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August 31, 2005
Tuesday
The office still smelled like cat spray when I went downstairs to work. Washing the rug again, I spilled cleaning water all over my dress, then coffee, so I had to change it before I went to work. The dress I changed into--my favorite from last summer--is now too big, I realized once I got to the office, so for the entire day I felt like a little girl playing dress-up.
In the middle of the day Moo called me to tell me that Spike had sprayed "someplace" upstairs; he couldn't find where but the entire house smelled like cat spray. He had Herself doing the crawling this time.
When I got home I put dinner in the oven (chicken with barbecue sauce--something Herself and Moo actually enjoy). When I opened the bottle of barbecue sauce to pour it over the chicken, it came out like it was shot from a gun: into my face, onto my dress, all over the counter, the stove, the floor. On hands and knees after cleaning the floor, I bumped my head on a drawer I'd left open under the counter. Reaching up a hand to my poor head, I smacked the shit out of my elbow on the same drawer, so hard that tears came to my eyes.
I trudged upstairs to change my sauced-up, too-big clothes; on my way back down Herself said to me "I hate to tell you this, Mom, but you tracked barbecue sauce all the way up the stairs." I went back upstairs to clean my shoes, came back down and cleaned the stairs.
The chicken was done; the baked potatoes were not and so I put them in the microwave to finish, where the largest one promptly exploded.
My children thought all of this was hilarious, when I recounted it for them. "Go away and sit down, Mom," said Moo as he unloaded the dishwasher before dinner, "I've got knives and I don't want you to accidentally run yourself through."
Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)
August 30, 2005
Detritus
We have kept Spike out of the office since he sprayed in it last week, but last night while I worked and Moo played a computer game he sneaked in and before we could stop him sprayed again. This morning the room smells weirdly like fermented fruit--probably because of the vinegar I used on the carpet--and some other underlying, bitter smell; skunky. The sleeping bag, which was the target even though it had been laundered in hot water, went into the trash. Two more days, Spikey; enjoy them while you can.
School starts in a week. The supplies have been bought, home rooms have been assigned, projects are being finished up. Last night when I left work at 8:00, it was getting dark. There's something about the last few days of vacation that makes everybody cranky. It's already over for Moo and Herself, who have been snarking at each other for days. Walking Jack last night and listening to them one-up each other and bicker exhausted me, and it had already been an exhausting day.
Because I couldn't stand listening to them, the walk was abbreviated. When we got home we all dispersed to our corners and spent the rest of the evening decompressing. Moo, to his computer; Herself, to a bathtub filled with warm water and colloidal oatmeal; me, to my bedroom to fold clothes and watch the second half of "The Closer." I'm fascinated by Kyra Sedgewick's lipstick. It's the worst color in the world for her--kind of a pink/orange/red that jars against her pale skin and blonde hair--and I can't figure out if it's supposed to look as bad as it does or if it's supposed to look good, so every week I watch another episode and while she solves crimes I try to solve that mystery.
About the past 24 hours: I guess I'm the kind of person who does the right thing and then immediately regrets it, and I wonder why I can't just keep my mouth shut once in a while. "You sent him back there?" said D. last night. "Why?" Because it was the right thing to do. Because I'm tired of thinking about it. Because it's not my life. Because it's over. Last night I was not pleased to see that The Husband had returned guitars, plates, cups to bedroom closet and kitchen cupboard. Not coming back home but using the opportunity of Trouble in Paradise to return what doesn't match the decor up north. Here's my stuff; hold onto it, wouldja? But at least it smells better than what Spike has to offer.
Posted by JudyLa at 06:08 AM | Comments (0)
August 29, 2005
People will know when they see this show the kind of a guy I am
They'll recognize just what I stand for and what I just can't stand. They'll perceive what I believe in and what I know is true and they'll recognize I'm a one man guy; always was, through and through.
People meditate--hey, that's just great; trying to find the inner you. People depend on family and friends
and other folks to pull them through.
I don't know why I'm a one man guy or why I'm a one man show, but these three cubic feet of bone and blood and meat are all I love and know.
'Cause I'm a one man guy in the morning, same in the afternoon. One man guy--when the sun goes down I whistle me a one man tune. One man guy, a one man guy; only kind of guy to be. I'm a one man guy, I'm a one man guy, I'm a one man guy is me.
I'm gonna bathe and shave and dress myself and eat solo every night. Unplug the phone, sleep alone, stay away out of sight. Sure it's kind of lonely; yeah, it's sort of sick. Being your own one and only is a dirty, selfish trick.
'Cause I'm a one man guy in the morning, same in the afternoon. One man guy--when the sun goes down I whistle me a one man tune. One man guy, a one man guy; only kind of guy to be. I'm a one man guy, I'm a one man guy, I'm a one man guy is me.
LOUDON WAINWRIGHT
Posted by JudyLa at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)
August 27, 2005
Ce n'est pas la vache qui crie le plus fort qui fait le plus de lait
I got a story it's almost finished,
And all I need is someone to tell it to;
Maybe that's you.
Our time is borrowed and spent too freely.
Every minute I have needs to be made up,
But how?
I'm looking for a nice way to say, "I'm out."
I want out.
JIMMY EAT WORLD
Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2005
love is in the air
So it's the knife for Spike. Since we got home from my sister's house last week Spike has been freaked out about how (I guess) we all smell different. On Tuesday morning he tried to spray the Aerobed I used while I was in Connecticut; failing that (he's new to this) he sprayed the pile of clothes on Moo's bedroom floor. This morning in a fit of pique he climbed into one of Moo's dresser drawers and peed in it, trying to obliterate the strange-cat smell on some piece of clothing he found offensive I guess.
Both Moo and I are pretty darned tired of crawling around on all floors with a bottle of vinegar in one hand and a soapy rag in the other, sniffing the rug. For one thing, cat spray stinks. For another, crawling around is hard on the knees. And you know, it feels kind of pervy, crawling around, nose to carpet. Crawl, crawl, sniff, sniff.
Spike has one more week of full cathood, shall we say, and then snip and after that a lifetime of singing soprano. I suppose you can't miss it if you never had it, but I still feel sorry for him."Can we watch him get fixed?" Herself asked the vet this afternoon, holding Spike like a baby, wrapped in a towel in case he tried to scratch while he had his shots. The vet looked at her, eyebrows raised. "Um, no" he said, laughed a little bit then beat a hasty retreat.
I took Herself and her friend H. to Dairy Queen tonight for Blizzards. The sky was yellow when we arrived; it rapidly deepened to orange and then to fire red and then the sun was down and the sky was gray. This was all in about five minutes. "Isn't it pretty tonight?" I asked the girls, who were oblivious to everybody and everything else but themselves and their sugar high. They took Jack for a walk earlier and came back home to tell me that one of our neighbors had chased them out of the little park on the corner, telling them that dogs are "not allowed to sit on the grass." Yes, I said sit.
Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)
August 25, 2005
wake me up when September is over
I slept with my window open last night so I could hear the late-summer night and feel the cool, late-summer night air. September is looming over our house. Herself says "I wish school started tomorrow" and Moo either ignores her or just looks disgusted and grunts. He had high-school orientation yesterday and maybe he's thinking about the summer's worth of homework he left until the last week of vacation.
One of Moo's assignments was to read Great Expectations and write a series of essays about it. Why anybody would think this book is a good summer read is beyond me--Dickens' language is so dense it makes me sweat just thinking about trying to negotiate it. Why not give kids a book meant for the beach or for those long, lazy evenings when it doesn't matter what time you go to bed ... why not a book that makes you want to talk about it? For that matter, why not one that makes you want to read?
Farenheit 451. Stranger in a Strange Land. The Left Hand of Darkness. The Golden Compass. The Shining. The Haunting of Hill House. Books about fantastic, other-worldly experiences. Perfect for summer, right? because summer is like that--an all too brief interlude when you feel like anything can happen, will happen, before September brings order and the clock and shoes and homework back to your world.
The other assigned book was A Day No Pigs Would Die, about which Moo mostly remembers--and described in detail to his cringing mother--a scene in which pigs are mating. All the time he was breeding into her, she squealed like her throat had been cut. Every breath. ...Her rump was bruised and there was blood running down her hind leg.
At the end of that novel is an exerpt from another by the same author, with a scene about horses mating. Again the female has a lousy time. The mare's neck arched, her head twisted one way and then another in an effort to escape the pain. ...[The stallion] was larger, stronger, and not to be denied his stallionhood. [He] dominated her with his superior weight, strength, and desire.
Uh ... yeah. So on the one hand we've got four-legged pornography; on the other we've got Miss Haversham, ditched at the altar and doomed to live the rest of her life watching her hopes rot--until the scene where she burns to death, anyway.
Maybe I need to meet Moo's English teacher.
Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2005
the sound and the fury
I got a new phone. It's smaller than my old phone, and can take pictures. Very exciting.
In the past, all new technologies that came into our home were vetted by The Husband, who has a sense about this sort of thing. This is the first time that I've had to make sense of a thousand-page instruction manual on my own. Watching me and exasperated by my inability to figure out how to send a text message, Herself says "Why don't you just wait until Daddy comes over and he can do it for you? He's better at this stuff than you are, anyway."
After taking a deep breath and willing myself to stay in my chair instead of flying across the room at her I reply, "Yes, he is. But he isn't here and I need to do it." But I know what she means, and how she feels. It's amazing how when something goes wrong I think, "if only The Husband were here..."--even if what goes wrong is something I know how to fix. I try to figure out why Herself and I are of the opinion that life in general was so great when he was here, because I know that it wasn't.
The Husband was great at troubleshooting the pc and rewiring lamps, that's true. But he didn't cook, barely cleaned at all unless forced to and then complained bitterly about it, didn't do laundry or iron, was iffy about childcare, slept until noon or later every weekend, eschewed all animal care. Even if he was the one who wanted take-out for dinner he made me call in the order, or we didn't get take-out. And yet.
I hate having to call him and ask for help, when what I want is for him to be in the next room, available to me. I hate have to call him. It reminds me that he managed to escape, escape us, escape me, with my Luddite tendencies. It galls me that his phone is ringing in an apartment where he lives with somebody--that there's the chance it's ringing while they're having dinner, or having a party, or having sex. It makes me want to break things. Like my new phone. The one I'm having so much trouble programming.
I call him.
Posted by JudyLa at 08:16 AM | Comments (0)
August 20, 2005
everybody's a critic
"Mom, your breath smells like dead people," says Herself, wrinkling her nose. "It's like your mouth has b.o.," says Moo helpfully.
"I can't wait for this week to end," says my doctor. "Everybody is sick! And," she adds, in a confidential tone, "it goes straight to their lungs." When she listens to my chest, though, I don't think she hears anything interesting. All the interesting stuff, in fact, is up in my head: the green stuff, the raspy voice, the headache. She gives me a prescription and I go home, feeling sick now that I know I actually am sick. You know how that goes, right?
In the middle of the night I wake myself up, coughing, and go downstairs and watch television with Moo. We watch the last two episodes of the third season of "Six Feet Under," and during one of them we hear something on the upstairs deck. We creep up and turn on the light and there in the recycling bin is an adolescent raccoon, completely unafraid but blinking at us curiously. He retreats to the railing, walks along the outside of the deck and comes back in to look at us some more. Spike curls up at the window and looks, too. We all do this until we get tired of it, and then the raccoon leaves and Moo, Spike and I go back downstairs.
It is hot here today but the air is much more breathable than it was while we were in Connecticut, and Moo and Herself and A. and C. swim in the lake this afternoon while I sit in my usual spot on the dock, drink a margarita, and listen to them talk. Lakes smell so much different than salt water does--I miss the salt water smell and the noise the surf makes when it comes onto the shore, though what I like about the lake is that when there's nobody on it I can pretend that it's mine, all mine.
"The stuff we talk about sounds a lot funnier in your blog," C. says to me while we eat a pizza upstairs in the kitchen for dinner. "And I think the song-lyric blogs are boring, too."
Posted by JudyLa at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)
August 19, 2005
Girder
The simplest of bridges, a promise
that you will go forward,
that you can come back.
So you cross over.
It says you can come back.
So you go forward.
But even if you come back
then you must go forward.
I am always either going back
or coming forward. There is always
something I have to carry,
something I leave behind.
I am a figure in a logic problem,
standing on one shore
with the things I cannot leave,
looking across at what I cannot have.
NAN COHEN
Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)
August 18, 2005
curse of the cat people
I managed to haul my carcass out of bed, after not really sleeping, at 4:00 a.m. My sister and brother-in-law were up already, waiting for me to come down the stairs. Another dose of immodium and I felt sufficiently ready to gather up all the debris from our visits and we were on the road by 5:00. The sky was lightening in the east and the traffic was great. We made it to and through New York in two hours and that was the hard part. We were home by noon.
This time Connecticut was a kind of jumbled up, confused visit, punctuated by my coughing up khaki-green stuff from a raw throat and not having a voice, feeling feverish and overly emotional and tired and excited and sleepless all at the same time. I expect it will take me a few days to figure out what really happened, if anything.
I did drink a fair amount of whatever I felt like, generally liquor, and I ate a whole bunch of good food and some not-so-good as well. Ice cream cones at Hallmark's after dusk. Corn on the cob with real butter. Grilled chicken. Rare tuna, twice. Champagne. Good cabernet. Cookies out of the oven. Chewy, crusty bread and olive oil. Potato chips. Slices of eggplant with cheese and tomato baked on top. Grinders. McDonald's quarter pounder, no cheese.
I saw a whole bunch of somebody I didn't expect to see a whole bunch of and didn't see much of people I'd expected to spend time with, and generally that was okay as well.
I could have done without the crying, mine and that of Herself, but it wasn't like the last time I was there, when I felt like I could cry myself to death with no problem.
When we got home Jack was thrilled to see us. Spike has a problem with Herself, however, and can't decide if he wants to eat her or be her friend. We can't figure out if this is because he doesn't recognize her or if she smells like my sister's cats. He follows her around, meowing at her, and if she makes a sudden move it scares him. When she sits down he climbs around on top of her, licking her, but if she tries to pet him he bites her. It's very weird and alarming. This is making her sad and more than a little annoyed. She says he's acting like her cousin, who is four years old, "except in cat form."
I did a load of laundry, and when I put the clothes in the dryer I noticed the washer was full of seaweed and sand. Vacation's over.
Posted by JudyLa at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2005
by the beautiful sea
"I guess we already know everything that's going on in your life, since we read your blog," my brother says to me. "Yeah," says my sister-in-law, "except when it's just stupid song lyrics."
No stupid song lyrics today, and nothing cranky. It's a completely lovely, Connecticut late-summer day. I woke up in the middle of the night and listened to the late-summer middle-of-the-night insects, singing that "school's coming" song that used to make me so sad and wistful when I was a kid. I remembered sneaking out in my nightgown in the middle of an August night to meet J, lying on the grass in the back yard and the stars were out. Staying outside, I think anyway, until it started to get light out, just barely.
I'm on vacation still; I'm supposed to drive back home today but I got sick on Sunday and am still sick. It's not really the time of year that I "traditionally" get bronchitis but I guess maybe it's what I've got--or it's a reaction to cats, whatever blooms in Connecticut in late summer, and Sunday's over-the-top stress level. So I have no voice, literally, or not much of one, and I have a headache, a sore throat, a cough. My sister is downstairs making sandwiches for our trip to the beach in Massachusetts. I suppose I can sit around and do nothing on a beach as well as I can do it here at her house, and I have the idea that the sun will dry up my sinuses a bit.
I don't want to go home, really. I miss my house and the animals and it's time to go back to work and it's all familiar--but this is familiar, too. Herself has already told her friend that we're moving. Are we? I don't know. I moved from here at the end of one marriage; will I move back here at the end of another? I guess I need to start taking it all seriously in the sense that this is a permanent state. A year was an experiment, that was all; but it's almost over. Something happened last week. When I look at the phone and want to call the number that's so familiar I sometimes give it out as my own, forgetting, I think "in millions of ways" and I don't call.
And now my sister is calling me. Moo must be up. The door opens--
Posted by JudyLa at 08:57 AM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2005
More mush from the wimp
Can I just say right now that yesterday sucked balls. I mean, really. It was a day where I started wishing at around 9:30 a.m. that I could miraculously turn back the clock, or turn it forward, even, and either start again or just not do any of it. It was a day where I started wishing at around 9:30 a.m. that I could have a drink. Or lots of drinks. I held off until 11:00, since it was so hot and humid I knew I wouldn't be able to stay conscious long if I started too early.
By the time I found myself at around 9:00 p.m. standing in the stall of a dirty bathroom in an even dirtier restaurant, crying, my throat closed up so tight that I pretty much lost my voice for the rest of the night, I realized it must just be me--somehow I draw people to me for precisely the purpose of behaving badly to me.
So here's my question for all of you out there: What the fuck is it about me that inspires people to feel perfectly comfortable making their lives, lies, mistakes, moods, problems, mental states, time constraints, regrets my responsibility? It's not your fault for lying, it's my fault for not remembering to lie, as well. It's not your fault that you have emotional issues, it's my fault for not rearranging my life to make you feel better. It's not your fault that you hurt me, it's my fault for being hurt. You're in a bad mood? Oh, by all means, have at me. And on, and on, and on. And what is it about me that accepts the responsibility, I suppose that's the more pertinent question but shit I don't want to be the one.
And instead of saying "what's the matter with you?" I say "I'm sorry." I'm sorry. Well, fuck you. I'm not sorry.
Everybody out there who reads this who feels like just getting off the JRL train, please be my fucking guest. Because you know what? If I wasn't ever your reason for being happy, for feeling good about yourself, I sure as fuck don't feel like you trying to make me the reason for feeling shitty about yourself when I'm not. I'm just a person, like you are. We're all bozos on this bus; nobody made me the driver, not even you.
Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)
August 13, 2005
the one thing that stays mine
I'll say it straight and plain: I know I've made mistakes
I've always been afraid
A thousand nights or more I travel east and north
Please answer the door
You say that love goes anywhere
In your darkest time it's just enough to know it's there
When you go I'll let you be
But you're killing everything in me
Get down on your knees
Whisper what I need: Something pretty
I feel that when I'm old I'll look at you and know
The world was beautiful
Then you tell me...
You say that love goes anywhere
In your darkest time it's just enough to know it's there
When you go I'll let you be
But you're killing everything in me
I'm done, there's nothing left to show
I try but can't let go
Are you happy where you're standing still?
Do you really want the sugar pill?
I'll wake up tomorrow and I'll start
Tonight it feels so hard
As the train approaches Gare du Nord,
I'm sure your kiss remains employed,
Am I only dreaming?
You say that love goes anywhere
In your darkest time it's just enough to know it's there
When you go I'll let you be
But you're killing everything in me
When you go I'll let you be
But you're killing everything in me
JIMMY EAT WORLD
Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2005
shoot that poison arrow
My first mistake is to let my brother-in-law make me a martini. My second mistake is drinking it, on a hot and humid Connecticut day, when I've hardly had anything else to drink. My third mistake is eating two tacos (chicken, with everything on them). My fourth mistake is eating dessert. My fifth mistake, before we go to a neighbor's house to swim in their (heated) pool, is to read my e-mail messages. I've gotten one from my friend A., in response to one I wrote him earlier, and A. has written "How can The Husband prefer The Other One to you? The Other One is more LIKE HIM than you are."
Those words, meant to help me I suppose, instead go straight to my heart like some kind of poisoned dart and lodge there while the day and everything it was until this minute drop away and I'm left suddenly defenseless, at the wrong place and the wrong time, sick to my stomach and a little bit drunk. I close the e-mail and put my sandals on, troop with everybody else to the car and get in, drive the half-mile or so to the house with the chicken coop and the heated pool in the back yard. I don't have my suit on and so I don't go in. Instead I sit on a lounge chair and watch everybody swim, and after a little while I realize I'm about to start crying so I say "I'm going to go for a walk" and I leave. On my way up the driveway I run into the neighbors, coming in from a bike ride. The mom, the dad, the son. Everybody's normal. I think "everybody's normal."
"Are you R.'s sister?" the husband asks, reaching out a hand. "Where are you going?" I explain I'm going for a walk, that I'll be right back, and then I escape up the road. Where am I going? There's nowhere to go. Nowhere at all.
Yesterday before I left home to come here The Husband finally told me how much more The Other One means to him than I do. "In millions of ways," he said, The Other One is more important. Millions of ways. Don't get me wrong; it's not like I didn't know it. I mean, hello, I'm not blind or stupid. (Well, maybe stupid.) I just never thought of it in terms of "he loves The Other One because The Other One's nothing like me." In other words, it's not me, it's me. It's me.
Now I'm sitting here in this dark room, everybody is at the neighbor's house, swimming; Herself is probably asking my sister "Where's mom?" so I'm going to have to suck it all up and go down there and Pretend, when what I'd really like to do is lie down and go to sleep. Or do what The Husband did: just walk out, leave it all behind. Sorry, I know I said this was what I wanted but I was wrong, so can you all just carry on without me? You'll figure it out, somehow. Shit happens, right?
Posted by JudyLa at 10:00 PM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2005
and then I'm gonna break you down
I didn't sleep last night, watched it get light outside my window as morning arrived and thought what the hell, just get out of bed, get in the car and leave--if I could stay up all night I could surely put in a few hours of driving, right? And on that thought, I fell asleep. Woke up two hours later, eyeballs completely dry and skull split. It took a shower, coffee, toast and peanut butter, a few blessed seconds of No Thinking At All and some B-12 and advil to get me out the door and in the car by 9:00.
Rush hour had pretty much ended and the traffic moved easily up 95. Just me in the car at last, on the way to Herself and Moo. I listened to a book on tape and tried to pay attention and after an hour started yawning and got restless and jittery, my body's way of saying "let's lie down and take a nap." So I took out the tape and turned on the radio to WXPN--the first bars of "Woodstock," sung by CSNY, filled the car and was like the sun coming up in my brain. Great music on the radio, my children--whom I had missed, after all--at the end of the drive, the sky cloudless, it was the beginning of my vacation. I felt ridiculous affection for all the other drivers on the road.
I reached my sister's house in the late afternoon, vibrating with hunger and lack of sleep making me stupid. No one but the cats were home, so I ate and took a nap, and when I woke up I came up here to write an entry. I heard the door slam. "Mom? Mom?" It was Herself; I heard her feet coming up the stairs. "Mom!" and she rushed into the room and into my arms, my big girl. "Mom!" standing back to look at me, and the next words out of her mouth, what only Herself would think to say: "You look older."
Posted by JudyLa at 06:16 PM | Comments (0)
August 09, 2005
for the turnstiles
Spike meows at me, curls around the monitor, licks my wrist and then bites it, meows again and finally sits and watches me type. Does he know something's up?
On Thursday I will drive north and see Herself and Moo again and in a few days we will all come home and things will be back to normal. ...Actually I hope that once we are home things will be better than the normal of the past year, and this hope is part of the reason why they have been gone--so their mother can Get Herself Together and turn back into a person.
So I can start planning for the day after and the day after that instead of just letting the time wash over me like rain, drenching me but leaving no real trace or change. Plan for next week, for next month, for school starting, for my birthday, for Chicago, for
I know, naturally, that plans are made to be broken. But shit happens whether or not you live your life or just let it pass on by, so I suppose I need to get in line again, right?
Posted by JudyLa at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)
August 08, 2005
natural selection
I take my usual walk at lunch and see that it’s raining. Or rather that it has been raining; it’s the tag-end of a shower but people still have their umbrellas up or are covering their heads with whatever is handy: newspaper, a purse, a handkerchief. I am behind a woman who is having a loud, angry conversation on a cell phone. “Oh, and now we ain’t together you don’t give a fuck about your children?” She sounds furious—and who can blame her?—and I give her a wide berth.
Yesterday, for interest, I took the classified personals section out of the Sunday newspaper and sat down with it and a pen. I thought I’d see what’s out there. Who’s out there. Who’s out there and advertises being out there. First I crossed out all the listings in Maryland—too far away. Then I crossed out all the 20-something’s ads. Then I crossed out all the older-than-60-something’s ads. Then I crossed out all the Asian men’s ads. Then I crossed out all the too-specific ads (“prefer redheads”). Then I crossed out all the ads from men who want a soul mate, a best friend, a partner on life’s path, someone who reads the Bible. Then I crossed out the ads from men who are “into working out” (uh huh). Then I crossed out all the ads from men who love “long walks at sunset” and “cooking” and “evenings by the fire” and who want to treat me “like a queen” but who would prefer that I not have children.
That left me with four ads, and I had to cross one of those out—actually one of the more promising ones—because when I unfolded the paper I discovered that I had inadvertently crossed into the “Women Seeking Women” section.
When I get back from my walk I go to the lunchroom and talk to people about meeting potential mates. I hear a story about a woman who met her husband when he dialed a wrong number—it just happened to be hers. I hear a story about somebody who met his girlfriend when his friends put his profile on a singles’ site for a joke. I hear a story about a girl who met her boyfriend at a bar and he walked her home after they “made out.” I tell them the story about my OB/GYN, who met her husband by advertising for somebody to go to the opera with her.
I met my first husband in eighth grade. When I was 28 I asked him to marry me. As I recall, I said “Please can’t we get married?” and he said “-K.”
I was my second husband’s boss for a while. I tried to have him fired because he was never on time and always had ridiculous excuses. He proposed to me. He told me he knew the first time he saw me that he’d marry me; I only wish his powers had extended a little bit farther into the future.
I think about making the effort. Going out to dinner, for drinks. The “get to know you” conversations. I wonder if it’s possible to date without caring one way or the other, which seems like the ideal situation. Maybe I should make up my own ad. “Slightly jaded, good conversationalist. I promise not to like you too much, or even at all, if you prefer. Let’s just say right from the start we know this won’t go anywhere.”
Posted by JudyLa at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)
August 06, 2005
three's a crowd
I want an ice cream cone, and so late afternoon I call D. to see if she wants to come with. She's not home, which pleases me. I have mixed emotions about her. I like her--no, I feel like I ought to like her--because she's a good person. She is. Compassionate and a good listener, and quick to laugh. But. But if I want to talk about anything that involves an actual idea... Well, anyway, I like spending time with her if I have a specific requirement. Like right now.
The problem is that I need to make more friends. Because right now everybody I would like to talk to or spend time with is literally hundreds of miles away, and that sucks. The other problem is that I like people, but mostly I like it if they keep their distance. In fact I thought of this while I was walking Jack tonight--as the evening came on and the little bats flew overhead, the only color visible the orange glow of the street light down at the circle-- that I prefer my friends at arm's length. I prefer to yearn after rather than be pursued. So consequently, here I am.
Herself has been gone a month and Moo has been gone a week and a half and right now I'd like, in theory at least, somebody to hang out with. It's been nice being alone and I like it, generally, because I like being alone, I like the freedom of it, except that it would have been fun to go to JoJo's with a friend. I sat on the hill and ate my ice cream cone and watched a couple and their dog, who all ate ice cream sundaes. The dog had to be coaxed into eating his; he would rather have had what his people were having. My cone was cold and melty and the ice cream felt wonderful going down my throat and after it was in me the world seemed a little cooler for a bit. JoJo's ice cream isn't the best--actually it's not even very good ice cream; Dairy Queen's is better ... but I like that it's not a chain and it plays good summertime music and late at night there are lots of people standing in line and laughing and talking, even though I was there at dinnertime and the crowd was sparse.
Tonight Jack and I ran into some neighbors: a woman, her little poodle and a friend of hers, walking along slowly and talking a little bit but not much, the way friends do. We talked for a while about Paddy, the French Westie who used to live in the neighborhood, while Jack and the poodle sniffed at each other and wagged tails, and then it was time to come in. The house is quiet and cool, I like that it's quiet--but out there it's Saturday night just the same. Where the friends are.
Posted by JudyLa at 09:00 PM | Comments (0)
we're on a road to nowhere
All week it's been wringing-wet humid and the sun has bleached everything pale that isn't a tree. The grass in the front yard is crunchy when I walk on it. Dragonflies and water spiders dot the surface of the lake. The sky darkens at night prematurely early and thunder echos from horizon to horizon. Last night when I walked Jack forked lightning lit the sky; it looked like a skeleton hand, reaching. I thought I should probably go in, and when lightning snapped again--so close that I ducked, reflexively--I knew that I should.
All things end. Each day that marks a day closer to September reminds me; each day past fades, a dream. I try to remember the year gone by, the one that began last September, and I can't. Like it was just one long day that I lived over and over and over and through sheer repetition got myself to this point, but at the cost of memory. I try to remember but what I get running through my head instead is Bartlett's Book of Quotations, read aloud by a voice that sounds suspiciously like Orson Welles:
A foolish consistency is the hobgobblin of little minds.
The devil is in the details.
He who cannot recall the past is condemned to repeat it.
Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)
August 03, 2005
oh medusa, kiss me and crucify this unholy notion of the mythic power of love
If you wrote me off,
I'd understand it
'cause I've been on
some other planet.
So come pick me up,
I've landed.
And you will be so
happy to know
I've come alone.
Rufus Wainwright, Ben Folds
Posted by JudyLa at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)
August 02, 2005
now I know how typhoid mary felt (for A.)
In the middle of the day I went to the grocery store and bought some Gatorade, came back home and drank three glasses of it. By late afternoon I felt pretty good and my head seemed more firmly attached to my body than it had in the past few days, and by 5:30 I thought I was probably okay to put in my two scheduled hours at the gym. I felt fine standing up and when B., with whom I was working, took out the grilled chicken salad she'd gotten for dinner at the Greek restaurant next door, it made me hungry. I felt, if not completely myself, at least like somebody I knew.
We were cleaning up after we closed, getting ready to lock up and go home, when B. said to me suddenly,
"Oh no, I just drank from your bottle of water! I thought it was mine!" She looked panicky.
"You did? How much did you drink?"
"Oh, man, I gulped it! Please tell me I'm not going to get sick."
I opened my mouth but couldn't manage anything very reassuring. "Well ... I didn't spit in it or anything, so maybe ... uh ..."
"Okay, okay, okay ... okay, so ... what were your symptoms? No, no, I don't--tell me what was the diarrhea like, was it ... was it ... watery?"
"Um ... well ... yeah."
"Oh, I hate that kind! That's the worst kind! Oh, no..." She stared miserably off into a spot in the distance, probably imagining the bacteria taking up residence in her intestines. "Oh, I'm going to get sick, aren't I?"
I said finally, trying and failing to think of anything light hearted, "Why don't you call me in 48 hours and tell me how you feel. You'll probably be okay." I locked the door while she sighed, and we both went home.
Jack hadn't been for a decent walk since Thursday night, so I leashed him up and took him out. He was very happy, trying in his doggy way to make me feel better about contaminating my friend and coworker. We began to walk our usual evening walk, and I was bagging Jack's first contribution to the experience when I heard a commotion and a front door bang open.
"You!" a loud, shrill voice called, "What are you doing? Stop that! How dare you? Get that dog away from there!" I looked up and there she was. Tiny, angry, her voice seemed to reverberate in the quiet evening air as she got closer.
"You pick up all that dog crap!" she yelled, as I continued to do just that.
Maybe she's loud because she's blind, I thought.
"What's wrong with you?" she said, standing right in front of me. "How dare you let that dog poop right there? I've seen you! You don't pick up after your dog!"
Where Jack had pooped wasn't anywhere on her property. We've walked him in the neighborhood for the seven years we've lived in it, and have always cleaned up after him.
Jack wagged his tail at her. I tied the plastic bag closed and said, "I always clean up after my dog."
She looked at the bags I held. "Well... well..." she sputtered, then recovered. "You'd better pick it all up!"
"You know what?" I said, "You are a very rude woman."
"I am not; I'm a wonderful woman!" She turned and stalked back into her house, where no doubt Bette Davis waited behind a curtain, watching and laughing.
Posted by JudyLa at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)