kvetching up

I am not a religious person. Not even slightly.  I am not an atheist.  I am not smart enough to stake out a position, or to say how or why we exist.  But when I am feeling low, give me Mahalia Jackson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Hank Williams, Roy Acuff or F.C. Barnes singing about their faith, and it buoys me. People persevere, they push on through hard times.  That's what this particularly working-class flavor of gospel music says to me.  I don't have their gift of faith, but I know that this too shall pass.   I haven't written in so long because work, the dogs, Jenny's illness, Jenny's anger, moving, unpacking and preparing for next week's backpacking trip have sapped me. I have been holed up in my room for about an hour as I write this, listening to Fern Jones sing. She was a holy roller, tent revivalist musician whose music was almost lost, but rereleased a few years ago.  She has been compared to Patsy Cline, high praise, really. I digress.  ....

  Entry 1     8:54 a.m. Willow has learned to fly, or so she thinks.   Last night, as Jenny was laying on the sectional, Willow came around the corner, jumped and cleared the back of the couch. She pulled off a perfect four-point landing.  She literally stuck the landing. Unfortunately, by stuck I mean she landed on Jenny's chest where the needle from the chemo pump enters the port to her vein.  Jenny didn't see it coming. Neither of us did.  Jenny, after pushing off a clueless and cuddly behemoth (its like cuddling Wm. "Refrigerator" Perry as a toddler at this point), doubled over, more in fear than in pain.  But finding her port was secure, she wss still understandably shaken and also angry. She went to bed. This morning, she woke to find the chemotherapy drug FolFox leaked and leaking all over her clothes, and the needle completely out from the port. She bagged the pump and needle, and called Dr. P. The best laid plans, and all that. ...

Entry 1     6:27 a.m. Woke up at 430 to the sound of packing tape being unspooled.  Twas, Abby, who had yet completed packing, and consistently refused to let anyone help her. Her room went quiet around 5.  The movers arrive between 8-9. She will be cranky today, to be sure. Jenny was texting with el pinché, under the full effect of her nightime meds, when I pried her off the sectional and coaxed her to her bed. I was angry about this, but said nothing. She would lie or feign surprise, or more likely, both. I am, after almost a year of this, exhausted.  I am tired.  I am weary. I could sleep for 1000 years. I think my anger today stems from the fact that everything I do is for her, whether its a vacation the week we should be moving or readying the house for a move, the extra work I had and have to do because we weren't home; the riding in the sand dunes, riding with her behind the wheel despite the risk. Shit, the purchase of the car itself.  He...

Act I   She Lives With A Broken Man, A Cracked Polystyrene Man I am exhausted. I slept well enough, but this marathon has too many intermittent sprints for my 54 year old body, and I have always been better at walking than running anyway. Wednesday started early, with me taking the dog to the groomer at the PetSmart on 130th and Aurora at 8:00.  I got home and went to work. It was pleasantly busy yesterday, work was, with many meetings.  None were contentious, but nonetheless busy.   It was a quiet house, especially conducive for getting work done. Abby doesn't have classes on Wednesday, and Leiney sleeps in a lot now that she is working everyday.  Jenny sees Eric on Wednesdays.  She doesn't tell me that anymore, she always has other things she tells me she is doing.  But, she left wearing the Dallas Cowboys baseball hat just around 9 to have breakfast with a friend, and didn't finish breakfast until nearly one. At 11:48 I texted Jenny to let her ...

I always enjoyed tall tales. Today, not so much. It's pushing 1:30 a.m.  I can't sleep.  As we approach 9 months of illness and 8 months of me learning of the ongoing and years' long affair, I am tired.  So damn tired that I've buried the lede. Jenny, feeling healthy, was out again tonight at a Big Sisters of King County alum soiree.  I am in monosyllabic mode, given my restoked anger. She plops down on the sectional and prefaces the interaction with the following: "I have something hard to ask you."  Uh-huh is what she got back from me. She asks, "Have you called Kandice?" This question is ridiculous. I called her once, and I told Jenny after I made the call that I had no interest in speaking with her again.  Jenny then tells me that Eric's the pinché motherfucker's wife, Kandice, has claimed I have called her AND moreover, have suggested the two of us hook up.  To. Be. Very. Fucking. Clear.  Whether he is making this shit up or not, she is...

I'm cranky over the mundane pettiness of this existence.  The grating anger toward me, the seething resentment, which moved like slow magma beneath Jenny's otherwise calm exterior when she was healthy, and that used to infuse our everyday interactions, shows up again when she is functioning without the effects of chemo.