Restless, bitchy and out of sorts.

Probably because my power has been out – AGAIN – since 11 AM and probably won’t be back up until some time tomorrow. It’s freaking hot out. I have to keep coming down to Kaldi, the local coffee place, that has free wifi to check email and Myspace. Myspace is being a pain in the ass and taking forever to load. It’s freaking hot out. I’m hiding in my car when I’m not at Kaldi because at least there’s air conditioning but that’s costing a fortune in gas. Nobody wants to play with me today, or so it seems. And it’s freaking hot out. Sense a theme? Oh, and had to deal with my ex today, which always makes me warm and fuzzy.

That got me thinking, of course. We met at the bank to deposit the income tax check we’ve both been waiting on. We chit-chatted a bit, him more than me, because I just don’t want to talk to him about what’s going on in my life. Every time I do, he looks at me like I’ve grown another head. Could it be because I’m doing all the things I wanted to do and he always told me I shouldn’t or that they were frivolous and useless? He’d probably scoff at hearing that I am learning to play the drums. Sidebar – the one thing I am looking forward to is a drum circle at Remo Drums at 6:30. In a good mood to bang on shit today.

Anyway, we did the business that had to be done and he hovered in the parking lot, telling me that his play isn’t going up at the Ark until probably next year because he hasn’t been able to do the rewrite the way it needs to be. I probably should have said I was sorry to hear that or something but I couldn’t muster even that. All I could think about was that I wanted to get away from him as soon as possible.

It struck me as I got into the car – 16 years together and this is what we’re left with. Cold, empty silences, awkward meetings at neutral places, complete disconnect of what was once there. How did we get here? What led us to this? There are no easy answers and, even if one could point to one particular incident, it wouldn’t change the outcome, I don’t think.

I’ve had a lot of him on my mind this week. I can’t wait to get to the point where I don’t color every experience with the thought of how it would have been with him. The Comicon was the perfect example of this. We went once. He convinced me that it was going to be torture with all the people and the crowds and the chaos. We went and it was moderate torture. He doesn’t wander or stroll or take time to look at anything except the things he is there to see and that’s it. It was three days of being dragged through the Convention Center when I was with him, listening to him try to prove how smart he is to the people he talked to instead of listening to them and letting them share their work. He swore he’d never go again. This from a self-proclaimed comic geek.

This weekend couldn’t have been further from that experience. And I resented that he had taken so many things and times that should have been fun and light and easy and turned them difficult and challenging and drained all the fun out of them. Vegas was another example of that. Chairman and I had such fun and did so much that I had never done there before. He actually asked me what we did when we were in Vegas previously because it didn’t sound like we had ever done anything.

The only place we seemed to work well at was Monterey. I loved going to Monterey more than anywhere we had ever been together. For some reason, my ex seemed to be able to just be there, not push as hard, not obsess as much. Maybe it’s the ocean air. I don’t know. I do know my first trip to Monterey without him is going to be heart-breaking. It was always our very special place.

But thinking about him got me thinking about the continued OOMA and all the baggage that goes with that. Looking back at 16 years with someone who wasn’t emotionally available but that loved me has left me wounded and bitter and angry. And OOMA is cut from that same cloth. He doesn’t have that core of anger and harshness that grew in my ex but he is still the same kind of man – giving and generous in some ways, yet so protected emotionally it’s hard to get a read on what’s going on in his head. Yet what’s going on in his head is what I find so fascinating. But here I am again, fighting to get through to someone who’s got his heart sealed up in a steel-lined sack (to quote Nellie Bly) and is watching the world through his window, not participating in it. If something should happen and he should finally realize that he has feelings for me (yeah, that’s gonna happen), it’s not going to change who he is at heart. If he’s closed up tight now, he’s not going to suddenly go, oh, yeah, here’s my heart, take it out for a test drive and get it back to me when you’re done. He may allow visitation now and then to it, take it out late at night and let me have a glimpse of it, but he’s not going to put it under glass and leave it out there for me to see and to tinker with.

And I guess I should have learned my lesson by now. I want someone willing to hold their heart out to me – or at least be willing to let me take a gander at it once in a while. I want someone with his warmth and his generous spirit and his darling nature but I do want to have someone willing to meet me halfway emotionally. I feel like I’m the one who has to do the mining and the exploration and the reaching out and guiding. I think I want someone now who’s willing to be the one to drive the relationship, to call me and say, hey, what’re you doing tonight, wanna come over, or I’ll bring Chinese. Or just, hey, let’s get coffee. Someone who can show me that they are glad I am in their life and that I add something to it. That what I have to offer is special and perfect and exactly what they are looking for. Someone who doesn’t run in fear from the prospect of spending time with me and who came give me what I need when I need it. I jokingly said something of a lighter to sort to Chairman this weekend while he and Monica and I were walking to our car and he laughed and nudged me, saying, “Dreamer.”

I guess I am. I want someone who doesn’t exist.