pangs?????

a female friend from a long time ago (yes, i once slept with her, as you know me from a long time ago) flying to ny next week would like to see me. all fine with me, since it would also give me a chance to catch my brother for a meal, and maybe my female coworker (no, i've never slept with her, as you know me from lately) who's been a valued confidante and friend throughout the past year's drama. so what does ms airborne booty call get from this? she called it a "pang". wanted to know the dish on the coworker.

want to know what i get from this? red flags like so many al pennants waving from the future rafters of fenway. pangs??? we haven't seen each other in like a decade, haven't been together in like two, and we're already talking pangs????? wtf????

hard to onomatopoeia the buzzer sound (my best attempt would be agnnnnngghhhhh!!!!) but real easy to do the don pardo to say "thanks for playing". pangs?????

i don't do pangs. i don't really even do monogamy these days, if you've been checking the news feeds. i'm in the middle of a fucking divorce for cheating, for chrissakes. yeah, i know i said that it was great that we both were living the year of loss thing together, so that we'd have someone who understood a few things, but pangs???????

i know the answer, of course: "let me tell you about the last five years of my marriage". i'll leave in all the best bits, about all the things that are unforgivable about me, and all the reasons why that is. i curl my OWN hair with a lot of 'em. i'll make sure to emphasize the tastiest bits involving full frontal nudity and multiple costars, (i think the word bevy comes to mind), and i'll endeavor to leave nothing out. that's oughtta at least get her attention.

and then i'll think to myself the finest friends are the ones who don't get pangs. they're the ones who just want to know how you're doing, and are sincerely happy to think that you're among friends wherever you go. i'm an honest guy, i'll tell you what you want to know. i'm even a pretty reliable guy when it comes to sleeping arrangements, and by that i don't mean reliable as in predictable in any kind of historical sense. i have no reason to screw up my life by screwing around on it or in it. yeah, a little sex is something i'm looking forward to like lawrence of arabia i'm sure used to dream about english beer. in fact, it won't hurt if it's copious. but i promise you it'll be up front, honest, and for real.

AND with someone for whom the pangs are just the feeling of wanting to be with me, not the selfish obsession of wanting me not to be with somebody else. i've had enough of that across my last two decades to late me a lifetime, tyvm.

and, if you let me be in your dream, i'll let you be in mine.

"wait for iitttt..."

when spoken with the requisite gravitas, and expectant and patient upward inflection at the end, "wait for iitttt..." has become one of my favorite exclamations. (props to my muse who mused on such things towards the end of last week). that, and a quirky "it's all -- CONNECTED!" at each and every juncture within "heroes" that it's appropriate, in addition to several times a day when riding around with my kids talking about whatever. "you have three homework assignments tonight? wow... it's four o'clock... and four is right next to three on the number line... it's all -- CONNECTED!!!" (at least a couple of them are young enough to still laugh at such silliness).

so i was riding into the parking lot at work this morning with towncrier's "the end" blaring on the car stereo. it's one of those bum bum bum bum bum bum baselines that's perfect for driving, as long as you don't mind slinging a little gravel on the sharper corners, and when the break is about to kick in, you can literally feel yourself about to fly. "it's like waiting for... / it's like waiting for the end". and i think to myself... all of our lives we're often best admonished to "wait for iitttt..."

i'm waiting for a lot of things these days. i'm waiting for a divorce. i'm waiting for a clue about where i'm going to live, and even whatever i'm going to live on while trying to do it. i'm waiting for the settlement proposal and i'm waiting on the amount of a real estate offer so i'll be able to figure just how big my monthly nut is going to be. (though i already know it's going to be SFY, as in, so fuckin' yuge, as opposed to what'll be left after, which won't). i'm waiting for it all, and i'm doing my level best to be patient.

so, in the final refrain, the towncrier dude (jerry lorenson, i think) asks the existential/essential question, "would you cross the mountains / for just to see me?", and i realize that there is so much simple and singular importance to that question that we forget to ask it, and ask it of ourselves on behalf of those we claim to care about as well. i realize, in those brief moments i 've been taking to stand by the hospital bedside of someone i likely won't be in a position to see much of from now on, (that divorce thing again, and, yeah, it's got sides), that such simple mitzvahs are the essence of our humanity. (wasn't quite a mountain, but i'll be there). and while we're all "waiting for iitttt..." we're seldom thinking about what we should be doing with our lives in the meantime.

my theory is that this is what separates the successful (emotionally, financially, you name it) from the not so. some, like i used to, let their impatience cause them to act hastily and prematurely, so as to destroy what it was they were waiting for in the first place. (don't like the pace of promotion at your job? go ahead and complain too loudly about it and see how long you keep it, or, more in my case, substitute evolution, marriage and screw around at the appropriate places in the sentence and read it again). others, more enlightened, see a longer arc to their life's history, and have the patience and perspective to be "waiting for" without losing their zen, and to be emotionally productive in the meantime.

i like to think somewhere within the devolution of my marriage, likely to the credit of my three children, i grew a sense of time and myself that's serving me well now. no info yet? still caught between the rockiest and hardest of places? it's all good. it's all connected. it's all right there for anyone who will be willing to do what it takes to wait for it. and, in the meantime, i'm still helping friends move and passing the time with someone laid up in the hospital and assembling those pallets of medical supplies for the quasi-hospitals in kenya and afghanistan...

at whatever point when it's time to ask the question, "for just to see me", i'll know the right answer. soon, there'll be no time for those who won't for me, and all time for those who will. with a special free pass to three who i love more than everything in my world, that someday they'll be able to answer the question for themselves, too.

so, what are you waiting for?

exposed brick, structural cables and beams, oh my

i'm coming to understand how much "lifestyle" remains an under-appreciated human attribute. we say it a lot, sure, but it's one of those words without a clear meaning or common understanding. that might be ok if it were something ultimately inconsequential, like "schadenfreude", but here we have something that's elemental to WHO WE ARE. touring what seems to be every open living space in downtown lowell, and extrapolating for personality, i just can't believe how varied the human species is. (we won't even mention the impending divorce...)

ok, yes we will. one can't help but analyze (autopsy?) the circumstances behind the dissolution of an almost-twenty-year partnership, especially when three children are involved. the oddest part is how GOOD together we are (were) in so many ways. (ranging from a shared disgust with the world consequences of organized religion, nationalism and politics, to simple things like natural is better than synthetic). breaking it all down, besides our tandem inability to truly open up to each other based on, in some ways, barely functional family backgrounds, the most glaring difference jumps out at me in the shape of that inscrutable concept of "lifestyle".

"i like noise / that's why i'm livin' where i am / i like the noise and confusion of a traffic jam". dicky barrett said that. now i can take or leave the traffic jams, but i GET where he's coming from. no, bob dylan's backup band WASN'T too loud, and living somewhere near places where music and the noises of the human condition are extant isn't anathema to being one. don't get me wrong, i'm adoring and awe-struck by the quiet expanses still to be found on this great, green earth, but doesn't it make sense that you can't LIVE in one and still preserve it??? that there's no sense of contradiction between the "live simply" mantra and running a two-cycle engine for a couple of hours every week in pursuit of its lawn is something that does actually occur to me. i've never thought that cutting grass (except to manicure a good soccer pitch) was the purpose of a weekend. how the hell did i end up with someone so diametrically opposed? (and you know she could ask the same thing about me).

"reduce, reuse and recycle" has been truncated by much of the al gore fan club to "reduce and recycle". it suits me and my "lifestyle" that a reused old mill building would be just the place.

oh, and that...

sports sports sports is often an emotional dodge for real life, and i can't argue mine is any different. i've always been fascinated by those happiness vs. depression studies they try to correlate to sports team success/failure, and i definitely buy the results that imply there might be something there. i'm far happier this morning than logic and life circumstances would suggest.

then again, there are lots of lights down the various tunnels for me, and there's something to be said for that too. a new drama-free bachelor pad, complete with sports cable, won't suck. neither will a new(er) car. and there's something to be said for the life-affirming coincidences of serendipitous emails, and the possibilities that are always behind them. yeah, the sadness will always be there for what is less than i would have hoped, especially for my children, but the weight has shifted so that the imagination of its lifting is not only possible but palpable. i'll do the best i can, and that will, as is always, have to do.

and in those moments i have again to myself, there will be more than just that, too.

mmmmmmm

i am NOT seriously thinking this is a good idea, but...

can't you imagine the sox "front four" with ellsbury (cf) leading off, youk (1b) rocking the #2 hole, papi as usual #3, followed by ramirez (lf) cleaning up? (of course you can). now, just for grins, imagine that mike mvp lowell (3b) has to be pushed back to #6 in the lineup because a-rod was added at short. lowell by himself would have 150 rbi.

no, i am NOT seriously thinking this is a good clubhouse idea, but just for grins i think we'd hypothetically talking about a 1500 run season, especially considering poor dustin pedroia (2b) would be back to batting 7th or 8th either in front of or behind a resurgent jd drew (rf), and that would leave us plating a switch-hitting, power-hitting, lifetime-OPS .800 catcher in the 9 hole. (yeah, tek). murderers row would look like brownie scouts by comparison--the team would win 120 games, with wake himself having a 25 win season, since every start would end as a win, 12-8. beckett would win 30. remember matt clement? he'd have 20 just throwing batting practice.

poor a-rod wouldn't get 150 rbi, though, since the bases would be cleared by either ortiz or ramirez batting in front of him.

who am i, and where have i been?

what a weekend. the girls put in a spirited performance on their way to a big win, the boys punched WAY over their weight in the second half of a game they could have given up on and almost had back in their grasp before some back-breaking officiating (repeat after me, the ball must go COMPLETELY over the line to be counted as a goal) closed the door, the sox were the SOX, (bring back mike lowell!!!), the patriots were the PATRIOTS, (though, c'mon, bill, they're gonna start REALLY talking about they way you run it up and you know it), AND...

we hadn't beaten this team since they climbed into our division three years ago. we played the first half into a ferocious headwind (right off the porter river in danvers where it blows out to sea with a vengeance) and held them without a goal. then, in the second half, with the wind at our backs and our confidence surging, i got the privilege of putting in our first on the way to a well-earned and supremely-enjoyed 3-1 victory. (i have to tell you because nobody at home wants to listen: my first try in the sequence was one of those over-the-shoulder-and-backwards bicycle kicks that you've seen pele do which beat the goalie but was stopped, initially, by the head of a defender on the back line, which, as i'm going to be insufferably self-involved to tell you all about, is a huge thing for a 47 year old guy to be able to do in the first place, let alone on net, let alone past the keeper and to where only a miracle could have stopped it, AND THEN, as the ball popped into the air in front of the goal off the miracle save, i recovered my balance and drove it into the upper corner of the goal with my head for the big score and where are the TV cameras when you need them).

with the win we're standing very pretty for the playoffs, and, if the team we just beat wants any hope to salvage their season, they'll have to beat the one team standing between us and outright first place, which would include, in addition to favorable playoff seeding, the well-earned promotion to the next higher division in our quest to lose all recollection of our collective age. boys and their games. there's nothing like it.

so if there haven't been any posts for the past few days, i hope you can understand. ;-)

Rox and Sox

dr seuss could've done a lot with the possibilities, but i fear mlb may be finding it more difficult. it's not that the mile-hilers didn't have a remarkable run, but seriously people, did anyone think any of these nl teams were built to be able to compete with either the indians or the sox?

granted, the rockies are as close as the nl had to a legitimate contender, with the kind of lineup you'd need to conceive of it, but it all starts with pitching, and on the face of it and on the field so far, boston has it, and the rockies just plain don't. boston's built to wear down superior pitching, and strangle you in the meantime with their top-dollar staff. no, it's not fair, and it's not good for baseball, but it is what it is. theo epstein had the money and the baseball smarts to give tito everything he needs, and now it's simply time to play out the string.

i'm just sorry wake isn't activated to be on the roster for it.

he da man.

ruint

had a friend once who used to say she was, but it's never sunk in 'til now how much i am.

ruint.

feels good.

the keys

having some to the wrong place can wreak havoc on a marriage, in case you weren't clear on that. ;-)

but that's just the tip of the dangerous-key iceberg, and not what i thought to talk about.

not sure what it was like while jennings' "greatest generation" were piloting their de sotos across the fruited plains to and from the whiskey still, but in my days of college pubs and dive sports bars, there's been growing an acute awareness of "the influence", and the deleterious effects of driving while under. not that it doesn't still happen every once in awhile, but, for the most part, there's hardly a remaining stigma to handing over the keys to the car and relying on the designated or otherwise driver while we're all becoming used to a less-arrogant way of dealing with our own impairments and limitations. "i'm trashed--you should drive".

setting aside those complicated situations where the "you" who should drive is equally if not greater-than impaired, it's a pretty good system. after all, we're still enjoying our alcoholism, we're just finding a safer and more responsible way to enjoy it. but it's fascinating to see how it plays out across the different generations.

most improbable at all, observing my kids' generation, there are a remarkable number of folks lately who aren't even feeling themselves compelled to pursue their license to drive in the first place. where their antecedents embraced their licenses and their automobiles as integral to the essence of their *person*, (perhaps owing to the original scarcity of the asset, the exclusionary effects of economic and gender discrimination in controlling one, and the consequent power to differentiate), there are an astounding number of kids these days who just couldn't be bothered. i figure it's a compendium of causes, from the ubiquity of parental automobiles and related chauffeur services, to the evolution of ego proxies towards egalitarian (affordable) vehicles of athletic logo apparel, sneakers, and iPod/iPhone/Wii/insert-kickass-gadget-name-here accessories. any way you slice it, these are people who i can't understand, and who, i'm under no illusion, can't for the life of them comprehend me either. but even so, it's still a pretty reasonable discussion when it comes to keys. under? defer. sober? proceed.

until, at least, we get to jennings' greatest.

as far as i can tell, these are the folks who literally invented the sport of drunk driving, as previous attempts at organizing were effectively and fortuitously mitigated by simple horse sense. (yup, my great uncles have related the story of finding their father passed out on the horse's back, IN the barn, on many a morning after). but rather than appreciate the genie they have let out of the societal bottle, this coincidence seems to have inured them to any suggestion that the failings and frailings of age might similarly result in analogous impairment. my father can barely lift his foot high enough to clear a 4" disparity between the height of my front porch and my front door sill, let alone in any kind of timely fashion, but he thinks nothing of climbing (crawling?) behind the wheel of his car and trusting to providence that he's not called upon to execute a similar maneuver in search of a timely brake. and his wife, my mother, god love her, bristles at the suggestion that someone ought to be considering the repercussions of that, as if it's impugning his very character, and hers as his wife, that he wouldn't know best himself whether or not he was safe to wield the proverbial keys. like all drunk drivers know themselves when they're not quite good to go.

i now have a frequent conversation with my 16 year old son that it's his call when it's time to pull the keys from dear old dad. he sees his grandfather's infirmity even more clearly than the rest of us, (after all, he doesn't need glasses just to find the Sox box score in the morning), and i'm trying to run it into his head with all the force necessary to give him the courage to argue with me when the time comes. "no, dad, you're NOT all right to drive, so here's a bus schedule and my cell phone number in case you need to get around". repeat after me...

i have no idea if he'll be there for me, but i'm hoping he will. i've slowly corralled my dad's driving so that he's not ever in a position to put my children in his car, and he's 100% clear on the fact that i disapprove of him ever venturing out after dark. i'd have completed the "no keys for you" speech with a complete ban, but my mother remains making her excuses, and i haven't figured out how to get her to put the final nail in. but i'm working on it. it'd be easier if any of my siblings had the balls and the gall to join in, but i guess i'm the miserable sob that everyone else relies upon to say their peace. it's been pointed out to me that someone else's kids might very well be in the other vehicle when the roulette wheel comes to its inevitable stop, but i'm working on it as fast as i can. some people just don't want to give up the keys.

wednesday is deli day

i haven't figured myself out yet. a lot of people are o/c about a lot of things, including their mealtimes and related menus. (my wife has had the exact same breakfast every morning for i can't tell you how long). but a lot of other people are right at home never having the same thing twice, and i'd like to think i'm on their team. when i was in college i first noticed the correlation between coffee, cigarettes and all sorts of dependent and/or addictive behaviors, from alcoholism to drug abuse to a seemingly pathological inability to manage ones own life, and i realized that my ability to adapt to a changing world was among my most valuable skills. if the party after "pub nite" went until 4am, not waking before noon the next day was a convenient ability. if, however, the next day's class was an infamous "eight-fifteen", then being able to easily rise to the alarm, and completing the trick without dependence on chemical stimulants, was similarly useful. it all depends, ya know?

so i realize today that, wednesday being deli day, i've somehow, at least for this one thing, found myself in the other camp. can't say when, exactly, it started, but awhile back the cafeteria started slicing hot deli meats to order every wednesday, in a name-your-own deli delection that's taken the whole building by storm. for the anticipatory, there's always freshly roasted beef and turkey, and succulently-pulled pork. but then, most ephemeral of all among deli meats, there is the corned beef. i will try not to digress too far in discussion of the inimitable "gutes essen" culture of the pennsylvania dutch, who aren't, by the way, but i will say that having descended from a long line of them that i was basically the only kid in my school growing up who knew that "corned" has nothing to do with oddly-shaped native american vegetables. (even among a plethora of murphy's and o'what-have-you's who ought to have known better). cured in brine... crusted with peppercorns and all manner of other little tasty bits...

so every wednesday, like clockwork, i begin salivating some time around 11. and it's always the same, with light rye, a single slice of provolone, and a dollop of fresh sauerkraut, along with a copious swirl of deli mustard. my own oasis of o/c peace amidst each week of life chaos.

now, those of you who've seen me eat corn on the cob know that this pretension to be without compulsions is basically a crock. (cool the corn beneath cold water immediately out of the pot, mix the butter and salt and pepper on the side of the plate with a knife, and then spread only each set of rows before each are eaten). but if you are become distracted by those trees you're missing the forest.

as graham parker puts it, "i'm not the kind of fool i'm made out to be". i'm all of these things, and none of them. my wife can't keep herself together if the bed isn't made each day, and i'm never as happy as when everything is dropped on the spur of a moment and whim takes over. but, though she could never cope with the converse, here i am munching savory, juicy corned beef as i always do this time each week, and looking forward to cracking one of those habitually crafted home brews in front of my ball game like any good o/c sports fan would.

i'm looking forward to building in more of my favorite things into my life as it unfolds, and you know who you all are.

how soon, you ask?

i didn't have to see the little cardboard tube in the bathroom wastebasket this morning to know what time it is. poorly-conceived attempts at conversation last night wound up in all the worst places, and she was so pissed that *she* slept on the couch. (how ironic is that). hostage is an adjective to describe us both right now to this situation, and the consequences to our reason and personality are dire.

if only harris maintained a poll on this one... should caution be put to the wind and signatures to all the papers? or would that be forgetting my most proven and useful life mantra, to let time and tide work before acting in haste? (sure would be nice to know which way the real estate vs income winds would be blowing) or would that be forgetting my other most proven and useful life mantra, to be the agent of success, not a spectator at an oncoming train wreck?

i'm promised more information by friday, but i know how that part goes. friday becomes the weekend becomes next week, and the bald fact of all matters is that decisions are best made with imperfect information, because they're best made at the right *time*. (if only universe man's watch had a "right time" hand in addition to a minute hand, millennium hand and eon hand).

"does anyone really know what time it is?" (nods to robert lamm).

the points of no return

it occurs to me that discussing the disposition of assets presupposes a decision to dispose assets which, in turn, presupposes that decisions that get made stay made. i'm living a big one that tends not to get unmade, (bridges burned tending to be, well, burned), which is fine, but i'm also living the reality that the mere possibility that it gets unmade becomes a huge source of anxiety for most people around me. of course, the lawyers are all for it, i'm figuring for how it tends to get them paid twice for the same soap opera to which we all know the ending, but for everybody else there's a natural tendency to third and fourth-guess every second-guessed decision, and this here is one that's bound to go the whole nine innings and beyond.

here's my nightmare: i move out, she changes her mind, and then what was originally cooperative turns surly when any number of things happen, from discovering how i planned and spent my free intervening time, (don't you already have an entry in a "when will kad barma get laid?" pool?), to her simply getting cheesed off because i won't want to come back without her rewriting the book to "it's (mostly) HER fault".

when i'm out, i'm out, know what i mean? (yeah, irony). i've been the model of offering second, third, fourth and fifth strikes for a long time now, but locking and loading on a life without the hell mine has been this past year or two is something i don't take kindly to being teased about. i just wish she wasn't both crazy AND prone to impotent equivocation of the sort that merely serves to make everyone miserable, because it's bound to get to another one of those points very soon. (verrry in this case better to be spelled with three r's).

belonging(s)

divorce plus kids equals far worse than who gets the record collection. (which, in these days of i-tunes, is pretty much moot anyway). yeah, i'll get the populuxe cd's, and maybe the egg whisk my grandmother used to use to make me my favorite scrambled, but i'm painfully aware that everything else here is part of my childrens' HOME, and it can never just be about who-gets-what.

hardest part of these past months is realizing how little of myself was ever moved in here--and by that i'm not attempting a metaphor for infidelity, so please bear with me. literally: the things that i identify as mine, and even those "family" things with which i personally identify as a proxy, are generally found here only on the periphery, if they are visible at all. when i walk into the kitchen, it isn't mine. when i sit down in the living room, except for my grandfather's clock ticking on the mantel, it's as if i don't live there at all. (and the clock is muzzled--it's chimes silenced--so as not to offend the residents). even in my bedroom, the furniture is foreign and only the remnant clothes tree is still of me. (it's no wonder to me this morning why i leave my clothing there in a pile... it's the only way i'd know i lived there).

there's a work table in the garage hand-made by my grandfather--that's mine. the photos of bobby orr, adam vinatieri and david ortiz at the pinnacle of their games are mine too. but after that the pickings get mighty slim mighty fast. clothes. some books. pictures of didsbury and rome and a childhood lost. two bicycles.

part of this has to be on me for letting it happen. i mean, who sits by while their entire being is shunted to the side every day of their life? but a lot of it is on someone else who may never be able to take responsibility for it, or see what she's done to cause it all on top of that.

i had to laugh to myself the other morning, as she listed all the things she thought might be important to me to take. the list wasn't any different than what is described above, and among the pictures was mentioned a particular picasso print, of don quixote. amazing how she could know its meaning, and still be so blithely comfortable with thinking of it still banished up above the garage. ironic where i know it to be, and to think how there are those in this world to whom things that matter to others matter to them.

i'd like to rejoin that team, please.

dewey defeats truman

here are the answers to this afternoon's real estate quiz: the balance of the building (essentially the downstairs commercial space) is controlled by a slumlord type, who also owns a number of nearby (run down) properties, who's coincidentally at constant odds with the city planners, and his track record is anything but cooperative or constructive. the developers aren't touching the infrastructure or common spaces (like the stairwells that would shave a literal quarter mile of the walk to the parking deck) and can't answer basic questions about wiring. (i'm guessing no fios, how about you?)

needless now to say, what would have been the deposit check is still in my back pocket, and a lot of noodling still needs to be done between now and when any sort of decision gets made. One of the nicer alternatives is a laundry-in-the-basement type place, and another otherwise-possible option has a view that would discourage a city rat. (and no laundry at all). most of all, i think, we're finding that there's a reason why a lot of things are affordable, and my standards are running in direct conflict with reality.

so fortunate she's comfortable in the shangri-la by the lake...

nah, not gonna go there.

maybe somebody rich needs someone to house sit on a semi-permanent basis...

parallax

"sure, the picture is in my eye, but i am also in the picture".

i think zizec said that. i marvel at a 30-year-old memory of a friend's father's pulp fiction bookshelf, that "the parallax view" would have stood out so prominently as to lead me to read a somewhat obscure and similarly entitled tome on epistemological philosophy all these years later. and i don't know, exactly, what i'm actually getting out of it either, as most of it is all profoundly over my head. but i will say say that there's one thing i get (i think) about parallax that's extremely useful: it's not about the proximity of the objects in the mirror of our perception, (everything is at once closer and more distant than it appears), but it's our point of view that colors them the most.

i'm in motion right now, so the whole world consequently appears to be spinning in a completely unnatural direction. the resulting emotional vertigo requires that i try to keep my bearings as if balancing on a teeter-totter on a roller coaster in the dark, and dire consequences await a loss of balance. yet it'll never be clear if leaning towards any particular direction, or away from it, or freezing motionless in the center, will maintain my "real" center of gravity, and hindsight, alas, will always be the only 20/20 where personal parallax is concerned.

life choices are "lets make a deal" choices, and wouldn't it be great if carol merrill might come out of retirement to point to one more door, one last time, once again, for me. monty once said he never said the word "door" without invoking her name, and if i were to choose a patron saint these days, carol would be as good a choice, i think, as any.

as jimmy buffet would say, "my whole world lies waiting behind door number 3".

time to lock and load

hard not to dwell on the irony... but i'm in the market for a loft condo for the second time in my life, and it's time to lock and load. tomorrow we find out just how motivated the sellers will be, and whether or not i'm strapped in for the financial roller coaster ride that the next six months will undoubtedly represent. the child support is sobering, the alimony strangling, and the blowback on the unauthorized disbursement downright punitive. (at least, with luck, i'll be the last one paying for that little karmic loose end, and at least two people will be able to sleep a little easier, even if not ever well, at long last). hopefully, with the amazingly low prices to be found in downright livable downtown lowell, there very well may be a corner of the world that's within my comfort zone and not beyond my diminished means. new construction... up and coming neighborhood... enough space for one and plus one, if ever fortune smiles on me again.

who's interested in an invitation to the housewarming? still gonna be months, but the horizon is in sight.

hello, rangoon?

years ago, i experienced some pretty remarkable sensations of cosmic connection, to the point where i swear i could FEEL her thinking about me. and she suggested much the same in return. and though who knows if it was real, projection or coincidence, it was something. really something.

so nowadays, while i'm feeling cut off from and by the cosmos by all this life static on my end of the line, it's interesting to note how silent the other end of the line can meanwhile remain. when you're down, even email buys little response. (actually, that's not true, and a big muah to the little A for being hardly malevolent and oh so beautiful). but otherwise it's like there's a cosmic and universal spam filter, rendering me effectively mute in the wilderness, even while i'm thinking my hardest...

so what are the chances that someone i knew decades ago would send me a note in the middle of all of this? someone just coming out of something somewhat similar. someone, who if they had emailed a month earlier, would have heard an entirely different story, but who is here now at the right time to hear this one? it's as if cosmic wailing in the wilderness isn't, after all, silent, but that it depends on who's tuned in to receive the signal. or not, who knows. i'm too much of a pragmatist to believe even what my own eyes see.

anyway...

i was going to apply perseverance in addition to my RCG's in pursuit of one desired outcome, but now i think i'm inclined to drift with the cosmic current instead, and see where it takes me. "always" has its ups and downs, but like manny and his pursuit of the series, i can't believe that life requires self-destruction in pursuit of what is desired, and i have to believe that que sera, sera, and whatever will be, will be.

i failed at marriage, and i'm striving desperately to see that fatherhood never falls into that same lost column. along with that, there may be many other things that i'd desire for myself, but, as they say, "wishin' don't make it so", and sometimes living well is all to which you can aspire. the important stuff? well, pursuing that is something that i'll never quit. the rest? ya gotta be tuned in to hear it.

this was going to be about other stuff, but I've got to say first how much i love manny being manny

sportswriters are trying to whip up a frenzy about manny's repeated use of the phrase "who cares" in a 10 minute soliloquy after the last cleveland game, but i'm not gonna bite. here's a guy who is caring past the point of WOW, (like ortiz and lowell around him), and is just telling us the truth. it ISN'T life and death, it's BASEBALL. "who cares" about manny's records? not him, he said so. he's rather be in the world series. (it's quoted in all the articles, if you read them carefully). and tell me, in this series, how many guys are playing harder or better than manny to get there to the world series??? and, to baiting criticism of all those red sox who aren't measuring up? i think the phrase manny emphasized was "confidence in our teammates". but, if it doesn't happen? "we're not going to give up", (which is, in my experience, always the right sentiment), and, "if it doesn't happen?" (after another gratuitous "so who cares") manny tells it like it is: there's always next year and it's not like it's the end of the world.

know what? it's not. and i can bet you can quote any number of divorced dads who are making new lives on their own that, in regards to baseball, that part of life really isn't.

i'm glad manny is happy being manny, and i'm especially glad he can keep telling me like it is. the rest of these SOB reporters can kiss my chapped between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place ass.

GO SOX!

circling the wagon

no cavalry and no hero, just a prairie schooner and whatever ammo can be scrounged, rolling around the back of the buckboard.

sometimes there's no movie being made, and as far as that goes, let's just say i'm sure there were more than a few unmarked graves west of the mississippi...

because it also needs to be said:

don't hook your starter in the 5th when he's still inducing double play-worthy grounders and giving your team a chance to win. i suppose, small mercies, at least this time we didn't have to endure gagne giving the game away, but, geez, tito, you know your guy gives up a few, so what's with the 5th inning hook??? the knuckler was dancing last night, (just ask travis hafner), and it's not like the sox middle relief is setting the world on fire, either. (well, actually, they did torch things pretty good last night, but i hope you get my point). *sigh*

wake STILL da man.

because it needs to be said:

wake's da man.

i'd rather have him throwing tonight than anyone else they have in their barn.

three years ago tonight wake asked for the ball and ate the innings and took the beating that cost him what could have been the start of a lifetime, just because he's da man. two days later he was called on in the 12th inning of a truly epic game, (longest in playoff history to that point, no thank you to houston and atlanta for spoiling that for me the next year), and asked to hold a team who had scored 897 runs in the regular season, and 36 over the last four playoff games, scoreless for three straight innings, overcoming an error and 3 (THREE!) passed balls (the passed balls all in a single inning, no less) to do it. greatest pitching performance it's ever been my privilege to see.

you can complain about your ulcers all you want, but half the point of rooting for a team is having a team worth rooting for. all by himself, tim wakefield is all that and more.

wake, you da man.

even a dog can shake hands

i've joked before about the cardboard cutout of tim wakefield that i anticipate talking to from my bachelor couch, so it shouldn't surprise anyone that i can also carry conversations with my heroes from beyond their graves.

today, warren zevon reminded me, in light of all that i'm about to go through with judges and lawyers and all the best intentions, that even a dog can shake hands. he also warned to "abandon all hope and don't rock the boat", which i'm thinking are words to be ignored at ones own peril.

the truth of the matter and of me is all within warren's ode to bill lee:

you're supposed to sit on your ass and nod at stupid things
man that's hard to do
and if you don't, they'll screw you
and if you do, they'll screw you too

when i'm standing in the middle of the diamond all alone
i always play to win
when it comes to skin and bone

and sometimes i say things i shouldn't
like...

and sometimes i say things i shouldn't
like...

tickets are on me, just buy me a beer

i spent saturday evening with an old friend, down in foxborough at the revs game. i won't talk about the game, because it didn't end well for the revs, but i will talk about the joy of good friends, and the inevitable consequences of "just buy me a beer" between close ones.

my fault, initially, for pointing out the beer fridge with the otter creek specialty brews hiding behind the harpoon and bass and guinness taps... (see, they've got this copper ale there in the big 22 oz bottles, and, well, the stuff is freakin amazing, and, well, my buddy is no less savvy to these things than i am, and so...) but somewhere after around the third or fourth trip back to the concourse for "just one more", i think we both drank let's just say slightly more than the face value of the tickets, and, well, it was fair enough for me to hold him at least equally responsible.

he's one of the first people i've told face-to-face and then spent hours after talking about it, and it felt good to be with someone who knew us both, loved her as much as me for being my wife, but who wasn't going to waver from being in my corner either. life needs more friends like that.

so what did i do after weaving my way into the driveway, and regretting that i'm not yet cured of doing what i'll spend the next years making my son swear he'll never do, which is, do beers at the ballpark without a designated driver? yes, you guessed it, i turned on the tv to see it was just the fifth inning, and not so late that i couldn't indulge myself just one more of the home brews (i *had* to find out if they measured up to the otter creek guys, which i'm proud to say they do) and enjoy a couple of innings. tied up after six, and then a fresh one for the heart of the order and my man jonathan fireballing the 9th and 10th...

so all that earlier stuff about who might have been responsible for my intoxication was just a red herring for the one-man-drinking-problem who is eric gagne. when i crawled out of bed to scramble together my kit for my soccer game at 9, i cursed the scrubby-bearded, four-eyed monster of my nightmares yet again. hangovers are only their worst when they're accompanied by the shuddering reminders of what you almost drank enough to never remember.

lucky for me, we won 5-1 and misha brought a case of the home brew to celebrate, which promptly rekindled the fires of remembered friendship, and all the better reasons why the tickets will always be on me, and you just buy me a beer.

clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right

ironies abound. some, like breast size, would seem, at best, coincidental. others, like unfettered expressions of devotion, are easier to see in light of their causes. the latest, and you can bet it won't ultimately be lost amidst the procedings, is domestic circumstance.

while being thrown out by a benevolent oppressor, one is granted a certain amount of freedom and means to choose ones next prison. (the word is used as a joke, people, don't be distracted). i almost laughed out loud how comfortable she was with the rundown on the specifics: ought to be in an urban area, because that's cheapest, and living alone there's no need to consider quality of schools, nor, being six feet of male, is there much undue concern for personal safety. No interest in lawns or driveways to respectively mow and plow, and a general aversion to cubicle living in soulless complexes by the side of a highway interchange are another two thoughts. what becomes boiled down in the final analysis is a loft condominium in a converted mill building with indoor parking (for the convertible, people, lets keep up).

as craig ferguson likes to say during his monologues, "remiiiiiiinddddddd you of anyone????"

respecting the third rail, now's not the time to set a match to what undoubtedly remains an extremely combustible mix of sadness and profound latent hostility. i'll pick lowell, most likely, and bide more time while life continues to follow its course. but it's funny. it really is. i'm sure it'll occur to her, and i'm sure i'll hear more about it. but time, as mick likes to remind, is on my side. herbert's admonition that living well is the best revenge requires that i continue to make choices that are respectful of the clowns to the left of me, and the jokers to the right. i will always be stuck in the middle, so the only question remaining is the ultimate identity of the "you" in "with you".

the third rail

any (successful) american politician knows that you don't touch the sacred third rail cow of social security. (old ladies, go figure, always vote). the simple truth is that you just don't mess with something that has the highest possible correlation to electoral catastrophe and failure.

so here i am, possessed of both ron paul's libertarian objection to social security, and my own marital equivalent.

i get play-by-play on every rival shortcoming and failing. i am daily reminded of how hot the voltage is on this one. and i wonder, i do, about how patient is patient, and that quaint old backwoods admonition that if the dog can't find its own way, you don't want 'em as your dog anyway. (is any dog smart enough to figure that out?)

always is a mighty long time, and it's worth saying that the millennium hand on universe man's wristwatch is rarely observed to move at all. but move it does, as time always does as well, and the best is always for the waiting.

no excuses--everyone has their cross to bear in this little passion play.

who am i, and what do i drive?

one of the surreal benefits of knowing what and when it's coming is the opportunity to plan a considered life. (uncharted territory for me and my impulse control as you know, so at the very least this should be entertaining). from what sort of sofa i will sit on, to the brand of toilet paper waiting for me in the bathroom during commercial breaks, it's all a tabula rasa.

(actually, that commercial break thing is already known to be a red herring, as there will be tivo).

i will decide where i will live. i will decide how i will furnish my home. i will decide where i work, how long i'll work, and how i'll get there each day. i will decide with whom i spend time, and on what basis. i will decide who i am in a way that i haven't had the chance in 20 years. 47, likely.

so who am i, and what do i drive?

i know you are, but what am i?

i know for whom the bell tolls. i know which came first. i know the sound of one hand clapping. i am getting a divorce.

he/she's a tough kid

while it's easy to smirk at mega-millionaire superstars whose mothers have revealed embarrassing private details of their childhood, (and we all do the smirking thing, so no intent to summon a higher horse), it strikes me this morning, reflective of my second-most-recent epistle, that we're always looking to congratulate and celebrate whenever children are displaying "toughness". (in a courageous sense, not in the pejorative juvenile delinquent sense). we're most easily proud, it would seem, when our progeny stands up to adversity and faces it without flinching. and less so, when the behavior isn't so reminiscent of nelson at trafalgar. why is that?

i don't mean to question whether or not bravery is laudable, or worthy of a parent's pride. we all have an innate sense why that's so, and it's great when we celebrate those moments. but i do mean to wonder why it is that we as a species can be less so when children betray frailties that we ourselves actually hate worst and deny most strenuously within our selves. is that fair? are they worth less as a person because they carry all the fears and insecurities and anxieties of an adult, made all the more debilitating by their lack of experience and perspective in which to manage them? maybe we're dressing it up in the rationalization that we're helping them prefer the more noble behavior. but are we? really?

when people need the most understanding and support are when they are the most vulnerable. it's often coincident with a flinch or two or three or a hundred. and there we are, completely without realizing or intending, letting that "Ohhhhhh..." escape our lips, in that trailing-off kind of way that says "you blew it, and the whole world knows it". the next time the missile comes rocketing out of the blue, and all the panic "flight" neurons are firing, what is going to stand courageous against them? some vague memory of having already been tested and judged unworthy? (oh, that's motivational, yeah, for sure...)

know what i say? i say, they were there when the chips were down, and they've already seen the worst that can happen. and they survived. and if they were lucky, they had a chance to study it--the whole scene, and themselves in it--without judgment or trailing off of love and pride and support and faith, and decide what they're going to do about it next time, knowing that they're always going to have someone in their corner. and maybe it'll take more practice than just one or two tries. but standing in and standing up to try to do better is just as tough, in my book, than being blessed to have the courage the first time.

i think that's one of the more frequent reasons why we write off people from our past. when we know a prior flinch was given an "Ohhhhhh...", and not an "I'm here for you, and I couldn't be more proud of you", (or, just as badly, a complete disappearance from the sideline so that adversity had to be endured alone with just our own "Ohhhhh's" of self-loathing and/or self-pity echoing in the lonely silence), we have to make a decision. when the next rocket comes at us, or the next IED-of-life blows up the ground beneath our feet, we need to have the wagons circled close enough that there's only strength to meet our need for strength. sometimes, when life is at its worst, the wagons aren't plural anymore, and it's just us against the world. (and i know what that's starting to feel like, which we can cover more next time). sometimes, when we're lucky, there's one person whose eyes we can look into and see love and steadfast support, which gives us the courage to face the next one. (because you know there's always a next one).

bob dylan once sang in his "talkin' world war III blues", that "i'll let you be in my dreams if i can be in yours". i think that's a pretty good philosophy. and i think part of that dream is being there when it counts, flinches or no, to share the resolve to always do better next time. because we all want to do better next time.

mmmmmmmmmmm, beeeeeer

8 cases of premium home brew packed inside a brand new beer fridge just steps away from the sofa. yeah.

two for flinching

nobody is harder on a woman than herself, of this i have no doubt.

for myself, i couldn't be more proud. (and, no, i'm not going to be disappointed in because i've been told i should be--it doesn't work that way). and if someone flinched in front of a shot that next time they'll resolve to face, then i'd say they got out of today what was needed. in the mean time, we'll put a muzzle on the "well-meaning" dads who sound their clarion call of disapproval across the public field so that everybody can hear. do they really think that 10 year old girls don't know when they could have done something better?

what's important to me is next time. if it's flinching, we'll practice. next time, i know it will be right. until then? tell dad to fuck off. or else let me line up for a kick from ten yards away and lets see how well he stands in.

"bah-beee!" "whoo hoo!!!"

communed with declan again last night. (RADIO, RADIO, and what is, indeed, so funny about peace, love and understanding???) the crowd ranged from those old enough to be having bad sixties lsd flashbacks, (at least one of whom did, if waiting behind the one car entering the parking lot while the attendant repeated new fewer than five times how to get to the concert venue across the street is any indication) to a legion of those too young to have ever known, really, what all the fuss is about.

and about that...

bob dylan is an icon. he's not "BAH-BEEE!!!", (consistently followed by the girlfriend's "Whoo HOO" at the end of each and every song), and he's certainly not someone to be requested back to the stage for an encore via holding aloft cellular phones. good god, people! have you no sense of history, decorum or propriety??? LIGHTERS! and if you don't own one, buy one, and if you're too cheap to buy one, keep the damn phone in your pocket. if you've never seen a concert hall lit by the torch of 20,000 lighters held aloft, you don't know what i'm talking about, but, trust me, the little blue glow is sacrilegious. do yourself a favor, consider yourself in church, and cheer the second coming accordingly.

actually, that's giving bah-beee a little too much credit. he's hardly capable of croaking two notes anymore, and his rasp of a mumble is beyond intelligible 90% of the time, and the cavernous acoustics certainly didn't help. but his band, and their arrangements on all the classics and a lot of the newest and tastiest stuff, were remarkable. worth it all to see the man in his new hat leaning over his keyboard to ask, "how does it feel?"

it feels great, bob.

and elvis was transcendent. you know what kind of a legend bob dylan really is when you see declan mcmanus, in the flesh, warming up your audience, just the man and his guitar, pouring out passion and truth in a way that so few artists ever can. all i can say is WOW. incredible. unbelievable.

transcendent.

even bob has to know, hiding behind 5 easy pieces of backup band, that he can't hold a candle, or a lighter, to elvis, not really. no, elvis can't match bob's place in history. but, for a night, on a stage, he can still show the old guy how its done.

"sooner or later, one of us must know..."

fear of failure

forget fear of death, (it's high-sterical how psychobabble distills so quickly to the most ridiculous of over-simplifications), the real scourge out there is fear of failure.

"men have trouble with commitment because they fear death" is one of my favorite comedy routines these days. (i kid you not--they actually put these things in books). but, no matter what they say, it's not because i'm afraid of dying, it's because i'm afraid of failing. (i can hear the gurgling now: "your subconscious perceives failure as death to your competent self, so you're actually fearing death"). yeah, and i'm afraid of having my manly business swallowed up by the yawping chasm of a fat chick's hoo-hah because freud said so, not because the thought of it makes most any guy's primordial self nauseous... ("but what about chubby chasers, wanh wanh wanh?")

it's come up recently (ok, i started it) whether or not it's easier, psychologically, to not try, and then perceive the consequences less disheartening simply because they weren't actively resisted. i think the sports equivalent is joe torre throwing a guy named ohlendorf under last night's bus (i think, between him and veras, there's less than 27 innings of combined big-league experience, before you count hughes and his 72 to either finish the game or be finished, depending on how you want to phrase it) instead of actually trying to field a proper professional baseball team. why else do you do that, if not to save your fragile prima-donnas' psyches from being outclassed by a team playing for 1/3 the payroll? (giambi, jeter and a-rod, who were a combined 0-fer last night by the way, make more money, just the three of them, than the entire cleveland indians baseball team put together for chrissakes). brian cashman's ugly roots were on prominent display last night, and rather than take the heat, the whole organization ran for the exits so they could pretend tomorrow is just another day. fear of failure. it's the ugliest.

i liked the way manuel threw lohse yesterday, like there was no tomorrow, and there weren't going to be any bullets left in the chamber when things started to go south. yeah, the boo-birds are yawping in philly today, uglier and more fatuous than any fat lady's lady business could ever be, but i just don't think those whiners get it. perhaps their collective fear is of winning, i don't know, but it sure doesn't feel like the wrong thing to me to go out on your shield with your boots on. you can't fear failure (or the worst of the worst-sport sports fans in all of sports fandom for that matter) if you're going to be and do your best. (just ask grady little).

i think my wife is rooted in fear, no pun intended. divorced once, it's all about being a two-time loser for her now, even while her psyche is twisted around her self-rationalizations that it's not. ironically, that very fear is likely to be at the root of its being realized, when all is said and done. she can't relate to me, only to her own management of the fear-of-failure jones, and whether its roots or anything less visibly prominent, i'm sure she feels tired and old and at the end of her competitive rope. oh well, when it's all over, at least she can feel like she hasn't tried...

yoo twahckin ta me???

"you're ugly, and your mother dresses you funny". (isn't that what i said yesterday?) to which is replied, at least in thought if not out-loud retort: "oh yeah??? well, fuck you and the prematurely balding horse you rode in on". or something like that.

it's gotta be tit for tat. this for that. skewer for jab. it's the way we're wired since the schoolyard. (yoo twahckin ta me???) it doesn't stop when the pimples subside, (actually jane curtin said, at my high school graduation, that "you never stop getting pimples"), and it certainly doesn't stop when you're sharing your life with someone supposed to be the one who will always stand by you. in fact, it basically gets worse, since an arm's-length potshot about personal grooming from a casual acquaintance holds no candle to the slightest murmur of disapprobation from a trusted friend. on the one hand, even if they're talking to you, they can be immediately construed to be talking out of their male-pattern-baldness-covering hat. on the other, there's no getting around it, they know exactly where and how to hurt you. or so it would seem.

"your fly is down" is the classic public humiliation, which used to have its gender equivalent in "it's snowing down south", but these days women/girls don't wear slips, and, besides, the entire point of much of the current fashion is for the thong to be hanging out of the visible butt crack in the back, perhaps in valiant attempt to distract attention from the muffin top bulging over the front, but certainly not from any kind of shame or hesitation to be publicly half-naked. so where was i?

yeah, the socio-political consequences of "flying low"...

for the most part, we say these things (don't we?) out of social generosity. e.g. i caught the oversight as you were coming out of the bathroom, so i'm going to tell you before you stand up on stage and give everyone the flash. but altruism doesn't stop the shame reflex from obliterating all perception of intended generosity. maybe there are a few bad apples gleefully destroying public confidence out of spite and malice, i don't know. but when i see the intent, yet watch at the same time its unintended undoing, i'm compelled to feel the advice/rant coming on.

so if i hurt your feelings, (and you know who you are), i'm sorry. my hairline is receding, my paunch is expanding, (i loved how lynn johnston said it all in a recent strip by letting john patterson commune with his "relaxed abdominals"), and i'm not half the man i used to be, let alone the question of ever having been one. i'm the one in need of remedial social critique, remember?

but, seriously, ladies... ;-)

not only her hairdresser knows for sure

can't remember how crudely insensitive i've been on this subject here before, but i saw something a minute ago i simply just don't have the good sense not to share. maybe it's not fair, because i'm going on 6'2", and most of the unwitting (it would appear) subjects for this little incivility are going on not quite so much as that, but, you see, there's often no way for me to escape having a good look at the part in their hair on the top of their heads, and, well, good god, women, (and you know who you are), wtf are you thinking???

i get that it's a double standard, and us "gray on a man is distinguished" types are getting away with a profound inequity just by being able to walk around with our natural hair color standing out naturally on our over-privileged heads, while still being thought attractive, or at least non-offensive, in the process. and, yes, being free in america means all rights guaranteed and respected for you to pour whatever self-respect you can out of a bottle and look any way that you choose. but, honestly women, (and you know who you are), isn't there some parallel to a bad comb-over that you'd understand?

aging is an inexorable washing-out and washing-up process. i look at the pictures of mohamed al-fayed as he spurs the impolite investigation into diana's mortal reproductive situation, and i can't help think to myself that you can hardly discern from his photographs the difference between his coloration and that of the sclerotic british aristocracy he rails against. older, regardless of how proudly colorful you feel yourself to have started, means paler, whiter and, lets face it, more washed out every day. and if it were just the hair on the top of your head, that would be one thing, but it's your skin, (save the liver spots), your eyebrows, and even your irises that will fade and fail you, and there's just nothing easy to be done about all that. so when you pour the miss clairol, or the l'oreal if you're worth it, onto your head, and you later, rinse and repeat as necessary to recapture that subtle shade of youth, you need to know that you're simply highlighting the contrast to the rest of yourself, not least being the stubbornly vigorous explosion of gray, persistently and constantly erupting from the roots at the part in your hair every minute of every moment, waking or otherwise.

two suggestions, if i may, and then a poor man's plea:

first, you may have been red or auburn or exactly selma hayek's personal shade of brunette, but you aren't anymore, and you haven't been for some time. (or you wouldn't be reaching for that bottle, now would you). so when you're first making your color choice, for heaven's sake, and for those taller who will be not yet so faded of eyesight to notice, why don't you pick something closer to the new stuff growing out, than the old stuff that long ago littered the hairdresser's floor? after all, you're not working to compliment the colors in that high school graduation photo, nor those of the inimitable tresses of your spitting-image progeny, but, rather, those that are still riding that ride of the six hundred across your aging visage, and they're not looking so good held up to the harsh light of scrutiny and the latest hue from revlon.

second, as quickly over time as the original has dulled, even embedded as it is within your very dna, the new stuff soaked on from the outside just doesn't hold up the way they like to promise on the box, or you'd like to think. if that wasn't scary enough, there are also those roots we've been talking about, festering and erupting like a angry boil from your very scalp, and screaming their presence from the careful folding apart of their camouflaging upper bits wherever you draw your separating comb. and i hate to break it to you, ladies, (and you know who you are), but as un-vital as you may feel yourselves to be while climbing stairs or lugging groceries or doing whatever it was you used to do so easily, not quite so easily anymore, your hair suffers none of that timidity to do whatever it's always done. grow. inexorably. so get the home touch-up kit, or something. something. not next month or even, possibly, next week. now. it's right there in the mirror, if you don't believe me, and don't forget to lean your head forward and spread the part a little if you're unsure.

but, as i suggested, what i'd really like to leave you with is one man's plea, explained with a little preamble:

you know what makes you look old? it's not the gray. honest. there's a woman whose progeny is contemporary to my own, who let hers go gray unabashedly and without so much as a baseball cap to hide it. and she's fit, and her eyes sparkle with a vibrancy that's as youthful as it makes a man feel to see it. want to know what the women say? (you know you women talk about things far more and far more interestingly than us guys do). "oh, she's so young, she can get away with it". whuh??? her kids are in school with your kids. she didn't get them there by picking them up on her way home from jr. high. she's considered young because she LOOKS young. even with a head covered with that scourge of gray hair. actually, in many ways, *because* her head is covered with that beautifully honest gray hair. i always run a "parents vs. the kids" soccer game/practice at the end of the spring season, and the last time i did that, there wasn't a father in the group who could keep up with her keeping up with me. she was amazing. determined i wasn't going to make sport of all the parents the way it's always funniest when i do, and giving not one inch nor accepting any millimeter of quarter. it occurred to me as the sweat imbued her t-shirt with the incandescent glow of youth, that there wasn't a woman i'd seen in years as beautiful.

so, please...

if you don't like the way you look, take a long look. don't distract yourself with the superficialities of color, but really look. are your hips the hips of the woman you'd like to imagine yourself to be? is your stamina the stamina of the woman you'd like others to see when they look at you? the solution doesn't come out of a bottle, it comes out of your will to be. young. unbowed. fit. proud. beautiful.

color me imagining myself waiting for someone like that.

just for fun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_wWrZEOFZg

the embezzler helping with the books

she used the analogy yesterday in defense of one particularly pointed (though, of course, these days, groundless) accusation, and it crystallized in my mind yet another "what's wrong with this picture".

yep, the unforgivable has been committed, and the related conviction stands, as it did right from the get-go. but is it to be always this way? me, the incorrigible felon, perpetually in guilt for his base base nature? because, if that's the premise, then we can cut right to the chase here: if she wants help with the anguish my betrayal has caused, as a partner and loved mate, that's one thing, and, if so, i'm her guy. but if she's always to feel herself the embezzled, coerced into trusting further books to a recidivist embezzler, then we can quit right now and call it a good try.

the worst part is how what i really meant to say was that she owed me an apology for continuing to exclude me from my part in my own marriage. (yes, the missed FY moment always stays with me the longest). and i don't think i'm ever going to get that, no matter what i go through to be deserving of it. sure, you and she'd say low-life cheaters like me don't deserve it, but the 64,000 dollar question is whether or not i am *now* a low-life cheater, or something evolved to be a bit less one-dimensional. what do YOU see?

half full

it occurs to me that readers of the previous (or subsequent, by the inversion of blog order) musing will be tempted to infer despair and/or self-imposed impotence, but, observing power to be, in large part, effort born of informed choice, such can also be regarded as the necessary foundation of right action.

truth is, it's very hard to loathe oneself when every further examination of prior cause and its past effect serves to exonerate. while there are plenty of opportunities for self-pity, there's really nothing holding me here but my own stubbornness and devotion. (and i refer to myself meaning things only in their best possible way).

now that things are once again MY choice, as they've never been for decades, there are always reasons to maintain hope. there are lots of opportunities in this world for a good man.

"and stepped at once into a cooler clime"

i've been contemplating, these last few days, the OW, and the choice that might/would have been made in absence of all my preceding life BS. you know, the choice of would i, with all the world to choose, make the same decision?

i guess, besides boundaries, my other catastrophic sociological failing is inappropriate laughter--and this is indeed funny to me: my wife has accused that the choice was made to spite her, but the laugh-out-loud truth of the matter is that she chose the OW for me, painting her by numbers, and then breathing life into her as surely as making the bed in the morning. it was never my choice at all.

it would be cruel to disavow that choice, because it wasn't made in a complete marital vacuum and without relevance to the rest of me, but lets give due to the truth--if i wasn't starved for affirmation, i wouldn't have crawled like a dog on its belly to the fetid oasis of "everything you do is alright with me", and drunk my besotted fill.

chicken or egg, go ahead and blame me for having driven things to where this all became inevitable, but the point, to me, is understanding the mechanics of the system under which i'm currently dysfunctioning. a wise friend once pointed out, as i believe i've mentioned here before, that being changed is never enough while the surrounding system continues to be broken. i'm guessing, until i'm absolved of the *reasons* for the choice, i'll never be absolved for the choice which still continues, years later, to alarm and offend, and remain the system beyond repair. which means, though i might work like an aforementioned dog to crawl my way back towards cowper's cooler clime, i'll always remain chained to the worst of myself in the blazing heat of loathing, both self and otherwise, and hopeless of egress or salvation.

the queen's birthday

for whatever reason, western ozzies take the first monday in october to celebrate the queen's birthday, eschewing tradition of their countrymen (most of oz celebrates it on the second monday in june), their neighbors (the kiwis like to observe it on the first monday in june), their pommie progenitors (who prefer the 3rd saturday of june, despite the missed chance at a 3-day weekend) and even the woman herself (who was actually born on april 21st). but, given it's also the effective beginning of spring there, it's not so hard to figure the preference, kinda like bostonians setting up "evacuation day" to conveniently coincide with st. patties, only without the green beer. good on ya, mates.

puts me in mind of all the things we say we mean, but don't really, and, in contrast, all those we don't but we do.

this morning as i walked to the door there was a glimmer, and i'd swear to you after months of not it was actually there, that she'd welcome a kiss... who knows what was meant by it--that's for the WA's and for her to say--but i know that i was frozen in trepidation for every hurt that's been awarded to every kind gesture i've attempted for so many months now, so i couldn't. not to the lips, where i felt my potential attention welcomed most. only to the forehead, in some sort of impotent gesture of withered virility, afraid to make myself vulnerable to rejection, and in so doing, committing the half-measured worst of all.

because, in return, she's poised upon a queen's birthday question of her own, interpreting every nuance in search for some measure of reasonable truth. murphy, being an optimist, warns me it's likely received as a rejection. i'm not willing to bet against him.

feh