We’re all Barbara Bel Geddes to someone
Ok, so they’re working on my toilet. I’d like to think they could finish it, but since Saturday they haven’t done that. My landlord was willing to let me use the toilet in the empty apartment upstairs but…that one’s not working either. So…she gave me the key to her late fathers house two doors over. It’s such a small house that the bathroom is more a Deco Privy then the mini-spas we now expect bathrooms to be.
Now don’t get me wrong, this whole thing pisses me off (ahem) but the comic ineptitude of it all made me smile. I was in a good state as I drifted off to sleep with my Netflix playing in front of me, which was my mistake because I fell asleep to… Vertigo. If it had been Freaks, or Saw XXIV or any Bergman movie I’d have sawed enough logs to make a Pythonesque Lumberjack happy, but nooooooo, I had to let Hitchcock enter my half-awake mind with Vertigo, with nary a john in sight. Through this Freudian dream-fog two, well, three thoughts emerged:
1.) I need to write a psycho-history of plumbing. But some more lucid part of my mind said, “umm…no you don’t.” That part of my brain won.
2.) I need to invent a suit with little tiny sound chips at various points that we could somehow activate with our emotional reactions so that no matter where you are you could have a Bernard Hermann soundtrack to practically anything that might happen in your life. Wouldn’t that make life more enriching? If you hear those Psycho string stings though….
3.) How painful and hard it was to watch Barbara Bel Geddes in her pining for Jimmy Stewart! Yikes, she even paints herself into the painting that Stewart is obsessed with, with just ticks him off! So that’s my question: Have any of you ever had any unrequited love for someone? Or have you ever been the object of someone elses love that you did not return? How did those things go, badly, dramatically, what? Ever stay friends with someone after you’ve both decided that you’re not in love with each other?
UPDATE: Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! The plumbing, almost a week later, is restored! Boy, you would think “asshole” and “toilet” would work together like hand and glove or butter and cheese…as it were…but no, it’s been a struggle of nothing but cursing and grunting. But now with the king upon his throne, progress will commence.
Ambiance 
Randy said,
November 3, 2009 at 12:47 am
Yes. Yes. Badly & whatever. Yes & no. ;-)
amba12 said,
November 3, 2009 at 11:34 am
LOL! FQALT! (for quite a long time!)
. . . now let’s see if I can sober up enough to answer these questions.
Unrequited love was my favorite kind for quite a long time. It’s not only the drug of choice for those whose mommies didn’t convey the message of unconditional infantile affirmation for whatever reason, it’s also the way to stay uninvolved and uncommitted while not taking any of the blame. I’m not saying this is a deliberate dodge, it’s usually based on fear that you are inadequate in some way.
Does it happen to non-neurotics too? Probably. They just don’t like it.
If you’ve been on one side of that equation you’ve been on both sides. The whole point of preferring to love the unattainable is that you’re going to be put off by someone who’s heavily lovin’ on you. Also, of course, sometimes it’s not a neurotic drama but just an unfortunate mismatch. An arrow gone astray.
There was one person I unrequitedly loved whom I actually loved. And so we were friends throughout and in spite of the other stuff, and did remain friends for a number of years, though we’ve lost touch. Since I actually loved him, I was content (through my pain) to love him as a friend if it wasn’t going to go the other way.
I think there may be a couple of people who felt exactly that way about me. And I think we’ve stayed friends to this day.
amba12 said,
November 4, 2009 at 3:35 pm
Boy, that was the end of that! Think I’ll tweet this post and see if anyone else dares to respond.
CGHill said,
November 4, 2009 at 3:43 pm
To rewrite Groucho, I would never consider going out with someone who was willing to be seen with the likes of me.
Actually, that’s an oversimplification, and an inaccurate one at that, but I have literally never fallen for anyone without the M I S M A T C H light going off in my head, which tends to discourage any further exploration. Obviously it doesn’t completely eliminate the possibility – I don’t bill myself as “The 56-Year-Old Virgin” for the most obvious reasons – but grave doubts tend to produce suboptimal results.