558 days to go
home. foggy. rainy. damp. dim.
love it. love it. love it. love it.
this has been one of the nicest trips home ever. in spite of the melancholy over joe, i just completely indulged my senses in the yumminess of the kids. and it's SO great to be around mel. she's one of just a few people lately with whom i'm not intellectually lonely. it's also nice to have someone who shares ALL the memories. good and bad. from day one. the was right there alongside me during the long days weeding the many flower gardens on our five acres. or shelling lima beans for hours and frickin hours on the back porch. blistering bleeding fingers. she was the one i mentally tormented, who would chase me and pound me with punches until i lunged up at her and punched her back. just one punch from me and she'd fall back yelling. i guess it was a psychological advantage. but she knew how to hurt me too, and we both weilded the edges of each other's hysteria with deviltry and cunning. but we were also friends. we both had to face the mind-numbing emotional games growing up in our house, and bear similar scars. we would sit on the bed in the dark listening anxiously to our parents fighting. there's a lot more to the story. exquisite rifts in our sisterhood that sometimes spanned years. but altogether, she remains the person i know best and who knows me best. when i'm at my lonliest and wonder who would miss me~~~~ i know there is someone who would feel half her life had vanished, who would feel her soul torn.
and that's worth a lot.
my hair is jet-black. too damn black. i'm hoping it will fade a bit. don't go by the color on the box. that's the lesson i learned. if you want dark brown, go for medium brown.
i do like it better. at some point i will ease it more in a black-brown direction. as it is, i look like an american badass goth supreme.
so nice to be back. getting back to my life i'm sure that joe spasm will fade. it's funny~i always said i would never regret it. but i think i am beginning to regret doing it. that it was really a mistake, that ground away at my self-confidence and my sense that i'm entitled to have a man be proud to be with me. these are things that really take time to change. and behavior reinforces them in either direction.
so yes, it was a mistake for me to carry on so long.
from his point of view, it was not. but, he didn't pay the costs i did.
well, i've learned one thing: never do it again. with anyone. ever.
sex.
it will be great again. i feel little strings of aliveness and awakeness and interest in.......certain men. that doors are open and all it takes is to find them. sex, mental engagement, all the good things.
i think the rest of today is chores. i don't remember what my apartment looked like when i left. it could be trashed....i might have done some cleaning. it seems like i was last here a lifetime ago. i'm on the computer at work, tapping away--monday i should have my laptop and won't have to come in here to do it.
the radio station is unchanged as always. but i'm getting the heck outta here and going home where it's cozy and warm.
.
.
559 days to go
9:30pm
he replied. "i am seeing someone else." that was the entire text of the message.
it seems as if, after five months of not speaking to him, it should not hurt so much. it hurts like a punch in the stomach. i feel ill.
at the thought that he holds and kisses and makes love to someone else, cares for someone else, is enjoying a life with someone else. that he would rather be with someone else.
i really made a mistake. i shouldn't have done what i did with him, gotten to know him in that way, gotten to care so much. i really, really fucked up. i should not have made love to him. i should not have given myself to him. the cost was so great. he just never loved me like that. and while he got emotional comfort from me, he fell in love with two different women in the time that he knew me. he really valued them above me, when push came to shove. they were the ones he wanted to try with.
i don't know why i kept on with him. it is a mystery. the longing i felt was just so much stronger than my will. and it is pathetic--i know this and can't do anything about it---to care like this now. to feel sick like this now. there's something wrong with me, that i keep on caring so much.
he really didn't love me. i wish i could wake up.
i'm going to ask my doc about treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder. there must be some reason the thoughts about him won't stop. along with some other things i won't go into here.
and it might be a good idea not to post for a while.
i don't know why i care when it's not reciprocated.
i wonder how on earth and when on earth i will be able to stop caring.
it's like a reflex. i can't help it. i just do care. and just do still feel everything as if it had only happened yesterday. why?
the only thing i can control is my behavior. blocking him out. just forge ahead through these 559 days.
this is three holiday seasons he's left me lonely. two years ago he was dating the actress and spending the holiday with her in palm springs.
last year he blew me off in december; and on new year's eve, called the actress and hung up on her answering machine. and did a show about how he did that. how he longed for her that night.
not for me.
and this holiday season he has the warmth of a relationship.
i need to post here as an outlet, but something tells me i should stop. i don't know if i can.
maybe this grief will last a while and then ease. i'm sure this is better. i need to say goodbye to him. this relationship was not good for me at all.
my hands are shaking. it's hard to type.
tomorrow i fly back to my life.
it's the thing i can't think about. i can't think about this. it's too much. don't know where to put it. somehow i'll figure out how. how. don't know.
grief.
grief.
grief.
.
.
.
oooooooooooooh. look what i found.
hey, who needs joe?
...this was
an ice stalagmite that grew on the ground near the wall on the other side of their kitchen sink.
.
.
.
next year's christmas present for mel?
it's a POCKET-SIZED LIE DETECTOR.
the "Handy Truster Emotion Reader" from 911 computers in Korea (available online!)
said to have an 80 per cent accuracy rate.
cute, huh!
.
.
mel's polaroid camera just came today.
here's our first shot:
me.sharon.james
.
.
it's 12/28..............how can that beeeeeeeee?
the last day of my vacation. tomorrow morning
i get on a plane and go back to so, so, so so cal.
it's been a really nice one.
the kids are just waking up upstairs. mark is over in the study. i can hear him clicking away at his keyboard. he's keeping a pretty low profile.
mel and i got into the bourbon last night and watched 'saving private ryan.' she covered poor james' eyes for the first 26 minutes of the movie and finally sent him upstairs to watch cartoons.
i got pretty hammered and sent joe an email
sort of complaining that he didn't answer my simple
question. maybe i'll thank him later for not engaging.
i don't know.
he didn't answer that email. i don't know if it was wistful, angry, what. doesn't really matter though.
i mean, he so does not matter to my life.
because he has made it that way.
it seems like but for this one (large) achilles heel, life is pretty good.
dad is supposed to have one of his 'sessions' with the golden masturbator today. he said he was going to "bring up" what happened christmas morning when he gave suzanne the trip to california and the self-improvement seminar and she ran crying from the room.
"are you going to ask for a refund," i asked him the other day when we talked.
"well, i'm going to tell him what happened, and just kind of play it by ear," he said.
oh. does that mean you don't have the balls to ask this shyster for his money back?
oh and this.
referring to the running-from-the-room crying bit, dad said, "you don't really know what that was about."
well, DUH! it's not BRAIN SURGERY. i may not know the nuances of the situation, but if you GIVE SOMEONE A GIFT AND THAT PERSON RUNS FROM THE ROOM CRYING, IT'S A SURE BET THAT PERSON DOESN'T LIKE THE GIFT AT ALL!!!!
*siggggggghh* ug.
fuck
a duck.
a little voice just said, "yahoo!!!" and laughed satanically
that would be someone who bumped into that little toy which must be lying on the floor somewhere upstairs.
i gotta get one of those.
.
.
.
560 days to go
12/27/01
6:42 pm
we're back from the store.
mark is sitting at his desk with his face in his arm, passed out. a full THIRD of the bottle of nob creek is just GONE.
we're going to work on it ourselves,
.
.
. 3:35pm
mark's on a drinking binge. he's sitting over mel called me upstairs and said,
i think it all started with the egg nog. we were .
.
.
so great
........she's in there showing mark. "good cut---it's, actually, professional;" he said. i think the highlights are good too. tracy has said if i ever want to apprentice with her, i could do that. so if i ever want a second career.
anyway, since i was a teeny kid, everyone has said how i look like dad's family.
but before the blowout last night, we were looking at photo albums.
maybe that business about how i look like dad's side was a part of denying mom ever existed. check this out:
same
eyes
same
smile.
same eyebrows.
same expressions.
same nose.
and mel is, just, such a cutie.
12:22am
from espn.com's website
"Shaquille O'Neal liked what he saw in the fourth quarter from Kobe and Co."
maybe it's just me, but it sure looks like he liked what he saw.
as in, is something "up" here?
.
.
so mark's all tanked up on beer and bourbon and mel says, "what is it i don't know about?"
mark: "uh..........i uh. went to denton when i was out in texas."
mel: "god damn it. i asked you point blank if you went there and you told me NO. why do you lie about this stuff?!"
and so they started fighting. i went down to the basement. james followed me down. we sat on the couch while they yelled at each other and james said, "mommy needs to get a new husband. one that doesn't lie."
"yeah, well," i said.
so he managed to turn it around on HER, and got MAD and stomped out in a rage. where he'll go after midnight in louisville i have no idea. mel came down and sat on the stairs and said she's too tired to care that much about it. "maybe he'll stay at a hotel tonight, and i'll have the bed to myself," she said.
oy.
yeah, oy fucking vay. they've been pretty sweet with each other while i've been here. snuggling in corners, helping each other assemble all the presents, watching movies and hangin out in the living room. i guess i've had all the requisite emotional excitement for the holiday.
comfort of children. laughter. great time with my sister. deep grief about joe. and tears late at night, and lonely dreams. outrage at dad's personal coach nightmare. a yelling slam-the-door fight. pure exasperation and self-disgust at leaving mel's damned present--the polaroid friggin camera--in ohio. excitement at finding a good deal on a laptop so finally i can be online at home again. is there anything i've left out?
oh yeah. guilt. i've felt guilty as fuck for not calling carolyn to wish her merry christmas. i've felt so like...not calling. i had just had it with her, i guess. and i'm sure she felt sad i didn't call.
so we can throw guilt in as well.
.
.
.
.
561 days to go.
12/26/2001
10:21pm
howOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGAHHH!!
nothing like post-christmas shopping to soothe the ravaged soul.
i exchanged my blues for a new hat. and we tried on wigs.
like that.
fuck da bastids. i think
i'm not going to cry over you forever,
.
.
.
"i'm going to put a blocker on that fucking computer," mel said when i told her i emailed joe and asked if he would tell me if he's seeing anyone.
"i know," i said.
"well, i've been there," she sighed.
he hasn't answered. maybe he won't.
it's true it would hurt a lot to find out he's seeing someone. but maybe it would help me move on.
it hurt to find out he's not, in fact, the person checking these pages. hurt a lot. but it's reality.
hurl me out of this vanilla sky.
it's what i need.
somehow i'll find a way to forget not anymore, though.
.
.
.
HAH!!!
it was bound to happen in a basement full of techheads.
i've got a NEW FRIGGIN LAPTOP.
hope i can get it here in time for the trip home. if i can take that on the plane, i won't need any drugs to knock me out.
HOT DIGGITY DARN!! whooo. on donner, on blitzen. the hell
out.
.
.
.
dag nabbit. i'm ready to go home.
it's great to be here, but i'm too fucking this is an unbelievable machine i'm typing on. it is an ultraslim black-as-night ibm thinkpadt-22, pentium III, happy little chill damn fine wowee.
oh, oh, oh. there sits my little tecra 8000 on mel's desk, looking forlorn and disabled. there's a toshiba service center in bev. hills. that will be my last stop before i go out into the wilderness looking for a new laptop.
mel is upstairs, talking to skeez about what i found on golden mastermindfuck website. that the thousand dollars for a two-day seminar doesn't cover airfare and hotel. what a soakin shyster this guy is. they have something like 20 or 30 people out to spend two days with them. that's a 20 or thirty thousand dollar weekend.no wonder they're so wealthy.
"if they were to change my phone number, the gross national product would go down five per cent." says mark. "and the telemarketers. i tell them take me off your list. i talked to you yesterday. and the day before. and the day before."
sonix4U. that's the absolute best long-distance. 4.9 cents a minute. no hidden fees. i switched to iti because of dad's business. then i got a sixty-four dollar long distance bill from them. paid it because i wanted to get out of town.
no more fucking pac bell when i get back in town. i'm going cellular for now.
esp. since i can't dialup at home
.....
sharon
the leetle bug
she stood watching me, leaning against the doorjamb, this morning while i dried my hair. cute little bug. and then would grin. just saying nothing, as always. i love that she says nothing. so many people jibbajabbring away all the time. so she smiles that big sweet smile. and i think to myself as i stand there looking at her in her little white suit with the metallic gold duck on the front,
this is the meaning of life.
her little smile.
god. it's the only thing that matters. this little girl smiling at me and leaning against the doorjamb. looking fascinated as i blowdry my hair.
he asked me once what i thought was the point to living. i told him, seeing your beautiful smile.
he shook his head.
so i guess seeing me smile was not the point for him. i don't know what's the point for him. all of his shows are about his search for finding the meaning.
i can't find any more meaning than what i see in the beautiful smile of someone i love. that's really the point of it all----to me.
not the heights of ecstasy in lovemaking, not the glowing moments you hold forever as the pinnacle of being---those ultra-fine moments of pure ecstasy.
it's so funny. i used to reach that pinnacle when we made love. there was a feeling that god did in fact exist. something so pure, and amazing, i couldn't even begin to describe it here.
there was one other time in recent years when i've reached that feeling. when sabina and i walked the la marathon in 2000, at the end of the 26.2 miles and eight hours, when i crossed the line and a volunteer put a medal around my neck, i felt it then. something unbelieveable. and it was the exact same feeling i had with him, indistinguishable. the purest thing on earth.
for that feeling i'd do it again. walk the marathon that is. not make love to him again. the emptiness isn't worth that feeling with him. i did it and loved it and now i'm done. we've been tossing the idea around, for this spring, to walk the marathon again.
but that feeling isn't what life's about. it's
the
little things.
like he said in vanilla sky. the little things.
her face as she looks up at me. james snuggling against me in the morning. the way she looks exACTLY like melissa did when melissa was little---down to the last eyelash.
the little things. the way we would look up and smile at each other in the afternoons, when he was in the studio.
there will be little things with someone else. i know there will. logically i know there will.
but logic has nothing to do with it. it's a wave i'll have to ride as gracefully as i can....
i wonder how he is. is he happy? is he healthy? is he well?
i think when i get out of here, and back to my own life, ...
ha, we're singing the theme to hee-haw. gloom despair and agony on me!!
i love a laptop. you can be online and not divorced from the world. i'm in a basement full of kids and techheads. it's the coolest damned thing.
earlier mel was vacuuming and yelled, "FUCK!! GODDAMN!! SHIT!!" bryan said to mark, "that's three in a row. you better go up."
turns out playstation two almost got sucked up in the vacuum cleaner. it didn't, though. thank god.
.
.
.
***
i replied to joe: could you just tell me if you're seeing anyone. if you are maybe i can move on and if you're not i'll find it irrationally comforting.
i know. i know.
it's sad. i don't seem to be able to control it. wanting to know, that is. and wanting a ....hello. anything. a word. it's comforting to just get that hello. it's an unreadable hello. but that's for the best.
i was thinking i rely too much on these pages and maybe it's keeping it alive. but the fact of the matter is, it would stay alive whether or not there's an outlet for it. and this HASN'T consumed my mind like this---all the time---HAS IT? now that i'm on vacation and sitting on my butt, here in kentucky, where i've had christmases being sad because of him, it touches those places. those places where
christmas
sucks.
.
.
kim's new improved version.
merry xmas, my friend. wont you sing along?
dingle berries, dingle berries, dingle all the way.
dangling jingling dingle berries, till they fall away.
dingle berries, dingle berries, what else can I say?
pull on my sweet xmas balls and tell me I'm okay.
peeing in the snow, till it turns yellow,
peeing up a storm, peeing like a horse.
take my pants down quick, give my cheeks a lick
oh what fun it is to pee in the cold white sea.
ohhh......
dingle berries, chocolate cherries, dingle all the way,
dangling jingling dingle berries, till they fall away...hey
dingle berries, countless fairies, prance down cedar springs
pulling out there dangling harrys, for their all night flings.
noise.
jame's car toy.
mark's playing some horrible disco to drown it out.
here's one of the emails i sent to flyboy yesterday.
>
> .....i don't know how i can write this without appearing to be a total
lunatic.
> when i am trying to get away from you, i do fine for a while, and then once
> in a while go into a totally uncontrollable compulsive THING where all of a
> sudden it seems as if i HAVE to hear from you or i will stop breathing.
> i've been pretty good. i think. but the holidays are REALLY gnarly. this
> has been a nice one. but this longing to hear from you has gotten too much.
> it surprised me. it really came out of nowhere. i've been doing fine.
> could you please just say hello? we don't have to have a conversation. if
> you just drop a line, i can let it be.
> i don't know why i am this way. i'm sorry if it's disturbed or disrupted
> your evening. i'm sure it won't be like this forever, but right now ..here
> in kentucky...i'm having a period of missing you intensely. and it would be
> nice to just have a hello from you.
> again, i can't explain this. i won't throw it in your face. please just
> send a word. any word. it makes no sense, but i miss you like crazy.
don't
> say too much, it would open a can of worms. but please...say something.
> xb
> --
> he replied:
>
Dear xinsi,
Hello from LA. Hope you're enjoying the blue grass.
Merry Christmas,
Joe
.
.
maybe it's the meds. i went down to 150 on the fxr to get rid of the damned head dizzies. i think i will go back up. i can't seem to stop crying.
.
.
.
dec 25
merry christmas
10:30pm
merry fucking christmas.
i hate holidays.
it was Nice. but
argh. so here's kim's contribution:
> dingle bells, dingle bells, dingle all the way.
.....I like that alot.
dingle berries, dingle berries, dingle all the way.
dangling jingling dingle berries, till they fall away.
dingle berries, dingle berried, what else can I say?
tickle my sweet dingle balls and tell me I'm okay.
shitting in the snow, it turns all brown and yellow,
oh what fun it is to pee in the cold white sea...oh
dingle berries, dingle berries, dingle all the way,
dangling jingling dingle berries, till they fall away.
dingle berries, countless fairies, prance down cedar springs
pulling out there dangling harrys, for their all night flings.
.
.
.
4:20pm
oh, GREAT! so each weekend seminar costs a thousand bucks. PLUS you get to spend 79 bucks a night at a nearby hotel AND however much for airfare!
and dad came to do one in december, wants to send her for one, and is himself doing another IN MARCH! that's THREE THOUSAND BUCKS PLUS AIRFARE AND HOTEL.
meanwhile suzanne said to melissa, "we're pretty close to losing everything again and i do not want to go through that at this age."
dear
god.
.
.
.
4pm
golden mastermind. that's the name of this clown.
he supposedly made lots of money in multi-level marketing. (and yeah, a few do. the ones who get in on the VERY GROUND FLOOR.) and now, he makes his money as a 'personal coach.' and targets....multi-level marketers.
who are obviously more susceptible than ....say, people who choose to work at something that can actually be productive.
of all of us in our family, i'm the best at nicking away at dad's reality-barrier. but i only get a little further than anyone else, when all is said and done.
mel is going to talk to suzanne. i am going to talk to dad. it seems suzanne is going to let him bully her into accepting this outrageous gift.
but i don't see myself getting far with dad about this(i haven't before). so i may have to throw a fit. which i don't really want to do.
on the other hand, i'm sick of seeing him hand money to this joker. a lot of fucking good this man is doing.
i would like to get up nice and tight inside his golden master ass. this much i know.
.
.
.
1pm
apparently things are not well back at the family homestead in ohio. dad has been eagerly awaiting suzanne's opening of his thousand-dollar gift. she was expecting/hoping for a treadmill. when she opened what he actually got her, she fled the room crying.
now mind you. this is not like those christmases past when he got her a lump of coal. (ha ha) and NOTHING ELSE. and then there was the year he...what else did he do? something equally heinous. granted, those were his drinking day, and he hasn't pulled that shit in a long time.
but this year he's been pouring mega-cash into this so-called 'self-improvement' king named jeffrey coombs. thinking if he can JUST CONQUER HIS DEMONS THROUGH SELF-HELP (and money to pay for group 'improvement' sessions, or 200-dollar-an-hour 'motivational' phone talks with this unliscensed-in-the-pyschological-field guru)---and if SHE can just conquer HER demons, they will be able to MAKE ENOUGH MONEY THROUGH THEIR MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING JOBS TO PULL THEM OUT OF THEIR FINANCIAL HOLE!!!!!
yes, i SHIT YOU NOT.
so what did he get her for christmas? a thousand-dollar trip to stockton, california, for a weekend with a group of other people with whom she can ADDRESS HER DEMONS.
so she ran crying from the room. he followed her up the stairs. skeezix, eavesdropping by the door, heard him saying to her,
"the only thing holding us back from success is ourselves."
GAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! can you ever, DID YOU EVER, COULD YOU EVER?!!! merry UNchristmas, baby j, BACK INTO THE WOMB AND TO ETERNITY FROM WHENCE YOUR VIRGIN CONCEPTION WITH GOD BROUGHT YOU.jesus jumping DOUBLE FISTFUCK JONES!!!! hello, cult hotline. i have an emergency. help us. good intentions have disappeared into the swirling vortex of my dad's obsession with a perfection that doesn't exist. AGAIN.
so skeezix said she was afraid he would talk her into accepting it. suzanne goes along with so much of his hoo-headed crap because it's an easier battle than bucking the strength of that perfection impulse. skeez asked if we would call back to distract them. i called back; she picked up; handed the phone through the door to them. i talked to dad for a while. surfacy chitchat. he kept sniffling. sounded like he was crying. then i handed the phone to mel. she talked to him for a while. he tried to put suzanne on the phone. she wouldn't come.
mel is going to call her back at 1:30, when dad goes to play !santa! somewhere.
he was so excited about giving her the trip. kept talking about it when he came to visit. "don't tell, don't tell." he kept saying. "it's a secret."
"ha," mark said. "maybe now he'll quit doing that shit to her."
"he told her it's non-refundable," melissa said.
mark: "non-refundable? what the hell kind of self-help organization sells a thousand-dollar package that's NOT REFUNDABLE?"
melissa: shrugs.
not refundable JUMP UP MY BUTT. not refundable? how about if i do that npr story i've been threatening to do? i've never done a piece before, but if ever something seems to beg to have its cover blown, this certainly qualifies. not refundable? i dare this cocksucker to refuse to refund his SELF-IMPROVEMENT WEEKEND christmas present.
"we break up marriages too!" "don't hold yourself back from success!"
oh i can just hear it. "she must not be READY to face the challenge we present!!
would someone please hand me a generator? if i hook it up to my nerve endings i will solve california's power crisis FOREVER.
.
.
.
562 days to go
.
.
funny how under the cheerfulness there can be other stuff. last night while everyone was sleeping snug in their beds i cried for what seemed like hours.
and then dreamed
i was calling and calling
and i was looking for him everywhere. went to his house. looked in the parking lot. checked my answering machine. he just left, with no message to tell me why. or to plan to meet up again later. the whole dream and the whole night i'm just looking. he lived in an apartment up long flights of stairs. i looked for his car in several parking lots. he didn't seem to be home. i looked.i looked everywhere. i couldn't understand that he had just gone. without a word. it seemed unlike him to at least leave me a message telling me why he decided not to spend time with me.just gone. somewhere. where?
and now the whole day is full of presents and children. and i'm sitting here not knowing if i can keep from crying. it might take a superhuman effort. or this might just pass in a few minutes. don't know.
and,
no reply to my email. i know i asked him not to respond to any messages from me. but it hurt not to get a reply. it's better to hurt this way now, though, i guess. false hope or comfort is worse in the long run than going cold turkey.....and it is a cold cold turkey
this is
all the same a brief word would have been all right.
but i guess he's honoring my request to not engage.
still hurts.
the only way to think of this is.....the only thing that helps me is....act like he is dead. he's going to die anyway. how many years of life does a 60-some year old man have? and if i had him, i would have to face it then; even not having him in my life, i will still have to face his death;
it's better to face the hurt of losing him now rather than later;
through death or loss of love;
still
still
god
i'm surrounded by the people i love most and we've been opening presents and it is so fun to be with them, i swear. sharon "hates christmas" mel says. she's letting out her loud grunts and roars. such unladylike sounds from such a delicate young lady. she likes the green m and m's better than the red ones. she loves the popourri wax cakes.
i got some wonderful shit.
i left mel's damn gift---a POLAROID FUCKING CAMERA--in cleveland. they sent it two days ago ups, but we won't see it today, which BITES ASS.
so here i am in the place i'd rather be more than any.. i'm going back upstairs now to enjoy them more. it makes no sense. all i can do is wonder----is he happy, is he with someone, did he get my email, did he hold someone last night, has he made love to anyone, does he think of me at all,
the thought of him loving someone else and for some reason it is the worst thing and it must be true. it must be true.
and into that idea all
i don't know why a very
happy day.
with a tiny down far below *
*
quiet.
*
*
and have some good old taco bell.
in his study with a bottle of bourbon.
"this might be a really bad day."
debating whether to make it. bad idea.
to have sisters. i just put blonde in mel's hair, and cut it. she's the first person who's trusted me to cut her hair.
and says to me (as mel's coming around the corner)"yeah, i went to denton the last time i was in texas. your sister doesn't know about it."
the sadness is going away. hah.
flydaddy. i'll cry plenty and cry good.
but not forever. boo hoo. yah. boooo---yah.
the way he inspired that dream. it was just
a dream. and i was just his julie gianni.
rock
idle. saturday morning i fly out....back to lala land.
and only getting answering machines.
and leaving messages.
and finally i found him or he called me back.
and
he went with me to a swimming competition. in his grey sweats and a green jacket. but he left as i was still competing.
joy disappears. replaced
by a thing that seems it will
beat me.
i can't stop thinking of
a man to whom i was
first runner up
and it must be a sickness of some sort
and i hope in 562 days it makes at least a little
more sense to me.
powerful
kernel of grief
in the center.
the noise and the love.
quiet.
