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….
