I Begin, Baby, Where You End

I think my contentment is slipping.
It's not that I'm unhappy, mind you. Unhappiness is an active affliction: it doesn't leave you alone. It keeps poking and prodding and biting you at inconvenient times, and it never lets you forget it's there for more than five minutes. I don't feel like that - thank the FSM. I just feel useless, at odd ends. I feel like there are so much bigger things I could be - SHOULD be - doing with my time. I feel it when I see the geese V-ing south, honking to each other like dogs barking; I envy them having a place to go and a job to do, and then I feel stupid for it. More than just something diverting to occupy my time, I want that old sense of certainty back - that you do certain things at certain times, like shaving in the morning and eating turkey at Thanksgiving and feeling pressured in the first two weeks of April even if you've already filed. I used to know the steps to this dance, back when I danced at the traditional ball. Now I have to make it up as I go along, trying to find a rhythm for my improvised steps on streetcorners and in parking lots. The only comfort I have is that it hardly matters if I do it right or wrong, and matters a whole lot more that I just do it.
So I do. I just wish I felt more certain about it, that's all.
Anywhoo, my beloved partner has three whole days off in a row - an unprecedented stretch. We have a few dollars to spend and a whole lot of leisure time between now and Friday at 8 AM, so I will probably be doing the shopping and bill-paying and general running around that life generally entails: our library books and DVDs are due, the phone will probably be shut off if I don't pay it pretty quick and we could really use a new brand of shampoo. Little things, you know? Of course, greedy pigs that we are, we've already watched all the new stuff we've downloaded recently - I thought the most recent episodes of the Simpsons and Family Guy were particularly clever - so now we must wait to download new ones. I have committed myself to finding a new activity that is outdoors and semi-strenuous physically but doesn't involve running, jogging or talking to strangers, so maybe we'll work on that one as well. Plus (of course) we'll spend a lot of time in bed. He IS rather young, you know.
How was that for a segue, eh?
But time just keeps passing, on and on and on. I was looking through my blog archives over at Chambered Nautilus the other day, it amazed me how many words I've written and how many times I've repeated myself. Yet I find that the line of my story is both true and almost fairy-tale simple: I was unhappy but unwilling to change, then my life was torn apart by a catastrophe and ensuing divorce, but just when things looked darkest my knight in shining armor appeared and loved me back to health. Now I think the question is, will I write something bigger with the days of my life that still are left to me? I hope so, but I know I won't be doing it today. Today will be a little housewifely shopping, a trip to the library and then the preparation of an elaborate meal with a movie and even more elaborate dessert for afterward.
I know, I know, if I don't sharpen up my big gay agenda they're gonna take away my ruthlessly evil badge. After having been in a married-type relationship with both a woman and now a man, I can say this with authority: there are differences, but a whole freaking lot fewer than you'd believe. The only real difference is the biological one: he doesn't have periods, so his moody bits come twice a day instead of one weekend a month. That and maybe we're better about dividing up the chores, although he's never washed a dish and I refuse to take out the trash. Now that I think about it, I guess that chore thing doesn't really qualify, does it?
But now I hafta go and actually DO some chores. Speaking of the dishes reminded me that I really must do mine this morning, and a whole lot of cleaning before we're ready and presentable for the grocery store. With that in mind, I suppose I'll quit blog-crastinating and get to work.
My best to all of you, and I wish that I could contact you more often. I hope that you think of me as frequently and fondly as I do all of you.

Title lyric from "Circles In The Sand" by Belinda Carlisle.

Watching The Sun Trace Shadows On The Floor

I want to tell you the stories of my days, to illustrate some grand design through the telling in my own folksy homespun voice - and yes, I really talk this way too. I want it all to add up to something. I know some really terrific stories, you know; one of the greatest I know is the crazy love affair I'm still having with my guy, and I have no idea how it ends... I'm sort of hoping that it never does, you see.
But my day, whether this day or that, is pretty mundane. I walk to the grocery store, I concentrate on how I cook meals and make a home. I spend a fair bit of 'me-time' on the Internet too. I love Facebook games, and I play all the biggest ones. Except Farmville, I don't play that one anymore. It got too damn demanding for me. I'd rather spend that time reading a book, sewing up HB's favorite pajama pants (note to self - still haven't done that yet), planning surprise desserts and day-off excursions to things we haven't crossed off the list. I write a lot. I wrote this the other day:

Lately I have that old feeling again.
The feeling is that I'm stalling, failing to progress. Does everybody get that, I wonder? I know that life isn't one long school with set tests and examinations, I know that the goal isn't the same for everybody. I just wish I could convince some of the mental passengers in my head that it's so, you know?
Don't pretend you don't know what I mean. People who spend enough time with you get to take up living space in your head after while: they move right in like your mind is an apartment building, and they're always dropping in at the most INconvenient times to offer you their sage opinions. Your parents, your best friend in fourth grade, your lovers, even your adversaries. The get to be one of your shadows, always there, always unwelcome. Mine are all convinced that I have taken the wrong turn at every fork, and that my only distinction is in displaying to all the world just how utterly wrong a man my age can go with a bad attitude and absolutely no successful opposition. My own voice is the one that consoles, that forgives, rationalizes and soothes. Even in my own head, I'm the only one who's still doggedly convinced I'm right.
When I start to agree with all of those voices I tend to look back over my life in the most critical of terms. Right now, for instance, I feel as though I came to this city to make some sort of breathrough to a new and more settled way of life. A more responsible way of life, if you feel me. Yet I find myself up to the same old tricks, mostly because they're the only ones I know. I smoke illicit cigarettes on the down-low from my partner, I play Facebook games when I should be accomplishing something, I even lied about what I'd done all afternoon the other day to make myself sound like less of a lazy shit even to myself. All those examples are just the tip of the iceberg, too - but I've taken an oath not to write online about some of the other habits I've fallen back into quite easily as a result of being so close to my old stomping grounds... 'Nuff said. The point is, I feel like I'm idling around doing jack-all when I should be... doing something.
Thing is, the times when I feel most this way seem always to come right before something does happen, and it's always something I didn't plan, didn't see coming and works right out on its own. I don't know if other people's lives are that way - that you work and strain and pray for something until you're blue in the face, and then about ten minutes after you've given up it pretty much falls in your lap with a ribbon around it - but I have this sort of working theory in the back of my head that all of life is that way, just a bunch of random shit that happens to us more or less because of who and where and how we are - and that all of our efforts to change which shit happens to us when are largely in vain. I don't mean to sound defeatist, because it certainly doesn't feel that way. HB just sort of happened to me, just the way I wished for him, and not because I read books on how to be a great catch or worked out and had my teeth capped or any other way you can be rich, handsome and successful through your own good works. I got him because he was just what I wanted and I was ready for him... But he came when it was his time, not mine. If I hadn't been exactly who and where and how I was the minute he was ready, I'd never have met him - you see?
There are even times when this quality of the universe made me vaguely understand where spiritual people are coming from, or at least the spiritual sort who do a lot of time in AA. I resist approaching what I need to do in life on that basis simply because it isn't pragmatic enough: the universe really is a little too random for everything to be planned. We're the ones who make synchronicity work, I think.
I wrote all of that in one sitting - in much less time than it probably took to read. I'm always writing little scraps like that. I save them all in folders, and then again in my Google documents (All hail Google!) in the vain hope that maybe someday somebody will want to read them again, or (even more vain a hope) even publish them. Hey, we all get to dream, so why not dream big?
Even as big as I dream, though, I can never quite seem to top how exactly right things keep unfolding between the two of us. He's been my rock through this latest emotional jolt with my kids, and I don't think I could ever begin to write well enough to capture how wonderful I think he is or just how precisely made for me he is. No matter how bad I have it, I'm still pretty lucky, aren't I?
But now I gotta run off and do mundane things. Sauce for stuffed shells doesn't appear out of thin air; plus, he likes the little details when he's fresh in the door, a hot bath drawn, his favorite lounging outfit laid out (pajama pants, a cotton T-shirt worn thin as a kleenex and his Cartman slippers) and something hot coming out of the oven. Plus I actually bought some potting soil and planted a little plant to have some greenery around here, and if I don't mess with it again soon it just might live.
Toodles, one and all. Thank you too for your kind wishes. If only I could offer you more than a virtual hug, I promise I would be as persistent as the really creepy guy at the office Christmas party.
But now I really MUST run. For realz, as the kids say. Later.

Title lyric from "Good" by Better Than Ezra.

Do Whatever It Takes In Your Heart

Being this close to my old home is hard. Really hard. We've been as far away as the upper peninsula, the Black Hills, even as far south as Evansville in that state at the crossroads of America. Now we're an hour or so from home (depends on who's driving) and I go back to see my adult kids fairly often.
Take the other day for an example. I called my son - I believe it was a Friday morning, Ohio sky the color of television snow but not cold or rainy. More of an absence of weather than anything, really.
"We thought maybe we'd come and spend the night tonight," I said to my son on the phone. "HB's gotta work on Saturday at six, but that gives us lots of time."
"Um, yeah," my son said. He seemed ready to relay something unpleasant. "Thing is, the little kids are coming on Friday."
For just a second, I leaped to conclusions. I haven't seen my own three youngest children in almost two years now. My ex-wife refuses to let me see them, point blank, and given where she lives and with whom simply going to confront her is not an option unless I'm ready for a shoot-out. Literally. "Really? What time? You think I could see them? We could stay until two or--"
"Dad, no," my son interjected. "No, we can't do that. Amber and I would get in big trouble with Mom. She'd never forgive us."
"Are you serious?" It was like he'd kicked me good and hard.
"Yes, I'm serious! Maybe you shouldn't come back to town at all this weekend." He sounded angry, but right then I was pretty pissed off myself. Gut reaction, and something I feel terrible about now, but to know that they're so close and then to have such a bright and momentary hope crushed immediately... It hurt. What else can I say?
"Fine, then," I said as calmly as I could possibly be - which was pretty calm, I think. "We won't come." And I hung up.
Later I spoke to my daughter. "He's so stupid," she said by way of comfort. "I had no intention of telling you."
"I suppose that's kinder," I said. I may have sounded just a trifle bitter.
"Well, what do you want from me?" she asked.
I told her that I was forced to conclude, from both her actions and her brother's, that they both agreed that I shouldn't be allowed to see my own kids. I told her that I felt she and her brother both judge me rather harshly over things that happened in their childhood that they're only seeing one side of, and not a very mature side at that - holiday arguments, privileges denied, things overhead meant to be kept between my ex wife and I that they misunderstood. She (rather loftily) replied that she loved me very much and understood that I had always done the best I could, but that if she were in my place in certain instances she might have done very different things. Then she told me not to think about it and said goodbye.
Since then, I've been sort of stewing over the whole mess. I hate that my ex can just stand up in court and say, "He's a sexual deviate, your honor - he lives with a man half his age, younger than his stepdaughter. He shouldn't be allowed to see his own children," and the courts in Pennsylvania (who were empaneled by Cotton Mather) will heartily agree, case closed. Even if I had the money to hire an expensive lawyer and plead my case in the media it would be a tooth and nail battle: the family court in that particular county being famed for its conservatism and rigidity in such matters.
So I sit here. My coffee is cooling in the cup by my hand; the apartment smells of fresh baked bread, espresso and incense. There is money in the box on the dresser for the rent and the car payment and the bills. My refrigerator is interestingly stocked with fresh vegetables and fruit, cups of yogurt and a few remaining slices of cappuccino pie; there is fresh laundry stacked in the closets and folded in drawers; the internet is here beneath my fingertips, the whole imaginary electronic realm available at high speed. It took me all of eight weeks to assemble these things, the trappings of a comfortable life, and the delight I took in that fact is utterly gone now. Instead I think over and over of the things I lost in my head, the needle of my thoughts digging a deep and painful repeated groove. It's as if I had never mourned these things, or consciously put them away like the mementos of a painful accident that left me maimed, less than whole, but functional.
So what will I do now?
I don't know what to do. I. Don't. Know.
More than anything right now I want to take Amber's advice: I don't want to think about it anymore. I just wish I knew a way to do that.

Title lyric from "Hate Me" by Blue October.

Blue October - Hate Me
by UniversalMusicGroup

In The Middle Of The Night

I think I have an ear infection.
My left ear certainly hurts, an under the surface pressure and pain like a swollen gland or an abscess. The pain radiates out from my ear to the top of my head and into my jaw and temporomandibular joint, and I'm afraid that in addition to making it hard to sleep, eat or get anything done, it's made me just the tiniest titch cranky as well. My beloved is across the darkened room from me as I write this, pretending to be asleep in the most grimly determined fashion possible. Even with his back to me I can tell he's clenching his teeth. That's his tell, his dead giveaway: he always clenches his teeth when he's pissed. God how I love him.
I'm not sure about the jobs I interviewed for awhile back: the job field is very competitive here, and my recent medical history and ancient criminal record (22 years now!) may be making me seem like a bad deal. If so, then... so. I don't know what else to say or do about it. HB's new job, on the other hand, is going gangbusters, and he is once again putting beans on the table. He doesn't seem to mind, and I certainly don't mind either. The jobs of housewife and nosy building super are perfect for me, giving me lots of time to write and just plain interact with the net itself. Of course, a lot of that time is starting to be devoted to cleaning and baking and exercise again as routine reasserts itself. You get a certain age, you start to feel more comfortable in the groove that you know. It's a hell of a thing to admit, but there you are.
I recently had an HIV test. We continue to not have it, the dreaded IT, the plague, GRID, or as one of our close friends so charmingly calls it, 'the hiv' so as to rhyme with 'give.' I guess that goes with that whole monogamy deal: you don't bring it into the relationship with you, you don't go outside the relationship and your biggest dirty deed is watching porn together, and whaddaya know? You both stay negative. I read today that premature aging is common in people who have lived with the virus for a long period of time, especially if they've been on protease inhibitors. Bone loss, senility, all that jazz. My brother's been positive since the late eighties, he's still going strong, but hearing that frightens me. If he needed me, I'd go to him and help him, but I'd rather he never actually needed me like that.
We have a number of new neighbors in the building, and at the current moment, someone or some ones are playing their music much, much too loud. The sad part is that I can't quite figure out whether it's coming from upstairs or downstairs because of the whole ear infection deal: I know that it's loud enough for me to hear it and vaguely pin down the genre as either eighties soft rock and R&B or Motown, or possibly a mixture thereof. Which is nice and all, musically speaking, but not cool at this hour. Some people are just dicks that way I guess.
Speaking of people who are dicks, I think I'll stop being one and wrap up this post so HB can finally get some sleep. He put in a ten hour day today, eight regular hours and a two hour paid meeting, and now he's pretty well whipped - and the loud music from the omnidirectional neighbor(s) isn't helping matters much, but then neither is my screen light or key clicking. So I will bid you all adieu and good night, and hope that things are well and happy with you, and that things are (as our new acquaintance Mr. Blackwell is always saying) well and truly sorted.

Title lyric from "River Of Dreams" by Billy Joel.

Billy Joel - The River Of Dreams
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It's A Bittersweet Symphony, This Life

Sometimes I like to play the "what if" game. Don't you? I think everybody does, a little, but I tend to take it a bit far. Still, I think that's what makes my writing better: I like to imagine fully all the interactions and consequences of a situation, to try and assess the changes that occur if I change this or that little detail. Isn't that what makes up our lives, and makes each one different from the others? The difference between this and that detail, between growing up here or there, rich or poor, educated or ignorant...
I think that if somehow HB and I were handed real security on a silver platter - I'm not just talking about money, but the freedom from ever having to worry about having enough of anything again - I think we'd be farmers. We've tried a lot of different things that other people and the media have suggested, the bars and the beaches and the nightclubs. Some of those experiences were a pretty good time, all things considered, but none of them was so amazing that we wanted to make a lifestyle of it. We're just into each other, we stay home at night and get excited about special meals, a good movie, a new wine or some really great weed. I think that the constant, repetitive schedule of a farm and its seasonally changing demands would fit right into our shared pleasures. Sure, he's a child of suburban sprawl with no real concept of the amount of hard physical work that goes into even the most mechanized farming operations; sure, I'm not as young as I used to be, and just between you and me I find that these days I'm having a hard time just staying this age without getting older at an alarming rate. So what? Granted, that cuts out large-scale commercial or beef farming because it's just TOO labor intensive, but that's not what I'm picturing here. I'm seeing something more on the scale of the single-family farm that specializes in nothing really and mostly just supports itself: fields that grow produce for the kitchen and feed for a few cows, goats and chickens, maybe a tank-house supporting a catfish/prawn/krill cycle that would net a few bucks.
It's a pretty dream, isn't it? When you get right down to it, farming or writing or even parasailing are all just ways to exercise the body you've got for now while you kill the allotted time between birth and death... Or more like the time between understanding and death, because that clock doesn't really start ticking until you realize it's there. But that's how it is: none of us really knows why we're here, or what the world is really all about. We just do our thing while we have it to do, and that's what I'm doing too. Working, living, and spinning out dreams that I sometimes write here to share with you.
I hope that, as autumn slides into late autumn and inorexably toward winter, this little blog of mine finds you content if not happy, occupied if not happily busy, and (more than any other wish I have for you) loved and in love. Even if there isn't a soul mate in your life, there is so much of life to love. Like one of my favorite books says, 'If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.' Until the next time my words reach you, here's hoping that you get the time and peace to see the world that way.

Title lyric from "Bittersweet Symphony" by the Verve.

So You Learn The Only Way To Go

Early afternoon in late October, and my apartment is full of strong smells: boiling coffee in the old percolator, chocolate incense sticks stuck in a gargoyle candle-holder and lit, chicken roasting in the oven. I am older than I ever thought I'd be, the days pass me faster and more complicated than I can grasp, I am belligerent, opinionated and of little use to most anybody these days. Yet I can still work a man's hard day and keep house better than some women I know besides, and that's saying something.
It's like that bad year of divorce and cancer was the very middle of my life. The dark abyss in the center of the lake where you almost drown. I kept swimming and now I've found my stride again. I'm not in the warm shallows again yet, but that's fine. I'm not ready to be.
Here now, on the other side of that divide, I find myself keeping house with that young man. How did this happen? He's been here for so long that everything that went before him seems like a dream... And yet the most popular song on the day he was born was Vogue by Madonna. I've raised children older than him, and at least one of my daughters has found him crushworthy in the past. The other day he very excitedly explained the plot of a book he'd started reading. I was baking cookies while he talked - I really like the white chocolate macadamia ones, which is funny because I don't generally like white chocolate, it's not really chocolate at all - and he accused me of not paying attention to him.
"I was listening," I protested. "You were telling me the plot of They Whisper, Robert Owen Butler, right? And I was listening."
He frowned at me. "Robert Olen Butler," he corrected, "and you've already read it? Why didn't you tell me?"
I thought about how I'd watched him pick that one out at the library, how he'd come up the aisle behind me and seen the one book out of line with the others, the one I'd pulled out and looked at which then caught his eye. How I'd vaguely looked forward to discussing it with him.
I shrugged. "It didn't seem important."
"I just thought I'd picked out something you'd like instead of the other way around," he said. And then, "You're right, it's not that important."
I hate the little moments like those. But what do you do? Every one of us is taking something too far at any given moment. We're all too loud, too impatient, too inconsiderate, too demanding, too something and we fuck it all up. I don't know anybody who lives any moment of their lives just right, or not for more than a few moments at a time anyway. That's one of the less attractive things about life and the way it goes on eating and shitting and bleeding through its appointed rounds and then dies.
So next time I'll show an interest in one of his enthusiasms that I really don't feel one way or another about and just fake it 'til I make it. I've actually come to more or less enjoy several music groups that way, y'know. I love him so much that it frightens me sometimes: not only that our love is temporal and doomed to pass upon one or the other of our deaths if not before, but that its quality is eroded by the daily wear and tear of mortality just like an expensive piece of furniture. I know I'm luckier than most because he's constantly new to me, constantly becoming someone else that I love even better than the man he was. He's probably humored me in a million small things to the few that I've been momentarily less self-absorbed enough to see. I do sometimes wish that there was a better way for me to say "I love you" than to be less insensitive and self-centered than usual, but there you go: I just gotta be me.
So tomorrow I'll join in his new enthusiasm, and maybe for a minute or two it will make me new(er) too. He's doing a pretty bang up job of keeping me young so far - thank god I'm doing my end by staying equally immature.
My best to all of you, as always.

Title lyric from "Through The Roof" by Gogol Bordello.

The Best Luck I Had Was You

Time has gotten away from me, hasn't it?
So much has happened. Where to start? Well, last week I interviewed at two different universities and a medical school. Two of the jobs are pretty much like the one I used to work before I got sick and divorced and all that... And one is for a better, more responsible position. I don't know if I'll get even one of them, but so far things look good. I've been called back for a second interview at the medical school and one of the state schools, the HR guy loved me at the third... We'll see.
When I went to the medical school interview some nice little girl in scrubs hit our van with her car. It sounds pretty calm written out like that, but it happened exactly ten minutes before my interview and I so completely freaked out. She took my phone number and called me later... And acted as if I would assume responsibility when SHE rear-ended me! Wonders never cease.
HB loves his new job. It's less than a block away, it pays well and he adores the hours. This is a good thing; even though I'm only working as the building manager (a job very light on responsibility to say the least) I manage to keep quite busy, and now he's happily occupied as well. It gives a much nicer shape to our days: I get to grocery shop at the little international market instead of the dollar store, we walk and jog at the beautiful park up the street that's right on the beach and we've gotten to sample the local night life a time or two as well. All very good things. I will say that sometimes I feel as though we're evening up some internal scoreboard as much as amusing ourselves - as if getting to do all the little prosaic things together somehow proves a hypothetical point to somebody, somewhere - and that it's the small things that we actually enjoy more. We go to the library and take out DVDs and books, we download the latest movies and watch them together, when he gets home from work I often have big, sumptuous meals all prepared, his bath drawn and a joint rolled. Those are the things I think we'll look back on as the fondest points if we ever look back at all. These small things, plus the way the trees sound in the wind here, the way the train whistles as it gets closer and closer, the towers of the city so close to the water with a sky like cement behind it.
We're keeping on with keeping on. I take care of him, he takes care of me, we love each other. We're happy, or at least as happy as we can be. We're looking forward to the holidays and we're looking out for each other. I hope you're all doing the same.

Title lyric from "Say Hey (I Love You)" by Michael Franti & Spearhead.

Don't Hang On, Nothing Lasts Forever But The Earth And Sky

Back again - sorry it's been so long since I've posted.
Things are still in a state of flux with our new location and life; my beloved got himself a new, much better paying job that's literally less than a block away, I have an interview with a major medical school early next week, an emergency in our landlord's life called him away to another state and as a result I'm now the de facto landlord for our apartment building. It's strange how much can change in just a few days, isn't it?
Of course, it's not all blue skies and roses. It never is, at least in my experience. My guy has developed some troublesome health symptoms, and now I'm going to stress until we hear from a doctor whether it's something we should or shouldn't worry about. The news from back home is always troublesome: my daughter Amber, against everything I've ever taught her and her own considerable common sense, drove home drunk the other night and probably narrowly avoided killing someone else or herself - prompting a four hour phoned-in screaming match between us. My son is having trouble with his chemistry courses, most likely because I'm not there to constantly nag and guilt trip him about his study habits. My ex-wife has split with her most recent beau and now is going to spend the winter in my house and childhood home, a daunting mission given that she can't cut her own firewood the way I always did. It seems like there's always grist for the mill if you're the worrying type. I try very hard not to be the worrying type... But sometimes it seeps in no matter how serene you try to be.
One sign of how things get to me lately is the incredibly vivid and memorable dreams I've been having since we moved here. Last night I dreamed about my ex-wife, specifically that she was mocking me and no matter how I tried to retaliate it had no effect. I was literally powerless to stop her or hurt her - I can't think of a more accurate depiction of my actual feelings where she's concerned. Of course, I also dreamed that I was friends with the president and his wife, and that Michelle Obama and I had to go out searching for one of her daughters who was at a party with Amber - I couldn't even BEGIN to guess what THAT means. It's been a long time since I had dreams that I remembered, let alone dreams that were so vivid. Some of them are just plain silly, too - the other night, I actually dreamed an episode of Gilligan's Island that was in black and white and was complete with all the characters, opening and closing credits and theme song. The human mind is a strange thing, isn't it?
Right now, though, I can hear the guy in the sole occupied basement apartment blasting out his music at sonic-boom decibels and I must go down and speak to him AGAIN. Last time I had to speak to him, he complained that I never say anything to the 'old lady' on the second floor when she plays her music rather loud; for the record, she's fifty-four (hardly 'old') and listens to Vivaldi, which I view as providing elevator muzak as a free service. Of course, my basement rap aficianado doesn't see it that way, and didn't seem to appreciate the joke when I explained that you can't spell 'crap' without 'rap.'
Catch you again soon, everybody. Until then, all my best.

Title lyric from "Dust In The Wind" by Kansas.

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In Fact It Was A Little Bit Frightening

I was doing the laundry this morning. My guy has this weird way of taking his socks off so that one ends up balled up inside the other - please don't ask me how that works, I'm personally mystified - and one pair somehow managed to sneak by me in that condition. I found them that way when I took everything out of the dryer. Of course the inside sock was heavy and wet. I started flicking the outside sock by the toe in hopes of separating them... And somehow managed to hit myself square in the nuts with them as if they were a set of nunchucks. I dropped to my knees, clutching my bruised groin with what must have been a somewhat amusing expression on my face. I know this about my expression because he's STILL walking around the apartment muttering 'right in the nuts' to himself and giggling. This, you see, is my reward for being a good housewife.
Without wishing to go into specifics, I have managed to lay hands on six hundred and fifty dollars since eleven A.M. this morning. Yesterday we were sure that our van would be repossessed; today, the payment is made and we have money for the rent and another payment left over. If you were to ask me what my secret to making that kind of money in so short a time frame is, I would tell you: nothing you'd be willing to do yourself. Let's leave it at that... Except to say that while he is still considering the porn gig, this has nothing to do with that. End of story.
We wanted to go to the national equality march next weekend, but unless we manage to find someone local to carpool with it probably won't happen. I would like him to be able to participate in what will doubtless be a major historic milestone in our civil rights struggle, not to mention take part in the general party atmosphere that will doubtlessly pervade the entire event. It would be wonderful to go... But even if we can't, just by being together and visibly happy in the face of general societal disapproval is, in my eyes anyway, doing our part.
But now I must run. My beloved will be home at nine tonight and I have a special evening planned. We've been worried and run ragged all week, and tonight we're going to relax. I hope that you all can take a moment or two to unwind this weekend as well.
All my best to all of you.

Title lyric from "Kung Fu Fighting" by Carl Douglas.

I Know We Will Never Look Back

Sometimes I think that our new home is not the ideal move that I initially thought it was.
Oh, I'm sure things will settle down once we've both found the right jobs for us - so far, things aren't working out with our first efforts - but for the moment, things are stressful money-wise. It's not that I'm pining for all the things that money can buy, mind you, just that we're somehow still having trouble covering the basics and still being able to deal with the emergencies that arise.
And oh, how they continue to arise.
Yesterday, the van decided to just up and die. In the rain, on the first really cold day we've seen this winter, a great many blocks from home... And (of course) in a neighborhood that made downtown Baghdad look positively gentrified. Available cash when this happened? $11.17, with the $1.17 on the end entirely comprised of dimes, nickels and pennies in the change tray. Plus (of course) with several of our most expensive possessions on prominent display through the back windows with no way to hide them. (As he reminded me while we trudged home through said rain and cold, I was the one who said "tinted windows are illegal anyway.") Turns out it was the battery. We couldn't afford a new battery, but since we both have to get to work, I did some fast talking - something I'm rather experienced at - and now we have a working van again, along with an additional $25 in debt that we can't pay.
Then there's the rent - due tomorrow, when we will still have $11.17 to our names - the van payment, my prescription that will need refilled soon... The list goes on and on.
It's not like we aren't trying to fix this, either. I have job applications in at every college, trade school, university, medical school and high school in a thirty mile radius; failing that, I've also applied at literally every business that would take my application and lies within walking distance, and that includes Wendy's, McDonald's and Burger King. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Failing the more traditional employment options, we've also tried some new things. Even, since some of our naughty online profiles have generated SUCH enthusiasm, the world of online adult entertainment. At the moment, my beloved has made it through the first two levels of contact with Sean Cody, having heard first by email and then by phone from the producers. I'm sort of proud of that... And sort of scared by it too. But, as he points out, it's money, honey.
Still, we remain strong in our love and confident that we'll succeed. Granted, I am no longer so sure that this will be the ideal place and time for us to relax into the bliss of all-male matrimony... But if not here, then somewhere else. The song says that you can't keep a good man down, and I figure we've got double the chances of not being kept down. What we really need now is a bit of luck...
Well, okay, that's not entirely true. What I really need now is information. I need to know what business close enough to commute to needs someone like me so that I can go to them and work my magic. I know I've been off the market for awhile, I know that I have a few strikes against me (my age, my medical history, stuff like that), and BELIEVE ME I know what kind of shape the economy is in both locally and nationally. Still, I am very confident that once my foot is in the door I can do what I do best: charm people and pull off those odd lucky moves that I seem only to be able to do when I'm not really trying.
So, while you're wishing me luck, also wish for better intelligence. I know I am.

Title lyric from "I Will Buy You A New Life" by Everclear.
I Will Buy You a New Life by Everclear

Look Into Your Heart And You'll Find That The Sky Is Yours

I wish I could say that our life together is one uninterrupted dream of domestic bliss. Alas... It ain't so.
There's the big stuff that sets us back. Money, I would say, is number one; but then, isn't it the number one issues for most couples? Currently we have even less than we are used to, mostly because we chose this place based on demographics and just blithely assumed that jobs would be easy to come by. In this economy, that was a bad mistake... But I am still firmly committed to just grimly getting through it. As I said to him just last night, every single aspect of our lives changes if we just give it enough time. I have the property manager gig to help us, he is currently working, and if there isn't so much as counter help at McDonald's available - yes, I climbed down off my high horse and actually applied at McDonald's, advanced degree and all - things can't stay this bad forever. In the meantime, we'll get by somehow.
Then there are the little issues. Some of them are sort of funny, like the way he never turns off the shower valve - I always forget this and just turn on the taps in the tub, suddenly - hey presto! - it's raining on my head. Then there's my habit of speaking for him in public even when I'm not the one who's been addressed; like he says, it's a little demeaning, as if he isn't old enough or smart enough to answer for himself. Or the way he's so careless with money, leaving it wadded up in his pockets so that he has no clue how much he has at any given moment... Or the way I tend to fuss at him like a mother hen.
If these little things didn't clutter up the landscape of our lives, I don't think our relationship would be as real. How can you feel like you love someone if you're so damn careful all the time that you can't say and do what's natural to you? Isn't that what love's all about, never having to say you're sorry for at least the little things? I can at least say that it doesn't slow us down. When we're irritated with one another we're just as likely to laugh and say 'I love you' as we are to gripe, and that's what holds a relationship together. I know personally it's hard to stay mad at him and very easy to forget why I was angry in the first place... Picturing his bottom in his tight little biker shorts certainly helps, I'll say that.
In fact, I think I'll just go all the way out on this limb I've started climbing: the fact that I get annoyed with him sometimes and then get right on over it (and vice versa, of course!) is the reason I am so sure in my heart that he's a keeper. As long as we can keep right on enduring through the big stuff and laughing away the small stuff, we'll be okay.

Title lyric from "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz.

Jason Mraz - I'm Yours
by jasonmrazworld

Because Of You I'm Running Out Of Reasons To Cry

Ugh, I hate these early mornings.
The partner's 'dream job' has turned out to be anything but: it's all the way across the city in some obscure suburb, necessitating a freeway drive of half an hour. The freeways here (as my Facebook friends could tell you) are not high on my list of this state's positive features. The signs are confusing or nonexistent, everyone swaps lanes with impunity and the state police seem to regard traffic tickets as a random game of chance based solely on who will pull over when they turn on the lights instead of who is actually speeding. As if this wasn't bad enough, his eyesight has deteriorated slightly and he needs a new prescription for his glasses - which we naturally cannot afford. Bad enough in the bright light of day, but in the early morning or at night it becomes a real liability. I worry constantly when he has to drive by himself. I've seen all the movies where the hospitals refuse to notify the partner or allow them access, and while we've taken all the necessary precautions for me we never thought to make them reciprocal (he's young and healthy!), and so I fear that if something ever did happen I might be among the last to know.
At least I got him off to a good start this morning. He likes a fried egg for breakfast, over easy, and I have learned how to make it exactly to his liking right down to the three slices of toast (two to make a sandwich of it and one to mop up afterward) and two slices of fruit. I use an old-fashioned two-cup percolating coffee pot that takes half an hour to deliver... But makes the darkest, richest coffee you can imagine. One cup of my coffee is just right; two cups, and you end up so caffeinated that you vibrate slightly. After breakfast I shooed him right into the shower, and I had his work clothes hanging on the back of the bathroom door, complete right down to the undies and socks. His car keys were in the basket by the door along with his fully charged mp3 player, his shoes on the floor right below the basket and all was right with his world. He's not much of a worrier about the little things, is my beloved.
Sometimes I think about the effect I've had on his life. When we met, he would never wear socks (his shoes stank so bad that I'd sneak baking soda into them whenever he came over), he never ate on a regular schedule and his bed had no sheets or pillow cases. He left his money wadded up in his pockets and never had a clue how much he had. He was on a perpetual search for a comb, his wallet, his car keys and any bit of paperwork that had passed through his hands. Now he insists upon white cotton tube socks folded together (no folding the top of one over the other - it ruins the elastic, he says!) that MUST be properly mated, he eats three square meals a day prepared to his liking and he's been known to bitch if the bed isn't made when he's ready to crawl into it. As for money and paperwork - I hang onto that, and dole both out as needed.
If it sounds as if I'm bragging over having trained him, however, then I've misspoken. The impact he's had on my life has been far greater. I can honestly say I'd be dead right now if it weren't for him pushing me to live. He gave me a reason to want to fight when that was the last thing I wanted to do, and all the other stuff I've done for him is not only small potatoes but a very inadequate repayment of all that he's done for me. I love him so much... And now I'm going to worry until he calls me on his break and tells me that he made it to work in one piece and that everything is okay.
That's just how I am, I guess.

Title lyric from "Underneath Your Clothes" by Shakira.
Underneath Your Clothes

Who Could Ask For More?

There are parts to my new phase of existence that I find a little frustrating, to say the least.
In the last two weeks, we've had our electric service, internet and landline all turned on. Of the three, only the electric was without headaches: I sent them an email, they directed me to a website where I filled out a form, they sent me an email confirming my request. All done. The internet wasn't terrible, either, but only because I've set up a DSL account before; if it weren't for my prior experience, I'd probably have had some trouble with it. But the landline? Holy cow.
First they offered discounts during the signup that evidently evaporated during the installation process, because even though those discounts are prominently displayed on their website, none of their customer service agents seem to have a clue that they exist, let alone that I might be entitled to any of them. Every single customer service representative pushes DirecTV with the zeal of a mormon missionary; several of them had such a thick regional dialect that I could barely understand them. One woman put me on hold for a minimum of ten minutes every time I asked a question - and she STILL screwed up both the information she told me and the order she placed for me. My bottom line: a landline and DSL may be cheaper, but the instant I can afford cable internet and phone again, I'm dumping my current service like an obnoxious boyfriend with bad teeth and body odor issues.
Some parts of our new existence, however, have been a positive delight. Walking two blocks through some pretty impressive houses - not mansions by Hollywood standards, but damn close - to the beach is nice, even though I can just imagine what it will be like in winter. Our neighborhood is filled with gay and lesbian couples, and even though it's one to two blocks in any direction to a major thoroughfare, every night is filled with the quiet sound of crickets instead of constant traffic. The streets are lined with huge maples and oaks, and a great many of our neighbors have landscaping to be proud of in their front yards. Whenever I am tempted to complain or become irritated, these little grace notes temper my irritation.
On another note, I am now looking for a full-time job again. I have a number of resumes submitted, but I have yet to apply to the medical school here in spite of being almost overqualified for some of the positions offered. I will honestly admit it: I am afraid. Afraid of being rejected, afraid of getting a bad reference from my former captors in the Black Tower, afraid that my long illness has reduced me as a person somehow so that I am no longer as capable or attractive as an employee as once I was. I know that I'll have to conquer these fears and apply there if I really want the kind of job I'm meant to do... But sometimes conquering a fear is a daunting job. Wish me luck with it.
But for now, I have to go and do some housework: clean the bathroom, do the dishes, make lunch. Our lives keep right on ticking through their appointed cycles just like everyone else's. Plus I MUST go for my job through the neighborhood; being sick and half starved for so long has positively wrecked my metabolism, and I'm suddenly finding the battle of the bulge harder to fight than al qaeda. Wish me luck with that one, too - my partner's too hot to have a fat lover, you know.

Title lyric from "When I'm Sixty Four" by the Beatles.

When I'm Sixty-Four
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