kvetching up

Entry 1    10:38 p.m.  5.12.2022 In the cell phone lot. Leiney's plane landed 30 minutes ago, but the jet way is broken. That I have left the house is a minor miracle. I'm curled up tighter in my house than a hermit crab in a shell two sizes too small.  The doctor was good the other day. Follow-up next week. My weight concerns were validated, I stepped on a scale. It was a talking scale. It kept repeating "one at a time, one at a time."  I got new medicine prescribed, not a bad thing. However, I haven't managed to get it together to pick it up.  Got a reminder call today from the pharmacy. The irony wasn't lost on me that Jenny's meds were never ready on time at that place. People calling and texting. People asking to come over or for me to go out. I just can't. Not in that space. It goes with the territory of my depression. I will force myself out eventually, but it is going to take time. Please don't take this personally, and I appreciate all the...

Entry 1   10:35 a.m. I am at urgent care--or was.  UW Medicine, whom I trust (despite the fact that they misdiagnosed my mother for 1.5 years, which ultimately led to her death) more than Kaiser.  Last week I tried to make an appointment to see a primary care doctor, and the first UW Med Clinic appointment offered was October 15. That was for a clinic near me, or nearer to me than other alternatives. I pushed for something sooner-a minor miracle in itself, and landed a June 15 appointment at the Ballard location. I took it, but knew I would need FMLA paperwork filled out sooner rather than later, so here I am. The kind urgent care receptionist, seeing my medical complaint, told me she could get me into the primary care clinic next store with an assigned doctor. I jumped at the chance. I didn't actually jump, I lifted my toes on my shoes, or shifted them anyway. I am just not Mr. Energy. So, the great news is I will have a doctor who can fill my prescriptions and help...

 Entry 1     6:10 p.m. I wrote often when Jenny was living about being baffled about people who were facilitating the affair, and vouchsafing her behavior as legitimate. I just had never seen or experienced anything like it. I kept questioning how this could be possible. I didn't simper in a corner about it. I confronted each person about it that I knew was engaged in it. None had good answers. Some were patronizing to me. Reading Jenny's text conversations with such people, they showed no empathy, nor did they ever acknowledge that the behavior was wrong. They never addressed the core issue that was most disturbing, the little time spent with my kids. I have spoken about this essentially discarding of the kids to my closest friends, Sara, Paul, Lisa  and others as well over the course of 19 months. I was steadfast in my bafflement, and will likely not find a satisfying answer as to why the children, so central to her life before they were teenagers, were n...

 Entry 1   11:57 a.m. We are out. This is a push. Sitting in a restaurant for brunch, then to see thr latest Marvel movie. The girls are doing well. Leiney is sad, but normal, understandably sad. Abby says nothing when anyone evinces sorrow. She is sad, to be sure, but so accustomed to The girls comforting one another . stuffing her feelings down she doesn't express it. Yesterday, while installing software on Abby's desktop on the shared family computer, I stumbled upon a half-naked picture of el pinchè. Abby didn't see it, and then I spent the next hour scouring the computer for any other detritus.  I imagine the picture arrived on Abby's desktop through either machinations of Jenny or downright error.  Abby hadn't used the desktop since 2018, when we bought her a laptop.  The picture was date stamped August 5, 2018, and there was a companion picture of Jenny Photoshopped to the extreme. She was so pretty, it tells one a lot when she expends such energy. I...

Tuesday 4:40 p.m. I took leave yesterday at work. Two months and a day ago Jenny died, and I'm not buying the bill of goods that everything will be alright. Numb and depressed, I am getting help, but I am thinking about naming our abode Bleaker House.  I am home alone mostly. Abby has acting after school each night until 11:30. Leiney is working or at her boyfriend's house. The dogs and I are keeping down the fort. I get texts and calls. I don't answer. Don't have it in me. I move about as much as a rock. I am battered and bent and, I guess, broken. I got a doctor today, having changed my insurance means I had to find a doctor and that I have a wait to get a visit.  A long wait. Everything will be alright . Entry 2.  3:40 a.m. Not sleeping.  Grief.  Exhausted. Dogs need me in three hours. Sleep. Must sleep.

Entry 1.     5:36 p.m. It's sixty days tomorrow. A slow-rolling smog, grief and loss, now obscure almost any light. My head  weighs 1000 lbs. Everything takes effort. I would compare it to attempting to sprint through partially crystallized honey. Every effort requires exertion, and you never know when you will get cut by the sharp edges. I am tired, listless, hopeless. I have given up so much, for so little. I have struggled so long, and with little to show for it. The effort wasn't pointless or useless, and the dividends of the peace of mind of my children is real, but I--I am an empty vessel and feel terrible all the time.   The big dog ate my wallet the other night. She is a force of nature. She chewed up my debit card in the process. While we have credit cards, I have never activated mine, I don't use them.  So, I went on the hunt for Jenny's debit card. Always forward thinking, after she died I put it somewhere so as not to lose it.  If only...

Entry 1    8:53 a.m. Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles. I have finally received the official long form death certificate for Jenny. What I assumed was user error, in fact was a fuck up by the third party vendor. The person I spoke to at Vital Check told me the problem was my marriage certificate wasn't embossed, didn't have that raised stamp proving ot was government issued.  In fact, no one married in Washington has to have an embossed marriage certificate. I was baffled.  I called the county directly. I must be doing a bit better, given all the mental energy I expended. The deputy registrar I spoke with told me the problem was Jenny and I had different last names.  Seriously, in 2022 they took 55 days to provide me with the death certificate because our surnames were different. Nevermind that our marriage certificate, provided to them 55 days prior, showed us as having different names.  Go figure. I went down to the county and picked up the 3 copies,...

Entry 1    8:58 a.m  I am deeply depressed. I am not returning calls, not doing the greatest. My kids don't know, I don't think. My therapist has no idea. I don't think grief adequately describes the place where I am. I have lost interest in absolutely everything. I only move when forced. Yesterday was Abby's family birthday celebration, so I got my shit together and made sure it was everything she would hope it would be. I hung streamers, prepared lunch, had family around. It was fine. As soon as everyone left, I shut back down, too tired to even think right, so tired I went to sleep at a decent hour. Oh, yeah, I haven't been sleeping. I am not doing well.  Please know, if you are calling or texting and I haven't responded, I have seen them, I am just curled up inside myself right now, and am trying hard to climb back out.  By the way, I am not anywhere close to a place where I may be contemplating suicide. I have kids, I would NEVER leave them willingly. ...

 Entry 1    8:00 a.m. I woke up at 2:00, then 4:30, then after 5 and just before 6.  It is going to be one of those days.  Parenting Fun I went to a financial aid seminar. I found out the odds of Abby getting any assistance outside of merit scholarships will be slim to none, given the lookback for income is two years, they will look at 2021, when we had two incomes. Some schools allow you to plead a special case, and I will, but still.  I am eating a lot of it. Generally I came home and fell right back into grief and grieving. I am not very good at this thing called living currently, but am doing my best. I am alone and lonely a good deal of the time, but don't feel like company because invariably we, or more accurately I, will begin talking about Jenny, her death, the affair. So, I am trying to just get through this. The kids are not grieving, that I can see. They are high functioning and that is good, I suppose. I just wish I could feel their relief.

 Entry 1    1:15 p.m. Abby and I did some grocery shopping last night, and I decided to buy a small cake to celebrate her birthday. I broke down and started crying as soon as the cake was in the cart. I had a hard time pulling myself together. Abby put her arm around me, and comforted me. I probably cried for 2 minutes, tears streaming down my face, my suffering otherwise silent.  I hate this existence, and am grateful for my children. I keep expecting a tsunami of pain. Instead, it is more insipid, this loss, like a slow leak from a third floor bathroom that eventually destroys the foundation. Every once in a while, though, a burst or two sneaks out, a foreboding of what I expect is to come? I don't know. Some days I convince myself I am numb, or not experiencing the pain I expected. Truth be told, I have no fucking idea what to expect. Right now I just feel heavy and sad all over. I hate it, but its  true. I feel about as useful as a ballot mailed the day...

Entry 1    10:27 a.m. Entry 1    10:27 a.m. I recall how perfect each holiday was. How carefully each part of the day, each piece of the tradition was planned, prepared for and actualized. It was a team effort. The hot cross buns were my addition, in honor of my mother's love for them.  The decorations were Jenny's. We filled the baskets together, dyed the eggs with the kids and then later hid the eggs from them.  Jenny insisted it be the real eggs.  She would map their locations, when she remembered. Once, when she didn't, we found an egg in July. Easter dinner at home or at Omi's was always a nice affair. I Pompeii Exhibit, April 17, 2013.  ordered hot cross buns for this morning. Put the baskets together, made breakfast. Abby was awake before 8, fortunately, I was prepared. Leiney came right down and I whipped up eggs. It doesn't seem real, this holiday celebration. The kids are happy, evincing ni sorrow, showing no tears. They look to me, and ...

Entry 1    6:39 p.m. We are on the tarmac. The hoi polloi, my people, are still boarding as we sit in First Class. The whole process is fraught, with what I am not sure. It just seems really clear that it is no funoving through like pigs to the slaughter, having to see the freer range pigs already in their pens. I haven't had this much leg room on a plane since the last time Sam Kinison screamed a joke. I am riding with a large Armenian family they take up all of Row 1, the progenitor, his two daughters, and  granddaughter, and a teenage  grandson sitting next to me. I don't know where the father is, but I  fascinated. Back to boarding. I find it fascinating that the airlines see fit to tell people in general boarding that they need volunteers to check bags or they will force people to do so. If I paid for a ticket and believed I was bringing carry-on, it feels like bait and switch to change it up. 

Entry 1.    11:34 a.m. And so it ends. Our flight is hours from now. I expect we will struggle to keep ourselves busy between the time Abby finishes therapy at noon and the time we board the plane. I am excited to fly home and see Leiney and the dogs, to sleep in my own bed, and to move forward. Being away, I think, has been therapeutic for Abby and me. Like our trip to Hawaii in 2019, we filled our days with only those things Abby really wanted to do. I had a couple nights and mornings of seeing friends, but it didn't interfere with making sure Abby came first. Arosa, 2018. I f it seems I am overcompensating, I am, and it is intentional.   It would be a lie if I claimed I don't have more than a bit of dread stepping foot back into the house in which Jenny died, to sleep in the room in which she suffered so much, the room in which she drew her last breath. I will push through. I am sitting in the lobby, marveling over the cost of this hotel, but also the greetings a...

Entry 1     7:34 a.m. "He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool  shall be  servant to the wise of heart." -Proverbs 11:29 We fly home tomorrow night. Abby has homework she has to complete today, so I don't know what our plans are, or if we will have any. This trip has been a whirlwind. Forcing myself to see people down here was important for my mental health, but I already feel like curling up in a ball when I get back home, and it's two days away. Maybe coffee will bring clarity. I am aching, knowing she is gone forever. I miss her gentle smile, her goofy laugh, her precision in so much of what she did. When I begin to feel angry, I remind myself that a person's life is more than the sum of bad things they did. Jenny changed the world for so many. She brought hope where people were hopeless, and helped children believe in themselves, when no one else believed in them.  That is profound, and more important, ultimately, than ALMOS...

 Entry 1.  12:25 a.m. It's been an incredibly busy 10 days. It started with seeing Sara Jarosz on the 6th and has snowballed. Today we went, in no particular order, to La Jolla and saw UCSD. Abby wasn't interested. We went to the Liberty Public Market in San Diego, Mexican food, went to Balboa Park, visited two museums, came back to the hotel, went out for Thai food and then drove almost to Tijuana to see The Batman at a drive-in. I am tired.

Entry 1    6:56 a.m. A view from our hotel. I had a recurring dream last night that Abby and I were in an Absurdist two person Harold Pinter play with multiple characters. Performing for the parents we saw at Occidental, but on the YTN stage, we only had the foggiest notion of who played which roles, didn't know who had which kind because the play didn't identify who was speaking which lines. It was a two-page play, in it's entirety, but we didn't know the lines. I had them printed on a credit card, so we could cheat. Given that we didn't know who had which lines, the credit card did no good. At intermission, yes there was an intermission after I think a line or two had been uttered by me, many parents came and sat on the stage or it's long two steps that ran the length of the stage, and picnicked and visited with one another, while Abby and I went out back to strategize how to proceed--to see if we could get agreement on who had which lines. Sheila's eldest...

Entry 1: 7:09 a.m. Ella and me, Mission Inn 4.12.22 Riverside has been a boon for me. I have seen more friends in the last two days than I expected, people reaching out to say hello. It reminds me of why I loved this place so very much. I saw my friend Cara on Monday night. She is thriving and it was so enjoyable to catch up. She is the only RN I know who is a germaphobe. I spent more time with her at work than I spent with anyone else. We just clicked, and it was fun to be dual misanthropes at the same time. I missed her and her always hilarious stories. Last night, I spent in the Presidential Lounge here at The Mission Inn, with the person who helped me through my loneliest and most desperate days in California. Ella talked me through the hard nights without Jenny and the kids, talked me through Jenny's affair with Jason, and we just became the best of friends. An RN who worked in the ICU when I was in Riverside, she is fiercely protective of her patients, a truly dedicated careg...

Entry 1.    4:18 a.m. It is Abby's birthday. She entered this world, well, it will be seventeen years ago come 11:30 p.m. What a gift my girls are. Abby has been so loving and happy since we got to California. She loves it at least as much as I do. 26000 steps, and a dozen rides later, and I am convinced the girl is trying to kill me, however. Abby was in charge of the Disney app. I now concede I am, in the use of particular apps, the equivalent of my mother trying to program the VCR to record television shows.  This acceptance has cost me dearly. When wè bought our tickets, I couldn't get us into California Adventure, which Abby wanted to see more than anything. It took two minutes for me, no wait, for a Disney employee to fix it for us.  Leiney has made this trip easier and more pleasant just by her presence and sweetness. She can see my tears, even though I am trying my best to hide them, and comforts me. We are dinner around 8 at Mimi's, which is across from the ...

Entry 1     6:21 a.m. At the airport, waiting to board. Airports always make me sad, remind me of leaving the kids every Sunday for a year and a half. Abby told me the other day she didn't understand I was leaving to go live and work elsewhere at the time. It was only when we arrived at the airport that she understood. She said she cried all the way home. This morning I am working on happier thoughts. Sun, sand, smog and serendipity are what I am counting on in California. Leiney slept for an hour, she is going to be wiped out. Abby had no comment, except a teenage shrug, when queried about her sleep. I, remarkably, slept 4.5 hours. Perhaps more remarkable, Abby was up, dressed and ready to go at 5:15 when the Uber arrived. She did manage to use a full-sized suitcase, which (since I gave her a carry-on sized bag last night) surprised me, my wallet, and how I envisioned exiting the plane I didn't want to wake the dragon, so this is the best I could do snapping a picture of...

 Entry 1   7:31 p.m. Two friends reached out to me today, each offering to spend time with me, to help me in my grief. Lots of kindness is flowing my way. Sara Jarosz performing last night. This part of the show felt like a camp sing-a-long, that and the fact the last time I was here was with Jenny to see The Waterboys, well, it was hard. I am in a pit of grief and despair. I struggle with so much betrayal, so many lies. You can't confront the dead, so I can't ask her why she would tell such blatant falsehoods.  One that I haven't mentioned involves yet another incident described in my journal. Weirdly, she told this lie to her biggest supporter, Murray.  Jenny told her that the day Leiney had her wreck, Jenny had to handle everything.  I drove there and back, I handled the towing company, I got the collision repair shop, and arranged the tow there. I just don't get it.

 Entry 1    9:05 a.m. Random Thoughts Grief does funny things to your mind. I can't keep things straight.Yesterday, for instance, I turned the water on in one of the master bathroom sinks and forgot about it and it ran for two hours until Leiney discovered it while retrieving Willow from my room. Fortunately, the drain wasn't stopped. If that wasn't bad enough, I went to take Willow out yesterday afternoon, and opened the door before putting her leash on, something that CANNOT happen. I spent 45 minutes cursing her, cursing myself, and cursing my fucked up distraction, trying to get her back in the yard, back in the house, and ultimately into her crate. I was wearing my slippers when I made the mistake, and slipped in a pile of freshly laid dog droppings as I went to chase her. About 15 minutes in, it started to rain. Buddy, who I can use to lure her back sometimes, would not come when I called him, and ran back in the house when I dragged him out by his collar. It w...

Entry 1     4:17 a.m. Awake. Tired. Slept early, awake by 3. Its quiet and I can feel the emptiness, can feel her absence. I miss rubbing her hair, miss soothing her back to sleep after giving her pain meds. I miss her. Entry 2.    10:57 p.m. We met at Moni's to plan the memorial. It should be nice, barring rain. Outside. I have a lot to do between now and then.  It's hard that the memorial is so far away. I want this all to be done. I am in pain all the time, now. It isn't fleeting any longer. It is just raw. Just very painful. We miss her, the kids and I.

 Entry 1   11:25 a.m.   May 1989, Arboretum. Working on my porn 'stache apparently. Photo credit, LF. I am at Target sporting my n95. 10 percent of the people at the Southcenter location are masked. I am preparing for Disney. Will we keep our masks on in the heat? April is the perfect time for Disney, so I expect throngs of people. What exactly is a throng?  Anyway, Abby is shopping for apparel, which seems to be something she and I have been doing regularly since Jenny was diagnosed.  Therapy yesterday was interesting.  I keep finding things out from people or from her digital leaving.  I was telling my therapist about my find and she said, and I already knew it to be true before she said it, "You already know she was a liar. You already know she was unfaithful. You already know she disparaged you to her friends.  Stop doom scrolling. All you will find is more of what you already know." That is almost accurate. I wrote a whole post yesterday...

 Entry 1     12:13 a.m. 28 Days Later  The day I tried to move out in 2021.  I am scattered. March has 5 Thursdays in it this year. Tomorrow   Today is 28 days later. I am absent-minded like some German physicist in a Looney Tunes cartoon.  I walked into the office 4 times to turn the lights off and three times left without doing that.  I am just lost. Experiencing grief is like being a sponge. You just keep soaking up and soaking up the pain, and even when it wrings out, you are still wet to the core with sorrow.  Yesterday, Jenny's sister told me a story that I hadn't heard before about Jenny and Jason, which explains why Omi suspected there was an affair happening. The incident took place at a YTN play in which Abby or Leiney was performing, likely in October of 2011, when I was three months into my new California job. Omi and Moni had come to see the play and were sitting with Jenny and whichever non-performing kid came, when Ja...

 Entry 1   7:19 a.m.  Amelia, Jenny's best friend since birth, came over last night for dinner with the kids and I.  Having people over the kids know and who were close with Jenny is really helpful as we go down this road. Entry 2   9:47 a.m. Riding with Abby, with whom I am attending a vinyl record sale at the Seattle Center Armory, the same place where Abby attends school. Whenever I try and go out, I am crushed with loss. Abject. Stark. Complete. These roads I traveled so often with Jenny, this place where we met and built our lives together, and then left only to return to raise a family. I ache. And then Leavin' On A Jetplane comes on, John Denver's voice coming out of Abby's stero system to reminded me of Jenny and all the times we sang this together.  The world conspires to force me to grieve. Success. Entry 3.   9:49 p.m. I scored at the record sale too. When I was a kid, every Friday night from 3rd grade in, I would stay up late...

Abby and Jenny, late February of 2022. Entry 1   9:34 a.m. I have diverse taste in music. Most of my baseline favorites arise from my childhood, despite my best efforts. Jimmy Buffett, which was played on the AOR stations, for inexplicable reasons since its faux Island country pop, is among the guiltiest of pleasures.  We used to go to Westport, Grayland, and Shoalwater Bay, Jenny and I pretty routinely when we were dating and when our kids were small. Jenny and I loved to sleep at the Shoalwater Bay Inn, an old boarding house converted into an Air B&B. It's on a forlorn sand and beach grass covered spit, the ocean breeze cool and constant, the mystic smell of the sea ever redolent.   We would beachcomb, go to the sparse and largely ignored beach-adjacent tourist trap stores (slim pickins since the 1970s when sport fishing went belly-up) Grayland, which inexplicably had shells from all over the world, but few or none from the beaches just behind the stores....

 Entry 1   6:00 p.m. I am still in my pajamas. I haven't shaved in days. I barely move. The sun helps, and I am looking forward to the weekend. I have to mow the lawn, scoop poop, do laundry and various and sundry other things. The new treadmill will be delivered and assembled on Saturday, as well as the new television.  I am looking forward to this. Hopefully I can mount the smallest of the televisions in the garage on Saturday as well.  I had my first meeting with the probate attorney. 3-5 k to handle probate.  425 an hour for the atty, 200 an hour for the paralegal.  FFS. I am in the wrong line of business. Frankly, I find such prices obscene, and would never charge such rates unless you happened to live in Broadmoor, Denny-Blaine or the likes. Then, I'd charge you double that. We are going to California with an achin' in my heart, to look at schools with Abby. Occidental, Scripps and some Los Angeles art school whose name escapes me are on her list...

Entry 1   7:45 a.m. Having regularly maintained this journal over the last year, I am curious what readers think. If you haven't commented on the content in the comment section, before, I am hoping you will comment below, offering what your general impressions or takeaways are, however much you have waded through. Whether one post or 200 that you have read, I am curious about your thoughts. I am not seeking any specific discussion, just overall thoughts. Entry 2   5:15 p.m. Loving kindness. I am no saint. I am not a martyr. What I am is a man who was in love with a woman who no longer loved me and who was mentally ill. At the beginning of this journey, I spent many sessions discussing how I could never leave Jenny. [To be clear, the foremost reason is because I couldn't put the kids through that. One would have stayed, the other left in an instant. We even talked about getting an apartment on Queen Anne Hill, found some very nice places that took dogs, even. The toll on t...

 Entry 1.   5:49 p.m. I texted Jenny's principal today. I told her I am not able to help plan the event and that I do not intend to attend the TOPS memorial for Jenny. I can't do it. She is smart enough to plan on not having the memorial in the gym. She expects more than 500 people to attend the event.  I also told her the girls will not attend if Eric is present. She understood both positions, and will reach out to Leiney.  I also learned today the school intends to create a mural, a park bench or some other permanent remembrance. I asked that they not use the same muralist that painted Eric. The principal agreed. Dog walkers came today. That was a pleasant happenstance. The dogs are always much happier after a long walk.  I am sinking, I can feel it pulling hard.  Hard. I am experiencing lethargy. m Simple movement takes effort. I am incredibly low. I can't say how long it has been since I have felt this way, but I would guess it is more than 20 year...

 Entry 1     7:30 a.m.   I start work this morning. I look forward to trying to return to the rhythm of work and life. I am sure I am not well equipped to handle this, given it has only been two weeks, but I feel the need to do this, as best I can.  We used to be so in love: The summer of 1999 was one of the high points in our marriage. Just married over a year, we packed up the small Toyota pickup truck with all the things we would need in a family dorm, along with all our camping gear, and spent 30 days driving across the country. The truck had no air conditioning, so we would frequently use 2/60 air conditioning when it got too hot. We would roll down the two windows and drive 60 miles an hour. We saw the deepest cavern in America in Montana, cowboys and buffalo in South Dakota as we drove along BIA dirt roads. Skinheads and Lincoln's home and law offices in Springfield. People so poor on the reservation that it beggars my words to describe the livi...