So there you have it.

AP Stylebook forever!

Okay, here we go. In March, 2004, my dog Arthur died. I know everyone who loses a pet probably feels this way…but Arthur was not just a dog to me. He was my best friend. When I cried, he would comfort me with doggie kisses. He was special. He was only ten when he died (he was a Corgi; he probably would have lived to about 14 if he hadn’t gotten cancer). Losing him broke my heart.

His collar had his name embroidered on it; the day we had him put to sleep, I wore it wrapped around my wrist as an ugly-but-emotionally-valuable bracelet. My husband suggested that his friend, S, was handy with jewelry-making and could make it into a real bracelet for me. So he handed it off to her (he knows her at work, and we both know her at our community theater).

About six months later, S was moving house. I asked my husband to get the collar back from her, because I didn’t want it put in a box and forgotten. S assured him that she would not put it in a box. A couple of months after that, I asked for it again, and she said she couldn’t find it, and that it must have gotten PUT IN A BOX. This was the moment when I pretty much decided I was done with S. Later, she claimed she had found it, and I said, “Great, please give it back to me.” She said she was going to make it into a bracelet and give it back. I didn’t want her to do anything with it at that point, but I was still dealing with her through my husband, and I guess he was too polite to tell her to just give it back.

Fast forward to now. I still don’t have the collar back. S ignores my emails. My husband asked her for the collar again; nothing happened. I saw her face-to-face the other day, and told her I needed the collar back. She smiled and said “yes.” That’s all. I said, “This is very important to me, S. I really need it back.” Again, smiles, nods and says “yes.” I got the strong impression that I was not getting through to her.

I will never forgive her if she doesn’t give me back Arthur’s collar. I’m sure some people would wonder why I am so worked up over it, but it’s a very significant memento of my best pal, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask for her to give it back to me. I’m not asking her to do anything with it, I just want it back.

What can I do? Can I sue her over it? How small can a small claim be? I don’t care about destroying the friendship; I really cannot stand this woman at this point, and she and I were never really friends in the first place. I don’t think she’s actually a mean person, but I just don’t understand why she won’t give the collar back to me. Even if she doesn’t understand why it’s so important, why won’t she just give it back so that I will shut up about it?

I guess I was stupid to trust her with something precious to me. But is there anything I can do, other than learning a lesson from all this?

Too Upset to Think of a Clever Signature

I have an etiquette question. I live in a side-by-side duplex. The
woman who lives on the other side (Neighbor K) does the yard work,
the person who lives on my side shovels snow. Fine. My neighbor
the next house over (Neighbor J) has a snowblower, I have a plain
shovel. I am capable of shoveling snow on my own (i.e., no
disabilities, fear of snow, et cetera). Neighbor K mentioned that I could
give Neighbor J a few dollars for gas and he would do our walks and
driveway, too. I said that was nice, but no thanks.

Well, we’re in the middle of a snowstorm here and we got dumped on
this morning. I left for work, intending to shovel when I got home.
I come home and Neighbor J has already cleared the driveway and
walks. I think, “Well, that was nice of him.” I come inside and
Neighbor K has left a note saying, “So-and-so cleared everything
already. You might want to thank him.” Well, obviously.

Now, in one instance I was shoveling the front walk up to the duplex
and he came over with the snowblower and did the sidewalk running in
front. I shouted thank you, and made a mental note to leave his
family a plate of cookies in the coming weeks.

But now he’s done all the clearing, and I’m wondering what I should
do. It’s not that I’m not grateful because shoveling seven inches of
snow is a bitch. However, I don’t feel that I should go out of my
way to thank him for doing something I didn’t ask for and don’t
need. (He may be in the habit of helping because Neighbor K has had
some crazy health problems and the unit I live in has been empty
since last winter.) Some little present (one time) seems to be
enough to me, especially because I’m short on ready cash these days.

What do you think?

The Weather Is Why I’m Moving

I don’t recall seeing anything quite like this covered in a past Vine (but admit to not having read past a year or so ago). Emily Post sure doesn’t cover it either…

I live in a small “city” in a small state, where it seems that everyone knows everyone, at least by sight, and meeting people is difficult. Especially for someone who tends to be reticent with new people as I am.

Cutting to the pre-problem, this past Friday at the usual bar, someone I knew vaguely (just enough to know each other’s names and have made small talk with) finished his beer as I was ordering mine, so I bought him one. I handed it to him, and he thanked me. I didn’t have motive in mind; he was alone, which was unusual, and the timing was just right. I went outside to smoke, and he came out a moment later. He — I’ll call him Jim — told me that the beer was the only bright spot of his day, and after some prodding from me as to why, said he broke up with his boyfriend that day. We talked a bit about the whys and whatevers, relationships in general and what we want in them, moved on to birthday presents (I work in retail), hugged, and moved on to our respective areas (mine to my friends, his to the pool table). He hugged me goodbye at closing time, as well, with a chaste cheek-kiss.

I asked a couple of my friends about him — again with the small area scenario, we have a lot of them in common — and basically heard that he’s a great guy, intelligent, genuinely nice, et cetera. I also heard the same about the newly ex-boyfriend, Dave.

Saturday night, I was later in getting out and there was a larger crowd. Jim was there, but with some of his friends. I spotted Dave among them, but the two remained apart whenever I saw them. (I wasn’t keeping track, so who knows. But it’s not the largest bar, either.) I went outside after a little bit, and he was out there already, smoking. He lit my cigarette, saying “I know you have a lighter, but…I felt like doing that.” I asked about Dave, and he only verified that yes, that was him inside. Small talk, et cetera, see-you-later-cakes.

Closer to the end of the night (last call, actually) a mutual friend was talking to Jim, then Dave, then wrangled them to talk to each other. After finishing my last drink, I went out again to smoke while waiting for my friends, and they were outside talking. I kept my distance until I was done, then tapped Jim on the shoulder to say goodnight. He surprised me by pulling me into a hug again. I whispered, “Good luck,” meaning it whichever way was what he wanted — a reconciliation or the strength to keep apart. He’s cute and all, and I liked him, but I’m a fan of seeing people make it work.

Here’s where it turns into an Oprah meets Logo movie of the week. Monday morning, a good friend of mine (one who I’d asked about Jim over the weekend) came in and told me that Dave had been killed in an accident. Basically, he went into the wrong lane as a state trooper — of all things — was approaching and they collided head-on. Dave was pronounced dead at 3:10, an hour after I’d seen them last. Cause hasn’t been determined. I don’t know what/if Dave drank that night, or of his emotional state. I didn’t eavesdrop on their conversation, so I don’t know which direction their talk went.

So — I don’t know what to do. We (Jim and I) have a lot of friends in common, but I’d not quite hit the point of exchanging numbers/email. While we had great talks both nights, it’s not enough for me to ask one of our friends for his info. Dave’s memorial service is at school tomorrow (he’s from out of state; the service is at the nearby college they both attend/ed). I’m not going, mostly because I didn’t know Dave at all, and anything I knew about him was learned the days before his death. Not knowing the way their evening ended, I would feel awkward. I feel pretty awful for Jim’s sake (the only reason I’d thought of going at all was for him), and want to offer some kind of condolence. He has much closer friends right now who are helping him, I am certain.

At what point would be okay to approach him? Wait until he’s back in public? Pass a note or some words along? Am I being paranoid that he’d feel like I was trolling rather than just offering the same support I had before Dave’s death? The whole senselessness if the tragedy is compounding everything. I’m hoping that maybe a fresh perspective can help me, since anyone I could ask is invested in the situation in some form already.

Thanks so much,
Christopher Marquette Can Play Me In The Movie

I had a boyfriend. He broke up with me. He started dating a man. We didn’t speak for months. He wanted to reconcile. We did so.

I’m really not even sure why he wanted to talk to me again. I thought he would apologize for some things, like lying to me about why he wanted to break up and all that. But he didn’t, and that was okay, and apparently he just thinks our relationship history was unfortunate and he still wanted me in his life, but in a different capacity.

I’m pretty zen about it. It’s a liberal metropolitan area. These things happen. So what if his boyfriend was kind of vindictive towards me, so what if I was a cocktail party joke for a few months, so what if my self-esteem was briefly shattered — these things happen. These things happen. If you say it enough, it sounds normal. It’s practically a right of passage, this whole “finding out your lover’s orientation is not actually oriented in your direction” scenario. Whatever. I moved on.

Partially. I didn’t love him, I don’t think, but I did care about him in a way I don’t think I’ll ever care about someone else again. I just kind of wonder what really happened. Of course I understand that he’s no longer interested in women, publicly anyway, but then our interactions start regressing to our previous state. Physical contact, tender words, that sort of thing. It’s probably wishful thinking, I understand that, but how does one go from being aroused in the presence of a woman to…not? And if one is no longer interested…why act the same way? Why resurrect tactile and emotional comforts from days past?

Aside from these brief moments of intimacy, it seems like I’m mostly a fallback if he needs help with his tax forms. Obviously, I’m hardly the priority I used to be (especially once he found out that there was some “totally hot” painter that, in spite of what he had heard, I didn’t actually know on a personal level and therefore couldn’t “hook him up with” — explanation: I work at a gallery and intern at a museum).

But the fact that our friendship is shallow at best and centered around events going on in our lives instead of the way we feel about those events doesn’t stop him from regaling me with the sordid details of his sexual escapades. Which, okay, I’m not homophobic and I’m not jealous, but I am slightly less modern than most American women and, therefore, uncomfortable. None of this makes sense because I surround myself with the creative and the countercultural. I should be used to this kind of thing, I should accept and embrace it. Why does it weird me out?

I don’t want him to think that he can’t confide in me or ask me for help. I don’t want to be uptight about his lifestyle. I want to be there for him. It would just be nice if he could be there for me, too, and I kind of question whether or not he is. I don’t really volunteer anything, but he doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know, unless it effects him directly. Maybe he’s still not really sure where our boundaries are or something. I feel like our friendship and our bond could go deeper, if I wasn’t walling off part of myself — but is it really a good idea to take that wall down?

I think my point is this: over the past eight months that we’ve been talking and hanging out, I sometimes think that maybe our friendship is doing me more harm than good, and I’m not sure what to do with that thought process. I don’t want to cut him out of my life, because I do care about him and when we weren’t speaking I thought about him and how I wished we had been. But at the point where you cry on the phone after you talk to someone, because you’re worried about them or because you miss the way they used to be — I mean, that can’t be good, right? Especially when they only call you back forty percent of the time?

Anyway, Sars, what should I do about “us”? (Note the irony quotes.)

Kind of confused, but not the way my ex was