Was thinking I'd just copy out the few meager posts I had here and then abandon the blog (am in the process of abandoning ALL blogs, facebooks, twitters, etc) but have discovered that I wrote a heckuva lot more here than previously thought. Can't seem to get to the first post, in fact.

There's got to be some way to download all this to one spot (besides here at LJ) but when you're a Luddite...

Will I keep up with this? Who the hell knows? But it lets me stay lost for months at a whack, which seems to be my writing style.

Oh, and Merry Xmas. H&R left me for a 26 year old. Who, when he was describing her to me, sounded remarkably like me at 26. WhatEVAH.

No, not pregnant, thanks for asking. Did a bunch of different herbals and to quote the ad from South Park for Cherokee Hair Tampons "...remember that elevator scene from 'the Shining'?

In the meanwhile he's discovered a new love (LaWanda? No, seriously, LAWANDA?) and they're off traveling. I know her name because he called her from my cell phone. You can delete the usage from the memory on the phone itself, but if you go to the source and check the bill...there's the call to a number I don't know and never dialed myself. One quick reverse lookup later...

You have to wonder if he gets pissed because I don't care to call him on this shit. I mean, why bother? He's going to do it anyway, and will come slinking back in a few months with his dick tucked back, crying about how he's fucked up and he's sorry (well, he's right there) and he needs...

And since he's the most entertaining thing in my life at the moment, the door gets flung wide and I make him a drink and listen to his tales of woe. Then fuck his brains out. Because god knows I don't have any brains myself, otherwise I'd never let his sad sorry ass back in.

So still out of work.

I feel so lost and empty. I've been working since I was 13, mainly latching onto any job that would have me, never consciously choosing a career path. Went to college but more for the helluva it than for thinking I would get some kind of career benefit out of the whole thing. Steadfastly tried to not make 'connections' as I wanted to get ahead in my life on my own merits, and not because of who I knew. So here I am, some *cough* *cough* years later, unemployed and unable to find any kind of gainful employ, short of the Burger Barn or local grocery megachain. No effing way I'm going to Wal-Mart.

Back to my nocturnal ways. He almost had me dwelling in daylight. Almost.

Where have I been the past 29 weeks (according to the login info)?

Sold out of my filthy capitalist venture for 1/10th of my investment. Have been living on less than $900 a month since then (having diminished expectations really helps!)

Mr H&R moved in with me after having not one, not two but three different hotties all dump his ass after doing a little web research on him. He also discovered that he could not 'rise to the occasion' with a couple of his other standby wimmen. Turns out, they were all using his rockstar status to in turn up the ante on their own depressing lives. The end result of this is I've had more sex more often than I ever did while married, and has led me up to the doorstep of the lovely question: Pregnant or Menopause? Took a test this a.m. but the fucker didn't ever decide one way or another (the 'test strip' or whatever the little extra bar that's supposed to indicate that the thing is working at all never materialized). So, I'm out $8 and wondering if I should plonk out more on the more expensive one I obviously should have bought in the first place or just start drinking parsley tea and black cohosh.

So I've been looking for a job and finding closed doors everywhere. Borrowing money from friends & family to stay in my apt for now, but can't continue that indefinitely. Just got a collection notice from the IRS today (get in line, unka Sam!). Get to add that to the one from the state, plus the credit card I let lapse when things were bad at the store. I've been in worse-shape money-wise, but in truth in the past the future was always brighter.

I'm fifty. FIVE-Oh. I look it lately. People read my resume and either think 'Why is she changing jobs now?' or that they won't be able to afford the health insurance on me. Friends are recommending jobs at Wal-Mart, fer chrissakes, like I'd ever work for them in the first place. Friends don't realize once you take that demotion down to pennies-above-minimum-wage jobs, you're stuck in a financial death spiral for the rest of your working life. Social security won't kick in until I'm 70, thanks to Ronnie Reagan's changes. I've got 20 years of work ahead of me, and I don't want to spend it back where I began, asking the quintessential "You want fries with that?"

I am so fucked.

Wanted to see if i could go a week without typing TOWGAFM. Had been sending insipid little things about the weather, pop culture, etc., and had quite enough of it. Wanted to see if he'd e me back, wondering where I'd gone, if I was okay,all the usual things an insecure mind comes up with when trying to rationalize something.

After four days, he e'd me. A mutual friend came down to visit his homeless ass. Also, he wanted to make sure I still had the stuff he left with me, unlike his other wimmin, who'd burned,trashed, buried or gave away anything he left behind.

Yeah, I still had the shit.

It's also amusing how connected someone who's supposedly 'off the grid' can be. Cell phone, free access to a T1 line at the local public library (okay, so the killjoys won't let him download porn there, but some do, freedom of speech, y'all, besides, what's all these wimmen good for anyhoo?)...he's got access to them all, and even though he's 100+ miles away, he might as well be next door, for all the separation we get.

So I've had a half a bottle of two buck Chuck and am frustrated with myself yet again. Mebbe I'll just go sleep it off.

The thing I really hate is for those four days I wondered, worried, hoped, begged for an email. Something that told me he wasn't sleeping in a snowbank. Something that told me he was fine and missed me. Something that said he was coming back here. Did I get any of that?

You're even worse than me if you think I did.

Funny, i realized the muzak posted on the last one was Velvet Underground, not Violent Femmes. Musta been pretty loaded to get those two confused.

Mr H&R has turned himself over to the authorities, finding prison preferable to the mess he's got going on the outside. Also takes care of the nasty dilemma of which woman gets him for which holiday, or does he blow us all off and hole up somewhere with a crack whore. Why can't our tax dollars make it this easy for the rest of us?

Meanwhile, I've shaved my head, started wearing makeup again because the nekkid head looks too butch, drank myself to the edge of reason and back, and am trying to gt into synch for the holidays. Not like I ever was in harmony with the holidays; it's just this time I"m making the effort.

As they were closing my sister's casket, I whispered to her "See you soon," the thought of which kind of terrifies me now that my hair is so atrocious. At my grandad's funeral some six years earlier, we were all standing around in a circle after the show, trying to figure out what to do/where to go, and in my head I heard one of those carnival spin-for-a-prize/wheel of fortune wheels spinning in my head, and the arrow stopped on her and a voice in my head said "You're next." Which wasn't so hard to figure (remember the wasting neurological disease?) But the 'see ya soon' was out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying.

Having just read Neil Gaiman's 'Anansi Boys' and having a rather large spider take up residence by my front door shortly after my return, I whispered to Nancy one night "Just let me stick around 'til my hair grows back.' Nancy was gone for a couple of days after that, but eventually returned and has been at my door ever since, except for the past two or three nights that have been murderously cold.

The work situation...well, while I was in lala land with Mr H&R, the bidness partner has gotten us into a staggering amount of debt. Most of our accounts are on hold, and here it is xmas, the time when you really need to be able to get merch in for those hungry customers with $20,000 limits on their credit cards. I blame it mostly on her because what few things trickle in have her name on the PO, and they're lame cutesy things that you would never get me to order in a million years, the kind of crap that sits on the shelves and is so ugly you wonder how it got all the way to actual product. I used to say her sense of taste was only in her mouth, but now I'm thinking she has no sense of taste at all. It's hilarious to me that she wasted money getting a BFA in fiber arts, as her sense of style and arrangement are nil. She sees colors in a funny way too; she bought (without telling me) baskets to put stuff in for the store. Orange baskets. Orange baskets that she insists are a maroon/vermilion color. Vermilion ain't that orange, baby.

Since I'm two time zones away from any family, I've been invited to her in-laws shindig. What is it with Yankees having Turkey Day at night? Okay, it gives me most of a day away from her, but still, I could use with a sammich right about now, not at 7 tonight after an hour or two of hard drinking (guess the REAL reason I've accepted yet another invite to being the fifth wheel?)

I have SO got to get a LIFE.

...hwlp me find my proper place...

Help me in my weakness, coz I'm runnin outta faith...

Jesus...

Jesus...

Hmmm, so how long has it been? Too long, my friend, too long.

In the interim, my oldest sister has succummed to a wasting, degenerative neurological disease. Nothing like having the family foot the bill for your return PLUS the funeral which involves flying the deceased to their own funeral. Good times, good times. Gave my old man a stroke, and he was the lucky one. The rest of us had to fend for ourselves, drug-wise.

And while I was away, Mr TOWGAFMBNTP aka Mr Hit n Run invited the one female whom I absolutely, positively never wanted to enter my abode, over, whilst he was apartment/cat sitting, under the pretense of wanting to be available when I called. She left a bracelet, earrings, cig butts, plus an interesting rearrangement of my jewelery tray and bathroom mirrors. Yeah, he's at her place these days, thanks for asking.

Oh, yeah, and FYI, he was never available when I called. I have the $48 in phone bills to prove it.

Red wine shorting out the circuits. Dumbledore is gay. Oh Darlin, if you leave me, I'll never make it alone.

Oh, and I've outed myself on the autre blog. Not like I expect any of the rocket scientists I know to figurure out this pseudonym.

Guess who showed up this week?

I'm changing his name, from TOWGAFMBNTP to Mr Hit & Run (after the line Fred Astair sings in the movie 'Holiday Inn" from the song "You're Easy to Dance With" which was originally sung about a woman but it fits here, too)...

Oh what fun M(iss) Hit and Run, has come back into my life

It was a lovely day when he called. Mr Seattle had just come and gone, was insanely busy at the job, and the phone rings and I look at the caller id and don't recognize the number and think "Bet that's him." And it was.

So, do you still hate me and wish I'd die a horrible death?

Um, and hello to you. No, I don't. I'm just angry with you.

Let me say that Mr H&R has a very distinctive voice, one that you know it's him purring over the line the minute he starts to speak (unlike some folks I've known over the years). So I walked with the phone as far away as I could get from anyone else, and tried to talk. But what do you say to someone who up and disappeared, someone you haven't heard from in three months?

He offered up that things had ended quite badly with the latest g'fiend, that he was semi-homeless, yet at the same time he was at a party where there was free beer and food and he was having a great time. Then he started bringing in all the usuals...he missed me, missed talking to me, his daughter missed me, his daughter wished we'd do something together again sometime...you get the idea.

What I thought most hilarious was when his current fuckbuddy was within earshot of this conversation, as he suddenly went monosyllabic and vague. You're gonna break a gear tooth, switching from how much you miss someone to the weather, no matter how smooth you think you're doing it.

Blah blah blah...the person must have wandered off, as he became emotive again, and told me he wanted to get what was left of his stuff out of my basement. Yeah, fine, whatever, I'll believe it when I see you. No no no, really, I promise, I'm gonna come get it tomorrow, really. I'll call you and set it up tomorrow. I miss you.

So, of course no call the next day. Was off the following, so don't know/care if he called then. Then late the third day,he calls again with the same litany of longing and desperation.

Umm hum, yeah baby, whatever you say.

But lo and behold, he does show up a couple of days later, looking like hell with his hair about an inch long all over the place. Well well well, I told him, looks like this hair cutting thing is going around. He noticed I'd whacked mine off as well.

So, where you stayin' these days? I asked.

Actually, over in northeast.

Oh, with (psychobitch)?

Uh (startled) well, yeah. How did you know?

Because he'd told me when he was drunk the first time he'd called, that was how.

He went on to give vague details of how things had ended with his latest perfect love, a tale of woe involving crack for the most part. He said it was probably a good thing I'd shut him out, as he'd done a lot of very unnice things (his words) that turned a lot of folks against him.

Gee, I can't imagine what those things would be. Could it possibly involve drugs, theft and sex?

I stared him in the eyes the whole time. He seemed as if he still wasn't entirely there, as if he was looking right through me. He said he wanted us to get together and talk some time, that he was trying to live clean and sober (um, does beer not count?) and that he'd like to still be my friend. And that he'd call this weekend.

Um, yeah, right. I'm thinking he doesn't know/have my home number, otherwise why would he have called repeatedly at work and risk being shut down by whoever answers the phone there (yes, they all know his voice and are looking to skin his balls for the fun he's put me through the past year). I'd like to believe that he's trying to clean himself up, get back on some kind of path, but he's never been much of a path kind of guy to begin with. If he's with psychobitch, then the drug use will only get worse, like Sid Selvege (sp) from Pink Floyd. She'll keep feeding him drugs just to keep him there.

But I can't take him in again. It would kill me. Because I know he'd just get himself in shape enough to hook up once again with something younger, richer, more ethnic, and once again I'd be a puddle on the floor, and I can't/won't/don't wanna ever do that again.

It kills me to give up on him. It kills me to give up on men in general. But they're killing me, and I'm not getting any younger or any better-looking at their hands. So I have to let go of it all, I've been in mourning for the past three months, depressed over the loss of my sexuality. Sweet young things throng the sidewalk, making eyes turn, and it was only within the past couple of years I was comfortable with causing that reaction myself. But stress has put extra years on me, and I no longer get the whistles and sucky noises I used to get when younger. Believe it or not, I miss it. Because not pulling such noise means that I'm not seen as desirable. Even if it was coming from guys that there was no freaking way in hell I would even consider sleeping with, the absence of the noise is more annoying than the noise itself.

Am spending my first weekend off in three weeks to drink myself into a stupor. Yeah, like that helps.

FYI, Roy Lichtenstein...that was the guy who ripped off comics. With the big OP art pictures that looked like comics.

Get yer own spellcheck. Pffffft!

Hunh, forgot what I was going to say.

That's what having two honkin' huge glasses of sauvignon blanc on an empty stomach will do for you. Whee.

And oh, look, it's another month already. Did time fly this quickly when we were kids? I think not.

composing bad poetry and reading a bio of Vladimir Mayokovsky. It doesn't get any better than this.

In my mind is a postcard that's supposed to be by one of those '60s pop icons (Rauschenberg? Johns?) The guy who lifted pictures from coming books...so anyhoo, there's the picture, and the caption for it is

Angry, frustrated and bitter was not what I wanted to be when I grew up

And yet, here I am, all of those. Add alone to the mix, and it makes a wonderfully nasty cup. How about some carbon monoxide foam and a sprig of nightshade on that, eh?

WTF? I'm either grousing over every little undone thing at the bidness, or pining for TOW. Neither is very constructive. But I'm tired of being the grunt, the maid, when the bidness is supposed to be a fair 50/50. So why am I always the one who's cleaning and restocking, while nimtwit is chatting up the local press?

After hours ain't much better. Moping about TOW, assuming he's managing to keep to the semi-straight and semi-narrow (hey, I KNOW him) as he hasn't shown up on my doorstep all sodden and dejected. Pissed because he HASN'T shown up on my doorstep all sodden and dejected. Very pissed that I got tossed over for someone ten years younger than me who owns her own house and has a nicer car--so much for his anarchist ideals. Somehow, the old golddigger phrase "It's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man, and maybe a little easier" comes to mind.

Plus sleaze bucket is still lurking around, thinking he's gonna jump on me. Ew. Ew ew ew ewewewew. And he's got his eye on the folks who wanted me to rent their spare room. Double ew. Along with a 'thank effing god' that I didn't take that leap, as it makes me wonder what plans they had for me in their basement. Plus two more old one-time dates are lurking around the bidness again, hoping for a pull.

I'm really sick to death of men in all shapes and forms. I'm sick to death of people. Period.

Can't keep a thought in my head for even five seconds.

Have tried to shake this all off, to not obsess. Cleaned. Mopped. Scrubbed. Performed rituals, burned smudges. Lit candles, cut and burned hair. Purified home and body to the best of my ability, and yet none of this will go away. Tried reading, writing, walking, drinking, driving, all to no avail. It only seems to make it worse, the feelings more intense.

It was very hard to not swallow the whole bottle of pills at my bedside last night. You have no idea.

I'm stuck. God damn Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and her five stages of grief--I can't break free of the loop.

TOW is singing high and low the praises of being in love with 'the lightest-skinned Latina' he's ever met. Fucking racist. (Hey, TOW, if property is theft, who'd she steal that sweet little house from? Or that nice new Accord? Funny how the anarchists always stay in with rich folks...Goldigger's Mantra: It's just as easy to love a rich person as a poor--and a LOT MORE PROFITABLE) Meanwhile I'm cut off from any and all the people that I met through him whom I actually like, because of course they want to be happy for him and sorry for me and you can't really be both at once and who wants to listen to some sob sister when you can watch/listen to a friend go off about the bliss he's in? Of course, they've seen him do this at least fourteen times in the last year, sadly this is not an exaggeration, so I'm guessing anyone forced to witness his bliss has to be a little skeptical as to just how long it will last this time.

So once again I have no friends. So I start the cycle.

Depression...anger...denial...bargaining...acceptance. All my charms and stupid little tricks are in place to keep him from showing up at my doorstep, even if he did say I live too way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere to suit him (this from a guy who lived in a tent in the woods for three years). But at the same time, every day that he doesn't show up on my doorstep, doesn't call, doesn't email, I die a little. He's really gone.

He was never really here to begin with.

Meanwhile, the bidness is celebrating surviving another year. And it has slipped into the commonplace. I just don't care any more. I find myself thinking of excuses for not being in the store. Do little passive aggressive bullshit things to make the bidness partner insane (which backfires constantly, as she doesn't notice a lot of things like that). Listen to her prissy ass run the show as she wonders out loud why business is lagging (ummm, perhaps because you made a unilateral decision to book that event before checking with your bidness partner to find out they're boring as hell and nobody likes them???)

I'm trying to figure how much the failure of yet another romance that has tainted the business end. It certainly hasn't helped. I don't want to leave this neck of the woods, but I'm tired and don't really want to play this game any more, either.

Where do I go from here?

I've got to get in a more positive frame of mind. All this negativity is dragging me down.

He's still AWOL. TOW. And I've managed to not call him, to not read his email. Nor have I emailed him (although have spent an inordinate amount of time composing snappy emails in my head to his sad sorry self).

Computer's been pretty fucked up lately--wonder if that's his doing or PB's or the new fiend. Or just the computer getting old.

The longest TOWs ever stayed away is three months. One down, two to go. Gonna be a loooooong summer.

Meanwhile, the bidness partner is her same nasty self. Only with the warmer temps means her body odor wafts out more and more.

Still ghostwalking...

It seems wrong to take credit, to say it this way, but I threw TOW out Friday morning.

Mind you, the last week had been up and down, back and forth. He'd be here one night, then not the next, then turn up the third reeking of chemichals or patchouli with a glazed and sick look on his face. Each time I let him back in, let him sleep in his accostomed place even if he turned away and would not come near. Our waking moments together were consumed with silence.

So Wednesday night? Thursday night? I can't remember now, but he calls, saying he's decided he's going to live platonically with PB and that they're out at the health food store researching how they can naturally cure his hep C and her raging candida (ummm, mebbe if you two didn't fuck around and do drugs?) But he wanted to talk. Said we NEEDED to talk. He had some really important things to tell me.

Why did I not remember this keyword from the past? When he's calling, desperately wanting to talk, it's because he's snagged himself a new woman.

He finally catches me on the phone, and I tell him I'm not doing this over the phone; if he wants to talk, he has to come to me. He asked if he could spend the night Thursday, and I said it depended on how the 'talk' went, but that yeah, in all probability, he could.

So he gets his ass out to my place. Tells me that the woman who hired him to build a cob wall in her basement wants him to be her boyfriend, and that he wants to give it a try as he thinks he loves her. Said that she put some conditions on the relationship, like his getting a job and getting off drugs (interesting she left out the womanizing clause, or mebbe he just never hears that one). I figured he was already sleeping with her due to the absences, but damn, in less than seven days? That's got to be a new record for him.

None of the usual 'this time I'm gonna turn my life around' crap from him. Usually he goes into relationships with such high hopes.

He said my neighborhood was just too far away from everything he needed (meaning easy access to drugs). A publisher has offered him a job, provided he gets his ass into some kind of therapy and quits with the drugs and fucking around. He wants the job, but doesn't want to jump thru the hoops they've set out for him, so my guess is he'll tell them he's doing whatever they ask but not actually do it. Kind of like the parameters new girlfiends set out for him.

He tried to hug and kiss me, but I was having none of it. What about me? I kept asking. I know this isn't all about me, but excuse me as I internalize for a while...why is it that any other woman on the planet can suggest these things to you and you're all for it, but when these things come out of my mouth they fall on deaf ears? Do you feel anything for me?

He at least jerked his head up when I asked if he'd ever felt anything. Of course, he could have been just nodding off. He reeked of chemicals and was coughing furiously the whole time--said he'd been smoking crack the past couple of days.

So I threw down some sheets and a pillow for him to sleep on the couch. He begged to sleep on the bed, and despite the raging NOOOOOO in my head, I let him. He kept to his side.

In the morning, he got up way before me and started packing some things, putting others in the closet. Said he and the girlfiend were going to the interior, to meet her dying father (there's a memory you want Papi to take to heaven or hell with him, his precious daughter going off with the likes of TOW). But there was something in his tone, his attitude. He was angry, brusque, and he was heading out the door with almost none of his stuff. He kept saying he'd call me when he got back to town, and I kept saying he was already in town, and what was that supposed to mean (duh, afterwards it dawned on me that he meant after he and the new fiend got back from Papi's) He was headed out the door, with his dirty laundry still on the sofa, and I just snapped.

You're going to have to get your shit outta here, I told him.

Well, I can't take it to The New Girl Fiend's, she's got an 11 year old daughter and I can't live with her. She doesn't want that kind of thing going on in front of her kid.

Well, that's not my problem.

I went to the bathroom and saw his Dr Bonners hogging up the corner of the tub, all his lens solutions and soaps and razor and such. Snatched them up, threw them on the sofa with his clothes.

You've got 24 hours to get your shit out of here.

Well, I've got no place to go, so you'll just have to throw it away.

Again, that's not my problem.

So he grabbs his larger bag and stuffs some things in it, and heads out the door. I start gleaning the apt for any traces of him. Daughter's xmas photo--put in the guitar case. Guitar...put in the closet. Jewelery he gave me...put in guitar case.

Then I got online, because genius STILL hasn't changed his passwords and left his logins on my computer. At first, I was just deleting all my info from all his files--any emails I'd sent him, any he'd sent to me. Then I started reading his emails, just to remind myself why I was throwing him out for the umpteenth time. It was quite the eye-opening experience...this man cannot take two steps without the company of a woman. When he'd told me he'd gone to movies with his daughter, he'd actually gone on dates with other women. Restaurants that he'd 'stopped by for lunch at' were with women. His trip to Wisconsin and back was particularly interesting as he had several companions along the way.

I would call him a Cassanova, but that seems complimentary somehow. Didn't Wilt Chamberlain say he'd bedded something like 10,000 women over his NBA career? I'm thinking TOW left that number in the dust years ago.

After an hour or so, TOW shows up with the new girlfiend. He had her park facing away from my apt, but I'm sure told her some wild tale about me being insane and burning his stuff. Funny, I thought she didn't have room for his shit/didn't want that kind of thing going on in front of her daughter. So she's out in the lot with the motor running, and he somes stomping up the stairs and gathers up the rest. Interesting to note the places he looked for his stuff in my place.

Grunting, with three duffels on his shoulders, he paused at the door. You've still got three boxes at the store, I reminded him. Again, he came back with 'Well, I have no place to live, but I want that stuff, so you'll just have to trash it.' Told him he had a week to fetch it or it would be trash.

I hope you're having fun, I told him.

I'll call you when I'm back in town, he said.

So now I'm light-headed with this. Is he really gone? I know I'm just the girlfriend of last resort, the person who will take him in until he gets some money or some drugs and finds something better...and I don't intend to continue that line with him. Will he come a'knocking again when things get bad? I'm thinking they'll have to be even worse than they are now for that to happen. And will I let him in? I wish I could tell myself a resounding and solid NO, but I keep thinking it depends on how bad off he is.

Had a migraine all day yesterday; whether it was from stress or pollen, hard to say. Still woozy and borderline migraine-ish today: lights too bright, sounds too loud.

TOW and I rented a bunch of InuYasha DVDs, his latest obsession. Had those running for most of the night last night. Not really obsessed with manga myself, but we paid for them and I just can't toss them back in the bin without getting my money's worth out of them. I can see why he likes them, and probably sees himself as the half-demon InuYasha, disgusted by his mortal (white) side, torn between two women (only two?). At first, I saw myself as Kagome, the stupid teenager with a huge crush on InuYasha, but now I see I am really Kikyo, the dead girl from his past, reanimated with ashes and bones, confused as to why she is back and torn between loving InyYasha and wanting to kill him.

Oh, and TOW is definitley the lecherous monk.

Just in case you couldn't figure it out by the last post...TOW showed up about two days after the April 14th post, all his gear in hand, saying he'd had enough of PB's drama and insanity and could he please sleep on the couch or the floor and he'd be gone in the morning. So of course he put the moves on and we were upstairs inside of fifteen minutes.

But as I said in the Insanity post, he was loving it for all of fifteen minutes, then sneaking back off to her.

And yeah, he called last night to say he'd be home late. He'd gone over there to get the charger cord for his cell phone, and somehow they ended up at the library and making menu plans because of his Hep C and her candida.

Oh yeah, he's quite the prize. Better keep my eye on him.

Of course he never came back last night. Would I be posting now if he had?

I'm guessing he'll show up in time for us to have a wholesome weekend with his daughter. PB barely tolerates the daughter, and daughter hates PB, so lucky me gets her one day of rest destroyed to accomodate their fun.

Shoot me now.

Was watching my new favorite tv show last Friday, Raines, and one of the murder victims had a poster on her wall that said in fancy lettering

INSANITY: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.

For some reason I thought of TOW. Not just because he was snuggled up against me on the bed.

He's back off with psycho woman, has been running over there every other night for the past week. He thinks I don't know where he's been, what he's up to, don't notice that he comes back reeking of patchouli like he always does when he's been with her. I've been ignoring the behavior for the most part, and making a point of accepting immediately any invites for after-work fun that come my way, so that I'm not home waiting for his sad sorry ass like he'd like me to be when he finally deigns to turn up at my place. It's been fun on the nights that he does come back to my place--I come in close to midnight, hint of beer on my breath, and he's propped up in bed, watching tv, lost and whiny because I'm just now staggering in. He asks whatup/where I been, and I just say 'out with friends.'

The cats are happy when he's not here--more ass-snuggling space for them.

Three certifiably insane people here. Plus watching one on tv. Where do you fall in all of this?

TOW's been in town for three weeks, and during that time I've gotten three emails and one phone call. The first email was before he actually landed, the second two after I told PB (when she came trolling via email to brag he was with her) I'd pitched his shit in the dumpster. Boy howdy. Phone call conveniently came while I was out and about, so didn't have to actually hear/talk to him. He gave me her phone number and said to give him a call some time.

If the man isn't on drugs, he surely ought to be.

Why the HELL would I call him at her place? To have a catfight over the phone? To try and lure him over? I might want to, but I'm not going to give him the pleasure. I'm getting too old for this kind of relationshit.

So it's another cold, rainy day. I'm cold and achy all over. Various body parts have not been working as they should lately. Acupuncture today, massage tomorrow.

Should be working on taxes. There's a $2000+ check I'm gonna have to bounce in the next 24.

Trying to not listen to music, as it plugs into the deepest, most emotional parts. Nothing lets you know you're really alone like a Patsy Cline song and a bottle of bourbon. Or Joy Division with coffee and cigarettes.

I'm tired. I'm lonely. And I'm so terribly damaged from all the bad choices I've made in life that I doubt that I could even attract someone worthwhile, let alone not send him screaming from the building once we start talking. But I don't want to be alone, either.

So what's a middle-aged girl to do?

It was only in the last five years that I got any confidence as to how good I might actually look, and in the last two it seems my age has set upon me with a vengeance. Suddenly, nobody guesses that I'm ten years younger than I am. Nobody even offers up the polite exclaim of "you're HOW old?" when I tell them. Most are politely not asking any more.

I've lost quite a bit of weight since the divorce, which only makes it worse. Sagging and bagging. Old age ain't for sissies, as the book sez.

When you're a kid, you think being an adult will solve everything. But you get old and discover that you don't have the time, the energy, the money to do the things that you want. Sure, TOW was bored out of his skull here...so am I. But I don't have money to go nightclubbing any more (nor the tolerance for the smoke or the ears to take the music as loud as it can get nor the body that can get by on four hours of sleep). I also don't enjoy it because I meet more people like TOW.

All the people like me are huddled in front of their computers, complaining bitterly about their poverty and loneliness.

But I still want to be hot, wear funky clothes, turn heads, make men want me and women jealous of the attention I pull. Like that ever happened in the first place. The stares were more likely of the "OMG" with gasping laughter than hungry longing.

Big surprise, no?

TOW went straight to psycho woman's abode to stay. No calls, no emails to let me know he was here. Oh, okay, one, saying he was under the weather but would come by soon.

So THEN SHE starts emailing me, wanting to get together for coffee, to chat about TOW because he's not feeling well. According to her, he's been with her since late December, early January (that's funny, I could have sworn that lump on the bed next to me New Year's was him--the cats ain't THAT fat). Little ping pong emails back and forth, me saying I didn't want to do this, her begging to please meet. Finally caved, told her to name the time and place, and she went silent.

Sunday afternoon, after I do some running, I get home to an email saying to meet her five hours earlier across town. I wonder if that was her doing or technology being my friend once again.

So I emailed back, apologising for missing the meeting, again stating that I didn't really want to do this in the first place, that TOW is out of my life, literally. Told her I'd pitched everything here that was related to him.

If you knew me, you'd know I never EVER throw anything away. It took a large truck to schlep all the things I couldn't part with to this part of the world. I still have doll dresses for toys I had when I was five; I'm not throwing out someone else's stuff. It's buried in the back of the one closet I have in this hunchbacked-mouse apartment, and lemme tell ya, quite frankly, I could use the space. His birth certificate, social security card and other stuff is in there (hell yeah I looked. Like you wouldn't.)

What do I get for my troubles? One phone call from him, saying he was coming over Monday afternoon, plus one email asking how I was doing. No mention of what has been said between me and PW.

Sorry babe, but I had my Monday already booked. Didn't get either message until I got home around 7 that evening. Surprise and guess what, I don't sit around the place waiting for you to show up any more. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, use it to wash the car now.

That was two days ago. Nada peep outta him since. SHE, however, has sent me several urgent emails since, asking if anything has been saved, which dump do I think the stuff went to (????!) and the like. Jesus, Mary & Joseph on a stick.

I don't do intermediaries. If he wants me, he knows where I am, and can come get some face time. Not like I have a whole lot to tell the mutha.

He doesn't respect me. Nobody does. It comes from not respecting myself, yeah, I know that, but at least I'm trying. So why do I let people into my life, back into my life, who trip me up and make me feel worthless?

I feel so dead inside.

Notta peep outta TOW since I emailed him the EC lyric, but his blog says he's hitting the road/has hit the road. Guess I'll look for him when I see him.

Now have a Marshall Crenshaw song stuck in my head It's a great song that sums up my relationship with TOW:


All of the sudden at the wrong place and time
I hear an echo in the back of my mind
of all the tunes that I wasted on you
and all the things that we used to do

Although I know that I can make it without you
Even though I'm really tired of thinking about you
and all of the things that we used to do
and all of the trouble we put each other through

I can't help it if I wanna run back to you

Now don't try to run and hide
I'm gonna track you far and wide
and I don't care if I hurt my pride

I can't help it if I still want you by my side

C'mon and tell me that you'll give me a listen
You left my ego in a ruined condition
I hear an echo in the back of my mind
It's coming around for the millionth time

Even though I know I can make it without you
Even though I'm really tired of thinking about you
and all of the things that we use to do
and all of the trouble we put each other through

I can't help it if I gotta run back to you...


This CD also has 'our' song on it "You're My Favorite Waste of Time." I'd almost wonder if I'd ever dated Marshall, only none of my b'fiends were that tall. At least, he looks tall on the CD. I used to listen to this CD on the drive down to visit TOW in prison. It would get to "...Waste of Time" just as I'd turn off the interstate for his jail.

Have had my second acupuncture session now. The first one was incredible; I came out of there in a state of mind I hadn't experienced since the first time antidepressants worked for me. Lasted for most of that evening. Today, there weren't as many people getting stuck (the room filled up on Monday) and the person next to me was sucking down sinus drainage, a noise that I find disturbing even on a good day, and especially don't want to hear when I'm trying to release my chi into a more positive flow. So I feel kind of giddy, kind of agitated. Not a bad feeling, but not the great one I had the first time.

Sigh, nothing ever lives up to the first time, does it? Just so you know, my 'first time' was a complete and total joke, the only memorable thing about it was that the Clash was playing on the stereo. Let's just say he had more fun than me.

Damn, baby, but it's cold outside! A beautiful sunny day leads into a starry night, no clouds means no heat retained. Just when I thought it was safe to put away the heavy stuff.

Day started out gray, then turned sunny, then gray then sunny. Sunny right now. Kind of like me.

Have the opportunity, if that's what to call it, to be someone's lodger. Get the basement, 1000 sq feet approximately, finished out with my own loo and separate entrance. Cheap (well, cheapish) rent. Shared kitchen. The couple, somewhere in the neighborhood of my age. So I'm going this way and that, trying to decide if this would be a good thing or the worst idea known to humankind.

They're cool customers of the store, and wouldn't want to wreck that. Am surprised by the fact that being a lodger is somehow equated with nominal failure in my mind (what, you can't afford your own place, you have to mooch off of others?) but at the same time it seems tempting for the possibility of saving a little money. Then I start figuring what it's going to cost to move, then what rent plus a couple of extra utilities that I don't have to pay right now will run, and realize I can't afford it, not right now. I've got taxes to find some way to pay, and the car needs a brake job, I need glasses, medical & dental, the list goes on for miles. So spending $1000 to save $100 doesn't seem very practical at the moment. And their basement won't stay vacant forever. Being a basement doesn't help it much, either. I'm a top-of-the-canopy type of dweller, not very comfortable at ground level or slightly below.

And then we get into the whole social aspect of it. Do I know how to socialize with people any more? Sometimes I wonder, considering how much I enjoy just lounging on the sofa with a kitty in the crook of the elbow, sipping a drink and watching the sun set over the hills. Not many basements afford you that kind of a view (although I have seen one or two such places in this town).

So I went for a walk instead. Gorgeous fluffy clouds, blue skies, but if the sun ducked behind one of those lovely nimbus fluffjobs, it suddenly got gray and cold. Rented a Fritz Lang movie on the way back.

Since the cuerandero is down made an appt to see an accupuncturist tomorrow. That ought to be interesting. Cuerandero was glad to hear it, and wants a full report.