Bucking the Rider

Well, I'm in a decent mood, for once. Hold your applause/sarcastic slow claps.

We had a good holiday weekend. I got to spend a bonus Saturday with Ava since she was sick and Carlos had an outdoor soccer tournament (it wasn't my weekend). Then, we spent Sunday and Monday at the lake, since Tosc actually had 2 days off in a row! Good times. Tosc and I even had a little...INCIDENT on Sunday night, and yet I am STILL in a good mood!

We'll get into all that, but first I need to tell you that I'm reading a good book right now called Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard. I like to alternate fiction with nonfiction, and I've been having some really good luck with the nonfiction lately. Like you care. Just stay with me here, this is going somewhere (ish).

Anyway, the book is not so much about CHANGE, necessarily, as it is about behavior in general, why we do the things we do, and how we can make behaving a certain way easier. BLAH BLAH BLAH, I know, but the authors use this "Elephant and Rider" analogy for human behavior that I have found SO HELPFUL AND ACCURATE. The idea is that the Rider is the brains of the operation, and the Elephant is the brawn/emotion. You may have noticed that the Elephant is ALSO the larger/more powerful side (CUE FORESHADOWING MUSIC).

The point here is that the Rider has a limited amount of energy to devote to controlling the path of the (bigger, stronger) Elephant. He gets tired, man. He has limited self-control. And when he's too tired to hold the reins anymore, the Elephant takes over.

Okay, enough with the Wild Kingdom bullshit. I MAY have had a minor Rider/Elephant FAIL on Sunday night, is what I'm saying.

I knew ahead of time that on Sunday night Tosc and I were going to be hanging out with a group of his friends from high school, including a girl that he has dated off and on for years, most recently right before WE started dating. Which is fine. I'm not insecure about my relationship with Tosc, and we're in our mid 30's ftlog. We all have pasts at this point. So, my desired behavior was this: be cool about it, have a good time, and make this girl feel comfortable in an awkward situation. This is SO the Rider talking, amiright? Well, it was a reasonable goal, and I do like to think that my personal Rider's rein-holding forearms are somewhat more...ROBUST than average.

So. The first stop in my journey on the High Road was to make the Rider EEEEVER so tipsy on boxed wine. Genius. Best idea ever, I think we can all agree. Thanks for that one, ELEPHANT.

However, my Rider is not easily deterred. My Rider has a genetic alcohol tolerance unexplainable by modern science, and has also been working out with a trainer for over a year now. I'm just saying. So, I chose a chair right next to the girl. I introduced myself and started asking her about her daughter and her work. She gave me exactly two one-word answers, and then got up and walked away.

So, that went well. Fine, fine, my Rider says. Just leave her alone. Yes, if anything the situation is now MORE AWK THAN EVER, and the Elephant is getting squirmy and harder to control, but we are fine. We are STILL ON THE PATH towards the desired behavior.

Then someone tells an old story involving the two of them. Everyone laughs, while my Elephant indulges in a brief trampling fantasy. The girl goes inside and spends the next hour chit-chatting with Tosc's parents, as if they are OLD PALS. Which they are.

RIDER GROWING WEARY. Reins are slippery with sweat and boxed wine. Can't. Hang. On. Rider feels as if he is participating in the final Survivor immunity challenge, the one that always involves hanging on to something until you inevitably lose your grip and/or your mind. It's also almost 11pm, which at this stage of life is WAYYY past the Rider's bedtime.

Now let's turn our attention to Tosc. His Rider, never a particularly impressive physical specimen to begin with, has drunkenly fallen off hours ago. His Elephant is in FULL CONTROL, galloping to and fro like an idiot, periodically plunging his trunk into Miller Lite tall boys and gleefully spraying the crowd.

As if on cue, Tosc's Elephant makes what can GENEROUSLY be described as a Piss-Poor Decision (I'll spare you the details, because we still like Tosc around here, I'd like to keep it that way, and because both of our Riders are now back at 100%).

You guys. My Rider didn't just temporarily drop the reins. He was straight-up BUCKED OFF by the Elephant, 8 Seconds-style, landing unconscious by the side of the path. To use a Tosc-ism, I fucking TWISTED. I stormed off. I had a "conversation" with Tosc which included the phrase "YOU HAVE LOST YOUR FUCKING MIND!" I CRIED, people. (!!)

Gawd Almighty. So, that was attractive.

Well, anyway, turns out this whole kicky fable is a bit anti-climactic, since Tosc's Rider was able to splash a little water on his face and have a cup of coffee in time to climb back aboard and salvage the situation. But the point is, when I was reading Switch the next day, I was all, "YEP. I AM AS PREDICTABLE AS THE NEXT ASSHOLE."

And I'm still in a good mood! Just goes to show that the Elephant is a fickle and pea-brained bastard. The End.

Fine, thanks, and you?

So, I was supposed to have surgery this morning to remove my remaining two wisdom teeth, but thanks to the impenetrable labyrinth that is our US healthcare system I've been (temporarily) spared. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I do know that I'm not in any position to argue since the doctor is doing the surgery for FREE. (!) Well, except for whatever he can squeeze from the arid rock that is my dental coverage, which I'm sure is laughable at best.

Honestly, I sort of feel awkward/nervous tummy about accepting a ridiculous amount of free(ish) dental work, but the doctor INSISTED, you guys. This is the kind of thing that happens to Tosc, who is in good with doctors and dentists all across Texas due to his trips to Romania to provide medical and dental care to poor people. I'm not even making that up. I guess it pays to be a Good Person. Not that I would know. Fucking Tosc and his Public Servant/Man of the People schtick, always making me look like a selfish asshole in comparison. WHICH I AM, but that is neither here nor there.

Speaking of which, I'm having a hard time adjusting to Tosc's new schedule. He works 24 hours every C shift, and then every A shift (the next day) he has paramedic school from 6-10pm. Since I don't get HOME until 6 pm, that means we basically go two days without seeing each other. Awesome. And unless a B shift falls on a weekend, I'm working, so I don't see him the NEXT day either, until the evening. When he has to go to bed early, so he can be at the station at 5:45 am for C shift. ARE YOU FOLLOWING ALL OF THIS? Yeah. Me neither.

And then there's our schedule with the girls. HOW'S THAT GOING, you say? HAHA! I just....I don't even...it's CHAOS, at the moment, is what it is.

Earlier this week, Tosc and his ex had a huge blow-out (Tosc said the conversation "cleared the fire station," and you know it's bad when that happens, since those guys are hardly delicate flowers).

Tosc's ex-wife feels that they should keep a Wednesdays and every-other-weekend schedule, Full Stop, and if Tosc is not able to be with the girls because he is working or at school (which happens TWO OUT OF EVERY THREE DAYS), then that is his problem. So basically, she does not care who is watching them, as long as it is not her. Oh, I'M sorry, was that bitchy? Well, maybe it's because when he expressed his concerns, she told him, AND I QUOTE, that his "new little wifey needs to step up the plate".

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You know, this is seriously disappointing, because Tosc's ex-wife and I actually have several things in common, despite her being mostly the anti-me, and I really hoped that we would all be able to spend time together and get along. And maybe that can still happen. In the meantime, though, I must say with 100% sincerity, from the bottom of my conflict-avoidant heart:

FUCK YOU BITCH! If I DO step up to the plate, I'm sure as hell not batting for YOUR fucking team! And if that's the way you want to play it, then I'll be happy to retire to the stands with a plate of nachos and a beer! Manage your own fucking roster! ARE WE DONE WITH THE KICKY BASEBALL ANALOGIES YET?

Jesus H. Christ. That made me so fucking angry, you guys. So of course, I immediately sent Tosc an EPIC TOME of an email (I'm more reasonable in writing)(THIS IS ME BEING REASONABLE) explaining my concerns and position on the situation, which, just to review, can be summarized as: FUCK YOU BITCH! YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!

Uch. Poor Tosc. What an enjoyable and life-affirming day that must have been for him. Don't you wish you were in his shoes, so that you could have TWO wives with mutually exclusive preferences up your ass AT ALL TIMES? Makes the polygamy thing look SERIOUSLY unattractive.

Kinderfuck, part 2342 of ???

I can't think of anything good to say.

The kindergarten issue is mostly resolved, with Ava registered at our neighborhood school and the twins registered (in different classrooms) at the school near their mom's house. One of the girls is completely freaked out at the idea of separating, whereas I think the other is actually looking forward to it. Twin parents, is that typical? What do you do if one twin LOVES her class, and the other HATES hers? GAH!

Ava and I did the orientation thing at her school. I chose to attend the session that was held at 1:30pm, and I sort of wish I hadn't (there was an evening option also). I'm pretty sure I was one of the only WOH parents there, and everyone else seemed to know each other. HOW? Older kids? I felt awkward and out of place and wicked overdressed (I was in my work clothes). Uch. I HATE HATE HATE to feed any of the mommywars bullshit, but the truth is I did not feel comfortable. What IS that?

In Ava's "parent/teacher conference" (at fucking DAYCARE *HUGE EYEROLL*), her teacher told us that she often plays by herself, and that we should encourage her to "reach out to new friends".

HA! Yes, I'm clearly the person for THAT job.