kvetching up

Abby and I were sitting on the far corner of the black leather couch closest to the fireplace, by the picture front picture window. Buddy was lying next to us on the edge of the couch, his tail wagging as he looked out the window. It was a bright July afternoon. The living room blinds were open. The door was ajar. Warm air, carrying the smell of cut grass, blew gently into the house and made everything seem almost perfect. The room was full of light. We were goofing. Abby and I as I showed her a ridiculous video from my youth called The John Wayne Rap. She watched it with the impatient distance of a teenager, pre-a noyance evident. I was doing an atrocious John Wayne imitation, my noise hitting Abby like a shuriken each time I threw a daha her way. We were laughing. Jenny had just come home from the scan she had insisted on getting (after losing 25 lbs in a couple months without trying), the one she was told she did not need, the one the physician’s assistant told her would show nothin...

Three days was the morning My focus three days old My head, it landed To the sounds of cricket bows I really couldn't have hoped for a better Christmas holiday, with both girls and I celebrating multiple times. We went to the Central Cinema twice--once for the Muppet Christmas Carol which, bluntly put, is sacrilege to the memory of all I hold holy around the bourgeois Dickens story. I own the Reginald Owen, Alistar Sims, George C. Scott, a couple of cartoon versions, but not the Mr. Magoo version (it must exist, right?). All have one Marley. None have Rizzo the Rat accompanying a Gonzo as Dickens to provide exposition. Call me a purist. I own a very old copy of the story itself--not quite a novel in length-that I bought when my mother was dying in hospital back in 2008. I have never gotten through the first stave, praise the lord of ADHD.  Anyhow, Christmas has been an utter delight. We dutifully watched Charlie Brown's Christmas, played board games together--a first since Jenn...

I am tired.  No, I am exhausted. I am in coach, a daughter on my left, a daughter on my right. I have the attention span of a gnat, so while they are watching movies. Leiney, on my left, is watching The Santa Claus, while Abby is watching Tony Kushner's Angels in America. I saw both parts at the Repertory Theater back in the day, after reading Roy Cohn's biography. I wasn't prepared. I was in my 20s, and Kushner's storytelling overwhelmed me. I thought the Reagan era Republicans were the worst monsters. Given the number of people who they let die without lifting a finger and continuing to propogare hatred toward gay men and IV drug users, it's hard to argue that they weren't Nazis. How many died during that time? How hard did ACT-UP have to fight to get the government and the people to care? How could we as a country just let people be left to the ravages of the virus? The hysteria--someone should juxtapose the way the culture responded to these crises. I rememb...

 

Rockefeller Center , 2025 .   Tricycle Santa, midtown 2025. E. Houston and 1st. Saks, December 2025.     

I love the train. I prefer riding them in Europe. 4 hours is the ride from Northampton to Penn Station. The girls are sitting and talking across the train car from me, catching up. I am listening to a story--not voluntarily--being told by Abby about a roommate had irresponsible sex and asked Abby to drive her to get Plan B. Abby doesn't understand train etiquette. She is clearly excited to see Leiney, which just melts my heart. The last time the three of us rode a train together must have been Europe. I remember presidential candidate Paul "Clinton is a pander bear" Tsongas talking about the hollowing out of Massachusetts and the East Coast back in 1992. No one has done anything about it--and to be clear the boneyards of industry are filled with bldgs which are made of brick, most likely from clay dug and fired in Renton, once the location of the largest brick manufacturing in the US.  A brief aside--we are on a train that just dropped people off in Springfield. Now the t...

Today in Mystic, we went into a Christmas ornament store--quite large-- which had some of the most garish things for sale I have seen. I didn't try and catalogue them, heaven forfend, but did take a few snaps. My first clue that anyone expecting anything that wasn't gaudy, loud, flashy, raffish or tawdry were the horrible nutcrackers. They all had tags from the manufacturer which read, Designed in the USA. That odd statement got the better of my curiosity, so I flipped the tag over and discovered they were manufactured in Suzhou, China. Imagine how confused the people assembling a cowboy grandpa clad in all white attire, complete with handlebar mustache, with clothes so loud even Liberace or Huggy Bear wouldn't wear them. His girlfriend was next to him. She was blonde, and very young. I assume the designer was Jeffrey Epstein or Jeffrey Epstein adjacent. Just gross. They had dozens of mermen ornaments. Why? Dozens. Most puzzling to me was the one in a bunny suit, pictured h...

  We went to see Abby's show again tonight. The kids were all terrific. Unlike last night's show, I managed to keep my eyes wide open throughout. This was no small feat, given my track record over the last 20 years of falling 🍁 asleep as my children performed in front of me. I just have a real knack for lights out  as soon as the lights go out. I probably shouldn't have been in the front row so often back at their Youth Theater Northwest performances, but here you are and there you go. The girls found it hilarious. I didn't sleep through entire productions, or an entire show, or even scene (well, not every scene). Given my penchant to do it at the movies too--a habit of which they were well aware--I am not surprised at their tolerance for my instant--juat add darkness- somnolence. Speaking of sleeping,  knowing we are back in the City tomorrow is going to make sleep tonight a bit like Christmas Eve. The best part of the trip to Manhattan, I think, is learning that Abby...

  Stilted Santa. Mystic, CT, 2025. Leiney and I spent the day at an outdoor mall, a la Gilman Village circa 1984. It is a Christmas celebration. There were lots of shops to explore, and explore we did. It's pleasant being with Leiney, although I'd say the certitude of 23 is about as grating as the snark of the teenage years. I will say, I was the king of assholes as a teenager, and knew precisely how the world worked when I was 23. I have slept most of the day away, absent the trip to Mystic. Leiney has commented on it. Hmmm. I am awake and rested now. I begin to wonder, however, how much I sleep at home without realizing it. Hmmm.  .  . We went to some Scandanavian store which had vibes of Ballard or the Scan Deli in Renton back in the 1980s. It took me back, far back. Despite its Finnish/Danish/Norwegian/Swedishness, it had lots of Omi-like things. I found marzipan stöllen, which means that tomorrow night we will have 2nd of Advent in Manhattan. That would make Jenny sm...

New London, CT On Friday we Ubered to Seatac, flew to Charlotte and then Providence. Next, we ubered to Amtrak and rode a train into New London. Abby picked us up from the luxe Holiday Inn, not to be confused with the Holiday Inn Express. Abby came to get us in her 2001 Honda CRV which creaks more than my knee which I didn't think possible. I discovered last night while at the restaurant that I'm down to the drugs of my checking account my next paycheck not coming until next week and me unwilling to dig into my savings anymore. Between inflation and the cost of living in supporting at least partially one child and completely the other on one income life isn't fun for me these days. I have a plan I'll work it out and I digress really I wanted to talk about all the traveling. Tonight we saw Abby's show which I cannot explain. Nevertheless it was lovely to see Abby in her--you know--milieu. We had dinner at Chipotle, then went back to Abby's dorm which is really a ...

Time keeps on slipping into the future. . The ache of loneliness is real. It barnacles onto you. It can sit there for a long time, while you maintain your life above the depths. You don't have to be living, really. Existing above the depths is enough, a creosote covered pylon, resisting the waves while slowly being encrusted in the seagull shit of daily existence. The tides come in and go out. Eventually things shift. I don't know if it's the muck into which we have been driven which erodes or loosens or something else, but we end up under the brine, or at least the parts of us with encrusted barnacles. The little bastards start sticking their tongues out, filter feeding on the emptiness we had kept dry, but in which we now swim.  I'm really feeling it today, and am grateful I am with Leiney and soon Abby, who are lighthouses when the darkness descends.  --------------------------------------------------------- I am so obnoxiously self-absorbed that I must admit that I ...

I love the holidays. No newsflash, I know.  I hate the void left in Jenny's absence. I hate the feeling that I have no chance of seeing her again, even if it's only to say goodbye  I woke with the ache, the pain of missing someone you loved and will love until you can't love anymore.  ------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanksgiving 2025. 3:16 p.m. Willow and I just returned from the Park with no name. It was closed for the holiday, which was surprising and didn't stop us from our daily constitutional. I found the sole parking lot that wasn't behind a gate or 🚧 barrier 🚧, and away we went. It's the highlight of her day. Now, the heat is off, and she is on the porch, guarding the open 🚪 door 🚪. She is quiet and adorable. At the park, which is very large, as I like to point out whenever the opportunity presents itself, a man came out of nowhere and was approaching me rather quickly. I'm not saying I was about to get mugged, ...

Willow and I are about to go for our daily constitutional. I live in a neighborhood densely populated with dogs--so many dogs. I would guess fifty percent of the dogs are pitties. Most are super friendly; typically, their tongues are lolling out of their mouths as their entire bodies wag with enthusiasm. There are exceptions, of course. The other day, as we drove home from running errands, we saw two pitties being walked on opposite sides of the street. On one side, a sweet, happy, brown-and-white dog obediently followed its owner. Across the street, about ten yards up the road, a woman strained to hold the leash of her lunging black-and-white hellhound. The creature was as desperate as Donald Trump would be having learned McDonald’s was closing in five minutes and he hadn't had his daily Happy Meal.   The park is surprisingly huge. I haven't been there without seeing dogs everywhere. Despite its apparent lack of an official name, it is incredibly busy. Many peopl...

At the park, I walked my dog through the rain this morning— not really proper rain— more like air that has decided to shrug water at you out of habit. It suited my mood well enough. As I walked, my thoughts kept returning to the same small universe they often do. They are not new thoughts. They orbit the same losses. They consider the same betrayals, the same questions that never resolve. They have been captured, these thoughts, never to escape, never to be forgotten, never to burn up in the atmosphere. It is simply the gravitational field of my life now. What might seem or feel like self-pity is more like muscle memory, which tells me I need more exercise. The holidays are here, and Christmas has always been central to my life, atheist that I am. It was stitched into Jenny’s life — the love of Christmas — at least as strongly as it was stitched into mine. We carried that love forward with the kids, year after year, without ever needing to talk about why it mattered; it just did. I...

So many things, so many. I went to a scheduled doctor's appt today, and to my shock and dismay, there was no record on it--despite my calendar entry. 

Losing my hair. I slept in the guest bathroom floor on Saturday night. Willow doesn't cotton to wind, and we had lots of it on Saturday night. A 52 mph sustained gust lifted up Jenny's propane heater on the deck (the kind you see at outdoor restaurants in Seattle,e.g. Red Robin). It picked it up, as I said, and threw it across and down on the deck. It bent the hood in half, separated the top from the bottom, and moved it about 12 feet. It moved so h$d, it picked up one of the outdoor dining chairs and forced it onto the table. Following the crash, the lights went out. Willow and I repaired to the bathroom, me with a pillow and blanket.  Despite its cramped nature, we slept there until well after two--some 5 or 6 hours, before I got up and went to bed. Willow, kept me close. I love a good storm.

Wednesday. It's been a quiet day. Most days are quiet for me these days, and I'm enjoying the stillness. One would think I would become introspective. Meh. Why would I want to climb inside my head, it's cluttered and filled with useless facts.  This hermitage, briefly interrupted, has clapped back quickly. You can't get from point A to point B if you are unable or disinterested in making any point whatsoever.  I am of two minds all the time--incredibly social, or at least seeming that it is so, versus maximally private. This isn't new. As I said earlier, I had a brief change for a bit of time, out in the world, having a swell time. But, it was never built to last. The relief I feel being a back in my own private Idaho can't be overstated. It's nothing personal, it's more like that master of song, Gilbert O'Sullivan used to say, I'm alone again, naturally. Not to say that I identify in any way with his maudlin masterpiece, his solipsistic specialt...

It's Monday at 930. I've already been up, out and back home again. Leiney and I renewed her tabs. It was the easiest transaction at a DOL licensing office in memory. At my age, saying "in memory" is dangerous, because it is entirely possible an incident that should be in memory, is more likely laying on the ground somewhere you can't remember. I paid her 1000 of 520 fines on Friday, and her tabs today. Soon we transfer ownership and sell the car. I used to get hired. I would apply, show up, and get the job. NSM today. 5 jobs I qualify for on paper, places that flew me out, put me up, fed me and spent time with me have all rejected me in the last 24 months. I'm not embarrassed. My CV is impressive. I am good at what I do. But between being super gray, and interviewing as if I were a 5th grader participating in law school moot court.  I'm 59. What do I have? My girls. My sisters. My dog. That is a good world, maybe something I can make into a perfect world i...

Sitting in the sun, soaking up its rays. I am fighting walking pneumonia--it had been believed it was just vanilla bronchitis, but no such luck. It's bacterial pneumonia--thankfully I have the vaccine,--but what a bear it has been. My stubbornness, matched or perhaps surpassed  only by my penchant for being alone, is legion. A friend ofine texted me the other day teasing me and calling me "Gone Girl" because of my summary disappearance from all socials (save LinkedIn). I have been absent. It is true. But, I am living. As I sit here on my keister on the patio area at my house, it's hard to believe it's been almost 60 years since I emerged from the ether. Can't say there is much to brag about. I was killing it for much of my life, surprised, albeit happy with my lot.  It's hard to feel lonely when you are numb all the time. Not in a whaaaaa, I want my binky sort of way--Im not screaming or complaining about the lot I have drawn or the platform I have built u...

  It is just there. I mean, there is no below the surface. There are no good days. There isn't a day I don't wish I didn't have less cowardice to just be done. Or less worry for my girls, lest they follow after me. I am not bereft. I am neither morose nor sullen. It isn't that I can't find some modicum of pleasure. I am sitting in a candle lit bathroom with music I have collected and curated since my teens playing in the background. This is a small dream for a small life. I stopped being alive a very long time ago, with some.punctuated moments-like traveling across the country with Abby-of unmitigated joy bordering on perfection. But, it slips away. I have ambled into a castle's keep, the walls of which I only fortify to my own detriment. And yet, as I have done since loss became real back when Corey drowned, I pull back. Without love, without that risk, you can't be hurt, can you?  Whether it's disappointment, betrayal, or death, I wasn't built as r...

Musée Mécanique,  2017.   This morning is the last chance for me to climb in the beast and go to the Puyallup Fair. Jenny stopped going to the fair around 2015, as did Leiney. Abby and I have gone together without them each year since, until Abby went away to college. Last year I went alone. Twice. I have been to the fair this late in the season. I go for the animals, the arts and crafts, some of the sellers in the pavilion, to see my cousin, and of course for the scones. I can't imagine going today, but maybe.

"I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm" In large beds in Seattle, New York, Riverside and Renton I would wake on weekend mornings, Jenny beside me asleep--for I have always been an early riser and she a late sleeper--I would turn to gaze upon her. Her summer lightened hair--flaxen-colored from the sun's rays--I would softly and silently stroke, knowing only I would ever know of such moments. She would wake,  a pixie smile would come across her face. We would hug, cuddle, and begin to plan the day. It seems those moments were plentiful in NYC. Despite the troubles we had in Riverside, there too our weekends were filled with fun and adventure, if not  the feelings of love I remember elsewhere.    Memory is tricky, though. For, I know that in NYC and elsewhere Jenny's mercurial temper could show up out  of nowhere.  It would appear like a process server pulling up in their car at the house whi...

I was awakened shortly after 1 a.m. to the beeping of a dying battery alert from a smoke alarm. These alarms are hard wired into the house, and the battery is only for backup. It turns out the power had failed.  The house was dark, my phone near dead, and the dog on the bed punchy-pawing me as the chirping of the smoke alarm scared the bejeezus out of her. I groped in the dark to the floor where my pajamas reside in the night, finding them and then sitting down to put them on one leg at a time. Willow and I went downstairs and I let her go do her business--searching for squirrels and raccoons as it turns out--and giving her a treat on her return.  I sat on the couch for a moment, trying to grok how to proceed if the power was not back in the morning. I could go to work, I thought, and then laughed loudly in my head at the idea. Shrugging my shoulders, the chirp of the smoke alarm sounded again. Given the number and size of the house, I wasn't sure where it was coming from, so ...

I have opted over these many years to build an insular world, one that extended only to immediate family, and in a more granular sense an interior space of only me--for all of us I suppose this is the case. Even when home, if not with my kids, much of my time has been spent in my head with music. As I am sure I have written about before, I suppose because of my mom's influence and the era I grew up in, singer songwriters have been everything. From Cole Porter to the Carter Family, Lucinda Williams to Led Zeppelin, Mary Black to Mazzy Star, and on and on, I have lived in my head their music and lyrics wrapped around my thoughts, and providing structure to my memories. Nancy Griffith died of cancer during the COVID epidemic, as did John Prine (he of COVID after a battle with cancer). I discovered both during the early years Jenny and I were together. Around that same time I discovered Kate Wolf's work at a boheme apartment Jenny was housesitting at right next to the Safeway I use...

My mom loved music and shared that love with me, for which I will be ever grateful. Music brings me peace and happiness. I remember listening to KRAB radio back in the 1970s each weekend, where the then hippy-run nonprofit radio station served up pop and  folk music from the 20s and 30s, contemporary "experimental music" which I probably falsely remember as the banging of pots and pans, triangles and the sounds of chainsaws, car engines and anvil hitting the floor of a garage. There was also bluegrass, and lots of it.  Her nurturing of my love for music, whether intentional or not, was profound. Each year for several years we would go and see Peter and the Wolf at the opera. During my asthmatically bound early years, I remember three things most vividly: the sound of a now old fashioned humidifier pumping steam into the room to aid my breathing; listening to a Disney album that showcases and discusses a variety of unusual musical instruments from around the world (narrated b...