Tough Night

...and not in a kinky way.

I'm not particularly good at buy presents for people. I have this fantasy that the perfect gift is something you would never have bought for yourself, but which you find you use every day once it's given to you. Last year, I got my beloved a jewelry pin - she doesn't wear much jewelry, but this wasn't a formal piece; it was the kind of casual thing that you could wear on a sweater (which she does wear lots of).

That turns out to have been a mistake, which I only found out about now. She was really upset about it, viewing it as indicative of how little I think about her and who she really is. Time was that I would have tried to rationalize and explain, but this clearly wasn't a moment for that. I just apologized and accepted it - there is, after all, much truth in what she said.

She was also upset at the prospects for this year's gift. She's shared her gift list with me, and I've made sure to get as many items on it as possible. There were also issues about the guest and shopping schedule for this weekend - issues I don't even remember now given that it's ten days later and I'm just finishing this post.

That night I dreamt that she appreciated the fact that I still had my necklace on and that I respected her wishes by not sexually satisfying myself while she was away. But there was no way to share that, particularly with the bad feeling that remained from our conversation.

I really really want her to care about our "arrangement" and I have not sign that she does. Without that, isn't this all in my head? And haven't I written that before? There's not much more to say about that.

While we were happily shopping away, we had one of those misunderstandings that just happens when people are doing stuff together - I thought you were done with that, why didn't you show that to me, etc. She got short and ticked off with me. We worked it out OK, but I want to solve our problems in the context of our arrangement, not have our arrangement be icing on the cake, happening only when it's all going well. Isn't there some way we can do that? Some time, I hope to ask her. Actually, I did start to ask her, and she seemed to be thinking about it, but we got interrupted by kids or telephones or family or something. Tis the season...