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January 31, 2009

A modge podge of items

The number-one worst month of the year (for me anyway) is almost over, finally. This year January was worse than usual--with the exception of a few hours on the 20th--and the nadir was getting the news that John Updike will never write another word.
"How was your day?" asked Moo, as I trudged into the house.
"Not very good," I sighed, sniffling a bit.
"Uh oh. Who died?" Cutting right to the chase, as usual.
"You're crying about an author?" exclaimed Herself, incredulously. She cannot imagine crying about the death of somebody who writes books, any more than she can imagine crying about a song that falls from Top 40 rotation. Good for her. It's better to be oblivious, is the lesson I continue to learn, over and over.

It's better not to like anybody, or anything, too much. Not people, who leave, die, stop liking you, stop loving you, get old, get boring, get to be just like you in other words. Not pets, who make you sneeze, claw the furniture, claw you, claw each other, pee on your clothes, vomit on the carpets, get old, get sick, force you to make the choice to end their life, or do it themselves, without even letting you know it's the plan. Not food, which turns evil while appearing wholesome: the peanutbutter you spread on toast every morning--ol' reliable--harbors bloody-flux bacteria (ditto tomatoes and spinach); sushi gives you intestinal parasitic worms; and you can't enjoy tuna or beef without having to contemplate your role in the species' demise or in the flagrant waste of the earth's resources.

Shoot that poison arrow to my heart, as the song goes. --Oh, hold on; that's what February has to offer. I can hardly wait.

Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)

January 25, 2009

his usual charming self

I just got home from my neighbor's open house. "What's the occasion?" asked a friend of mine this afternoon when I told her about it. I didn't know. Post-inauguration festivities? Happy new year? Early birthday party? I found out by accident, after I'd been over there for a while, that the party was to celebrate my neighbor's retirement. Wow. It was a big bash, with catered delicious food. I wished I had brought something that acknowledged the milestone instead of the five bottles of beer I found at the back of my refrigerator.

I think that it is unlikely I will ever be able to retire, and if I retire I will be unlikely to throw a party, unless it is the kind of affair where everybody brings me a bag of food.

When I was younger there were "can you believe it?" stories about older people who were retired, on fixed incomes and so poor they had to resort to eating canned cat food. I buy canned cat food now and let me tell you there is no way I could afford to eat it myself. In fact I split one can between three cats every morning and then I let Twilight have what's left, which is usually just canned cat food juice.

"Did you buy hot dogs?" asks Moo, peering hairily into the refrigerator. I did not; after I bought a week's worth of Little Friskies Special Recipe for Indoor Cats I was out of money. No, I will never be able to retire.

Posted by JudyLa at 07:05 PM | Comments (0)

January 22, 2009

OFFER: wrott iron fireplace tools

It is the opinion of my daughter's neurologist that:
1. I should date
2. I should get married again
3. I might be a lesbian

Interestingly, 3. was the opinion of a friend of mine as well, when we first met. We met on our first day of work at Sunset Magazine, twenty years ago, and after work I drove him to the Marc train, and on the way we talked, having instantly liked each other.
"I'm gay," he said.
All righty then. Hello, I'm from Connecticut! We don't just announce that kind of thing on the first date. But I knew I had to set the record straight. So to speak.
"I'm not," I replied, and he said, eyes wide, "Really?"
Really.

I guess he thought I was in denial. On the bulletin board in our department we hung photos of ourselves, and over mine he put a little cartoon thought bubble that said, "I don't have a penis and I don't want anyone else to have one."

At this point in my life he might believe I am straight, but I think that's only because he knows I don't actually have any desire either way. Somehow it happened that I am unmoved by brains, brawn, or beauty. It is a sad situation, I know, only it doesn't feel sad, it feels peaceful.

Herself's neurologist is a very interesting man, maybe brilliant, and he has a way of talking to me and asking questions that makes me talk back and answer them. While we should be discussing migraines, CAT scans, EEGs, we talk about my love life. During our conversations I have the idea that this is not the usual way it's done, but nevertheless I can't seem to stop myself from telling him stuff I don't want to tell him, and consequently he now knows my entire spotty history with men.

"You should follow your interests," he urges me, and I wonder what he means by that. And what he has in mind when he says it. "Women need tenderness," he says, and I think, "Isn't that what I have Bob for?"

Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)

January 20, 2009

my love has come along

It is an astonishing day here. And everywhere, I guess, right? I wrote to a friend today that it feels like spring has arrived after eight years of winter... everybody's hopes pinned on that first glimpse of green. It will be of course impossible for Obama to be everything we want him to be, but the fact of him is enough right now.

Hail to the Chief.

Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)

January 18, 2009

Are you haunted by a past life?

The new kitten's latest game is pushing things off of other things. Although he is very cute, he is the only one in the household who thinks broken glass is funny. He also enjoys leaping onto things, suddenly--onto the dinner table (and onto our dinner), onto us, onto the other cats, from a height; they tolerate it because he is a baby, but just barely. Spikey gave him a good smack the other day in fact but the kitten ("Twilight"--a name everyone but Herself, who chose it, hates like the plague) was undeterred.

Right now we--me, Herself, Twilight, Bob--are enjoying a fire in the fireplace. It's a pretty good one. Feeling nostalgic, I am burning the pear tree that stood in our front yard until we had to take it down last February before one of its limbs fell on a neighbor or, God forbid, on a neighbor's car.

After The Husband left home, I was dismayed to realize that I was on my own in the fire-making department. Fortunately I found out pretty quickly that all you really need is a box of firestarters, some newspapers and patience--but still, you wouldn't believe the thrill I got the first time I drank a martini while staring into the flames of a fire that I made. Ancient man living in a cave couldn't have been more pleased, in fact. What had once been the sole province of guys--the knowledge of the gods--was mine at last.

Bob is staring fixedly into the distance now; maybe he hears the thunder of approaching mastadons. Twilight stretches, yawns, then leaps suddenly into the air and onto Bob's back. I laugh and pour more wine into my glass. Time to put another log on.

Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)

January 16, 2009

Your E-Mail Are a Winner

So it went all right, the date. Better than all right, which I guess is probably why I can't think what else to say about it here. Except that we both have our own teeth and that there will be other dates until he figures out what I'm really like.

The date ended when I got a text message from Herself that read, "MOM I JUST GOT MY [first] PERIOD NO JOKE." Really, you cannot beat that girl for timing.

Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)

January 13, 2009

I'm just a normal boy who sank when I fell overboard

I have a MySpace page now. "It's an account, not a page," says Herself. Whatever. She set the whole thing up for me; basically all I had to do about any of it is exist.

The child who struggles and sweats over every math homework assignment navigated page after page, copying codes and applying a photo, music, a background, a "mood," changing my profile. She made me 15 years younger in the profile than I really am, and when I asked her to change the date to reflect my real age, showed me such a sad-eyed puppydog face that I was embarrassed for myself. In space nobody is supposed to know how old you are, I guess.

Another thing I have is a date. No kidding. I have never seen him; he has never seen me. We've talked for a few months online and at this point I cannot dredge up any reasonable excuse about why we should not meet, and believe me, I've tried.

Except that I really do not want to meet him. Or anyone. I just want to live with Moo and Herself and the cats until I gently plummet to the earth with a minimum of fuss for everybody. But I figure why should "no desire to meet" stop me; I'll just let doubt torment me until Thursday night when we see each other for the first time at the wine bar that recently opened in my neighborhood. I thought it lent me a certain patina of sophistication to suggest meeting there; might as well keep up that illusion for as long as I can.

He told me what he will be wearing (jeans/button-down shirt), which bugs me. Why should I care that your shirt has buttons, you old geezer? Maybe they aren't real buttons; maybe they are snaps. Maybe he's got old, arthritic fingers that can't do buttons. But then I guess I'm a geezer, too, right? Maybe the most I can hope for is that we still have our own teeth.

Maybe he's fat, short, bald, unemployed, alcoholic, broke, secretly gay. Just to ramp up my nerves a bit I threw my cards and this is what they said:
Me: "Will I have a good time?" Card: Cut ties
Me: "Will he be shorter than me?" Card: Fact of life
Me: "Will I have an awful time?" Card: Que sera-sera

Uh oh.

Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM

January 11, 2009

"It takes other people to make a life whole."

... or is that "to make a life hole"?

The first thing I read every Sunday morning in the online New York Times is the Weddings/Celebrations column. There's always a color photo and (even better) sometimes even a slide show of the trip to the church (synagogue/mosque/museum), the bridesmaids (flower girls/ring boys/ushers), the family laughing and dancing (eating/drinking/speechifying), the ceremony. Couples' ages tend to run to "old enough to know better," and yet there they are, bucking the odds that they'll still be together once the wedding bills have been paid.

This morning once again I'm sitting in the kitchen, looking out my windows, somebody else's nuptial pictures glowing in high-definition color on the screen in front of me. The street is empty, the houses are dark. My own house is quiet except for the noise of the heat pump. Everything outside my window is brown and gray and it's hard to imagine that the shining world of today's smiling couple even exists, that it is possible for it to exist.

When I was much younger and too stupid to know any better, I would say in conversations about love and marriage and all that, "I think we just live too long to be monogamous." I felt that I could make this pronouncement not because it is a truth, but because it somehow did not apply to me. My life would be different, my marriage would sail on, impervious to the hard-wired vagaries of love's attention span.

One divorce later and another marriage ended in every way but the formalities, here I sit alone in my kitchen, 53 and not getting any younger, as the saying is, thinking (as I do every Sunday morning), about happily ever after. Would I take the chance again? Almost five years ago I thought, "No one will ever love me again." Now I think, "Will I ever love anyone again?" ... or, I guess if I have to be honest, I think, "Will I ever want to love anyone again?"

I don't know the answer, but I'm leaning toward getting another cat.

Posted by JudyLa at 06:00 AM | Comments (0)