Pointed

the darkness comes and the darkness goes

My father was promoted to Chief Master Sargeant and there was a party at the NCO club. We kids stayed home with a sitter. In the morning there were "congratulations" presents in the living room, including one from my father's students: a plaque with a medicine bottle (probably filched from the dispensary) glued to it. On the bottle was a prescription label with dosage instructions: "For Verbal Diarrhea: Take as Necessary."

I think I used to have a lot to say. Or more to say, anyway--or maybe I just didn't mind saying the same things over and over. Now I always wonder if talk too much. Do people come into my office and then wish they hadn't? Do they make a casual comment and then sink into discreet dismay when I pursue the subject? Am I that nice older woman with the unfortunate tendency to ramble? I have no idea. At work and on the way home there are people to talk to and then when I get home, there are mostly not. So maybe it's just that I am noisy in one venue and quiet in another.

My children talk to me when necessary, and when there's nobody else around. And sometimes not even then. Moo was at the front door this evening saying good-bye to his BFF.
"Come for a walk with me," I said. Looking out into the gloaming, I could see a bat dive-bombing mosquitos.
"No; I don't want to."
"Why should that stop you?"
Nevertheless it did stop him and that was that; he turned and went back downstairs to the twin joys of TV and Gears of War and I walked by myself in silence.

When I got home the evening sky was turning from apricot to plum and the late-summer insects began their conversation. As I sit writing this I can hear Moo downstairs on his headset talking to somebody. Else.

i'm getting ready to let you go

On Valentine's Day evening I drove Up North to have dinner with The Husband. He sent me text messages on the way--"Hurry up," and "I'm waiting for you," and "I love you and I can't wait to see you." We had a drink at the bar and another at our table (a booth, so we could sit next to each other like any other couple in love) and, giddy from the sentiments of the day and The Husband's proximity and the vodka, I blurted out to him what I'd been thinking about for a few weeks: "Come home." In retrospect I suppose I should have kept my goddamn mouth shut, but in February I still had the tenacious optimism that I would prevail, the optimism that insisted things would work out the way I wanted them to--in direct contrast to how my gut insisted, just as forcefully, that they would not; the optimism that was oblivious to the fact of Miss Saigon and The Husband's other life.

"Okay," said The Husband back to me that night.

Well, so it's October now and my birthday in a week and a half. I live with Moo and Herself and three cats and a dog and a lizard, a turtle, and two birds. The Husband lives with Miss Saigon. He says "when I come home," not "if I come home," but that's as much of a commitment as he'll make and when he does say it I think to myself, "tomorrow never comes."

Eleven.

a brief example of the difference between women and men

I wrote a letter to The Husband last week, a summing-up of how I've been feeling and what I've been thinking about the events of the past few weeks. I thought about writing the letter for a couple of days.

Once I sat down and started the letter, it took me about an hour and a half to write one page. Then it took another hour to go back and winnow out everything that sounded cranky or judgmental.

I waited another day to mail it out, in case I changed my mind. Once it was mailed, I worried about it. Wondering if I should have written less. Or written more. Or sounded friendlier. Or nicer.

He was away on business and didn't get home until Saturday. I wondered what his response would be to the things I had said to him.

Yesterday, the pay-off. "I read your letter. It was really well written. You're a good writer."

The end.

a little down with a lifetime to go

I got a new vacuum cleaner, one of the kind that has no bag but instead a clear plastic tube where the sucked up dirt goes. You can watch all the pet fur and sand and hair whirl around in the tube and be simultaneously horrified and impressed at how much crap you live with and walk around on every day, never thinking about it because it's hidden. Until it isn't.

So the last time I wrote here was in January, when I had a sunnier outlook on life. Right now I'd say I'm mostly cloudy with a chance of rain. A lot of things have happened since January; some of which I guess I'll get to if I keep writing. But not right now.

It's the winding-down part of summer. Back-to-school sales everywhere. The city is quiet; the calm before the storm. This year we have stayed home; work is crazy and I just couldn't get it together to plan anything more fabulous than going to the farmer's market on Sunday mornings--and even that we've only done twice. Considering arranging for pet care, packing up and driving to my sister's house just gives me a stomach-ache. And I seem to have spent all my getaway money on car repairs (since last fall: $5,000) and new phones for Herself and Moo (in one week: $380).

How I spent my summer vacation: Thought about going back on the antidepressants. So little effort required.

FYI, it was not a cold sore

Hello, 2007.

I went for weeks without thinking about writing here. I went for months without writing. I quit taking antidepressants in August and then decided to try not being so pissed-off all the time, and suddenly I had nothing to say. --Or maybe I never had anything to say, and just became aware of it? But fall 2006 came and went, and my birthday (51, my GOD), and Halloween, Thanksgiving, and then the hardest holiday of the year, and everybody stayed unmedicated and we all managed to be happy, if you can imagine it.

Now it's January and gray, but still not especially cold, but there's something about the landscape that makes me broody and so here I am again.

I am pleased to report that I've managed to keep my resolution to stop being livid 24/7. I'm not saying that I'm not still deeply angry (think seething caldron of fury), but I find it easier now to deal with it, as they say, more "appropriately." I don't hate Miss Saigon, or even hold a grudge, really; though it aggravates me when The Husband goes out of his way to tell me that M.S. and I have "exactly the same taste; it's amazing." I can't quite figure out what my response ought to be. What springs immediately to my mind when he says this is "Fuck You." I immediately discard it in favor of "Of course! Because we're actually sisters, only I have a bigger bust and moral backbone." But I don't say this, either, opting instead for sulky silence. What can I tell you, change is hard.

pack up your bleeding heart

I suppose acrimony will only take you so far, and I'm at the end of the line.

When I was a kid, it seemed to me that my parents never had any doubts about what they were doing in the world. They had it down--being a grown-up and living a grown-up life. It was almost impossible for me to imagine my parents as children; they seemed to have always been ... well ... parents. Or at least middle-aged adults.

So, I'm fifty years old and I still don't have any idea what's going on. Every day is a big ol' question mark. Two years ago the world went topsy-turvy and I've spent all my energy since then trying to get used to hanging upside down with my head in space. I can't be the only middle-aged woman who wakes up every day and says "what the fuck happened?" But that's how I feel. And I hate feeling this way.

I'm tired of being heartbroken and I'm tired of being angry, mostly because neither has brought me anything useful, so I guess I ought to try something different. Have I said that before? I think I have. But quitting miserableness is hard to do once you realize how good you are at it.

Still, I need to try to let some of it go. So here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to start doing something different, and maybe I will be able to be different.

First, I'm going to stop being angry at Miss Saigon. The objective truth is that being angry with Miss Saigon has helped me not be so angry with The Husband. Easier to be angry with somebody who can't help being the person they are than be angry with the person who said to me, "I'll never leave you." But you know what? I don't feel like being angry with The Husband any more, either. It's time to stop whoring myself out to what's easy.

What the hell; it's worth a try.

"What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story."

F. Scott Fitzgerald said that.

I think of the things I'm ashamed of having done, and I can't say that any of them make especially riveting copy. I screamed at the Comcast customer service rep last week. Does that sound like anything you'd like to hear about? No, it doesn't even interest me, although I wish I hadn't done it.

People are ashamed of strange things. Being fat. Being gay. Liking fast food. Enjoying country music.
It's a mystery.

I was going to go to a craft fair with a friend today. Other friends had asked me to go with them on Saturday, but since I had made plans with Friend A, who couldn't go on Saturady, I demurred. Today is overcast and humid, and the forecast is for it to get more cloudy and more humid until a cool front comes crashing through, bringing with it strong thunderstorms and wind. The chance of this happening is, according to weather.com, 80 percent throughout the afternoon. So much for crafts!

Although it is still early ... and now that I have called and cancelled plans with my friend, my strongest desire is to sneak out of the house and go to the fair by myself. Should I be embarrassed? Or should I get up from the keyboard and put on my shoes.

and many more.

Miss Saigon's birthday party is tomorrow. Miss Saigon may be the only person on the planet who started out as a baby and grew up to be an abortion.

In 2004, to attend Miss Saigon's twenty-first birthday party, The Husband left our house at 7:30 on Sunday morning and returned at 1:00 on Monday morning. The next day, I asked him to move out.

It irks me that Miss Saigon's birthday is so close to mine, but what can I do. I expect Miss Saigon gets better birthday presents than I do (for my fiftieth birthday last year: nothing), but I try not to dwell on it; except, of course, here.

There is nothing I can do about the fact of Miss Saigon, and there is no way to undo the damage done by Miss Saigon's presence in our lives via The Husband. The only solution is to go on. Herself suggested that we make Miss Saigon a cake and put exploding candles on it, which made us laugh when we pictured Miss Saigon attempting to blow them out. Kaboom. The end.

take a break, driver 8

So yesterday, Moo took the test to get his driving learner's permit, and failed it. He has to wait two weeks before he can take the test again, and went to school today with loins girded for the inevitable wise-ass barrage from his classmates. Up until the failing-the-test part of the experience, it really hadn't been so bad. We went to the new DMV a couple of miles from here; it's big and well-lit and everybody gets a number and the lines seem to move very quickly. Most of the assembled seemed to be parents of teenagers.

"Mom," Moo said, nudging me, "When I look at that woman"--the one with the phone earpiece in her ear--"I know I'm in Virginia."

"Moo," I said back, nudging him, "When I look at that guy"--the one with the t-shirt that said I'm Not Mr. Right, But I'll Fuck You Until He Gets Here--"I know I'm in Virginia."

the clean-up woman

Tonight is the elementary school's open house, all parents invited. Through the kitchen window as I put dinner on the table I see The Husband arrive, driving the BMW Z4. The top is down. The car is ostensibly Miss Saigon's, though I expect that Miss Saigon's mother bought it for The Husband to drive. His reward for a Job Well Done.

What is my problem with the car, is The Husband's opinion. And it is a beautiful car, and the sight of it makes my stomach clench, as usual. Always something there to remind me, I hum to myself.

The Husband comes into the kitchen. He radiates cold; it's chilly this afternoon. He's in the kind of good mood that you get into when you drive a sportscar and you only have to play Suburban Dad for a few hours.

"What, no hug?" he says to me. Seeing the look on my face, he rolls his eyes and says, exasperated, "Whatever." I know that at some point during the evening to come, I will hear a variation on the theme of "Why can't anything ever just be about us?" in response to my small-mindedness.

It doesn't ever stop surprising me that he constantly tracks shit into my house and then criticizes me for smelling it.

No, no hug.

u & me 4ever, Tony

And The Men

want back in:
all the Dougs and the Michaels, the Darnells, the Erics and Josés,
they're standing by the off-ramp of the interstate
holding up cardboard signs that say WILL WORK FOR RELATIONSHIP.
Their love-mobiles are rusty.
Their Shaggin' Wagons are up on cinderblocks.
They're reading self-help books and practicing abstinence,
taking out Personals ads that say
"Good listener would like to meet lesbian ladies,
for purposes of friendship only."

In short, they've changed their minds, the men:
they want another shot at the collaborative enterprise.
Want to do fifty-fifty housework and childcare;
They want commitment renewal weekends and couples therapy.

Because being a man was finally too sad—
In spite of the perks, the lifetime membership benefits.
And it got old,
telling the joke about the hooker and the priest

at the company barbeque, praising the vintage of the beer and
punching the shoulders of a bud
in a little overflow of homosocial bonhomie—
Always holding the fear inside
like a tipsy glass of water—

Now they're ready to talk, really talk about their feelings,
in fact they're ready to make you sick with revelations of
their vulnerability—
A pool of testosterone is spreading from around their feet,
it's draining out of them like radiator fluid,
like history, like an experiment that failed.

So here they come on their hands and knees, the men:
Here they come. They're really beaten. No tricks this time.
No fine print.
Please, they're begging you. Look out.

How to be grateful for coincidence

There was a vulture in the road yesterday when I drove down the hill onto our road. I have seen them in the sky but never on the ground, and this one stood in the middle of the street, pecking at a squirrel carcass. It was uninterested in my car or me, though it did move onto the grass when I drove up next to it, a flap of squirrel hanging from its beak.

When I got home I told Moo and Herself, who were just as uninterested in me as the bird had been. But really, it was pretty cool seeing one of those things up close.

I had to work last night and after I tried to excite my children about the Wonders of Nature, I headed upstairs to change into my gym clothes. No air ever moves on the top floor of our house, and yesterday was warm and humid. I turned on the floor fan in my bedroom. Bob brushed my legs and sniffed the fan. I bent down to turn the fan higher. There was a snap and a hiss, and the fan sparked and burst into flames. I jumped back. Bob jumped back. I grabbed the cord and yanked it out of the wall, and the snapping sounds stopped; the fire died down into plastic-scented smoke.

Every day during the summer that fan was on while I was at work. Except for yesterday, because I had forgotten to turn it on before I left the house.

there's got to be something better than in the middle

Oh, for God's sake--I apologize to my audience for the horseshit in my last entry, small as it (the audience, not the shit) might be. "I'm afraid of being abandoned," and blah blah blah. Come on. Who falls for that crap? Here's the deal.

What I am really afraid of is that I am wrong, that I have been wrong, and that I will continue to be wrong, on purpose. Jumping vs. falling, in other words.

I am afraid that I have wasted, and am wasting, my time and my love and my (considerable) energy on a situation and a person that/who are, in the end, going to bear out that fear.

There is something in me who insists that the people I love have the qualities I want them to have. In the case of The Husband, I want him to be a noble but flawed, tortured individual, striving to do the right thing (love me) but falling victim to the lowest common denominator (Miss Saigon).

In reality, The Husband is good looking and charming and funny and wonderful to be out on a date with, or at a party with, or doing something with; but his best, amazing-because-it-always-works talent is for getting what he wants and having things his way. He is for Himself.

In reality, The Husband loves it that I want to hang around and love him and be there when he wants to talk, and take care of the kids and the mundane necessities of life, like bills and insurance and such, while he lives with Miss Saigon, whose talents, I know, lie elsewhere.

In reality, The Husband would like for us all to live together under one roof. This he has told me more than once.

I am afraid that, if it was not for my perseverence, it would have been Over between The Husband and me the weekend he left, which would have made him sad, probably, but which would also have been okay, I believe.

I am afraid that, if it were not for my perseverence now, we would have no relationship except through our children, and given the type of father he is (interested but not involved), it would be a distant one.

Over the months I have seen him drift further and further away, gently, as if he's going out with the tide. Sometimes he answers my phone calls and sometimes he doesn't. He has stopped reading my letters. Ditto for emails. I guess they're too emotional. He wants "peace," by which I assume he means "for you to leave me alone for a change."

I want to think that his relationship with Miss Saigon sucks, which actually I think it does. But I want that it sucks to matter to him, which I think it does not. It only matters to me, and who am I? I am the person left behind, which also sucks, and which matters only, I think, to me.

I am not afraid of being alone, but I am afraid of being alone forever. I am afraid of deliberately choosing the wrong men to love, of having done it since I was a little girl and had no choice.

I am afraid of believing The Husband when he hints around that he will be home, eventually. Just like I believed him the other times he said to me, regarding Miss Saigon, "It's over, I swear it."

I am afraid when I think about how rarely we see him, and how when he deigns to make an appearance it's for only a few hours, for dinner or to lie on the couch and doze.

I am afraid to stop making an effort because I am afraid that my effort is the only thing between us and nothing.

I am afraid because even knowing this, I still choose to jump.

I turn the engine but the engine doesn't turn

Last night I dreamed about teeth. My dream-dentist was very attractive. I was having work done ... I don't remember what, exactly ... I just remember having my mouth open (hmm) ... and then I met a coworker in the waiting room who had had her front teeth knocked out while she was on vacation. In real life, the coworker is in her 20s and totally cute and nice, with shining, youthful skin and hair that makes me feel like I'm about one hundred years old. In my dream, her smile had disintegrated into broken and jagged brown tooth stumps.

Not very subtle, huh?

So The Husband is sick again, and in bed. To my mind, he has been sick ever since he moved out of our house. I sometimes think of him as an orphan, all alone in the world, living with somebody as cold and narcissistic as he is; somebody who couldn't care less, or even take notice of, the fact that he's basically been living his life lying down for a couple of years. Of course, Miss Saigon is his caretaker of choice, so I guess my image of The Husband as Oliver Twist doesn't exactly hold up.

When I think about seeing The Husband lately, for a few weeks now, my primary emotion is dread. There are a lot of reasons for this, I suppose--maybe I am the orphan in my mind, not him, and dread is fear of being abandoned again. I am afraid of a lot of things, I've discovered in the past two years.

Husband Number One said to me on the phone a couple of days ago, "Remember how frightened you were of falling into the Grand Canyon?" I remember. I remember how frightened I was that I'd jump into the Grand Canyon. Falling and jumping are not the same thing, right?

At this point in time I am afraid of the jump I have already taken. In my fear scenario, The Husband says to me, "Thanks for waiting around. Now meet Miss Saigon's replacement, and it's not you."

This is what you want; this is what you get instead

Sometimes during the past two years, back when I was crazy but pretending not to be, I would go Up North to the apartment of The Husband and Miss Saigon when The Husband was alone. I would tell myself to be on my best behavior, but once I started I couldn't stop: pointless, random acts of vandalism.
The Husband went into the kitchen to make Wonderful Vietnamese Coffee and I took all the little decorative candles from the table on the deck and tossed them one by one into the woods in back.
The Husband was changing clothes so we could go out someplace and I flicked all the little model airplanes into the corner behind the television.
I used the bathroom and swished Miss Saigon's toothbrush in the--no, not the toilet; I wasn't that mean--in the water the bamboo plant was growing in.
I surreptitiously unplugged all the Plug-Ins (in a one-bedroom apartment roughly the size of my car, there were six) and hid them.
I stole magnets off the refrigerator and threw them out when I got home.
I put the photo of The Husband and Miss Saigon face down behind some books.
Stuff like that. I don't know why I mention it now, except that I think about the person who did those things and I know why she did them, and I forgive her for being so petty, even though Miss Saigon probably wouldn't.

Last night I dreamed that I bought a little, one-room house. It sat in a field surrounded by woods. The walls were white, and the room was almost perfectly square. At first it looked a little squalid and run-down, but as the dream went on and I thought about how it was mine, my own house, I liked it more and more. There was already furniture in the house, and I rearranged it to suit me. I put the crib in the corner opposite the wall, next to the bookshelves. And I moved my bed so it was adjacent to the front door, so I could see the crib and so if anybody broke in I'd know it right away instead of at the last minute.