Letters to Donna/from 7-22-06

7-22-06

Happy Birthday My Love –

You’d have been 62 today, and not happy about it, declaring how you didn’t want any attention paid — we

should all ignore the occasion — and then waiting for the cards and presents and whatever else we could

manage today, depending on how you felt. Dinner? A movie? If you could. And you’d reward me with your

delight and reciprocal love.

I love you and miss you, my beloved. My world is darker with its light gone.

For reasons I don’t understand, my poker site has decided to exclude players from the US and Japan, among

others. Since half their players were American, the logic escapes me, though there seems to be some kind

of international gambling-site regs involved. Signed up for Full Tilt, got a grand, lost it, and can’t get any

more for now. You’re talking to one frustrated poker player.

The car is now inspected. Got my tires yesterday ($240. — jesus!); no problem today. The problem came

afterwards. I crossed the road to KFC to get potato wedges and cole slaw; got it; and on my way back to the

car stepped on one of those hoops — the bane of my walking — from lampshades. Down I went, pretty

hard, messing up both knees, both arms and one hand. Not serious, just infuriating. All cleaned and

alcoholed now.

Long talk with Lisa last night. Now that things aren’t going well generally (the break-in, the accident, and

the job in limbo) she’s very bleak about everything, including latest beau. Before, everything was sunny….

Do believe she’s bipolar to some extent. And beau may either be too tangled up with his ex, and may be  

more interested in orgasms than Lisa, though I’m not sure she’s being fair to him, and I counselled her to

explore what she’s really afraid of, so she can articulate it better to beau and find out whether he’s just in a

tough spot or just having a good time screwing. She really needs on-going therapy.

Letters to Donna/from 7-14-06

7-14-06

Hi My Love –

I love you!

Had a rough evening, am having a roughish morning.

Ran some errands after work, as I told you before: getting stuff for the picnic, picking up laundry. Stopped

off at home, had Jimmy check the phone connections — and, by god, I now have my phone back! Then

started off for Framingham.

Over the Tobin the car slipped out of gear twice. More problems on Storrow. Figured it might be low on

transmission fluid but decided to play it safe and go home. Indeed, I was down a pint….But was blue and

distracted all evening.

Woke up back sore and heartsore. To my huge surprise, it’s seeing Tom that’s upsetting me. He, you and I

go way back, and I haven’t had to deal with such a person since shortly after you died. It’s making me hurt

all over again, get weepy, the whole nine yards. And that, I think, was the underlying reason I turned back

last night.

Other, related matters:

Christy invited me to a farewell supper on Sunday, Aug. 13. Good food, open bar at a place in Cambridge.

I accepted, but felt wrong about it. Andy C. will be there, maybe, but otherwise I’ll be among strangers,

young strangers. And they’ll be celebrating Christy and Thomas’ union, which I cannot do. And there’s

always the danger of Christy coercing (while inebriated) men into performing tricks for her amusement,

something she loves to do and which I detest. So today I begged off, thanked her for having a kind soul

(I know it was out of pity that I was invited) and will try to say nothing more.

And I wonder — am beginning to believe — that while I may have been young at heart fairly recently,

I may be old at heart now.

7-15-06

Good Morning Beloved –

The picnic is, happily, behind me. I thought of you, missed you, wept for you (and me) and was grateful to

limp home. I’d have given a lot to have said, “Gotta go — Donna awaits!” Couldn’t. Cried.

I pick up Tom at 4 in Copley. He’s got a Van Dyke beard, unkempt. A bit thicker in the bod. Hair all grey.

scar on the knee horrendous. But he’s running now, very slowly, but running. Had good PT and put in the

work. Kids OK. Usha had suicidal/self-mutilating behaviors, did a stint in-patient, is in therapy now and

seems to be improving. Bhumika will be going to cosmetology school as part of her senior high school

year curriculum. Binita wants to start at the local community college later this year. Anna has a new job.

Same old same old. Tom seemed less anxious about the future, perhaps because the end’s in sight as far

as the kids’ basic education is concerned. They’re breaking even because they rent. If they’d bought the

place they live in, they’d be paying for mortgage twice what they pay in rent. But he’s resigned to being in

California for the decade, perhaps longer.

They’re down to eight cats. No rabbit.

Am home briefly from Janet, who suffers in the heat a bit like you did, and momentarily am going into town

to pick up Tom. Message when I got in: Lisa was in an accident, says she’s OK, got slammed as she left a

parking lot. Car probably totalled, and Lisa cited for some kind of illegal manouver leaving the lot. New

beau being helpful. Left a message for her, will try again later. Bad time for that to happen (as if there’s

ever a good time!). Talk to you later, my beloved.

7-16-06

Good Morning My Love –

God, I miss you so much! Am just back from dropping Tom off at Back Bay, where he’ll take the commuter

train to his sister’s. Very nice visit, but you should know, since you were a presence through much of it.

Let’s start with a thank you. Years ago you got a bed in a bag we didn’t need with money we could’ve

spent on something else. Last night that bed inflated as designed, quickly and easily, and gave Tom a good

night’s sleep. And it deflated easily and is now tucked back in the utility closet. Donna was right, thank

you Donna! So still, you take care of me. God bless Donna Boyce, the love of my life.

And of course, no matter what Tom and I talked about, you were there. He did a lot of stuff on the laptop,

good stuff I hope. He loved your system, liked Avant Browser, complimented your choices. And I was

thinking, she’d sure be sceptical of what he’s doing, probably wouldn’t let him anywhere near the system,

and would look askance at what he did. I’ll try to summarize what he did, as soon as I figure it out.

And when we talked about writing you were there too. And the past. Everything. After I dropped him off I

needed to talk to you so damn much and of course couldn’t, and cried very hard as I drove through the

Back Bay. Crying now.

Tom and “everybody” thinks I’m doing OK, did OK, considering. I told him I’d been anticipating your death

even before the MRI and death sentence, knew I’d have to make major changes and quickly, knew in general

terms what I’d have to do, and how. Then I refused to think it out much further so I could focus on you and

not make myself miserable.  But I was as ready as I could be on Sept. 20. That kept me busy — and I

stayed busy — which was, in retrospect, an enormous help. And I’d been mentally preparing to live alone

long before. Finally I was keeping house by myself and spending more time inside my own head, sharing as

much as I thought you could (or should have to) handle and keeping the rest to myself. So I trained for this

stage, I guess you could say.

But, baby, you cannot be replaced. I could prepare/train forever but nothing could fill the huge gaps in my

time, thought and particularly emotions. Only you. And since you can no longer fill them, all I can do is try

to avoid dwelling on them. And sometimes, such as lately, I can’t.

I’m grateful, in retrospect, that I wasn’t like Linda: stunned, saying, “What am I gonna do?” I knew what I

had to do.

7-17-06

My love, I am going to be old without you. I’m entering into this stage feeling almost like a kid going out

on his own. I leave a life behind and start another one, and have no idea how I’ll occupy my time,  nor

what my emotional life will be like. I need interaction, but on what level? Will I need intimacy? My feelings

when I sense I’m giving Janet emotional support tell me I still need to be needed. But do I need it enough to

enter into a new intimate relationships, or will “friendships” be enough?

Believe it or not, I stay in training to live with a woman. I keep the toilet seat down. I say “please” and

“thank you” to inanimate objects. I continue to resist the urge to become a slob again. But it’s conversation

and negotiation, underpinned by regard, concern, respect and observation, that keep live-in (and most

other) relationships alive and healthy, and for that one cannot really prepare. And how I might go from

where I am now to any ongoing intimacy is almost incomprehensible to me. Baby, you trained me well how

to live with a woman. So did Jane. Not just with a woman, but with an intelligent, willful, talented, troubled,

challenging, needy, sensational woman. It seems almost sinful that such an education shaped by pain and

time and joy, should not be used again.

But it doesn’t work that way. It’s not like a job skill, smoothly transferred to a new position. It has to work

for me, inside; I have to get something, I suspect, more than just — as I do with Janet — a feeling of doing

something good. Remember, you healed me, by loving me so well and fully, and challenging me, as much

as I healed you. (Better, since I now continue on, healed, whereas you couldn’t be healed, at least

physically. I did what I could, baby, but I couldn’t do that.) I think that means I now need a full, complete

relationship that allows me to do what I’ve learned to do well, and that your love prepared me for.

I see another path, not as good, but perhaps more likely. I see myself older, smaller, sadder, alone, a

quirky codger who lives in very narrow parameters, limited by lack of money and basic personal

conservatism, who talks to himself and his dead beloved, reads, writes, plays poker, fades slowly, dies,

disappears. A pitiful, ridiculous figure. You remember that I always imagined myself as the kind of old

man who walks the streets muttering to himself, acting odd but not actually crazy, being abused by small

children and dogs.

So what will it be?

Choices I make will affect how it turns out. But I don’t know in what form those choices will present

themselves. You could say, go out, try everything, never turn down an invite, you never know. But, as you

are well aware of, I cringe at most social situations, almost always want to leave, almost always wish I

hadn’t come. I’ve told Lisa for years to give serendipity a chance, but am very reluctant to take my own

advice. Being cheap — and having to be cheap — doesn’t help.

I could volunteer for certain things that might put me in serendipity’s way. But I need to keep my time free

just now, until I have enough work to be really self-supporting.

7-19-06

Good Afternoon Beloved –

When I told Tony the T yesterday that I was growing a bit snappish, he reminded me that, a year ago when I

first went to him, I described my behavior as “snappishness” — a coincidence he couldn’t pass over. So we

talked about anger (“snappish” is to “anger” as “scuffle” is to “fight”) and he made the reasonable assump-

tion that I must be mad at you, on some level, for having left me.

But try as I might, I don’t seem to feel that way. You fought for every day and left me with the greatest

reluctance. If it was up to you, we’d still be together. I’m angry at God –oh yes! Angry at the medical

establishment a bit, individual doctors yes, myself….Hey, I’m always pissed at myself. But if anything, you

fought too hard to stay alive, extending our suffering, individually and collectively, longer than perhaps

was wise, as if you really had a choice. I recall much more relief than anger at your passing. Next time (two

weeks) I’ll ask how I can find that anger, if it’s actually there.

Perhaps I’m angry at you for the financial fix I’m in, though that was in my hands and I chose to spend the

way I spent. Your fault? A little, but it sure wasn’t your fault that I bought all those frogs after you died.

Perhaps I’m angry at being sad and lonesome so much. Maybe that’s the back door into my anger house.

But how can that be your fault? I stay away from people by preference; in fact, that’s always been my

preference, from before I even met you.

First time Tony and I haven’t been on the same page.

By the way, the US consulate in China is keeping Tony in limbo. They have to cough up the appropriate

paperwork for the little girl, and they haven’t, and Tony can’t even book his flight. “My Government, the

Fuck-Up.”

Expressed to Tony my prejudice toward Muslims. Suprised him a bit. Surprises me too.

Stayed home yesterday. Gloomy, didn’t want to deal with upper 90s heat, had just enough diarrhea to

provide me slender justification. Back at it today, though, which is 15 degrees cooler.

7-20-06

Good Evening My Love –

Ten months gone. Two days till your birthday. Love you still.

Worked hard today — stock orders and two skids of music — and for my reward, my poker site is off-line.

Sigh….

Lisa thinks I was angry because I couldn’t trust your thought processes toward the end. True: scared, very

scared, frantically, hysterically angry. Then the MRI. After that your thinking improved in a sense. It simpli-

fied, stopped worrying about the extraneous or trying to work ut things now beyond it. So you made sense

more.

Lisa also ascribed to me her jealousy of the underservedly lucky. We all have a bit of it, but Lisa expresses

her arrogance by this subtle “Why me?” (when underserving people prosper). It doesn’t matter in the context

of our day-to-day struggles, plus the story’s still being written. She’ll figure the last out first. (Had to say

that!) I say “arrogance” because Lisa assumes herself to be more deserving than someone else. Understand

it, share it to some extent, but disagree with it. Too much we don’t know about how things are inside

someone else, or how things turn out in the long run.

Anyway, how could I be angry at that wonderful smile that I can keep the rest of my life? Am I angry

because the literal smile is gone? Sad yes, oh my god sad, but I still can’t find the anger. To be angry I

would have to have forgotten how much you suffered, how part of me prayed it would end, albeit only

the right way.

I may be angry — as I’ve been much of my life, child and adult — that there’s really no one to be angry 

at. Somebody must have done this to me, right? But no, there’s nobody. Nobody gave you MS or glia-

blastoma, and we all tried our best and couldn’t do a thing, ultimately, and that makes me angry, but I’ve

only got God left to be angry at, and I’ve already pled guilty to that one.

Yes, we all made mistakes, but none of them made you sick or made you die. Not even mine. So I’ll grant

that I’m angry, but there’s just no one I can chastise, and so it comes out in annoyance. Snappishness.

Potentially, irrational outbursts.

Sounds like I need a therapist.

I love you, Donna. No, I’m not angry at you. I just…wish you were here.

                                                                      L. 

 

 

 

Letters to Donna/from 7-7-06

7-7-06

Good Afternoon My Best Baby –

Finally got my cholesterol blood test done, feeling like a zombie until I got my first cuppa joe in me.

Back is sore today, but not too bad. Heat helped last night; not having quite as many cartons to shlep helps

today. That 100 cartons I referred to before is more like 300, whn you realize that in the ECS system the

shipper lifts each box at least three times, usually more. The vast majority of this week’s boxes have

weighed 40-60 lbs., so you figure it out. When put like that my back’s in pretty good shape.

Christy says she and Thomas are getting a marriage license Tuesday. Such folly makes me smile, as they’re

both very immature for their ages, and marriage is tough enough for grownups.

This would’ve been a perfect day for you to be on the balcony. Warm, bright, breezy day. High of 80,

flowering trees tossing their perfume into the air. All those kids, still ecstatic over summer vacation,

having a ball. Our geraniums all around you, coffee or diet Coke by your side, plus cigarettes. You,

enjoying every moment, every sound, sight, smell in that astounding way you had of getting 110% of the

pleasure out of an exprience. Oh, god, do I miss you!

7-8=06

Good Afternoon Beloved –

As I drove up to see Janet I thought of those July 4ths when we’d go up on Judy’s roof with Roger and Ollie.

Tough to get you up and down those stairs but it was fun once you were there. Haven’t contacted Judy

lately; may do so. Got a UNH/Merrimack Valley newsletter, and the only name I recognized from almost

30 years ago was, of course, Ted’s, who for some reason is doing a project about N.H. native Americans.

 Is there nobody better qualified in the state for that task? Has to be….

Also saw Tina – from 250 Broadway — over by the Lantern Rd. “projects”. Rail-thin and facially almost

masklike, schmoozing with a guy of course. So sad. Had been thinking about Dawn earlier, a little girl

infinitely more mature than her mother. Hope she and her siblings are OK since Tina abandoned them. That

was a special kid, under horrible circumstances.

7-10-06

Good Morning My Love –

Lisa called and in the course of describing the goings-on re: big bank gobbling up her smaller bank,

revealed that she’s had meetings with her former employer (another bank) and is considering returning

there. She’s referred to this in emails but I missed it because I never thought in a million years she’d give

any thought at all to going back there. Like stepping back into the darker parts of her marriage. It’ll do her

dirty emotionally. Hope she seriously reconsiders.

Tom will be arriving Wednesday, staying over Saturday night. Look forward to it. Friday is ECS picnic, as I

told you a while ago. Will bring desserts.

Walked in the early evening ($2.65). As I walked I rethought the migraine sketch, again. Have decided to

begin/frame sketch with the contrast between the worlds of the streets — full of noise, change, motion

and sponteneity — and of Jane’s apartment — full of silence and control. Outside is the kids’ world,

inside the grownups’. Noise and acting grown up dealing with grownups become the sketch’s issues.

Think it’ll work well now.

Also intend to tell the tale of your month at the BI/Spaulding pretty straightforwardly, focussing on your

relationship with Lowney (and mine) and how it led to “The Mistake” – his not responding to your

allergic reactions, and how, after a great ordeal for all of us, he at least partly redeemed himself. Of couse,

it’s also about you, and us. We passed into a new phase of our relationship during that period. MS had

been bad but not life-threatening. After that incident we’d had a taste of how bad it could get, and my

commitment to you deepened. I fought for your life during that month.

I must confess that this Iraq war, as much as I detest it and want to see us gone, has brought out the

strongest prejudice in me I’ve felt since my early Vietnamese-hating days in 1967. I want nothing good to

happen to any Muslim, particularly those in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chechnea, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Palestine,

Yemen, Saudi Arabia, UAE and the black Muslim states of Aftrica (the white Muslim Africans — Morocco,

Algeria, and Lybia — have shown, rarely, touches of sanity, as has Turkey, but I’m prepared to hate them

too.) When I hear or read of them slaughering each other, a small part of me is glad. I want us out of there

so they can go on kiilling each other, as they have from the second Mohammed breathed his last, and will

continue to do so, because they’re insane. If we could nuke ‘em all with impugnity I’d seriously consider it.

The day they run out of oil is the day we can consign them all to hell. I know there are innocents in those

places but I almost feel that any living Muslim is a potentially fanatic Muslim. I hope to see the day when,

oil-less, the sheiks and imams and ayatollash and all the paternalistic pricks who now strut upon the world

stage are totally ignored. And a terrorist attack is answered with massive bombings of every Muslim

country that harbors terrorists, i.e., every Muslim country.

When I see Muslim women traditionally dressed or hear Arabic spoken, I want to tell them to go home, that

they don’t deserve to be here. Failing that I fantasize about dropping a dime on them or, in extreme

moments, giving them a taste of their own terrorism. It bothers me greatly to feel this way, that I’m

becoming more like them, but I can’t seem to help it.

You know, it’s July 10th, and I haven’t seen a god-damn butterfly yet!

7-11-06

Good Morning My Love –

You’d be freaking out today, were you alive….

Last night a section of the roof of the feeder tunnel from the end of the ‘Pike to the Ted Williams Tunnel to

Logan and East Boston, collapsed, killing an unfortunate woman. You would want me to stay home today,

and if I insisted on going in, to call upon arrival, and frequestly thereafter.

As usual with me, I can’t make decisions based on factors I can’t control, otherwise I’d certainly never

drive, and probably wouldn’t do anything. If I happen by when a device holding up a roof panel decides to

give way — or when the drunk suddenly veers into my lane or the old lady has her heart attack behind the

wheel, or the trucker has the blowout — so be it. If you’re right about these things, I’d see you very soon,

and I’d gladly leave life. If I was sure that’d happen.

Can’t help but think of Wilder’s “The Bridge of San Luis Rey.” I wonder if now — or later — is the right time

to die. I have loved and cared for you almost as well as I could, kept my promises and commitment to you

to the very end. I have helped Lisa through her crises (this one, anyway) and may have finally written

something worthy. I have not yet squandered the integrity I built up during our years together. OK, I

haven’t written the lyrics to your song. (May work on that with Tom.) Otherwise, if I go now, I’m OK with it.

Not suicidal, just accepting. I know I can still accomplish things in the years ahead, but maybe sooner

rather than later would be better, before I have a chance to seriously screw up again.

7-12-06

Good Afternoon My Darling –

Suddenly, am busy.

Came home last night to find the phone not functioning; it still wasn’t this morning. We’d had some

thunderstorms (baseball-sized hail in N.H., twisters in western Mass.); Jimmy’s always doing stuff to the

house; either could’ve caused the problem. Called Verizon, which couldn’t detrmine where the problem

was; I set up an appointment for Monday morning. Was able to reach my own number and leave myself a

message, so the problem may be solved.

Tried to get the car inspected. No dice. Need two front tires. Will do it next week. The urn will have to wait.

And will drop off laundry, and dust, and change the bed, tonight.

Tomorrow: BU Bookstore is holding a job fair from 1-4. OK, I’ve already applied, but I got an email so I’m

taking that as a response. Will also: pick up laundry, get desserts from Luberto’s (creme brulee, macaroons)

and Pizza Conna (brownies) for the picnic on Friday. Then will go to Framingham for dinner with Tom and

Robert. Will bring beer, probably.

Friday: company picnic. Shop afterwards for groceries, do kitchen and bathroom floors.

Saturday: Janet, Tom and Robert in the evening.

Sunday: recovery.

Monday: Phone? Tires? Inspection? Art class.

Tuesday: Tony the T.

Humid today. Left hip is complaining about it.

Christy got married yesterday. Ah well. Maybe it’s one of those mistakes you have to get out of your system

so you can do it right next time.

In thinking about it, I realize I now live a spectacularly dull life, due to:

–being a dull person

–being functionally poor

–not wanting to go places by myself, even if I could afford them

–being, still, depressed.

So I generally come home, crawl into my hole and stay there till the following day when I creep out again.

And even simple, cost-free things: how can I walk on the beach without you there? Not to mention

something like the Topsfield Fair. Without your delight, all that’s left is a void where you once were, so

forget the Fair. I see the ads for the Butterfly Place, but will never go there again. Etc. If I ever go to a play or

a movie or concert again, it’ll be something you’d never want to see. Otherwise, half my pleasure — your

enjoyment — will be missing.

7-13-06

Good Afternoon My Love –

Went to the BU Bookstore job fair, and am confident I’ve improved my chances of being hired (at $7.25 @

hour!) by as much as 2%. I was the oldest applicant there by at least 30 years. They aren’t hiring part-time

right now….Don’t call us….Ah well….

Dinner at Robert’s, with Tom in attendance. Not looking forward to it. Between the tolls and the 6-pack of

beer it’ll cost me more than a dinner I’d buy. Ditto tomorrow’s picnic. Ah well redux…

Aftermath of the tunnel collapse, for me at least: drive in is quicker by ten minutes, drive home is slower by

fifteen minutes. Ah well tripled….

Back and hip sore but bearable. Heating pad helping but not making it go away. Ah well forever….

 

 

 

 

Letters to Donna/from 6-29-06

6-29-06

Good Morning My Baby –

Bad start to the day — nauseous and constipated. Lay down, felt less yucky, got to work by 9. Semi-OK.

Lisa is better than semi-OK. Had her car broken into — busted window, smash and grab — while

exercising at the gym, and then she learned that her employer is being gobbled up by a bigger fish (she’d

been warned of this before she even took the job), but she remains upbeat. Nothing important was taken

because the important stuff she wisely kept in the trunk) and the windshield was promptly replaced; plus,

she’d gotten indications that not only is she likely to survive the takeover but may even improve her

position. Plus she’s going away with her new beau, to a place she wanted to go with her ex, except her ex 

wouldn’t because the rooms have no TVs, and ex couldn’t think of anything else to do in a motel room

besideds watch TV. No wonder she’s upbeat.

6-30-06

Good Morning My Love –

Am feeling somewhat better. Slight GI problem. But this is two weeks of problems off and on. It keeps up

and I’ll have to see Dr. G….

…whom I saw last night to get some med samples. Got a month’s worth of Lipitor, saved $25. He got on my

case for not doing my cholesterol blood test. Promised him I’d do it next week.

Tony says that self-inflicted grief is a common, obsessive and ultimately destructive behavior, that is

best dealt with by distraction, aka doing something else. I’d pretty much figured that. Tony unfortunately

(for me) will almost certainly be in China Sept. 20, getting Sophie, his 1 1/2 year old daughter, and I’ll have

to make do with his boss if I need help. I’m not happy about it but nothing can be done. Strange that

something this important to me should be affected by, of all things, the Chinese government.

I did email J. about the Sox, got a quick reply asking how I was; wrote right back asking her if she was

moving to N.C. Haven’t heard from her since.

And I know you don’t care, but last night the Sox played as good a game as I’ve ever seen them play,

especially defensively, winning 4-2 for their twelfth straight. They don’t hit quite as well as the ‘04

champs and their pitching isn’t as deep — which may keep them from winning it all — but they’re the best

defensive Sox team I’ve ever seen, having tied a major league record for 18 straight errorless games. A

pleasure to watch baseball played at its highest level.

I’ve decided to redo the Jane’s Migraine sketch in the lighter, sitcom vein I described earlier. Don’t need to

complicate the story with too many indications of the dark side of Jane’s and my relationship. It will be

delved into enough later, I suspect. There are plent of dark undertones in the migraine per se and the

mother-and-child-on-their-own situation. I may add some abuse references, since Jane with a migraine

wasn’t going to do much hitting, giving the child a chance to help her when she’s helpless, thus offering

a contrast the the usual threat-filled disciplinary environment she usually maintained. The child does what

he does because he sincerely wants to help, not because he’s afraid of getting the crap beaten out of him.

7-1-06

Good Afternoon Beloved –

Well, I finally heard from you, in a way. Of course, I had to sign for you at the P.O.: your ashes came,

surprisingly heavy, in a plastic bag inside a fairly nice-looking cadboard box with appropriate labels. I

stopped off at Salvation Army to see if they had something that would do for a lidded urn, but no luck.

Would like something with butterflies on it….Might try ebay for the hell of it. Odd feeling. It was you, and

it wasn’t. What made you you was in your head and heart and came out in what you did and said, and what

I’ve got is you in its least relevant form.

I did tell Lisa it had come, and that if we all did get together I’d do the Marlboro ash bit, as promised: we

each take a puff and flick the ash into the urn.

Wanted to say something to Janet, but thought it might depress her; besides, she never asks about my life

or you. Perhaps she’s too self-involved, or afraid of sadness, or both.

7-2-06

Good Afternoon My Darling –

Have gone over “The Haircut”, will type it up and send it out later. Can’t help but feel it’s good. We’ll see.

If it is it’s a little heartbreaker.

Heard from Sindy — via phone message — who sounded better and has more help, at least for the

moment. Will call maybe Tuesday the 4th. Lisa OK. She’s learning more about her new beau’s relation-

ship with his ex, which inevitably is problematic. Wrote a long fatherly letter, suitable to be ignored.

It was humid and rainy this morning, so I’ll try a walk later.

Checked out urns on ebay. Want a cloisonne one with butterflies, but will wait to get it until my finances

improve.

Have been a goodish doogie, exercising and vacuuming. Walking and typing up the sketch will gain me

sainthood, revokable at midnight.

7-3-06

Good Morning My Love –

I’ve found myself irritable lately, angry/annoyed over small things: Christy spending her first hour at ECS

making personal calls, doing email and web searches, and talking non-stop; customers who have our

catalogs but call on the 800 line (our dime) to ask us for prices; procrastinators who wait too late to call

for rental info, then blame us because C.S. is away; drivers doing their insane things. Don’t know why my

milk-of-human-kindness phase has soured. Hope it returns. I could negate some good will if it doesn’t.

Did walk some yesterday evening — found exactly a buck — and did OK. Hot, but dry and breezy. Then in

the evening I did my stupidest PC trick: I shut the computer down with my draft of “A Haircut” half typed.

Brain cramp. I’d gotten tired, lain down without turning off the computer, then forgot I had the thing half-

done and shut it down later. DUMB!! Go ahead — laugh at the Un-Geek!

Waiting for art class. Large hot room on the top floor of one of Brookline H.S.’s buildings. several totally

ineffective fans going.

Really don’t feel like art class tonight. I think the combination of writing “A Haircut” and getting your

ashes has made me a tad too depressed. Am having to fight irritability and keep the sarcasm down. Really

want to tell people off but mustn’t. Try to remind myself that it doesn’t really matter and that I’m not

exactly perfect myself. Throw in some frustrating poker and some ordinary aches and pains and I’m in a

funk. Perhaps you could stop by and we’ll have a late dinner…for the late, great Donna Boyce.

And part of my funk, a small part I hope, is the thought that tomorrow I’ll have no one. Partly my own

antisocial fault, but the matter of fire works keeps coming up, and fireworks, for me, was all about you

and your delight in them and, increasingly, your problems seeing them. How can I enjoy fireworks without

you? Hell, how can I enjoy anything you delighted in, without you? You made stupid things like that

special. You had that wonderful child in you that seized things with both hands and wrung everything good

out of them. Joy is rare, but you sure gave me a lot. I should be grateful — I am grateful. Just miss you so

much — and your 62nd birthday is coming , and I don’t need to get you anything but god I wish I did. To

see your wonderful reactions to the cards and gifts — you made me feel like a king, baby.

The universe is a flatter, greyer place without you.

As I write there happens to be a mirror in front of me, and as I glance at myself, sans glasses, I see a face

in repose except for the eyes, which to me look stricken. They’ve looked that way to me since the day you

died, especially the right eye. Don’t know why. Don’t even know if I’m accurate. And if I don’t get myself

together soon, don’t even know if I can stay here.

At least work kept me busy.

One of the perils of a funk is dangerous questions, the sort that push you into deeper funks if you let

them. The “who cares/what does it matter/what’s the point?” questions. The “I won’t ever be loved again,

will I?” questions. The “Is this what it’ll be like till I die?” questions. Thank god I can still find great purpose

and meaning in our life together, and there’s been a carryover of pride from that, but it’s starting to fade –

not my appreciation of what you were, what we were, but the pride. It’s like my life’s work is done and

nothing is likely to have that meaning, urgency, specialness again. For me such an irresistable combination

of your remarkable personality and your great need. That combination dragged my reluctant best from its

deep hiding place and forced it into action. Now it stands there feeling useless, like Superman with no one

to save.

Right now I feel forever trapped in Clark Kent.

7-4-06

Happy 4th, My Love –

Not happy for me, though, my beloved, since the fireworks will go off without you to enjoy them. What

pleasure I got out of them was mainly your delight. No delight today.

Got through art class OK. Worked on different kinds of line. Not glad, not bothered that I stuck it out.

Teach referred us the Van Gogh’s landscapes, drawings on the ‘net; I checked them out and they’re

impressive in their variety and control, even to some extent their economy. Perspective terrific too. I’m

having problems sight-measuring objects; keep screwing it up. I end up with a decent-looking result,

except the proportions of what I’ve sketched resemble the actual subject not at all.

Will type up “A Haircut” today.

Typed it up. Sent it out to Tom, Lisa, Tony the T and me (at ECS so I can print it off). God, I want it to be

good! Keep fantasizing about people’s reactions — just setting myself up. I honestly see much good

writing in it, but that won’t matter if I can’t draw the reader into this couple — us — seen through other

eyes, and make him care, and share pain and situation. And the end, where we cry, has to work. No idea

if it does. Guess I’ll find out….

J. finally wrote, a nice long letter. She complains about Northeastern, Susan, the work; is threatening 

retirement, preparing for her trip to England — in other words, same-old, same-old. More talk of going to

N.c. — or Amherst, for some reason. Wrote back at length. Don’t expect to hear from her again till I decide

to make contact. 

Have heard a bit from John, who’s gotten around to reading State Boys’ Rebellion, and is moved. Good. Let

him admire someone worth admiring.

And had a nice talk with Lisa. Right now she sounds very good. Her thinking’s good; she’s acknowledging

her anxieties but controlling them. When she describes an incident with latest beau and I extract more

details, I find this relationship very promising. Had written her a long letter about his relationship with his

ex and child, how if he’s a good man it’ll be problematic, as was mine with Ginger and Lisa, or yours with

Mark and John . If Lisa and beau work out, his relationships become hers (and vice versa) and she’d better

understand that now and try to figure a way of handling it long term. I think the letter helped her

understand that we all come into our mid-30s messy, with pieces of our past intruding through our

present into our future. It’s how we handle the mess, not whether we have it, that reveals our character.

I’ll talk more about this later — or simply forward the letter, copy it and append it. I can do that with such a

letter because Stan, who goes through the email at work, puts such things in my folder without reading

them.

All around outside  the backyard, fireworks are going off, making all kinds of bangs, sizzles and cracks.

Much more than at 250 Broadway. A bit unsettling; there’ll be a lull and I’ll forget about them, and then they

start up again, and I jump a bit. Worst moment was when a plane came over and I thought it was some kind

of rocket, and started praying it wouldn’t hit the house. You wouldn’t like it here because it’s a basement,

and you culdn’t see anything that gave you pleasure. But as you know, I’m a burrowing animal, trying to be

unnoticed and out of sight until I want to emerge.

Miss you, baby.

I love you Donna–

7-5-06

Good Morning My Love –

Feel better today, emotionally. Having typed up “A Haircut” and sent it out, anxieties and all, has lifted a

weight off me. Didn’t realize its power as it sat in my mind, waiting. Glad it’s done.

Bad afternoon. l discovered I’d made mistakes at work, mixing up orders; almost didn’t catch them and

much extra work to (I hope!) straighten things out. More mental mistakes, the scary kind. Then, after

picking up dinner, clipped a curb with the car and flattened it. AAA just finished putting the donut on. I

may be able to get air back in the tire; will try tomorrow.

Stupid.

Doesn’t look like anyone will read “A Haircut” soon. Tom is coming back east next week and may stay

over, if I can inflate the bed-in-a-bag. But he’s got a lot to do in anticipation of leaving.

And Lisa haas begun the process of negotiating her position, if any, in the new bank that gobbled up her

old bank. I have no doubt she’ll land on her feet and may even improve her situation, but it may take a

while: meetings, interview et al. Plus the new beau, occupying most of her spare time….

7-6-06

Good Morning Beloved –

Had AAA change the tire last night; it’s at Goodyear today. The AAA guy said the old tire might still be OK;

just hope the Goodyear guys are honest and cut me a break. Will have to accept what they say either way.

This month I must have the car inpected; Patrick told me I needed two new tires (the old ones are getting

like Patrick and me: bald!), so I may as well do it all now. Will inspect next week.

Another of my little brain cramps involved my losing the sheet with my upcoming appointments with Tony

the T. Called and got ‘em, but HATE these mental mistakes, and fear them.

It’s been a good week for the GI tract — good thing, since I’ve had a lot of carton work, 100 heavy at least

– and my back by now is expressing its displeasure. Will have to give it heat, love and sympathy this

evening. (If you showed up, I’d give you the same three things — so, how ’bout it? Hmm??)

Your impending birthday is bothering me, I confess. It shouldn’t but it does. Old urgings keep saying,

whacha gonna get her? Why haven’t you gotten any cards yet? And I tell myself, she’s gone, she won’t miss

having birthdays except for what you’d give her. Well, baby, as the song goes, I can’t give you anything but

love, and you’ll have that — as you’ve had it — every single damn day.

Just have to ride the day out, like all the monthaversaries, like — god help me — I’ll have to ride out

Sept. 20 and the days surrounding.

I may have caught a break re: the tires. Goodyear says they were able to repair the tire, and that my tires

might pass inspection. Goodyear suggested the Shell station down the street — wink wink nod nod — and

I’ll give it a shot next week; it’d be nice to have the inspection over with. If I don’t have to lay out $200 or

so for tires, I’ll try to get  your urn on ebay. Deal? Call it, god forbid, a birthday present.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Letters to Donna/from 6-22-06

6-22-06

Good Afternoon My Darling –

Sindy called and is lining up people to help her. It’s piecemeal, iffy and temporary, and I may have to renew my offer to drive “Mom” up to Portland.

Maybe I’m getting a bit better. Th e 20th passed two days ago without my noting, or having to endure reactions to the 9-month anniversary. Part of me is ashamed for missing it. Part of me is relieved.

Got $400 out of my ebay guy, so made a nice deposit at Citizen’s.

This has been the first paycheck in a long time where I haven’t had to dip into my savings to get to the next paycheck. So the raise is a big help. But upcoming are: 2 new tires to pass inspection, the inspection itself, the P.O. box renewal, and the resumption of car insurance payments. At least three come up in July, and the initial insurance payment will be high. So, more income remains my top priority. God damn it, this sucks! It’s like the mice are taking bigger nibbles….

The ebay guy has an autistic son in his early teens. Completely spacial. Anything he sees he can use and reproduce, and nothing else. Even language. If he’s seen words and phrases he can sort them out and use them, but he can’t generate his own language. Can draw anything he sees but nothing comes from inside. So strange and fascinating, and so frustrating to victim and parents alike….

The ebay guy is very disorganized and, I think, a procrastinator, but I believe and trust him when he says he doesn’t really know how much he owes me. I have to rely on my people-reading skills. I just have to prod gently, suggest and be patient.

Would you believe it’s going to rain, often hard, for at least four days starting tomorrow? Haven’t seen this kind of rain here. I suspect the skies are crying, like I am, over the loss of someone very rare, very special.

6-23-06

Hi My Love –

IBS strikes again, four trips so far (10:30, I’m at work) and at least one to go, despite 2 immodium. Have that sour smell you get when your system’s out of whack and you sweat. Felt obliged to apologize to coworkers.

6-25-06

Good Afternoon My Love –

Skipped yesterday — sorry baby — but talked to you a lot. Told you how wonderful it was to be in a relationship where each cared so much about making the other as happy as possible; how observant of each other we were, and how we let each other know we’d been pleased, and touched. I know I had in the back of my mind most times how I might keep bringing small pleasant surprises into your life, how much I loved pleasing you.  Old stuff, but I thought it again.

I apologized, unnecessarily I suppose, for not having more pictures of you from later in your life. Of course there are basically none from the last nine months. Those images are burned deeply into my mind, and to see you that way would tear me up. Even to see you in the more recent years when the steroids puffed you up reminds me of all you suffered and the cruelty of the denouement. And I know you’d rather not have those pictures shown anyway.

But god, you were something even during the worst: tough, positive, sweet. Impatient, in pain, suffering. Loving, grateful, even horny. God broke the mold after He made you, baby, partly because you’re unique, partly because He screwed up so badly with your body (not that it wasn’t excellent on the outside — it was!)

Heard from Lisa, still fairly euphoric (if tired!) but still laudably cautious, and from Sindy, who’s getting help, at least for now, and is somewhat better.

Last week I made several unnecessary, brain-cramp-type mistakes at work, including putting postage on letters that would’ve been OK six months ago before they raised the rates, and forgetting to put postage on a 50-lb box to France, that will cause ECS’s petty cash account problems, since I had to pay the $150 or so out of my own pocket and will have to be reimbursed. Dumb. OK, I was sick and blue, but I always worry when I do things like that. Best way to calm my fears is to focus well this week. 

6-26-06

Good Morning Beloved –

Love you.

Am feeling OK today. GI problems gone for the last three days, happily. Hope I can focus this week better than last. Screwed up several times last week — brain cramp stuff. Was numbering boxes for a shipment, and went 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10….Why? No clue. Priced several letters going to Europe at last year’s rates. Then I had a box going to France and got it to the P.O. before realizing I’d put no postage on it. Hope my unhappy GI tract was the reason. Immediately thought of Alzheimer’s.

Though there’s one story I’m maybe a third through and another I just began last week, I’m writing about your haircut at Jerry’s, that poignant, heartbreaking incident. Telling it through others’ eyes; just think it’ll be more effective, more layered and resonant that way. We’ll see. And yes, it’s taking its emotional toll. So be it. The story insisted on being told, so I felt I had no choice but to write it.

6-27-06

Good Morning My Best Baby –

I was a good Doogie yesterday.

Work, walk, writing, exercise, drawing class, a bit of winning poker filled the day nicely. The price: one sore left leg.

Almost finished the haircut story. Hope it works. It’s the first time I’m writing about you, other than this journal and emails. I want it to be subtly but deeply touching. We’ll see if it is.

Stanley’s getting antsy about my lyrics for your song. Imagines some big success. Sure! — well, you never know….

Hope you don’t mind that I haven’t kept in touch with J. I like and respect her to some extent, and am grateful to her (the $1K that helped so much) but because she has that flimsy excuse for never calling — the woman’s almost wealthy, and she won’t get a phone service that has an H.P.-to-Revere call be local? Gimme a break — I have to initiate the call and I just don’t want to. Nothing much to tell her, know what she’s going to talk about: Northeastern, and everything she has to put up with; the condo and everything she has to put up with; travel and everything she has to put up with; kids ditto. T. S. Eliot; Red Sox. I know she’s basically fine. So I don’t call. May email her. But sooner or later I’ll have to listen to her talk about how devasted she is by your passing, and I guess I don’t want to hear it.

Still a good Doogie. Worked, walked (6 quarters, 2 dimes, 3 pennies and a T token), finished the story. Will exercise.

I so want the story to be good. Much more than the others. I want people to cry a little, to hear an ambulance and think, as I do, what misery it means to someone’s life. I want them to pay attention to the small scenes of great dramas that are acted out all around them if they’d only see. And I don’t know who’s going to tell me whether it’s good or not, because neither Tom nor anyone else I might show it to has as much objectivity as I need, since like me they all knew and loved you and see your death as a loss to the world.

And yes, I cried when I finished it.

Will send it to Tom anyway, with a note discussing objectivity and asking him if he knows someone who can give a qualified appraisal.

I feel it’s good. I just don’t trust my feelings.

6-28-06

Good Morning Beloved –

Had a couple of emails that will interest you.

N. writes that she’s told Bryan to leave and wants a divorce. Girls OK with it — as is they hadn’t figured out the basics long before N. would accept them. N. speculated you’d be pleased. Of course, high fives should be withheld until we see if she actually follows through. Will write back to the effect that it’s wonderful/horrible/long-overdue/tragic news.

D. wrote. She and Abra are now openly feuding and refuse to contact each other any more, all over the headstone’s inscription which will say “loving godfather” but not “loving brother.” That was it for D. I agree with her, partly because I like D. a lot more than Abra who’s again revealed her self-serving side (while I admit she was great with Freddie), partly because in the last decade of his life Freddie did form close ties with siblings, and partly because Freddie was into inclusion, not exclusion, and was able to grow beyond his pain and alienation until his life encompassed you, D. and Stevie. Too bad Abra can’t demonstrate the same maturity.

Lisa finally read the laundromat and fever dream pieces, though she felt I expected her to critique them. I didn’t — unless she wanted to. I just wanted to include Lisa in this, since she inherits my history (and, in all likelihood, little else).

Have continued my small but disturbing memory lapses. Forgot to call in my hours with Janet on Saturday; remembered last night. Forgot to put away my pot paraphernalia yesterday morning; fortunately, Jimmy didn’t need to work in the place. Only consolation is that I remembered that I forgot. Scary.

Not sure what story to work on next. I’d gotten part-way through an incident where Jane had a migraine and I needed to keep the noise down. In fact it wasn’t much, except I took care of her instead of vice versa; it grew to include standing up to a boorish adult, a subtle turning point in a kid’s view of himself. But as it came out it couched itself in the context of Jane’s violence, an extraneous issue. Take that context away and it sounds more like a sit-com setup, where silence is what’s needed and noise is all you get. Think I may play it that way, with my prototype Me trying his best but being awkward, clumsy and nervous, making noise by mistake, then redeeming himself by standing up to the adult. Think I may have to deal with a beating directly, perhaps combining a run-of-the-mill beating with the incident where she probably broke my nose.

So I guess I have two stories waiting, unless another of our incidents forces its way to the front of the line at “A Haircut” did. The first candidate is the whole BI/MICU incident, focussing on your relationship with Lowney, his overconfidence and hubris, and redemption after I went to him. It’s a complex story and may be beyond me right now. Haircut takes place in one hour at one locale, but this covers two locales and several weeks, with some additional background. (May call it “Trust Your Doctor”.)

Letters to Donna/from 6-14-06

6-14-06

Good Morning My Baby –

Hope to get some $$ from my ebay guy when I take a day on the 22nd and go up there. Also, I called Phil and am going down to Southie to talk to his office manager about…something, maybe nothing. Phil remembers my reliability, and so I might actually get something out of this. It may be early morning or late night….Hell, I’m almost desperate.

Had another of my odd notions last night. I acknowledge that you made me a better man, a better person. Could I have done the same (well, OK, a better woman then) for you? Could I have made you more honest, less materialistic, more patient and forgiving? The only one besides J. or Betts — and I wouldn’t want to broach the subject with either since it seems very self-serving and compliment-fishing to trust any response I might get from them — I could ask is Lisa. And I may.

6-15-06

Good Morning Sweetheart –

Have hit a long-overdue poker slump. Last night, this morning, nothing. Two A-K, two losses, et al. Won’t be bragging for a while.

Lisa finally took the Next Logical Step with one of her swains. Now comes the riskiest part: guy gets what he wants, what now? Is he most interested in conquest, orgasms or Lisa? The first, Lisa gets hurt. The second: up to her. Can she take something primarily physical without emotional depth? Third option: home run.

Went down to US Express (nee: Boston Package) to meet Tom the Office Manager, and old pal Victor (you remember him? We went to his house  in Watertown once or twice, and got some nice Chinese stuff through him — now, alas, sold. Chinese wife. Bad stairs. Glad to go home. Remember?) I might end up covering phones for them on a weeknight or weekend day. Phil did remember my reliability and gave the word to try to find something for me.

Odd feeling being there. Dingy no-frills office — a dump, really — bitchy drivers, incessant macho-soaked bullshit, Victor stuttering, drivers banging in on the radio, the phones going — an d it’s slow. I’d need a refresher course in their computer system. But I believe I could work through it. Just feels like I’ve regressed. Just living dime to dime is to to me a regression. I’m in a different place emotionally — better, despite your death — and that difference makes a huge difference. But still must do what I must do.

I know you wouldn’t be happy about this. You never trusted Phil, liked the craziness, the late hours, the pressure. You’d be unhappy if I had to wake up during the night to deal with some job. You’d really be unhappy if I went out and did the job myself.

Well, Phil’s a known quantity. I know where he can be trusted and where he can’t, and have the advantage of not needing the job to survive, which robs him of power over me.

As for the hours, that and my labor are all I have to trade for money, and since I have no one to share my tme with, it doesn’t much matter if I lose a night or not (I do anyway with insomnia). I can make up the sleep or take a day from ECS if I have to. If you were alive I wouldn’t even be considering it. But you’re not and I have to survive financially. If you’re really pissed by this, find some way of letting me know (ha ha.). I won’t screw myself up too much, don’t worry. I just have to support myself. 

6-16-06

Good Morning Baby!

  When I arrived home last night I called out, “Hi, Baby, I’m home!” and half-waited for your “Hi Baby!” response, that always was so wonderful to hear because it was drenched in affection — god, wasn’t that a welcome! You made me feel so good to be home with you, baby –

Of course, the response didn’t come, as I knew it wouldn’t, and of course I had to remind myself that it’ll never come again. So I had a good cry.

And I wasn’t done. Was watching a program on George Gershwin, who died having his brain tumor operated on. The program said that his last song, which he didn’t finish but was completed by his brother Ira, was “Our Love is Here to Stay,” one of my favorite and most beautiful of Gershwin’s songs. Baby, if there’s ever a gathering to celebrate your life, I intend to sing “Our Love is Here to Stay” as my farewell lovesong to you:

                     It’s very clear, our love is here to stay

                     Not for a year, but ever and a day

                     The radio and the telephone and the movies that we know

                     May just be passing fancies and in time may go

                     But oh my dear, our love is here to stay

                     Together we’re going a long long way

                     In time the Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble

                     They’re only made of clay, but

                     Our love is here to stay.

I tried singing it last night. I was awful. Have to work on the breathing. And not bursting into tears in the middle. Which I did. Big time.

I miss you, my love. Don’t think I’ll ever stop.

Sindy called. Got sideswiped by a 14-wheeler dump truck. Has a concussion, whiplash, damage to the neck and hands. Is lucky to be alive and credits God with being with her. So why didn’t He prevent the accident?

By the way: don’t worry that my finding “Our Love is Here to Stay” will make me forget your song. No way. You’re worth more than one song. Hell, you’re worth more than a friggin’ symphony (and 63,047 operas)! At this point my idea for your song is: where does the beauty go when the butterfly dies? It stays where you put it: in my heart.

6-17-06

Good Evening My Love –

Warm to hot, but not too humid. The heat got to Janet, reminding me of your problems with temperature extremes.

Got my haircut. You’d have missed my wavy locks, such as they are, but you’d like the way my head feels with the hair (both of ‘em) very short. Makes my turkey neck look worse, though.

Have had a better day emotionally, as a certain Gershwin song is leaving me be, at least for today. Lisa doesn’t know “Our Love is Here to Stay,” so I’ll sing it to her when — I assume — I talk to her tomorrow, Father’s Day. For my part, I’ll try to remember Charlie.

Sindy called early, sounded better, but says she’s got a lot of physical problems. At least she’s getting a lawyer. Don’t ask me for details because I couldn’t keep track of them.

Also talked to Betts, who was in one of her self-delusional phases. She’s in contact again with her John, who’s back with that creature we saw him with years ago — you know, the one Betts said was so good for him, and who helped him go through all that money, for drugs. But, of course, that wouldn’t happen again, would it? Of course it will, but Betts prefers to believe otherwise….She also saw Sylvia Browne on Montel Williams, and Browne talked about smelling departed ones’ perfume, getting calls with no one there, and all that hoo-raw. So Betts shortly after got a call with a blocked caller ID, and when she picked it up no one was there.  A hundred reasonable explanations, but Betts prefers to believe it’s Red. Hey, we have a line at work dedicated to I don’t know what, and it’s always ringing but no lights light up. Is it you? No. Phone Co. said it’s just an installation screw-up.

And why would a dead person trying to reach a living person use a phone and then not be there? Other, less ambiguous ways of communicating. But if you want to believe, anything will suffice. Jeez. Guess I’m just mad because I haven’t heard from you….

Lisa and boyfriend still going hot and heavy. He’s probably not just in it for conquest because he’d already be backing off by now. He’s been good to her. Let’s see if it lasts.

6-18-06

Good Afternoon, My Dearly, Dearly Beloved –

Happy Father’s Day to me.

Day is hot but not oppressive. Humidity isn’t too bad. No particular sea breeze yet, but one’s supposed to come.

Slept till noon. Lovely. Probably will be up half the night tonight, but, oh well.

Had a long talk with Lisa. Right now — get back to me tomorrow (please?) — she’s handling things well, enjoying the ride, being cautious but not too cautious, letting things come (in more ways than one) to her. Hope that lasts, and that Jim doesn’t turn out to be a jerk. If he does, we’re in for a rough ride. But if it goes OK, the benefits will be huge. She’s already beginning to realize that she was treated worse by Cliff and G. than she believed.

Lisa thinks that by my saying no to you when you were inclined to go too far with a thing, I made you a better person. Hope she’s right. I sung her (shakily) “Our Love is Here to Stay.” We talked about her, mostly, but me — and you — some. And I remembered your delight at anything I brought you, and how wonderful it was — to have a gift so enthusiastically received. I’d been thinking a bit about how important it is to make a woman feel special and attractive. Little gifts make a woman feel special — c.f., the little pair of chocolates I bring Janet, as plain and asexual a creature (though I like her) she is. And Lisa reminded me of the nightgowns I bought you, always with two things in mind: to keep you comfortable, so important when you suffer as much as you did; and to make you feel at least a little bit pretty — thus the bits of lace trim and pretty patterns — so important when your body is deteriorating as much as yours did.

And I cried….Gotta stop some time!!

Did think of Charlie a couple of times on Father’s Day. Just didn’t think very much of him.

6-20-06

Good Evening Baby –

Yesterday was sick. GI tract, of course, which aggravated the back. And I think I was emotionally exhausted too, what with “Our Love is Here to Stay” and all. Didn’t even want to play poker. Spent most of the day in bed, reading and watching tv. Even blew off drawing class. Today started rough; didn’t feel even close to right until the afternoon. Some hip pain too, with the usual groin tenderness. Just two difficult days.

Lisa sent me a very nice Father’s Day card. “Thank you for being my dad. You’ve brought so much to my life and taught me so much about what it means to be a good human. We’ve had lots of ups and downs, and I’m grateful for all of them because they’ve added up to the relationship we have now: one that I treasure beyond words. I love you!!”

Nice, huh?

I’m getting tired of/embarrassed about crying. I do it too much. I don’t want to stop, I just want to cry less. Both Lisa and Andy Chase said it wasn’t a problem, but last week with “Our Love” I just made myself miserable, over and over. It’s like I get something stuck in my head and it takes too long to unstick it. I’ve been remembering that heartbreaking haircut, and if I let myself dwell on it I’ll be miserable all over again.

6-21-06

Good Morning My Love –

Decent sleep last night; so far so good re: health.

Lisa sent a terrific picture. Besides the weight loss, her face benefits from darker hair, a good off-shoulder length, a style that covered much of her problematic forehead without making her look like she had none. Eyes benefit too, esp. from the hair color, as does her skin. Perfect smile. Great picture.

I haven’t said it lately, but: I love you, my darling, I always will, and it’s taken all these months to describe how much I miss you, how huge a hole you’ve left in my life, and I still haven’t finished yet.

Andy (C) read Andy (H) via tarot cards last week. Indiscreetly, Andy (C) told me some of what he saw, beginning with his buttoned-down, bloodless mindset (anally fixated? I bet!), with little room for spontaneity or improv. But hey, we all knew that, with or without tarot cards. Andy (C) also said he saw another man in Andy (H)’s future. I hope after Dan is gone. As I thought about it, two things turned me around re: Andy (H). One: he’s become more of a team player at work. Two: he’s stood by Dan. His loyalty is surprisingly important to me. I like Dan OK, though he’s a bit of a shambles and I wouldn’t like to eavesdrop on his toilette, if you follow. But — funny — I don’t want the ill, the frail, the old to be abandoned/betrayed/let down by their loved ones. If Andy (H) sticks it out with Dan to the inevitable end, I’ll admire him greatly. If he doesn’t….

Ran into John Levesque, whom we visited in Randolph a couple of times. 3 girls, nice wife, but I forget her name. He got fed up with Phil, who always treated his truckers worse than his drivers — why? Never could figure — and now hates his guts. He’s been jumping from company to company, whichever has the Fidelity account. Don’t see how anyone can survive as an owner-operator with these gas prices.  But his girls are 13, 15 and 16, and he can’t relocate, and other than trucking — and being away from home — what can he do? The black hole in his resume is at least 20 years big. Glad I escaped that trap.

He says Clancy went into a limo business with his brother who pulled out on him, and Clancy started drinking more and got caught DUI. Fini limo business. He got a job at Lowe’s and has emigrated to North Carolina where, Levesque says, he’s happy.

Today was a much better day physically. Good. I had some salmon from the 9s that didn’t seem particularly fresh; I ate about a quarter of it and expected the worst today. Didn’t happen, and I’m glad!

The apartment did OK during the hot snap. Warm but not uncomfortable. Didn’t have to use the fan. Don’t believe I’ll need to buy any a.c. The few miserable days I’ll tough out. Am trying to get into the habit of airing the place out in the morning and, if it’s not too humid (as it isn’t today) I might leave ‘em open all day. The place needs it!

Talked to Betts, John and Sindy this evening.

Betts is just all in love with her dog, whom she kinda admitted she preferred to Precious I (whatever the name was) because P. I couldn’t be left alone. P. II can. And she feels so soft — you’d love her, Betts says. Hey, you might. I just didn’t feel patient with Betts tonight. She means well….But she talked about MWRA and her semi-iffy disability, and loving “retirement” and not being able to do a day’s work any more, and sounded so pleased to be saying it. I just wish she was a little embarassed.

John rattled on. Pierce has a girlfriend, name I forget, but will try to remember because you’ll want to know it. Talkative little girl, apparently. John asked Pierce if he intended to marry her. “No,” Pierce said. “I’m ging to marry Mommie.” John’s big flip project’s on the market for the low to mid $800K, with no takers yet, and John may change agents. The smaller project, a 6-unit, is in rehab. He’s heard the state will pay landlords $1500 @ to rent to sex offenders and is considering it, once the units are habitable. Risky. But maybe they could all offend each other. After that project’s resolved he plans to take a month or two and finish his kitchen, which hasn’t been right for over a year. Nina must me a very patient woman.

The rest was B.S.

I mentioned you several times.

Sindy I’m worried about. Her concussion has developed some serious symptoms. Dizziness, memory loss, disorientation, panic, maybe vomiting blood, spots before the eyes, pain. She’s seeing a doctor and lawyer and the case looks good, but she’s drinking and she shouldn’t. She should be in the hospital, or at the very least taken care of. That person in Nashua she calls Mom may be able to go up there, and if necessary I’ll bring her up myself, Sat. or Sun.

Did I tell you I’m taking off tomorrow? I am. Will deposit some change in the bank — $118!! — and go see my ebay guy, put some more stuff on ebay and get a check! Walk some, maybe.

Again when I came home I imagined calling out “I’m home, baby!” and your saying “You’re home, baby!” in that delighted way you often did, as if it was a big deal, and of course that will never happen again, and I cried hard and got mad at myself. That’s the kind of crying I need to avoid: the self-inflicted kind.

Letters to Donna/from 6-7-06

6-7-06

Good Morning My Love –

This morning I’m a bit of a hurtin’ pup. I actually walked about 7 miles yesterday, to and from J.P., plus the noon walk to the P.O., and my back, hip and legs ache, and my groin’s grumpy. Will do a half-day at work–very slow, no harm done. Was on the heating pad last night and will return today. I actually am better than I thought I’d be, but I’ll minimize my walking at least till Friday.

One reason I took inventory of your presence in my bedroom (by the way, I forgot to include — which I have draped over the gold-flecked mini-bureau — your rag snake we got a zillion years ago, where? At the Brockton Fair? I couldn’t bear to get rid of it) was: while watching an H & G show, I saw someone use one of those fits-all slipcovers and make it look almost professional. How? Little pins, like those plastic-topped bulletinboard push pins, but with a tiny corkscrew instead of a straight pin. Called “twist pins.” As you tuck and fold the slipcover, keeping tucks and folds out of sight, you anchor them onto the chair/sofa with these pins, which are permanent. Wish we’d known about ‘em 3-4 years ago: we could’ve slipcovered that couch. You’d have loved ‘em!

When I prepared to go back to Patrick’s yesterday afternoon and wished Craig was still here so I could catch a ride, I realized it was the first time I’d missed him. And I thought that one of the sources of Craig’s problems was his belief that he was special, superior, because of his smarts, looks and talent. And he remains constantly upset that not only is the world very slow to acknowledge his superiority, but those close to him don’t treat him with the deference and honor he believes he deserves. (People are so strange: alongside this arrogant Craig lives a nice, responsive decent Craig who’s very good company. And under both those Craigs is a hideously insecure Craig that sees betrayal everywhere.)

There was a time I thought like Craig, to some extent. I believed my intelligence made me superior. Source: Jane. Of course I was also the worst person in the world — source: Jane — or why was I getting beaten all the time? But by my mid- to late-teens I was an arrogant prick. The Army, or people I met in it, and my genius for screwing up my life, undermined that arrogance somewhat and you did the rest. I had to learn that intelligence is just a tool, not a value. You could use it for good, like Freddie did, or evil, like Mark Leuken did. Just like a hammer: use it to build a house or smash a skull. Intelligence didn’t make me a good person; I had to earn that.

And in the process I came to respect and admire those who, though less fortunate than I, nevertheless struggled and perservered and made good people of themselves, with good lives. You. Freddie. De., as far as I can tell. These were two of the most important of my life lessons: goodness must be earned, and the struggles of people born (or put) behind the 8-ball must be respected.

For Craig, like some women born beautiful, his gifts are almost a curse. He should devalue them, find the hardest thing he ever accomplished — the thing that did not come easily — determined why it was hard, and be proud of that. Perhaps that’ll help him appreciate more the less gifted.

I’ll also be interested in how, if he has another child, he’ll handle sibling rivalry as a parent. He sure hasn’t handled it well as a sibling.

By the way, I paid Patrick $300, $100 more than I expected. Ouch.

Here’s a little item that puts the lie to the President. He’s been going on about ending our “addiction” to oil. OK, he’s an oil man, but maybe $3+ a gallon has made him see the light. Right? Not! Bank of America, Timberland and at least one other large employer are offering employees $3K if they buy a new gas-saving hybrid car. Great idea — and the government should be offering tax incentives to those who buy hybrids. Right? Not! Tax what you want to discourage, give incentives for what you want to encourage.

Which is why the government will treat that $K as income, and tax it.

I love you–

                                                        L.

6-8-06

Good Morning My Best Baby –

Strange on the surface that a woman so strong, so tough would find such warmth and comfort in being my Best Baby. But in Donna Boyce, tough broad and little girl lived side by side, and I’m proud that I helped with that accommodation.

Took half a day yesterday. Work very slow, Larry very sore. More heating pad time, and my back’s not bad today. Left hip sore, everything stiff. Wouldn’t mind being home today either, though I’ll stick it out. More heavy rain yesterday — 6″ in some places — with a gloomy damp day today and another deluge tomorrow. I don’t think the dampness is helping me any. So I won’t help it!

Got two old-friend calls last night, one good, one not. Betts is delighted with her new dog Millie (I asked, “Don’t you have a friend Millie?” “Yes.” “What color is Canine Millie?” “White.” “Call her Millie Vanillie.”) At this point she couldn’t be happier.

Sindy is another story. First, of course, I had to deal with the usual problem when Sindy gets going: keeping track of who’s who. I think if she’s going to make these calls she should email a cast of characters, their backgrounds and relationships. Probably run to ten pages.

OK, let’s see: she had to put down a cat, who was as old as Tai; Andy’s down to 124 lbs, has limited strength, and she expects him to die soon; some relatives (I think) are so strung out on heroin they’re totally neglecting their five kids, the oldest of whom is a budding pyromaniac. She continues not to feel well and may have to undergo a nasal/sinus scraping to see if spores have taken up residence inside her. Two courses of antibiotics have only made her sicker. She’s blue, feeling, overwhelmed, lacking in support. The five kinds’ situation really hurts because calling in the State may prove just as bad. I asked her to call this weekend. Not much I can do for her. Suggested she check with her church for leads other than the State for the five kids.

And of course she’s money-strapped.

Was able to gt the draft of “The Fever Dream” typed into the computer; I now have a hard copy to edit. Have no sense of its merits.

Was thinking of the expression “false pretenses.” Wondering if I’d ever encountered a true pretense. Perhaps, like Diogenes, I should  carry a lantern and search the world for an honest pretense. And if I find one, celebrate with a dinner of jumbo shrimp.

Well, I got my paycheck, and the raise gives me, in hand, $42. more a week. A bit disappointing. So I need another job.

6-9-06

Good Afternoon My Love –

Hip sore. Will just have to baby the thing this weekend and hope it forgives me by Tuesday.

Not much to tell you. Lisa may have narrowed her plethora of swains to 2 or 3. It must be nearing the time when she’ll be under pressure from swain, and her own sense of these things, to consummate. That’s a real danger point, if things go poorly.

We shall see…

I’ve been keeping track of which poker table I play at, how I do there, and how much I win or lose in a day. Tables “France 7″ and “France 9″ like me most right now; I lose on France 3 & 6. Won over 50K so far this week. Rare, so far, that I lose in a day — only once in 12 days so far. Couple of days have been breakeven: winnings under 1K.

This record/stats-keeping is a mild sign of obsession for me. Have done this kind of thing since I was about 12 or 13 and invented a baseball game I could play in my room. (I told you about it: pieces of paper with plays — single, fly out, strike out, home run et al — on them. Put ‘em in a plastic storage container, shake ‘em up — the sound would drive Jane crazy — and play ball. I made four teams out of friends and acquaintances, formed a league and kept all the stats. Played that game for hours at a time.) And I’ve noticed that when I get obsessed by anything game-like, I end up keeping records over which I slave, then when the obsession wanes I feel foolish and dump the stats.

Poker fits this obsession very well, because there are so many stats you can keep. I’ve already studied how often getting a suited pair leads to a win in Texas Hold ‘Em — damn few — and how often you win when you flop two pair (about 2/3 of the time). Now I’m analyzing table success. Obsession. But I’m not worried. I’m still doing the ADLs I’m supposed to, and poker is a fine distraction and boredome-beater. And I still hope I can get onto a money table some day.

My game still has deficiencies. I still have a blind spot for flushes, though I’m a bit better. But I should never miss a possible flush draw on the board, and I still do. Get wrapped up in pairs, forget to check suits. I still fold too often. I’ve improved that by seeing 10- and 20-chip preflop bets, as well as cheap bets deeper into the hand, unless I’m sure I can’t win. That’s helped me catch the occasional set or two pair, hands I’d previously watch come in after I’ve folded.

I’ve also learned that any pocket pair is strong if you’re against only one player, and is OK against two, though you must be cautious. I’m becomming more committed to the idea of trying to win a hand at the point I feel I’m ahead in it, rather than always slow-playing. Better to win fewer chips than to let an opponent luck out on the turn or river, and take the pot away from me. I do need to bet more early when the pot size is small and my hand is strong. I also need to recognize an agressive table and check more when my hand is strong, let overagressive players trap themselves.

I’m bluffing a bit more. The best way is with few bettors, raise pre-flop, then if the flop isn’t an obvious no-bluff (3 of a suit, 3 in a row, 3 of a kind etc.) and no one shows great strength, bet the pot after thde flop and again at the turn. Checks and calls will tell you if you can continue; if your opponent raises, on Fun Money tables, you probably should fold. That’s OK, though, because giving your opponents the idea you might bluff may well cause them to call when you do have the nuts. I’m less good at seeing a bluff opportunity at the hand’s end when, obviously, no one has much — typical when hold cards are big and the board is small. Or there’s a pair on the board and no one’s indicated a set. You can bluff a pot with a strong river bet, sometimes. I’m just worried about being called inappropriately, on Fun Money tables, when a loss means less.

I get tricked by pairs another way, too. Let’s say I have K-2, and the flop is K-2-5. I bet the pot, and someone calls quickly, or raises. So I put them on a K, but my two pair puts me in good shape. Then the turn and river comes 8-5. Thos two 5s have negated my 2s. So my winner probably isn’t any more. I often forget that, and variations of the same scenario. I’m also prone to being pushed out of hands when I have, say, second-high pair and my opponents are on draws. If they bet heavily I tend to fold, then watch to discover I’ve thrown away the winning hand. Not sure what I can do about that, other than reading my opposition better, not always possible when you’re not face to face.

I do, however, have to focus more on what my opponents are doing. I still have the same basic strategy:

–Is the hand worth playing?

–If so, do I want to raise pre-flop? (I rarely do, but Big Slick or QQ, KK, or AA, I sometimes try annoying 10-chip raises, and if someone bites I might do a pot bet or go all in — the latter if I have 1000 chips or less.)

–If my hole cards are marginal (I’ll need help from the board to win the hand) and someone raises heavily, do I stay or fold? Here it helps if I have some reads on my opponents. Some players bet heavily on anything, and if I have sufficient chips I might call.

But basically I’m still trying to decide if my hand is good enough to pay to see another card. “Cheap” is what I’m after. My worst dilemmas are: 4 of a suit after the flop; open-ended straight draws; inside straight draws; 2nd- and 3rd-high pairs; high pair with low kickers. I have a tendency to bet the flush draw if I can afford to, because when they come in — about 1/3 to 2/5 of the time — they can be very lucrative. I’m warier about open-ended. You can hit and still, often, lose. The the lower pairs — I stay with them as long as I can afford to, usually to the turn. Give both low pairs and inside straights one card to improve. With low kickers I need to see how others are betting, to guess if someone else has my high card. After that I improvise, accentuating caution.

But by then, what my opponents are doing are more of a factor. Their betting patterns can help me decide to stay or not. (Also, how the cards have been running. 2 or more aces in the previous hand make it less likely that the board will give me an ace, no matter what some math geeks say.) I’ve improved slightly in my reads, but don’t make it enough of a priority. You know the way I play: tv on, sometimes doing small chores, sometimes eating or talking on the phone. Makes it hard to concentrate on anything but my own hand.

See? 3+ pages on playing poker. Totally tedious. Obsessed.

 Baby, they opened a Home Depot in the Chelsea mall on Rte. 16. You’d have been ecstatic. I’d have been driven to distraction. Had it opened in 2004 or earlier, you’d have been able to get there on your scooter, and god knows what you would’ve brought home. I know it sounds mean, but I’m glad it took this long. You’d have made me nuts.

6-10-06

Good Morning Beloved –

Lord, what a crashing bore I was yesterday. And I could go on a lot more about poker and its nuances. Sorry!

I did talk to you quite a bit last night. Mainly about the one-way communication we’re indulging in at present. Except for the pocket 5s/full house incident, I haven’t noted anything that could be construed as coming from you. And you know that I’m a sceptic about beyond-the-grave communication. If it happens at all, I suspect it can be done only through someone like John Edwards, the medium. But I spent years underestimating you, believing you couldn’t do something and having you prove me wrong. And if anyone — anyone! — has the strength and the will to break through the great barrier between the dead and the living, it’s you.

So I told you to take your time. Maybe you need to help Freddie settle in. Perhaps you’re waiting for the rain to stop (if it ever does!) and the butterflies to come. Baby, I’m not going to go for something really iffy. The pocket 5s/full house is really iffy, since I play a great many poker hands and — like the mythic monkeys randomly pounding at typewriters that eventually produce Shakespeare. The odds of that 55/FH hand coming are less than a straight flush, and I’ve had several of those.

But I haven’t closed my mind to the possibility of you communicating in some fashion. So if a butterfly lands on me — especially if it’s a monarch — I’ll definitely respond. And if it takes you a year — or two — or however long, I’ll be here, and waiting for you.

Sciatic’s still a problem. Got through my errands and my session with Janet OK, but when I sit a while I hurt a lot. You know how it is. Tomorrow I may walk a bit, and definitely will get a chamois and eraser for art class, and will apply for work at the Barnes & Noble on Rte. 1. Caught a bit of a break when, along with the $291 Amex bill (very low by our standards!) came a check from Margery at Give & Take for $130. Next month’s Amex will be at least $300, thanks to the wiper motor — but the following month, I’m dreaming about no Amex bill. Can you imagine: no Amex bill? We never could manage that!

But I do miss giving you presents!

6-11-06

Good Afternoon, My Love –

It’s finally stopped raining, for a while anyway. More coming Wednesday. I’m hoping the house stays relatively watertight, though I could smell dampness in a corner of the bedroom two days ago. Not bad yesterday, but will keep checking.

Got in a modest walk for modest money ($1.52). Hip and back aren’t too bad at the moment. Am watching the first game of a Red Sox double header — they’re losing — after which I’ll go out, get my art supplies, and apply at the B&N. As I watch I’m playing in a poker tourney (not too bad: 144th, but it’s still early).

Added a ruminative section to the “Fever Dream” sketch, exploring more Jane’s possible thoughts on her mother, summarized by “I am my mother; I am not my mother”, which I could say about myself. I just hope the addition strengthens the piece. Have no idea. Need Tom’s feedback. Later I’ll type the piece into an email and send it, to Tom, Lisa and work so I have a hard copy.

Ended the tourney in 115th place. You’d have done better.

Heard from Sindy. More soap opera, more characters, more confusion on my part, but at least she’s doing a bit better. Would give you details but can’t sort ‘em out and, today, don’t want to.

6-12-06

Good Afternoon Beloved –

Been a bit hectic at work, with me doing my job and Andy Chase’s. But the day goes faster this way.

I did type up and send to Tom and Lisa a draft of “The Fever Dream.” So I feel pretty virtuous about my weekend activities. Paid Verizon and Amex. Will mail the application to B&N on Rte 1 tomorrow. Was told they’re not hiring, but you never know. Still hope Home Instead will come through. Tomorrow, intend to call Phil Furman and, if I reach him, will tell him I’m giving him a head’s up that I’m using him for a reference, but I’ll really be hoping he can use me an evening or two, or on the weekend. Am also going to try to squeeze some bucks out of my ebay guy. Gotta get that bank account up beyond $1200. Nowadays, $1200 can disappear faster than a cookie in a kindergarten (or a cookie in the House of Boyce!).

I’m trying not to dwell on the sequence of events a year ago. It hurts a lot to remember what you and we went through. I think that’s why I got down the last couple of weeks. And if I start thinking about it, I can’t stop for a while and things get bad inside. So I’m trying to keep my mind in the present. There are no ghastly anniversaries, now that Memorial Day’s behind us, until September, And I expect to be pretty miserable then, as the 20th approaches.

Now, onto other things.

6-13-06

Good Morning My Love –

“Other things” proved to be art class where, again, I was praised for stuff you wouldn’t put on a refrigerator, but so desperate am I for female flattery that I lapped it up. Composition the topic. I’d started with an idea of a diagonal using 3 objects — 2 bottles and a kind of large goblet-shaped glass compote – but didn’t like it. One of the bottles was squat so I tried a rhomboid arrangement, with a tall narrow bottle in the middle and the two squatter items on either side. That worked OK, and teach liked it.

The highlight of the night came after I got home — and I’m sorry, I’m going to bore you with more poker talk. I’d about broken even during my brief play earlier and was trying to get in a bit more before bed (almost 10 p.m. by the time I got home.)

Got on my current favorite table, France 9. Noticed soon that a player three seats to my left would use fairly big pressure bets on marginal hands and was accumulating chips by forcing people out. You play someone like that by waiting for a quality hand and simply calling him, so you can dump if your hand deteriorates and crush him if the hand comes in.

I had A-2 of hearts. Called. Flop had an A, but I was worried about my low kicker. My target bet solidly pre-flop, more solidly post-flop. I called. Next card an A. I felt better but could still lose to a fourth A and kicker. My target bet higher; I called. The river was a 2. Now I’ve got a boat, aces full. All-in time for me, and I come ut with 11K in chips. Part one of my 2-part coup.

Then I noticed a player two seats to my right (which meant I had position on him.) He was a one-trick pony. If he got any kind of hand, he’d either check, call or make a very small bet, then pounce with an all-in at the river. He amassed 13K chips that way. I waited.

I got a 9-5 off. Small bets — my opponent’s pattern — allowed me to see the flopped. I flopped two pair. But 9s and 5s aren’t the nuts, so I was cautious, calling rather than raising, especially since I thought a raise might drive out my opponent, and his chips were what I coveted.

The turn was a 5.

Now I’ve got him. All I have to do is reel him in. I know he has something, otherwise he’d have folded early on.

I check. He does too. I forget the river card, but it didn’t matter As per his pattern my opponent went all-in, and I took almost every chip he had.

In terms of observation, strategy, play and outcome, this was the best hand I ever played. It exhilarated me so much I shook for ten minutes. So sweet!

Won 26K during that session.

Tom wrote back quickly, and complimentary, about “The Fever Dream.” Said nice things about the piece, and my writing. Said his own ain’t so hot. He has a gold mine in his adoption journals, but I think there’s something askew in his sense of himself as a writer. Perhaps he’s still too wrapped up in parenthood and trying to get by, or it could even be a dislocation effect. When I can shift focus from myself to him I’ll try to puzzle it out.

Letters to Donna/from 5-31-06

5-31-06

Good Morning Beloved –

Rested most of the evening last  night, not even playing much poker. Needed it; glad I did. This morning better, physically and — thus far — emotionally.

6-1-06

Good Morning My Love –

Sorry I didn’t write much. Not too much to say, especially after the emotional bath I gave myself the day before.

Lisa’s dating situation is getting almost funny. She has four or five guys very anxious to get in her pants, and one or two who may even be interested in her. She is, of course, delighted with her new-found popularity and, of course, terrified by it. Plus, it’s exhausting dealing with all these slavering swains. Basically I think she’s a one-man woman, but how do you tell which one? It’s making her crazy(er). She alternately wants to indulge big time and to tell them all to go away.

6-2-06

Good Morning Donna My Darling –

Lisa didn’t write much re: her counselling session besides saying she didn’t get much out of it. Wonder what she expected?

Was tired and sore of back, so played very little poker and went to bed. I don’t miss you in bed as much as I used to, though should you suddenly be next to me (and reasonably healthy) I would assume I’d died and that there really is a heaven. My love for you still pours out of me. There’s just no one there to accept it, much less return it. I still talk to you a lot, now mainly comments but sometimes still those odd dialogues that are dialogues despite being one-sided. The only time I really wondered if you were trying to get through was during a poker session last week. I’d drawn pocket 5s — your hand — and as I always do said Hi to you. Someone bet high before the flop, and I told you I’d have to give the hand up, though — I said aloud — this time the set would probably come in. I folded — and the flop was 9-5-9, a gorgeous full house. If that was you, baby, I’m sorry I folded! Keep trying, OK? I’ll pick you up eventually.

It’s two weeks without anything on watch on ebay! Hope I can keep it up, would like to see six months without a purchase. Miss it, have to fight the temptation, but happily there’s nothing compelling to break down my reisistance. Other than grass, ebay’s been my biggest non-essential expense — and now that I think of it, I’ve spent more on ebay than on grass since you died, so it’s #1! It’s my finances that are, uh, #2….

Finished the sketch about Jane’s fever dream. Interesting process. I’ve told you the story: Jane extremely ill, touch and go, some time (I think) pre-me. Dreams she’s in a room with a curtain which begins to wrinkle in one corner. The wrinkles begin to spread across the curtain and she realizes if the wrinkles cover the curtain she will die, so in her dream she works at smoothing the curtain. Almost fails but prevails and lives.

But as I wrote it, I discovered that the story I wanted to tell was about why she fought to smoothe the curtain instead of just giving up. I didn’t know when I started that this was the story. The same thing happened to some extent with the migraine sketch, about halfway done. I’ve had to invent a character roughly (very roughly) based on Jackie who challenges my little boy as he tries to protect his mother, to focus the dramatic moment, so instead of the story being about a boy who helps his mother when she’s sick, it’s about a boy who has to find the courage to defy a formidable grown-up so he can help his mother when she’s sick.

Each sketch has mild built-in interest, but doesn’t answer the so-what? factor. In each case I’ve discovered the answer in the process of the writing.

Would you believe one of ECS’s pieces was performed on “Ellen” yesterday? If you were alive, you probably would’ve seen it: a piano piece by Gwyneth Walker, a very popular but basically second-string composer whose greatest talent is self-marketing. Played by a young Japanese piano virtuoso, it’s — he says — a favorite piece of his. Much talent, no taste. We found out about it yesterday afternoon when a dealer ordered a couple of copies of the piece and told us why. Are there widescreens all over heaven?…

De. seemed much more relaxed on Sunday, what with Freddie’s situation behind her. She remains suspicious of and upset with Abra whom she suspects of having designs on all of Freddie’s spoils. De. says Freddie told her there’d be a few grand for her and Stevie, but he didn’t do any  codicil, so it’s up to Abra to handle that, plus any other personal effects which might suitably go to family. De. wanted the piano but Abra seems to want that too. I actually think De. has no room for it and is better off letting it go. De. says she doesn’t hold grudges; maybe not, but she sure stews over things.

Now she can switch her attention back to her son and his latest approaching hearing. The main non-legal issue is getting Grant to accept the realities of his life: that he can’t drink, that if he drinks he can’t drive, that his brain isn’t wired quite like other kids and that he must live his life differently as a result.

Funny: after 1 1/2 sketches I’m already a bit tired of my younger self. Scared little wimp. I don’t know how much more I want to write about him. An odd thing is, though it’s my life history I’m telling, the stories come not from within me but from Jane; most of them are her stories in which I play a fairly passive part. I know I gave her much joy, as well as a vital reason to keep on plugging during miserable times, as if there were any other times. But other than battles of will between us, I was a passive passenger in Jane’s nightmarish journeys. The migraine sketch marks a transition to my greater role in my own and her life, reinforced by the incident when her father was dying in Virginia and she couldn’t cope emotionally, and left me there while she went back to NYC.. That’ll make a good story, and I’ll look better in it too! She was so ashamed of that — rightly, in my opinion — but to me it was a kind of rite of passage that told me I could hack adult responsibilities. A man’s job, given to a boy and discharged satisfactorily. And it was part of the long transition from dependent to caretaker which resolved so many of our conflicts because how could we be so terrible as child and parent when it worked out so well in the long run? I think we were forced to conclude that for all our well-documented mistakes and shortcomings, we were a better mother-and-son team than we thought. Underneath all the wrong were things that were very right. That’s the thing I most want to say to and about Jane. The scars from her black side are permanent on me, but her gifts to me still benefit me, and the best that I am arises from her love, generosity of time and self, and her ethics, which were strong and true.

6-5-06

Good Morning My Best Baby –

I apologize for not writing over the weekend. Be assured, my love, that even when I don’t write, I think of you constantly and talk to you often.

After my session with Janet I drove home and it began to pour and I just moped my way through the day, doing tv, sports and poker. Yesterday I awoke with the runs and couldn’t get over them and out until 4:30, when I walked but did little else. I just procrastinated and vegged out all weekend, basically, and I’m sorry for not writing.

Didn’t even type up the draft of “The Fever Dream.” Didn’t write a lick, except to Lisa (who’s OK but still overwhelmed and very edgy re: dating). Read sporadically. Low level blues, I’d say. Missed you. Always miss you.

Must say that Lisa’s Adventures in Dating is a cautionary tale to me. So complicated, so fraught with anxiety, so expensive!! Don’t want to have anything to do with the game, which I wasn’t much good at in the first place. My approach: be myself. If anyone shows any interest, assume they’re nuts and run like hell.

Tonight’s the first (of art classes. Tomorrow the car goes to Patrick. Eventually I go to Hades.

R.S. just gave me the word: I’m going from $34K to $38K annum. I’d expected a $3K raise, needed 5, pleased with 4. Starts this next paycheck. I’ll still need part-time work but not as urgently. It’s an extra $77 a week before taxes, so that gets it to $50. Need $50 more. Janet gives me maybe $20. So I need $30. at least. Two more Home Instead gigs would do it, but I won’t do Ponzo and nothing else is out there yet. At least this takes pressure off, and without ebay spending I may be a bit better than I think.

In reading the printout the orthopedic surgeon gave me, I was struck by a couple of things. Most important is the on-going, long-term risk of post-op infections. I’m warned that for at least two years post-op I’m to take antibiotics before having any dental work done at all, even cleanings. Wound care important. And remember all that stuff I had to give away: the raised toilet seat, the sock putter-oner, the gripping tool that gets stuff down from high places — I might need ‘em all for a week or two. Probably if I’m in rehab I’ll get ‘em there. And I’ll have to be conscious of the hip, leg and foot position, probably for the rest of my life.

Other details — size of incision, kind of anesthesia, whether or not surgical cement is used etc. — remain to be seen. The surgery is ten months away and who knows what the hip will be like then.

And the printout feels obliged to tell patients that they will not have more function than they had before the hip problems developed. Duh!

By the way: the above makes it a virtual certainty I’ll have at least one more extraction before April.

Have been reviewing my finances in my head. If I can stay off ebay I can save $25 a week, which is at least what I’ve been spending. 3 weeks since I bought on ebay. That $25, plus my found money, about makes up the $100 I need. And I can save $10 a week bringing in my own coffee and breakfast and about $5 a week if I did my own laundry. Thge former I’m prepared to do at any time, but I’m real reluctant to do my laundry myself again. Of course, pot remains the big optional expense, and if I could get 2 evenings from Home Instead I’d cut down on that too….

At least I feel like now I’ve got a handle on it with wiggle room in terms of more income and/or less expense still available to me. I’ll be very interested in what my take-home is this Friday.

I’m also figuring that, with stuff going onto ebay and my ebay guy owing me some money from before, I may be able to get the bank account up over $2K. I need it to stay there. Other than the trust, that’s my safety net. It’s $1200 now and that’s nowhere near enough. My hope is that, starting with this paycheck, I won’t have to dip into the account every pay period the way I’ve had to do lately. Stop withdrawals, increase deposits. We’ll see if we can, now.

6-6-06

Good Morning Beloved –

Looked around the bedroom last night, and you were everywhere. Not just the pictures or your wonderful Christmas message from a year and a half ago. There’s the bed: your beloved bed that you were so pleased with. The headboard we found together. The big pillows you used as a back support (me too!). The swing-out tv mounted on the bedside armoire. We’d seen it in the hospital and I liked the idea, but you tracked down a manufacturer and made it happen. And the armoire itself, the last piece of the bedroom set you adored. A few clothes are tossed on the folding chair you reupholstered so well — it was the last project you completed successfully. Subsequent efforts either required too much strength or visual/spatial acuity the tumor stole from you. But by the door is one of my favorites of your projects: the gold-flecked refinished mini-bureau. You did a GREAT job on that — on the chairs too!. Open the armoire and there’s the gorgeous mosaic jewelry box I bought you, and on the shelf by the bed:  your bling!! Inside the closets: photos, jewelry, your PC, bedding we shared…on and on. I am still steeped in you, my love.

Car at Patrick’s. As long as we do business together (many years, I hope) we’ll share you. What was it a bout you that made you so special to so many people? One thing: your courage in the face of your illnesses. Another: your tenacity/stubbornness/perserverence. You would not give in, not back down from something you felt was important. And living your life your way was very important. Another: your love affair with life, and the things in life which delighted you. If people expected you to be defeated, glum, negative, what they got was your delight in a sky, a cloud, a flower,  a butterfly, a child. You made us ashamed to be sorry for ourselves. Another: in your last decade you achieved a kind of wisdom, or at least perspective, that people found valid and inspiring. You seemed to have greatly sorted out what mattered from what didn’t, and what mattered was getting what good you could out of your life and not letting anyone prevent that from happening. People needed to hear that, especially from you. I was proud to play the enabler role in this scenario. And another: you were a crazy, sweet, funny, goofy ditz of a person whose company could be just wonderful. And finally: god, you were strong. As your outer strength waned, your inner strength increased. No one could spend 30 minutes with you and not feel it. Nature might’ve been trying to force you to your knees, but in the end, you were the force of nature.

Did my first drawing class, and must tell you there won’t be any exhibits of my work soon. We tried to draw bottles with vine charcoal on an 18″x24″ pad. Mine were static, inhibited little things. But after I learned about negative and positive space, filling up the page and breaking real-world shapes into geometric ones, my bottles were better and I was praised for my “energy” (sloppiness), because I scribbily (!) darkened the background. I did enjoy it, and the instructor’s a cutie (don’t worry, no chance).

Can you tell, my darling, how much I love you still?

Only problem with taking the car to Patrick, now that Craig’s gone (making my raise possible), is the walking. Back and hip are sore now. I expect quality heating pad time tonight, probably tomorrow too.

Letters to Donna/from 5-24-06

5-24-06

Good Morning Beloved –

Tried to go to PT.  They told me I had no appointment. I did, but…my approved visits expired on 5-16, and they haven’t heard back about more. So, since they weren’t guaranteed to be paid by HCHP, they cancelled the appointment. Only problem is, they didn’t say boo to me until I got there! Unprofessional.

Wasn’t real upset, though. Yesterday and Monday were physically taxing days at work, handling stock and some hefty special orders, and I ached in various places. And I didn’t mind hanging on to the copay.

Today and tomorrow, though, the copays go bye-bye: Tony the T tonight, my first appointment with the osteo surgeon tomorrow. And $200 for a new wiper motor; $150+ for two new tires so I can pass inspection for another $40. And don’t forget $40 a pop to gas up. Even if I get a $5K raise I figure, with Janet, to get only $82 extra a week. Still not enough, though a prolonged hiatus from ebay buying would help.

Ain’t makin’ it in Mass., kid. Miss that PCA money, but miss you more. At least, when I work extra, it’s not at the expense of being with you. Thanks again and as ever for loving me.

Submitted the BU Bookstore application.

Did I mention I miss you? Well, I do. One of the things I miss most is setting you up for some ghastly shaggy dog story/pun, and springing it on you. You almost always fell for it — you really were a wonderful woman! — and it was my delight to run the joke and have us both enjoy it. (By the way, I suspect that you weren’t quite as dim as you let on….)

Baby, so often it was just wonderful to be with you! We laughed a lot, didn’t we?

5-25-06

Good Afternoon My Best Baby –

Having another GI tract day. Don’t know if it’s those wonderful Trader Joe’s triple ginger snaps that I unwisely bought Tuesday and can’t resist, or some frozen tropical fruit I got at the same time and tried last night. Will try more fruit over the weekend, when I can afford to ride out the shits.

My PT sessions have run out and HCHP won’t authorize any more. I could appeal, but I won’t. I’ll go there Tues. and see if my therapist there has any farewell suggestions. After that I’m on my own, which is OK with me. Up to me anyway, in the long run.

Nice session with Tony the T. yesterday. He and Mrs. the T. are going to China in July to adopt a girl! Asked him more questions re: hip replacement, about which — for some reason — he’s very knowledgeable. I’ll likely have the ball of the joint replaced with a metal one, which will be screwed into the hip bone. Should be in the hospital up to a week, and walking within a day or two of the surgery. Likely to spend a week or two in rehab, which should cover the period where I’d need help if I were home (still can’t say “home” without feeling that my real home is anywhere you are. Dumb, huh? Damn — ), and perhaps can return to work shortly thereafter. I should walk better, have less discomfort — except on cold days, when the metal ball gets cold and aches. And Tony reiterated that the longer I wait the more problematic things can be, so he’s pleased with my decision. Will see him again in a month, more often in September.

I was supposed to see the ortho surgeon today, but got a call to come in earlier,  which always pisses me off (my time and job unimportant, his very important. Screw you, doc!) and have rescheduled for June 2 at 4 p.m.

Ginger had a colonoscopy. It shows she likely has Crohn’s Disease or ulcerative colitis. Told Lisa about our anti-colitis lean-protein diet, and strongly advised her to get her own colonscopy, since Jane, Ginger and I have/had GI problems, and Lisa’s got ‘em too. Suggested she apply the same intelligence that recognized the need to deal with her weight, to dealing with this problem, which is likely to worsen as she ages.

I don’t love Ginger, but I respect her as someone who tries to do right (and occasionally succeeds). I’m so sick of watching such folk suffer. You, Freddie, Janje and Curly and others. And I can’t do anything. Just watch.

They’ve also told her that lizard claw she has for a hand is arthritic psoriasis. Seems to me they’d figured out the psoriasis part many years ago, yet nothing much has been done. Why?

I think my reactions to all this have more to do with you and Freddie than Ginger.

Lisa’s dizzying array of potential swains is beginning to dwindle a bit as one by one the candidates reveal themselves shallow, uninterested and/or duplicitous. Do still think there may be a winner out there…somewhere….

Hey, baby, are there tv’s in heaven? I kind of doubt it, considering what’s on and how long the extention cord would have to be. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if, somehow, some way, you’re watching your soaps right now.

Would you believe they’re putting a Home Depot in that dinky defunct mall in Chelsea? Glad they waited till you were gone, otherwise we’d be there every day — and the thought of that giveth me the willies!

5-26-05

Good Morning My Love –

Feeling better.

One good thing may result from Ginger’s diagnosis: Lisa says she’ll get her own colonoscopy. Her grandmother, father and mother have GI problems and she already has hers. She needs to start monitoring the area.

Craig’s last day. The tensions between him and C.S. have surfaced this week, so the air in the Rental Dept. has been a tad chilly. So unnecessary. Both have sinned but their sins were minor; both are oversensitive and hold a grudge, making minor matters major. Just unfortunate, since they actually made a pretty good team for about a decade.

Assuming my buying on ebay is largely a thing of the past — dunno if it is, but assuming so — to that I add taking myself out to lunch (about 6 times a year), taking myself out to dinner, and spending $5.50 for a chocolate double-malted frappe at J.P.Licks, all little self-indulgences I used to give myself, now six months plus in the past. And I can go further in that direction, as previously noted: no more laundry service, no more Brueggers. Can cut down on the take out. And of course there’s my $50 a week pot habit. If the T fares go up, and they soon will, I see little point in a leave-the-car-at-home day, as I save nothing and actually lose, per day, though that doesn’t factor in the wear and tear on the car.

Is a life without any indulgences worth living?

Finally got through to my ebay guy, who just got his power back on Tues. Two weeks without power. Hope he can survive. I’ll go there after Janet on Saturday.

5-29-06

Good Evening My Love –

Skipped yesterday, thought about you all day and wanted to write you at length today. But after my walk I went to D. & M.’s, and just got back — it’s 11:25 p.m. — won’t write now. But tomorrow I’ll tell you again how much I love you and why. Old stuff, but I don’t mind saying it. I love you, Donna. We’ll talk tomorrow.

5-29-06

Good Morning Beloved –

So a year ago today, you were in the OR with your skull cut open, with Dr. Liu trying to hack off as much of that obscene tumor as she could, much less successfully, it turned out, than she thought, as the tumor had had eight months to work its way in and around your brain, and embraced it like a cruel, possessive, homocidal lover.

You were so scared, so brave. As usual, there was trouble getting and keeping a line in you; remember that patient oriental anesthesiologist? Nobody around — holiday — stillness like a held breath as they wheeled you away — god.

15 months with the operation.

6 to 9 month without.

You lived four months after the operation. Hard for me to get over that.

The other night I recalled how funny you were. A natural zany. Wonderful malapropisms (the Pinocchio Mountains in PA), a wacky way of seeing things. We knew how to surprise and delight each other with language, though I think you just did what came naturally.

It’s amazing really: when you look at it one way we were totally incompatible. Intellectually, culturally. I’m bookish, intellectual, NYC-cultured. You weren’t. Your interests were Elvis, soap operas, and any movie where a woman prevails over tormentors. We found enough common ground to decorate our places to mutual satisfaction, agreeing some, compromising some. And we simply respected and tolerated our differences.

Because we recognized and honored the strength and decency in the other — abetted it, I think — and realized we were soulmates inside because we were both victimizzed as children yet each retained our capacities for love and caring. And we built for each other a refuge of love that allowed each of us to heal, to keep pain and bitterness from souring our goodness, and from that shelter we could be strong, individually and as a couple. It’s as if our styles, culturally and intellectually, were just clothes that looked defining but were in fact shells that covered our inner life. Each of us penetrated those shells and supported that inner life.

I thought, and said aloud to you, that you’re a hard act to follow. I fantasize about sex all the time — have for decades (thank heaven  that most remain secret and never act on them). So I can imagine having sex with another woman. But I doubt I will, at least for the foreseeable future, because I can’t imagine developing another relationship far enough for it to become sexual. I tailored so much of my life to you, your needs and preferences, and I so enjoyed giving you pleasure, and you rewarded me so much with delight and love. How can I approach the kind of melding we achieved? And that melding occured through years of conflict and work, as we exposed more to each other and dealt with the fears and pain such exposure inevitably induced. I don’t know if I can make such an investment again. Doubt it. And who would make any kind of emotional investmen t in me? Who’d want to, when all I bring to any relationship is my personality? No money, no future. No interest.

But even if one did, would I want to subject her to comparisons with you? She’d need to be someone very special to fill the huge space in my heart you occupied. Someone small would disappear. Someone large would resist. I’d need someone of great stature, spiritually, a great soul.

Tough to find. I’ve only found one in my life: you.

By the way, D. told me that Je. has had long-term relationships, first with the head of the college she worked at, whom she almost married, and with the black sportscaster Jimmy Myers, who comes in and out of her life and is currently in. Funny it should be Jimmy Myers, though. Myers was a sportscaster who was more interested in stirring up controversy over Boston racism than reporting sports news. He saw racism everywhere and most of the time he was right. His reward was to be driven off the air. So of course he focusses his personal life on a white woman. Hey, why not? She’s pretty (and probably taller than him). But if Whitey is so evil….OK, if he rejected her just because she was white, wouldn’t he be racist too?

I wrote Lisa about writing you. I wrote:

“Wrote Donna — a year ago she was just coming out of surgery, but I wanted to tell her again that I love her and to explore again the whys of it. Still amazes me that two people so dissimilar in those aspects that supposedly determine ‘compatability.’ No computer dating service would ever have matched us up. But in our hearts we recognized the pain and hope the other felt, and responded to them, and then spent the first ten yeas or so duelling with each other until we’d figured out how to live together. It really is a wonderful story, and to my mind one small aspect of it is that it’s nothing like the typical American boy-meet-girl/love-at-first-sight mythic bullshit. Instead it was real, hard, gritty, grown-up and so much better as a result. Good things rarely come easily; in fact they rarely come at all. I feel all the prouder about Donna and me because we earned our specialness, worked at it, fought for it, even (I can’t resist saying it) unto death.”

My Memorial Day message.

You can see, baby, that I try to find the positive and stress it. The problem is that the positive is all “ago”, in the past, and it’s my bad luck to live in the present and face the future, and there don’t seem to be many positives in those directions. I never want to forget what we had and did together — even though I do forget, insidiously, on a daily basis, bit by bit — but I still have to deal with my day-to-day. At least my regret, my guilt are minimal.

But baby, not having you, missing you, hurts every damn day. Just wanted you to know. And I’m sure that, in between heavenly frolics and unlimited Twinkies and Haagen-Dasz coffee ice cream, you miss me too.

5-30-06

Rough Day, My Love –

Had some fried Chinese food last night and woke up feeling terrible. Took two immodium, avoided coffee, decided to postpone bringing the car to Patrick’s, finally threw on clothes and got in to work feeling a bit better but still pretty crummy.

Then I started remembering you in SICU at Mt. A, all bandaged up, IV lines coming out of you, monitors all over you, with that awful fishhook-shaped incision on the right side of your head, a legion of metal staples as precise as baseball stitches holding the incision together. You were still pretty blotto, but were delighted to see me. Still in a lot of pain, poor thing, that awful headache that never really got much better. But you were happy to be alive.

That was it about you, my beloved: no matter what you were suffering, you were happy to be alive, happy to be with me. And remembering all this, hey baby, I’m just a mess right now. Crying as much as I have for quite a while.

Two days from now, a year ago, you hit your high point. Your right leg had much more mobility, and your left was better too. You were still on massive steroids, but systematically you stablized. At that point the promise of improved functioning seemed about to come true. We’d have a short time of real hope….

…And then the clots started and your life began to end. God, Donna, I’m so sorry. It was so cruel to you, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about any of it, though we both tried everything we could think of. Those evil, wicked clots.

Ah yes. The Time of False Hope.

Letters to Donna/from 5-17-06

5-17-06

Good Morning Beloved –

Awoke to sunshine!!

They opened Rte. 1 south this morning. North still closed.

After having spent $38 to fill the car, leaving me $80 to last me 1 1/2 weeks, I’m alarmed at my finances. My bank account is dwindling, now down to $1500. I have to cut back more, but particularly I must earn more. If Home Instead doesn’t give me more hours soon I’ll have to look elsewhere, though just where elsewhere is I’m not sure. Have resolved to cut back on ebay, yet there I was last night, bidding on three items that together cost over $100. I lost all three because I set limits, but had things gone differently I’d have been shelling out a C-note I can’t afford.

I just can’t seem to finish growing up!

Of course, if you were still alive you’d be telling me it was OK, if I want stuff I should have it, that you enjoy seeing me get stuff I like (just as I loved seeing your pleasure when I’d give you stuff you liked). Not that it’s your fault I remain infantile. I know the situation and if I choose to behave irrespossibly I can’t blame anyone but me.

And just to add to the general fun, my windshield wipers have taken it into their heads to end their wipe cycles in a vertical position. They still work, they just won’t lie down. Probably electrical, ccaused by rain. Will wait a day for Patrick to deal with what I’m sure is a plethera of more serious problems, and call tomorrow.

5-19-06

Good Afternoon My Love –

Yes, baby, I skipped a day. And I’m not trying to fake it. I had the shits; they started so-so, got worse in the afternoon  before they settled down, and I spent the day shitting and resting and vegging. And not writing you. I apologize, my love.

The repair of the wiper motor will cost me almost $200. Killer. Will have it done March 31.

Set up an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon, for May 25. Then I got a call back that Burke, the muscular/skeletal guy, wanted to seed me first. So I see him June 8 at 4 p.m. and have no idea what I’ll be doing May 25.

Have been blue and lethargic in general. These financial hits are very discouraging, and soon the car insurance will start up again. Hard to figure how I’ll be able to tread water the rest of this year. And there’s Freddie, and there’s you or, to the point, there’s no you. The part of me that found myself increasingly alone as your health worsened, that part’s OK. But the part that was welded to you,  conjoined with you, that part will be sad and lonely for a long time yet.

Just for the fun of it, it rained like hell on the way in. Called my ebay guy in Peabody, and his phones are still screwed up. Not even sure from his message if he’s open. In any case, it sounds like anything electronic is compromised.

5-20-06

Good Evening Beloved –

8 months gone. And now, the anniversary of the Beginning of the End. Your agonizing pain, the MRI, that ghastly evening that ended with Dr. G. giving us your death sentence, the decision to have brain surgery. And then, the last nightmare that I don’t want to recapitulate just now. God, baby, how did we go through all that? We went through it together, as we did everything else. I’m honored to have been with you when you needed me.

Yet my feeling of our closeness continues to erode bit by bit. Holding onto you in my mind is like trying to grip air. These entries have gotten shorter, less intimate; I talk more at you, chit-chatty, than with you about the things our souls shared and, as much as I can manage, still share. But the immediacy of memory is eroded by time, and that’s what’s happening to me. I apologize to you, baby. This living alone gets to be a mental habit, this thinking for one. I have to do it, but it’s like every day a scintilla of you disappears and I can’t get it back. And scintillas add up, maybe to as much as a modicum!

Jeez, just realized I never wished Jane a Happy Mother’s Day last week. Sorry, Jane — I said it a few times, just never wrote it down. I’m losing touch with all my dead women!!

Good talk with Lisa. Her dating thing has been a mixed bag, as should be expected, but she’s had a couple of good dates where she’s been pampered, and has met one guy, Jimmy, who could be the real thing.

She sounds better: stronger, more self-confident, though I’m sure that’s temporary. She’s doing enough good things to remain positive. And I like some of the things her therapist is saying. Wish Lisa could see her more often, but if they start really getting into important stuff, that may change.

5-21-06

Good Evening My Love –

Back from the memorial service for Freddie. All together not too bad. Michael D’Antonio, Abra and D. spoke well and movingly. There was a lot of love in that church (Unitarian) today. It was a bit goofy too: a friend of Freddie sang Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” totally off-key and out of synch with the piano. It was so bad I thought you were singing. Then the lady minister asked if anyone wanted to say a few brief words, and Stevie said about 10 thousand of them till we were alternately laughing and yawning. But everyone lauded Freddie’s optimism, generosity, humor, curious mind and love of others.

There was a recedption, where I got to meed Je. again at long last, and for the first time Brother George. First, Je. My god, she’s tall. Put Je., D. and Sandra in the same room and you’ve got three Amazons. She’s blond now, surprisingly pretty, has a giggly style I ascribed to nerves. Pleasant, hard to read.

George. Also tall, about 6′1″. Heavy now, maybe my weight. The good looks of his youth have evolved into slight facial puffiness that made me think “alcohol.” Absolute bullshit artist from the moment he opened his mouth. Rapid, self-absorbed, I-know-everything manner of spech. You may have your opinion about a person or event, but George will tell you the real poop! Had a woman with him who never said anything. That kind of woman fulfills the same role for a man as jewelry for a woman.

To George, Mina was a beautiful woman who simply never mastered the rhythm method and who never abandoned any of her children; the state evilly took them. He would see you as “My Sister.” A possession. And he would expect you to accept everything he said as gospel. You’ll be surprised to hear I really didn’t like the man. As Sandra or Mina would, George tended to make the whole affair sound like it was for him.

Left as soon as I respectfully could.

June and Norman were there. I made nice.

Glad it’s over. Hope you and Freddie are together, doing you own, um, post mortem on the service.

Oh –I know it was a horrible picture of you and Freddie, but it was the only one I had! I’m sorry, baby –

Just talked with D. I think she’s proud of herself, her brother and her family, and glad it’s over. She was super. Her take on George was to see him as a rich source of info. Lived with Mina to age 12. He’s supposed to have a degree from Bentley. She also thought he drank, though she thought he was sober today. I have a feeling he had a stiff one no more than an hour before the service. I reminded her that Freddie always warned about trusting George, that he was a con man. And Freddie knew con men. D. says she’s cautious enough to be safe from him. I did point out that since George has something for which she has an emotional need, she leaves herself vulnerable to manipulation, and said that even someone as savvy as you was conned to some extent by Sandra, who had something you needed emotionally: kinship.

5-22-06

Good Afternoon My Best Beloved –

Maybe the best part of yesterday was the photo display at the reception (again, sorry your pic wasn’t better!) — great shots of Freddie as a young stud, skinny, dark, narrow-faced, punk-looking with all that hair! Wonderful stuff.

Called Home Instead. No additional hours likely in the near future. Still can’t reach my ebay guy: phones/electronics still screwed up by the flood. Lisa suggested I try to pick up some hours as a bookstore. Good idea. Also, will call Phil Furman just in case he needs dispatching help. As as of now I have nothing on ebay watch. Hope I can resist for multiples of weeks. Doubt I can, but hope to.

Feeling blue from yesterday. They tried to have the congregation sing “We’ll Meet Again,” which was a flop, but the words hurt: “We’ll met again some sunny day,” knowing that, most likely, we’ll never meet again, a thought which invariably brings tears, as it has now.

5-23-06

Good Morning My Love –

Spent the night missing you, so it wasn’t a very good night. It was so good having you within reach, a phone call away, a room away. I know I’ve talked about this before, but it keeps coming back. To have someone you love, to have someone who loves you, this is the best life offers. We were a pair, baby, a team, and we worked so well together, did things our way to the extent we could, and we were right about things a lot more than we were wrong. We were GOOD, good together and as a result good individually. That can’t be taken away. We had a damn good run.

Busy week. PT tonight, Tony the T tomorrow, osteo surgeon Thursday, Janet Saturday, D. & M. Sunday. Maybe ebay work Monday, if my ebay guy ever dries out.

At noon I went to the BU Bookstore and got an employment application. Filled it out, warned C.S. I’d used her for a reference — and was informed that in a couple of weeks I should be getting a raise. Just me. This is C.S.’s doing. (Of course, if it isn’t $4K annually I’ll still have to have a second job.) I feel strange about it. I believe I’m overpaid as it is and don’t deserve special treamtment.

Saw a bizarre bumper sticker yesterday: “Do Not Meddle in the Affairs of Dragons: You Are Crunchy and Good with Ketchup.” This is even better than the political sticker I saw the other day: “Proud to be Everything the Right Wing Hates.”

It would infuriate Craig if he knew about the raise, because he’s always felt underpaid — and because his leaving makes the raise possible. He’ll be replaced by someone who’ll be paid less, maybe much less, freeing up $ for moi. No, Craig would not be pleased.