Ellie is Driving Me Nuts Thank God we're finally here. I don't even know how I have the energy to type this. I haven't slept in two days and I'm exhausted. I've heard a saying that "when it goes wrong, it all goes wrong." Today I believe that. I spent the rest of the afternoon pretending to work. I couldn't focus on any of my tasks. I don't know if I ever posted what I do for Infinitae. I'm just your average software developer. Earlier this year I had been working at a startup that went belly-up when our lead investor embezzled our funds. The FBI is looking for him in the Bahamas or something. After interviewing at a bunch of places I chose Infinitae because they seemed to have the best handle on social networking software and had some super benefits. They also were the fastest growing company in the Bay Area and were looking to explode, unlike the startup that had imploded. At one point my manager called me into his office and asked me to close the door. I closed my eyes and prepared for the worst, figuring I had been discovered. I spotted a security guard down the hall. My boss only wanted to talk to me about a candidate I had interviewed a couple of days ago. After giving him my assessment, he asked if I felt ok. "You look like shit," he said. "Why don't you take off early. I know you've been working a lot of extra hours." I nodded absently. "Yeah, ok." Needless to say I high-tailed it out of there. Ellie had left a rambling message on my cell phone at some point, saying she didn't feel great and to hurry home. When I get home, nothing is packed. It's true that she was still sleeping it off when I left this morning. In fact I found her still in bed. "C'mon, Ellie, we gotta get out of here." She looked at me with blurry eyes. Had she been drinking again? "Hey babe, come here," she beckoned. I noticed that she hadn't even showered or gotten dressed, and it was four in the afternoon. I strode over to her and sat on the edge of the bed next to her. She didn't smell so good, I hate to say. No alcohol though. "Hey Ellie, we've got to get packed. Don't you remember? We're spending the weekend at the Tahoe cabin with my family." She whacked the bed with her fist. "Shit!" She rolled over. "What? I thought you liked it out there." "Yeah, until you told me 'She' would be there." Ah. My brother's wife Marcia. They didn't get along very well. They had some kind of weird competitive vibe between them. I think it has something to do with each needing to be the center of attention. "I don't have a damn thing to wear, I ran out of mascara and my hair needs a treatment." "Honey," I tell her, "we're going hiking and out on Dad's boat. How good do you need to look?" "Better than her. Did you see how much work she's had done? She's like Ms Plastic Princess." These are the kinds of things that drive me to distraction. Sometimes I don't get her. "Come on, honey. She's like eight years older than you. Her butt sags. She's got the beginnings of crow's feet." "Do you think I'm prettier than her?" "Of course. How can you ask that? Now could you get dressed already? Do you have anything packed?" She slid her feet off the bed. "Hey, Alex. You look like crap. Did I keep you up last night?" I let out an exasperated sigh. "No honey. I saw a woman get run over last night. Remember? Or were you too busy puking?" "Oh fuck you." She shoved me away. "You never came home last night. You were supposed to take me to that new Asian place, remember? You never called or anything." Damn it. I didn't remember that. In fact I don't remember any plans for last night at all. I just didn't have the energy to argue right then. "Sorry," I mumbled. "Something came up at work. You know." "I'm hitting the shower," she announced. I watched her back as she walked away from me. For a second I considered joining her there, caressing her neck, rubbing my hands along her smooth wet body-- I broke out of my fantasy and set to packing. Well we finally made it out the door. She had cleaned up really nice and looked smoking hot. We stopped at a drug store so she could restock her cosmetics and other things. The trip out here was uneventful. I kept wanting to talk to her about work, but she kept fiddling with her MP3 player, filling the car with her top-40 girl music and trying to sing along wildly off-key. She wouldn't let me sing, even to the ones I could tolerate. A couple of times I began nodding off. Ellie didn't even notice, as she seemed focussed on her music or texting people with the IPhone I just bought her for her birthday. She's probably one of Infinitae's heaviest users. I think her friend list is somewhere in our top 100. She probably doesn't personally know a dozen of them. We arrived safe and sound a little while ago. Ellie is working on getting our stuff unpacked and put away neatly. She likes everything in order. She's probably also re-washing everything in the kitchen because "who knows who's been using this stuff." I figured I would just throw something up to let people know I'm still alive and we made it. So about Ellie. I need to do some serious thinking. Lately I keep thinking and rethinking about why and how we moved in together. Everything happened so fast. We had been dating for less than two months. I was out of work after the layoff, so we spent almost all our time together. After the first couple weeks Ellie practically lived here, only going home when she needed some clothes. The only difference from before an after was that there was a weekend where we moved all her crap over here. There wasn't more of her, just more of her junk. I don't even know what she does half the time. She has plenty of money, although she gets me to pay for a lot of stuff including most of the rent and utilities. She just works part time as an aerobics instructor and sometimes behind a makeup counter. I think most of her money comes from some kind of inheritance or trust fund. I've really got to get some sleep. Ellie sounds like she's heading back up here. It's time for us to play nice-nice, and then I can finally get some sleep. See you all tomorrow. I hope.