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Aug. 7th, 2003 08:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Make business your first priority over all, even your boyfriend. Then when you are 20 years down the line you will know what true happiness is. When you're free and can buy what ever you want.
That's advice that someone gave me on one of those search engine forums I'm so sadly addicted to (I can justify perusing them at work, in a pinch, but if the boss catches me on livejournal, I have absolutely no excuse...).
So, I thought I'd address that here. In the actual thread, I'm going to respond far more conciliatorily. I can see what he's getting at but given my actual situation, it's entirely wrong.
So perhaps I'll philosophize over my own situation a bit here, to get it out of my oh-so-wordy system.
Last night I woke up at about 2 in terrible pain. It was just muscle cramps, but far more severe than any I'd ever had before (first day of menstrual cycle-- but the tyranny has ended, I took my first b.c. pill this morning and shall be free! But, a topic for another post, certainly). I was in so much pain I was actually whimpering. Dave woke up after I'd staggered to the bathroom for advil (I took one of each painkiller in the medicine cabinet in the hopes that they'd work, as well as a multivitamin because someone once told me that they help in muscle cramps-- especially B vitamins) and asked what was wrong. I told him and he said to let him know if there was anything he could do, knowing fine well there wasn't. I simply whimpered, and he put his arm around me and kissed my shoulder and drifted off to sleep again. But every time I moved he woke again at least enough to caress my shoulder or do something to let me know he still remembered that I was suffering and that his offer of help still stood. Eventually I fell asleep and I woke up feeling fine this morning (and secure in the knowledge that I shall crush my foolish body's resistance with chemistry). I got up and took a shower and when I came out, he was sitting on the couch, all rumpled and in his too-large underwear, with the laptop open and our favorite online cartoons queued up in Safari's tabs. "Funnies?" he said, same as he says every morning, and I sat down beside him and dried my hair while he went through all the funnies with me and we laughed together at the punch lines. Just like we do every morning. Then he went and took a shower and I got dressed and went to the kitchen to make our lunches for today (peanut butter sandwiches. Grim; we're scraping the bottom of the barrel this week. We'll have a massive grocery trip next week, though, no fear. We shall eat like kings). He came in, dressed, as I was composing the usual obscene magnetic-poetry freeverse poem for the inside lid of his metal Superman lunchbox, and told me I was most definitely skinnier (this has been going on for six months now, ever since I decided to go on a diet for Lent. I've lost ten pounds but most of it was muscle when the weather got so crappy I couldn't walk to work anymore. Stupid weather hasn't cleared up in months). He's very good at dutifully telling me I'm skinnier when I seem to need to hear it. Good boy.
We discussed finances briefly as I opened my credit card bill and nearly died of horror. But the plane tickets are on it, and his boss paid for his plane tickets because they freaking love him there, so he's going to be nice and split the dough with me and still pay for half the remaining amount. So I'm flying to San Diego and back for $180! Not bad. I owe him over $500 in rent, and about $100 in other assorted purchases where he had money on him and I didn't. Factoring in the gas & electric, groceries, internet, phone, and rent, and the fact that I bought him the wireless card for his Newton and the Metro-North tickets the last two times we went to the City, I'll owe him probably $200 after all is said and done. Not too bad; I might even have it, this time.
I couldn't afford to live on my own. I can cook for two, but not one. We spend very little on food. And he never asks me for anything towards the car, though on long trips if I'm driving it I buy the gas when he's not looking. I couldn't live anywhere near so cheaply on my own. I also couldn't afford to have Internet at all. Which means I couldn't try to do freelance work online.
So holding money sacred above all things just wouldn't work out for me. (You were wondering when I'd get there, weren't you?) He's not exactly a sugar daddy, but he makes a good portion of my life possible financially-- I don't know where I'd be without him, especially given how many months he supported me while I was looking for this job. (Six? I more or less lived at his apartment for about 6 months while I was looking for the job. I bought my own food and gas, but he never asked me for rent, and he usually paid for drinks and movies and the like. And again, Internet.) But it's not that holding money sacred is anathema to my existence. No, it's just totally irrelevant to my existence. My parents never had any money, and I never noticed and certainly never suffered for it. At this point I don't even see where choices exist between my personal life and money. It may become an issue indirectly if I ever want to go back to grad school; chances are small that I'd find a grad school in a location where Dave could easily get a job, and so I'd have to choose between him and academia. Academia and money are entirely different concepts, as well, so that doesn't even go anywhere towards advancing the argument. I could see perhaps if Dave wanted to relocate, and I had to choose between continuing my career here and following him. Well, seeing as I don't have a career here, that's hardly a choice; I hate this job and would gladly relocate as long as I could find something tolerable there that paid me enough to live. If I had a great job that was advancing me up the promotion ladder at a blistering pace, then there's that for sure to take into consideration.
But, on the whole, Dave makes me happier than more money would. I don't live happily on my own. I was independent for a long time but I just need more contact with people than that. Unfortunately, I'm an antisocial little bastard, so I need only people I can tolerate to be in close contact. Dave fits the bill because he's also an antisocial little bastard and we work well on that level. We rarely push each other's buttons, he knows to be politely interested when I'm ranting about something, I can talk to him about anything, I know to be raptly interested when he's ranting about something (his rants are more interesting than mine) and we're happy just sitting next to each other not really saying anything.
And reading the funnies together on the couch every morning while I dry my hair and he rubs the sleepies out of his eyes. (And I have to mention the haiku epic he wrote me about the Superman lunchbox.)
I complain about money but I can't see how having more of it would make up for not having Dave. I couldn't buy that kind of companionship. Sure I'd love to be able to afford to eat whatever I wanted and go wherever I wanted and having a car of my own would be great, but I have plenty of spaghetti and a nice apartment to eat it in, and Dave'll probably drive me anywhere I really want to go. I'd love the time to work on my projects-- the Grandma one is months and months overdue, and I really need to do a project on Grandma Shaver while she's still around and sharp as a tack, and the Dad project needs an overhaul, and Blue wants a sequel, and The Great American Novel will never be written at this rate (only 400 pages long in ten years?? And what there is needs a rewrite...) And I really do plan to start my own freelance business, once I can find a market and get a website working. I haven't got the time for any of it. If I had a million dollars, I could take the time to do it all. But then I'd probably have other things to worry about.
So I'd rather have Dave and struggle through things as they come. If I end up without Dave, it won't be because I loved money more.
That's advice that someone gave me on one of those search engine forums I'm so sadly addicted to (I can justify perusing them at work, in a pinch, but if the boss catches me on livejournal, I have absolutely no excuse...).
So, I thought I'd address that here. In the actual thread, I'm going to respond far more conciliatorily. I can see what he's getting at but given my actual situation, it's entirely wrong.
So perhaps I'll philosophize over my own situation a bit here, to get it out of my oh-so-wordy system.
Last night I woke up at about 2 in terrible pain. It was just muscle cramps, but far more severe than any I'd ever had before (first day of menstrual cycle-- but the tyranny has ended, I took my first b.c. pill this morning and shall be free! But, a topic for another post, certainly). I was in so much pain I was actually whimpering. Dave woke up after I'd staggered to the bathroom for advil (I took one of each painkiller in the medicine cabinet in the hopes that they'd work, as well as a multivitamin because someone once told me that they help in muscle cramps-- especially B vitamins) and asked what was wrong. I told him and he said to let him know if there was anything he could do, knowing fine well there wasn't. I simply whimpered, and he put his arm around me and kissed my shoulder and drifted off to sleep again. But every time I moved he woke again at least enough to caress my shoulder or do something to let me know he still remembered that I was suffering and that his offer of help still stood. Eventually I fell asleep and I woke up feeling fine this morning (and secure in the knowledge that I shall crush my foolish body's resistance with chemistry). I got up and took a shower and when I came out, he was sitting on the couch, all rumpled and in his too-large underwear, with the laptop open and our favorite online cartoons queued up in Safari's tabs. "Funnies?" he said, same as he says every morning, and I sat down beside him and dried my hair while he went through all the funnies with me and we laughed together at the punch lines. Just like we do every morning. Then he went and took a shower and I got dressed and went to the kitchen to make our lunches for today (peanut butter sandwiches. Grim; we're scraping the bottom of the barrel this week. We'll have a massive grocery trip next week, though, no fear. We shall eat like kings). He came in, dressed, as I was composing the usual obscene magnetic-poetry freeverse poem for the inside lid of his metal Superman lunchbox, and told me I was most definitely skinnier (this has been going on for six months now, ever since I decided to go on a diet for Lent. I've lost ten pounds but most of it was muscle when the weather got so crappy I couldn't walk to work anymore. Stupid weather hasn't cleared up in months). He's very good at dutifully telling me I'm skinnier when I seem to need to hear it. Good boy.
We discussed finances briefly as I opened my credit card bill and nearly died of horror. But the plane tickets are on it, and his boss paid for his plane tickets because they freaking love him there, so he's going to be nice and split the dough with me and still pay for half the remaining amount. So I'm flying to San Diego and back for $180! Not bad. I owe him over $500 in rent, and about $100 in other assorted purchases where he had money on him and I didn't. Factoring in the gas & electric, groceries, internet, phone, and rent, and the fact that I bought him the wireless card for his Newton and the Metro-North tickets the last two times we went to the City, I'll owe him probably $200 after all is said and done. Not too bad; I might even have it, this time.
I couldn't afford to live on my own. I can cook for two, but not one. We spend very little on food. And he never asks me for anything towards the car, though on long trips if I'm driving it I buy the gas when he's not looking. I couldn't live anywhere near so cheaply on my own. I also couldn't afford to have Internet at all. Which means I couldn't try to do freelance work online.
So holding money sacred above all things just wouldn't work out for me. (You were wondering when I'd get there, weren't you?) He's not exactly a sugar daddy, but he makes a good portion of my life possible financially-- I don't know where I'd be without him, especially given how many months he supported me while I was looking for this job. (Six? I more or less lived at his apartment for about 6 months while I was looking for the job. I bought my own food and gas, but he never asked me for rent, and he usually paid for drinks and movies and the like. And again, Internet.) But it's not that holding money sacred is anathema to my existence. No, it's just totally irrelevant to my existence. My parents never had any money, and I never noticed and certainly never suffered for it. At this point I don't even see where choices exist between my personal life and money. It may become an issue indirectly if I ever want to go back to grad school; chances are small that I'd find a grad school in a location where Dave could easily get a job, and so I'd have to choose between him and academia. Academia and money are entirely different concepts, as well, so that doesn't even go anywhere towards advancing the argument. I could see perhaps if Dave wanted to relocate, and I had to choose between continuing my career here and following him. Well, seeing as I don't have a career here, that's hardly a choice; I hate this job and would gladly relocate as long as I could find something tolerable there that paid me enough to live. If I had a great job that was advancing me up the promotion ladder at a blistering pace, then there's that for sure to take into consideration.
But, on the whole, Dave makes me happier than more money would. I don't live happily on my own. I was independent for a long time but I just need more contact with people than that. Unfortunately, I'm an antisocial little bastard, so I need only people I can tolerate to be in close contact. Dave fits the bill because he's also an antisocial little bastard and we work well on that level. We rarely push each other's buttons, he knows to be politely interested when I'm ranting about something, I can talk to him about anything, I know to be raptly interested when he's ranting about something (his rants are more interesting than mine) and we're happy just sitting next to each other not really saying anything.
And reading the funnies together on the couch every morning while I dry my hair and he rubs the sleepies out of his eyes. (And I have to mention the haiku epic he wrote me about the Superman lunchbox.)
I complain about money but I can't see how having more of it would make up for not having Dave. I couldn't buy that kind of companionship. Sure I'd love to be able to afford to eat whatever I wanted and go wherever I wanted and having a car of my own would be great, but I have plenty of spaghetti and a nice apartment to eat it in, and Dave'll probably drive me anywhere I really want to go. I'd love the time to work on my projects-- the Grandma one is months and months overdue, and I really need to do a project on Grandma Shaver while she's still around and sharp as a tack, and the Dad project needs an overhaul, and Blue wants a sequel, and The Great American Novel will never be written at this rate (only 400 pages long in ten years?? And what there is needs a rewrite...) And I really do plan to start my own freelance business, once I can find a market and get a website working. I haven't got the time for any of it. If I had a million dollars, I could take the time to do it all. But then I'd probably have other things to worry about.
So I'd rather have Dave and struggle through things as they come. If I end up without Dave, it won't be because I loved money more.
