Forward and backward

I PayPal-ed a bunch of money to the guy I'm buying the new Volkswagen from. It's a cute car:

It does need a few small fiddly things done with it before it'll be perfect, and then I can sell the red 2000 gas Passat I've had since October. I do admit, the red car is quite comfortable and extremely quiet, but I just don't want to be spending over $125 a week on gas that I could be spending on other stuff. The new car should cut the fuel cost down by about half, both because it gets about double the mileage and because diesel is cheaper than gas these days.

I have been feeling a bit grumpy and disappointed by Suzanne's actions in the last couple of days. My solution to that, at least until I get over myself and my grumpiness, which should be soon, is to limit the amount I talk to her without seeming like I'm being silent. I just don't like the idea she could be up there until February. After all, when I responded to her profile on Match, she listed it in Maryland, not New Jersey, and said that she planned to be down here sometime this summer, not sometime next winter.

Of all the things we could be spending money on for the next few months, gas, tolls and phone calls to bridge the distance seem to be among the stupidest. Never mind the time and effort, and the sense of both of us being gypsies at least part of the time. I've been through that (most recently with Penny, but to a minor extent with Melody) and I just don't want to do it any more. I can't imagine that Suzanne does, either, but it was a set of decisions on her part that led to this.

Argh.

I thought about Melody briefly on the way into work this morning, and I guess I was almost a little sad for her. She's possibly the least empathetic woman I've ever been with in my adult life. Her reaction when Marnie died just brought that into focus, but the first time I saw it was in the spring of 2005, when I broke my eardrum.

I didn't write that much about it at the time, but when I had a massive ear infection that eventually ruptured my eardrum, Melody seemed to look upon it as some sort of rude imposition on her. I was in incredible pain, the sort that actually made it hard to drive. Her house was (a) closer and (b) within two miles of a Kaiser center where I could receive care the next morning, but because I showed up unannounced, and *horrors* had had a couple of drinks to try to kill the incredible pain, Melody acted like I was a wet muskrat trying to burrow into her sofa.

Not like an empathetic friend who would try to take care of another friend who was in misery.

She pretty much told me she was angry at me for imposing on her.

I remember sitting rocking back and forth on the couch in her basement trying to relieve the pain, thinking, "this woman is insane. She's just insane." At the time, I didn't really believe she could be that unsympathetic, but eventually I understood that she could. She could ignore the strange-colored fluids leaking from my throbbing ear canal, she could ignore the intense pain and loss of balance I was experiencing, and see only how it inconvenienced her.

The next day, when I went over to Kaiser and got drugs and painkillers and stuff, she did relent, even driving me over there, but the initial pique that she showed was really all I needed to understand. The whole thing was about her. Her whole world seems to be... about her.

I have nothing but sympathy for the guy she may still be dating once he finds that out.

You don't fully understand this until you're with someone who has genuine and unconditional empathy and genuine concern and you can look back and realized how lacking it was in someone you used to care about.