You can't always get what you want...

It's a very strange feeling when you wake up with a naked man in your bed and you wonder how you got to this point....
(It's also strange when he walks around the house naked, happily exclaiming "Nudies!" when you try and shoo him back into the bedroom...)
Anyways, you wake up in the bed that you've slept in alone for years and look over and there's this big slumbering hairy man and he seems like an alien creature, completely foreign and unknowable.

You know those stereotypes about how men think, about them being from Mars?  I never really thought of men as that different from me, but now all the stereotypes seem true.

Also, now my sister talks to me conspiratorially about men and how they think.  This is new.  (She also said to me that our Mom realized I 'was growing up now', which was weird.  I'm 30!)
I said one day to my sister that I was 'part time girlfriend, part time nurse.'  She said, "yeah, no matter who you date, that's how it goes.  And if you move in with them, you can add part-time housekeeper to that."

My mom said the other day that all the troubles in her life were caused by boys and she wasn't going to get married again.

I've lost the point of this story... 
I can't even explain how guys are different from girls, but I just keep getting surprised by how he thinks.

New tangent.  My Christmas present from him had a GAP gift card tied to it, and I was so upset.  Artists don't shop at the GAP!  I've boycotted the place since I was fifteen, not for any particularly good reason.  But when I opened the present, it was very thoughtful and quite well suited to me.  the gift card was specifically for office clothes for my internship coming up, so I let that pass.  The other items were lovely, and he wrote me a poem that made me cry.
I spent Christmas with his family.  They're a fussy bunch, and it made me miss my scruffy family.

Various Thots

Well we keep muddling on.
Walrus hates the group home he's living in and is trying to move to another one as soon as possible.  I try to be sympathetic but I think a little bit of the problem is how he communicates with the staff.  They're not good at their jobs, I agree, but he needs to tell them his needs, what he's planning, and ask questions when he needs help.
There's a chance there for him to step up and 'be the bigger person' and try and work with them patiently, but he's just frustrated with the stroke and can't do that right now.
Other than that, he just hangs out here at my mom's house and we cuddle on the couch and watch TV.  I don't know what's supposed to happen in a relationship; I kinda thought we were supposed to stay up all night talking about everything.  He's had a stroke. Right now simple things like getting himself dressed, eating right and getting lots of sleep take up most of his time.
I'm just going to be there supporting him.

We're not um...intimate at the moment.  It's been attempted three times and I found it extremely painful.  So I'm trying to do Kegel exercises for a few weeks. I just found this podcast and website  Sex Nerd Sandra so I'm going to go through the archives there.  I was looking for books on painful sex and found Healing Painful Sex and When Sex Hurts.  I also found out that Amazon sells dilators... I didn't even know what a dilator was until today.

Anyways, thank heavens for the internet.

Ups and Downs

Sometimes he's the sweetest, sometimes he's frustrating.
He likes to drink, and I have never been drunk in my life.  I don't think drinking stories are funny and I suppose I think men should drink a little but I get nervous when he orders a third pint...
He smokes, which ugh!  I can't stand.  I assume he's trying to quit because of the stroke but we haven't really talked about that.
He likes to eat, and I'm a fussy eater on a health diet.  I'm finding out just how much I don't know about food.  He also can't stop himself from eating if it's in front of him.  He bought ten dollars worth of fudge, which annoyed me, and I'm pretty sure he ate it all in one day.
I didn't eat candy for three years.  I admire discipline, and he doesn't seem to have it when it comes to what he puts in his body.  I think he's going to need it to get better from this stroke.  There's so much work ahead of him.

Aside:  My sister-in-law lent me The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge.  I recommend it to anyone- it's absolutely fascinating so far.  There's a chapter about love that I might blog about here in the future, if I remember.  Back the point, there's a chapter about stroke recovery where patients recover the use of paralyzed arms in two weeks.  Just two weeks, and all they have to do is prevent themselves from using the good arm by wearing an oven mitt or a sling.  I haven't discussed this with Walrus yet because miracle cure stories might be frustrating, but I'm convinced he could use the theory and help his own recovery....Any thoughts?

So much for the downs; now the ups.  I feel loved and beautiful.  That's why I'm still in this thing.  I found an article about what I think is preventing me from enjoying sex.  Basically I'm nervous and tense up and it hurts, which in turn makes me nervous...The good news is that it's curable if I do Kegel exercises; the bad news is no sex for a few weeks.  Walrus was very supportive and sweet when we talked about it.

Not feeling it.

Yesterday another bedroom fiasco.  It hurt on the two previous attempts so naturally I was apprehensive.  He was moving pretty quickly and I was too shy to tell him what I thought would work better, wasn't feeling ready and the whole thing was a no-go.  Afterwards we did sort of talk about it.
He doesn't seem worried.  I'm a nervous wreck.

I don't think I love him.  Not feeling like I'm in love at all.  This past week some minor character flaws were revealed, that I take to heart way too much.  The incident in question was very minor.  Walrus spit his gum on the ground and I freaked out, because to my mind that showed poor citizenship if not outright selfishness.

The bigger issues are perhaps 1. that with his skin problems, it's hard sometimes to find him attractive;  2, that I think he should be more in charge of his own recovery; 3 that strokes are difficult to deal with in general and 4, that getting him to talk about 'feelings' is like pulling teeth.

How easily could I walk away?  I don't know.  I do think about him all the time. We see each other almost every day, and I do miss him when we're apart.  Maybe there's a new phase coming in the relationship.  I don't really know how these things work.