Am I wearing a sign, or something: "I'm into PSYCHOS!!!"?

So, in the last month, I've had two emails from women I used to know who are officially psycho, including one that actually had a subject line that said "I cyberstalker." I shit you not. PSYCHO!!!

My roommate's soon to be ex-wife hit on me in an email (CREEEEPY!!! and...). PSYCHO!!!

PCG officially lost her shit on me. I got dumped by a girl I wasn't dating, and generally agree I will never be dating. PSYCHO!!!

Today I got in a line by line email string with a woman working in my office that started with her thanking me for moving a piece of office equipment that was heavy, lead to her saying she would ask me if she needed an escort in a dark alley, which I joked about, and ended up with her actually writing "Hence my desire to have you beside me in the dark." I wanted to make sure I wasn't misinterpreting that, so I sent it to my ex-roommate. Verdict: PSYCHO!!!

Then Nic tells us all that she's "committed" (nice choice of words) to a German guy who she will never see again, and tells me she misses me. She's never met me. Her parents live 2 hours away from me, but she's never met me. Flattering, ok, but still... PSYCHO!!!

Am I wearing a sign that says "come get me psycho women"? Am I giving off decayed pheremones or something? What the hell?

Women, you are ALL PSYCHO!!! This is why I don't date. PSYCHO!!! [shower-scene shrieking noise.]

Change of roommates

I used live traps to catch the mouse. Only it turned out to be two mice, one of which was pregnant. I released them down the road. They were not particularly happy with me, but they were alive, which I suppose they should sort of appreciate.

My roommate moved out (sort of, because he left a bunch of his stuff here). His nephew is staying here for the summer while he works before college. Not much else to say about that. He doesn't know anyone here, so he comes home and watches tv all night. That's pretty sad, I guess.

And now for something REALLY neat...!!!

There are at least four people who are going to want to discuss this with me at great length, and all I have to say to them is "FUCK YOU!!!"

I just got a "Dear John" VOICEMAIL from a woman I am NOT dating, who I haven't seen in SIX YEARS!!! I didn't know that was remotely possible. Well, at least I have never conceived of it.

There's a lot of story behind this but to give the short version, Prospective Cancer Girl, who I am now calling PCG for ease and because the "prospectiveness" of the cancer is gone, was gone for two weeks on business and vacation, and we hadn't talked. She apparently got back and left me several messages, which, thanks to Sprint PCS sucking, I didn't get for more than two weeks. So I left a somewhat irritated message for her, which she responded to with an irritated message. On Thursday I got her messages and we talked, and she told me up front she was having a rough week, so I tried to do the teddy bear thing - which I am not good at, you might be able to tell. I also have had a tough few weeks, so I was in a generally unpleasant mood. I thought I was handling it pretty well.

She was all preoccupied with her having some sort of psychological problem, and I informed her that I think she has no problems and is generally well-envied. This would usually be a good thing to say, right? I explained my theory that people these days just have a lower threshhold for discomfort, and so they bail when things get a little unpleasant, and this explains the divorce rate, abortion, alienation, etc. So then she started telling me that she was going to see a therapist, and I did some more "there's nothing wrong with you" talk. All of a sudden she started crying. This is nothing new. What happens usually is she tells me she's going to go, and I keep her on the phone until she calms down. That's what happened with the cancer conversation in fact. This time, she hung up on me. She's NEVER hung up on me before. EVER. We didn't talk for five years because of some horrible things I said to her, and she didn't hang up on me that time.

I figured she didn't want me to call her back, so I sent her some emails with jokes and things, general expressions of concern, and left a voicemail at her apartment while I knew she was at work the next day.

Today she left me a voicemail (when she knew I would not answer) telling me that we're "developing a pattern where [I] hurt [her] and apologize later" and she's "not a fan" (a phrase borrowed from my lexicon) of that. She also said that's one of the reasons we didn't talk for five years. Then there was some junk about "sorry to leave this in a voicemail" and "enjoying my three days off without being on call [her job puts her on call], may not call [me], this weekend," and her voice was choking up.

I'm a little confused by all this. We weren't dating. In fact, we had joked about how we weren't dating, and never would, before she went on vacation. One of the things we talked about on Thursday was some new guy she likes, and I joked she meets a new guy every two weeks, which she challenged, so I listed them. Hanging up was uncool. Leaving me a voicemail accusing me of ... whatever the hell I'm being accused of is just thoughtless and inconsiderate. Can't you just not call someone back? That's what I would do.

I'm sort of caught here. Do you call the person you weren't dating who dumped you in a voicemail back? I'm a little worried about the convergence of things going on with her right now, and she's got all those medical issues, and that whole bizarre "my father died when I was young" thing, as well as a few other things that I won't mention here. I also think that, while I like associating with her, and I think she's very good for ME, if I'm not good for HER, I'm the one in the best position to bear a burden here, and we can go another 5 years without talking. I'm also a little surprised (shocked), angry, sad, confused (bewildered), and ... frankly, AMUSED. Who gets dumped by friends? In a VOICEMAIL? I'm waiting to hear on CNN about some crazy suicide attempt in LA.

She is such a train-wreck. Don't they just make pills that cause people to not be train-wrecks? Can we jolt her with some electricity or hit her in the head or something and just fix her already?

Galactichero vs the infant's intestinal virus

So, as strange as this may sound, I'm pretty good with kids. That's all I'm going to say about that.

There's this family that I have been more or less adopted by that has a 4.5 year old and a 2 year old (ages thereabouts), and the adults wanted to got to see a movie, so I was called in for babysitting duty. First, they warned me that the 2 year old had been having a nasty intestinal virus, and if he "pooped" (a word I would never use except in the context of infant fecal matter) I had to change it ASAP. Then, the 2 year old, who rarely if ever is without his mother freaked out, at least until I let him wail for a while. So we were playing with this .8 meter stuffed dog I got them, with beanbag type paws. I would grab the dog by the paws and say something like "You, you will not fight me!!" in the 70s style martial arts cheesiness voice, and they would come at him, and I would make him punch and kick and grab and roll around and pin them. Both of them thought this was great fun. Suddenly I noticed the 2 y/o running away with ... I hesitate to say "no shit" ... GREEN OOZE on his back when his shirt came up. Yeah. Green ooze. So I have to stop the games asap, and get this dealt with. So I enlist the 4 y/o to stay out of the way by finding another set of clothes and some wipes for the 2 y/o.

The 2 y/o, who doesn't pronounce my name with the right vowel, is just staring at me as I wipe the green ooze up (which took a loooooong time) saying my name over and over in this confused sort of way. I was telling him that I was no happier about it than he was, and both of us, after some therapy, would laugh about it one day. It was eeeeeverywhere. Finally, I got him cleaned up, and [shudder] desitined up, and I got myself scrubbed with antibacterial soap (4x). We went back to playing with the dog when I noticed the 4 y/o was gone, so I called for him. He was taking a crap. Then he ran back in the room with no pants on, and handed a friend of ours who had just arrived his dirty pants and underwear and told us he needed new pants. He got it EEEEEEEVERYWHERE. I had a 2 and a 5 y/o both saying "ohh the humanity" by the end of the evening. That was pretty funny.

Galactichero vs the infant's intestinal virus. A draw.