Ayn's Multiple World

What a Wow! of a Weekend!

Good morning this is me. I thought I’d give it another try writing in the blog this morning … I’m pretty sure you are tired of hearing why I’m not writing. In summary – Pirates! And, there’s probably some loose change psychological damage we’re trying to get over. This might be the same where I’m avoiding anything that looks like a bill and this might have been happening for like 3-4 months. I’m not sure I’d have to trace it back.

Ok, barring all that and the fact that one of my school loans places is calling my work – let’s leave that whole business with the note that we NEED to stop by after work today and drop off the check we got last Friday – that would be a start – right? As far as we are guessing the auto payments for the car and rent are still going out. Lordy is there a lot of fear in all this. And, no I’m not willing to discuss this further!

I think I’d rather get to the point of writing something about the weekend and then maybe something about goal for the day or week – with the exceptional note that we might be going back to fishing over this next weekend. That’s if one of Rich’s kids doesn’t want to go. Those chances are slim, but we always have known the priority of family over friends. This is not to say we are being put out, but have the patience to know that the bond between parent to child to be pretty important.

Since I’m going to need getting some work done at work too – we figured we better get going here with the notes.

First thing about this weekend was that I had a FANTASTIC TIME! Wow! It was a whirlwind. I absolutely am in love with the sport AND my fellow Sportsman!

I’m not sure where to start, but my driftin seems to be toward the one time over the weekend we gave up. That was a little sad and frustrating. We’d gotten through the first day and a little farther than half way through the second day. I know that it was after Fishyman finally caught his first fish, but it wasn’t all that. I can’t pin now what the feelings were, but we experienced a wave of emotion I think it was really started because of Rich’s desire to sit the boat in a stack of weeds and we were pretty sure we were much too exhausted to be pulling straggly things of our plastic lure.

I think we’d been out to clearer water and had appreciated the ease of pulling the line back to the boat without interference. Ok, yes then there was something about Rich catching fish – he caught two plus was spotting them visually in the water. It had been much easier to that point thinking that we just were like the Fishyman in not catching fish – and gosh darn it if he couldn’t catch them how could we, but now the point had been made no matter how inexperienced we were – we were NOT catching fish … I think this was the shattering point of our grandest efforts and expectations. How dare those fishies! All the inability became suddenly too overwhelming.

As to trait we pulled back in our more immature ways. I think it was close to an all in all blowout of having just short of a temper tantrum. There were no yowls and screams, but we did lay down on the deck facing it with our cap pulled over our eyes. To be fair … we had already been sitting on the deck so there wasn’t much ground to have captured, but still and still we felt the pang of knowing we weren’t dealing well after having made all weekend extraordinary gains in that department.

Fishyman was very encouraging of everything in general. He had given us some verbal and other emotional cues to let us know we were towing the back-seater mark, but we knew he didn’t want to pressure us on the tantrum. I think we might have been a little intimidating. Maybe too he knew that we’d come out of it on our own if best left to our own devises.

There were little cues being given – after 4-5 minutes of just laying there feeling totally defeated someone asked him after hearing the whir of his line and lure hitting the water if he wasn’t having fun without us. Within a couple of moments she was up again stating accusatorily, “I’m pretty sure you are having fun without us!”

He kept casting the line and wheeling it in with the maximum of faith and promise of all good things to come. I remember the feeling of being propped up on one arm looking at him with all sense of wonder and awe in his gracefulness thinking he was really like an artist ready to be beholden.

So, we made an executive decision and someone told him, “We are going to keep our eye on you and we’re not going to do anything but watch you!” Hehehe it must have been the pressure he need because within 3-4 casts, he was bringing in another fish. WOW! Did that then strike our imagination. We didn’t look, but could feel our fingers creeping back over to our rod … maybe we could do a LITTLE more fishing.

I think this officially counts as a minor meltdown, but it did obviously not sink the ship.

Up until that time and after – we’d gone with not one complaint we could later recall. We were working very hard at paying attention and focusing on what we were doing. If we had a question Rich would answer it and if there were some problem he would solve it. He is after all other including being a salesman – a teacher.

I think he wanted us to have a good time as much if not more than we did. We had brought our computer and camera, but we did not once stop fishing long enough to take them out as a second course. We were very proud, and we had been self-checks along the way enough to realize within ourselves that we were ALL actually having a very good time.

It’s hard to say what it was about the fishing that made it so enjoyable, but I know the largest part maybe was just that we were doing something beside or next to Rich. This was a new kind of unity that we hadn’t before really experienced.

We were too also under a little pressure from our imaginary likeness to Rich’s friend Bob. I think there’s some part of us that wants Bob to know that we can not only be Rich’s ideal woman, but an ideal woman to all mankind. We always start with our faults … like well yes we’re a little psychology distorted, have some amount of temper and impatience and we’re still looking the size of a small cow – oh yeah – and our broken out face refuses to quite heal and although it’s looking better we’re scaring ourselves with the fear we might be allergic to chocolate – including fudgicles. We’re not really dealing with that either, but the pessimism continues to weigh upon us.

But, all in all with this and our very often questioning sense of low self esteem and confidence – well you can see how it might be a battle of nerves at this juncture. But, as stated before in some such terms – we were ready to make big “extraordinary POOR female qualities” sacrifices to gain a bigger ground. We had especially determined that we weren’t going to whine. We did compare ourselves often to what Rich might be experiencing with normal Fishymen and in particular his partner of the moment in reference to being a boater – inherits the name of backseater. If we were going to assure ourselves ranking in that theatre we wanted to be known to him as an asset. We didn’t want to be a fishywomen liability. Part of that is due to Bob – we want to make sure Rich captures the bragging rights!

The shorter part of this story was that I think we really did please our Fishyman. He said something way toward the end about having made serious fishing strides and how proud he was of us for not giving up, keeping our line in the water and those kinds of things. He was pretty sure that we’d taken home the prize as to being a fisherman’s woman doing really good with a fishy weekend.

We did ask for a little fishy forgiveness … we were soooo tired after the first day being out that we fell asleep immediately after getting in from dinner and taking our shower. I couldn’t tell you even which way we were facing or if Rich were in bed or not. We were really TIRED!

We tried to keep up with things that we needed to learn about being a good backseater … being the woman’s version we had thought we’d be able to treat Rich to some good fishing weekend umm fun under the covers along with some long remembered massages – but, all in all we had to work on other admirable qualities. We did little things like picking up the room and readying ourselves and Rich’s stuff to be leaving at 5 am for another day on the lake as well as making sure we sat out with Rich for the lessons after a long day to be dressing the lines and we didn’t fall-out on the going to the bathroom or not part of being on a boat.

That should be said about now too. Fishing poles! It was about the kindest thing that Rich could do, but I guess he and Bob had found their way to a fishing store and they’d gotten me a special rod. I think it’s a Zebco 33 which means it’s had a long history of being a young fisherman’s teaching rod. The special thing about it was that it had a sensor system so that if it was turned on and a fish bit the line an alarm beep would go off.

As it turned out we never turned on the electronics and afterward Rich said it was more meant for bobber fishing than lures and casting as bass fisherman do. Rich said that he and Bob might take Marcia and me pan fishing because we could use the bobbers and would catch more fish. Well you can imagine with all our girl pride – we certainly didn’t want to jump into the frying pan when we knew there were much bigger worms to be thrown – I mean cast!

As we were saying though the most special thing was that they thought of us personally and had gone out of their way to make us feel comfortable on the water. I’m pretty sure it was this and them not wanting to just protect Rich’s stash of personal rods and reels. I was really really happy though to have my own rod to protect and love. Yah yah … well maybe this is a girl’s way.

I think the point has to be made here that the goal of THIS particular fishywoman wasn’t to be ONE of the guys – it was more like to be a WOMAN being LIKE one of the fishypeople and in particular in the warm and loving partner of our special Fishyman!

I don’t think this goal was a surprise to Rich because we kept him appraised throughout the trip on how we were doing. There was a special marker point we made a couple times that he’d picked up on. It had to do with the fishywoman on one of his channel’s fishing commercials where the talkative woman on the boat with her love was going on and on to the point of wondering where they’d gotten the name chartreuse as a fishy lure color. I think the commercial is for Evinrude motors and the point they were making was how many words a woman would say IN relation to the number of words a man would say and to how long the motor would last past that.

Part of our efforts to be a good fisherperson was to not over talk our welcome. There’d been some points made in comparison to Bob’s girl and how much she talked. I think in a womanly way – and in this I mean to say girl-woman way of being mixed aged and multiple there’s likely a little competing with Marsha. Rich probably made our comparative award low self-esteem quest for better in saying toward the end that he knew we were much more the ideal woman fishypartner than Bob’s girl and that we’d really gone the distance.

Pshwoo … the ways that man can cheer us on!

We’d watched that for ourselves. The first weekend out where we’d spent the whole time on the computer – Marsha HAD fished where we hadn’t. We did make sure on that and the successive trip with Bud and Rich’s mom that Marsha’s fishing never seemed to last more than a token 20 minutes. We were finding FORTUNATELY for ourselves that we could do that kind of time standing on our head!

There was some more challenges added as well in that Rich’s chair in the front seat part of the boat had broken at the end of the first fishing day. He talked about maybe going to find what he needed at Walmart and as good a substitute find-all that Walmart is around the country for Fishymen I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to have the particular metal rod that Fishyman was going to need. I didn’t want his trip spoiled so I thought particularly hard and came up with a plan I don’t think Rich would have ever considered if we hadn’t come up to it first.

Basically, it was a simple suggestion. We offered him our pole and seat and told him we could fish from the sitting down position of the seats we sat on when the boat was going fast or that we could sit on the back deck of the boat’s floor and fish from there. We knew it might become troublesome because the regular boat seat would not be flexible in turning so we’d have to hold ourselves at odd angles – and then there was the problem foreseen of sitting on the ground for hours and hours.

I think that too had something to do with our melt down. We didn’t say too much complainy out loud, because we wanted so hard for the weekend to be a success, but sitting on the hard ground for what at that time had been about six hours was having some effect on us – and too – we’d been gaining a bit of a sun burn and had been arguing the point that we didn’t want to wear Rich’s scratchy shirt over our shoulders as he insisted.

After the first day we gave him no problem and indeed volunteered to be sprayed with sunblocker, but the main thing at the meltdown point beside what has been mentioned was that we were fighting our own achyness from sitting in what was known in our early school days to be a cross-your legs on the floor Indian style.

I’m afraid that Rich was seeing our predicament though we both knew with him steering the boat it was the only solution. He didn’t want us to have a rough time and we didn’t want to spoil his time … so we were all very patient with the situation. I didn’t want to lose hours and hours having him look on a Sunday for something to fulfill this challenging need and we both knew before we would go out again … he would have two brand new chairs and sturdy poles to sit them on.

He be a good Fishyman!

Hmm, just remembering now in a small read-over that part of our tantrum was that while laying down face toward the floor of the boat someone had said to tell us when 10 minutes were up so that we could be done with our tantrum. Then when it had been not quite 10 minutes, but we were looking again forward to fishing with our Fishyman – someone had asked the question if he thought maybe our 10 minutes was over. I guess in essence was that we’d given ourselves a time-out.

Fishyman being all that he is … recognized the situation for what it was. I know that he’s particularly happy when we can come out of these kinds of funks on our own and that we aren’t causing him particular grief. I think he knows too that as being a person of parts – we each have our own tolerances, but just because one part is having a tantrum it doesn’t mean we’re going to stay there or not be able to find a part better suited for the time being.

I think this is something that comes after a long time with another individual. It’s not something that can be forced or sped along. It just has to develop naturally – I think it’s like a trust. It might be like that last time sometime before the weekend where he snuck a hand shake from us before he quickly told us that we’d agreed then not to be stopping on the way to work to be eating sweets.

Might be a good time to mention how unique it is with Rich that he be partnered with a multiple. I think I’ve mentioned the multiple card a few times already, but it might be in part a point made that a simple weekend out on the boat really ISN’T Quite that simple when speaking to multiple parts. Like we said what might be agreeable to one part of us – might be needed to be negotiated with another and here in this regard Rich sparkles.

That’s one thing about the last trip out with the guys – the one with Rich’s mother and Bud – there was a certain point before Rich got there and about the time that Bob was going to determinedly teach us to fish – was that we told Bob and Marcia about having multiple personalities. I thought on the outset that they both did VERY well with it. There’s always the first part of getting past the startle value and that’s indicative of how all else is going to occur. Basically, they passed mightily in that our alarm range was maintained on a low setting.

In telling them before Rich got there and in adding a slight swearing in to secrecy we let go of our secret. The immediate need was that we didn’t know what would happen to our personalities the moment we’d taken off our shoes and socks and would be tramping along in the swampy muck of our little island. We won’t go into all that now because we think we might of said something of this earlier, but the point to be made is that Rich has always been challenged with our multiplicity though he’s taken the path of not complaining or making a big deal of it.

From the very first of meeting him – he’d known that we were at JVS as a client – who was at that point “suffering” with MPD. I think it was especially true to be of this form because we knew that it was a major deal in our husband leaving. I remember hearing a conversation between he and his mother where she was pushing him not to suffer through mental illness with me. Way back in 1990 it was the tip of the iceberg and in a protective mother manner she was making sure he knew it would be much much more as to being a problem down the line.

We’ve always thought that ourselves especially in the early years where there was SOOO much suicidal stuff, but in general – I think that part of Rich’s secrecy with me was in his protective stance in not wanting friends or family to upset me.

I’m pretty sure Rich and us had had the conversation and I knew his directive in not telling anyone about the MPD, but then I thought he was at a softer position with it especially because his daughter – so then the rest of the family would also know about it. So as it had come up naturally with the bare-footedness it was added to the mix.

I’d like to think other than the situation as being competitive – it’s more like us getting to know others’ in Rich’s life more sensibly than not.

Rich’s point of view was that it wasn’t built into his relationships that people should be meeting up from different factors of his life. He was under a great amount of stress we felt – that he self-imposed to keep all his world’s separate. I think fundamentally Rich’s daughter and Bob and his mother know this though they are all at their different points of dealing with it.

I think we are getting to a point we want to work through a little of the relationship with Bob and his girl in a more intimate way of everyone becoming more wholistic in our dealing with each other. I think I mean mostly by this term to be growing with it and more satisfyingly.

I’ve seen a lot of Bob over these past few months, and we didn’t have a bad foundation in that we knew of him for so many 15 years throughout the ice age through just sitting in as one ear-length away from phone conversations and asking as many questions as we could later.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I want to be in a relationship with Bob and Marcia – though I’m not nearly trusting the Marcia connection as much as the one I know that Bob has with Rich. I think having me in the equation makes it a lot easier for Bob – because like me being a woman around Rich’s Mom – we’re in a female relationship then to Marcia.

There was a meltdown point with Rich’s mom last night in her form too that included Marcia’s stake. That’ has to be figured out when we have more time to resolve those issues, but I think the main point that Rich and I got to on the way home was that Rich’s mom had used the situation with Marcia to release some of the stress of Rich refusing to talk to her about a family matter that might have been gossip or hearse between her and Rich’s daughter.

He was in fine Rich style, but I could tell what a burden it was to Rich’s mother, because I think what point whatever it was that she was leading up to was from the direction of a protective mother who had wanted to help her son out. From Rich’s viewpoint, he didn’t want to talk out loud as a group about anything personal happening between he and his wife and kids.

I think that it is easier for ANYONE in the world to talk about Rich and the set of problems he’s facing than it would be for Rich. Both his mother and I are more apt to talk – and I think here as traditional women talk more than Rich would like to allow. But, there’s some breaking in points with Rich in that he’s leaving his mother and us to talk together on our own and this kind of thing is naturally going to come out. He HAS to learn and trust us to some degree – us being his mom and us, but to another degree he’s still micro-managing things AND dealing with things he’s avoiding or getting to at a much slower pace.

The severity in the way he dealt with his mother told me a lot of how much stress the situation had been causing him. When Rich’s mother started – she was very face forward. I appreciate this in her. Rich stated no we aren’t going there and then the situation turned into a yelling match as fast as it had started. I tried to intercede in explaining the situation, but the true grit of it was between he and his mother so we stepped back out and after the flurry was over did our best to deescalate the situation, by focusing on the clearing of the table.

I think that Bud figured this much out too. I think a cool thing happened in that after the meltdown between Rich and his mother Rich had complained about having a very tiring day and needing to do work before getting to bed. At that the mother FINALLY complained she’d had a hard day too and would be cleaning his dinner dishes way into the night. Quickly I volunteered Rich and then after he accepted I volunteered to help him right before I was 360 degree volunteered through Bud.

Hehehe it crossed many paths very quickly. But, I’m starting to see a pattern here. It seems that in everyone’s relationship to Rich – we might be in a position of helping to break some ground. I think people are finding that we are a part of his life and they seem to some degree be accepting that, but then it seems as if Rich has been having some awkward relationships due to his fridgity of people meeting so in that respect – maybe because I understand things as much as I do – we can help the situation along … Like in a brief conversation with Rich afterward – and I know will also come up again with Rich’s mom later when she and I are together.

I’m going to have to face at that time that I abandoned her last night to Rich’s anger. But, I’ll explain it to her as we saw it happening. We tried to intercede, but then we realized that the mother and Rich were going through their own meltdown and that wasn’t the time and place for us to intercede. Rich caught his mother on a technical part – she had been talking negatively about someone else, but then she only fell to that position after he refuse her to speak directly as to her real concerns in that she was trying to help take care of her son.

There was another point happening as well in that she’d complained about the communication as to the cooking. Rich didn’t want to see that his mother had a problem with what happened because in his own eye he’d resolved. I told him simply afterward … did you hear her message … she’s only saying that when it comes to food or cooking no matter whose doing it that it has to go directly to her and not through Bud.

I gather from this that cooking really was and is still her prime means of relating to people and that it’s like her last stand and she’s not going to see it spoil in front of her because it would stake her sense of value in life. Rich undercut her unintentionally by calling them just a few hours before we’d gotten there to say he was BBQing and bringing in pork chops.

Rich had meant to not listen to me (his mental breakdown on the way home) in that I told him he needed to turn on his computer. In a male directions format – I suppose I’d insulted him in stating it and then later seeing something in direction before he’d come to it. He refused to turn her on, so he missed turn-offs and options toward getting to a grocery store on time to pick up meat.

Instead he stopped at a minor store and picked up some hot dogs. We asked him if he was going to at least grill them because the grilling was his whole point. This is like the 4th time he’s said he was going to cook with it and for some reason he’s given up before he got started each time and this wasn’t any different. He’d gotten over tired and hungry – and I think this was (I’m just now thinking) was his way of letting his mother take care of him.

But, he didn’t mention what was happening to his mother – to I believe avoid her reprimanding him on dinner plans. He didn’t mention to Bud that I was with him (bringing back the boat) and he didn’t mention to her directly that his plans to get pork chops had fallen through. Rich’s mother must have known this much about him, because like we’d figured she’d gone out of her way to make sure there was something on the table.

When I saw that Rich had brought from the store the hot dogs, which I consider to be way minus a major meal – we argued with him … he was saying it was too much work to start the grill – and we were beside ourselves because he’s said he was going to do it, and then he said his mother could just boil them, or better yet microwave them. Oh man I was beside myself – I couldn’t say all the words that would make this situation come out right because I knew that his mother would never let that happen that she’d serve microwave hotdogs to guest.

She’s pretty amazing as to cooking well and as too many things.

Rich and us don’t have t yell at each other to know when we’re beside ourselves.

He said after parking the boat – here you take these in referring to the hot dogs. And, I was like ME???!! You gotta be kidding I’m soooo against all this why would you think to put it on me?

So the hot dogs sat on the console. By the time he parked the boat though I knew it was going to be me – and better yet – would come better from me to be brining in the hot dogs. His point was to supplement whatever his mom had made, because there was some indication through Bud there wasn’t enough.

When I came into the kitchen and after I’d given her my kiss I had to explain the hot dogs. She was as I thought a bit insulted by the deal. We explained how the situation had happened and that Rich had intended to do cooking on the grill, but those plans had fallen flat and he’d figured without saying anything that she was going to be able to fix the situation.

She really is a master mind at that and she carried through. She had a wonderful meal with one piece of some kind of delicious meet with some kind of very, very good gravy and she used that skillet to take in the hot dogs. She also had made fresh mashed potato and she made salad and had asparagus. She also had back up leftover pizza, which fortunately we didn’t have to use. But, man was she ready!

This didn’t get Rich out of being scolded as to talking to her and not losing meal plans going through Bud. I think that Rich was trying to protect his ability to be taking care of all where he’d fallen through and in this particular situation it was the mom taking care.

In the meltdown point, she’d covered a few points in that he was trying to manage her and tell her how it was when she had her own reality. This was a point we also argue with Rich. But, there was some sense of hope that we’d all come through this better in the future because we now had more people to deal with things more soundly. I don’t think I’m necessarily sound, but I’ve always looked forward to being with Rich’s mom because I knew beside his daughter, she was the one woman who was always going to love him as much if not more than me. This is proving to be true.

We told Rich a few more things after egos were calmed down … the one I’m remembering now is that Rich’s mom talked last night about what was she going to do the year after this. I wasn’t sure why she was focusing on the next year, but I asked the question. She said that she’s aware she’s losing ground and has to plan for being less apt.

She’s pretty direct in what she says and I have absolutely no reason to doubt what she says is what is real for her. Even when she tosses up her hands in dealing with so many men. I think she’s working through things with Rich’s daughter and that I’m a part of some of that, but she’s dealing with Rich’s two boys one of which hasn’t returned calls in at least 4 days, and she’s dealing with her own two sons, and she’s dealing with her husband. AND, we all know that sometimes men can be hard to deal with. *sigh* Luckily they’re so gosh darn sexy!

I brought up to Rich that we would need to be having conversations like these – as to his mother’s care not necessarily at that moment, but that it is very important to his mother. I can see already that she’s not going to want to become a burden, but she’s worried about her well-being.

Rich has been going on the hope that if one of the two were going to die it would be his mother before Bud, because Bud is much more able to take care of himself. There would have to be made assurances that nobody is going to interfere with the income off of her savings they are using to survive and nobody should interfere with him living in their home.

BUT, the point is that if Bud were to die first then she would not be able to maintain a life for herself without him. I believe she was indicating that she was “watching out not to have falls.” I asked for clarity on this, but she remained pretty elusive. We are feeling cautioned though and this should have to be watched more clearly.

She usually talks though honestly about a few things that have happened since we last talked in cautioning us as to her condition. She talked about black bugs all over the place … meaning she knew she was due to her blindness dropping food on the floor. She wasn’t clear to what type of bugs, but that it might have been the kind that hang out in flour and thereabouts.

Later we told Rich that the cookies she’d packed for me to take had maybe been affected by these bugs. Each had argued why they should or should not come home without outwardly tying the possibility of a bug problem on them. After things calmed down and before we got home we explained the situation to Rich. We had taken the cookies so they could be processed though, but as much as we love cookies the better decision would be to throw them away.

Likewise a situation had come up with dessert. Rich chose before getting too full on asparagus brought out late in the meal that we’d take the pudding over the pies for dessert. I was full from dinner myself, but knew it was the right thing to have dessert, plus this is enjoyable to us.

After having a bite or two and being the only one to be eating the pudding, we came to the thought that it had spoiled. We figured too that it had been around since the last time out – so that kinda confirmed our thinking on it. We had to deal with it and it was a little tough, but we decided to trust the situation. Bud sits to our left and we kind of pushed the plate toward him and said that we couldn’t eat it. The Mom caught that something was happening with the pudding and Bud said out loud Ann said she doesn’t like it.

That was our cue to come out with it. We told her we thought it had gotten bad. We needed to pay close attention to the part where as a cook she would feel bad about serving something she shouldn’t have. But, she had no way of knowing beforehand because she hadn’t tried it.

It turned out that was the right thing to do … she was frustrated, but she knew it was better that I say something rather than suffer through the consequences. In this respect I believe she saved face with the cookies, but knew I would do what I needed to do with them.

I think all of this is really in preparation to her dealing with her old age. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind I want her to be alive as humanly possible and even thinking thoughts other is bringing tears to my eyes and what Rich will go through is unfathomable. But, I think that Rich’s mom knows he has to go through this conversation and advanced planning and that it might be easier with me than not because he has such difficulty handling things like this.

It’s very clear the mother thinks it’s the proper time to go through this while she’s still lucid and able to do so. She’s fiercely independent though is realizing she’s having trouble and I think this is something in her and Bud’s softer time they are already dealing with on their own. I think the acknowledgement of problems is something that she’s coming to and is healthy, but to fight alone her problems and the problems that Rich and others will have at the thought of losing her has to be something we all need to get through.

I’d like to think personally that when the worry part is over for her, she will be more relaxed and at ease with the years she has left. So we’re going to be working it at that angle. I also know that I barely know the woman in consideration of the others in her life. I know she likes me though and I’m willing to work for that place of honor.

Wow! I didn’t mean to get this lost in my thoughts and perhaps it was a necessary journey, but we need to be moving forward here too … I don’t think I’m ready or willing to summarize it too quickly, but I’m very grateful for the weekend and for the time with Rich and even vicariously through Bob. I think it not often said, but between Rich and Bob there are a lot of conversations in any given day.

I had to scold Rich for not answering his calls to Bob when I found out there’d been 3 calls to his one AND that Bob had told Rich he felt he was no longer loved by Rich because he wasn’t calling back. Rich gets to thinking whichever way he’s thinking toward his friend and the best thing to do is just stay out of it, but it’s pretty amazing how the two communicate.

Sometimes I think that Rich doesn’t call back because Bob is pushing him in one direction or another too much. Bob must know that when Rich is ready to talk to him he’ll pick up the phone and I know the world is right when the two guys are talking. I think both of them have some young kid’s problems of pouting, but then with us and our meltdowns who are we to talk!

To be relating to others in Rich’s life feels like to be just the most amazing thing after soooo many years just hearing about the relationships through Rich’s lens. In relation to that things are going very quickly. I can understand why Rich keeps putting down his breaks. Given the time, Rich can figure out anything and in certain things he’s very quick to figure out, but relationships are harder for him. I can though appreciate that he’s got some of the gosh darn best relationships and just be thankful if they allow me to take a part that’s more visible.

Maybe here is where we go back to the start where we are telling Bob and Marcia about the Multiple personalities.

We had told them not to tell Rich we told them, but to be fair to Rich we obviously told him the first day that it happened that we’d told the other two. This gives everyone a little breathing space in figuring out how to handle it. I think I’d mentioned before how impressed I was with Bob and Marcia for taking it on in good stride the first day.

There were a few things we saw toward that. I think due to Bob’s nature he’s probably incredibly curious as to how it works, though he’ll most likely want to make sure Rich is ok, and that we’re not going to hurt Rich because of it, due to it or any manner of it. I think we’ve built a little trust here and I think this weekend was good for all of us.

Rich mentioned last night that I was probably now Bob’s ideal woman because he’d been looking for a mate all this time who might not only put up with the fishing but that might enjoy it with him. There’s always got to be no doubt that I’m Rich’s woman first, but there’s no harm with the jealous nature between them to let Rich win out with this one. Hehehe I see this to my advantage because I’ve always wanted as my lover to know that Rich is and deserves the best and part of that is being the best me so I don’t put on him what he doesn’t deserve.

There was a time between last Friday and leaving the next morning for fishing that Bob was on the phone with Rich and he must have said let me talk to Ann because Rich handed to me the phone without me knowing what was happening.

I just remember the part about being so amazed I was talking to Rich and I recall something about him telling me not to fish in the weeds. Now since then I realize this to be a joke because Rich says that he’s pulling our leg and that fishing in the weeds is the BEST place to fish. I haven’t thought of how to handle it yet, but Rich is playing out his hand as to seeing I believe where we stand as to having a good sense of humor.

I think he also is treading a loose wire in that he doesn’t yet know us enough to know what would make a good joke or not in consideration of our multiplicity. The first day he was already checking out our vulnerable side - The parts that are easily duped that is. Lordy we all know how many parts of this this area takes in!

There is a fun game going on with Rich and Bob and the guys from fishing. It has to be said here that Bob is like an electrical rod where everything goes through him … I’m finding with guys they are always setting each other up taking themselves up and down and in-between become such fierce allies that heaven forbid anything that come between them!

The game is that Rich was being skunked and now this weekend he’s caught two fish – and most of a third – well and most of two. Anyway … Bob had helped spread the rumors that Rich was fishless … his boat is red so they had been calling him the red baron, but after not catching fish in a couple outings they were calling him red AND barren.

Well naturally Rich has to deal with this. The one part I figure as to being a guy is to TAKE all the guys ribbing and a lot of Rich’s part is that he and Bob are SOOOO close that Bob uses the guys to tease him when he can. So now Rich has to save face. He came up with a way of dealing with the guys, but he came up with it in part WITH Bob. So no he has to include Bob in his plans while hoping Bob doesn’t give away the store.

Man is being a guy sneaky and hard! I think the two things that Rich has going for him is the four plastic fish I picked up at my sisters. He’s thinking of using this as his box fish if necessary, and then he wants to build up he’s got a new secret weapon and he’s planning on bringin in my Zebco 33. Basically, it means Rich is teasing himself in having the fish finding beeper on his rod.

We’re hoping this business gets along before Bob busts open the secret. He’s NOT one that can hold on for too long. He’s always going to be on the upper side of a joke IF possible no matter which side the joke falls on. So, we’ll have to see how that all goes. I hope he allows Rich the time to pull it off.

As to the multiple part, I’m not sure thinking of it now that Bob might have believed me because he could be thinking that Rich set me up to be saying it.

I’ve asked Rich a couple times if Bob has mentioned it and he hasn’t … so we’ll have to see how that goes. There were a couple obvious tricks he’d played on us trying to see how gullible we were, but then on the other hand I’d felt a spurn from Marcia while in the boat, because she said some kind of slur of not having parts that were immature.

We know that she’s just dealing with a hard thing in relations to all that she’s dealing with on her own woman issues. No woman is going to want another woman to have an advantage over you. But, my guess by the way she talks is that she plays at least the three men over one another. She’s got Bob her boyfriend, and then someone her husband, and then someone who is her work partner and lives above her and she’s doing all three of those relationships, which we are guessing has it’s perks and a whole lot of trouble in between.

We say this in the same respect that Rich’s mother complains about having so many men in her life.

We heard a comedian say it a couple nights ago on CNN with Larry King. Basically, a woman needs 4 men in her life. There’s the ugly guy that just wants to hang out so much he’ll do all the odd details to make himself handy. There’s the old guy that is able to give points of wisdom when you’re in trouble – particularly in areas of security financial and other. Then there’s the studly guy to take care of all those obvious things, and last there’s the gay guy so you can have someone who will talk to you.

I think Marcia is doing it literally in having all these avenues of one HOPED for man where in some respects maybe we are multiple women trying to BE just one perfect woman. I hadn’t thought of it before, but this seems almost funny enough to be real!

There’s so much psychology to be figuring out how to meet all needs.

Hmm, that’s funny … something occurred to me that Dr. Marvin said last week. It had to do with letting Rich off the hook with being the one that has to always fix things. I bet that’s a major piece of psychology and his role in being the center cog in each person’s world. From this perspective it’s really a big deal to be in the lives of his children, mother and best friend.

Wow … really good insight here. Maybe this is a role that Rich had all the time growing up. Rich’s mother was always independent, but then there are things that most like Rich had to be responsible for … I’m thinking here in an alcoholic’s life as the … shoot what’s the word – the person that allows all the stuff to continue by not putting his foot down. It starts with an i. Not inhibitor, iniater, no … hmm, it’ll come to me.

But, it would seem from a Dr. Marvin’s perspective that if I can handle – me being the only one I can change – me then Rich is going to be able to step out of the role thinking he has to fix everything. I had to work very hard this weekend at not being helpless. I know that Rich and Bob weren’t having the conversation directly while he knew I was there, but it will still come up because Bob’s so curious. I think instinctively, we must give out vibes about how helpless we’ve been.

I’ve pushed hard that people realize that we’ve financially for the most part taken care of ourselves. I do pay our bills not Rich! Well, when I as ANYone is paying the bills. Thing is Rich’s wife shouldn’t have to worry about me having gotten the families income. NOR for that matter Rich’s kid!

Rich’s mother is the first to ask the direct questions – literally she’s asked how that all works out. This weekend she thought to ask why it was that I broke up with my husband she’s also asked and Bud’s indicated something as to I should be taking on more of the cooking. One of my points is to say – I’ve NEVER intended to take over the roles as ANYone elses MOTHER! HMPF!

Unfortunately that sometimes equates to I’m not taking care of my guy. But, boy – it was nice when Rich had the fishing question out loud. I may not be cooking, but I really did put out as to Rich’s fishing world! Thing was as much effort as I put into it … I saw Rich putting into it myself. Here is where we reference back to the point of him buying me my own rod. I know understand this to be as much of Bob’s idea as anyone’s – but MY way of looking at it? If we can all help each other in making our own lifes and that of others that much better … Well … why the hell not! WooHOO!!!

posted by Ann Marie @ 6/01/2009 12:41:00 PM Comments: 3