2005-04-16 - 1:49 a.m.

Ah-ree-vay

I was thinking today about a conversation I havn't had yet and probably never will with my girlfriend's sister.

So many conotations with the girlfriend thing. She lives with me, and there's shared love, but the first things I think of when someone says "girlfriend" are a mix of pleasant activites and unpleasant obligations. Of the girls in movies, mobile stereotypes that manipulate and deceive because it's in the script and the script is their nature and theoretically at least the script is ABOUT nature. Haute couture or whatever.

I've spent a lot of time thinking I was taking care of people while mistreating them and somewhat less time actually taking care of people. This is the first time someone's actively taken care of me that I can remember -- months, and I havn't worked, cooked more than a few meals for myself, or really done much of anything. I've played video games, scrubbed the walls a few times as a gesture of caring -- no mildew on MY girl's walls when she showers -- and I do make some effort to take out the trash on a regular basis so she doesn't have to.

I have a gorgeous pocketwatch watch-face to face with me, intricate gears and cogs and things I don't know words for, spidery little works of engineering that call to mind wire-frame glasses, curly white hair, and the most eldery of men in workshops made of the most pristine wood. It's engraved on the back "Happy Valentine's Day, 2005" and came with a very nice steel pen that I've not used to write anything significant for lack of anything to write about.

She told me earlier today that the car she decided I should have should be taken care of within the month. I'll be driving a new car for the first time in my life. Wow. What to say?

I remember what it was like working the job she's working now; the same position, the same store. The same $50,000 a year with hard-won habits acquired from living on $10,000 a year. How pointless it all felt to watch abstract numbers pile up in the bank account when there was nothing to buy with them, nothing I wanted, and no drug addiction or problem with the law to suck up excess cash like normal people apparently use.

$50,000 a year is a funny thing. I don't think we're brought up to think of that as a lot -- we're conditioned that it isn't a lot until it hits six figures. Have you ever worked out for yourself what that amount of money is when you put it on a per-paycheck basis? There are 52 weeks in a year. $50,000 is about a thousand dollars a week before taxes. Six figures is a minimum of twice that.

I've learned these past six months that what I need financially to live in absolute comfort and to want for nothing is about $15,000 a year, which I believe is below the poverty line.

My girlfriend is similarly inclined, and similarly baffled by the huge influx of unnecessary money. Gas is up to $2.75 a gallon here, or thereabouts, and we drove 240 miles round trip to have dinner at a particular Chinese restaurant I know of and then drive home again immediately thereafter. It's not an immense expense, nor the kind of conspicuous consumption that normally marks those who make more than they need; it's what matters to us though.

But buying me a car is so above and beyond. We've been together over a year now and it's been very educationally different from any relationship I've ever had or heard of, which is no small thing when relationships are the one thing I've really paid attention to in other peoples' lives. There isn't the frantic depth of .. every substantial relationship I can think of that I've had. There's no desperation. We were already pretty much resigned to how we knew things were going to be, and this little fling we had one week was very nice, but definetly very temporary.

A year later and she's slept over every night she's been in town, and her stuff is migrating over and I make her coffee every morning that I'm awake enough to put one foot in front of the other and remember how to put grounds into the filter. I don't drink coffee, though the smell is alright; I don't drink it, I don't like it, and I make it at 8AM every Friday morning rain or shine while stumbling around bleary-eyed and failing to make sure my Someone is properly prepared for her day.

Love is someone else's coffeemaker with no one's fingerprints on it but yours.

Months since writing, now an alcohol-inspired flurry of letters and sincerity.

She's home now and cooking me tortellini, which is how it ought to be spelled if it ain't, after a long day at work. I'd be happy with making myself a hot dog, but I'm happier with what I've come to think of as a proper meal at the end of the day -- which is currently at 2:16AM and counting -- and she's happier for having the chance to do something for someone she cares about. Productive, expressive use of energy.

Cooking.

That sounds an awful lot like a housewife.

I'm listening to every Sting album I own on shuffle right now, and I think I'm going to lean back in my chair and continue on in that vein until they run out or dinner's unexpectedly quickly ready.

You've all been marvelous to me, really; there's not much you can do that makes a difference on the Internet other than listen and pretend to understand and care. Perhaps it's less pretense. Fuck if I know.

I'm going now.

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