The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

I moved into Dan’s house and it was determined that the front room immediately to the right of the front door was to be the game room.  The three guys had regular desks, and I had an 8-foot folding table that I set up my station on.  That way Rick could sit next to me when he came over to play.

It was fun in the beginning.  Jerry and I would talk often and sometimes run errands together.  He was one of Rick’s best friends, so he had some things to say about Rick and his marriage.  They weren’t positive.  He told me that she was ruining Rick.  He said she was selfish and that part of the reason Rick loved me so much was that I was fairly rational and drama free.

It kind of made me happy to hear him say that Rick loved me so much.  My feelings were growing out of control.   We’d taken to texting every day.  He worked fairly close to the house, so he’d sneak out on his lunch and come over to spend time with me on days when I had not substitute teaching job lined up.  He looked so happy to see me when he’d pull up to the house and jump out of his car, running up to me.  I was slipping away from sanity and stability.

One night, Jerry asked me why I’m ok with Rick sleeping with other women.  I told him that I just loved him.  It was hard to explain.

“Then why do you continue dating other people?” Jerry asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.  “I guess I just need someone sometimes, and Rick isn’t available on demand.”

 

Things in the house were not all bad.  We had a lot of fun sometimes.  Some weekends, we’d have pizza and play Everquest 2 all night.  Dan had a couple of girls that would come over and hang out.  There was one that everyone had a crush on, but none as much as Dan.  I didn’t care for her.  She was phony.  She couldn’t just walk in and say hi.  She had a whole production about going around to hug everyone, even me.  She loved me.  She considered me “cool.”  I was creeping into my mid 30’s by then and she and Dan were barely in their 20’s.

Dan was a good guy, though, and I was kind of protective of him.   So when the Drama Queen came out of his room talking about how wonderful his new sheets were and how she just wanted to roll around naked in them, I had to bite my tongue.  She wouldn’t give Dan the time of day as far as dating was concerned.  She was just messing with his head.

Dan actually finally got tired of the games she was playing and told her to fuck off.  The woman had the audacity to call ME of all people.  I answered the phone and she started trying to tell me what a jerk Dan was being.  I tried to stop her, multiple times, but she just wanted to rant and for some reason she thought ranting to me would make a difference.  I finally got her to shut up for a moment and told her, “Look.  I don’t know what all went down with you and Dan, but here’s what I do know:  you’ve been playing head games with him for as long as I’ve known the two of you.  Dan’s my friend, and I’m not going to sit here and listen to you talk shit about him.  ”

I think her head exploded a little.  She started to tell me how she could see that he’d already manipulated me with his lies.  I laughed and told her that she was the master of manipulation, so I guess she’d know.  She just huffed and hung up.

I was still driving to Stanford twice a week so that I could finish out the courses I was in.  The tires on my car were shot, but I couldn’t afford new ones.  Chris came in one day and asked me if I knew how bad my tires were.  I told him I did but that I just didn’t have the money yet.

“Let’s go to Big O,” he said.  I looked at him skeptically.  “Let’s go!”

We went to Big O and he had them put a full set of new tires on my car.  I would pay him back no later than tax refund time.

There were moments like this punctuated throughout the time that I lived there, but there were ugly moments, too.  Sharing a bathroom with men is just freaking gross!  One of the excuses given for not putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher is that the dishwasher was locked and it was too much work to open it and look to see if they were dirty or clean.   Jerry’s cat would pee on my bed, and when I called him out for it, the other guys told me that I was being a jerk.  They would smoke weed in the garage, right by my clean laundry.

There was also some bitterness that grew about Rick and me spending time together on game night.  “This is guy’s time.”  I was trying to be as undemanding as possible, but it hurt me that he’d prefer to spend time gaming than with me.  It wasn’t that I wanted to skip game night all together.  I just wanted him to come to bed at a reasonable hour so that we could spend time together and I could fall asleep next to him for a change.  This was the only night that we got to spend some time together.  After Rick had spent the night with me in San Jose and once at an SCA event, his wife had decided that overnights were no longer allowed, so even though I’d fall asleep next to him, I’d wake up alone.

There began to be a lot of drama in the house.  Chris had moved a girl in, but things didn’t seem to be going well with them.  She and I began discussing the possibility of moving out together.

I found a job listing online for an algebra teacher for a unique program.  I called, and they thought I’d be perfect.  It turned out that the job would be teaching a televised algebra class for their distance learning program.  I interviewed and got the job immediately.

With the regular income, I could afford to move out on my own.  I had repaid Chris the money I owed him, repainted my bedroom (I had painted it red).  Then I moved into a cute apartment not too far away.  It had two bedrooms and two bathrooms, as well as in-unit laundry.  It was perfect.  I moved out of that house as fast as I could.  Apparently, they accused me of stealing the garbage can.  I didn’t.  But there’s no telling what they’d say.

Jessica moved in shortly after.  We had plans to get the place all fixed up.

But you know what they say about plans…