Progress

My lose 50 by 50 Diet officially commenced on August 3.  I had planned on starting it earlier than that but life gets in the way what with birthdays, graduations and all kinds of other events. Unfortunately the diet kind of got shoved off to the side.

But I'm in it to win it now and it's going rather well.  In fact I'm quite proud of myself.  I've dieted many many times before and for some reason, this time it feels different.  Maybe because of the goal. Lose 50 by 50 has a nice ring to it.  I like it. And I have another goal in mind, one that would lead to the same time frame.  I'm going to leave it at that for now, but suffice it to say it involves a dream of mine, and one that I want to make a reality around my birthday.  

And in that amount of time... 10 days to be exact, I have lost 6.6 pounds.  It feels good!   Losing makes me happy.  Stepping on the scale in anticipation instead of dread is an amazing feeling. I've been using the help of an app called MyFitnessPal.  It works a lot like Weight Watchers, where you are accountable for everything you eat.  But it also calculates your activity and gives you more calories for the day based on how much you move.  It's a handy little tool.   And it's free.

For the most part, I am following the aforementioned advice by my friend and dieting quietly (aside from telling all the world via this blog that is... or the 15 or so that read it anyway ha).  I don't make a big deal about it, I don't post about it on Facebook, I just go about my biz and quietly (hopefully) continue to lose weight.

I feel excited for the first time in a long time... goals are a good thing to have.  And while my work life is only slightly improved, my personal life is kind of in the shitter, I'm still feeling good.  I'm doing more for myself.  I came to the realization a few years ago, as I watched life passing me by, that if not now...when?  The answer is now.  I'm fabulous and I plan on living my life to reflect it!

Join me on the journey!   We're going to have a blast!!!!   

Missing You

I miss you.  I want to text you so bad.  I want to talk to you.  I can't tell you again how much you mean to me.  You know.  I guess that's why you pushed me way so stupidly and so brutally.  You have to know that I get it, that you did what you did because for some reason you felt you had to.   I just wish you had gone the honest route instead of the cowardly one.  I hope it didn't feel good to hurt me so badly.  If it did, don't ever tell me so because that takes it to a whole new level of pain.

People in the know are glad, glad you have taken yourself out of my life.  But I never listened to anyone before and I'm not going to start now and I'm not glad.  I don't feel relieved.  I don't feel a weight lifted because you're gone.  I just feel sad, and empty and that something is missing.  You.  You're missing.  And I hate it.

How could you turn your back on me so easily?   Friends since 1987.  That is a long time.  Was it easy?  In retrospect if all feels so forced, planned.  That night, you were looking for anything to fight about.  What you settled on and what ultimately ended our friendship and whatever else we had is not something that would end a 27 year friendship.  And when I think about it, sometimes I'm crushed, other times I'm just angry.  So so angry that you turned your back on me.

It's been a month.  It's taken me this long to put these feelings on paper.  It's taken me this long trying to make sense of a senseless situation to realize there never will be any sense to it.  It took me 2 minutes after our fight to realize it was purposeful.  At the time, I was so shocked and going on instinct to fight you back, to try and hurt you back.  And I hate that I stooped to that level.  I hate that I said some of the things I said.  I was so upset, so crushed.  So decimated by you, again.  I console myself with that old saying.... you always hurt the ones you love.

No matter how many times I tell myself that I'm better off, my heart won't listen.  My heart wants you in my life.  My heart wants your friendship back.  You weren't always a good friend but at times you were the best friend.   At times you would say something to me that was so insightful, so right into my soul, that I thought there could be no one on this earth who knows me the way you do.  How you did that always blew my mind.  And no matter how many times you told me you're a dick, I didn't fully believe it until that night.  It was like an image you tried to keep going, but it never fooled me.  I saw that side of you that you don't show too many people.  And I still believe that, but I also will know that despite that other side, you're truly a dick too.  And that's ok.  A lot of times I feel like a total asshole.  But you saw the other side.  

You brought things out of me that I didn't know were there.  You were encouraging and supportive of me when I needed it most.  You made me love you again, not that I ever stopped.  And then you tore it away, again.  I didn't think I could ever live through the pain of losing you a second time.  But I guess I have.  But it's a pain that lingers.

Life is short.... I hope it doesn't take too long for you to find your way back, again.

Ask Me If I Care

More and more I find myself thinking, "ask me if I care" about any and everything.   I suppose that's a byproduct of the unhappiness I find myself unable to break out of.  At the same time it's troubling, yet liberating.  Troubling because it makes me think I've become cold and unfeeling.  Liberating because the reality is that I have stopped giving a shit about the people who don't give a shit about me.

Example, I saw today on Facebook that the man's niece got engaged.  Ask me if I care.  I don't.  Over the years it has become more and more clear to me that these two girls (the nieces) don't give a shit about me at all.  I have been in their lives since they were 5 and 6 years old.  I gave them gifts for every birthday and Christmas for all of those years until a few years ago when they started having kids and instead bought for the kids.  I have always been kind to them.  Have always treated them well.  But over the past few years I have backed away from them (and most of the man's family) because I never felt the same kind of care/respect in return.  For my 40th birthday the two nieces and their boyfriends gave me a single $2 instant lottery ticket.  I'm not saying they should shower me with gifts.  It's an example of the lack of interest/care that I feel from the man's family.   And when my dad passed away this past January, I heard nothing from them.   Oh I take that back, one of them posted on my Facebook.  The other did not, nor did she call me, nor did she send me a card, nor did she even acknowledge the fact that I lost my dad when I saw her two weeks later.  So excuse me if I'm not jumping up and down with glee over your engagement.

 

But it's more than just that, it's a lot of things.  I just can't muster caring about much of anything.  How is that liberating?  Well, I wasted a lot of time, a lot of heartache, a lot of energy on caring about things that in the big scheme ended up not mattering at all.  Friends who turned out not to be.  Situations that I should have avoided.  Family members who are assholes.  So to get to a point where I can say, "ask me if I care"?  Yeah, it feels liberating in a way.

Don't get me wrong, I still care about the people in my life that I know care about me.  I still love.  I still will do anything for the people who matter most.  Maybe when things change, when I finally get my life moving in the direction I want it moving in I will care again.  And hopefully I've learned enough lessons to spot those insincere phony people without investing too much of my precious time and the enormous amounts of love and friendship I have to give.

Or maybe it's my hormones.

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?

Nessun Dorma

Nessun Dorma, "none shall sleep."  It was my dad's favorite, when done by Pavarotti.  It's one of the things that will always remind me of him in such a good way.  He wept whenever he heard it, and now I do as well.  He passed away on January 7.  I've been wanting to write about him since it happened, but quite frankly I didn't know where to begin, what to say, how to pay tribute.  I'm not sure this will end up being a tribute but I hope you can read the love I had for this man despite some very shaky years.

In those shaky years it was very apparent that my dad and I could not relate to each other.  He didn't understand me and I didn't understand him.  He had good camaraderie with my brothers and my sister because they all loved sports.  Me, not so much.  I guess maybe I was a little resentful of that, mainly because my mom used to say things like, "learn to like sports and you will have a bond with him."  Well why couldn't he learn to love something that I was into and bond with me?  It's that stubbornness that I inherited from him I guess.  So growing up I really didn't have much of a relationship with my dad.  In fact, it wasn't until after I moved out at 21 that I even really remember having many conversations with him.  When I came back home to do laundry or visit or have dinner, we talked.  Actual conversations.  We found common ground.  We both loved nature shows.  We both dreamed of going to Alaska.  He never did, but I hope I get to someday, for both of us.  And when I was 30, I got my very first "I love you" from him.

I guess when someone passes away you aren't supposed to talk about the bad times.  When my brother spoke at the funeral, he spoke of family vacations, sports, and Saturday morning breakfasts my dad used to make for all of us kids.  And those are good memories.  But the truth is there are a lot more bad memories than there are good.  I'll leave those for another time though, because the fact is he's gone and I miss him.  So instead I'll tell you about his last day.

My dad was ill, and he had been for a long time.  He had lost a leg to diabetes seven years ago, and while recuperating from that surgery, he had a stroke.  The stroke affected his ability to speak clearly.  He knew what he was trying to say, but he often was garbled in his speech and no amount of therapy seemed to help.  In addition, his amputation was so far up he had difficulty ever walking again even with a prosthetic.  He did, with the help of a walker, but it was difficult and he spent a lot of time in and out of rehab.  In addition to all this, he had already had atrial fibrillation, or a-fib, an irregular heartbeat, and received a pacemaker/defibrillator several years ago to treat this.  So yeah, he wasn't in good shape.

Since I haven't worked in forever and still can't seem to find a job, I was looked to often to help out with him.  I was glad to do it, most of the time.  My mother could not handle him on her own all the time.  We went to many doctors, many hospitals, over the years.  It seemed to be never ending.  It was frustrating to say the least, most of the time because as years passed he got less and less interested in doing much to help himself.  No amount of talking to him, reasoning with him, telling him how it was, didn't help.  And it became apparent that he would have to go into a nursing home.  My mom fought us on it, but there was really no other way.  He was no longer walking at all and at 82, my mother couldn't care for him herself anymore.

At the time, he was in rehab and they were trying to help him walk.  It wasn't going well at all.  He had a toe amputated off his remaining foot and since then he didn't want to get up at all.  He was in bed, in rehab for 3 months when we got the call saying he was unresponsive.  Off we went back to the hospital to meet him in the ER.  My mom was beside herself but I have grown accustomed to being solid, the rock, the strong one and I told her that dad has nine lives.  And it was true.  There had been several times over the years when I thought he was not going to make it.  The most recent was Christmas, when he was in the hospital with pneumonia and a staph infection.  But he bounced back, just like he always had.  I told my mom that when we got to the ER he'd be sitting up in bed and saying, "what took you so long to get here??"  And you know, it was almost like that.  He was sitting up, he was talking.  He was not right, and we could see that, but he was making sense mostly, talking sports with my brother.  As the doctors came and went, we were told very little but informed they would be admitting him to ICU.  At this time they weren't sure but they thought he may have had a heart attack.  Dad was looking tired so mom told him to go to sleep if he wanted to since we didn't know how long it would take to get him into a room.  Soon after, he did sleep and we decided to go grab a quick bite to eat, not knowing how long we would be at the hospital.

Things felt different, in retrospect, but at the time, we were feeling it was business as usual.  When we got back to the ER, he was still there, still sleeping.  And my aunt and uncle (dad's brother) had arrived.  The nurse tried to wake him at this point and was unable to.   He was still breathing though and the room up in ICU was ready.  While they were moving him I went to the ER parking lot and moved my car to the hospital lot.  It's winter and cold and I figured it would be a shorter walk when we left the hospital.  When I got up to ICU, my family was still in the waiting room but my mom was crying and my aunt was comforting her.  What did I miss??  The ICU doctor had come out while the nurses were getting dad settled and he said he saw very little hope for him and there was nothing they could do.  Dad had a DNR and all they could do for him was keep him comfortable.  Was this really happening?  This moment that I had been preparing myself for for years, was it really here?  I wasn't prepared at all.

It was about 6 pm, and my brother and I took turns calling my sister and my other brother who live out of state, updating them on what was happening.  My sister had called our aunt (dad's sister) to tell her what was going on and then my aunt phoned me and asked me if I thought she should come to the hospital. I told her yes, so she and her husband came.

Now we are waiting.  Waiting for him to die and it feels strange.  He is unconscious the whole time and unaware of what is happening and that's a blessing.  My mom wanted a priest from her church to come and administer Last Rights, so I called and before I could leave a message my sister phoned me.  So after talking to her I asked her to call the church back for me and ask a priest to come.  She did, and the priest called me not even five minutes later to say he was on his way.  He said prayers and anointed him and it was all quite beautiful.

The nurses there were extremely kind and brought us a cart with coffee, sodas, cookies and other snacks.  And chairs.   ICU rooms don't have chairs for visitors because they don't want visitors to stay in the ICU long.  But they brought us, all seven of us, chairs.  And we sat, or paced.  Cried, and talked.  Even had some laughs.  For instance, before we got chairs, my uncle broke down crying and sat down on the toilet.  It's a toilet in the room, with a big pad over it to make it look like a chair.  My mother went to him to comfort him and as she leaned down to hug him, she leaned up against the flusher and WOOSH! She flushed the toilet!   Yes, we did all laugh.  And it felt good because we were all so wound up and nervous.

Another moment was when the priest left.  He was a very young, very handsome priest.  And when he left I turned to my mom and I said, "he's young!"   She said yes, he was one of the newer priests at her church.  I told my family, "we had a name for priests like him when I was in school…. Fr. WhatAWaste!"  And we laughed again.  You need those moments because staring at my dad and counting how long it is between breaths can drive you mad.  So we had those moments, and others as we talked and reminisced and told stories about him.  And then, at 10:10 pm, all was silent.  He was gone.  It took about 6 hours from the time he went to sleep for him to stop breathing.  A blessing really. The doctor came in and declared him gone, and we said our goodbyes.  Now we had to go home and go about the task of getting on with life.  I spent that night with my mom.  I just couldn't leave her alone.  She lost the man she'd spent 57 years with.  It was going to hit her, and hit her hard at some point.  So I stayed.   Again being the rock.  Holding in my tears, holding in my sorrow, so she could have hers.  I've been doing it for so long I don't really know how not to.

I miss him.  But the truth is, I've missed him for years.   He hasn't been the guy I knew for quite some time.  He stopped caring about anything.  He stopped wanting to do anything.  He existed but had very little quality of life these past few years.  So I'm glad he's free.  And hope wherever he is, he found his joy again.  Love you forever dad.  xoxo

Missing Natasha

I wrote this 8 years ago, after losing my girl Natasha.


I know a lot of people were wondering where I was last week, and to everyone who sent emails asking if I was ok, I thank you. The fact, is, no I'm not ok. Last Saturday, September 4, I lost my sweet kitty Natasha. I know in a time of such horrors as war, car bombings, kidnappings and death and whatever else plagues this world, some people may not think having to put a cat to sleep is such a big deal. But I'm here to tell you, it is a very big deal and this is our story.

Sixteen years ago this month, I was single and living in an apartment with a roommate, Tom. We decided we wanted a pet and into our lives came Hobbes. Hobbes was an adorable gray tiger striped kitten who was just as sweet as can be. She was by my side constantly and unfortunately this is what caused us to eventually give her to the humane society. One day, while Hobbes was still a kitten, she was trying to get on my lap as I was sitting at the kitchen table. She missed, and instead hit her head on the underside of the table. She suffered a concussion and was really never the same kitten again. She became mean and prone to fits. She was more than two working people who aren't home days could handle so we opted to give her to the humane society in hopes that she can find a home where she could be cared for. That same day, I had heard about a woman nearby who's cat had kittens that she wanted to give away. My friend and I went to go see them and I instantly fell in love, with both! One was a gorgeous little black and white tuxedo kitty, hanging from one paw from a bookcase. The other was the most unusual looking and beautiful kitten I had ever seen, what I learned then was a tortoise shell kitty. I took them both, in hopes that the companionship would be better for them, since we are out all day.

Fast forward to sixteen years later, and they have been with me all this time. When I married N almost 11 years ago and moved out of the apartment with T, they came with me. Boris and Natasha have always been my babies. They have enhanced my life more than I can ever ever express in words. Boris, the mild mannered tuxedo kitty who has nothing but love to give and wants nothing more than to be held and loved back (and an occasional treat of canned cat food). Natasha, the ornery little troublemaker who can make you laugh so hard, you can't believe you were ever mad at her in the first place. She loved to give kisses (we call it a kiss... you pucker your lips for her and she will head butt them) How did these two incredibly different personalities come from the same litter? It's amazing.

About a year ago, Boris became ill. He went from 14 lbs down to 9 lbs at such a rate, we thought we were going to lose him. He was diagnosed with diabetes and it became a daily routine to give him 2 shots of insulin a day. Just as we began to marvel at how far he has come and rallied, putting back on just about all the weight he lost, it was Natasha who became thin.

On Thursday, September 2, we noticed the weight loss. But she wasn't acting any differently. Natasha is the kind of cat who, even at this age was still like a kitten. She played, she ran, she chased Boris. She never seemed to slow down until that day. On Friday morning, September 3, I called our vet, Dr. B, who has cared for them both since I got them, and made an appointment to come in. I was told right then that he was leaving the country to see his ailing father and I had to come immediately. His office is an hour from where we now live, so I headed right out the door with Natasha in her carrier. When I arrived, Dr. B saw me holding Natasha from another room and asked, "What happened to her?" He could tell something was very wrong from a seeing her in my arms a room away. I told him we didn't know, she's been fine until the day before. He drew blood and noticed that she was very pale. He took her temperature and it was very very low. I had told him she didn't want to eat that morning, but he gave her some special food and she ate it right up. We had hope based on this. He said the results would be in the next day, and that his sub would be able to read them and diagnose what was going on, so we went home.

About 2 hours later, I called N at work and told him he had to come home. Natasha was getting worse by the minute. He left work immediately and was home within half an hour. By that time, Natasha could hardly walk as her back legs kept giving out on her. I called Dr. B's office and told them I would be bringing her back. Panic is setting in and this is when the tears started to flow. When we brought her back, the sub vet, Dr. L, said that she could be in liver or kidney failure because she couldn't keep her back legs up and that was a classic sign. This is getting worse by the minute. We decided to leave her in their hands because they wanted to make sure she would be hydrated. She was placed on an IV for the night, and I was told by Dr. B's wonderful assistant C that I could call her at 8:30 am when she arrived to see how Natasha did overnight. Dr. L would be in at 9:30 am and would call me with the results.

As you can probably imagine, I didn't sleep much that night. Asleep by 3 am, awake by 6 am... I updated my message board readers on what was happening and waited the painful hours until 8:30 when I could call and see how she was. C informed me that Natasha had knocked out her IV overnight... how typical of my feisty little girl... but she was standing. She wouldn't eat, but she did take a drink of water. Now I had to wait another hour for the test results call. C assured me she would make it a priority for Dr. L to call as soon as she arrived. She called about 9:45 with the horrible news that my baby was in almost full kidney failure. She had only 15% use of her kidneys left and there is no recovery for this condition. N and I are absolutely devastated by this news and we headed straight to the vets office.

Once we arrived, Dr. L and C tried their very best to keep us calm and told us that we had a chance of getting her stable so she could live up to a year. If she stayed hydrated and ate, it was possible for her to rally some. They taught us how to use an IV, prescribed a pill that would stimulate her appetite, and told us to give her absolutely anything at all that she would eat. They also loaned us a heating pad for her to lay on because her temperature was still so low. We were scared and upset but had to give it a try so, armed with Dr. L's home number, and a promise from C that we could reach her too, we took Natasha home. We tried, unsuccessfully throughout the day to get her to eat. She looked like she was going to eat the cat food she ate at the vets office, but she just sniffed it. I made her an egg, soft, so she could just lick it... but she wouldn't touch it. I gave her milk and she did take some, but only a few sips. She couldn't lie still for very long, I think her discomfort was getting to her. She kept getting up and moving, even though she could only go a few steps. She went to her water bowl and wanted to drink so bad, you could see it. But she couldn't do it. Amazingly, she went to the basement to pee, at least once. We figured we would take turns taking her downstairs in case she had to, but she did it on her own. We did carry her up when we realized where she had gone.

The realization of what was going to happen hit when we tried to give her one of the appetite stimulant pills and she threw it up 5 minutes later. She was so weak and throwing up took so much out of her. She wasn't going to eat, no matter what we tried. She wasn't going to drink. Around 10:30 pm on Saturday night, through a mass of tears, we decided she'd had enough and we couldn't let her go on this way. With our vets office closed until Tuesday, we had no other choice but to take her to a 24 hour emergency animal clinic. I called ahead and told them what we would be coming in for and they said they would be on the lookout for us.

When we arrived, they put us in an examining room, took Natasha from us to insert an IV cath, and then brought her back. They told us then that we could have as much time with her as we wanted. Nick and I cried and cried and told her how much we love her. I kissed her about 10,000 times and just wanted to hold her forever and never let her go. When we realized we could stay there all night holding her, we called in the the vet. They ask you if you're ready... but how can we ever be ready to let our baby go? We told him we were though, and he explained what he would be doing and how the injection would be instant. We stayed, and pet her and kissed her and told her how much we love her. And in a moment, her head dropped and she was gone. It was the most gut wrenching experience of my life and as I sit here telling you through my tears, I can see her little head drop and hear that awful sound. But even so, I wouldn't have it any other way. I would never have left her alone at that moment. The people at the clinic, people who had never met us before that night, were so kind and so compassionate. They hugged us, and made sure we were ok. And a few days later we received a lovely condolence card from them. I felt awful that the vet who took care of her since the beginning of her life, wasn't there at the end of her life, but they were wonderful to us.

I returned to Dr. B's office on Tuesday, to return the supplies and thank them for all they had done. While I waited for Mrs. B and C to be available to talk to me, a woman I had never met before saw the flowers with Natasha's photo and said how pretty she is. I burst into tears and she immediately realized I had lost her and came to sit with me, hold me around the shoulders and telling me how sorry she was. In fact, as I went to buy the flowers I walked into the store and asked for help. Crying, I told the woman what they were for and she began to cry and tell me how she lost her dog only two weeks before. Animals have such a deep bond with us. It's amazing what happens when you tell people you lost your beloved cat.

Mrs. B (the doctors wife) said she would be talking to her husband that evening and knows he will be upset and want to see us when he arrives back on the 16th. Of course I would like to see him too. She told me that she had come to take him to the airport that Friday morning when I brought Natasha in the first time and he had refused to leave until he saw us. He's such a wonderful man. I gave them the flowers with the photo of our little Natasha, and we looked at other photos that I had brought and I cried and cried, while their compassion and love of all animals helped me heal some. I told C to take as many photos as she wanted, and she said she would really like to have one of Boris too, so she took one of him, and then one of Boris and Natasha together.

I want to thank everyone who already knew, who followed our progress on the PVB Message board, once again for your kindness, your cards, ecards, flowers, emails and poems. Special thanks to D and to CT. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your care and concern, for your kindness and your compassion. N, Boris and I will never forget it. And please know, we are keeping Boris close and watching to make sure he doesn't go into depression without his sister. Thanks again xo

Life is Too Short

Regular readers to this blog know that I recently lost a very good friend to cancer.  Yesterday I was handed another reminder of just how short life is.  It was my niece's first communion party.  My brother had told me about a year ago that his good friend JA has cancer, pancreatic cancer no less.  Devastating news.  JA is literally the only friend of my brothers that I ever liked. Ever.

Bro is 8 years older than me, and so we never really hung out in the same crowd.  He didn't approve of things I did and in general he always acted more like a father than a brother.  But JA is cool.  He's a super nice guy and he always had my back where bro was concerned.  I remember when I was just out of high school and between jobs.  Bro got into a pretty serious accident.  He was working landscaping at the time and was on a tractor when his shoelace got caught on the gas peddle.  He couldn't get it out and was thrown from the tractor with his foot still attached to the gas peddle.   The tractor dragged him for a bit, tearing his shirt off and then most of the skin off his back.  It was horrible!  His back was completely raw.  He came back home to stay with us while he was recuperating.  My mom was too nervous to do the things that needed to be done for him, like change his dressing several times a day and clean his wounds, so I did it.  I took care of him for several weeks while he recovered.  I didn't do much of anything else.  And then JA came over to see him. JA took me into the kitchen and said, "go... go out.  Do something else, I'll stay with him."  A much needed break that he knew I needed, and I went.  And I never forgot it. A bond was formed that day.  From then on he was my friend too.  JA is someone I love.

When he got married it was like he was my kindred spirit.  Married on Halloween, he and his wife had a costume wedding and he was Frankenstein and she was Bride of Frankenstein.  I think those who know me know how I feel about that!   It was awesome!

In the best of times, or the worst of times, JA was always there.  When my brothers friends were calling me a freak and asking bro why I looked the way I looked, JA had my back again.  He stood up for me with the closed minded.

And now, on the occasion of my niece's first communion party, bro told me JA would be there.  My niece is his goddaughter after all.  But he wanted me to know that JA looks drastically different.  Both bro and sis in law let me know that he is almost unrecognizable. And I thank them both for preparing me.  Because I don't think I would have been prepared for what I saw when JA came in.  He had aged a lot and was so painfully thin it's hard to even imagine, let alone see him.  It has been less than a year since I last saw him and it seems like way longer.  He was still the same JA as always though, even given this dreaded illness that he is trying to fight.  I tried hard not to talk about that, when you're going through it, do you really want to keep telling people about your treatments and things?  I imagine not, so I didn't bring it up and we just talked about general stuff.  He stayed a little while, ate well and soon had to leave.  In all likelihood that was the last time I will ever see him.

When the party was over, I thanked my sister in law and bro for letting me know what to expect ahead of time, and still, I wasn't prepared.  Sis in law said that he told someone at the party that he doesn't have much time left.  And that is when I broke down.   Much like J, JA is exhibiting a strength and dignity that I am simply in awe of.  I didn't want to lose J, and I don't want to lose JA.  I know I have zero control over that, but it sucks.  I hate it.  I don't want to lose people I love.  Who does really huh?

Life is too fucking short.  The more things like this happen, the more I tend to reexamine my life and want to make some changes to it.  Being content with sameness is unacceptable anymore.  I'm 46 years old.  I'm not getting any younger.  If something happens to me, like with J or JA, will I have a full life to look back on?  I don't know.  I know there is something missing.  I know there are so many things I want to do.  I know that I am going to go after what I want.  I just wish it didn't take such devastating losses to wake one up to these truths.

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.  

 

Laying Low

I've been quiet lately.   Very quiet, which is kind of strange for me really.  I'm sure many have noticed.  I'd notice if I wasn't me.  It's not conscious or purposeful, it just is.  Maybe my mind is so overloaded with things right now that I don't know what to say so instead say nothing?  That could be. 

So much in my life has changed over the past 4 or 5 years and things keep on changing.  Some things are coming full circle, others are growing and evolving, and still others are coming to an end.  It's kind of scary and exciting all rolled into one.  There are days when I am so happy and so excited about what lies ahead that I can't even contain myself.  I burst with joy.  Then there are days when I feel sad about what I'm leaving behind.  Some of my decisions might be wrong, not what someone else would do, or end up being a disappointment to family or friends.  But the thing is, I'm 46 years old and I cannot live my life based on how others will react to what I am doing.  It's not who I am.  I can't live my life for someone else.  I can only live for me.  If that sounds selfish, so be it, but that isn't the intent.  The intent is to make myself happy.  If I can't do that, who will?  No one. 

So often I've felt judged by people, judged on how I write, judged on how I look, judged on a decision I make.  Judged by people I know, love or don't know at all.  And I don't like that feeling.  No one does.  It makes you second guess yourself and if I've learned nothing else in my 4+ decades on this earth, it's to trust my own instincts. 

I've joked to many that I think I'm going through a midlife crisis, but I don't really think that at all.  It's funny to say it, but no.  I don't believe that's it.  I think that so much has happened that I have woken up to the fact that I don't have all the time in the world anymore.  That differences that never used to matter, now seem to.  That even though I never ever imagined I'd be here, that it feels so good and natural and maybe even how it should be.  That the things I want, they matter and no one but me can make them happen.  It might be a bumpy ride, but anything worthwhile is going to be. 

Hot

I had an interesting conversation with a good friend last night. Conversation may be overstating it really, it was just a few texts. But the gist of it was that confidence and attitude can be just as hot, if not more so, than actual physical attributes. I absolutely agree with that. I have been attracted to someone for many reasons but not only because they are physically beautiful to my eye.

I can admit that I have wanted to crawl into a hole and not come out until I was perfect physically.  But who defines perfect?  Maybe I am perfect, for me.  Well, I'm sure I'm not, but I'll be working on that in the new year.  Which is not the point.  The point is, most of the time I feel ok about how I look.  But I feel awesome about the person I am.  I've written before that it has taken me a long time to become the person I want to be.  I think that's probably true for everyone.  Whether you grow up in an alcoholic household like I did, and see how you don't want to end up.  Or you have people around you who show you how you do want to end up.  But you get to chose.  You can decide your life sucks, you've been handed a raw deal and you could live out your days a bitter asshole who thinks the world owes you a favor.  Or you can turn it around, make your life better, stand on your own and just fucking do it.  I prefer the just fucking do it way. 

My business is not as successful as I wish it were, but I'm doing my own thing and I love that.  It's fun and stressful and at the end of a hard day, I feel damn good that I did something I'm proud of. And I put my own stamp on it.

If you want to know the truth I think I'm a pretty cool chick.  I have amazing friends, strange things regularly happen to me, I surround myself with great music every day,  and no one rocks the purple hair and G cup better than I do dammit!  Love yourself and people around you will love you too  :)

Lasting Love

I've been pondering a lot lately, the idea of lasting, even everlasting, love.  I always thought that once you loved someone, truly and wholly, that love never fades.  So I wonder, if you felt love for someone and then you don't, does that mean you never truly loved them in the first place?

I can easily, with no doubts in my mind or heart, say that I love the two friends I've reconnected with this year.  I have always loved them, and will always love them.  When you are apart for so many years, but never stop thinking of that person, and then you are back again in each others lives and you have the same feelings you did, yes, that is a true and lasting love.  And it warms the cockles.  I feel happy when I think of them (and others too, but right now I'm focused on this reconnection phenomenon).  I'm not talking about romantic love although I'm not sure there should be different distinctions when you talk about love.

But right now I am finding that I do not feel love for someone I thought I did.  Does it mean there never was love?  Or it was mistaken for something else?   Or is there only so much lies, deception and betrayal someone can take before they lose that love.  I thought it was true.  I thought it was whole.  I felt a connection that I couldn't really explain.  It seemed so fated for us to meet and become friends.  It seemed so right, even though everyone I knew told me it was so very wrong.  The warnings I received from so many people feel on deaf ears because I knew in my heart that we were meant to be friends, friends for life.  I ignored smaller deceptions because in the big scheme of things they didn't seem important.  But when the big pain hit, it changed things.  Things would never be the same.  Some pains are just too deep.  And while I have received an apology, twice, it doesn't change the fact that it happened and that it didn't have to happen.  It was avoidable.

I have forgiven. I have to.  I can't hold on to that type of anger. But I can't forget how it felt to have my heart ripped out of my chest.  Maybe the pain is still too fresh and that will fade too.  I've said before that I have no regrets, and I don't.  I like to think I meant something, even though it's over now.  I have to believe something positive came out of it for both of us.  But it doesn't answer the question... does love last forever?  And if it does, where is the love I once felt now?

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.

Love Hate

Things I love....

• Mia famiglia (even though they do fall into the category below at times)
• Strawberries
• My friends
• Zebras
• Sex
• Chocolate
• Peter Murphy
• My kitties
• Vampires
• My tattoo's
• Ipad
• Erotica
• Talking about sex with anyone who appreciates it as much as I do
• People who make me think
• Joe Strummer
• Cooking
• Sleep

Ahhh sleep.  I love sleep, sleeping, dreaming, snuggling up under warm blankets.  I love going to bed and falling asleep easily, sleeping through the night, and waking up refreshed.  Unfortunately, that rarely happens.  I have difficulty falling asleep quite often.  My brain just doesn't want to shut off the million things going through it on a regular basis.  And when beautiful sleep does find me, it doesn't take much for me to wake again and be bombarded by all the thoughts I'd rather not be thinking about at 3:00 am.  I'm a horrible napper.  It just rarely happens for me unless I'm sick.  But oh those days when everything aligns and sleep, glorious sleep comes to me, I wonder if I'm actually smiling in my sleep at the joy I'm feeling.

Things I hate...

• Oranges
• Olive Garden (or any mass produced chain of mediocre food)
• Ignorance
• Posers
• Phoniness (see posers)
• Talking politics or religion with anyone too emotionally invested
• Being ignored
• Stinkeye
• Lame jokes sent to my cell phone
• Writers block
• Bad music (I'm talking to you Coldplay, Nickleback, and many others)
• Bigotry of any kind
• Judgmental people
• Vulgarity 
• Insomnia
• Liars
• Spam calls to my cell phone (I'm on the do not call list, still get them)
• Hot dogs

Hot dogs.  Yes I hate them.  I didn't like them as a child and I don't like them now.  They are one of those foods that can be described as containing everything but the squeal (at least when they are made from pork, otherwise they would be containing everything but the moo).  A tube of God only knows what, forced into a casing and then boiled, fried, grilled whatever.  They're so disgusting.  Hooves and snout and *shudder* whatever else.  And those Chicago dogs look worst of all!   I don't know what's is more nauseating, that neon green relish or all the other stuff that pretty much amounts to putting a salad on top of your hot dog.  Either way, it's fucking gross.  Then again, all that other stuff probably masks the grossness of the dog itself.  Don't they even put mayonnaise on it?  I happen to like mayo, the real stuff not that disgusting Miracle Whip shit, but putting it on a hot dog sounds nasty.  So no, when I go to a ball game I do not eat hot dogs.  When I go to a picnic, I do not eat hot dogs.  When I go to my nieces birthday party every year, I do not eat those disgusting croissant dogs that she loves so much.  I'll take a burger thankyouverymuch.

Three Years

It's hard for me to believe that it's been three years since I lost her.  One of the most important people in my life, my Grandma.  I'm lucky, so so lucky I had her for as long as I did.  I was 42 when she passed away, she was 99.  October 1, 2008.  Only 3 weeks from her 100th birthday.

I've written about her before, several times.  One of the things I wanted to accomplish with this blog was to let others know her too.  If only everyone could have known her in person.  She was so beautiful, so funny, so smart, the best cook ever, someone I could tell anything to, someone who never ever judged.   So often I find myself wanting to talk to her, ask for advice on some things, cook with her, eat with her, just be in her presence again.  Any time I was with her, I felt like the luckiest person alive.  I so wish I had an answering machine message from her saved somewhere. They always made me smile and went something like this....

"Lalia, Can you come and take me to Gallucci's?
*pause*
*pause*
*pause*
This is Grandma, I love you."

Remembering that, hearing it in my head, makes me very emotional.  The message wasn't particularly clear ever.  She never would say when she wanted to go or anything like that.  She didn't mince words.  I'd just call her back and we'd figure out a time to go.  Gallucci's, by the way, is the greatest Italian foods store in Cleveland.  And when we went there it was heaven.  The aroma of the place is intoxicating.  I want to wear it as cologne!  I loved going with her.  Everyone knew her, everyone took care to make sure she got the best of what she was buying, and we always had a feast when we got back to her house.  We would sit at her kitchen table with a little wine or maybe some espresso, and then start opening our bags and laying our feast out on the table.   Delicious crusty bread that you pull apart with your hands, five or six different kinds of olives, super sharp provolone and fontinella, salami, pepperoni, capicola and sopressata.  Absolutely the best.

I miss those days with her.  Just her and I.  We talked about everything.  She told me stories about her life that always somehow related to something I was going through or having trouble with.  She was so smart and so intuitive.  She loved her family with a fierceness that really doesn't seem as prevalent today.  I don't know that I can explain what I mean by fierce love, but I'll try.  When she loved you, she held you close to her heart.  You knew.  You knew you were in there and there isn't a better place in the world to be.  And no matter how she was treated by other family members, because yes, there were people in our family who didn't treat her with the respect she deserved, she loved and held everyone close.  She only wanted everyone to get along and be together.  It didn't always happen.  But I can say we tried, for her sake.  I can't say the same for others and still can't, as fights and lawsuits continue so the greedy side can get what they seem to think they deserve.   Death sometimes brings out the very worst in people.

But for me, I continue to honor her from the tattoo of her on my arm to wearing her wedding band every day.  Whenever I put it on I think of her.  I feel so lucky that I get to wear it now.

Yes, I'm lucky.  I'm lucky I had her in my life for so long.  I'm lucky she lived so close to me.  I'm lucky that she loved me.  I'm lucky that I learned as much as I did from her, even though I wish I could have learned more.  I don't think I would have ever stopped learning from her.  I wish everyone could have known her.

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