There is one problem with retirement other than money....

 

I have touched on this theme before - if I have no reason to get up in the morning, I simply do not do so.  And I've been doing this a lot lately, as I have no energy to get up and do things.

Since I decided to stop working, I have only gotten up early if I had something to do.  Otherwise, I'd wake up late and stay up late.  There is no routine I have to follow, and I am much more relaxed.  Yet, I'm afraid of becoming a couch potato like my dad was, and then being unable to take care of himself in his old age.

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Last night, I chatted with RQS and she said that she needed another pedicure and asked if we could go to the nail salon when she arrives for the weekend.  Since I wanted to get my nails done as well, I said that if we did so on a Friday, I'd have to be in Marian Mode all weekend.  Knowing that she likes to see Mario, I figured that this would get her to think about doing the pedicure on Sunday before she leaves for her place.

Even though it is left unsaid, I know I am walking a tightrope as I expose RQS to my Marian presentation.  I always want her to know that Mario is always there for her, no matter how I'm presenting at the moment.  One of the things I learned as I examined the failure of my last relationship is that we didn't communicate enough.  XGFJ always thought that a hint would be enough for me to know what is going on in her head, while I knew that important things had to be bluntly stated.  In my current relationship, I make sure to "reward" RQS for speaking her mind - especially if it's not an easy thing to say.

So far, encouraging RQS to be open with her feelings has worked for me, as well as the slow approach I've taken to getting her used to my Marian presentation.  Hopefully, things will keep working out well for the two of us - she's a good reason for me to enjoy waking up in the morning in retirement....

I woke up and saw something weird.

This morning, I received a very strange message from FH:

stop stalking my page
you can tell who is looking at your page
i don't like it

When I looked at her Facebook page, she had unfriended me.  Here's the quandary - I never look at her Facebook page, except when she posts a picture that she wants me to "Like".

So I wonder if she's been looking at each and every one of my Facebook friends, then examining anything posted.  If so, then I can guarantee that she is not the type of person I want to be with for the long term.  It's bad enough that she focuses on my heritage, as if I deny part of my background (which I don't).  But she never seems to be happy with me.  Or, at least, I feel this way when she sounds disappointed when uncontrollable things go wrong (such as an accident that causes a major traffic jam) causing me to be late to arrive.  

If she found this website by hunting through every one of my links, then so be it.  But I'd have liked (and deserved) a better explanation than what she posted. 

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Later on in the day, we exchanged a couple of text messages.  She sees me at the top of her "bubbles" (the icons for contacts and for chats, as I'd call them) and thinks that I'm always on her FB page.  I hate breaking the news to her, but I rarely look at her site and will post "likes" on her posts when they are mirrored to my news feed.

Right now, this is not a big deal to me whatever happens.  I think she was very tired when she made her first posts, and didn't know much about how FB ranks contacts.  (Heck, I still get my ex girlfriend coming up near the contact list after 5 years of us being together, followed by over a year of being apart.)

PS: I talked with FH later on, and she noted she was a little woozy after taking her sleeping pills, as well as being a little confused.  So, we will likely try and go to the restaurant we wanted to go to last week and try for another nice meal.

Thanksgiving - And nothing got in the way to mar it except traffic.

I'm not sure of what I can and should say about today.  Nothing bad happened.  But part of me would rather have stayed in Westchester and taken advantage of an invite I had to spend the day with my friends from Game Night.

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Not sleeping well last night, I set the alarms to get me moving around 11 - and slept through my favorite TV show of the day.  I prefer the fictional courtroom drama of Perry Mason to the real life political drama going on today.  There is a part of me that always wants to see justice done, and real life doesn't provide enough of that for my taste.  By the time I finally got out the door, it was 1 pm, and I was about an hour late.

My drive to Long Island was uneventful until I reached the Bronx.  From there, traffic slowed to a crawl, and I was forced to get on side streets to make it to the bridge.  Once I was across the bridge, I went back onto side streets again to make it to my brother's place, arriving there at 3 pm, when I was expected at 2.  This was not a problem, as my brother had already picked up my dad from the nursing home, and the turkey was almost cooked.

We chatted about many things, and brought my dad back to the nursing home around 8.  One area of discussion covered addiction, choice of mate, and how relationships flounder. And that gave me an opening to discuss my criteria for choosing my late wife, my issues with Ex-GF-M, and some of the issues GFJ and I are having with each other.  (By my mention of complacency in the relationship, I avoided the need to talk about my transgender nature.) He touched on similar issues he had with his wife.  And we both (at different times) brought up our problems with my niece to make sure that she knows when to cut and run from a dysfunctional relationship.

Eventually, it was time to go home. And I hit only one small traffic jam on the way home.  On the whole, it was a good day - especially, since my brother was able to open up to me and that I didn't have to see my sister in law as expected.  (Nothing against her, save that her presence would have gotten in the way of my chat with my brother.)

Missing a monthly meeting at Arts Westchester

Sometimes, I screw up things on my schedule and forget appointments.  Today was one of those days.  This was the day that the monthly Arts Westchester arts ambassadors (read: volunteers) meeting was held.  And due to the confusion that's been messing around with my life lately, I totally forgot about the meeting until mid afternoon.  AARGH!

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Last night, I put on my CPAP mask around 2 am, but didn't get to sleep until (at least) 3 am.  When I awoke at 7:45, I didn't feel as if I had enough sleep. And nothing was going to help - even if I laid in bed for another couple of hours.  So, I got out of bed without checking my schedule for the day and took it easy.

Eventually, I decided to look for my Freshly delivery - and it was not on my landing where I expected it.  So I got dressed and found it in front of the mailboxes.  I was too tired to complain, so I brought the box upstairs, loaded the meals into the refrigerator, and then went out to my car to clean it up for Thursday.  (HWV and another board member are going with me in my car to a Restaurant Week dinner.)  It amazed me that I found so much garbage in the back of my car, as I dumped three overflowing supermarket bags into the dumpster, and filled the Freshly box with stuff I planned to keep.  By the time I had the chance to look at my email, I realized that I had screwed up - I had missed the monthly meeting.  I contacted the volunteer coordinator to let her know what happened.  And then, I went inside to get ready for dinner.

GFJ and I are still talking.  Over dinner, she mentioned that something I said triggered thoughts of what the real problems are.  But I won't go into them here.  All I will say is that they are valid issues, and if I had been in her shoes, I might be feeling the same way that she is right now.  At least, we will be able to maintain communications between us, and see what happens in the future.

When I got home, I got an email from the art gallery I interviewed at last week.  They chose another candidate for the position.  And strangely, that makes me glad.  I wasn't the right person for the position, and they knew it.  But I did make a suggestion that I hope helps them in the future - they need a floater employee who can fill in when one of the other two people need to take off.  Who knows, maybe they'd consider me for the floater position if it is created.

Waking up early on a Sunday morning.

Since GFJ dropped her bombshell last weekend, I haven't been sleeping that well.  And I was very surprised that I could wake up early, chat with GFJ by text, and then go to church for the first time in a couple of years. 

But I am getting ahead of myself....

Last night, it was the "Fall Back" part of the year - just as the clock struck 3 am, my phone shifted back to standard time and now read 2 am.  And that's when I put my CPAP mask on and tried to go to sleep.  Several hours later, I realized that it was a little before 8 am, and I had the option of going to church.

Looking again at my phone, I saw that GFJ sent a message.  I figured that I would reply, and that got us into a chat.  She'd like to see me again for dinner tomorrow - and that doesn't bode well for a relationship already on life support.  So, I have to gird myself for further potential feelings of grief and lose a night out with a meetup group.  (Why couldn't her timing be better?) By the time our chat was done, I realized that I could make it to church.  So I got showered and prepared to attack the world as Marian.

Leaving the house at the same time as my neighbor, I knew that I was going to get to the church before her.  It's a nice feeling to know that people remember and accept me there, as I was greeted by one of the church's more active members when I arrived.  After the service, I had some nice chats with several people there before retreating to have lunch at an Ossining diner.

I sat down at my seat, and placed an order for breakfast - something (strangely) that was not on one of the menu pages.  (Was the menu put together properly?  Or, is there a separate breakfast menu?)  While waiting for food, I looked at my phone and noticed that my former travel partner had started her own meetup group, and scheduled meetings for Thursdays.  I took two things away from this.  First, without the ability to use me for a crutch, she was forced to do this on her own - something I'm glad she did.  Second, I feel that she chose Thursdays so that I wouldn't join her group or go to its meetups - more her problem than mine.  I sent a quick message to GFJ on this and mentioned the first point.  What I didn't say is that I was glad that I cut off contact with my former travel partner, as I didn't want to be in a codependent relationship with her - something that could easily happen given our mutual weaknesses.

On other matters....

Throughout the day, I exchanged messages with JS.  Her daughter has lined up a job, but with no way to get there and back from where they live.  It's a shame that Mother and Daughter don't make a move to a more mass transit friendly community, so that the daughter can get a job and establish herself as an independent entity.  JS is killing herself with her long commute and is not doing what needs to be done to see that her daughter can make it on her own.

If I don't get together with my niece next weekend, I'll end up accompanying JS to see a psychic in Massachusetts.  Do I really think this person will be of help to JS?  NO!  But I want to see the scam for myself.  JS is an emotionally weak person, and I fear that she will get preyed on by an unscrupulous person - and many psychics are unscrupulous by the nature of their "profession".

Wish me good luck.  I think I'll need it.

A visit to the doctor and more

Today, I had only two planned things on my plate - a visit to the doctor, and a volunteer stint at the LGBT Center.  I had already postponed my stint at Arts Westchester to Tuesday, so that I could have enough energy for the LGBT Center, and thought that this would be the end of my day.  Instead, I ended up seeing GFJ for dinner and had a mixed ending to a good day.

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Yesterday, I called my cleaning lady and arranged for her to visit my apartment today.  After 6 weeks, things were getting in need of her magic - and she said she'd be visiting this afternoon.  So I was very lucky to have a 9:30 appointment with my doctor, giving me enough time to change from my masculine presentation to my feminine presentation for the rest of the day.

The doctor's visit was booked to be my yearly physical.  Instead, it ended up being a "follow up" visit from July, as my last yearly physical was in December, not November as I had remembered.  Of course, this made the visit a quick one, and I was back in the house before 11:00 - enough time for me to change into my female presentation before going out to volunteer.

Shortly before noon, I left my apartment and took the slow road to the LGBT Center.  On the way down, I returned WDJ's call from yesterday, and we chatted for about a half hour about things I won't mention here.  And then I arrived at the LGBT Center for my weekly stint.

Today's task was simple - verify all entries on the published event calendar on Meetup against that in the center's flyer.  Catching an error or two, I fixed them without doing too much thinking.  But then, two other people came in - and they disturbed my short train of thought.  One person was an older woman who needed to talk with someone - and I was that person.  Then the other person came in, a young man, and got involved in the conversation that I was really not in the mood to have at the moment.  By the time I was finished with the event calendar, two hours had passed - and it was time to leave.

On the way home, I received a call from GFJ.  She wanted to know if I wanted to have dinner tonight.  So it was off to my apartment, then to change, and then to drive to Newburgh.  Of course, I had to change back to a male presentation for dinner before going out again.  I made it to the Flaming Wok Buffet at 7:00.  As usual, GFJ was a little late.  And for the next hour, we chatted about unimportant stuff. (One of those topics was the shutdown of my old blog and my relationship with my former travel partner.) Then, it was time to discuss "the elephant in the room" - our relationship.  Neither of us are sure where it's headed, but I figure it best to give her the time she needs to be sure of what she wants.  (I have ideas, but won't taint her decision process by mentioning them before her decision is made.)  She's a good person to have in my life.  But I have the kind of love that knows that I may have to let her go to have the happiness I want for her to have.  Hopefully, that won't need to happen.

Then, it was time to go home.  I was more alert on the way home than I was on the way to Newburgh.  That was good fortune.  I'm not sure I'd have made it home had I been as tired as I was in the afternoon.  I have mixed feelings after tonight's dinner, and so does GFJ.  But I won't let them get in the way of doing what has to be done in my life.