I've had it

When I talked to Marcela on Sunday--she's in Ecuador, so we don't speak frequently--I gave her a verbal highlights tour of the Roommate Experiment, starting with the aggressive talking (and the continued aggressive talking even after we'd discussed aggressive talking). When I told her about the pearl earrings (and my rejection thereof, and his dejected reaction to that rejection), she said,

"it's like some of those people you see on 'Wife Swap': they do these excessive things, which are then not well received, and their response to the response is, 'who are these cold-hearted people who won't let love into their lives?"

Spot-on (see the note that I described yesterday). That's very much what RM thought whenever I established and stood by any sort of personal boundaries. And also, to a lesser extent, whenever I didn't give Gracie that 24/7 attention that she demands.

Over the last week or so, Gracie has been driving me UP THE F*ING WALL. Now, this is partly because I spent more of the last week in the house than I normally do, but she's been especially needy--crawling up on me (my lap is not good enough--she has to sprawl herself across my chest). I was just sitting here, reading the paper, drinking my tea, when she was rubbing up against me, walking across my lap several times, occasionally meowing. I told her there would be hell to pay if any part of her body so much as grazed my teacup... and sure enough, even though I was holding it above where she was walking, her tail fell on the rim of the cup. Not. Okay. If this keeps up, she'll be banned from sitting on me whenever I'm drinking tea, which is often. Perhaps she'll retaliate by pooping somewhere in the house. And I'll retaliate by locking her fat @$$ in the litter box. Who knows what the future holds if one of us fails to de-escalate. And it won't be me--let's be clear on who's the alpha female of the house.