Swimming With Your Boots On

And I might be more a man 

If I stopped this in its tracks

And said come on, let's go home. 

But she's got the wheel,
And I've got nothing 

Except what I have on

--from Drivin' With The Brakes On by Del Amitri

9:40 a.m.

Jenny made it clear that she has no intention of stopping her relationship with Eric the pinché motherfucker, last night in therapy. It came about in an ancillary discussion.  I brought up that Jenny, despite spouting resolve to fight her disease over and again last night, has routinely threatened to stop chemo, as recently as last week.  I raised this point not to debunk her claim of resolve, but to tell her that I don't want her to tell me she is going to stop chemotherapy, should she make such a decision, because she can't get the affection she wants "and deserves" from me, or from Eric the pinché motherfucker.  I agreed that it is true she can stop chemotherapy for whatever reason she wants, but asked her not to tell me if her reason is she can't get affection because that means she is stopping chemotherapy because she can't see Eric the pinché motherfucker.  Follow my logic.  I won't give her general affection because she is carrying on with someone else.  Also, she claims she can't see him anymore (IHOP right fucking now, see below).  So, I asked her not to put that burden on me, because I won't tell the children that she placed him before them, but will carry that terrible reality, should she decide to stop chemo over pining for him, to my grave.  I will carry that burden, because the pain of such a decision would not be bearable for a child.  She is so good at lying to me at this point, why wouldn't this be an easy ask?

Our backyard is a work in progress.

The therapist asked, btw, if we were at all interested in changing what are doing in therapy to see if we can repair the relationship, and before I could respond, Jenny was clear she is not interested.  It is interesting given that we presented as having few issues to discuss.  Now, I am intentionally just not engaging in discussions about the affair, as you know, and reiterated and explained my position again last night in therapy.  Jenny's clear and vehement rejection of the therapist's suggestion, nonetheless, was jarring given all the bullshit about demanding my affection and running away last weekend and suggesting she would move out should I refuse to accede to her demands. Which.  I. Did. Refuse. This is a complete and total mindfuck.  

Right now, she just announced she is going to breakfast with Eric the pinché motherfucker at IHOP, which tracks with last night's new resolve on her part about continuing the affair after days of begging me to move back into the bed and threatening to leave if I didn't accede. Sigh. 

I am back to being completely unhappy.  I am stuck in this limbo with someone who thinks so little of me she carries on not just under my nose, but in complete and utter disregard of how soul crushing it is, practically dancing to the car when leaving, and bubbly in a way she rarely is with others, let alone me.  I strive to make her happy, and reckon its a fool's errand.  Mind you, it is not because I expect it will change her behavior that I do these things, but because I think they will be appreciated, and some modicum of thought or feeling about the actions she is taking might sink in.  My therapist tells me I need to treat her without any expectation of appreciation,

Pumpkin, sunflowers
and corn will soon be 
sprouting.

 that I need to do it for myself, so I can feel good.  This is a real struggle. I am there a lot of the time, but this is not where I am today, and I don't know how to move back to that place.  

I am flailing here, almost 9 months now, alone and shutting out the rest of the world more and more.  I hate writing about the disease and the infidelity, but hate not writing about my life, as it does allow me to see the reality on paper. I hate living like this, but hate the alternative more. I am adrift in a sea of fuckedupness, with no lighthouse to warn me of the shoals or shallow water, no sign of shore.  

She is a liar.  I write about it all the time.  But she is a liar.  She tries to make the contact with him sound de minimus, but as I have

Spring 2021.

written and have always known, that is complete bullshit.  He is her soulmate, as she has told me.  She carries on and squeezes out crocodile tears to garner sympathy, and expects complete supplication, but has no sympathy for me.  How is this?  How?  The other day, as I mentioned, she proclaimed, "I don't see him because I don't want to hurt you."  I called bullshit then, and I am confirmed in my prognostication. But that doesn't exactly make me Carnac.  I am again left feeling like a lackey, a pigeon, a mark.  

I Am No Chauvin-ist

I felt physical relief when the Floyd verdict was rendered.  I hadn't expected to feel such relief, and had no idea how the jury would rule.  But, let's be clear, after Rodney King, and the parade of people extra-judicial executions by the state through the use of police violence captured on camera since then, there was little reason for hope.  This isn't the first trial where the defense was for shit.  The defense didn't have to be good to get the cop off.  The bias in the criminal justice system is so deep, so rooted in heteronormative, patriarchal, white supremacy, that it can't be reformed, but must be razed and rebuilt.  I argue with my daughter about it all the time, because she would like to abolish the police, given their status as an occupying force in communities of color.  I learned to have a visceral fear and distrust of the police from an early age, something white folks are just coming to understand more clearly as the ubiquity of the cell-phone video camera doesn't allow the shelter of ignorance as an excuse to question the claims of the police.  

Never saw the double entendre before.

Honestly, my racial identity is complicated.  My mom was white, my father black (although apparently quite mixed, as according to ancestry.com I am 36% black--that's a story for another day).  My clearest memories of early life center around Holly Park and Rainier Beach.  It was an incredibly multi-racial place, albeit still primarily white in the early 1970s.  My mom did her best to instill her left-wing beliefs in us, but never really addressed or discussed our lives as biracial kids.  Ever.  I mean, I remember she literally bought "The Black Experience" board game at Goodwill.  If I remember correctly, the game box was the standard size and shapes of game boxes in the 1970s, from Mystery Date to Risk.  The box top itself was black, emblazoned with the Black Experience on it, and maybe (but who knows) a raised red fist taking up the larger part of the box.  We NEVER played it.  I ended up putting it in a closet in my bedroom, and like my identity, avoided thinking about the box or even looking at it, before throwing it away when I was a teenager.

My wife, who used to get angry with me for saying the Republican party was racist and that all cops are racist or enforcing a racist system (even those in my family), which again makes them the analogue of racist, became very woke a few years ago.  I mean, she got religion about racism living in NYC.  She experienced it first hand when we were in Gettysburg at a private campground.  The campground, virtually empty of travelers, was on probably several hundred acres with lovely camping spots under lush greenery.  We paid for our spot, and they gave us spot 301.  We went back to our car and started driving.  We drove past hundreds of empty spots--there may have been 10 families camping in the entire place. We kept driving, when we got to spot 300, we saw a sign that read, Spot 301 and of course we followed it.  We drove out of the foliage, and into a wide open field, and drove up a slight hill, where there was one site, alone with a fire pit.  I stopped the car, and started laughing.  Jenny kept asking why would they give us this spot.  I stopped laughing long enough to look at her with raised eyebrows and responded, why do you think?  I backed our truck up, and went and found a lovely spot under the trees, set up camp, and went and told the person who assigned us a spot we found a better location.  

Over the years, when we used to fly frequently, even before 9/11, we had to start separating before going through security and then later TSA.  If we didn't, Jenny would be subject to intense screening, routinely.  But, apart, it never happened.  I am often read by people as either latinx or middle eastern.  As a result, if I am with my wife, who is white, we match a profile of me as a drug dealer or terrorist, and Jenny as the mule or lackey.  It just is what it is.  But, she experienced that over and again, even to the point that when we returned to the US from Central America some years ago, we were pulled apart and sent to the special drug screening section of security at Dallas Int'l, where they screened her luggage, not mine.

Despite all these experiences, Jenny used to be baffled when I would do things like get a receipt for gas every time I filled up, or not being willing to return something to a store absent a receipt.  I didn't want to A) walk in with it, and/or B) walk out with the item after being refused a refund and then being accused of shoplifting.  

Then, one day, about 3 or 4 years ago, I am getting gas at Safeway in Renton, as we were going somewhere, who knows where. Anyway, as I got back into the car after filling up, Jenny says to me, hey, I understand why you get receipts when you get gas.  Eric the pinché motherfucker always gets receipts too.  Now, I knew he was a co-worker, didn't suspect a thing. But, I find this whole story irksome.

This brings up an aside, which I am writing down to remember.  In 2017, she began to go work out at 7 AM each morning at TOPS. She told me she was working out with other teachers, Guy, Eric the pinché motherfucker, and maybe one other person.  I don't recall.  Some months later, one morning she said to me she was going to go work out with Eric the pinché motherfucker.  I said, what happened to the others, and she hesitated, before saying the others have stopped coming. My gullability almost willful  .   .  .

I am trying to stay on point.   Okay, let's fast forward to yesterday.  The Floyd verdict came down, and Jenny texts, "Woohoo."  Literally.  So many thoughts.  First, she communicates with him first on everything.  I just know and it disgusts me.  Second, I didn't feel woohoo.  I couldn't.  The whole thing was terrible, from the death of Floyd, the racism of the police as evidenced by Chauvin's actions, the opportunism of people like Rev. Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and the willful flaming of racism by people like Tucker Carlson.  Fuck the whole thing.  And, it never ends.  Not moments after the decision, and my admitted sense of relief, Leiney walks upstairs and in the smugness of a teenage activist announces the shooting and killing by the police, of a black Ohio teenager, who had called the police for assistance.  And so it goes.  .  .