a new mattress arrived today.  it is a simmons beautyrest hamlet firm.  it is on my bed.  before I put sheets on it I took pictures.  it was white and thick.  it is the exact same mattress that the 20th century purchased a few months ago.  we went to the mattress store yesterday then we left the mattress store and went back to her place, where she got the idea to call the place from whence she had ordered her mattress and say my friend likes my mattress so can he get the same one from you for the same price?  they said ok.  it was $665 including tax and delivery.  hers was actually a little less due to a technicality nevermind.

it is exhausting to spend money but I knew I would be glad to have the mattress.

it is also exhausting and disorienting to not be individually in control of all my thoughts and actions at all times.  I had emailed her saturday asking her to help me buy a mattress, because I figured if I went alone I would just get in a panic at some point in the store and buy something all wrong.  I would somehow make a mistake.

she called yesterday morning around 10 and I was still in bed.  she said come over and let’s go mattress shopping.  that was an example of someone not allowing me to be individually in control of all my thoughts and actions at all times.  because I had to make a decision on the phone about whether to say that I did want to go mattress shopping, or might want to, or didn’t want to.  I had to either say yes, no or maybe and had to do so quickly enough that it wouldn’t be overly annoying.  I said yes and a few hours later we were in the mattress store.

it had been my idea to go mattress shopping, but I hadn’t said anything about timing.  so it was the timing of the decision about timing that I wasn’t in control of when she called.  I was in control of the decision about timing but not the timing of the decision about timing.

it hadn’t exactly been my idea to go mattress shopping but nevermind.  mostly it had been.   nevermind.

so it is difficult for me to not be in control of all thoughts, actions, schedules.  of course one can attempt to continuously assert control but that doesn’t really work and isn’t even a good thing to do.   in some cases other people’s ideas are good.  you can’t just immediately reject an idea just because it’s someone else’s.  sometimes you can reject an idea for that reason but not always.

and then it happened again after I made the mattress order on the phone.  she was saying something about going to the grocery store and it didn’t immediately seem like a bad idea, but it was another thing where I had to make a decision in X number of minutes about something that was suggested to me by someone else.   we went to the grocery store and it was ok, albeit chaotic.  it didn’t take too long and the things we bought were good drinks and food.

this morning I was asking if maybe she could just be a hologram for an hour a day with no thoughts and feelings and no ability to look at me, but still be present.  she said ok.  I am kidding!  she wouldn’t say ok to something that is impossible.  maybe she said ok.  can’t remember.  anyways I suggested that there must be some way for me to not be exhausted by such things, so we are going to see if we can come up with something.

in a different and former situation with someone else, I suggested we establish certain days of the week when we would not be together.  but I didn’t like that for various reasons.  it was too much of a blunt implement.  and I didn’t like the regularity of that.  and it did nothing to address things during times when we weren’t apart.  and it felt like not being with her on those days was something I was doing “to” her, since it had been my idea/request.  so there must be some less blunt & regimented approach.  something that can work continuously or at least occasionally at certain times.

this blog post didn’t take long to write but was a little exhausting to write but it’s ok.  the fact that I have a new mattress doesn’t make it harder to work in the same room as my bed.  I don’t think.

I have been saying the word exhausting but I don’t know if that’s always the word, but sometimes it is.