Day 16 PV

I fret about work and worry horribly about Virgil.

I want to curl up and do nothing except potter in my garden. Unfortunately I have bills to pay. For no stated reason I stop being offered shifts at the scandalous rag. A new person takes over the rota and I (always at the bottom anyway) am no longer on it. When I ask he says there aren't many shifts around but he's working on it (as though shifts are something he produces). I should probably look for other work. Am I capable of looking for other work?

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Day 7 PV

In which I think about my erotic future, and Virgil and I ask each other for help.

Day 7. Lucky number seven. I've slightly gone off this style of blog post title but I'm going to stick with it for now. I saw my therapist Bee yesterday which was good. I came out of the session remembering my deep dissatisfaction with mine and Virgil's sex life. It's true that it had been going on for ages. It wasn't going to get fixed.

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History

I meet up with a very old friend and her daughter. I am apprehensive almost to the point of cancelling. Andrea and I were teenage best buddies but she's really hard work these days. She rarely comes to the city and swears she no longer feels safe. Andrea jokes relentlessly about how her family drive her mad and confound her. She just can't seem to say anything positive or pleasant. I want to say: Well if you really feel like you're such a martyr to everyone that's a problem. What I say is: Why don't you change what you do?

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Clarity

I realised something a few days ago and felt happier than I’d done for ages: that my jealousy extends far beyond Virgil having lovers. I actually resent him having any good thing in his life that doesn’t involve me.

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No sex please, I'm apprehensive and navel gazing (and the view is bleugh)

In fact, if you're one of those people who believe that if you can't say something nice say nothing at all, close this window now. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I know that I want people to read my blog and be my online followers. I want them to comment on my posts and link to me so that this feels like real blogging. I want to read their - your! - opinions and (heh!) praise for my pithy commentary and honesty.

So I submitted The Ethical Slut post to e-Lust, an online compendium of sex blogs.  And now I'm wondering which would be worse: to be called a naive, selfish, mithering, self-pitying lay-about (which would be fair comment, believe me) or (what is more likely) to hear nothing at all. And writing it, I know with some certainty that it would be the latter.

Do all bad tempered people dislike themselves? There's a mean voice in my head that says every bit of ill humour, cowardice, pride, jealousy and selfish behaviour gets repaid in kind, resulting in a barren, joyless life. I don't mean like karma; it's much more mundane than that. Here's an example, Kate is a friend who I no longer talk to and although I might say it's because she lives on the other side of the city the truth is simply that I am jealous of her. We were at college together and now her career is going well and mine is faltering. I think that Kate was offered the job she got because, unlike me, she is pleasant, easygoing and inoffensive. I am not always offensive: I can be kind, witty, fun, thoughtful and generous but I also behave badly enough to have a rep. My wit can be cutting; I have very hard edges. People are often a bit wary of me.

Kate has a wide circle of friends and is in close contact with people she was friends with from her school days. If I'm honest, this was another point of tension in our friendship. I am often wary of very sociable people: the friends I choose tend to be slightly lonely, like me. I'm not threatened by them and don't have to be jealous if their social life is better than mine. For a minute it puzzles me that I have never experienced sexual jealousy in relationships before... and then I remember that I have always chosen people who I found unthreatening and who loved me more than I loved them. Ah.

Virgil and I are trying to mend things. I apologised the other day. I said, "I have realised that I have been using my anger and hurt feelings as a weapon against you, which was not right and I am sorry." I felt scared. I had remembered, in time I hope, that love is not unconditional. Virgil has been good and patient with my work woes, some of which are certainly self-inflicted, but my moping and inertia would try anyone's patience. The open relationship issue just gave me another excuse to wallow and mope and essentially to rub his nose in my bad mood.

In my 20s I had a depressed, under-employed boyfriend and he drove me crazy. While I worked for my finals, Patrick slouched despondently around our flat. He sat in a miasma of dope smoke and apathy, running up enormous telephone bills (in my name) on dial-up internet and dodgy premium rate phonecalls. When you live together you get the unedited versions of each other and you can fall out of love with someone for being like that. It would be justified. Virgil and I have not been living together very long but that's another story.

I am resolved to turn over a new leaf and get out of this horrible rut before I really fuck things up. Fortunately I now have a brand new pdf of The Ethical Slut to teach me how.
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