Annika's New Place

Friday evening, shortly after officially moving in, Annika called me up excited about her new place. She wanted to show it off. So, I called and apologized to the guys I had just agreed to meet for dinner (Montie from Veto! plus a friend), went home to get my camera, and promptly drove out to see what all of the fuss was about.

Oh. I see. Yes, it's beautiful. Technically, the Grey Goose Vodka bottles belong to a roommate that doesn't drink any more. Yes, I'm an *amateur* photographer. Any serious photographer would have noticed and MOVED the freaking camera case that was in the way of the nice photo.

There was a basket of candy on the island in the kitchen, and I kept telling myself that if I started in on the Life Savers, that I would never stop. I tried. I really tried. I tried for a really long time. Then I gave in and took a photo of the first.

Prior to arriving at the house, I went with Annika to Ikea (the mother ship) so that she could buy some new dishes and traditional Swedish food. I have no idea if I like the food she kept showing me, since I had to ask her what it was. Of course, I've never had smoked roe before. I've had caviar on sushi, but never simply as caviar. I don't know how to tell you if I like it or not.

The Pool Boy was waiting for us back at the house. He had the chicken wings. None of us knew how to properly cook buffalo wings. They had already been marinaded in buffalo sauce. So, Annika puts them in the oven. Not a bad idea if I do say so myself.

We had no idea what temperature to set the oven to or how long to let the wings cook. Since Annika didn't have a candy thermometer, I left the meat-cooking to her. The only way I know to cook meat well is with a thermometer. It involves a bunch of elbow grease and heat from friction. Are you up to the task?

Do the wings look done to you? Just kidding... this was just a gratuitous photo.

Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the room, Annika's manfriend has had a long, hard day working on blueprints. Errr, I mean, The Pool Boy has had a long, hard day of cleaning pools and keeping women happy. Yes, that's the ticket!

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Seriously, though. What the fuck is up with the low-carb barbecue sauce? BBQ is supposed to be high in sugar. It's not BBQ without the brown sugar. There is something seriously wrong with any diet that tells you it's okay to drink a glass of lard, but it's not okay to eat an apple or an orange.


It seems he really was working on a blueprint.

For those of you that are sickeningly curious, this is what the comforter looks like up close. The texture! Oh, the texture! And for the record, I didn't get to see what it was really like under the covers. The Pool Boy had too much work to do. ;)

Somewhere along the line, Annika got a hold of my camera and went crazy taking photos of her bookshelves. She's really proud of her book shelves. Here are the few photos that looked good:



Anyway... Queen Annika had to log onto MySpace to check up on her loyal subjects. She went through all of her photos and showed me what all of her minions/slaves do in order to praise her.

Hey, he's asleep! Now we can have some real fun with the camera... Well, not really. We didn't do anything we wouldn't have done with him awake and in the room.

I was on my way out, and I saw something that I thought would make a really cool photo. So, I asked Annika to go back to where she was just standing, and I took a photo.
Crap... It's out of focus. That's not going to work. Well, maybe it will work as a small image.

The flash is a very bad thing. Very bad. Very, very bad. I'll say this as many times as necessary to get the point across. I don't like using the flash unless absolutely necessary.

So, I took a few more shots without the flash before heading out the door. I think these are a bit better. By the way, it was Annika's idea to climb up on the counter top. I had nothing at all to do with this. I just took the photos. O:-)

To Annika's credit, the above photo was a five second exposure, and the next photo is eight seconds. She did a fabulous job of staying still for the camera.For the next shot, I tried to add a little bit of light with my flashlight, but the LEDs were way too blue, so it looks like Annika is watching TV. The original was much bluer. This is the best I could do without making it not look like a real photo.
While I may bitch about her breathing causing her left hand to blur, this was still a 3.2 second exposure with a two second lead-in. I didn't expect her to hold her breath for the photo. The lighting in the room made the original exceptionally yellow. This photo has been adjusted to reflect the actual color of the room, as seen in the close-up of the comforter (there was more light available at that time).

Looking at this last photo's time-stamp, I've realized that I didn't adjust the time on the camera when I came back to California from North Carolina. The time stamp is 3:48AM. You do the math. I didn't overstay my welcome that much.

Lastly, the larger photos that blogger shows you when you click on the images are still a quarter the size of the originals. See this version of the last photo for comparison.

Honesty

I've learned over the years that there are varying levels of honesty when it comes to relationships. There's the blatant dishonesty that comes with cheating or using someone to get something you want. Then, there's lying about more personal stuff. To quote Dr. Gregory House, everyone lies. Maybe it isn't quite that simple. Perhaps it isn't a lie. Perhaps you just withheld the truth as a personal detail due to insecurities, but it's still dishonest.

I knew for a long time that my ex wasn't a good match. Once she stopped lying to herself about whom she was, it was pretty clear to me that we had some major differences. There were plenty of things about me that drove her nuts. The difference is that I knew that the things about her that drove me nuts couldn't be changed. I also knew that I could live with it. As a result, I never spoke up.

Was that dishonest? Yes. She had always told me that I was a good enough catch that my issues were worth dealing with. As it turns out, that wasn't true. I think that deep down she believed that she could change me, or that I would change myself in order to keep her. The detail she missed is that the things that drove her nuts about me are personality traits. They are things that are side effects of who I am. I can no more change that I'm lazy and messy than I can decide I want to be a misogynist pig, sleeping with a different woman every night. Sure, I could exercise to get more energy so that I'm not as lazy, but that's not going to change the fact that I don't particularly care that I have a path between the kitchen, the bathroom, my computer, and my bed. (You can't see it, but my mother is reading this and laughing, since that's how my room has *always* been, no matter how hard she tried to get me not to be like her.)


Why didn't I speak up? Multiple reasons:

1) Selfish reasons. I figured if she knew that she bothered me as much as I bothered her, that she would call an end to the whole thing and walk out. Despite many details about her annoying me, I was still decently happy with the relationship. Yes, I kept my mouth shut to keep her around, just like she pretended to be exactly what I was looking for in order to keep me interested to begin with.

2) Humane reasons. Since I left my first wife, I think she always had a fear that I would wind up leaving her too. I didn't want her to think that I ever had reason to do this again. After all, what's a strong relationship without security?

3) Noble reasons. Considering that she had her own self-esteem issues, I had absolutely no interest in making her uncomfortable with any part of herself. I didn't fully realize this at the time, but when I met her, she was a shell of the person her father had brainwashed her to be. There was very little about her that was truly her. I did my best to allow her to be whatever she wanted, liberating her to think and act for herself (I don't claim I did a *good* job...). The ultimate irony here is that in helping her to grow to become her own person, she eventually decided she needed to leave me.


Since this is a blog entry about honesty and not a blog entry about my last relationship, I'm not going to go into details any more than that. It's obvious that I was dishonest by leaving out details. The big question is the morality of it. Was it right or wrong? I think that depends on the relationship and specifically the people within the relationship. I think people should be mature enough to handle the truth, but not everyone is. I think this level of honesty is critical for a strong relationship--if you are worried that the other person might take offense and even potentially leave you if you say what you really think or feel, then you don't have a relationship at all.

"Security" is the big word in the whole thing. If you don't have security, you don't have a relationship--you have an acquaintance. If you can't trust someone enough to tell them what you really think about them, you don't have a relationship. If you can't trust your partner with people of the opposite sex, you don't have a relationship--you have an arrangement.


In closing, I'll leave you with this acronym: SHAT. SHAT is the most fundamental requirement for a solid relationship:

Security
Honesty
Acceptance
Trust