An expensive Halloween mocoa.

At about the time I was taking my first sips from this hauntingly tasteful mocoa (see below) at some nondescript coffee shop last Halloween Saturday, an email was being transmitted to my hotmail account. The gist of that email was 'we aren't getting along; you disrespected me; you need to leave.'

The email was from a friend (let's call her "Babs") I was staying with (not her house). Considering the events that had unfolded leading up to my mocoa, I wasn't completely surprised. I was more surprised when I found my belongings on the front stoop, waiting for me. Bye, bye, Jeff.

I comment that this was an expensive mocoa as our friendship (mine and Bab's) is in jeopardy. "Was" in jeopardy? Is kaput? Whatever. Not sure at this point. Shit's gone down like this before between us and it's always resolved itself. I remind you of my shit on the stoop.

I guess what I'm most perplexed about is how one deals with someone who's been diagnosed with inadequate interpersonal skills (sort of - I won't get into the specifics) when it comes to certain relationships in his/her life. In other words, Babs is fragile, an addict and needs to be handled with kid gloves. The sticky point in all this is how much can I (or anyone else dealing with Babs) bend over for her (or people like her) while treating her with kid gloves AND at the same time not allow Babs to walk all over everyone in her path, using the 'I'm fragile and I'm not supposed to be treated this way' crutch?

Am I making myself clear? I'm not without fault. I blew up at Babs the 3rd time she told me how to drive my car. 1) I already told her twice before not to do that, 2) I just moved back to WI from Los Angeles after 11+ years of driving in the worst traffic in the United States, and 3) I always check my blind side when merging onto the freeway - I'm blind in my left eye. I have to. It's as much of a reflex as your kick reflex when you hit your knee in the doctor's office.

That incident triggered what was to become my undoing. In hindsight, knowing Bab's condition, I should've curbed my tongue. But this brings me back to my original thought: treat others as you would want them to treat you (I guess). If Babs expects to be treated kindly, so do I. No personal relationships are one-way streets.

In the end, I hope Babs and I can someday move beyond all this. We've been estranged before. But in the almost 12 years I've known her, I've come to realize she has excellent qualities and I wouldn't want to be deprived of them. I was pissed - to find my shit on the stoop, yeh. Fucking, steaming pissed. Like busting shit up pissed. But the Christian side of me says to forgive and turn the other cheek.

Ha...I can be stingy when it comes to turning the other cheek. We'll see.