Life By The Numbers

As I age, I find more so than ever, that numbers take on more significance. I suppose they always have taken some prominence in my life as I was (and still am) an accountant during my survival years. I don't use the word survival lightly. How often do many of us work away at something that is basically a kind of spirit destruction for the artist within, toiling, collecting the cheque, toiling some more, looking for better toiling and so on and so forth.

In those toiling years. I squeezed a lot in of the creative nature. Around the edges of my life. There was never enough time to express that aspect of myself then. So I pack it in now, even as I'm slowing down.

I was sorting my weekly pills into the dispenser this morning. A weekly task. It takes 15 minutes. About 30 pills a day including the supplements of niacin and turmeric and magnesium et al. It's a slow process as I tend to drop the little guys on the floor or on my lap. Not so much today but some days. You know.

We are forgetful as we age. I was supposed to go to the opera with a friend today but I think she forgot and I was glad. It was her first opera and it was probably my 6th time seeing it. Madame Butterfly. Not that I minded, I love it, but the whole getting ready thing, organizing thing. Well, you know. And then a kind of mandatory coffee thing after. I just wanted to be home. In my PJs doing creative stuff.

But I played the magnificent Humming Chorus from it and it never fails to make me cry. So cry I did. Sublime.


When I was desperate for work in the old days, or desperate for anything, a shaman advised me to face east in the dawn and hold out my hands and tell the universe I was ready for work. And then go out, broke as maybe, and give something to a far needier person than I. It always worked. I never expected anything from my actions, I should add. It was a spontaneous thing. On Thursday I gave my 80 year old cleaning woman a small raise. She never asked for it, it was just that she takes care of me in little extra ways. She was over the moon. She kept saying: you like my work, you like my work! And on Friday a totally unexpected project came into my inbox, one I will definitely enjoy and will be compensated very well for. A referral. Something oddly numerically karmic about that.

And a very odd thing. I say odd. Because I remember thinking a while back when a man I knew who was dying looked up a high school sweetheart and they totally fell in love again and she was with him for his last couple of years. I remember thinking, she went into this knowing it would all end in tragedy and heartbreak. Could I do that?

But the heart does what it does. And the brain can't stop it. And recently I met a man who is dying and I want to pull away. Now. Immediately. And the heart says absolutely not. I can't explain it. But now I understand. Numbers again. Do they matter?

My Christmas cactus. A little confused (like me)

Memento Mori

I thought I had destroyed all mementos of the relationship. Truly. I did that with most of my romantic history. A few photos remain, maybe. But all letters and emails and tokens of a once seemingly profound and everlastin' love were tossed, burned or otherwise disposed of.

I don't know whether I regret this or not. I believe there is something oddly pathetic about clutching dried roses and love-cards to one's bosom in old age. As if that was all that mattered about one's life when there is so much more. Often in solitude but also involving deep and abiding friendships.

Anyway, this fell out of a box of photos, don't know why it survived because the other 27 were destroyed I think, but I'll tell you the story behind it. I was away for a month in Ireland. But before I left, my lover handed me a package of sealed notes, one for every day of the month I would be away.

It was 1997. And yes, he was my last great love.

Well, its Tuesday
I wonder where you'll be
I wish I was there with you seeing you do your party pieces, hearing you sing, enjoying the vitality, the fun, the warmth, the excitement.
I'll be missing you terribly.
But I know you'll soon be coming back and I have all the wonderful memories
of moments shared
magical feelings
incredible passion
but above all the joy and peace of mutual love.
H.

Exploding the Fantasy

The fairytale aspect of life is presented ad nauseum both by books and films and TV shows. One of the primary sells being that the magic princess/prince will arrive, snow white charger optional, and whisk you into a life beyond your wildest dreams. Nightmare more like. At least for over 50% of us.

Case in point: Carol (not her real name) is a 40 year old woman living up the road from me. Attractive. Five children. Two husbands under her belt. Children by 3 different partners. None of whom give her a dime of support for her family's well-being. So we the people do it with our slim taxation dollars. Us 99% I am referring to, of course. I doubt if it crosses the 1%'s mind that such people exist. And if it did it would be “their own fault,” “bootstraps,” and “I'm alright, Jack”.

Nothing wrong with Carol and her life, though there are some that judge her. All the time. Her unhappiness leaks nearly every day from her Facebook posts. She is poorly educated and if you knew why, you would weep (snippet: as a toddler she saw her mother murdered in a bath of blood by her father). Her dream for the knight to ride in and save her has never left her mind since she was fourteen. She just made poor choices in the past, you see. But HE is still out there and will find her. Just like the soaps she watches in the afternoons. So she does herself up right sexy before she even opens her door and zeroes in on any available upright man who walks around. HE will be the one. It is a constant uphill struggle as sometimes they use and sometimes outright reject her. But her poverty and belief in this dream enables her to continue getting up in the morning.

It never crosses her mind to get an education now that all the children are in school full-time. To change. To determine that her happiness is an inside job. Not the knight's responsibility. I've spoken to her about this. About the joy of personal fulfilment and she looks at me sideways. This credo has absolutely no perceivable benefit to her. I just don't get it, you see.

How many countless others are waiting like her for this fantastical teevee land of Father Knows Best and its ilk?

No one talks about failure having much better odds than success in a relationship. And if we included the incredibly unhappy and abusive ones that manage to hold together in a kind of misery loves company toxicity, the odds would be overwhelming indeed.

Why does no one ever talk about limiting the size of their families in this overpopulated and abused planet - while we breed ourselves to the point of extinction? Children are being raised in poverty just about everywhere by single parents. Why? Because they believed in that Princ(ess) Charming and forever with a brood of happy kids frolicking in the meadow. Hell, if the sex is good than it follows that everyone and everything around us would be too, right?

I was one. The only lifestyle that improved after my divorce was that of my ex-husband. All sorts of both material and other benefits were cut from my two children's lives. I had bought into the dream too, you see. Like most of us. Forever and ever, amen.

What a crock of shyte as my people would say.

It is time we stopped this massive delusion.

So that Carol's children won't perpetuate the insanity.

Truth is Stranger than Fiction Department

I first wrote about an extraordinary internet scam way back in April of 2008 in which a woman was hoaxed into having an internet romance with a fictitious guy (actually a woman) who subsequently 'died'. The scam was perpetrated for the sheer excitement of it all and not driven by sex or money. Some of my commenters refused to believe it. I did -as Harlan Ellison, the well known author, validated what had happened.

Well now it appears that the scammer, a woman by the name of Janna St. James (who adopted up to 20 personalities to sustain her scams) is being sued by her victim, Paula Bonhomme.

Read all about it here

An Internet Romance

As told by Woody.

It was just one of those things.

I was browsing the web over her shoulder as I’m forced to do, not even accorded the courtesy to surf alone as she thinks I lack the most basic web savvy. Ha! I’ll have news for her one of these days.

But I forget myself.

For there he was. Mr. Pinkie. To say my heart pounded as soon as I saw him is to understate the matter. I was entranced, fixated, bewitched (not to mention bothered and bewildered). My soul mate in the pink flesh, so to speak. A little fluffier than me, due to the respect he receives vs the rough handling I get from time to time.

So I exerted my usual mind control over her and then sat in front of the webcam and took the snap you see above to send to my, ahem, Darcy from his Lizzie, and write this post.

And now I await, breathlessly, his response. I just know I can help him with his self-esteem issues.

Just look at how assertive I am!

Enlightenment

Picture is of Cape Spear, Newfoundland, August 2007
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I felt like pluralizing the above title but decided against it, why contribute to further deterioration of the language - and at my crusty age I should feel ashamed of the temptation.

Answers to life's puzzles come in their own good time. Like the ongoing teaser of the great R puzzle. Now resolved. A further conversation with him last night showed his heart very clearly is in another direction. My investment in the whole thing was entirely removed this morning when he forwarded me a Christian YouTube film about this 13 year old boy whose elderly cow gave birth to a calf and broke her back in the effort. He had to shoot the old cow but as he stood there afterwards in grief the voice of God came into his head to tell him that God had endured the loss of His Only Son so could understand the sorrow.

I was snapped into reality really, really quickly. My mind riffed off on this. God voices in the head have gotten the world into a lot of trouble. See George Bush and his God calling him into war. See The Crusades. See The Holocaust. See the Irish Famine. Then I had the thought that given a Goddess and the same wonky scenario would She have had the same enthusiasm in torture-slaughtering Her daughter for the good of womankind and our 'sins'? While watching and having the power to stop it? Just puttin' it out there.

The R switch has been turned off for me. I found this whole film (and his admonition for me to get out the Kleenex first before watching!) appalling, the brainwashing of the young boy, the attempt to thread the two similarities of sacrifice vomititious in the extreme. Far from R's intent. He was 'inspired'. Another dream bites the dust.

I must admit to shedding a few when Hillary got the nomination in NH last night. I'm not a Hillary hater like many, I've felt from way back, when she was Bride of Bill, that she was the better 'president'. Opportunistic, yes, aren't they all in the cutthroat and Hollywoodized politics of our Southern neighbour? But looking at all the Democratic candidates since the outset, for my money and the future of the planet she is by far the best choice. I absolutely cannot see her sacrificing any more youth to this undending war on so-called terror, her past votes be damned. Politicking. And we need more women in politics. We need more of an equal gender balance however we get it. Compassionate people get slaughtered out there in the voting trenches. Given a chance, I think she will do her best to clean up the mess and initiate universal healthcare and education. If the pot hasn't been totally licked dry by the Incumbent and his cronies.

Remind me, who are the terrorists again? They are currently patrolling the Persian Gulf. How would the U.S. react to Iranians patrolling their war ships in the Gulf of Mexico? Little speedboats wouldn't be it. Nuclear warheads more like. WW 3 for sure. And the bought-and-paid for MSM falling over themselves to pontificate on the threat of the little speedboats on their own waters against those "benign" humungous battleships? There's money to be made in tham thar war zones!

Mixed Signals?

I had a lovely dinner with R on Tuesday at his insistence. He was pacing the lobby of the restaurant when I arrived and rushed to hug and kiss me.

He was very insistent on a table rather than a booth and then to my astonishment sat beside me. The backstory to this is that when he was with me in NL I had talked of my last great love who had always sat beside me rather than opposite me in restaurants.

He said he had a huge apology to make to me at the outset and that was for the ignoring of my birthday when he was with me. All the way back to TO in the plane he had beaten himself up for this and many times since. I was gracious, of course, and acknowledged the depth of his remorse and also the fact I had forgotten it, which was true.

He could not keep his hands off me and apologised several times, telling me he had missed me so much. He told me had been seeing a woman who had since dropped him (and I was so pleased I had intuited this on the dry spell of e-mailing!) and also that he had an eye on another and didn't know what to do. I queried him on experience in the dating scene prior to his marriage. Just about zero. I said maybe he needed to lighten up and just date several women and not think everything was a huge commitment. This hadn't occurred to him. I'm not surprised at this as I miss the bleeding obvious so many times that I never condemn it in others.

I told him of my gentleman caller and how lovely it was to feel like a romanced woman again. As he was touching me (mainly arm stroking) I realized how much I miss that kind of intimacy, not so much the boinking but the touching. He seems to trigger that in me. I hesitated to tell him this - I've never dealt well with rejection - so didn't and in hindsight I'm glad.

We had a 3 hour dinner and at the end he hugged me many times, told me how much he appreciates me and how he felt so much better having had a chance to talk to me.

I should add he is an only child, always has been, parents now dead so no one in direct family to talk with. I think he sees me as a very loved sister. The women he is attracted to are age appropriate also which pleased me no end and of course makes him look more attractive to me.

But the thing is, I get a little worked up when I'm with him. It could be attraction, it could be a freshly woken kind of lust, or just the need of intimacy.

Oh, and he no longer wears a wedding ring and I did comment on this and he was delighted I noticed.

I keep thinking of that book ~





~ and just letting go of any romantic notions while still being his close friend. Easier said than done.

On the road again...

This time on my way back to the city, much against my desire or wishes but yielding to the plea of my beloved granddaughter for our annual road-trip. I think I will head back in a matter of a month or so to the fair land I've left behind.

Some random observations:

(1) I have a book offer from a publisher, very, very thrilling. A collection of my short stories. However, I am currently suspended in a form of writer's amber. Paralyzed. Numb. Frightened. The realization of a dream is the running up against myself. Now what? My babies toddling off by themselves into the real world with real critics. Lash of noodle on self. Get to it girl, stop the dithering. Stop the distraction of the day-job now. Screw the money. Let go of the fear. Stay in your bliss, in your life-long dream!

(2) A RANT: Why, in this twenty-first century of ours, hasn't some genius perfected the design of the toilet roll holder? With what dread do I enter every single stall of every ferry, every restaurant, every hotel room, to be greeted by kicked in huge plastic containers that hurt someone's fingers one time too many as they scrabbled for a hold on a skinny sheet underneath its deadly saw-edges. Yes, they finally cracked up, whimpered, and took off the stilletto shoe and beat the thing to death, leaving its huge rolls floating on the wet floor. And for variety, the gaping jaws of long empty containers greet me after I have urgently done my business so I am left perched and waiting for a kind soul to enter and pass me something, anything, an old Kleenex from their purse, under the door. The crammed single sheet metal box dispenser that doesn't, is another challenge. The tightly jammed paper will not yield to any type of pressure and is often a victim of a nervous breakdown, beaten to a pulp by an irate user, its contents thrown into an over-flowing toilet. We've come up with the automatic toilet flusher, ditto soap and water dispensers and hand dryers, even automatic paper towel dispensers and we cannot come to grips with a design for a functioning fool-proof dispensing toilet roll??? Come on!!!!

(3) MUSIC: We have a long ride, 3000 klicks, the grandgirl and I. We take turns with the music selections. Some, I'm pleased to report, we agree on (Abba, Beatles, John Denver (John Denver!!!!)Joni Mitchell, Elvis (Long live the King!!)) but I'm up against my own creeping decrepitude on some of her choices. Isn't this the way of the world, though. But yay Nora Jones and Motor Five, not bad, not bad at all.....

(4) SIDEBAR: My beloved niece tells me she has found me a lovely man who is very keen to meet me. This will have to wait as he is a Newfoundlander but has all the criteria that appeals to an ideal me in an ideal world.

More from the road later.

You can't force romantic love

**Sigh**
And I sorta kinda tried. So much of possibility boils down to Pheronomes. They weren't there. I had this past week with R, long planned, and long longed-for. My widower friend. A very lovely man. Still grieving his dead wife. Still wearing his wedding ring.
It was his first vacation in forty years without her. We talked solid for the whole week. We picnicked. We went to a house party. We hiked. We ate long leisurely dinners. We meditated together. And oh how we talked. We touched, though as brother and sister would. We washed and dried dishes together at the end of the day. And had little injokes, some revolving around a 'moose god' I have on the counter. You have to touch him before you leave so you can avoid encounters on the highways and biways. Moose are everywhere here and a serious danger. The moose god works. So far.
He told me sex was over-rated, never had done much for him. Ahem.
He told me one of his regrets about his wife was that he had rarely touched her. He should have touched her more.
He played with his toy bucket and spade that I had bought him. And made sand castles.
We took photos together and I helped him with some.
Did I say we laughed a lot? We did.
But we slept in separate bedrooms.
And the advice from my brothers, whom I deeply respect, was to let him make the first move.
And he didn't.
And he forgot my birthday, even though I had talked about it the day before.
But we are still good friends.
And he wrote in my guest book that we are more bonded than we ever were.
And I take him to the airport and we kiss, as we always do, on the lips, tightly and chastely. And he leaves. And doesn't stand on the pavement and wave. As most leave-takers of mine do. As I do. One last wave of thanks and love and see-ya-soon.
And he told me he is very excited about a grief counselling group he will be attending in September. One of the reasons is that he hopes to meet a potential partner there.