The rundown

Your dear UCM is still undergoing major restoration and reconstruction, which is making it difficult for me to write about much with any meaning or intent.

However, I will bring up these points from the days that were Tuesday and Wednesday:

-- I signed an extension on my lease, which will keep me in this crazy bachelorette pad for another year.

-- XGF told me that she got engaged to be *real* married -- as in, to a man. She called this decision "impetuous." I call it "her business." But it nevertheless interests me. Specifically, what interests me most is that she still identifies as a "lesbian." I anticipate getting an explanation from her about this at some point. Not because she *needs* to explain; just because I'm curious.

I can understand a married woman realizing she's a lesbian and coming out, but I am having a hard time with the concept of a lesbian realizing she's in love with a man, getting married to him and still calling herself a lesbian. It's not that such a thing can't be so -- because certainly, XGF is doing it and will thus be making it so -- but I am curious about the rationale.

-- I visited with S2 this morning, briefly. It was a nice visit; she is one of the loveliest people I've known in my life. BUT I was plagued, and I mean PLAGUED, for a while this afternoon by an earworm of some bizarr-o children's choo-choo, chug-chug train song that was playing in her house when I left. (Far better, however, was the lingering image of the little 4-year-old girls doing a joyful dance to it.)

-- I used an umbrella for the first time in many, many years. Umbrellas go against the hard-tack biscuit part of my nature. They've always struck me as items for ladies, dandies and weather whimps. (Although I'm 100 percent woman, I'm not all that much of a lady.) But while I was visiting with S2, prior to having an appointment downtown, it started pouring, and I was without a jacket. S2 offered the use of an umbrella, and I took it.

It was one of those nice "British" umbrellas, full-sized without being oversized, black with curved wooden handle. I felt kind of funny walking around with it in my hand and had to resist competing urges to twirl it around (the "dandy" use of it) or use it like a walking stick, poke-poking at the sidewalk like a self-important gas bag. So I held onto the nylon material and tucked it along my arm, a move that was also designed to resist the urge to tap people with it as if I were a queen benighting them.

There are clearly several reasons I should *not* have an umbrella.... But then, suddenly, as I was exiting a building and starting a walk of several blocks, the heavens opened up and started dumping hail. Lightning flashed, thunder followed. Noting the lightning strikes were four miles away, I popped open the umbrella and made my way through downtown.

I felt so smart. And even a bit fancy. (It helps that S2 apparently never buys junk; even her umbrellas have style and exceptional functioning.)

I arrived at my destination dry, tapped as much water off the umbrella as I could and commenced shopping. And wouldn't you know? I left that sucker behind. Hooked its nice wood handle on the counter when I was paying, took my purchases and left it behind.

Lucky for me, one of the clerks at this particular establishment seems to have a little thing for me (she recognizes me, tells me when I was in last, falls all over herself to help me and generally fawns over me in a can't-stop-talking-to-you, let-me-walk-you-to-the-stairs kind of way every time I go there). Anyway, I was down on the main floor and just about to the door when the clerk calls out my name rather loudly in the store. She comes jotting down the stairs with the umbrella and gives it to me with a little see-ya-later, nudge-nudge, wink-wink, say-no-more, know-I-mean action. Such a pity she's not my type. Especially seeing as how I could get a discount on the clothes.

But anyway.... I got the umbrella back. And because it wasn't raining, I had to summon all my powers of repression, denial and sublimation not to spin it on my fingers and pull a few dance moves, ala Fred Astair, while walking back to my car.

-- I've started a new art project, this one for my own amusement and expression. It seems to be an alternative outlet for the reconstruction project that I'm not really wanting to write about just yet. It seems like when I have talked to people about this "change" I'm experiencing, it tends to strike them as overwhelming or woo-woo or otherwise peculiar. (But then, that's because it *is* overwhelming, a bit woo-woo and otherwise peculiar.) I think words are not doing my situation much justice, so I've decided to try some alternative forms of expression and see if that helps me direct my energy in a more meaningful way.

-- I'm still reading all the aformentioned books, but I've added a fiction novel that S2 loaned me a while back. It's about a bisexual Native American living in Idaho at the turn of the century. This keeps reminding me of a brief report Rather Shy Classmate gave me about a biography she's reading about Mae West.

-- I watched a video produced by a classmate from my couple's therapy class. Technical difficulties prevented us from watching her video in class on the last night, so we were all provided copies of it on DVD. I picked mine up today when I was at school and watched it late this afternoon. Many of us put a lot of work into our projects, but this one was rather polished. And quite poetic, at that.

Also, it was fascinating. My classmate explained how she believed she inherited her "fucked up attachment" style through the messed up marriages of her grandmother and mother. I've heard a lot of stories in my time, but this one stuck to my ribs for some reason. I'm going to have to watch the video again and see if I can figure out why I was so affected.

-- I had beer and burgers with Bubba this evening. It was plesant to see her. I tried to explain my reconstruction project; she tried to explain her relationship situation. I'm not sure whether we each understood the other. But the beer was mighty fine.