God damn is the month of June stressful for high school teachers. Between marking papers and making exams (which I will then have to mark) my mind has been so focused on just making in through this month that I've hardly had any time to think about what happens once I'm done.
It's taking its toll on my personality. I've hardly talked to any of my "friends" at work, I avoid talking to Todd and others on MSN and I sure as hell don't feel like venting here. My mind is cloudy and I can't focus.
I started to notice the irritation about a week and a half ago, not long after the 90's dance, and the truth is it was partly because of what happened, or didn't happen, or almost happened, between me and Cathy at that dance. And what happened next.
An astute commenter asked me, on that entry, whether I thought men or women took rejection worse. Maybe I'm biased, but I really think it's women. I never took it very well, whereas a lot of the guys I've known seem to hide it really well, if they feel anything at all. And all this time, I didn't want to get involved with anyone, because I didn't want to get attached or complicate my relationships with the people in Rob's life, but the truth is, it's already complicated, and if anything I've made it worse.
A week after I declined to pursue a physical relationship with Cathy, I found out she started seeing Dean. I don't know whether it's just a casual fling, or if they have a fling (neither of them seems like the serious type) but it seems pretty much motivated by my actions, because now the two of them are, um, not my biggest fans.
As much as I want to pretend like this isn't my life and I shouldn't care -- what's more, this is probably best -- I'm actually losing sleep over the matter. I don't like the idea that these people, whom I considered my closest friends in this life, are now against me.
So I've had to go it alone. Where can I turn? My schedule doesn't really sync up with Todd's or Cliff/Tori's. I'm often too embarrassed of myself to express myself on this blog. So I went through my stress and my anxiety, feeling frustrated with the kids and the job and everything again, when who should call but an unlikely source of sympathy... Ingrid. The former Mrs. Rob Garcia.
Don't ask how we got to talking -- she'd been in South America for a lot of the winter, only to return last month, and she was checking in on me, I guess. You'd think a divorced couple could just extricate themselves from one another, but here you are. She wasn't even that big a presence in my life, and yet I'd be a liar if I denied that those big blue eyes and curvy hips hadn't popped into my head once or twice in my occasional quiet moments of reflective....... jerking off.
We ended up meeting up, and having a serious talk. Not about "us," but about life and the world and about how the things we do have unforeseen consequences on those around us. I lamented that sometimes the things you don't do can be as hurtful as the things you do. She gave a wicked smirk at that, alluding, I guess, to some unknown event in Rob & Ingrid's past.
She spoke warmly of her new love interest, a guy she met over the internet. I don't know why, but when she mentioned that, I felt like I was missing out on something. Despite my pledge otherwise, I can't help but feel some level of desire for this woman. Despite her hard personality and hot-cold nature, I can't help but be drawn to her. I wonder whether that's just my own confused psyche, or something more primal, ingrained in Rob's bones. Who can say where attraction comes from, or what it really means?
They'd met on a dating site, although he's apparently from out-of-state, which means they haven't physically met yet... which seemed odd for a woman like Ingrid, but I guess after a bad experience, you sometimes go a little nutty. I know from experience. I left the meeting still feeling a bit isolated, but uplifted.
I don't know. I don't know whether, by being in Rob's life, I've improved it or let it stagnate, even making it worse. I get a headache just thinking about it. I want to go home soon.
-Alia
Showing posts with label Dean. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dean. Show all posts
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Alia/Rob: Common Sense has no place in this
I feel like, if I hadn't become Rob, or somebody like him, (but still went to the Inn) I would've completely lost myself by now. I am able to get up the morning and go do something and focus on it, and it has nothing to do with me or my transformation, it's just a job. At times a frustrating job, at times a somewhat rewarding one, but definitely something to occupy my mind. When I get home, I'm at ease, I'm usually marking homework or relaxing, and there honestly isn't a lot of time for me to worry about Inn-matters.
I think December is that sweet spot, for me, anyway, where I'm really used to being Rob, no longer utterly freaked out or repulsed by it, but I haven't made the plans to get my body back, which Todd keeps reminding me will be soon.
I think about the way Todd has described his time as Anne-Marie, the poor guy sitting around a nice big house (probably feeling guilty about it) with nothing to do but sit and think about being a woman. Or Bryan, a guy I try to imagine in the face of many 14-year-old girls I see in my classes, and when I do so, it makes me laugh from the sheer awkwardness of the notion.
I asked Todd what he really felt about having sex with Hal. He's always been very vocal about his idea that sex and love are different. I never totally bought it, because for a long time I had only ever had sex with him, and only loved him. And maybe they're not the same thing, but when you have sex with someone you love, it's different.
He gave me a bunch of reasons why he did it. Curiosity, pleasure, convenience, pressure. Curiosity, I buy for the first time. He's never had anything particularly good to say about the pleasure he may have felt, which makes one wonder why he kept doing. Convenience, I buy -- there must've been something very appealing to him about being able to get it whenever he wanted it. I wasn't terribly guilty of turning him down during our time together, but let's just say there were times when he knew not to ask.
When I asked him what he meant by "pressure," he told me that after a few months, after he got used to being someone's "wife," he thought he was obligated to... keep things going. The remarkable thing I find about his story is that it was the real Anne-Marie who insisted he go through with it, to keep the continuity of their sex life intact and not disrupt things. The idea that her husband was effectively banging another woman did not seem to bother her, from what I've heard, because the other woman was her.
I asked him on a scale of one to ten to rate how sexually attractive he found Hal. He said "point five. I'm attracted to women, but I thought he was a nice guy and Anne-Marie's body was rigged to go with it." There are forces beyond our understanding that compel us in these situations. When you're a man, you will fuck virtually any woman who can get you hard. When you're a woman... it's a bit more complicated.
So he told me he looked at it as masturbation. The penis was his, he just didn't have access to it as often as he used to. Interesting way to think of marriage.
We talk about sex a lot, as you can tell. I want to ask him about the cooking and cleaning and taking care of the kids but for whatever reason I have an even harder time dealing with that idea. He has more frame of reference to deal with sex. That's just him.
He is of the opinion that I should pursue Ingrid. Maybe he wants to justify what he did with Hal or what he did with Donna by seeing me through the same situation. I've forgiven him, for whatever reason, we're in a situation where it feels like the normal standards shouldn't apply, and when they did I did some very wrong things so all my guilt has come back to me.
Ingrid seems to me to be a perfectly interesting woman, and maybe in another life I'd allow myself, as a man, to be attracted to her. And if she were a (decent-looking) man, she'd certainly inspire some guilty feelings in Alia. She's mature and smart, but has a clever, subtle sense of humour. But she can be very cold.
I have a feeling she wasn't meant for a meat-and-potatoes guy like Rob. and if I pursue her, then when I go back to my life, and Rob Garcia presumably takes his back, I am setting them up for more failure and I can't let myself be responsible for that.
Early in the archives, I read about Art/Liz's two suitors and him permitting himself ot fill Liz's role with them as a way of not screwing up her life. And that's the same as what happened with Todd... but that's not me, that's not Rob. Rob is just a guy who teaches by day, and goes home and tries not to think too hard about how he is really a woman named Alia by night.
And if I'm being honest, that's about the loneliest I've ever felt, realizing that just now.
Using common sense, I should probably just stay lonely, stay the course. But every so often my vision drifts over to the bikini calendar that I have left on July the way I found it, and I wonder how long it's gonna be before I go ahead and do something stupid for myself.
In happier news...
I was rather surprised to hear that, in the 21st century, a high school is not too timid just to throw a Christmas party. Granted, I'm talking about the faculty party, not anything that might involve the students and therefore potentially-oversensitive mothers. I mean, look at me -- I was raised half-brown and I love Christmas.
We're doing a Secret Santa exchange. I got Dean, which is fairly lucky since he's a friend of mine, but also I'm having some trouble with it. I simply have no clue what to buy a man. Most of the gifts I ever bought Todd were a) relationship gifts, or b) because I knew his very particular tastes. Dean, I don't know nearly well enough, and I'm guessing some guys might be prone to analyzing gifts given to them by other men.
(And so what if I did want to sleep with Dean? He's handsome in a creepy-nearly-middle age way.)
Maybe I'll just get him beer.
The semester is winding down and I'm going to have a lot of marking to do, so if you don't hear from me until after Christmas, I'll try not to freak out and go on a screwing-spree.
Happy holidays
-Aliarob
I think December is that sweet spot, for me, anyway, where I'm really used to being Rob, no longer utterly freaked out or repulsed by it, but I haven't made the plans to get my body back, which Todd keeps reminding me will be soon.
I think about the way Todd has described his time as Anne-Marie, the poor guy sitting around a nice big house (probably feeling guilty about it) with nothing to do but sit and think about being a woman. Or Bryan, a guy I try to imagine in the face of many 14-year-old girls I see in my classes, and when I do so, it makes me laugh from the sheer awkwardness of the notion.
I asked Todd what he really felt about having sex with Hal. He's always been very vocal about his idea that sex and love are different. I never totally bought it, because for a long time I had only ever had sex with him, and only loved him. And maybe they're not the same thing, but when you have sex with someone you love, it's different.
He gave me a bunch of reasons why he did it. Curiosity, pleasure, convenience, pressure. Curiosity, I buy for the first time. He's never had anything particularly good to say about the pleasure he may have felt, which makes one wonder why he kept doing. Convenience, I buy -- there must've been something very appealing to him about being able to get it whenever he wanted it. I wasn't terribly guilty of turning him down during our time together, but let's just say there were times when he knew not to ask.
When I asked him what he meant by "pressure," he told me that after a few months, after he got used to being someone's "wife," he thought he was obligated to... keep things going. The remarkable thing I find about his story is that it was the real Anne-Marie who insisted he go through with it, to keep the continuity of their sex life intact and not disrupt things. The idea that her husband was effectively banging another woman did not seem to bother her, from what I've heard, because the other woman was her.
I asked him on a scale of one to ten to rate how sexually attractive he found Hal. He said "point five. I'm attracted to women, but I thought he was a nice guy and Anne-Marie's body was rigged to go with it." There are forces beyond our understanding that compel us in these situations. When you're a man, you will fuck virtually any woman who can get you hard. When you're a woman... it's a bit more complicated.
So he told me he looked at it as masturbation. The penis was his, he just didn't have access to it as often as he used to. Interesting way to think of marriage.
We talk about sex a lot, as you can tell. I want to ask him about the cooking and cleaning and taking care of the kids but for whatever reason I have an even harder time dealing with that idea. He has more frame of reference to deal with sex. That's just him.
He is of the opinion that I should pursue Ingrid. Maybe he wants to justify what he did with Hal or what he did with Donna by seeing me through the same situation. I've forgiven him, for whatever reason, we're in a situation where it feels like the normal standards shouldn't apply, and when they did I did some very wrong things so all my guilt has come back to me.
Ingrid seems to me to be a perfectly interesting woman, and maybe in another life I'd allow myself, as a man, to be attracted to her. And if she were a (decent-looking) man, she'd certainly inspire some guilty feelings in Alia. She's mature and smart, but has a clever, subtle sense of humour. But she can be very cold.
I have a feeling she wasn't meant for a meat-and-potatoes guy like Rob. and if I pursue her, then when I go back to my life, and Rob Garcia presumably takes his back, I am setting them up for more failure and I can't let myself be responsible for that.
Early in the archives, I read about Art/Liz's two suitors and him permitting himself ot fill Liz's role with them as a way of not screwing up her life. And that's the same as what happened with Todd... but that's not me, that's not Rob. Rob is just a guy who teaches by day, and goes home and tries not to think too hard about how he is really a woman named Alia by night.
And if I'm being honest, that's about the loneliest I've ever felt, realizing that just now.
Using common sense, I should probably just stay lonely, stay the course. But every so often my vision drifts over to the bikini calendar that I have left on July the way I found it, and I wonder how long it's gonna be before I go ahead and do something stupid for myself.
In happier news...
I was rather surprised to hear that, in the 21st century, a high school is not too timid just to throw a Christmas party. Granted, I'm talking about the faculty party, not anything that might involve the students and therefore potentially-oversensitive mothers. I mean, look at me -- I was raised half-brown and I love Christmas.
We're doing a Secret Santa exchange. I got Dean, which is fairly lucky since he's a friend of mine, but also I'm having some trouble with it. I simply have no clue what to buy a man. Most of the gifts I ever bought Todd were a) relationship gifts, or b) because I knew his very particular tastes. Dean, I don't know nearly well enough, and I'm guessing some guys might be prone to analyzing gifts given to them by other men.
(And so what if I did want to sleep with Dean? He's handsome in a creepy-nearly-middle age way.)
Maybe I'll just get him beer.
The semester is winding down and I'm going to have a lot of marking to do, so if you don't hear from me until after Christmas, I'll try not to freak out and go on a screwing-spree.
Happy holidays
-Aliarob
Monday, October 12, 2009
Alia/Rob: (Real) Thanksgiving Thoughts
I checked the calendar today to remind myself that this weekend was Thanksgiving in Canada. It might not be the healthiest thing in the world but I allowed myself to get nostalgic. The past doesn't seem that far away, and Todd keeps reminding me that before long, I'll be back where I belong. If has has anything to say about it, that is.
Fall always puts me back in the state of mind of my early University days. Even before all this, I marveled at how much things had changed over the years. It was fall 2003 when I first met Todd, this comparatively dangerous-looking boy who kept catching my eye in a couple classes, and whom I swore I'd seen glancing back my way once or twice.
I was living in the dorms and I guess one of the girls he was involved with was on the same floor because one day I caught the elevator with him and he struck up a conversation and I thought it was probably too good to be true because he seemed genuinely friendly and not only that, far more intelligent and well-spoken than his rough exterior. He was sarcastic but kind, and he had opinions but was not preachy. Before I knew it, I was swept up in this whole group of people, some of whom were utterly full of shit, some were legitimate individuals. And as much as I did not want to fall for someone like Todd -- I knew (or figured) going in, that I'd be hurt in the end -- it happened that we were drawn together. And I guess I was the last girl standing. For a while, anyway.
By the end of the semester, we were an item, and as much as I resisted, I had to bring him home to meet my parents around Christmas. It was pretty much as bad as I expected, although not as bad as I feared, if that makes sense. Dad had resolved not to like him no matter who he was, and mom saw he was trouble from the beginning. But he was on his best behaviour, played the good suitor for my dad and charmed my mom. It was a rough start but after some consideration they determined he was not the worst boy in the world.
I tried to limit their contact with him, though. It wasn't until much later they saw his darker side, especially after he resigned himself to a certain state of life and our relationship started falling apart (repeatedly.) And that was still a long while before the break-up that led to him coming to Maine.
But for a long while, we were fixtures at each others' family Thanksgivings. It reminds me of the first time I met his whole family, which of course also features part of Bry's family, since Bry's dad is Todd's step-uncle. It was a choice between helping/hindering the women in the kitchen or sitting in the living room with the men watching the Leafs and scratch themselves. I guess there's nothing wrong with the traditional female role, and looking back, those ladies were some tough cookies. I fit in well with them, and I've missed them. I hope Todd, this weekend, has found some way to send my love, even if I might be there in body. Sigh.
Instead, I'm sitting here feeling nostalgic. I contemplated doing something, going out, having a drink, but instead quietly cooked dinner for one and sat on the computer not doing anything particularly productive.
I pine for those innocent Undergrad days because, let me tell you, I much prefer them to the awkward teenage years that preceded them, which I seem to relive on a daily basis at work. I feel like I'm cursed to watch these kids play out the usual teenage drama, barred from providing any useful advice or assurance that things will get better, because really, when I was a kid, I didn't believe my teachers when they said stuff like that.
The weird/funny thing, I guess, about being in a high school environment is that it even makes adults -- REAL adults, not just fake ones like me -- regress a bit. Sure, there are jaded older teachers who've been here forever, but ones around Rob's age, like Dean and Cathy, have a way of slightly adapting the attitudes of the students, I guess because we're young enough to still relate, not so old that we feel completely detached and deeply embedded in our authority figure roles. It's kind of a dangerous position because when it's time to be firm with a student, you have trouble really asserting yourself. Or at least I do.
Dean and Cathy would be the supporting characters of my little story as Rob. I eat lunch, I make funny excuses not to talk much about my (Rob's) life, despite them having known Rob for a few years at least. Don's a nice guy, in a long-term relationship but is still glad to talk about girls like he is available. Perhaps too glad. Cathy, I don't know her deal. She's mentioned a few guys before, but I guess none of them are all that serious. We all eat lunch together, I don't mind having them as friends, I imagine it's kind of like what Todd, Bry and I will be like in5 or 6 years, if Todd and I aren't together.
Thy have interest in the mostly-nonexistent details of Rob's bachelor life. They seemed somewhat scandalized when I let it slip that "a girl" stayed the night last weekend. Sorry, Cliff, heh. I told them it was completely innocent...
Anyway, I just felt like spelling my guts a bit tonight, all the nostalgia and all, and Todd's busy with family stuff, unable to put up with my little flashbacks, so here I am. hope you've enjoyed it.
Alia/Rob
Fall always puts me back in the state of mind of my early University days. Even before all this, I marveled at how much things had changed over the years. It was fall 2003 when I first met Todd, this comparatively dangerous-looking boy who kept catching my eye in a couple classes, and whom I swore I'd seen glancing back my way once or twice.
I was living in the dorms and I guess one of the girls he was involved with was on the same floor because one day I caught the elevator with him and he struck up a conversation and I thought it was probably too good to be true because he seemed genuinely friendly and not only that, far more intelligent and well-spoken than his rough exterior. He was sarcastic but kind, and he had opinions but was not preachy. Before I knew it, I was swept up in this whole group of people, some of whom were utterly full of shit, some were legitimate individuals. And as much as I did not want to fall for someone like Todd -- I knew (or figured) going in, that I'd be hurt in the end -- it happened that we were drawn together. And I guess I was the last girl standing. For a while, anyway.
By the end of the semester, we were an item, and as much as I resisted, I had to bring him home to meet my parents around Christmas. It was pretty much as bad as I expected, although not as bad as I feared, if that makes sense. Dad had resolved not to like him no matter who he was, and mom saw he was trouble from the beginning. But he was on his best behaviour, played the good suitor for my dad and charmed my mom. It was a rough start but after some consideration they determined he was not the worst boy in the world.
I tried to limit their contact with him, though. It wasn't until much later they saw his darker side, especially after he resigned himself to a certain state of life and our relationship started falling apart (repeatedly.) And that was still a long while before the break-up that led to him coming to Maine.
But for a long while, we were fixtures at each others' family Thanksgivings. It reminds me of the first time I met his whole family, which of course also features part of Bry's family, since Bry's dad is Todd's step-uncle. It was a choice between helping/hindering the women in the kitchen or sitting in the living room with the men watching the Leafs and scratch themselves. I guess there's nothing wrong with the traditional female role, and looking back, those ladies were some tough cookies. I fit in well with them, and I've missed them. I hope Todd, this weekend, has found some way to send my love, even if I might be there in body. Sigh.
Instead, I'm sitting here feeling nostalgic. I contemplated doing something, going out, having a drink, but instead quietly cooked dinner for one and sat on the computer not doing anything particularly productive.
I pine for those innocent Undergrad days because, let me tell you, I much prefer them to the awkward teenage years that preceded them, which I seem to relive on a daily basis at work. I feel like I'm cursed to watch these kids play out the usual teenage drama, barred from providing any useful advice or assurance that things will get better, because really, when I was a kid, I didn't believe my teachers when they said stuff like that.
The weird/funny thing, I guess, about being in a high school environment is that it even makes adults -- REAL adults, not just fake ones like me -- regress a bit. Sure, there are jaded older teachers who've been here forever, but ones around Rob's age, like Dean and Cathy, have a way of slightly adapting the attitudes of the students, I guess because we're young enough to still relate, not so old that we feel completely detached and deeply embedded in our authority figure roles. It's kind of a dangerous position because when it's time to be firm with a student, you have trouble really asserting yourself. Or at least I do.
Dean and Cathy would be the supporting characters of my little story as Rob. I eat lunch, I make funny excuses not to talk much about my (Rob's) life, despite them having known Rob for a few years at least. Don's a nice guy, in a long-term relationship but is still glad to talk about girls like he is available. Perhaps too glad. Cathy, I don't know her deal. She's mentioned a few guys before, but I guess none of them are all that serious. We all eat lunch together, I don't mind having them as friends, I imagine it's kind of like what Todd, Bry and I will be like in5 or 6 years, if Todd and I aren't together.
Thy have interest in the mostly-nonexistent details of Rob's bachelor life. They seemed somewhat scandalized when I let it slip that "a girl" stayed the night last weekend. Sorry, Cliff, heh. I told them it was completely innocent...
Anyway, I just felt like spelling my guts a bit tonight, all the nostalgia and all, and Todd's busy with family stuff, unable to put up with my little flashbacks, so here I am. hope you've enjoyed it.
Alia/Rob
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