kvetching up

Entry 1 And Fix Mistakes Before You Say Goodbye . I had a four hour lunch with a friend of Jenny's the other day--a family friend. She and I met the first day Leiney was at coop preschool, 19.5 years ago. She is a therapist, and the only one of Jenny's flying monkeys that eventually saw through the machinations and dissenting. Almost the entire conversation was Jenny related.  Do me a favor, keep in mind, should the topic of Jenny come up, don't tell me you know she loved me. Not helpful. It raises my hackles. Paul loves me. Cheryl loves me. Sara loves me. Eachean loves me. Chris and Moni love me. Ashley loves me. Hell, even my sister Catherine loves me (one helluva concession on my part). Of those things I am certain, based on their actions. But none of us can know--and it isn't helpful to me to tell me something that isn't knowable and flies in the face of her actions--that Jenny loved me. It is soul crushing for me, but living in that reality is more preferable t...

Entry 1 Jenny was 4 months pregnant and alone in the city when the towers fell. I can't get that out of my head, it was nearly  24 hours later, before I could talk to her.  She was overwhelmed with grief and an indescribable need to help people.  The second night, a group had organized a sleep-in at Union Square--people were scared and needed that sense of community. Jenny asked me if I thought she should go. I said it sounded  like a good idea. I don't recall if she went. Looking back, I feel an extraordinary amount of guilt not being able to there with her.  The scale of the disaster is hard to overstate--and hard to understand unless you actually were on the ground and saw the devastation., the destruction. The smell. Even I, visiting the pit for the first time a month after the fact (the soonest I could leave Alabama), overwhelmed. By then, t-shirts showing the Twin Towers with the tag line, "I survived 9/11," were being sold at your finer establishments in ...

 Entry 1 A few weeks before 9/11, Jenny and I flew American out of Logan to NYC. It's hard to imagine today what it was like back then. If you weren't flying, you could accompany departing passengers to their gate, or meet arriving passengers at the gate. Things were more lax than that. We were at the gate early--so early the flight in front of ours had yet to depart. We were prepared to wait. I'm sure we had our Palm Pilots, and were quite happy just playing the masturbating monkey game. It was a thing in 2001, it just was.  Anyway, the plane for the flight before ours was at the gate and was delayed--la plus ca change and all that. It was delayed a lot. So much so that American personnel allowed people to deboard the plane and go get food, stretch their legs, whatever. The counter was across the room from the gate, maybe 30 feet away. As people returned, the gate agent, who was at the counter and not the gate, asked people to hold up their boarding passes. From that dista...

Entry 1 I am home and relieved I don't have to stress about Willow any longer. While my sleep was less than restive since coming home, one thing I am not concerned about is Willow getting out. I am coffee'd up, toast and banana on board and not ready to go to rehab--but will in an hour. 122/74 at rehab at 8. Entry 2 Today my deck was scrubbed.

Entry 1 It's departure day. I just got out of a very long shower, now suddenly in dire need of coffee. Not much of a bleak wakeup, no desperate attempt to get sleep last night, it was effortless if one counts the nearly 3 hours of sleep as worthy of being considered rest. Of interest, my watch noted my heart slowed for 30 minutes to just above 50 beats in the middle of the night, meaning I had an episode of brachycadia. The watch is remarkably accurate, btw. I am not sure why that happened, but I am not happy about it. Entry 2 8:40 a.m. Just went downstairs to the coffee bar. I am in the financial district. No one in the bar appeared to be over 30. All the men were dressed in business casual,  women in power suits with pants or dark skirts. I felt like either an interloper or invisible at 56 with my shorts, summer shirt, baseball hat and a week's worth of gray scraggly beard on my cheeks. My coffee and hipster coffee cake are exquisite, especially with music like Moby's Por...

Entry 1 Abby is doing well. While clearly getting orientation fatigue--it ends today and classes begin tomorrow-she is still excited and ready for classes to start.  I awoke this morning in the deepest melancholy. It will pass. The same happened yesterday, I actually wrote Bunghole Liquors. about it but didn't post for fear people would urge me to call the crisis line. I know this shall pass, because by yesterday afternoon my funk was worked through and I was fine. It's going to be 85 today and I am going to go get coffee, two good things that will get me up and out of bed. Entry 2 3:44 p.m. It has been a day of wandering and exploring old books. This morning, after my standard venti with cream at a nearby Starbucks, we meandered around down amongst the tall buildings, until we came across the location where Wm. Lloyd Garrison published The Liberator. It was serendipity, I wasn't looking for it, but having found it, I was quite pleased. After that we made our way, with purp...

Entry 1 Abby texted last night to let me know she may have sprained her ankle and that she is going to seek an accommodation to get a single. I am worried already. Anxiety derailed my first year in law school--I had to go home in October of that year. I started over the next year. It's only day 2 alone, and they have great wrap-around services. They will take care of her, but it's PTSD triggering.  Leiney, meanwhile, is back home with her boy Jared, prepping for Italy, where they fly off to tomorrow for 20 days or more. Then, upon their return, school Little Italy, Boston. starts. I am a bundle of nerves. I hope Abby calls today. I would give anything to get her to talk to me--these teenage walls they build aren't scalable. Entry 2 I'm in a room alone in Boston. When I reserved the room with two queen beds, the cost was $450/night. Given the cost, I only rented one room for my sister Jane and I to share. I had paid for all the rooms on the trip. When she found out two ...

Entry 1 Yesterday was full, incredibly full. We got to Holyoke just before 8:30 and were busy all day until we left at 6. The craziest thing happened yesterday--and I am not including the terrible way Google Maps guided me to Best Buy to pick up Leiney's fridge (it was insane). Jane, who accompanied me on that trip, and I were sitting at a light, waiting to turn left. The green arrow light turns green and as I am letting my foot off the brake, the cars across the intersection just start going straight, running a clearly red light. 4 cars went through before a fifth driver hesitated and I made my move. The return to South Hadley and Mt. Holyoke was otherwise uneventful. It is everything I want it to be for her. Progressive, academically challenging, and absolutely the right place for her to be. I worry about homesickness, and know it's normal. They have such a wrap-around program, she will be okay.  My sister Jane, Leiney and I sat through an hour on the parent's role. I, as...