I wanna go back

I wish I was young again. Not because of the body I wouldn't appreciate or do proper maintenance on anyway. I've just been thinking about what makes it harder to link up with someone once you exit your 20's. The guy you marry at 21 or 25 or even 27 is a lot different than the man you marry at 36. The 27 year old guy can still be finding himself in some ways. He could be finishing extended curriculum like med school or a law degree. He still feels lucky to find someone to love him earnestly even though he's choking with debt and just getting started in life. Or he's somewhat established but he's still that 20-something guy wherever he works and relates more to his peers from college and high school. You marry in your 20's and you literally build a life together.

Getting married or even seeking each other beyond mid-30's is another thing altogether. It's a major purchase, pored over like a mortgage, negotiated like a car deal, and with the wariness that comes with wondering if there is something seriously wrong with your betrothed. They have either managed to come this far in life unattached for reasons you can't imagine as the smitten kitten you are. Or they have exes and often children with THAT backstory and potential fatal flaw that you may see repeated in your relationship. I want to go back to just hoping he likes me too.

It's a me thing

I was sitting here scratching my head wondering what makes my boss' life work and why he seems content with things I would not be and seems to be able to participate in life with a far heavier millstone than the one I carry. But you know what, I'll bet someone somewhere wonders how I'm able to do something they don't do. It's not important for this discussion that I have specific examples. We're talking about a concept here, not something that is necessarily true. But it would be cool if someone thought I was amazing in trivial ways, assigning great weight to something ordinary like walking Baloo. That my ordinary just taking care of life baseline could be amazing to someone.

Yea, that just happened

Is this why I'm single?

Actual message sent to actual guy. I decided he wasn't cute enough for me to care. Yea, I know that sounds awful but that IS why I did a manual override on common sense and hit send.

Okay. I've decided to go for broke and let you know I've already figured out how what our little mocha babies would look like and how much you're going just LOVE Romania which by the way is where we're headed next. My job makes me move about every three years but we'll get to that. So much catching up to do.

Hope you can back up your love of sarcasm because I just laid it down. What you got?

Open letters: family edition

Ashley is looking for an apartment and responded to an ad on craigslist. She received the following response:

Hi
I did get your response concerning the AD I posted on craiglist. The house is still available but presently I'm not around.. I AM REVEREND Adams Robert the owner of the house.This house is still available for rent but we will only be interested in renting it out to a very caring and God fearing person that will take very good care of the house,we have just move down to WEST AFRICA due my Transfer to WEST AFRICA with my Entire Family as a Missionary Worker as a very Good christian , So we have decided to rent out my house to caring family that will keep the house clean and tidy, I came over here with my wife, we both built the house when we got married. As soon as we settle down here I had a thought of selling the house so I have to look for an agent, after getting one, we got a deal but later my wife advised against that.. She said we may not be able to win the bidding next time, in other to keep our head when we return that we have to keep the house. I reasoned with her and accepted her advise. So I contacted the agent back and requested for my keys and documents. Later we decided to have the house rent out, we would have give the same agent this job also but the truth of the matter is that the agent would want to handle it professionally and the occupant may not be able to reason along with him later. If you notice, you will discovered that the price we are offering is far below standard price, this is enough for you to know that we are not after the rental fee but the absolute care for the property. I know there is no way I can be sure that you are the right person to live in the house because we won't be able to see physical before sending you the keys and the documents to occupy the space. But I just had a feeling that anyone who knows what it takes to put the kind of structure down should know that maintaining a building is mandatory, so if you belief you can take good care of the house and handle it like yours then I will be more than happy to let you rent the
house.

You could give me a call as soon as possible so we could proceed asap..

Please note than you will only be able to drive by the house for now but not have a look at the interior until i have sent the keys and documents of the house to you..and the requirement for getting the keys and documents of the house is a fully refundable payment of $600 USD,which is the security deposit.

Please note that the deposit made is fully refundable should in case you finally gain entrance into the house after receiving the keys and documents and feel unsatisfied or uncomfortable with the interior,but i am giving you a benefit of doubt that you will love everything about this lovely home....

I Await your response so that we can discuss on how to get the document and the keys to you.

You can reach me on the +23470677XXXXX
Best Regards
Adams Robert

Ashley was pissed. She forwarded me his e-mail with this exact quote "He must really think I'm the dumbest motherfucker on the planet..I cant wait to rip him a new asshole." And then she did exactly that. I love that girl.

Dear Adams,

Thank you for your expedient response, it is much appreciated. I'm sorry to hear that you are not personally available (nor an agent) to show the place. I am also very dissappointed to see that the 1 bedroom flat you advertised is now a house you and your wife built and that you are now doing missionary work as a 'very good christian', in West Africa no less. Which by the way I was not aware that 'very good christian's was an occupation and not just a pitiful method to make swindling unsuspecting tenants out of $600 or more.

Let me be clear with you, I am not interested in putting any amount of money down unless I am signing a lease and have fully inspected the apartment. And for what it's worth, I do not believe that you are in West Africa, I think you are somewhere in the area with your thumb up your ass. But on the offchance that you're trying to screw people from international lines one would hope the village or urban area that you occupy is invaded and you are strung up and beaten in front of your family for the charlatan that you are.

If you have made it to the end of this letter, please be advised that I have reported you and will continue to report any posts by you. I have also requested this post to be deleted.

Suck a dick Asshole & thank you wasting my time,

Ashley

Is it just me?

Sunday night I noticed something in the hallway of our condo which turned out to be poop. There was also a small turd in the breezeway near the common entrance. I tried but I couldn't make up a story that explained how where and why the poop was. I wondered if anyone would end up stepping in it and I wondered how much life would suck for the guys who clean the complex during the week to be welcomed back on Monday with mystery poop in the hallway that had clearly been there long enough to be noticed by someone else. I thought of Max, the guy who came in on his day off to bring me a birthday card, cleaning 24 hour old poop off the carpet and floors and went into the hallway and cleaned it. It wasn't much but it was poop. I'm still wondering who in the world would leave shit in a hallway. Tonight while walking the dog I kept hearing folks run over a hubcap that was sitting in the middle of the road. I went into the road, picked it up, and threw it away.

Am I the only one who does things like that and feels so good?

An experiment

I've been adrift these last few months, dealing with life, pining for what I don't have, feeling frustrated lonely and miserable. At times, I've shared these things. There are no new stories, only varying ways to tell the tale and this blog/journal circles like vultures over carrion with the same themes. Mocking men who approach me online and in life and lamenting the poor selection of men in general (side note: alarming number of men online rocking only the high school diploma), hating on the people who do link up (seriously though, I see a troll of a person kissing their honey goodbye and really wonder about that backstory. Then I earnestly compare myself to someone I don't even know, thinking her skin is smoother than mine, she dresses sluttier, she probably does x sex thing to/for him). She could be a miserable human being but she's validated because someone wanted to lock it down with her.

Anyway, for the next five posts I'm going to try to leave those things behind for a while, let them fester and get nice and crusty. I shall try something different.

Stay tuned.

Guess I'm having a good day

So the rapture is right on schedule for whenever it actually happens years after Saturday. People predicting the end of the world are like people who drive with a turn signal on, eventually it will be right (or left-whichever one you've got blinking). What gets me, among the many, many things that get me on any given day is people meeting the end of the world with fear. Now trust me, if hell beasts start roaming the streets and I have to survive on whatever is in my house right now while I fend off my former friends and polite acquaintances for what's left of this wretched earth, this girl will not be having a good time. Those who don't survive the first pass would count themselves lucky for the horror they are spared. But the notion of fear based on the end of life, while natural, is stupid. No one gets out alive. No one. And we cling to it as if one can escape a brush with death and be done with it for all time. I rejoice and thank the Lord a thousand times over that my Mom is still here with us but it has occurred to me that one day, if things progress in the natural order and I don't precede them, I will have to grieve my parents.

But what a good life is about is feeling that shock and grief and loss because truly while there is life there is hope. We can't even help ourselves. The minute we start breathing again on our own, we're sad that we can't walk. We immediately take breathing for granted. Something a machine did for us for over a week we take as a given and wonder when we're going to drive again. That's amazing. That's got to be why we keep searching, keep inventing, keep wanting more than we have. There's a spirit in every living thing that seeks to reach capacity. To be as much as the environment permits. To exceed the environment. The more we take for granted, the better the run at life we're having. I didn't think anything of walking until I watched my Mom struggle to wipe her nose. I get to itch all my scratches, type, shower, wash my hair, complain about how much my feet hurt (and they do hurt-Lord, it's like I'm being stabbed) after a long walk or a run. I don't even think twice about being grateful for mobility.

Just when I try to be grateful effin blogger loses half my post and all my changes. Got your number blogger....we'll see if you're among the chose this Saturday. My guess is you are heading for a world-of-hurt-apocolypse. Serves you right.

I hate computers.

Grape Drank Haterade

Seriously. I just want to be through. I argued with a friend this morning because she projects her bad management experience on to every story about management difficulties like she's the only one who ever had a bad boss. And who wants to get into a shittiest boss pissing contest? But that's what happens when you try to tell a story and she reacts like she's the one being persecuted. She's full of cautionary tales like I don't know how to handle myself. If anyone should be telling stories it's me. I handle my shit and I prevail. When I say fuck them, I mean fuck them, not 'I wish you would like me and be nice to me.' I mean 'even when you come around and realize I am value added to this operation, I still don't respect you. Oh, and we aren't friends and you'll never be confused about that.'

Hate weak ass behavior. Hate it when I do it. I'm a weak ass on the boy/girl scene. No game, no game face, no 'you know how I do.' Nothing. Just punk ass 'wish-he-would-look-past-the-skanks-and-notice-me-wearing-sensible-shoes-and-khakis-with zero-decolatage.' I know that shit is weak, I do. I really do. But I want to win this way. Because if we could get the same amount of attention from each other and from men wearing comfortable clothes, 9/10ths of women would never wear heels or half the shit they put on. Because I managed to snag a cute boy once who thought I was awesome back when I was doing horrible things to my eyebrows (eyebrow famine of 2000, we will never forget. I looked like a drag queen before the makeup) and even less flattering things with clothing. It meant everything to find home and even more that I didn't have to be any more than myself to be desired by someone I actually wanted to want me. I know I could get used to it if I tried but I get so much more attention when I try to look nice that I'm really uncomfortable. Like sweaty, avoiding eye contact uncomfortable. And it's from the same guys who talk to me now; street people, the guy in the cafeteria who wears the 'Mount and Do Me' t-shirts, and building security guards. They just leer more and roll out their super creepy, 'I'm totally going to ask you for your number again' vibe.

Just because I'm a weak ass though doesn't get my girlfriend off the hook. So I'll die alone. Likely to happen whether I skank it up or really just embrace the 'is she a lesbian or just already married with 4 kids' look. Won't keep me from getting shit done at the place I spend most of my life, work. A part of me wonders if men are looking for women who care about what other people think. They roll their eyes when their girlfriends and wives freak out about stuff but I think they would rather have that than someone more like them. Unscientifically I know this. Haven't met a married guy yet who didn't think I was cool but I'm cool in the 'my wife isn't at all concerned that I'm hanging out with you because you're kind of like a dude.' And I kind of work at projecting that vibe because the thought of being sexually threatening to a friend's husband or boyfriend turns me inside out. Total party foul.

Anyway, all that crap took the steam out of my haterade. But for the record, I'm *this* close to punching a box full of kittens. Yes, that's awful because I'm allergic to cats but I would totally take a Benadryl so their little claws don't welt up my fists. That's the last thing I need.

Vignettes

Mom

A light has appeared in the tunnel and though it's not yet clear if it's the end of the tunnel or an oncoming train, it's the first light we've seen in six weeks so we're hopeful even as we keep our ears open for the sound of a train.

I was talking to my dad last evening as I headed back from the hospital, both of us buoyed by the latest developments and having a generally fun conversation when he just blessed me-I don't know how else to describe it. He trusts me. He said it. He trusts no one and he trusts me. What I say matters to him. Perhaps only one person who may read this will have a sense of context about this, having known me since my late teens when I would have bet all my future income against anyone who suggested I would ever even have a cordial conversation with him. I am grateful for many things today but more than anything I'm grateful for time. Time for things to evolve and become, to repair and mature. I'm grateful my mother didn't die six weeks ago without us every really knowing why she got so sick. I hate that we've been chasing this monster for three years and on day 45 of her crisis, people finally start doing some earnest research but what's done is done and we were given time to have this day. Grateful, just grateful that my mom to got vindication/validation of the thing that has ailed her so long and made her wonder if she was capable of creating such a pathology in her head.
----
Trust

When my dad tells me he thinks I am noble, that I would be a wonderful mother, and I have a wonderful heart, a part of me wonders what in the world I did to make him think that, a part of me swells with warmth, pride, and love, and yet another part of me worries about the things I have done and will do to challenge and disappoint the high esteem of a man whose esteem is really hard to win. I have never met anyone whose opinion I care more about than his. I am sure it feeds both my militancy and my worship at work. Anyone who governs with the assumption I give two shits what they think of me will see me going out of my way to project how little I care about what they think. The things I tend to admire about the managers I do like all hearken back to my father. Wary people are my kind of people. When you're in, you're totally in; they trust your judgement and give you the benefit of doubt. Before that, it's polite but not terribly warm. It sucks but it feels so good to have the trust of someone who trusts so few people. I know that doesn't do it for everyone but it motivates me.

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Loquacious me

"You walk in the door talking." This from my sister coming back from the hospital two weeks ago after a tough visit. We drove a portion of the trip back in silence until my fatigue demanded distraction and I turned on the radio in an area of terrible reception in Delaware. All I could get to tune in was a country music station and Delilah which was playing Josh Grobin. It was terrible but I settled on Grobin and that's when Ashley broke her silence and insisted talking would be better than Grobin whose music she was convinced would be playing in the elevator down to hell (because Satan loves the irony of 'You lift me up' perhaps?). I asked her what she wanted to talk about since she was insisting Grobin wouldn't do and she replied, 'I don't know, you're the talker, you walk in the door talking.' Whatever. I believe talking is healthy and describing me as a talker is clearly relative. Which segues into...

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Whatever you do, don't ask me how things are going or how I am doing

Everyone deals with things differently. In this situation, one of things that made it easier to share with my boss as things were evolving that first week was he wasn't focused on me, my feelings, how I was coping, any of that stuff. I assume he is that way for the same reason he hasn't cried since he was a teenager, it doesn't make anything better. Might also be a man thing, I don't know. He said he was sorry about what was happening once, he didn't continue to lament the situation or inquire about how people were holding up. He just let me talk when I wanted to talk and kept me dialed into what was going on outside my crisis. He checked in but I didn't feel chased. I understood how he was approaching it because it's how I would have approached it. It doesn't have to come up every single time we talk. It isn't an obligatory conversation topic.

I really feel most people want to be able to freak out or vent when they want and don't really want to explain how they feel in response to prompting because if it is a ongoing situation; illness, stress at work, relationship issues, the reality is there are no great days relative to a generally crappy situation. But there IS the rest of life so we don't have to be like network TV and drown ourselves in 24/7 coverage of a shitty circumstance. Yes, I know you aren't living much worse in the United States than folks in Shelby County Tennessee right now but does it have to be the first thing I hear about every single day, milking the story from every possible angle even when there is nothing new to report? I do understand the concern behind the 24/7 mode of the friends who make my situation front and center of every conversation but I still resist giving eyewitness interviews. I don't doubt if I wanted to talk to them, assuming they were around and could talk, that they would listen to me ramble. Emotion is a lot like a passing squall though. Timing is everything and the older we get the harder it gets to connect to people when we actually "need" them as an umbrella (like the way I worked that Rhianna reference in there? Thought you would). So I find shelter where I can and don't want to talk about squalls after they have passed or about past present or future rain while I'm waiting for the river to crest.

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Isn't it always about a boy eventually?

Everyone I know is hitting their milestones in career, life, and love and I am languishing behind. Even my birthday twin who seemed to be right on track with me to spinsterhood is married now. My soul twin, still divorcing has already had to decide between two men competing for her affection. She will no doubt be beguiling to someone in her new office as well. If I were to make a hopeful observation about how things tend to go for me, even though I am the girl no one notices (except guys who are married or engaged, those guys think I'm awesome which is not at all helpful), is eventually something will break my way. I hope I'm not 60 when that happens. It's entirely possible though. It's not life or death God but it would be really nice if 'Ava, party of 2' was close to getting a table up in this joint.

Fat people can't eat cookies

In a former life I was in the military. The military has weight standards. The Air Force, which does the least amount of front-line combat related stuff, had the strictest standards and for a time the most laughable fitness test. If you did not make your weight and body fat measurements by even a pound or a percent, you were put on the weight management program. As if that wasn't enough, while you were on the weight management program, you couldn't be nominated for awards, attend military schooling, and you couldn't get the highest marks on your performance evaluation. You could otherwise be doing a stellar job by any other standard. Straight A's in astrophysics but flunk PE and you were pretty much a failure. I hate to speak for all women but I really think I do speak for almost all of us when I say we all have some body issue and recognize someone somewhere, often within eye's reach, looks better than we do, jiggles less where we jiggle, jiggles more where we wish we could. Even that girl switching side to side working it out wishes her arms were a little smaller and her boobs a little bigger. So the weight management program of which I was an alum was an extra special mind fuck on top of all the tools a woman is already equipped with to loathe her body.

While I was in the program, I felt eyes on me every time I raised my hand to my mouth. Birthday celebration in the office, no cake for Ava. Lunch, I'll have a salad. Snacks? No thank you, I'm headed to the gym. Mind you, I may have been 6 pounds over the weight limit but if the people you work with see you eat a cookie and you also fail to make your weight again, that cookie becomes an indictment. Sgt Iler over there, sure he has a beer gut but Sgt Iler makes his weight so he can have a cookie, you can not. That badly shaped woman with football neck (it paid to have a thicker neck as they subtracted that number from your waist/hip measurement), tiny waist and hippo hips, more fit than you. Did I mention she was a smoker too? I hated that program. I could write a book about it. One of the reasons I couldn't see a career in the service.

But life is like that isn't it? Arbitrary, unfair. You're naturally thin. You eat pretty much whatever you want but people still think better of you and examine your choices like they can replicate your results. You even give yourself some credit you probably don't deserve for eating an apple every now and then like it cancels out pizza. You figure somewhere along the line you are making superior choices to those of your fatter friends. You're obese. You don't get to eat cookies without people judging you. Even while you are losing weight, you're one of those people who just can't have cookies. If you talk about a craving in front of people who know you're trying to lose weight (or just think you are fat), it becomes an awkward conversation with the silent thought balloons over people's heads reading 'this is why you're fat.' If my projects go well, I'm awesome. If they crash and burn, it was stupid of me to invest my time in them. History belongs to the victors. No one wants to hear the loser's story.

In dating, something I have not accepted is that I can not be myself. No one is going to look at me ever if I insist on being me. I think I look good in khakis and an argyle v-neck cardigan but that's not bringing the sexy and the men I think I want will continue to overlook me. I want there to be a goddamn contest for my affection because I really am the shit. Instead, 9 out 10 normal men (not sweeping, repairing, or living on the street) wouldn't remember I had walked past them 2 seconds after I passed by. I have a standoffish personality. I can't afford not to look irresistible almost every time I leave the house if there is any hope at all a normal man will want to even say hello to me. One of the guys I went on a exercise deployment with said I was like 'sweat pants, no make-up, love me!' I told him he was right, that's exactly what I expected. And how has that worked out for me? Not so much. I could probably make up for in personality what I lack in curbside sex appeal but I'm not good at that either so it's kind of a loss all around.

But I understand the dynamics at play even as I'm at a loss to address them. So when someone says, 'oh you'll met someone' I kind of want to hit them in the face or say something mean. Not just because it's trite and they don't actually know that but because I do hope (though I sincerely do not believe) in spite of everything working against me (including myself) that I will meet someone. Someone who actually is what I thought my first love was. I don't think that exists and if it does, it probably exists for as long as it take for our Dateline 20/20 murder mystery or 'Who the @$#% did I marry' narrative to play out.

With my mom, there is a deck of things stacked against her leaving her little margin in any arena. She has to try to eat, she has to try to get her mobility back. Most of us when we suffer, we can just lie there and let it wash over us, lie there until it passes. If we don't want to eat, it's okay, we can afford a day with just a saltine to carry us through. She has to struggle while she struggles just so she's not even worse off if we ever manage to beat this thing. It's just not fair at all.

That my friends, is life. In luck and in despair, completely arbitrary. I sent a card to someone today with some lottery tickets and scratchers in them. They've had a bad run lately, they also have a mother in poor health, and have been recently sidelined with illness themselves. I thought about the implications of buying someone a lottery ticket and if I would be upset if they won big-if my one really lucky day ended up not even benefiting me. Odds really are that I'll never have to worry about what happens if they win because so few people do. But if they did, I think I would be happy knowing I was the vehicle for someone's amazing fortune. I think it would feel great and I would consider it a sign that anything is possible not just for others but for me, even when the odds are so amazingly slim.

Ok Fellas

'Income protection' is not an occupation. Neither is 'collecting unemployment.'

Also, I have a hard time believing you went to an accredited 4 year school if you say you hate 'liers.' Maybe you mean a degree in being a bachelor. Yea, that's probably what you mean.

The 'good' taken men on balance aren't even that good. What does that say about what is left...

Wonder if I should get a cat now or later.

Heavy

It's not fun here right now. Kaleidoscopes, usually they are transfixing because they are beautiful. My kaleidoscope is a pattern of Ashley taking cold medicine with alcohol, bedsores on my mother, shit at work that makes me genuinely homicidal at least once a day, things I want to do, things I have to do, things that come up and demand to be done while I'm considering the other two, resentment, frustration, worry, pain, loneliness. I'm really resenting among other things my inherently repelling qualities which find me in the current circumstance without anyone to care for me, about me. Which bless my cotton socks, makes me even more determined not to need anyone because it feels terrible to need and not have. I will have my hypoallergenic cats, I will. You heard it here first.

If I could be so bold as to open letter God, it wouldn't be just why, it would be why won't you fucking do something? Why does this persist? Why make her wish for death? Why take all the joy and pleasure from her life? Why does she always have to be cold? Why does she always have to feel hunger and fear pain when she can eat while not even enjoying food? This is jail. This is hell. But it's not the kind of hell that makes me want to go to heaven, it's the kind of hell that makes me wonder if there is a heaven.

We watched one of those black people movies at the hospital on Mother's Day. One of those movies that makes it hard for me to deal with white people the next day, such is my anger over a past I didn't even live, whites only signs, killing and harassing with impunity, the entire sick history. The history manifest in the drive to the hospital through the literal ghetto of east Baltimore. And still in these movies, the central character depends on the Lord to see her through, through the murder of her husband, the burning of her church by some white boys upset that Joe Frazier knocked out a white man, through everything she endured, still in church, still praying for God's intervention. Just don't understand what He's waiting for. It's time for a miracle. It's time for an answer, what ails her, when can she come home. Not to you. To us.

You haven't lived until

You change a parent's diaper. I am sure there are more terrible things in the world than to see your parent that helpless but I am also sure I want no part of those more terrible things.

You show up at a meeting and someone tells you they were expecting someone white. (Need some Excedrin Racial Tension for that one)

You hear yourself telling someone your boss is the man in your life. Naturally followed by an evening of trying to figure out how the wheels came off because it's absolutely true.

Some random shit I did this week

I tried to help a homeless man who crashed his bicycle, probably because he was ridiculously drunk. I called the non-emergency number hoping someone would just come out and make sure he didn't freeze to death and she told me to call 911. I waited with him for 20 minutes and he eventually asked me if I was single. He was 50 years old with 2 children and 3 grandchildren. No good deed goes unpunished. The park ranger eventually came over and yelled at him, told me it was nice to know people still cared but no one was going to do anything even though he was clearly drunk in public. Guess when the nickname of your city is Killadelphia, it's cute when some girl calls 911 so a homeless drunk doesn't freeze to death.

I worked out in the morning before work. Notable because I haven't done that since I was 22 and because I will probably never do it again. And by work out I mean I did 30 minutes on the eliptical (how does that burn 200 calories?). Still it was good.

I've decided that it's not that I don't want to be in a relationship, I don't want to want a relationship. I hate wanting something I don't/can't have.

Rush to the good stuff

Man am I going to miss my office. I came in and my boss had bought me a cupcake. Peanut butter and chocolate. Man of impeccable taste. Did I mention lately how much I dig him? He's just on balance a decent human being. I spent the first year and half of our 3 years together not liking him and trusting him even less. I got a lot more done in that first year and a half but the misery of the job compounded with the misery of no friends at work. Ick.

Baloo my beautiful black thug finally has a dog friend in Philly. She's known him for a year and she's been wary of him, like she is of all dogs for about as long. And then one day she understood he wasn't going to flex on her, didn't mean her any harm, and really didn't have much of an agenda. He was a dog, she was a dog, and he just wanted to do dog stuff. That was Monday night. We let our dogs off the lead and she was fine, even a little playful. We walked for a half hour with her totally chill and not at all gangsta. I was delighted but she could have had this friend a year ago. At the end of this tour, totally smitten with my boss (in a completely proper way) I wish we had been friendly earlier even though I know things didn't happen any quicker than they could have and goodbyes have a way of softening the blemishes that would bother us if we knew we had forever to work with someone. It's a wake with the living. We get to be wistful and reminiscent, we do things together we wouldn't normally do, we say nice things to each other and leave the bad stuff for someone else to point out. So I'm glad we get this.

The sweet sorrow of parting makes me wish we could rush to the good stuff. The 'I'm glad to work with you' stuff. The 'I trust you' stuff. The 'I'm not perfect, but I know you know I'm at least good' stuff. The 'I'm unhappy with you and I can tell you' stuff. Gonna miss you boss. You are a remarkable talent and just good people.

Random Confession

Dear friends,

Much of the e-mail and texting you receive from me is composed in the bathroom.

What can you do?

What CAN you do? What can YOU do? No matter what word is emphasized, the bottom line is you can't do anything to make it better. In a perfect world, I would have a wonderful person by my side with the ability to drop their existence to co-opt mine and take everything that isn't this away from me so I could be present mentally and physically. That's what I truly need. I need my sister to wash her damn dishes and pick up so I can steal a little joy from seeing an empty sink or a clean floor. I need her to figure out how to get to Baltimore on her own so my movements aren't tied to hers. I need the house to myself so I can have company if I want. I need work to get less busy, I need my boss to stay so going is a little easier. I need life to slow down so I can catch up and keep up. I wish the guy I thought was the one was here right now, the actual guy sucked but the guy I thought was the one, the one he claimed was the man he wished he was, I wish that guy was here right now. That guy would know what to do right now.