

Congrats to Toad for making it through a couple of days!!! My hats off to you man....... if I was wearing a hat......

For the Cellar band - I offer to do vocals of some sort. I'm more of a ballad/lounge act type of voice.....

How do you get this kinds of tenants, and what do they pay in rent.

Musicians? Pay? Bwahahahahahahahaha.:haha: :haha:

RE: Bands: I have two rather nice (if somewhat antique) synths., and a rack to play them on.

Well then, sign me up for groupie! ;)

I know we've had this discussion before, but what antique synths do you have again, Maggie? I'm somewhat of an antique synth fan.

I used the term "antique" jokingly; they're not real classics...although the CS1x has a lot of classic Moog and Arp sounds in it.

What I do have is on each Yamaha CS1x and PSR 510. I don't have my Paia stuff anymore...that truly would be antique. The closest I get to genuine antiques is I have the Wendy Carlo Boxed set of CD/CD-rom....lots of good Moog history in there.

http://voicenet.com/~maggie and take the "music" link...a page that desparately needs updating.

Hey, it is all about the sound, not the geek factor.

Okay. It is a little bit about the geek factor. Really, the thing I like about old analogue is that you can tweak sounds in real time, without diving through a bunch of menus. But I also love modern digital synths for their ease of use and the wonderfully complex patches they feature.

So why'd you part with the Paia? I got a 3620 along with the ARP 2600 I bought, but I sold the Paia because it wasn't compatible with my MiniMoog (also now sold for poverty reasons) and the 2600.

I'm always looking for a cheap CS1X in pawnshops. Yammy has made some real nice gear over the years. I'd love to find a CS 15 someday.

There are two: One in Home Base created by Dagney called "GTG idea". The other is in Cellar Comments & Suggestions created by me called "The next great Cellar GTG."

Well, the CS1x is called a "control synth" precicesly because of the knobology; it has six knobs (four dedicated to ADSR and filter parms, two programmable), a modulation wheel (like a pitch bender wheel, (which it also has) but configurable to mod other parameters, and has a jack for a pedal controller, also programmable as to parameter. Lots of realtime twiddling capablity there.

At the same time, the rest of the patching is pretty much digital; use the programming switches and memories, or beat it to death with SysExs on the MIDI port.
Paias weren't compatible with *anything*. They were also the absolute dickens to tune (including a trimpot for *each* key on the keyboard), and thermally unstable as all hell. What they were on the good side was was *cheap*, and the synth equivilant to an Altair 8800. I had my Paia gear, built from kits in 1974-1975, years before I got my first computer, long about 1978 or so.

Paias were also very, very limited and hell to patch, using real (cheap) patch cords. Mine may still be hiding in the attic of my ex-s house...or may have been discarded long ago, I don't really know.

But I really want a Korg Karma....$1,400 at Sam Ash. All I need is a job.

Followup
 

She moved out yesterday.

I'm miserable as I go through the "depression" phase, but I know, my brain tells me, that it's not like other depression and it's temporary. It comes in waves and I cry as I see bits of our lives together that are no longer there; the missing furniture, everything off the refrigerator.

The dogs are confused. The boy didn't sleep on the bed last night, which is unusual for him. He slept downstairs until I woke up in the middle of the night and carried him up. The girl is clinging to me, following me everywhere.

But it's kind of expected. I know this would happen, and I look forward to the point where the house feels like it's completely my place.

And I went through the online personals, and you know, there are some awesome women out there, all literate and talented and cute and stuff.

I don't think you're ready for a replacement just yet. Be a shame to find a great prize and blow it because you're an emotional heap.
Standard business practice these days is to try out a bunch of temps. If they find a particularly good one, they make them an offer. ;)

That refrigerator was a mess anyway...

Love to the dogs. Was Bean trying to get along without Pearl, like you are getting along without your woman?

Bwahahahahahahahaha.:D