A New Day, A New Attitude

My meltdown of a week ago is behind me.  I decided that dress was not meant to be... from the backorder, to the broken zipper, to a tear in the bodice (that I didn't even notice when I wrote my last entry).  It's sad because I loved that dress so much but it is what it is. And I won't be going out shopping for another one.  I will just make due with something I already have in my closet.  I'm just not at a point where I can buy something dressy and feel good in it yet.  I'm ok with that.  As my friend T so eloquently said to me this week...  

"We (myself included) tend to forget that weight loss/gain is a LOT like credit card debt. No one runs up $40,000 of credit card debt in just one year. It happens over a long period of time. You can't expect to pay off that much debt in just 6 months. Same with weight. You'll get there, I have faith."

I needed that reminder (although I think if I tried really hard, I could wrack up a $40,000 debt in one year on Fluevog's alone lol), thanks so much for that T and for everyone who messaged me or commented on my FB page. You all really did make me feel better after I spent a few days feeling like shit and beating the hell out of myself for not being where I want to be at this point in my challenge. I've been avoiding the scale and just feeling down about it all... the diet, some family stuff and other dramas that came out of nowhere. But if you know me, you know I can't be Debbie Downer for too long. It's just not me. I like to laugh too much. So I regrouped, tried very hard this week and discovered today that I am at a total of 12 lbs. lost! I was hoping to be closer to 20 lbs. lost at this point but I'll take it. In fact I'm pretty fucking thrilled. Onward and upward! I have 112 more days until the big day. I don't know that I can reach the goal but I'm going to give it my all! That's all I can really do right?

Ode to the Former Friend

Sometimes I really miss you.  I want you to know that.  I do.  And sometimes I wonder why we are former friends and not friends.  Were the issues really that severe that you had to cut yourself off from me?  And while we're at it, what were those issues?  With some former friends, I don't have a clue why things fell apart.  When I think about that I can't help but think how stupid it all is.  How does someone who you know cares about you, who you had no argument with, who you shared so much with, suddenly become persona non grata?  And how do you not even give them the courtesy of telling them why?  That pretty much tells me the friendship didn't mean much to you at all.  That's kind of sad.  I'm not talking about a natural transition, a drifting apart.  I'm talking a sudden abrupt change with no explanation.

Is it wasted time?  Did I waste my time being your friend, calling you, talking to you, listening to you and letting you listen to me?  Was it a big mistake confiding my innermost secrets with you?  Is there something somewhere that you will hold over my head somewhere down the road?  Something I said that can be used against me?  Granted I don't have a lot of secrets and at this point, I'm not sure what you know and what you don't know.  But I felt so close to you that I may have said something, sometime that I shouldn't have.  Eh, I can't worry about it.  I will just have to assume that since you decided I suck, that you will disregard everything I ever said.

Was it a waste of time?  There is a saying that people come into our lives at certain times to fulfill a certain purpose.  I'd like to believe that but I'm having a hard time figuring out what the purpose is in these cases.  Cases, plural.  It's happened to me more than once.  Which of course, makes me think it's me.  I'm doing something to drive people away.  I curse too much.  I talk about sex too much.  Are those actual reasons to dump a friend?  Seems petty.  But I know I have never intentionally maliciously hurt someone.  Not to my knowledge anyway.  If I had, I would definitely hope that the person wronged would say something so that I could right that wrong.  Since they haven't, I again go back to assuming I just suck.  Suck as a human being.  Suck as a friend.  Suck to the highest heights of suckage.

I don't want to think of you as a waste of time but I'm grasping at straws for the lesson in the friendship.  Maybe I learned more about myself.  Yes that's probably true.  That right there makes the relationship not a waste of time.

You know what former friend?   I'm starting to wonder why I miss you.  YOU dumped me.  YOU didn't tell me why.   YOU took away your friendship and threw away mine.  And you know what, I don't suck as a friend or a human being.  It just so happens that I'm not perfect.  I make mistakes.  I say fuck and cunt when I feel like it.  I like talking about sex, reading about sex and engaging in sex. I love my tattoos.  I love dying my hair weird ass colors.  I'm 48 years old and I can do whatever the fuck I want and I should never ever be made to feel less than because of someone else.  I fucking rock!  I'm a great friend and would always be there for my friends no matter what.  I'm not afraid to express my opinion, even if it differs from yours.  A true friend respects that and doesn't stop being your friend because of it.

I guess this wasn't much of an ode to you former friend.  Sorry about that.  Well no, I'm not.  This is my exorcism.  To once and for all remove you from my thoughts, remove you from my life the way you removed me from yours.  Sorry you're going to miss out on all the fun, humor, and friendship I still have left to give.

Continuing to Comtemplate

There were so many things that were said the night I met my friend R for drinks.  And so many things I keep thinking about.  So many questions that he asked me that I am now asking myself.  He knows of my unhappiness and my desire to change my life.  But knowing that leads to more questions.   Questions like, are you prepared to be alone for the rest of your life?  And I wonder, am I?  Because that's a possibility I have to face.

On a daily basis I feel bad for feeling how I do.  For wanting this big change knowing it's going to hurt someone who doesn't deserve to be hurt.  That nagging guilt for wanting more punishes me.  I wonder if I can ever truly move on when I feel this way.  Questions lead to more questions and none of them have answers.  Will I punish myself forever for being dissatisfied?  Is it better to live a life you are unhappy in than to hurt someone else?  Do I need to sacrifice forever for the happiness of someone else?   Is it selfish that I want to make myself happy?

A strange thing happened this weekend.  We were at our accountants office to hand in our tax information.  As we talked to him about what's been happening in our lives this past year I started to feel incredibly trapped.  We were talking about my job search and how I've been unable to find a job for so long.  He was encouraging and sweet, as he always is.   And the more he talked the more trapped I started to feel until I really thought I was just going to burst into tears right in his office.   I felt it coming on.  My eyes started to water.  I felt my face flush.  I kept taking deep breaths to keep the tears at bay.  It was really difficult.  I kept wiping my eyes over and over and over.   I don't know if anyone else in the room saw that this was happening, but bursting into tears in my accountants office is not something I wanted to happen.

Trapped.  It's how I felt in that moment and it's how I've felt for far too many years now.  Trapped is not a good feeling.  Nowhere to go.  Nowhere to turn.  No help to be had.  No means to make my life better.  Trapped sucks.  Trapped hurts.

But don't get me wrong, this isn't constant.  I still experience good things.  I still have wonderful friends who are there for me in the best ways they can be.  I still have family who are as supportive as anyone can hope for.  I still have fun and I still laugh.  And the one I don't want to hurt loves me with all his heart and would do anything for me.  But wait, there is it is again… the guilt.  Because he would do anything for me and it's not enough.  That guilt.  That self doubt.  Those moments when I hate myself for feeling how I feel.  They creep back in.

I hate that I have no answers.  I hate that years go by without answers.  And I have to keep asking myself, is being content and complacent the best I can hope for and should I just suck it up and make the best of it?

Times Are A-Changin

Is it a midlife crisis when you reach a certain age and discover you want something completely different out of life than what you already have?  I guess some people would call it that but I don't think it is.  I think it's self discovery.  Over the past year and a half to five years, so much about my life has changed and it continues to change.  It's scary and exciting all at the same time.

Things started to move in a different direction when my dad got sick.  I dedicated a year of my life to his care.  Maybe that doesn't seem like a lot, maybe it does.  To me it does.  Because I continue to be the go to gal for my parents.  They have come to depend on me a bit more than I care to admit.  And I struggle with it.  I struggle with my own feelings of wishing they were more independent.  They can be, they chose not to be.  And I try so hard to force the issue.  But you cannot teach old dogs new tricks.  They are dependent.  And it will only get worse.  To some degree I allow it I suppose, because they will not do things for themselves.  They just refuse.  So my feelings are, on the one hand, resentful.  Resentful that I don't have the help with them I need or the the time to pursue my own dreams because they take up a lot of my time.  On the other hand, I am thankful that I am able to do things for them that they need.  I hear myself thinking, "when they are gone you'll be so happy you were able to be there for them."  That's true, I will be.  But at what cost to my own personal well being?

Through these years since dad's illness, I felt in the back of my mind that life was passing me by.  That I had nothing for myself.  That I needed something for me.  I had my websites, and they kept me busy.  And then, all that changed.  It was time to move on from the main website, the one I have had since 1998.  And on January 20, I did.  And when I actually did it, I felt a weight lift from somewhere deep inside.  Don't get me wrong, the site was very good to me.  I met some wonderful people and had some once in a lifetime experiences.  But it weighed me down.  It blinded me to how empty I was feeling.  It masked how I was feeling inside.  And now that it's gone, I feel ready to pursue new challenges.  I want to do more, see more, experience more.  In my own mind it seems so strange.  How could ending a website bring all these feelings out of me, especially since it was something I loved?  I don't claim to understand it.  I know that since ending it I have wanted so much more from my own life that I didn't know I wanted before.

Changes are coming.  I'm actively pursuing work.  I love my little business but it's not enough for me anymore.  The work is sporadic and not fulfilling.  On the one hand change is terrifying.  Who would hire me after being out of the work force for over 10 years?  I don't want to change who I am, I want to change what I'm doing.  Is my purple hair going to be a problem?  Probably, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.  And what if I fail?  What if things don't turn out how I think they will.  But the thing is, I can what if myself to death.  There will always be a scary "what if" lurking somewhere.  I have a pretty amazing support system and I'm really excited about the future.  There is something to be said about breaking out of your comfort zone.

Goodbye Dear Friend

I've written about J before, a few times.  How much she has enhanced my life and how she was a big inspiration for me in starting this blog.  I've written how she has been battling lung cancer, a non smoker, and the unfairness I have felt that she contracted the disease.  And now it is with a heavy heart and a lot of sadness that I must say she has lost the war with cancer on March 24.

She fought every battle with utmost grace and a dignity that I can only hope to aspire to.  Every setback was met with optimism.  Every victory, with joy.  In the year and nine months since her diagnosis, she looked cancer in the eye and met it head on.  It's a testament to her courageous spirit.  Sure, at the beginning she wanted to bury her head in the sand and not face it, but once that initial terror/denial ended, she was all strength.  I dont' know that I can adequately do her justice because truly she is the bravest person I ever knew.  And I will miss her every single day.  On the surface, if anyone saw us together they would wonder what these two women have in common.  But it was what we had below the surface that really mattered. She was 12 years older than me, but it never made a difference.  She had a completely different life than I do, but that didn't matter either.  She saw a lot in me that I sometimes have trouble seeing.  And I saw in her a beautiful soul with a glorious sense of humor.  We clicked immediately and have been friends since around 1996.

In January, things were looking up.  The cancer in her lung was all but gone and nothing more than scar tissue.  Unfortunately it had spread and there was a spot on her liver.   After several different courses of chemo for the liver cancer, that cough came back.  The cough that was the beginning of everything.  And I knew this was a bad sign.  A very bad sign.  But I tried hard not to let myself think it.  I didn't want to.  I knew it was getting down to the wire and that her doctor was running out of treatment options.  That cough.  It nagged at me.

Through it all she was helping plan her son's wedding and hired me to make candy boxes for the rehearsal dinner.  Every time we needed to contact each other it had to be via text or email because once she started to talk the cough took over.  And still I tried to remain in denial.  I just didn't want to think the worst.  I wanted to be optimistic even though the last time I did speak to her, she had told me she's made peace with everything.  Strength. Grace.  Dignity.

On March 7, her husband called me to let me know that J's treatment options have been exhausted.  There was nothing more anyone could do and she was now under hospice care.  Her son's rehearsal dinner was the next day, the wedding on March 10.  Would she be able to go was my question.  Yes, she was going to the wedding come hell or high water, but had opted out of the rehearsal so she could conserve her energy.  Good plan.  And she did go to the wedding and from the pictures I saw, she looked beautiful.

On March 14, I received a letter in the mail from her.  A letter that in essence was a goodbye. Devastating and yet beautiful.  Something I will cherish.  And a part of which I will share with you....

You are and always will be someone who touched my life in so many positive ways.  A little bit of you will always be in me.  Much love forever, J

After drying my tears, I texted her to thank her for the beautiful letter and tell her again that I love her and how brave she is.  She replied:

Hold on to it and read it when you need a little J in your life.  I love you so very much!

I told her I would hold onto it forever, and I will.  How do you say goodbye to someone so dear, so special, so a part of you?  I don't know.  But I will be traveling to Cincinnati this weekend for her Memorial service so I can try to do that.  Oh how I wish I could be going there again for a visit, to hang out with her and her husband.  To meet her new daughter in law.  How I wish it were anything but the reason I am going there.  Love you forever J.  

 

How Did We Get Here?

I've come to the end of my several weeks of angst.  This particular several weeks of angst, I should clarify.  I'm sure I'll have more in the future.   But this particular dilemma, trauma, whatever you want to call it, is now over.  It's hard to look at the time I spent on someone as a waste.  I do not think of it as a waste.  I think that people come into our lives at certain times to fill a need, or you fill a need for them.  And I think we absolutely did that for each other.  I'm not sure I can say the friendship is over, because I'm not sure it ever will be completely over.  But I do see it with much more clarity now, meaning I have accepted that I'll never really know what happened and have decided to move the fuck on.

I've been reflecting on a lot of things lately, writing in my Bite Me book.  What can I say, I get introspective from time to time (to time).  What I have been thinking about is how certain people come into your life and how others come back into your life after long periods of absence.  My pain filled tirades of late have given way to something completely different and unexpected.  A few days ago, I felt the closure I needed from that situation, the most closure I'll get anyway and I am as over it as I will ever be.  And that same night the man and I went out with R, an old beau of mine, to see an old friend of ours band.  And as that night went on, I realized I was out with two guys I have known over 25 years, watching another friend I've known even longer.  And it put so much in perspective.

At one point, R said to me, "isn't it cool that all these years later we can still hang out together?"  And the answer is, it's amazing.  R and I have been in touch, here and there for about 10 years or so, but before that we hadn't been in touch for over 10 years.  And now it's quite possible that we will remain in touch again.  We had a great time and are looking forward to hanging out some more.  It was the first time we have gone out together in probably about 23 or so years.  We did run into each other about 9 months ago but it wasn't a planned get together.  This was planned and it was nice, fun, oh fuck who am I kidding... it totally fucking rocked!

I got to wondering what brings people back into your life after a long absence?  And I think the answer is that everyone is looking for something familiar.  R and I did not have a falling out at all, we just drifted.  It happens.  And so introspection begets introspection and wonder begets wonder.  When I reconnected with TM, who incidentally is the friend who's band we went to see.  TM and I talked about everything and how much we had thought about each other or told others stories about things we had done together.  So I knew that TM had been thinking about me over the years the way I had been thinking about him.  With R, who knows.  I'm not sure it matters, but I'll guess yes, he has thought of me over the years.  Fondly I might add.  If not, why even bother starting a friendship again?  I have certainly thought about him, and have written about him here several times.  He is someone I have always cared about.  Not taking away anything from the friends I have made since then, the friends you make when you are at the pinnacle of your life are always the best ones aren't they?  What I mean is, in those formative years, the people who are around you at those times are the ones you tend to gravitate back to.  Because they are familiar.  Because they were with you when.  Because they know you inside and out and they get it, they get who you are.  Because you know, without a shred of doubt they care about you and always will.  It's like what Richard Dreyfuss as adult Gordie said in the movie Stand by Me... "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?"  For me, I've never had any friends like the ones I had when I was in my early 20's.

I have some amazing friends in my life now.  Of course I do, L, and L, and R, and A, and my PBAU peeps and the gardeners and my SLUTS (don't ask).  And I love them, they've been there for me when I needed them and I hope I have done the same in return.   And now, even if another 20 years goes by and I never speak to R, TM, or M I know without any uncertainty that I matter to them.  I know it about others too. And knowing that means everything.  And now I have it, for all eternity in print.  And when I feel like I am unworthy of someone, or have a situation like what happened recently happen again (which I hope it never does!), I can come here and see how much I really do have and how blessed I am.

You Rool

It takes a long time to be the person you want to be.  At least I found that to be true in my case.  At 45, on the fast track to 46 and thus, closer to 50 than to 40 (OMG), I have gotten to a point in my life where I very much like me.  When that question comes up "would you want to be friends with you?" my answer is fuck yes!  I would definitely want to be friends with me, if I weren't me.

I'm not perfect, nor is my life.  I get cranky and irritable.  I have a quick temper.  I have very little patience for stupidity.  I could stand to lose some weight (ok, more than some).  I'm almost always close to broke.  I cry a lot and very easily (Italian trait, my mom's the same way and so was my Grandma).  I curse like a sailor.  But on the other hand, I would never turn my back on a friend.  I will always take your call or text, or answer your email.  I will be the most supportive person for you in any of your endeavors.  While I may not always agree with you, I will never judge you for what you believe or feel.  I will listen when you need it, help or give advice when wanted.  I will always give of myself.  It's the best I can do and hopefully it's enough.  Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.  I will always be honest with you.  Besides those things, you'll always hear great music when you're with me.  You'll never be bored when eating with me.  I love to laugh.  I'm bawdy, in the best possible way.  And loyal to the core.

"The most I can do for my friend is simply 

to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow 

on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving 

him, he will want no other reward. Is not 

friendship divine in this?"

Henry David Thoreau

And still, given all that, sometimes it does end up not being enough.  It's a hard realization to come to when it isn't.  I think I've changed a lot over the past four years.  Hell I've changed a lot over the past two years.  For the better, maybe for the worse in some eyes.  I think I'm a lot more open now, about a lot of things, but especially sexuality.  I suspect some find that off putting.  But the way I see it, when you discover something great, you just want to shout it from the rooftops.  Well, wait... that didn't come out quite right.  I'm not saying I never knew great sex before.  I'm saying by letting go of hang ups that are driven into your brain when you grow up Catholic or repressed or whatever it is, a new world opens up.  It took me until about the age of 41 or 42 to really appreciate myself as a sexual being and let go of those hang ups.  And another two years to articulate them.  And I have no intentions of going backwards.  Maybe that is too open for some in "some things are better left unsaid" kind of way.  But to that I say, respect my differences from you as I respect your differences from me.  After all isn't that what makes the world go round.

But it's not just that.  Some bad experiences have taught me a lot.  Sometimes no matter how much you give of yourself, it will never be enough for some people or they just want more.  And they want more on their terms.  How can that be?  Perhaps there are just some people who believe you should react or act how they would in any given situation.  And that is a pretty unrealistic expectation.  But I've learned I can't be anyone else but me in any given situation.  When a dilemma comes up I react how I'm going to react, I don't think "how would XX react to this" and then act accordingly.  That's just stupid.  I am, if nothing else, always true to me, lumps and all.

Where on the pile of good discoveries or bad discoveries does this one go?  I wear my heart on my sleeve.  When I care about you, you know it.  When I love you, you know it.  Is that good or bad?  Maybe it's both.  On the one hand, people need to know they are loved and cared about.  On the other, the people who don't have the best of intentions can take advantage of that love.  And that's when it becomes a bad thing that causes a deep hurt.  I've been hurt because of it.  In the past and recently.  And yet, I wouldn't change it.  It's part of what makes me, me.  You have to love yourself, no matter what, or how do you expect anyone else to love you.

I've run the gamut of emotions over the past two weeks and my conclusion to it all is, I have no regrets.  I gave my heart to someone I thought gave me theirs back.  I opened myself up and in return, I mostly got a lot back.  I was going to say I wouldn't change a thing but I would change the pain it caused me.  I don't know where we go from here.  Maybe nowhere, maybe somewhere.  I do know that I will never regret loving someone. Ever.  No matter how much it ends up hurting in the end.

Another Reconnect

I have heard, twice now, that an old friend wants to reconnect with me.  She has put the ball in my court by giving her contact information to my mom.  T and I were great friends growing up.  Our families were great friends.  We spent weekends at their families cottage on the lake during the summers.  She had a sibling the same age as all of mine so they all had great friends in this family too.

As the years went by, T and I stayed friends through the teen years even though we went to different schools.  We hung out, went looking for boys, even had our first interracial double dates together... oh the scandal!  lol   I was in her wedding.  She was in mine.  I took her to the hospital when she thought she was in labor with her first child.  I slept with her brother... oh wait, she doesn't know that lol  Basically I'm saying, we were best of friends.

Like a lot of friends you have throughout your life, you drift.  We drifted and then would come back to each other and it was like no time had passed.  We had that sync.  But we'd always drift again.  I blamed a lot of it on her husband.  He did not like me.  Not at all.  I was too weird and he didn't like me hanging out with her.  He even tried to get her to kick me out of the wedding party.  When they started having kids she kept pressuring me about doing the same.  No matter what I said about not wanting to have kids, she did not believe me.  And the more she asked, the further I started to drift.  I had enough pressure from my family in this regard.  I didn't need it from my friends too.  So when my sister in law (at the time) told me she ran into T at a baseball game and T proceeded to grill her about my fertility problems and trouble conceiving, that was the final straw for me.  Since when isn't my word on the matter good enough?  I had no reason to lie.  I did not want kids.  Period.  I stopped trying to reach out to her at all after that and many years went by before we spoke again.

Several years ago, one of her brothers passed away.  I was in the midst of my own deep drama of anxiety, anti-depressants, and days on end crying jags, but I pulled it together enough to make an appearance at the funeral and we promised we'd reconnect and get together.  We didn't.   Not long after that I found out she was getting divorced so I sent her a card with my number and offered to be there for her.  She never called.

Then my father got sick.  I was in a place where I really needed my friends.  I needed them to reach out to me, be there for me.  She didn't.   She didn't call me at all.  Not even once in the whole year long trauma that we endured.  Her brother called my brother often.  Her mother called my mother often.  She never bothered to see how I was.  And it hurt.  It hurt a lot.  Because I tried to always be there for her and she could never see her way to returning the favor.  So I basically wrote her off.  My mom would tell me what she was up to after having talked to her mom, but we have had no direct contact for about six years (I think, which was when I saw her at her brother's funeral).

Which brings us to present day, and she's sick.  It's bad, but she still does not have a direct diagnosis.  But she is very ill and alone.  Divorced, children grown, boyfriend gone, and she is in need of something familiar.  Something she can trust.  And she wants me.  As much as I would like to tell you I went rushing to her side, I can't.  Because I haven't made the decision yet on if I will let her back into my life.  That probably sounds really cold, but I can't always be the one that people run to when I don't get it back.  I'm nobodies fucking doormat or last resort.  And then at the same time, I feel bad.  I feel like I should be there for her when she needs it most.  Does it matter so much that she wasn't there for me?  Do I always have to be the bigger person?  What happens if I don't reach out to her and, God forbid, she dies?   Can I live with that?  Is it just sour grapes or being selfish on my part that I am so apprehensive about contacting her or am I just protecting my heart from more pain?  If the tables were turned would she come to me and does it matter?   That's what I'm trying to figure out.

Answer the Phone Neil

23 years had gone by.  23 years since I had seen TM.  It's hard to believe really.  How could I be old enough to have known someone long enough to have not seen them in 23 years?  Getting old fucking blows.  Anyway, TM was a really good friend who I'd had a falling out with.  It doesn't matter why.  We were young and stupid and it's in the past.  But all those years had gone by and I never forgot him.  I still told TM and (his friend) JJ stories.  I never stopped laughing at the antics of the crazy punk rock kids that we were.  I never really stopped missing him.

We met at a church carnival.  Seriously.  It was probably the summer of 1985.  Everyone went to that carnival for whatever reason.  Thinking about it now, I can't really fathom why although I do remember winning an Adam Ant baseball hat and then walking around and filling said hat up with all the disgustingly fried deliciousness that is carnival food. It was there that my BFF and I met TM and JJ.  It was the beginning of a wild ride and I'm not talking about the Tilt-o-Whirl.  I remember thinking then that they were so much younger than BFF and I.  But the reality is, they weren't.  They were in fact only 2 years younger than us.  We went to the same high school but we didn't know each other from there.  In 1985, BFF and I were out for a year and TM and JJ were just about to enter their senior year.  We all hit it off immediately and started hanging out together a lot.  We went to concerts, movies... many of which we got kicked out of because were such damn nuisances and always causing trouble.  We had TV parties and watched rented movies like Repo Man and Rude Boy and Suburbia and watched The Young Ones over and over and over.  And damn did we have fun.  SO much fun.

JJ was a big goofy oaf who annoyed the shit out of all of us, all the time.  Which is not to say he wasn't our friend, he was just an annoying friend.  It was different with TM.  Like me and BFF, he had a rather strained relationship with his parents, his father in particular and spent most of his time living with this grandparents.  It was a bond the three of us had, but I'm not really sure how aware we were of that back then.  JJ was more concerned with himself than he was with cultivating a bond of friendship.  But with TM I felt all at the same time like a mother, a friend, a big sister, a confidant.  We probably rarely spoke of seriously issues, family related or otherwise, but with some people you just have a bond.  And I like to think I was there for him when he needed it most and I know whether he knew it or not, he was there for me.  So when we parted ways, it hurt.   A lot.

In all those years, even though neither of us left the area, we never ran into each other.  Not once.  I still can't grasp that.  We were in the same scene, hung out at the same places and not once did we run into each other.  So weird.  It took this crazy thing called Facebook to get us back in touch after all those years.  I had been trying to find him off and on before we found each other on FB, but it always ended up in a dead end.  I worried that he may not want to be back in touch with me even if I did find him.  You really just never know.  So much time had passed.  Would there still be animosity?  Would he even remember me?  FB to the rescue.  Friend requests were sent and accepted and we fell right back into that easy friendship we always had.  It was amazing.  Our falling out came up briefly and was forgotten.  It didn't matter anymore.  We have both been through times, good and bad.  We've grown and matured (somewhat, kind of).

And then it happened.  We made plans to see each other.  I was nervous and self conscious, of course, about all the weight I had put on since he had last seen me.  I'm a girl, what can I say!  We worry about that shit.  But most of all I was excited.  So excited to see TM after all this time.  He arrived at my house and he looked as adorable as he did 23 years ago.  And all that time vanished.  It was gone.  We talked for hours, caught up on each others lives and what we had been doing all those years.  And memories... oh yes the memories came flooding back of the crazy times and the crazy things we did.  Lots of crazy things.  From driving down a winding dark parkway without my headlights on to see if I could do it without crashing (I could), to getting kicked out of movies, concerts, malls, restaurants, you name it!   We probably got kicked out of every kind of venue possible.  Sometimes there was a valid reason, other times there wasn't.  Back in those days, if you looked a little bit different (and we looked a lot bit different) life wasn't too easy for you.  We didn't care though.  We were who we were and liked it that way.  And we're still who we are.  That was the amazing thing.  We were different but the same.  

People come and go in our lives, for good reasons and sometimes not so good reasons.  It's just the way things are.  There are people you want to remain in your life and you do everything to keep them there.  And there are people you lose along the way.  Some you forgot, some you want to forget and some you can't forget.  TM was one of those I could never forget. One that I thought about from time to time, wondered about, wished things could have been different and hoped to see again.  I was about to say that we wasted too much time.  But we didn't.  It wasn't time wasted.  It was just time that went on and now, we're here.  Again.  I think this is the re-beginning of a beautiful friendship.

A Year

It was at this time last year that one of my best friends was diagnosed with lung cancer.  Lung cancer!  Not J!  It's pneumonia, it has to be, I remember thinking.  She's so healthy, she's never smoked a day in her life.  This is not real.  No she wasn't around second hand smoke.  I want to bury my head in the sand, stick my fingers in my ears and not listen, not hear it, don't tell me any more.  And I'm not even living it, I'm just the friend of the person living it.  But it was crushing.  And I cried, a lot.  Every time I thought of her, of that disease, I cried.

I didn't look things up online because I couldn't bear it.  Finding out more information seemed like a really bad idea to me.  And out of respect for J, who was having her own bouts of denial at knowing more, I opted to just take whatever information her husband was giving.  But my heart knew it was not good.  And I cried some more.  I cried because I love her.  I cried because it was the most unfair thing I had ever heard of.  I cried because she'd had enough to deal with in her life already.   I cried because I don't want to lose her.

We met because of a silly soap opera, one I have a website for.   As she likes to tell it, she wrote to me to disagree with something I said.   And when I wrote back I was kind and understanding, not a raving lunatic like so many others tended to be at the time.  I don't remember exactly, but I do know how I write back to people who are respectful when they write me.  I am respectful back.  An email friendship grew from there.  And one year I asked her if she wanted to come to NYC with me for the All My Children events.  She did.  We actually went together several times, with our friend T.  And the three of us had the greatest times.

I've found over the years that because of that All My Children website, I have met some of the best friends a woman can have.  And those friends are people that, without that website, I would never have had a chance to meet or know.  Truly how would a punk rock loving, purple haired and tattooed up freak of fucking nature in Ohio ever meet a woman from Cincinnati who works for a big medical insurance firm?  A teacher from Germany?  A New Hampshire home schooling mom?  A mother of two who works at her husband's company in upstate New York?  A freelance writer and foodie extraordinaire from Indiana?  A daycare owner in Austin, TX?  A caregiver, mom, and Corgi lover in Las Vegas?  A kick ass computer guru in Virginia?  And so many others.  They've enriched my life in so many ways. 

When J stopped watching AMC, as eventually just about all of my good friends I've met because of it have, it didn't stop our friendship.  We had long since stopped talking about it anyway.  We had other bonds, other commonalities, a real solid friendship.  She's been there for me at the worst of times.  She's had my back and been a voice of reason when I felt beyond all reason.  And now I'm doing the best I can to be there for her, to listen when she wants to talk, to be the supportive friend she's always been to me.  And I hope I'm doing at least half as good as she does.  Love you J... Shrink, Erase, Eradicate!!!

To Richard, With Love

I've talked about my love of men before but I never tire of the topic.  I love men.  I love how they look.  I love how they smell.  I love how they taste.  I love every little bit of them.  I love talking to them.  I love kissing them.  I love fucking them.  And I don't give a rat's ass if I sound like a freak.  I love guys. 

I think generally, guys are more honest.   Of course, this isn't always the case.  There are no absolutes in such things.  But the guys I know well, that know me well, that I can confide in, I know they are honest.  It's something I value very much.  I'm not saying my female friends are dishonest, not at all.  But sometimes if you ask a girlfriend a question, she will kind of dance around the absolute honesty to spare some feelings that might get hurt.  But if I ask a guy friend the same question, there is no dance, he'll go straight to the "that's a great idea" or "stop being such a fucking idiot" reply.  For me, no one embodies this more than my friend Richard.

When I'm sad, he makes me laugh.   When I'm upset, he has encouraging words and good advice.  When I'm bitchy, he calls me on it.   When I'm being stupid, he tells me so.  When I do something or write something good, he's encouraging and complimentary.  He's my go to guy for anything and everything.  He makes me laugh.  He makes me hot.  He's so fucking smart.  He has great taste in music.  He's sexy as hell.  He's got the coolest job of anyone I know.  He has been my friend for about 23 years.

I know exactly the moment I knew he would be my friend forever.  We'd been friends for a couple years.  Not tight, but hanging around in the same circle.  There was probably some mild flirting going on because Richard can't not flirt, but nothing major.  It was sometime in 1990, and we were at Stiv Bators memorial service at the Babylon A Go Go, a bar/club in Cleveland.  It was so fucking hot in there and the place was packed.  I went outside to get some air, and so did he.  I can't remember if we went out together or if we just happened to go outside at the same time.  But there we both were, trying to cool off, sitting on the ground against the building, people watching.  And a funny thing happened, we both started spotting "celebrities."  Not real ones, even though there were some real ones there.  It was just a strange synchronicity that we picked up on and spent much much longer outside than we probably should have laughing and pointing out... "hey look, it's Pat Benatar"  "check it out, here comes Ally Sheedy"  "no way, there's Nick Lowe" "oh my God, is that Andre the Giant?"  and we'd laugh and laugh, because of course, none of them were the real person.  They were just someone who kind of, in our minds anyway, slightly resembled that particular celeb.  It became our thing for many years.  And it was always fucking funny.   I remember once calling him up and leaving a message on his answering machine saying, "you'll never guess who I saw driving a bus in Cleveland today... Ice T!" and he left me one saying, "Guess what?  I just saw George Bush driving down Carnegie!"  It was just one of the goofy bonds we shared for a lot years.  And sometimes still do.  It's that kooky sense of humor that we share. 

This is my love letter to one of my best friends.  Thank you for always being there for me.  Thanks for telling me like it is.  Thanks for always making me feel good especially when I'm feeling my lowest.  You make my world a better place.   I love you xoxo

Know Your Friends

It's two years to the day that I parted ways with several people I thought were very good friends.   People I had known for years.  People I loved and trusted.  And the parting was for stupid reasons.  At least from my POV they are.  And that's all I can give you, my point of view.

To start from the beginning, the actual parting began back in October of 2008.  My Grandma had just died a couple weeks before the first incident.  I wasn't ever going to be the same again.  Never.  One of the most important people in my life had died.  I was changed and shattered and devastated and just plain sad.  I missed her and the people closest to me knew it.

It was also election year and things were heated, to say the least, on the message board I run.  I've always had very few rules for the board.  The main ones were say what you want but be respectful of each other and if you're going to talk politics, do so at your own risk.  The subject is volatile and the two sides on the board were getting ugly.  At this time, with everything else I was going through, I was really not having any of it.  All parties involved in the current argument were my friends and as such I expected a little more respect and understanding than I got when I went into the argument and asked for all involved to step back and be peaceful.  That is all I did.  Only one person of the 3 who were arguing stepped back and understood.  The other two decided that instead of backing off the argument they would, separately, tell me off via email.  Was I shocked?  Absolutely.  And it was the beginning of the end.

Things were no longer the same after that.  Everything I did was wrong.  Every thing I said was wrong.  Every decision I made was wrong.  And the group of friends divided more and more.   I guess I should have expected a blow up at some point.  Can you really put fourteen women together in a group situation and not eventually have a blow up?  I thought that all these women were interesting, mature, fun and a bit diverse.  They were all women I respected.  And for a long time we had a hell of a great group dynamic.  But I had to ask for peace.  Stupid me.

And not long after the political discussion blow up, one of our friends lost her mother.  These women sent me a beautiful plant and flower arrangement and a very generous check as a gift after Grandma died so I took the lead on the gift because I felt like I wanted to give back.  I collected the money and then with the help of the group we chose a lovely arrangement and decided to send her a few bottles of her favorite wine.  But I ran into a problem.  This friend lives in Indiana and sending alcohol through the mail to Indiana is tricky, to say the least.  So we needed a Plan B.  And every plan I came up with was met with derision, heated derision, until I finally threw up my hands and said I was done and that someone else needed to make the decision.

But that wasn't the final end yet.  I loved these women, I kept going back for more and more punishment.  I clearly hadn't been punished enough yet for asking my friends to be peaceful on my message board.  The perceived "smack down" I gave them, now a month later, was still stuck in their craw and I had to be pay, big time.  So it was then that another volatile subject was broached on the board.  This time it was how the phrase "Merry Christmas" was becoming a thing of the past and the original poster was saddened by it.  In come the vultures to tell people who believe in Christmas how hypocritical they are, how wrong they are, how selfish and petty they are to people who don't celebrate it.  It was no longer a discussion of semantics or inclusion, it was an exercise in ridicule of people who believed in something.  And again I stepped in but instead of speaking I just removed the whole topic and hoped it was over.  It wasn't.  Because I was wrong again.  And again I had to hear about it.  And when one of my moderators decided to take the heat for me, I was wrong again.  The moderator told this person I now loosely call a friend, that the topic was getting rude and off subject so she removed it.  The two got into a heated argument privately via emails and still, I was to blame.  The "friend" told me about the argument and expected me to 1) take her side and b) remove the moderator from her position.  The moderator who had been with me for 10 years was now to be removed because she had an argument with this "friend."  That wasn't happening.  And I was wrong again.  Because at some point in my life I had told this "friend" that I would always have her back and that came hurtling at my face over and over again when I did not remove the moderator nor did I intervene on a private argument.

Every day I was accused of a new crime.  Every day I was crying my eyes out for missing my Grandma and having to deal with all this nonsense.  And yet, I still didn't want to lose my friends.  I was determined to get through this and back to how we were.  That is until the lies started.   I can tolerate a lot, but lying is not something I can sit back and accept.  Especially when the lies are about me and "friends" I've known for years and years spread them, start them or perpetuate them.

So many lies.  The worst of which is that I'm a thief.  Not only were people told that I kept their money when posters so generously donated to the board to keep it running, but I also found out that I'm a shoplifter.  As if it wasn't ludicrous enough to think that I would run off with some big old cash cow of donations, but a shoplifter too!?   As I understand it, the story is that the man and I would go to a certain store, distract the employees and then fill our pockets with merchandise.  Yeah that has never happened.  The last time I shoplifted was when I was about 12 or 13 years old and stole a big Bonnie Bell Watermelon Lip Smacker from Clarkins on Rockside Rd. I can't even fathom how this story came into existence.  But that's not all.  I also found out that I hate another friends baby.  Seriously.  Yep, I'm a notorious baby hater.  There's more I'm sure.  More said in the hopes of destroying me and bringing down my website.  But it didn't happen.  In the end people know better than to listen to the rantings of a lunatic.

It hurt.  It all hurt me a lot.  I cried a lot.  I talked to other friends about it a lot.  And it changed me.  It made me trust my instincts more.  I had instincts about several of the women who ultimately left my life but I ignored those instincts.  I don't know why I ignored them.  And after the fact, I found out several other friends had similar instincts about them.  Why did it take extreme pain to give them up?  Do I regret any of it?   Yes, absolutely.  I regret that I stayed as long as I did and in retrospect anyone who would tell me off to such a degree only a few weeks after losing my Grandma was not a friend at all and it should have ended there.  I regret that my message board was dragged into the mess.   I regret that friends ended up divided and took sides.  But I don't regret anything I did or said.  Maybe I didn't handle everything in the best possible way, but I don't have regrets.  I don't regret having a standard for respect on my message board and enforcing that standard even if it's a friend who is breaking the rule.  I will never regret asking for peace because in the end, that was all I did.  I'm sure other points of view on all this are different, but like I said, I can only give mine.  And being as true to the incident as I can be without saying names, this is exactly what happened from my point of view. 

And a funny thing happened when ultimately it was all over.  I felt free.  I felt like a weight had lifted off me that had been pinning me down for years.   I didn't know how much energy it took to be a friend to this certain person.  I didn't realize how being her friend kept me from other friends.  I never realized I put people I cared about on the backburner because this friend was so needy.   I renewed friendships that had been pushed off to the side.  And  I'm lucky, I'm damn lucky that those friends understood and welcomed me back into their lives.  I learned a lot through this incident.  I absolutely learned who my friends are.  But I also learned to trust myself more.  It only took me 43 years to figure that out.

We Want Your Kid's Spine

Back in September of 1987, otherwise known as the Glory Days, the Best of Days, Those Were the Days, or the OMG How Did I Get This Fucking Old Days, it was a typical Friday night with a bunch of guys in my less than rockin car, an Olds Calais.  Stuffed in the car that night were R, E, Butthole, B and BFF, and me driving.  BFF was sitting on B's lap (her boyfriend) in the front seat, and the rest of the guys were in the back.  We were driving down Mayfield Rd. in South Euclid, the reason why we were in the area escapes me at the moment.  Butthole and R wanted to stop to get something to drink at McDonald's so I pulled into the parking lot and let them out.  Why I didn't go to the drive-thru, I don't know.  Bad move.  Things immediately looked off.  Butthole and R went inside... R about 6 feet tall, mohawk, leather, hot.  Butthole about 6 feet tall, leather, crazy, loud, probably shooting off his mouth somehow.  Outside in the car, the rest of us started to feel very tense as swarms of high school kids who were there after a football game paced back and forth outside my car, giving us far more than just the stinkeye.   We were pretty used to being stared at, made fun of, harassed and whatever and apparently there wasn't a big population of punks in South Euclid.  But this, this was very different.  This was menace.

Suddenly Butthole and R came out of McDonald's, VERY QUICKLY, yelling at me to start the car.  They jumped in, I peeled out and the chase was on.  Three car loads of teenage boys followed us.  The guys in the back were screaming out for me to go faster, to cut down streets, to try and lose them.  B held onto BFF tight as I raced through the streets of South Euclid trying to ditch these assholes.   And then I made a big mistake. I turned down a street that had it's lanes separated by a median.  This enabled the chasers to block us in.  One raced in front of me and skidded to a stop, forcing me to stop.  One stopped on the side of my car and one in the back.  We were seriously fucked now.  The boys all got out of their cars and I locked all my car doors.  R, Butthole and E were screaming at me to let them out but I wouldn't, there were too many, I was afraid they'd get really hurt.  And then it happened, baseball bats came out and suddenly these asshole kids were beating on my car, breaking headlights, making dents and then the loudest crash I have ever heard when they bashed out the rear window. 

I completely stopped thinking at this point, threw open the locks on the car, jumped out by myself because the guys in the back couldn't get out yet, and started screaming my lungs out at those fucking pieces of shit.  R, E and Butthole finally got out as did L and B and the guys started to go after the attackers, but they were already jumping in their cars and taking off.   I collapsed on the median strip in some kind of hysteria and R jumped on top of me and tried to calm me down.  L, always the cooler head, was trying to get license plate numbers.  Once R effectively snapped me out of it, we started knocking on doors to see if someone would call the police.  It was pretty late in the night but we did find people who were willing to help us.

The police came to where we were, still on that street, and took our statements and immediately began rounding kids up.  That same night, on that same street and then back at McDonald's, we positively ID'd several of the culprits.  And wouldn't you know it, one of the assholes was the chief of police's son.  Isn't that always the way?  What a douche.

Police reports, court dates and all that happened, but in the end we didn't have to appear in court.  I don't even remember what happened to those kids, probably nothing.  But I did get a letter from the parents of the kid who broke out the back window, with a check for the damages.  She apologized for her son and yadda yadda yadda.   I posted that letter on my refrigerator at a party I had about month later, so everyone who was with me that night could see it.  And this is the reply E wrote to her that night...

In case you can't read it, it says... "Dear Mr & Mrs. Whatever (he used their name but whatever), We don't want money, we want your kid's spine in a bottle of formaldehyde or at least his stomach lining in a bowl of Campbell's soup."  Obviously, since I still have it, we never sent it.  Maybe we should have.

Dudes

I dig the dudes.  Always have.  And in my younger days I had way more male friends than female.  It was the norm in the punk scene.  We all just hung out with each other.   And I didn't sleep with any of them.  Fooled around with one, had a crush on another, one had a crush on me, two tried to sleep with me and one I kissed, deeply.  I'm still friends with several, two have died, some I have minimal contact with and several I have completely lost touch with.

I wouldn't say I regret not sleeping with any of them, but looking back I wonder how I didn't. Opportunity often presented itself.  Hell I lived with T for five years and not only did we never sleep together, we never even kissed.  It was never thought about, not on my part anyway.  I'd be willing to bet it wasn't on his either.  We just didn't have that kind of chemistry.  But living together was easy.  I never had to worry about him taking my clothes.  If he wanted to borrow something,  he asked.  He never ever went in my room uninvited or without knocking.  And I couldn't get him to eat my food.  I wanted him too!  The boy ate so poorly I really really wanted him to eat a damn vegetable every now and again.  But alas, he would not.  For 5 years T's diet consisted of blueberry pop tarts, blueberry waffles, blueberry bagels, macaroni and cheese (that he made with Velveeta), frozen ravioli with Ragu bottled sauce and Kool Aid by the gallon.  I didn't cook as much then as I do now, but I ate way better than that!

But no, no fleshy fun time with T.  Interestingly, in the time we lived together he had several different girlfriends and at least two of them were real screamers.  That should have peaked my interest in finding out what he had going on, but no, it didn't.  I guess there are just people in this world that, as John Bender (from The Breakfast Club) said about women, "some I consider my girl friends and some I just consider."

Nowadays, I have less male friends than female and at first it was strange.   I guess I just think men are easier to talk to, especially when the subject is sex.  Something I love to talk about anytime, anywhere.  My hormones are in such overdrive that I think about sex all day sometimes... well not every minute, but a lot of minutes in the day and some of my female friends don't get it at all.  Not long ago I broached the subject with a female friend, about how I want to have sex daily, more than once a day, how I am so fucking horny all the time and how much I love it.  She looked at me like I had sprouted wings and turned green.  It had been quite awhile since she and her boyfriend had had sex and she really has no interest in it at all. I've been there, in that no interest place.  I like horny better.  MUCH better. 

But when I talk about sex with my male friends, they get it.  Oh do they understand where I'm coming from!  They've been there, they are still there.  What is that stupid statistic?  Men think about sex every 7 seconds?  I don't believe that.  But a more realistic one, like men think about sex every day, several times a day is believable and I think it applies to women too.  This woman for sure.  I wake up horny.  Throughout the day, I just become horny.  It's crazy and funny and kind of interesting and at first it was disturbing but not anymore, now I love it.  I just become aware that I'm horny.  I don't have to be thinking about anything, consciously anyway, I just am horny.   And I think, wow, this is cool.  I love being horny.  It feels good and I feel sexy.   It carries over into other areas.  I smile more.  I notice men notice me.  Maybe I'm giving off pheromones.  I don't know.  I feel more confident with myself.  Whoever said sex is power was right.  I feel alive and ready any time of any day.  It totally kicks ass!

Everybody Must Get Stoned

It all happened quite innocently.  Really.  I was lamenting the fact that I don't like to drink anymore to my friend D.  I have had so much on my mind these days and really wanted the release of being drunk and not worrying about everything for just a short time.  It's not so much to ask is it?  So as D and I were talking I said how great it would be to get stoned again, just once, for that release I have been craving.  It's been about 23 years since the last time I got stoned, at least, if not more.

So, how does one even go about getting weed these days?  How much does it cost?  Who do you ask?  Neither of us knew.  But since I live in the 'hood, it was a pretty likely bet that, if actually looking, I'd be able to find it pretty easily.  But was I willing to do that?  This is something, one of the very few things, like the only thing, I planned on keeping from Husband.  He's just not down with the doob.  My getting high many many years ago was the reason for one of the biggest fights we ever had.  So not wanting to relive that, I just decided to keep mum about it.  It's only going to be once.  And after consulting with people who know us both well, my decision proved to be the correct one because everyone else agreed it was a good idea not to tell him.  Granted, I probably will, eventually, but sometime in the future. 

D decided to bring our friend C in on our plan.  Little did we know C would be our answer to doobage bliss.  It was less than a week after I initially mentioned this crazy idea to D when, while at a party together, D and C found a contact who provided them with two free doobs.  You know what they always say, the first are free and then after they reel you in, they suck you dry!  Well that wasn't going to happen.  We just all were having a hard time with things and all needed to unwind, laugh and just be stupid.

Now, where to have our little ganja party was the next hurdle.  I suggested my place since the scent is almost always in the air around here and no one would notice.  But they worried about Husband finding out so C suggested her place.  She lives in the country, the houses are further apart and we could just sit in her back yard and smoke to our hearts content without another soul knowing.  It's on!  And we weren't wasting any time, we made our doobie date for the very next Monday.  Knowing what we know about the effects, we decided snacks were in order.   D made a pepperoni and cheesey appetizery yummy thing and I, of course, made brownies.  What else do you bring to a doob party?

D Day has arrived and these three 44 year old women, high school friends... all married and none of us telling our husbands, met up at C's and went outside to spark that baby up.  We laughed about how we all used to have a feather roach clip in our youth, but wore them in our hair and didn't use them for what they were really for!   Let the smoking commence.  C lit up the first one and took the first drag and then we passed it around the table until it was just a wee little tip.

I got so dizzy I remember sitting in my chair, my hands on the sides of my head and thinking, "don't move your head, don't move your head" but I'm pretty sure I never said it out loud.   I felt dizzy, hungry, really tired and more horny then usual.  But did I feel good?  Not really.  Did we laugh and forget our troubles?  Nope.  We plotted the death of a cricket that seems to be constantly making noise in C's yard.  And I suggested we all take turns on C's riding mower and ride around the backyards.  But alas, we didn't kill the cricket or ride the mower.  And we were all so done after the first joint.  Why did I think this was a good idea?   Damn, I just wanted to forget about it all, even if it was just for an hour.  I remember the old days and whenever I got stoned back then I laughed and laughed so hard I couldn't breathe.  This time?  Meh, not really.

Are we too old?  Too jaded? Too many troubles to forget?  Do we need to try again and make sure?  Hell C has another doob just sitting in her silverware drawer waiting to be toked.  I wonder if I stopped by and asked to borrow a fork if she'd catch my meaning?