Daffy Doormat

Wow. Merry Christmas from a dirtbag.

In the spirit of all things Christmas-y, here's a story that will freeze your heart. From a Greenpoint blogger comes a tale of betrayal, that makes this the season to be furious. Read it and weep. Then go drink some alcohol.

Merry Christmas!!!

I hate Christmas. Even more so this year.

 

The doormat lives of others.

I know it's usually a no-no to write about your friends in any specific way. What about a friend, though, whom nobody else here knows, who lives in another country and who never reads this blog? And what if what I write is generally sympathetic? Alright, all names have been changed by the editors...

I have this childhood friend named Gisela. She lives in a big, hip, happening city in Germany. She's very pretty, she's accomplished, she carved out a nice life for herself. Back in 2004, a few months after I met my husband with the help of an internet connection, she started online dating as well and met Joerg. He was a lawyer, recently separated from another girlfriend but seriously in the market for a new one, and reasonably charming. He had a son from this previous involvement, only two years old at the time. A red flag? Maybe. A deal breaker? Probably not.

Over the years I heard stories of their fights, big and small. In the beginning I thought those were just the regular birthing pains of getting on the same page in a relationship. My husband and I had those fights, too. You know, the ones where you find out something about the other person you didn't know and don't know if you can deal with but then you just do. Usually things like being a jerk during fights or always starting to cry at the slightest provocation.. But I digress.

When Gisela told me that Joerg had changed the locks of his home several times on her, so she couldn't use her key anymore, and that he generally disliked if she brought company over to his place when he wasn't there, the words "control" and "freak" popped into my head. She wasn't living with him then, but spent most of her time at his house and had brought in a significant amount of her things, clothes, dishes, her bike, and so on. She felt that she had a place in his life, yet whenever problems arose, usually centered on the issues involving his son, Joerg was quick to kick her to the curb, or at the very least he threatened to.

One day she told me that she had chased him in her car on the autobahn. She was beside herself after a huge blowup and he took off. So she decided to follow. She sped after him, crying, agitated, doing 150 km/h at least, all the way to his sister's house. He got out, called her crazy. Said he never wanted to see her again and that he's changing the locks. Ah, yes, the lock thing became a theme.

Fast forward to 2009. Last October, Gisela had a son with Joerg. I remember the tingly numbness of shock when she told me they were trying for a child. I had just met Joerg for the first time ever. I was in her city, visiting with my husband, and we were introduced to the lock-changer. I felt immediate nausea. I didn't like him. He was a withholding, humorless little man. His eyes were piercing and devoid of warmth. And I literally feared for my friend.

Their baby is now almost a year old. He's a sweet little boy and the light of Gisela's life. My slightly envious vision of her happy Euro-family was crushed when last weekend she called me, sobbing. She's at the end of her rope. They fight all the time. He doesn't support her at all, leaves all the household work to her, doesn't touch her, sleeps on the couch and spends more time with his oldest son now than ever. He lies. He calls her names. He tells her she's fat. (She's not.) And most importantly: when they fight he threatens to kick her out and change the locks. He started last weekend by taking her car keys away. Oh, and he bruised her arm by twisting it in a fit of rage.

I'll never say "I told you so", because I never did. I kept my mouth shut over the years, hoping she would see the light. I never said "don't get pregnant by this guy" when she was trying to. Now I hear her sobbing on the other end of the phone line and I feel a twinge of guilt. Maybe I should have told her what my instinct told me about Joerg? That he's a controlling, raging dipshit? 

What are the options now? She is a mother and her whole life has changed. From this point forward, she is living her own personal hell. No matter what happens to their unhealthy union, Gisela won't be able to leave Joerg behind. She is connected to this vindictive man forever through her boy, whom she loves more than anything. It's a fate I would never wish on anyone, least of all a friend.

PS: After a friend just commented how Gisela could just raise the child all by herself, which is indeed a great idea, I realize I left a small (but huge) detail out. Gisela and Joerg signed legal documents immediately after the birth of their son, sharing custody. Joerg insisted on this because they didn't plan to marry and he had to fight to see his first child. The mother of that kid was not very cooperative. I wonder why? So he made sure that Gisela couldn't just take the kid and run...

Could not have said it better...

...yet never took this advice myself.

My friend Judy McGuire's column on rebounding after getting hurt:

After The Rebound - Seattle Weekly

Life, and the fear of its end.

A few days ago, my grandmother was supposed to be released from the hospital after being treated for medication-induced acidosis. That's when the acid in your blood is so high that you are basically poisoned by it. She was doing well after an extensive detox/fluid regimen and being given a better medication cocktail, but then she developed pneumonia and now she is in a bad state. Pneumonia you catch in the hospital is notorious for kicking people over the edge and into the grave. So, needless to say, I am panicked, worried, sickened and afraid. I booked a flight to Germany for tonight, so I can be by her bedside tomorrow. She's a little better today and I hope she pulls through, maybe with the help of some positive, happy energy, which I shall muster up and bring along.

My grandmother is eighty years old. She was thirty-nine when I was born in 1968. Thirty-nine. Two years younger than I am now. It's hard to envision her so young, especially because I remember her as a "grandmother", the somewhat matronly caretaker of mine, who changed my diapers and made me mashed potatoes and fish sticks. There was nothing particularly young about her. Compared to my flashy, early-twenties mother in her Courrèges outfits, my grandmother looked middle-aged. She was a no-nonsense housewife, she held the reigns and she did so with a certain fierceness that became part of her persona, I'm convinced, during her poor childhood as the illegitimate child of a servant mother in 1930s Hungary. My grandmother was always taking care of things; cooking, cleaning, organizing, shopping, dropping me and my cousin off at kindergarden or school. Nothing could ever stop her, until she became old.

When she was forty-four, I once pitched a fit and didn't want to stay with her, because, as I cried, "she was old and would die soon!" I remember her laughing about my foolish fantasy. She told me she was actually still quite young and she wasn't going anywhere, anytime soon. I believed her, because she wouldn't allow me not to, and I stayed the night, trying to figure out how forty-four could be NOT old. It seemed so ancient to me when I was five. I didn't know then that she would live so much longer and would be present at many of my life's crossroads. It was one of the first times that I can remember when I was scared of death — and particularly her death.

My grandmother means the world to me. She was the one who was present every day and showered me with the kind of matter-of-fact attention that was so typical in parenting back then. She didn't make too big of a fuss, she was strict about sticking to the rules. But she cooked my favorite foods, gave me my toys, let me watch TV and put me down for a nap with a stuffed animal and a kiss. She made me feel important and wanted without having to say so. She seemed to never think twice about how to raise me. She just did. My mother was present during those years, but she worked, every day. So as it was normal in small German towns of the sixties, Oma and Opa stepped in and became the ersatz parents during the day. It felt great to me. I had two mothers, effectively, and I loved them both. 

So as I travel home tonight I will be thinking about the decades gone by, how fast they went and how hard it is to watch them take their toll. Tomorrow, hopefully, I will find her in her bed, smiling and in a better state, ready to survive and give me a few more years of her affection. She made life feel secure for me back then, wielding her magic with mashed potatoes and fish sticks. She connects me to a time and place that was safe and warm and fun, and I'm not ready to let go.

A good day.

Yesterday was my husband's birthday. We had a good day, despite the fact that his company recently gave him the shaft. I baked a cake (a rare thing for me), which turned out well (quelle surprise!) and we had it for breakfast, along with birthday candles that melted so fast I had to pick wax out of my teeth afterwards. The cats sat on the bed with us and sang along with the "Happy Birthday Song" (ok, they didn't, they can't sing, despite their otherwise fabulousness). They licked the cake affectionately, though. And then my husband cried with gratitude after opening his present. On the inside, anyway.

I full on expected him to cry, weep like a baby, actually, since I gave him the most rocking present anyone's ever given! I GAVE HIM TWO WEEKS IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE AND ITALY! You heard right. I booked two tickets to Germany, where my (sometimes searingly bitchy, yet still apparently very lovely, wonderful, yes, wanderfull) mom, who paid for our flights, will give us her car for two weeks, to drive around some of the most beautiful places in the world in. Provence, Côte d'Azur, Alto Adige. Oh, I can hear you barf from envy.

What can I say except: my husband deserves this. May 22nd is his last day at work and instead of pondering the potential pitfalls of our lives after that date, we'll be boarding a plane. The idea was to make it a happy date, a look-forward-to-kinda-date, instead of the day the hammer drops. So with the help of my mom I dismantled the Sword of Damocles hanging above our heads. There's nothing better than some real Provençal ratatouille and guzzling a few bottles of Côte du Rhône sitting at the CÔTE of the RHÔNE, fer chrissakes, to cure the unemployment blues.

We'll toast the corporate ding dongs, as we gaze across the lavender fields and ponder a simpler life. For two weeks anyway, that's better than nothing. And now on to Day Two of the three-day extravaganza called "The Birthday Weekend", during which my mission is to make my husband happy. Hmmmm... how else could I achieve this? Oh, yeah, riiiight...

When exes read your blog.

The other day I received an email from someone I once dated, commenting on my musings here. The email was actually kind of sweet; he wanted me to know that he never thought of me as a doormat. That's nice. Thanks! Truth of the matter, though: I knew that. He was one of the men in my life who treated me nicely. Once in a while someone did come along who unabashedly adored me and still managed to get my attention. For good reasons I had to pass on this man, but now I can't tell you what those are because... Hello!... he reads this blog. The big issue at hand: when you write a blog, do you edit yourself, consciously or not, because people whom you know (and perhaps slept with) might stop by for a read? When I began this site, no one knew about it and no one read it. Since then, I have come out to my friends and now it's all not so anonymous anymore. So I feel self-conscious writing about, you know, the size of a guy's pecker. Unless, of course, it was enormous and they'll take it as a HUGE compliment. Get it? Huge. Haha. What? No, I don't mean YOU! I'm being hypothetical here. Seriously though, I was reminded by my ex how easy it is to overshare and sometimes results can be a bit embarrassing. Or hurtful.

While I try to navigate my way between the pitfalls of blogging, I want to assure you exes-of-mine, you need not fret. Readers of these pages know it's not penile measurements I typically write about (though I'd gain a bigger audience, I'm sure). I just try to answer the age-old question "What were you thinking?" with a few sweet 'n' salty anecdotes from my life. If you're in any of them — and I've known you in the biblical sense — just take it lightly and remember that a certain tongue-in-cheekiness applies to everything that's written here. And take it as a compliment. A HUGE one.

This one even I haven't done.

Traveling for work today, so I must keep it short. I came across this short from Slate's funny "What Was I Thinking?" series. Dating a porn star... sounds like something I could've done. But I didn't.

Why dating a famous guy can suck.

Some years back, I went on a date with a well-known politico/TV personality. I met him on the job. I was working in TV then and we both attended the same political function. Exchanging phone numbers led to phone calls and witty email exchanges, swooned over by my office colleagues, who wet their panties with every "ping" coming from my mailbox. "Is it from him?" they'd call out. I tend to overshare, I know. It gets worse.

After days of furious emailing, email-checking and general obsessing, I went on a date with this man. He was, according to the tabloids, shopping around for a wife in those days, gallivanting through New York's nightlife, basking in the glow of his own, fabulous eligibility. His usual diet consisted of semi-famous starlets with careers in decline, so I was not a natural pick. A news producer who gets maybe one hit if you google her? Not exactly his type.

On the night of the date he took the subway to Brooklyn. He actually came to my neighborhood, which I though was nice. It seemed unpretentious. Then again, I live in one of the most pretentious neighborhoods in Brooklyn, so my assumption may have been too kind. I took him to a local place for dinner and we had a reasonably nice time. The waitress nearly fainted when she saw him and tripped all over herself to be extra-charming. I was beginning to second-guess my choice of venue. I got through my food without choking, was all smiles and seemed to reasonably charm him. After dinner, we went to yet another local hangout, where everyone was stealing glances. His celebrity status distracted me. I kept checking my own behavior, wondering if what I was doing (sitting there) is what I should be doing (stand, suck it in, look cool, pose, pout, whatever). My anxiety-level rising, I suggested we leave. Then, I walked hand in hand with him down the main street of my hood. Big mistake.

We ended up listening to music, making out and then some at my place, and he left in the wee hours of the morning, because, you know, he was a busy man. I would be lying if I said that I didn't hope for him to call. I'd be lying even more if I said that I actually thought he would. Something about his demeanor, his nonchalance gave me that hint. I think he was used to dating and sleeping with a slew of attractive New York girls and was just going through the motions of someone who has too many chicks available to him. His hype, by the way, way outshone his actual personality or performance. That just as an aside.

But the real kicker in this story is that I had shat where I ate, as they say. The next day I ran into several acquaintances, who greeted me with some version of "Hey, I heard you were walking hand in hand with XYZ down Bedford Avenue last night? So-and-so said so!" Crap. It was only Saturday. I still had to deal with the expectant faces of my colleagues on Monday and was not looking forward to it. It would be hard to hide the absence of a constantly pinging mailbox. That Sunday I curled up in bed, watched TV and felt bad. I had put myself in this position of weakness. It was pretty clear what he had wanted and my expectations should never have been anything beyond that. I knew, despite the assurances of my salivating girlfriends, that he wasn't going to call. And now I'd have to walk the walk of shame. Just as my misery was peaking, I switched TV channels and... there he was. Coiffed, suave and grinning, and surely thinking not a moment of me. I turned off the TV, dreaded Monday morning and cried myself to sleep.

Getting over it.

Many times over the past decade I found myself arguing with friends and family about why, oh why, I don't just finally get over the fact that my parents were flawed. And inevitably those discussions made me feel awful, because now I felt not only inadequate, but, in addition, incapable of resolving my feelings of inadequacy and my need to place blame. To any of you who have been in relationships, romantic and otherwise, that made you feel and act doormatty, you know what I mean. It's not like you flip a switch and pouf! Years of agonizing and expensive therapy (see prior posts on the subject) are necessary to build what was left unbuilt: a strong and healthy sense of self.

So when I hear that I need to get over it from someone, I want to gently, kindly remind that dear friend that I most likely never will. Parental love, attention and — when done right — the resulting emotional health is something you can never recreate later in life. You cannot think yourself into feeling loved. The foundation simply isn't there. It takes years of hard work to build from scratch something that even remotely resembles the power you receive from those first two decades of unconditional belonging. All the failed relationships, the cried-through nights and the idea that nothing will ever change, because somehow YOU, and only you, are singled out to fail, are the emotional equivalent of a Mt. Everest, a mammoth rock blocking the way to even the humblest slice of happiness and peace.

Every day I inch closer to filling that empty cup that sits where my self-esteem should have been. It's more than half full now. Will I at some point entirely get over the fact that I was handed an empty cup? I may let go of it. But never get over it.

And here you find...

... the reason why giving up the top of the roll (or the bottom of the muffin, whatever the preference) is so important. 

Scroll down to Janet and Rudyard Colter. 

Nuff said.

Couples share secrets of love, marriage