A Girl...

Happy Co-dependence Day No More

I hope everyone had a good Independence Day. Mine was calm and low-key and refreshingly without drama or incident. The Fourth of July is historically troublesome for Ethan and I, as the first four years we dated while living in Utah, I don't think we saw fireworks together once. He was always off on a late-season ski trip or hanging out with other people. Not a big deal, but still kind of sad when you think these were missed opportunities to snuggle under a blanket on the grass together. Oh well.

But those missed opportunities were nothing compared to the Fourths we had once we moved to California. One year after another, Ethan's parents (and once also his brother) invited themselves out to visit us whether we welcomed them or not. Now, have I mentioned before that his mom and his brother hate me? Well, they do. And no, "hate" is not too strong a word. The truth is he can hardly talk to them without getting a lecture on how he should break up with me because they don't like me. (I'll go out on a really thick and sturdy limb and say the reason why is because they feel threatened, but for the sake of propriety, I'll just leave it at that.) And keep in mind that all this "advice" is coming from people who have no business telling anyone how to be in a healthy relationship. It's a short and simple story and I could fill you all in in a matter of seconds, but it's a can of worms I'm loathe to open for fear all the little worms will join together like the Thundercats (or was it Voltron?) to form one giant worm that will crush me and everything in its path, and being that I'm a little hungover, I'm not in the mood, so you will get no more details on that front.

So anyway, my Fourth was nice. I spent the morning doing some editing for work (deadlines, deadlines, deadlines), and watched a couple Miyazaki films (see the sidebar) so I can return the DVDs I've been borrowing for about six months. I also went to the grocery store (to get o.j. for my sore froggy throat!), where I carried one hundred and five pounds of groceries in a little basket held in the now-practically-paralyzed-with-pain crook of my elbow because (1) all the carts were being used and (2) even if there were carts available, I don't think I'd have grabbed one because I am constitutionally unable to drive the cart without mentally morphing into a 38-year-old soccer mom, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but isn't what you want to feel like when you're a 25-year-old single(!) woman. (Oh, and did the checker ID me for my six-pack of Smirnoff Ice Twister V (raspberry--dee-lish!)? No, she didn't. *sigh*)

The point of this story is that said Smirnoff Ice Twister V was not purchased so I could sit alone in the apartment and drink myself fruity but so I could gain entrance to a party that evening. I drove my little self over the Bay Bridge into San Francisco (you have no idea what a big deal that is for me), where K and T, (the pregnant friends, aka the rich friends) were throwing a party on the roof of their new house. We had a view of the city hung with fog and could see several fireworks shows across the bay in Oakland and Berkeley and Alameda. It sorta sucked when I realized that of the fifteen people there, I was the only uncoupled one, but I wasn't about to let that ruin my night. And in fact, the night turned out to be just fine indeed. After the party people had all left, I stayed up with Kevin, the host, and talked about "certain issues" while he burned me three Nick Drake CDs (the first major contribution to the boy-with-guitar garden I'm cultivating). Kevin is a friend of Ethan's from the history department and an honest-to-goodness great guy, and it was nice to talk to someone who wasn't afraid to give me advice (read: tell me what to do). Granted, I'm not the best at taking advice and, frankly, I usually don't need it, but it was nice for once to have an outsider's perspective on things and to feel like someone was not taking sides and trying to validate one person to the detriment of the other. One huge gold star the size of Texas goes to Kevin.

And one huge gold star the size of Wyoming goes to me for finding my way out of the city and back across the Bay Bridge at 2 am. I am the wind beneath my wings.