Tag Archives: Relationships

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Slowly caffeinated

I had a solid week at work. I taught last Friday and then this Tuesday night and was in both of my buildings for daytime pursuits on the typical days–sometimes Mondays and Fridays switch in terms of the building that I’m in. (That will happen this week, and I’ll be very late and not be able to drive in with the climber, Batman, or the nice guy until 9/11.)

It’s been so good to be back with people. That’s so funny for me to even say because I’m an introvert. My best friend texted me and said, “Go line dancing with me tonight? I miss you.” I had to decline because I’d been out many nights in a row and was peopled out. I can give the excuse that my pets need me around, but really work involves a lot of talking and much of it is with people that I care an awful lot about, so I just need hours of me time afterwards.

Now that I don’t work Saturdays anymore I can slowly sip coffee and write. I love both of those things.

From my solo vacation in 2021. It’s really good drip coffee and a spinach pastelillos.

I’ll reflect on everything that has happened. I won’t pop over to Miami and get a pastelillos, sadly.

I paid my ex-wife. The title company called me and said, “It’s an estate sale, and everything goes into an estate account, and no cashier’s checks can come out.” I said, “I don’t want to pay taxes on $75,000.” She said, “I can check with our legal team, but I’m nearly positive that can’t happen.” I thought and thought and thought. Then I realized that my Financial Advisor (FA) was completely accurate last summer when he said that wasn’t the way it worked and that what people bring into a marriage is what they get back. She retained her condo, I retained my house. Recall that only for about a year did my ex-husband ever contribute to this mortgage and she gave $400 here and there. Rent here are about $1200 for a small apartment or room in a house.

So, I wrote this in our Google Sheet:

You cannot receive an invoice or a cashier’s check because the house is not mine, but is sold through the Estate of ______________________.  It’s being sold as part of an estate and through a personal representative’s deed.  Taxes on the estate will be paid less the contractors, agent fees, closing costs and other county fees.  That will be completed in the spring per the accountant.

I will hire an attorney to review the financial disclosures from the decree to determine what more is owed to you.  Then you will be paid that amount.

I thought and thought and thought some more.

I then realized that I know the cash value of my pension, SS, and IRA. So, I added those, divided them by two, realized that I have worked 33-years now, and was married for 8. That ratio is 8/33 or 24%, so I multiplied that by the halved cash assets and came up with 24k. I had forgotten that I had already paid her $750 eleven times at the time. I thought it was 17k, which is so much less than 75k and made me realize that my FA was right! Anyway, I have a consult on October 13th with an attorney who sponsors our local NPR station. I likely don’t owe her nearly as much as I’d charitably agreed to paying her.

I’ll have it squared away before this year ends. Marriages take seconds and divorces are super complicated. Both of my exes are really reasonable people too, so I feel for other folks who are actually dealing with dissention.

I had dinner with my son on Monday. That day really didn’t work for me, but he’d suggested Tuesday or Wednesday. I taught in person this Tuesday night and Wednesday I had a poker lesson. More on those in subsequent paragraphs. It meant that I skipped guitar, which isn’t a good thing. It was innocuous. It really reminded me of how it was to live with him. He has a smart phone now–his Dad pays for it and the bill–and he laid on the couch, got tired, only ate one plate of food, and I took him home. We’d run a bunch of errands together after work though and that was good because we walked side-by-side and so he talked to me a bunch about his personal life. He isn’t working, doing psychiatry, talks about getting a therapist, and is still with the same girl. I don’t want to interact with her going forward. I know that they’ll break up within a year or two.

I saw him again yesterday when I was biking home past his Dad’s apartment and he yelled, “Hi, Mom.” I dismounted, talked to him, and hugged him and said, “See you Monday.” He was supposed to help me take apart the bedframe at the house so I can move it back to my house and help me remove everything else used for staging. He called an hour after that and said that he’d forgotten that he had Labor Day plans on Monday. I asked if they were the whole weekend and he confirmed. Hopefully, my friend and I can get everything moved ok. It’s not too many things. I need to fold the realtor’s items and pile them nicely with her pillows on something clean that can be discarded, so I’ll have to think about that too. I’m glad that it’s not a thing with my son. We’ve frankly tried to talk so many things out with at least three family therapists, that I think we’re talked out. Sometimes, you just have to step away and redefine or end a relationship. With parenting, you’re always a parent, and I assume that when they move out, you have close times and more distant times. My tenure for direct parenting is just over, but he and I are fine: hugs, “I love you’s” and able to connect.

I have latent feelings for both the realtor and the climber. They’re people I dream about each month. I really hope to run into _____ again too. Her husband is a bit much, but he’s smart and fun to talk to, and they already have a girlfriend; so I just need to ask directly if she has an arrangement for dates outside of that triad. Otherwise, because I’m so picky, I don’t have any other women who I’m attracted to at all.

Our summit with the realtor and the ballet dancer is scheduled! It’s in three Sundays. I will bring my son too if he’s not with his girlfriend and ask him about it the Thursday before. I think it will be really fun. I’m going to take my poles for the descent and my janky left knee.

I have to take our medium hair to the groomer’s today. He’ll be a little bit scared. I need to wash my dogs too. My poor old girl is stinky and itchy.

I will have money going forward permanently now. I got an 8% raise which is already effective, don’t pay anything for my 17-year-old, and don’t make payments to my ex-wife. Whatever the lump sum she’s owed will be figured next month. Therefore, I can get a porch extension, a skylight, and schedule steam cleaning for the basement for October 16th. I’ll also take my dog to the vet for whatever is up with her 12-year-old skin.

I am having dinner and getting dressed up with a colleague on my birthday. I wanted to see my friends who I went to Korean BBQ with recently, but one of them has a concert. This one is 49, and I’ll be in such a different space in a year that I can make big plans for my half century.

I reviewed poker which was fun, but I don’t like the dynamics in that group really. I would only do something active outside like our snowshoeing beer festival with those women. I have a couple of friends from that group anyway. Lesbians irritate me a little bit because many of them are cliquey and they get really territorial and odd with affection around other groups of lesbians. I don’t want to watch you sit on each other’s laps and kiss when people talk to your girlfriend. That is fucking weird.

I think that the new cohort that I’ll teach for a year are pretty cool. I just upload some content for this week and will do that on Sunday. I’ll read the Google Form feedback on the 11th for my next in person. I only have to teach graduate school six more years.

My hands have been really hurting in the joints, and it makes climbing and guitar difficult. I’m going to get collagen and lutein when I pick up filtered water (refilled) and coffee. I’m grateful for learning and my health!

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Reflections on my adolescence

My colleague who almost died called me this morning. I told her about the couple that I met last night at the potluck. I’m definitely intrigued by the wife and had a conversation with her husband–truthfully, I mostly listened to him and validated his perspective and asked a few questions wherein he’d talk more at length. My two friends and another woman who I know from our discussion group were there too. While I was talking about that with my colleague, I had this epiphany.

My first girlfriend lived across the street from me 1987 – 1994. Those last two years I lived out of state where I had completed my undergraduate degrees, but she didn’t move out of her Dad’s house until 1994 when she got pregnant with her daughter. Her daughter was adopted. Her son, who she had a few years afterward with the same guy, was raised by her Dad and her Dad’s new wife.

I don’t think that my first girlfriend ever slept with any other girls than me. I guess she’d be what you call now heteroflexible. She dated my cousin who is only 2-years-older than me, and that didn’t bother me. In fact, I’m not usually attracted to lesbians who are stereotypically so. It’s often called “100-footers.” That term came from an episode of “The L-word.” These women are usually quite butch, heavy set, wear boots and have edgy short haircuts. They remind me of men. I’m not sexually attracted to men, so I don’t hit on these folks.

I hadn’t realized that in the early 1990s that I was also in a polyamorous relationship. That makes three total for my lifetime. I think that I’m having a second coming out. I started out solo poly when I was 15.

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Process

I still don’t like hiking on scree and need to learn to balance on trekking poles. In fact, I think that I could do some of that next weekend. I think because I’d warned my private guide about my lack of love for downhill–I love climbing up–he decided to rope me to him in the event that I fell or slipped. Like when I used to have to have someone tie my figure 8 knot, it makes me feel like a toddler. So, time to practice with trekking poles hiking down on mixed terrain and especially loose soil and rock! I was up 40-feet! Highest ever. It was my summit; although, if I knew more about route finding, I had another 80-feet to go. My accomplishment was no fear of heights. I just talked to my guide who is a professionally sponsored, second best in the US speed alpinist, about next steps and such. Well, screamed is more like it. The creek is loud there and the traffic louder. I can’t wait to get back to my private crag with the group in September with my new set of skills. So incredible. I was scared of heights so I started hiking at 34. One time got back up to a small area of minor exposure to a summit a second time, looked, and wondered why I was scared the first time? Being slowly desensitized to fears is changing me.

Sunday we staged the house in about 3-hours total. We did a good job, and the Realtor (Photographer) added more plants, another lamp and a white large blanket with a white comforter with pillows. It looked so much better! She said that she had those things. I couldn’t get the cooler going. It was missing a nut. I went up on the roof after work on Monday and there were more yellow jackets, so I came down. Two trips from a company, and nearly $1,300 out of my pocket to get it going and the motor is also failing.

Wednesday, I went back over to meet the technician again and all the lights were on in the house. Then I saw the Realtor going back and forth between rooms. When I went in, a very tall, very large woman in baggy linen pants and a crop top with dark curly hair and nose ring came toward me to shake my hand. I said, “Hello,” and the Realtor said something about partner so I assumed she was ______, who had to clean the paint off the hardwoods and fix the sheetrock that the subcontractors messed up, and I said that I definitely owed her dinner for those 4-hours of work and the Realtor said “romantic partner.” I said, “Oh, wonderful! It’s so nice to meet you.” She seems very young. She’s from Montana and has “done so many things” for work and is currently a massage therapist. I talked with her a bunch waiting for the technician to arrive. She is very nice, and adores the Realtor. I still have a crush on the Realtor. I won’t be seeing her much anymore though because I already have an offer for 25k over the listing for the house so that I can generate a counteroffer with an afternoon meeting via videoconference. I spoke with my attorney already too so that I can take off things that cannot be paid out of my parents’ estate. The Realtor had a showing within 34-minutes of the listing going live and there were 6 yesterday and an offer. There’s another summit.

I texted the climber on Monday and asked if she was at Burning Man, and if she wasn’t, did she want me to give her a lift on Friday. The nice guy is in Brazil. She said that she was here and would be gone the next two weeks and then we’d get the car pool crew back together. She had a dental appointment after work. On Wednesday during all the back and forth to the house, credit union, etc., I had happy hour plans with two colleagues and my colleague who almost died as well. It was a house and deck happy hour and really nice. However, I had to go home and get the pets fed and bring my dogs. Consequently, I was out of gas on Thursday. I had training in a Convention Center very close to my other site so I texted the climber and asked her to give me a ride. She got it late and texted me back asking if I got a ride. I was at the stoplight to turn onto the highway and texted her a picture of the gas gauge and said, “On fumes–turning onto ___, wish me luck!” She texted me that she could pick me up if needed and go car, go. That was cute.

I got there! During the last breakout session at the conference center, I left momentarily and got gas. My colleague who almost died made plans with one of the women from Happy Hour, the gay male colleague–going forward we’ll call him Catholic–and I said in text to invite the climber too. Only he and the climber showed for lunch. She hugged my colleague who almost died first and then turned to me with a big smile and said, “Happy end of summer,” and I said, “Happy nearly fall,” and we embraced a long time in front of the two others. I pulled away and she still had me tight so I went back in and hugged her more abdomen to abdomen. She’s even in better physical shape than she was last fall. We sat close on the bench by the lake with the others.

I looked at video that she shot with her Jerry-Rigged paperclip, electrical tape and thick yarn on her phone that she mounts for videos. It was beautiful. It was a sunset over a lake in Chamois from her paraglider. She did some technical and mixed ice climbing in France, but didn’t make it to Pakistan. I showed her a few of the OR coast and Crater Lake. She’d never been there, but when her sister and parents lived in eastern OR, she’d been to the coast. I was so sad when lunch was over. We hugged twice yesterday having arrived at the same time, and I went to her new office at the end of the day and told her to have the best build and festival ever. She said, “I will tell you stories about it, and you tell me stories about your adventures for the next two weeks.” I wonder if we will seamlessly get a road back to some dates? I’d love that.

I had plans with my friend to go to an Italian Festival last night, but she canceled having thrown up in the morning. So, I laid low last night and texted with the realtor about our counteroffer signing meeting today. I was very tired, so it was ok. The woman who introduced me to my ex-wife is in town right now, and we have super tentative plans for Monday. Hopefully, it will work out, but it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t. I am fine losing her for the most part in the divorce. I have a potluck with the poly group where I met Maryland tonight. I have a formal event for solo folk on Sunday. What a whirlwind of a week! I’ve not had time to process everything and have more people with whom I’ll be interacting.

Behind that tree and the start is some smoother rock to the ascent
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Responsibilities

Spoiler: this entry could be boring to read. It’s just a dump for me and something that I feel like I can process better if I write it out. If I was still Catholic, I could confess it. I’ve had five-years of analysis, and I’m grateful for that, and really used it to process the trauma that my Dad inflicted which helped me at the end of his life to just show up: take him to appointments, talk to nurses, go to hospitals, go back and forth to his house, get a roofing company to help him get a new roof, get Life Alert set up, etc.

We’d been hit: I had 7 fractures and was in the hospital, my brother was dead, and my first gf was barely injured in 1988, but I am going to start in 1994 when I moved into my apartment that was mine, as a college student. I had few things–it was furnished–but my old roommate started coming over a lot and then we wound up being together intimately. That was a dick move on both of our parts because she had a cousin of a Spanish exchange student living with her in the dorms at the time and she called this guy her brother. She never saw her and was with me all the time and most every night. My landlord got mad after awhile, so the following year we got our own 2-bedroom apartment, and she mostly slept with me. She began seeing a high school classmate of mine too, and we’d go back to the state where I am from and see him. She still slept with me. She eventually was kinda still with my high school classmate, me, and her new bf (She eventually married him), and we just stopped being sexually intimate. It’s weird that few people know. I didn’t go abroad in college because I was with her and she freaked when I suggested it. I started seeing a guy for the first time really during my senior year of college. Yesterday, we’d have been married 25-years.

I lived alone in 1997 and really liked it. That was a year that my Mom wouldn’t really talk to me. My Mom was always my touchstone. She was so pissed at me for going to graduate school that she cut off emotional and financial support. She said that I was “acting like _______’s family who has money.” I told her that I didn’t want to work for Social Services which is all that I was qualified to do with a degree in English and another degree in Psychology (I had taken AP classes so that I received two Bachelor’s in four-years. Not a double major–but, I rather got two full degrees and diplomas.). She told me, “Maybe you need to work for Social Services.” I liked grad school. That was the first time that I felt solo. I ate for the first time in a restaurant by myself, which was weird at first, but is now something that I do all of the time. If I didn’t teach that day, I didn’t hear another human voice. I learned about being lonely and how it’s just a dynamic state that shifts and is not bad, but an uncomfortable emotion.

My previous bf pursued me and then asked me to marry him. I just said yes because I was 23 and really young and dumb. I was married to him for nine years. We never really used any birth control after I completed my degree and we didn’t get pregnant until 2004. That was when I really saw that he didn’t know how to be responsible for much. He never helped with cleaning or cooking. He liked to garden, and that’s about it. He hates being active outside. It’s weird because even to this day he says that he likes it, but if you’re outdoors with him he rages around and complains the whole time and is a bummer.

He is also not one to be inconvenienced at all. One time when our son had his days and nights mixed up, he yelled at him, “Sleep!” while he was smiling in a swing. It’s like my ex-husband wants to play, be on the Internet reading, read books, and not be bothered with any chores, but is fine going to a job that is straightforward: wash dishes or sell attire. It’s a good thing really that in 2007 I fell completely in love with my Boss. I found places for my soon-to-be-ex-husband to live when he screamed at me in front of our son while he was sitting quietly in the back of the car in his car seat. I’ve never looked back after our divorced finalized in March of 2008. I don’t have much respect for the way that he leads his life. His IQ is 142 and he works in retail sales. He lives in a 403-foot square-foot unrenovated apartment and the units next door have been renovated. I found this apartment for him in 2017 and he doesn’t move, ask about a 2-bedroom or inquire with the management or the owner regarding a good space for himself, and now, our son too.

I fell in love with her picture in 2009. I waited until she was single, and she had moved back here where she is from in 2012. She was single in 2013. She fell in love with me quickly, we got engaged in 2014 and married in May. We had some good times together, but are very different people.

I work in spurts. I work a lot too and have a capacity for enormous amounts of work. I have to get in a zone though and am not steady. She would get on my ass all the time about grading, prepping, opening mail, put away clothes, etc. She is beautiful, but super bossy. Actually, she’s probably controlling. I was around for her confronting her sex abusing stepdad, dealing with her leaving a therapy group that was a lot like a cult and all the aftermath from it, and her mental and physical health declining. She was around for helping me finish my dissertation and taking care of my son, and then watching my son decline.

My son made threats at school, he one-upped his gf and tried to get hospitalized, he began emotionally manipulating friends and family members, he punched himself in the face over and over when his Dad had moved out of state, and told friends that his Dad was back and abusing him, he robbed our neighbors and gave their possessions to “friends,” he got suspended from school, he has been on and off lots of meds, he experimented with drugs, he has done some things that I don’t completely understand that have resulted in him being bullied at school, he dropped out, and he has never been respectful to me when I’ve needed simple help in the house that we shared until 6th grade when he declined. He has lived with his Dad about a total of a year-and-a-half and now will never be allowed to return home without some serious family therapy and trial periods. He needs to grow up, or marry royalty. He has very little motivation though and gained tons of weight since the pandemic when he stopped playing sports. I know he vapes. I know that he occasionally smokes pot. I think he is drinking now, and his shape is less like a seventeen-and-a-half-year-old and more like a 30-something alcoholic. It’s sad. He’s charming.

He transferred schools and graduated early in one trimester and was Valedictorian. Teachers and many adults love him. However, my tenure is useless. I can’t impact him anymore and he doesn’t talk to me since I told him that I heard my last fu. He’s really just mad that he doesn’t have full run of a 1056-square foot basement including his own bedroom where his gf can come and go. Someday, he will realize that he makes his own messes. I don’t deny mental illness, but he lets it rule him. He’s been in therapy since he was 6 and completed 40-weeks of a very expensive Dialectical Behavior Therapy Group (DBT) and was only supposed to take two-months off and then do intensive work in that area, but he hasn’t called a new therapist. I’ll see it on my insurance if his gf ever makes him do that. I think that if he’d get up in the morning and take a simple walk, he’d feel better. He could make food when he got back and have some free time before he coaches at night. He told his Dad that he is taking a “senior year,” and his Dad said, “If you don’t have a full-time job by next spring, you’re a bum.” I’m sure that they’re having lots of fun in 403-square feet together.

I had one dog, and my ex-wife insisted on all these pets. They’re hard to afford, hairy, and make lots of messes. I do love them. They’re a ton of responsibility, but I’ll see it through. I do love them, but they are so much work and care.

While all these things were happening with my son, and I was in a new marriage, my parents went downhill. Several weeks after I turned 40 my Mom shattered her shoulder. About a year before that, my Dad stopped sleeping. I think it was the very beginning of dementia. Like me, he was always a good sleeper. I can’t tell you all the stress it caused to respond to all the falls that they both had while I was working two jobs, doing training, parenting and trying to preserve a new marriage.

One time there was blood all over the stairwell when I went to turn off all the lights at their house when my Dad was in the hospital for 4-days. They’d always discharge him to home and it would be another round. My Mom was at home with higher levels of private care (They used to have 225k in cash in an Account.) from 2014 to 2018 when she transitioned from care at home (17-21k per month) to the nursing home which is an average of 11k per month. She spent down, I did failed applications, and finally found a consultant, and got Medicaid. My Dad followed her midway through 2019. COVID would kill him and he would die with staff around him in hazmat suits on April 19, 2020. It was a blessing. He didn’t sleep except during the day and couldn’t communicate well and mostly sat in his bed with his eyes closed and earphones on listening to jazz. My Mom got COVID that June (2020) and her health just declined until she died on December 1, 2021.

My job involves taking care of students who are 11 through adulthood. It’s also very stressful. I’m only going to do it for 6 more years. I should mention that I teach graduate school too, and have also coordinated a graduate program. Neither of the people that I have been married to have contributed to my mortgage, or really ever had lasting careers. My ex-husband paid half of the monthly mortgage payment for one year, and then promptly quit his good job and that was back in 2003. He didn’t work, clean, cook or help for 8-months as he was “finding himself.” I work and make money. I have been responsible for so many people, am still at work, and for these 5 pets.

In relationship, I don’t ever want to be responsible for anyone ever again. I’m waiting for my son to need his money–I have 20k in an ESA for school–or need to move out of his Dad’s 403-square-foot apartment. I suppose that he may just move in his gf’s parents’ big house. They’re really wealthy. He met her in his DBT treatment. I could see him getting others to take care of him. He really doesn’t like to do much with the exception of watch YouTube and Netflix.

However, with intimate partners, I want to keep it simple and respectful. I want to have intentional time together that is mutually carved out. I want to take care of myself as well as I can now. As a 48-year-old person, I think that it’s time for me to be the best person that I can be so that I can add to others’ lives and they can enhance mine.

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A tiny bit juicy

So, there was this Thai lunch counter with four tables (You couldn’t sit at them unless you made a reservation and they accepted no walk-in sit downs.) in the area where I worked for seven-and-a-half years and I ate there with members of our consultation team. It was so good. I went back a few times before it closed, and miss the restaurant. It was HOT. And, I mean really hot, and sometimes not palatable. My son’s godfather is half Thai and said, “No one actually cooks like that,” but the owner was from Thailand. You ordered mild, medium, hot or Thai hot. Medium was very, very spicy. You also ordered dry, baby juicy, a little bit juicy, all the way up to very juicy. That referred to sauce.

I worked yesterday, biked to the insurance company–I only drove to work one of the three days that I worked this week and that was because I was when I had to go straight to the house for the walkthrough and then to dinner with the author–and then home to teach on Zoom. I got ready and was pretty close to where I’d be with another one of my Bosses for the night when she said that the Lyft was picking her up in 8-minutes. I called her and said, “I don’t drink much, so I can drive you.”

We had a lot of fun. I noticed something very odd about men though. They would stare, mostly at my friend, and we’d smile and they would avert their eyes. Peter McGraw says that men are unpopular these days and approaching someone in public is a bad idea. That’s sad. I was wondering what people think about that generally? I’m not an expert on men. We didn’t get a single phone number or even conversation started for her.

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
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10,273 today

We’ve had fairly odd weather this month. There was a week when it was nearly 100-degrees everyday. Now, we’re entering our monsoon season with low pressure coming up from the south. Today is really sunny and 88. Yesterday it rained in the mountains and rained on the front range after I’d gotten home from our hike. We hiked about seven-and-a-half miles. We had elevation gain too and saw clear alpine lakes.

Tomorrow I have to work all day and then I go straight to the house for the walkthrough and final list of things that have to be fixed or taken care of before we finally list two months late next month. I have dinner with the author and the small group at a bar and restaurant. Because tomorrow is so busy, I’ll do just over ten-thousand steps today so that I can be at 300,000. I guess that I’ll walk my dogs a mile when I finally get home and then I’ll take a walk too to round out the month at 310,000. It was so hot that I couldn’t walk as long as I normally do. It’s unconscionable to not do an average of 10,000 steps a day when I’m mostly on vacation. Next week, I work 42-hours, and I have the following week off. Then the week after I’m back to my three jobs.

The ballet dancer and I had a great hike. I spaced picking up my phone where we’d stopped for lunch and we had to go back up the rocks and smooth granite another time, but she wasn’t mad at me. I didn’t get home until nearly six pm. My dogs and cats were happy to see me. The ballet dancer is seeing a very cool and attractive young man. They have bad timing as he has to move back for school at the end of next month, but I am hoping that they can take a three-day vacation in the fall to stay connected. She’d like to be married, but doesn’t want to force anything. I am always on the lookout for her!

Life is motoring along. I feel like I have a handle on things in my work, social, and active life. I’ll write when I have something juicy and read others’ blogs too.

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New Era

My son was supposed to live with me one more year in this big house.

On Wednesday I took my cat to the groomers. I read many pages of “Far From the Tree” while I ate green chili hash. I also walked about 3-miles. When I finally got ahold of my son on the way home he said that his girlfriend said sorry that she didn’t see me and goodbye. When I got home he said, “Don’t ever mention my weight in front of my partner again.” I said, “You two got home from the Thrift Store yesterday and unrelated to nothing you said, ‘You forced me to play sports’ and I said, ‘It’s good to be active and it impacted your weight positively.'” And he said it to me for the last time. Well, three times, actually.

I texted his Dad, picked up his Dad, we all talked, and he freaked out. And the one room of Hilton that he trashed out constantly is over. I actually found a sub sandwich box, a pizza box with a garlic butter cup, a moldy glass, a plate, and silverware. And this time, three empty beer bottles. We’d had a coherent conversation when I found nearly all my tupperware–some of it has white spores of mold–under his bed with silverware on June 4th before I left for OR. The time for conversations is over. He can move from the couch to the bathroom in his Dad’s two room apartment. He literally does nothing and it’s not possible to motivate him. He’s a high school graduate and needs to be with his father who knows what it’s like to be male.

His Dad lives in a Brownstone on the third floor with a galley kitchen, small table, small living room and one bedroom. He has no car. Not my problem. I am not being told f-you anymore. He’s 17.5, has three parents and my direct tenure has ended. I shut down his savings and checking and called it good. Well, not really, he’d spent a couple thousand dollars this summer so far and has less than $70 to his name. I took it to him with a couple of checks and his Dad can open an account for him.

Time for male influence. I’m not a punching bag. I also can’t live with him because he won’t follow simple rules and never has. He is a lot easier to live with when there’s another adult ego in the house. Honestly, he knows what I’m willing to do. And I’ve saved in an ESA for him since he was 2-months-old. He has 20k which would pay for a year of a state school. I will:

  1. Buy him a car when his Dad will co-sign a loan for $100 for 36-months that I think that he should pay, but it wouldn’t be my loan
  2. Pay any tuition check or electronic statement to school, college or university when he has Cs or better in all classes
  3. Insure him until he’s 26 (medical and dental)

I won’t:

  1. Continue to have him direct profanity at me
  2. Bail him out of jail
  3. Support or help with a kid that he has fathered (outside of living on his own completely and paying all his bills–but you can’t do that at 17)

He called me narcissist and abusive. I know that his girlfriend has a friend who calls social services all the time to try to get out of her house. His current girlfriend has been to residential treatment three times. She also has gotten in two car accidents already and had the last one on Tuesday. He runs with kids who have had lots of years of therapy, and frankly, he has too, and think that their accountability is pretty limited. They’re all either addicted to vaping devices or smoke a ton of pot.

It’s so nice to be in this empty house. Sure, there are a ton of pets here and only the one almost 12-year-old dog is mine, but it’s good to not have someone who begrudgingly cleans the kitchen, sleeps all day, and binges Netflix, YouTube and sometimes Prime and Disney most of the day and typically expects all meals. Sometimes he gets up at 1, so I don’t make but one or two. I changed all the streaming passwords, because these are not a car, school or health. He does coach, and has mostly done cardio with me on Mondays, but I’m just so tired of fighting. He apparently resents the years that he had to play sports and an instrument. Those years ended in 8th grade.

Last night I went to the women’s discussion group. It was wonderful. I made some good connections. On Monday I go to dinner with an author and check out the other group. I also got an invitation to an exclusive formal event on August 20th, which will be with other like-minded folks. Bowling is done until winter. I have guitar. I’ll have a mini-golf team this fall.

I’m still not going to swipe.

Yesterday my best friend and I swept all the masonry in the back garden. She fell in love with the view, the creek that feeds into the river, and the garden. She had her husband come over and work the numbers with their loan officer. They want to buy a house for their kids. The realtor came by and photographed all the issues with workmanship. She hugged my best friend and went to hug me and I said, “I’m way too sweaty. I’m a dirty hippy right now.” She said, “She is sweaty too; I felt it.” I laughed and said, “She’s definitely glistening.” Then they both complimented each other on their outfits.

She told me what the next steps are. We should be able to do a walk through on the weekend, but I can’t personally on Monday because I work all day and have dinner with the author and a group. The realtor leaves for Germany on Tuesday. She’ll been in France and Spain next to walk the Camino. I think that she’s back mid-August. I’d imagine that we sell the house either to my best friend, or sometime at the end of summer.

She’s so competent and sexy. My best friend told me that she’s going to tell her that I like her and I said, “Don’t. We’ve been through that. When we hike the summit, I’ll bring the Ballet Dancer so I have a buffer.” She said, “You’re going to have to start hugging her. That’s just her.”

ARG. It sucks sometimes to just be attracted to women. It will be interesting to be back at work and see the climber. She always misses the first two weeks of work because of Burning Man. I really hope that by then I’ve had some dates. Again, I’m not going to force anything, but it would be nice to have some kissing–not sweaty hugs though.

Image by un-perfekt from Pixabay
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Future

I can stop the three jobs that I have currently in six-years. I want to work outside and also want to work 20-hours a week. I think that with the bank holidays I have 16-weeks off every year, and really have no idea how people have 2 or none. My work wears me out. I don’t see myself retiring for another 17-years, but I do see myself working way less. I’ll be so excited not to have a mortgage in 6-years too. I think that I can start pulling from my pension when I’m 59-and-a-half, which is about 10-and-a-half-years from right now.

The house looks pretty good. I went over there last night before my guitar class. To me, it’s just making sure that the carpet is ok, the carport security door has been fixed, and there is damage to the closet door (hollow core) in the basement bedroom now. Otherwise, I know that the new Project Manager would like all outlet covers and light switch plates matching and are, well, on. I think that they put silicon on the wasp hole. There was zero activity. I saw one more Chinese Elm in the day lilies, and think that we should buy a few plants for the garden beds, and my best friend is going to help with that tomorrow morning. I may put Round Up in the driveway on the cracks. If there is any chance of rain or any wind, I won’t. I don’t use it at my house because of butterflies and bees, but where the house that I’m selling is there are mostly lawns and such. People don’t seem to think about impact over there. Hopefully, the realtor and I can complete the final walkthrough with the company this week. Hopefully, she won’t hug me.

Yesterday marked a year from when my son has to move out of my house. After he does I’m going to take everything out of my house. I want a fresh start and whole vibe here. The porch extension will start that feeling. I’d like to begin that in May of next year so that it’s done before the heat ensues.

Climate change is really odd here in the desert. We have just begun extremities. The spring was incredibly wet, and once we were a month into summer, we started having extreme heat. I think that means that some March seasons we could get 4-5 feet of snow. It melts here because of our elevation, but that will be another extremity.

Last night I woke up right at midnight and was super hot. I think that it was 79 in my house. I noticed that my son and his girlfriend weren’t home yet and was surprised. I went back to my room and heard them about 10-minutes later and then they were gone. I texted and called him and they went to the gas station to get snacks. Teenagers are so gross. I really struggle with his huge stomach. I wish that he cared, but he doesn’t, and he has a really nice face so girls don’t seem to care either. He said that they had fun dancing. I doubt that I’ll see him before I leave this morning. I have to take our long haired cat to the groomers and plan to walk for about 45-minutes and then I’m going to read. We’ll see what he talks about with respect to the climber when I see him before I go bowling.

Years ago when my son was breaking laws and getting into trouble at school I heard a book review of “Far from the Tree,” and then I read more about the book. I finally ordered it as a used copy. If you’ve never used abebooks, you really should because you just pay to have books shipped to you. You can get almost anything for a few dollars. Anyway, it is so thick! It’s also great. I have just started the chapter on deafness. It would be great if I could finish it by August 13th. After that day, I’m back in the work tunnel!

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Vibes

Today was a good day. I had lunch with a former colleague and took my son to a bus station so he could see his girlfriend. He and I biked two miles this morning and did 20-minutes of cardio as well. I just didn’t climb today, which is a small bummer because my friend went with her son. I’ll go next week, but they’ll be in Belize. I’m not doing Zumba tomorrow. I’m hiking 5-7 miles with my son’s godmother.

At the house, there is so much progress. The tile is completed in the bathroom and the painters shellacked the walls and repainted after putting plastic on the carpet. Now, it’s fixing the carpet so it looks cleaner on the stairs and doing a deep clean. The company is nearly done with the backyard landscaping and my son and I pulled all the weeds up front and I took out the Chinese Elms which had volunteered everywhere. I also mowed. I think that the folks across the street will regret turning down my low offer. It’s going to have lots of curb appeal and the inside will look great!

Last night I was getting some thinly veiled criticism at worst and definitely some challenges regarding to my never co-habiting or merging finances again. I tried to explain the concepts in relationship anarchy and two of the women at our dinner party got stuck on how you de-escalate with someone. I think that, for me, anyway I will always make clear that I won’t live with anyone or have money decisions that are collaborative. It’s funny because I’m super generous. I’d happily pay for hotel rooms and the like. I just don’t want anything day-to-day. If you keep that consistent and don’t deviate from it, then you’d never have need for a separate conversation about de-escalation. Another woman said that she couldn’t be emotionally intimate with more than one person. I told her that I have larger amounts of emotional intimacy with friends anyway and that my best friend knows more about me than my two ex-spouses combined. It doesn’t have to make sense to everyone. It’s my life.

At lunch today I told my former colleague about the lack of understanding and she was shocked. She said, “I would have defended you!” She asked if they knew any truly happy marriages and I told her one woman had never been married, the other had worked through lots of problems in counseling, and that my best friend loves her husband and jokes about spending all of his money. She basically gave that look that meant, “Case in point.”

I’m so excited for this week!!! I have a small group discussion with one group that I belong to and perhaps dinner with the author and another meet up as well. I have the normal stuff with guitar and our last game of bowling too. Incidentally, I got a turkey+ (4 strikes) in my third game. That was quite the ego boost. There is a good vibe right now and I’m grateful.

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Crush

Yesterday was emotionally intense. Around 3 I got a text from my Realtor and she told me that she had hung up with the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the company who puts together projects for home sales. He felt badly about my getting stung at the house and winding up in Urgent Care, so he’s hiring out the landscaping. He called me about an hour later and told me that he was sorry. That went a long way for me. This process has been a complete freakshow. I liked having that acknowledged. I’m still going to write him out a timeline of everything. The house was supposed to be listed 7/1 and the company said that we could after 6/16. Here we are!

Shortly after I hung up with the COO, another Project Manager called me. He and I are meeting with landscaper today, and I’m hoping that we’ll also have time before I bowl tonight to document in pictures the horrible work and destruction. I want to also show him all the messes–like dumping joint compound and paint into the carport. I also want him to have photos that he takes and uploads of the destroyed sleeper sofa to the front facing app that the company uses for project updates. I wonder if there is paint on the carpet or problems under where they put it in the now finished basement? That wouldn’t shock me.

The day before the neighbors who want to buy the house cancelled a meeting with my Realtor and hired a Realtor. I was so upset. Mine explained to me that just means that they have to pay her and pay theirs. It’s dumb. Also, it makes me feel as if they don’t trust me at all. So, I’ve made a decision. The house is worth 525k now, and so they can have it for 500k. If that isn’t acceptable, I’ll get it looking pristine and we’ll go through the whole staging process–I have things to put in it–and list it. It will sell for well over 525k then, and I don’t need the money soon anyway.

I have decided that one thing that I want is a porch extension. I don’t like shoes in house. I want to design a little entryway because my porch is scary and people fall off of it anyway due to the height, and I’d like the sides of the small entryway to have boxes inside. I’ll call it the shoebox. People can put their shoes in the boxes. They put them back on when they leave. I’m going to use the money for it and then get the rest in CDs and another account so I can move $7,500 a year into my IRA. I don’t want my lifestyle to shift very much. I do want that one thing: the shoebox. There are certainly other things that I want to do in my old house, but can do them anyway when I’m not paying monthly maintenance to my ex-wife. Two payments left!

So, my Realtor is to thank for this shift. She and I had to text much of the day yesterday. She’s such an ace.

It’s been weird to work on the house. It made me think of my Dad a whole bunch too, and I scanned a picture of me in elementary school and one of him from high school and made a FB post. I look identical to him. My son does too, but has brown hair and blue eyes, so people don’t see the resemblance which is uncanny, because people are obsessed with skin and eye color. Good old threads of racism. Anyway, it’s just been heavy.

As a result of all the emotion and the savior complex that now I’ve put the Realtor in, I had another dream about her. It was one of those where she was coming onto me and I was confused by it. We did wind up kissing and such. It’s a dream, and I don’t confuse it with reality. I also don’t touch or hug her. I’m good with boundaries. Crushes, even when you’re 48-years-old are just sucky.

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The Oven Mitt

I was born in the city that I live in; however, my Dad was in a Civil Engineering program 25-miles away so I was first taken as a newborn to married student housing. We moved when I was 13-months, and then we moved all the time literally. This particular move was because my Dad dropped out of the program. I was always thinly blamed for that, which is so stupid. I didn’t ask to be born.

I guess that I had wicked colic. My Mom never much of an eater, and she said that I just basically screamed all the time; but given that my Mom really only liked coffee and cigarettes, I’m sure that my food wasn’t nourishing. I was weaned at 3-months. My Mom was obsessed with me. She held me while I slept. I eventually slept in 16-hour stretches. I guess until I could move around, I was dissociative 🙂 May have had something to do with the fact that my Dad wanted to leave me to die in the snow when I was screaming. My Mom told me that. He decided against it and when I was 5-months, I wasn’t colicky anymore.

On the fourth of July in 1981, I climbed up the hill behind the four-plex that we were renting at the time and got comfortable. That was the only time in my life that I have ever been stung by a bee. When bees sting you, they die and the barb stays. I’d been stung on the wrist and my arm looked like Popeye that night. I love bees. I know that if I hadn’t probably almost squished it in the clover where it was working, it wouldn’t have stung me. My arm was HUGE and we had to keep mixing a paste of meat tenderizer for it. My Mom did that many times and then I started doing it. I was 7-years-old when I got my first sting.

I do not love wasps. I do not love hornets. I have a complete disdain for yellow jacket wasps.

I have to complete all the conditions of probate. I have to file estate taxes by next June. I have to obtain a Personal Representatives Deed. Since 2014 these are many types of tasks that I have had to do. It’s well different than fighting with doctors who wouldn’t let my Mom get surgery, wouldn’t let my Dad take Seroquel, etc. He couldn’t even have one shot of whiskey. Not one. He asked the Medicaid Physician to kill him in November of 2019 and the rounding doctor said he wasn’t terminal. He told my Dad to pray. My Dad told him that he was an atheist. The doctor said, “Pray for death.” Did it work? He got COVID 5-months later.

My son and I went to the house to use weed whackers, but because the soil is so good the prickly lettuce was like bamboo. The Russian thistle could mostly be pulled, but some really had thick stalks. We borrowed hand shears and a bypass lopper from a neighbor. This neighbor wants to buy the house. That would be great. We could stop doing yard work then because I could sell it for 20k less.

The whole thing is Monopoly money anyway. 75k goes to my ex-wife and I have to ensure that I don’t do anything which will result in my having to pay capital gains taxes. Luckily, the final estate appraisal fee can come out of the estate account. There is very little money in there and I’ve already paid $6787.03 out of my pocket, and don’t want to pay anything again. Oddly, that is about what my debt is for the the next 19-months. Almost to the penny. I thought of it as the retainer for the lawyer, new engine mounts for my vehicle, and the trees and irrigation system, but it was really about what I was short this year. I know it didn’t help to be paying maintenance.

The subcontractors who work for the company that gets their piece of the Monopoly money pile at closing are actual shitty people. New things were Cheeto shrapnel, Monster cans and a divided lime. The latter was on the mailbox. When I moved it, a yellow jacket decided to sting me. I think he wanted the lime for a food home. I was able to do 3-hours of yard work, and it certainly hurt. However, yesterday my hand was disappearing. I went back and forth to Urgent Care because my insurance had changed and I initially had forgotten my cellphone. Anyway, it got so gross last night even through two Prednisone. I know that I’m not technically allergic to stings, but I do get weird reactions. I hope that I can bowl on Wednesday. The oven mitt that my hand has become reminded me of my first sting, and how these subcontractors are really unprofessional and sloppy.

Fat, red, swollen hand is difficult to use. Last night it was also past the wrist and 2/3 of the way up my forearm
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Lovers like a friend

Climbing on auto belay is frightening. When you fall, you fall a few feet and you need to make sure that you place your feet toward the wall. You can start whacking your body and your face on hand and footholds. We got there and the wall wasn’t open. So, we bouldered. Just like me I got up the rock really quick and then had no idea how to get down. I’m the same on a summit. I can get up really fast–especially for my age–but my janky left knee makes going down really slow. I need to start bringing my trekking poles.

Anyway, we stopped bouldering because we were burning our forearms. We weren’t pumped. The rock was way too hot. I think it was 94. Then we talked. My friend has grown impatient. Her partner’s ex-wife hasn’t moved out of the house yet, and they’ve been in relationship 16-months. They had a chat recently and my friend’s partner told her, “I know that I’m not giving you what you need and deserve.” She almost cried. I feel so badly for her situation.

I went ahead and went to the bar to be in air conditioning, have beer and tons of water after we climbed. I had a couple of good conversations. The crowd was really, really young. The nice guy met me late and we put our names in to sing and weren’t called so we left and went to the good venue. He had to work today so he got tired and we didn’t sing there either, but he only smoked a tiny amount of pot at the good venue and we both ate there so he was cool. He also is addressing his codependency and not obsessing on the girl in FL right now. We had wonderful conversations.

I’ve got less than 80-pages left in Gahran (2017). I think that I have had some shifts. If you’re not looking for a traditional beginning, middle and end upon death, you might want a partner just like a friend. I had learned in Fosse (2021) that relationships without demands and expectations tend to cause less of a need for therapy. I got that then. Now, I think that I’m coming to wanting some partners who are just like a friend to me. Having a great time in that moment and then navigating how often she would like to see me. I spend so many days quietly in my house when I’m not working. I may not get a text or personal email all day. I’m good at it. The only time I get lonely is during holidays. I think that my workaround would be doing something huge or otherwise epic for a holiday.

Yesterday, our teacher and safety person at the wall said that he climbed a difficult Class 3 long mountain on the 4th. Why didn’t I do something like that? Not a difficult Class 3 with no partner, but something fun and different. I think it’s because I am usually around for my son. He’s really busy with his girlfriend most of the time these days and does family stuff with her family. I don’t want to join or do I want to seek out a close friendship with her parents. They’re nice. Her mother shot lots of prom pictures for Senior Prom. I just don’t feel close to them, or immediately drawn.

In ten-days I have a new Meet Up that was directly recommended to me. I am excited. Three-days after that I have a women’s discussion potluck Meet Up. Again, I’m excited. I am actively making new friends. I’m going to have coffee with a new mentor before I go back to my full-time job and start teaching a class that I’ve taught a whole bunch of times. I need to add some neuroscience in it, but that won’t be a heavy lift for me. However, I ought to start this ten-month working cycle with way less stress. The house will be sold. I will not be paying any maintenance. I’ll have been divorced a year. My son is not in high school. And, I have new friends who have more experience than my limited and dated experience with ethical nonmonogamy.

Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay
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All Caught Up

I feel so much better today compared to the way that I felt yesterday. I was just heavy and low.

Zumba was actually cute. I’m still hideous, but don’t care one bit. My son went with me! He is actually a really good dancer so although he had no clue about the steps and turns, he just danced his ass off! He got in the car in an “Iron Maiden” t-shirt which is so funny. He dresses like the boys that I hung out with on the smoking pad (patio) next to our lunchroom in high school, but tends to wear very tight jeans. He had on his plaid wool cap too. He looked a bit like Matt Dillon in “Singles” as well. I put my foot down and made him change into the sweatpants that I bring in the car, which are usually for when I pick him up in the morning at a friend’s house and he smells like death. I have drum sticks and a North Face t-shirt too that I keep in my car. I thanked him for dancing with me. He’ll dance with his current girlfriend at the climber’s house on the 25th too. I’m so glad he’s moving. It has been so alarming to watch him gain so much weight since the pandemic.

I finished “Broken Horses.” Although I really don’t desire ever to speak to my ex-wife again, I’m so grateful that she introduced me to Brandi Carlile. We saw her 5 times together, I think. She’s phenomenal and her book is so raw, vulnerable, and authentic. It makes you want to chill with her.

I have book club this afternoon. “The Devil’s Rooming House” was really good. I like to read books that are put together with research and don’t get into the psychology very heavily, because then I can do diagnostic decision trees in my head while I read it. Not that I would ever want to touch murderer’s diagnoses, but it’s fun intellectually. I’ll leave that stuff to people like James Garbarino.

I think that some of my mood was because my son was so nice. He walked the dogs with me on Friday night, and went to Zumba. He rarely does anything without being asked. And, I have to be on his ass constantly about doing his laundry and ordering his room before he leaves to be with his girlfriend. He was nice for many hours and then spent the day with his Dad, and I really don’t have money right now to go out, so I read, weeded, and hung out with my pets. I think that yesterday was just derivative mostly of the quiet reflection and some of the things that I’m going through currently are in fact, sad.

I refilled my shower gel and met a sweet runt Norwegian Elk Hound and the proprietor told me that her name is Smokey and that she has so many nicknames that Smokey is just one of her names. I told her about the name cluster chart for one of my cats, and she got it. That is the first time that anyone has understood how nicknames can have other off shoots from other nicknames and why I’d have a chart of that. She was my brand of weirdo. I love weirdos.

I thought about my Mom.

I thought about my son.

I thought about how I’m a weirdo and that was one thing that my ex-wife just got.

I thought about how weird it is that I’ll be selling this house soon.

The good thing was that my sad, psychic energy reached my mentor. She texted me out of the blue with my sign-in note from her art show that she had in 2015 or so. Then she sent me some of her work that she’ll be showing soon in Santa Fe. I saw something that no one had. After a bit she asked how I was and I said pretty low today. She said that she was glad to connect in those valleys. I love her. She’ll be traveling soon, and I’ll get to see her. I’m really lucky.

I guess that I better use a little bit of this momentum and walk my dogs and scoop litter. Then I can lift before I shower and go to book club. I don’t know if I’ll see (except briefly) my son until afternoon. He’s walking home from his Dad’s apartment in a couple of hours. I’ll cook chicken piccata tonight. I think that I’ll have him bike with me to Whole Foods to select a veggie. Costco didn’t have brussels sprouts when we went on Friday, and that was a small tragedy. Again, I own that I’m a weirdo.

These are some drawings that my Dad did which I found in a footlocker one time
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Superheroes

I dreamt about the Realtor…again. I met her for dinner and my son was sitting by me and my best friend would be joining. The waiter got really antsy. I looked like shit. I was un-showered in my Adventure Time t-shirt and some beat-up jeans and the Realtor looked gorgeous and was confident and poised like she usually is. My son was quiet–so I know that is a dream. Finally, the Realtor went out to the parking lot after sending a text and came back in fairly quickly and then she got out a P-card from her firm. She was going to run it in the remote credit card machine, and then changed her mind and whipped out another card that was my best friend’s and the waiter balked. She explained to him that my best friend was out in the parking lot–parking–and would be joining. She got there just in time for us to toast–my son had a Pellegrino–and I reminded my son and best friend to make eye contact. I didn’t have to remind the Realtor.

My son asked me yesterday if I’d heard from the climber and I told him no. He asked why I don’t text her, and I said that I don’t chase. I also told him that she is Batman. I recall when we were in my bed after the ballet and she was talking about comets. I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about really, because I wasn’t as well read as I am now:

  1. “The Polyamorists Next Door”
  2. “The Many Faces of Polyamory: Longing and Belonging in Concurrent Relationships”
  3. “Plural Loves”
  4. “The Ethical Slut”

“Stepping off the Relationship Escalator: Uncommon Love and Life” came yesterday, but I want to finish “Broken Horses” first. I had to read “The Devil’s Rooming House” within 24-hours so I’m ready for book club on Sunday in between things too. But, I digress.

The climber is Batman because she is a satellite to me. She’s not a comet. She has a signal. My son was at her house a couple of weeks ago dancing. I work with her some weeks–I have to say some because she doesn’t sleep, but instead adventures to the max so sometimes literally is still elsewhere on Sunday nights or Monday mornings–and can feel her office when I’m at work. She’s Batman because there is a bat signal that emanates from her home, which is blocks from mine, from conversations with colleagues at times, in my car for commutes, and of course occasionally in the building.

Image by merryjoeblog from Pixabay
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Relationships and Religion

OK, I participate in a Slack channel now. It’s a good community and nice to have some conversations in it which are related to a life that I am leading alongside many others and also serves to discuss podcast episodes. I like the connection on the app so far. I really want to see some of these folks personally (In real life: IRL) someday. I haven’t had a date in a long time and will not get on an app. I just can’t. I know that when nothing is going on, I would have sad and empty feelings and that it would be generally a time sink for me.

I texted Aquarius yesterday and asked her if she wanted to head west to see the Ballet Dancer, and she said that she had a friend in town who is a musician. We drove up there and sat around in a dive bar nursing a beer. When ballet dancer got there, we split a pitcher and then walked around the outdoor mall and decided on tacos. Libra bought them all on the sly including guacamole! So kind.

The musician said that she spent a whole year swiping and it was incredibly labor intensive and just wore her out completely. She said what I hear a lot, “I eventually deleted the app.” I think it sounds depressing, but I do know that apps work for lots of folks.

Ballet Dancer has a neighbor who she pranked about his parking in the handicap spot near her unit. She would make signs and put them on the sign with his name, and when he talked to her about it she feigned surprise. That farce and the signs were really funny. The guy is odd though. He’s spent all spring with her which has included sleeping on her couch after watching movies and vice versa and has never kissed her. He has hiked with her and made her dinner. He called her “little lady” via text last night. Ew.

All three of these women are from the south though. In addition to being raised to be pure, only in love with God, and feeling all wrapped up in living a life that was probably only endemic to life in 1950s US, they have religious baggage and given that they’re 26-31, are working out what it means to be female. One is lesbian who’s recently out of a controlling straight marriage, and the other two are heteroflexible at least slightly. Swiping is probably avant-gard, and certainly having a neighbor in your apartment is maybe sinful.

My parents were atheists. They baptized my brother and I right after we were in the accident, and of course, my brother didn’t survive. All my family on both sides were Catholic, so I decided in college to study in classes for a year, take communion, and get confirmed. I went to church from 1994 to about 2007, actually. Then I got divorced and thought it odd at all to get my marriage annulled when I had a 1-year-old child. Also, being out, I could never take communion again. One of my colleagues is married to a man and is a devout Catholic and draws a lot of strength from Catholicism. He takes communion. I can’t say I understand that at all, and I do know, however, that religion is deeply personal and complicated. I think if you watch some of the documentaries and dramatizations about the priests in the Catholic church, you certainly get a dislike of much of the cover up and condoning of abuse that has gone on for many years. Again, religion is complicated.

Relationships are also complicated. I’m not going to swipe. I could see myself going to a Universalist church to check it out. I belonged to an MCC for several years and did well with a sermon that I delivered at the two services. Community is important and a majority of my friends have their own kids and such so I don’t spend consistent amounts of time with them. I think that getting lonely is common though. However, I was much more lonely when I was married.

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Nooooooooo

I went to the house today and the realtor got out of her car and said, “I’m ready to fight and come in guns a-blazin'” with a super earnest look and then pulled me toward her chest to chest, abdomens touching. She is so good at her job. She also is a good hugger and I don’t think that chemistry can be faked because I feel it. Such a bummer.

After we met with them, and it was really unpleasant because the Senior Manager said that I have to take all emotion out of it and that is how contract work goes and that ripping up cushions was lazy and not malicious, we chatted about the next steps. I felt gaslighted. Recall that they dabbed up wet paint with the Caretaker’s shirt too. That’s not lazy; it’s completely bizarre.

I did find really nice sofa sleeper in a mountain town that they’ll move to her apartment. It was way nicer than the one that the contractors destroyed which belonged to me. Actually, it’s nicer than any of my current furniture too. So, I think that it’s moving forward. I bought her bedding yesterday so now it’s the tables and shirt. I’m going to let them start work when they have that sofa sleeper in her apartment, and then I hope to never hear from this horrible firm that puts together contractors who are negligent, disrespectful, and sometimes completing uncaring and mean.

I texted Maryland to pick up my mug. He hugged me a couple of times and generally looked like hell. He’s gained some weight too. I still think that as long as we talk about our platonic friendship, I don’t mind doing some long hikes with him. He is nice.

Now, I’m thinking about the realtor (photographer). It sucks too. Again, I give her a wide berth always and never would have hugged her, but she hugged me this morning. I know that we’re going to have some tension if after the house sells she does want to hang out occasionally. And I don’t think that there is any way to fake chemistry when you feel it coming off of someone.

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Karaoke and the new book

I got to the good venue for karaoke and the nice guy from work was so late. He was also super stoned. He’s hard to relate to when he’s that stoned. I drank five glasses of water and got a free beer. I’d been there three Mondays in a row when it was closed, so the owner said he’d buy me a drink next time and he did so. Finally, the nice guy joined me and my other colleague and I put my name in the Internet queue. I sang “Faith” and I nailed it. Later I sang the Mikky Ekko part to “Stay” while my friend sang Rhianna and we harmonized really well. She stayed with me when I was waiting and I sang “Wanted Dead or Alive” and had everyone singing the echo in the chorus. I’m sounding good lately. I also still love playing guitar and taking a class for it, so I’m hopeful to just continue to get better musically generally.

I’m going to go with him again on Thursday and will hope that he isn’t too stoned. I also have a lot of struggles refraining from judgment with his obsession with this girl who lives in FL and went to Pride with him last month. She’s beautiful, and they had a good time, but his incessant texting with her is really weird. I had to tell him that he was codependent the last time we were together because he always leaves to drive his ex home from work. They still live together. Why can’t she walk home? It’s about a mile. I’m not writing behind his back either, because I tell him these things. It’s just sad.

Gahran’s (2017) book is great. She must have had to really sort her survey data.! I can’t imagine. It was difficult enough for me when I did my dissertation, and I only had to sort 12 interviews. Her research included over1500 survey responses. That is amazing.

So far, I’ve taken these nuggets away:

  1. The concept of social territoriality has threads of jealousy within it when other partners try to control or otherwise have license to limit behaviors of another partner. I think that communicating what both partners are comfortable with doing when they’re not together would help this factor unless a partner is abusive or is hiding hidden agendas.
  2. People will often assume that if someone is ethically nonmonogamous that they’re in a phase or that they hate monogamy. I think that being polyamorous tends to appeal to people who question status quo generally and that monogamy is the norm so it tends to work for most people.

I’ve only read the first part of the book, which is divided into 6 parts total, so it’s probably going to take me some time to digest it. It’s been helpful so far and different than the other four in this genre that I’ve read. I will likely blog about it again.

Until then, I have guitar, bowling, what may be the final walkthrough in the house, climbing, and karaoke. I should have some material to consider by Friday. Cheers, Folks.

Image by wal_172619 from Pixabay
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More on the Challenger

I’m an 8 on the Enneagram and it tends to be much better for everyone who has to be around me for me to live in my Heart point of 2. I don’t think that I’ll live there today though because the Contractors want to pay the Caretaker less money. She didn’t ask for her things to be ruined. It’s very annoying.

Similarly, when our plumbing line broke away from the city pipe and flooded our basement, the company hadn’t accounted for the sand–I live on a floodplain–and asked me for more money than the contract that I’d signed. No, I think that you’ll be fine with your 17K. People want their profits to be large when they’re doing stuff in your house. They killed a linden tree with a backhoe.

I’m able to supervise them cleaning her furniture today. The Project Manager will be there too. She doesn’t feel safe without support. My real estate agent would be there too, but I told her that I will keep her apprised of the entire situation and really need her support at the final walkthrough when the work resumes and is actually done. They can’t restart work until they’ve replaced and made good with the Caretaker.

Should you just expect that people have to ruin or destroy things in your house or on your property when they’re doing work?

Image by Laura Shaw from Pixabay
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Dignity

I’m going to be selling a house. I make three more payments to my ex-wife and then the buyers send her a very large check–because she can figure out how to pay taxes on that–and the chapter closes. It has already closed with my ex-husband. My son walked across the stage and graduated from high school. I don’t have any reason to talk directly to my ex-husband. He hit a concrete pillar and ruined his bumper last week and was kinda stranded at home after work on Father’s Day so I had my son take him leftovers, which I had to drop off because my son is still only on a learner’s permit, but I didn’t say anything to him per se.

He’s a terrible driver. He wrecked a car that his parents bought him outright on the day that he found out that I was pregnant and accused me of taking prenatal vitamins–I hadn’t been–and was found at fault being rear-ended at a light on a really nice car with a sunroof and leather interior that I had bought, but he had made the final two payments at the end of the loan. He’s just a different person than I am. He’s not a bad guy, but if you’d imagine Mr. Peanut and Peter Pan having a child, that would be my ex-husband.

My ex-wife deals with significant physical and mental health stuff and it colors the way in which she interacts in the world. When I fell in love with her she would have a few bad days here and there, and then it turned into no good days and being unable to track a 3-5 word sentence that I was saying. She didn’t really want to interact with me, and it seemed bizarre that she had said that she and I would “maintain a connection, and maybe ‘who knows?’ when my son is out and doing his own thing.” That was insulting. I also thought that because she had so many complaints about me and how I lead my life that the most compassionate thing to do after we divorced is to have zero contact with her. She finally figured that one out and doesn’t email me. I do have loan assumption paperwork that I’ll do tomorrow so her name is no longer on the house loan. It’s ironic that either of them ever had their names on a Title–I removed my ex-husband when I refinanced–because they’ve never contributed to this mortgage. I have my house paid off in 6-years, regardless of the loan, mine is the only name on the title, and then no more doing this rather exhausting career. I want to work outside. I volunteer outside and want to be working part-time doing service for real, tangible and meaningful things.

I had two Caretakers in the house while all the legal processes were settling. One was not a good person. She would complain about water bills and the like and didn’t realize that when you don’t pay rent, you don’t complain about monthly bills. She wound up moving out early and didn’t pay property taxes and the other Caretaker who is a good person had to call me and ask me for over $500. I couldn’t believe that her “friend” did that. Moved out early and then stuck her with a bill. I’m really good with gut level reactions to people and never trusted the other Caretaker. My ex-wife would tell me that I was the one with the problem and raise her voice. I have to admit that I would have never thought that she would stick the other Caretaker with a bill, and she did so right after the other Caretaker’s brother had died.

The subcontractors who are doing work on the house have done some truly hideous things to her. They painted her furniture, they shattered one of her tables, they let out her indoor cat. They even shredded one of her shirts, dabbed the pieces in paint and threw those on her comforter. Oh, and they tore up two cushions on a sofa sleeper in the house. Because I don’t really need the money and have a strong sense of justice, I sent an email saying that given a clause in the contract to having a “Right to Remedy” that if they didn’t clean all the paint and compensate her for her sheets, a comforter, a shirt, a table and either replace the sofa sleeper or repair the cushions that work on the house is indefinitely suspended. Looking at those pictures of the destruction evoked “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” and had she not found her cat in some bushes up the street and he’d have died, I don’t know what I would have done. I was nauseated and teary talking to her.

All people deserve dignity. All people have rights to being treated kindly, and being respected. You don’t have to go out of your way to chat with a gossipy colleague, but you must see that person as a person.

My mother who was given to trite sayings, as she was Midwestern, would say, “You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.” I have found that if the latter is coming out of your mouth, that is just a good person with whom to have limited interaction. My father, who was an East Coaster, but lived in Germany and Morocco during and then shortly after Vietnam actually ended, always did whatever he could for other people. I like to think that I’ve become a person who is a blend of those approaches, and believe that all people have dignity.

Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay
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Doing it safely

About 15-years-ago I took my horrible, hand-me-down Mountain Bike up a single track. I’m sure that my bike was cutting edge in the 90s, but it was so heavy and had broken pieces up near the brakes and was archaic for 2008. I was doing pretty well for awhile, and then I fell forward onto the frame. Ouch. I know that I’m not male, but was really bruised afterward. That was my last experience mountain biking.

Today, I am taking a class to learn how to do it safely. I peeled potatoes and put them in some hot olive oil in the cast iron with sea salt and am going to mosey in just under a couple of hours after I eat some of those, and a couple of eggs. The class is really close to the private crag wherein I had my very first time on real rock in September for climbing.

I still hope that Maryland will secure a friendship with me. My son told me that all men just wait until they can make moves for the most part unless they think of you like a sister. I’m going to tell Maryland to think about me as an older sister. He truly is the age that my little brother would be had he not died when we all got hit by the drunk driver when we were walking up to the park. I would like Maryland to do some outdoor stuff with me. I love having male friends.

My best friend from work is doing the divorced wild stuff. I did that stuff when I came out. I’m sure that she is using barriers because she worries actively about STIs. I sent her a book chapter in PDF form yesterday because she has trouble communicating needs with intimacy. I can’t imagine that. Why bother having sex with another person if you’re not going to talk directly about what you like?

My son is at my cousin’s this weekend to care for their dog, and the realtor–who unfortunately I’m still a little attracted to–was supposed to come over for dinner with my son and I on Sunday, but I’m cancelling because the contractors are about to get fired. I don’t want that to color a dinner at our house, as that is what we’ll talk about.

That is a whole other blog entry. The attraction isn’t. I don’t touch the realtor or act or text anything flirtatious. She wants a friendship with me and we can build that cleanly. I think that attraction fades when you don’t act on it or expect that you’ll get your chance someday.

I’ll write about the mountain biking class on Sunday or Monday.

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Summer, Winter and Spring

Ok, before I dig into the Pacific Northwest… I paid $40 to Maryland to take me to the airport and he said, “Well, I’m attracted to you, too,” when he was talking about his primary partner. I said quickly without missing a beat, “Oh, thanks. I’m completely aromantic and platonic with men.” He listened to that and then said, “You had your son. You were married.” Instead of saying, “Yes, and I separated from him in 2007,” and that getting to be a thing instead said, “I’ve kissed two men in my life. TWO. I can’t count the number of women that I’ve kissed. Men don’t make me blush. They don’t make my heart race. It’s not a sexual thing.” I sure hope that he gets it. Otherwise, I won’t hang out with him solo again. BUMMER.

The plane was late. The rental car was 3-hours late. They were so unprofessional until a shift change happened too. I complained and got some gas comped. Then I drove into Portland. I was starving. I did the wine and cheese happy hour and then took a long walk. I found the bar that I thought that I wanted to go to, and checked in briefly. Although I don’t usually eat any meat on vacation, I had to try 40-hour Pho broth. Honestly, broth simmered a minimum of 40-hours?!? I had the best salt and pepper rice flour dusted calamari ever too. The owner was an actual hoot. He sang and played for me. We talked about lead guitar and karaoke.

I went to the bar and really connected with the owner. A friend of hers came in and another woman and they were really close so I left, but she got my Instagram handle and followed me. She’s visiting her sister at the end of the month. I’m going to take her out and connect more. Stay tuned.

It was hot in Portland–very summer-like heat. It was 92 when I went to Pho and the bar and the next day it was 88. I slept well that night. The next day I ventured out more and walked a total of 32,286 steps that day and some of the 12-miles was walking the Willamette Greenway. That would have been the best place to ride a rented bicycle, which I didn’t do on this vacation. That is an amazing riverfront experience.

Calm, quiet and therapeutic. There is a poetry on the rocks area too and a Poet’s Corner boat.

I went to Deschutes. I’ve mentioned in other’s blogs in my commenting that I don’t like Lagers, but Night in Vienna is amazing and such a sin that they don’t can and export it! Deschutes was my crossover beer with Mirror Pond that started me on the road to hops. I’ve never strayed from that road, and had a flight of the ones that they only serve there. Heading back to Portland yesterday I was really sad that Ecliptic Brewing isn’t open until Tuesday or Wednesday, because I had wanted to hit that one too, but it’s lucky that I didn’t… More on that later.

I got up and got mobile the next morning and checked out of my hotel downtown–don’t worry I did hit Powell’s Books the day before too–and bought my son “Serving the Servant,” and I just remembered that I forgot to give it to him last night, so when he’s done babysitting this afternoon and I’m getting ready to take him to work for the evening I’ll give it to him. I also bought the updated edition of “The Ethical Slut” for me and I’m almost done. It was a long, long drive. However, driving through many impressive National Forests and all the lakes, rivers and reservoir areas was not a bad thing. Finally, I got to the entrance to the park, and it was, well, closed. Yes, gate down due to winter. It was June 8th.

Look at those TREES! Unreal.

No worries, I’ll do another route and just eat later. Again, starving. The GPS spun and spun, and spun some more. Uh-oh. Ok, go to the bathroom in the forest on a rock (That’s the responsible thing so animals don’t tear up flora for your salt.), breathe, breathe some more, you have just under half a tank, and a state map. THANK all the spirits and such that my rental car was delayed so I picked up a map waiting for my car! Only three turns. There are not tons of signs though so I did get disoriented twice, but finally found the south entrance to the park. I was dumping adrenaline and meditating on the trees so I wouldn’t freak out completely.

Just forest bathe in your rental car. It will be fine.

I finally reached the Park Office and Ranger and was pretty freaked still, but it was so nice to see the whites of a human’s eyes. I reached the lodge afterward having only driven an extra hour-and-a-half. I got my stuff put in my quiet, no frills, comfy lake viewing room and went to the back patio of the lodge. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It’s almost silly to post, because the picture is nothing like it in reality.

No appropriate caption for seeing this site

I basked in the grandeur until 8 when my dinner reservation was, and then was pretty spent, so I turned in right around sunset. I was anxious to get a good hike in the next day, which I did in the spring rain the next day. I walked past Discovery Point until I hit a steep snow bank and it was raining a little more, but was satisfied with my 4.7-mile hike. That’s when I met Tommy. I’ve had some good servers in my life, but none like Tommy. I’m going to write to Aramark about him. He could work in a 5-star resort. He’s done 17 park seasons at Crater Lake and is authentic and caring. Such a good lunch and two beers. Then I went back to back patio and sat in a rocking chair. That night, I watched the sunset.

Good fare. Finished all with the exception of the fries, which I did eat for breakfast on Saturday morning.

I drove to the coast! I just had to. Everyone kept telling me that the Oregon Coast is unique. I went to the salt marsh at the Wildlife Preserve and did some bird watching.

Lots of swallows and I also spotted a Piping Plover who sung to me.

I hit the beach, and then parked up the coast and walked over the ridge that is known as the travelling beach and once I went down to the water I understood why! Wow, the wind there is extreme. It’s hard to walk, but is so beautiful.

After a beach walk I went to the lighthouse at the Coquille River and learned about Denny Dyke from the Lighthouse “Keeper” and his wife who were super friendly and disappointed that I won’t still be in Oregon on the weekend for low tide to walk his labyrinths which last a couple of days until the tide comes in. What a neat manner to do art! I was thinking that with that level of wind it made sense that all the sand would move with great frequency.

Keepers did this work manually for years until the lights could be automatic

It was getting late. I wasn’t interested in getting back to Crater Lake after dark because of one entrance being the only way into the lodge and my room, but the folks in the lighthouse convinced me to drive back over the bridge into town to trek to the Face Rock Viewpoint. I’m so glad that I did! I walked down the boardwalk, scurried up a rock, walked through the rock caves, and looked at everything there. I took what has become my favorite picture that I’ve ever taken too, and when I looked at it that night, I saw a heart beach rock in it. I think it’s because I’m going to fall in love soon.

The wind moves not only the sand, but beach rocks too due to its force
Crazy cool rock formations line the beach. I think that if you Google Face Rock, you’ll get the quintessential and famous rock at this spot.

I was able to make it back that day right at sunset and only turned around once to check a sign at Diamond Lake. I was way less scared than I’d been on Thursday getting to the lodge. I ate spinach and steelhead trout dip and connected with a traveling oncology physician and her husband while eating in the main hall of the lodge. They were very cool.

The next day I broke rules and hiked and was found out by a nice park ranger. I had no idea it would be winter at the lake until late July, and didn’t regret anything though because I did much relaxing rather than cycling and hiking, which is fine for me. Until I bought a book for a souvenir at the Visitor’s Center I didn’t know that Crater Lake is affectionately known as July and Winter. I get it now.

There were lots of snowfields to cross to get the the peak, and I would have been ok up at elevation, but it’s closed and probably will be until mid-July. The Park Ranger was cool, so I’m lucky.

Look at how when it’s warm the lake changes as do the cloud reflections

I went back to Discovery Point and also to just before the Watchman’s Overlook on the interior trail this time because Sunday was so warm and some precarious snow had melted. I was able to hike just under 4-miles that day on trails only rather than the road because it was a warm spring day rather than a rainy one. Winter may have just left Crater Lake. Now, the snow will melt and the roads will be plowed along the 33-mile rim.

You can see the back of Wizard Island from this point on the trail, but because only a mile of road is open on the West Rim in “Winter” you cannot see Phantom Ship

I had the curry again that night at the lodge and because Tommy was my server it was better prepared this time and I shared the extra curry with a man and his companion who were seated next to me. He was a professional climber and a previous guide at Rocky Mountain National Park. His companion was a family friend who had done some climbing in her 40s and she inspired me. They were to get up at 4:45 the next day and photograph the sunrise. I watched another sunset.

Mount Thiesen – a lightning rod

I left at 9:17 am and when I finally got to I-205, I found out that Ecliptic Brewing isn’t open at either location on Mondays, so I just went to the airport. I couldn’t get checked in. I went to the agent and she said that I can’t make my connection due to a delay. She said that I could fly to Phoenix at midnight and then stay in Dallas until 8:00 am. I told her that wouldn’t be happening. I said, “I actually can’t do 18-hours in three airports after traveling all day.” I meant it. I would’ve had a breakdown. I had driven 7-hours that day even before I got home. After some time she found a direct flight on another airline. It was literally leaving right then. I checked my bag, learned it was late, went to the bathroom and boarded. I had some scares when the woman (Aquarius) who I’d lent my car to for the week didn’t text me back when I was in my seat. Libra was supposed to pick me up at midnight and now it would be 4-hours earlier–no complaints–but I needed my car back too. Right before takeoff she texted and was with the Ballet Dancer (from my last climbing class).

It took me two-hours to get home due to a shooting near where Aquarius lives, but I was still home before I would have been and had a lucky direct flight. My son’s girlfriend was here, and they looked at all my pictures while I cleaned the kitchen and warmed up spaghetti in red sauce with broccolini and some chicken piccata. It was after 10 pm and I’d eaten two rolls and a little butter, fries, an ounce of snack mix, tomato juice, and the last picante corn nuts from my car (probably four and some salt from the bottom of the bag). It was so good to see my pets and my son too. I’m sleepy today, but had an incredible solo vacation.

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Dragging Ass

Wait. What is up with these fonts?!? It’s bothering me to write. Why did they change? They didn’t email me. Software engineers are likely well-intentioned, but these things can be alarming. I’ll write anyway.

I went to happy hour and people were talking about work. That can be annoying. It also makes the men leave abruptly which leaves me feeling paranoid. I ordered BBQ nachos with diced jalapeños. Everyone inhaled them–I should have ordered two orders. I went to the bar and sang one song and didn’t like the vibe and couldn’t get anyone to meet me so I went to Trader Joes and got some beef ribs which I put in the ceramic skillet and left on 8 while I walked the dogs quickly. I wolfed all but one.

I slept off and on until 8. I’m going to shower, walk my dogs, and then get the coffee packs and granola bars and such out of my car from my main site out, and go to my secondary site. Hopefully, I can just get my vacation setting on remotely from any phone, and I’ll do the one in that work email. I did a two-week and a day vacation setting for my one university job and I’ll log into the other one when I get back from OR. I have to start checking that one more faithfully. Those are doctoral students only so the level of maintenance is more significant for whatever reason.

“Plural Loves,” which I’m reading now is ok. Some chapters are better than others, but it’s mostly just a lot of sex. Sex is fine, but I like the psychologically nuanced stuff and research things more. It’s not bad and there are tons of contributing authors to the book. I’ll be done tonight or tomorrow night. It’s cool that an Ereader tracks your book progress. Glad that I bought an Ereader.

I cut the grass yesterday between happy hour and karaoke. It took a very long time and it’s a small patch of grass so it was pretty funny. After I’m at work an hour or so, I’m going to three pet stores–how annoying–and getting everything so that I don’t come back to any problems. I made my son watch “16 candles” this week, and he loved it. I told him that I will not come back to a house like that. I’m really hopeful. My neighbors will look in on him, thank goodness.

Image by Maggie Morrill from Pixabay

I have a really rattly cough. It sounds wet in the morning. I also have had some pretty bad headaches, which I’ve not had in years. Just a gross cold going around, I guess. I don’t know if it will be gone by Tuesday, but I hope so. I brought home a KN95 to wear on the plane. I’ve not been sick like this in many years.

Aquarius is the ballet dancer’s best friend out here. She wanted to do long distance with her semi-gf who is still in Nashville. That woman’s mother told her that they shouldn’t talk for a month, so they didn’t until yesterday and then they talked and decided not to date. I texted her that was wise and she said that she wants to believe that. Anyone in their mid-twenties who still has a parent with that much sway isn’t a love interest. That’s a child. She is going to bowl for me next Wednesday when I’m in OR and our other teammate is her age and also from the south. Hoping, hoping, hoping! I love setting people up. I hope that they hit it off.

I have to go. I have to shower. I have to walk the girls. I have to work a couple hours. I have to run errands. I have to work in the yards before the storm rolls in. I’m Ernest Hemmingway.

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Holiday Fun and Reflections on Robert Redford

Dinner was good and because we were the second group of people there on Saturday night, service was swift. The appetizers came out within typical timing and our food was maybe 20-minutes after that. The pacing was weird, because I didn’t get mine right away, but it was delicious and we weren’t there long–just over an hour. Then I took my son bowling. Bowling is soooo expensive outside of league. It’s ok.

For some reason, I got an extra $90 from the University this month, which always makes the alimony bite better when I see extra money. There are 3 payments left folks, and I have already written in the Exclusive Right to Sell Document on Thursday that some of the money goes in a cashier’s check. I’ll get the title company to send that to my ex-wife and then this chapter finally closes. I think that it will be about a year from when my divorce finalized.

We picked up Maryland at his house and had a nice ride up to the trailhead. We even got a parking spot which was shocking! I had never been up there in the spring. There were some really muddy areas from the brook that feeds out of the canyon and there was a really pretty flower just blooming. Google Lens wasn’t working because no one had signal.

Pretty mountain flower

I had packed turkey, Swiss, and romaine sandwiches for us all. Then my son wanted me to store his raincoat, so I told him to put it in my backpack with my water bladder and first aid stuff and he threw a sandwich on the trail and blamed me for not having it wrapped well in aluminum foil. I told him to pick it all up and had to keep telling him where pieces of it were and he got so pissed about me not wrapping food correctly–mind you it was securely in my backpack–that he charged ahead of us. That was fine.

Maryland and I had great conversation. He said, “So, you’re returning to polyamory.” I said, “I’m trying not to mess up. I had a quad that only the girl and I knew about in college and it was unethical. And then I was in a Vee in 2009-2010. In fact, she was the first person that I thought of when I got divorced. I texted her, ‘How are you? I’m divorced.’ But, she wound up being really sick so she had to stay in her marriage because her wife has good medical insurance.” I told him my ideal would be a couple of married women who had girlfriends as younger people and are in a long-term marriage and not doing well with bisexuality, so they’ve talked with their husbands about opening up. I told him that I don’t see myself as a threat to a man. I’m direct, authentic, open and would never want to break up a marriage. I just like having girlfriends. He told me that I’m the unicorn. He also told me to get on an app. That won’t happen.

The climber would scurry and solo this stuff all the way up the top piece of granite.

Maryland has been polyamorous since college. He is in a year-long relationship with a partner who is my age. I think she’s probably just a little older than me judging from the way that she looks. He loves her and considers her his primary partner. She loves him and is solo poly. I think that I’ve discovered that people who make a decent amount of money and have a house identify more with being solo poly. The words seemed loaded. Eg. “My money is mine and I don’t cohabitate.” His partner brought him over to me at karaoke and introduced us and then she said, “I’m going to mingle.” He had gotten my phone number and then we texted and made these plans. I think that we’ll camp this summer too. I enjoy his company very much. He’s also sweet. He texted, “Ok, good to know. Yes, definitely feeling it but that was good,” after I’d texted him our mileage. I texted back, “Hahahaha. Me too! I got nine-years on ya, too,” and sent the sleeping head and grandma emoji. He texted back, “You rock it,” with the starry eyed emoji and a pine tree. I prayer handed that text. He’s going to be a very close friend to me. I’m very happy.

Today I have high tea at the Indian tea house. I wonder if liquor stores are open today? I want to add a bottle of Scarpetta Rosé to the candle and bath bombs for the ballet dancer. Hopefully, they’re open. I have to pick up her best friend out here before we go to the other city. Her best friend wrecked her car. She’s a lesbian too, so I’m looking forward to chatting with her. I told the ballet dancer because she’s newly out, I could be like a mentor to her. I’ve been out 16-years this fall.

I’m going to do yard work and organizing today before the birthday party at high tea. I have to have the house more manageable before I leave for Oregon. It’s pretty disorganized and the yards are actually insane because of all the spring rain. The yards at my house are ridiculous. Like other things from the 50s that I don’t agree with is not limited to all kinds of Kentucky bluegrass everywhere surrounded a brick ranch in the desert. I have mulch and a xeriscape up front and have a tiny patch of tall fescue in the back. I’m doing no mow May though, so it’s also crazy. It’s going to take forever on Thursday to cut it.

Has anyone seen “Indecent Proposal?” Robert Redford gives a couple a million dollars to have a night with I think Woody Harrelson’s wife… Is it Demi Moore? I can’t recall, actually. It fucks up their marriage entirely. I don’t want transactional intimacy. I want a couple of girlfriends. I want to do what I want that doesn’t involve sex, and want to always kiss who I want to kiss. With girlfriends, it would be wonderful to be friends with husbands too, because I really feel at ease around men. They don’t make my heart race or make me feel fluttery.

Maryland, who is so cool, and doesn’t make me feel anything but respect and companionship told me about the relationship smorgasbord. I don’t love this podcast, but have listened to 3-5 of them, and found the graphic in the podcast of the relationship smorgasbord that I want to include in this blog about my weekend and reflections on transactional sex.

https://www.multiamory.com/podcast/339-the-smorgasbord-of-relationships

Maryland is a Companionship / Playfulness and Emotional Intimacy relationship. The ballet dancer is also Companionship / Playfulness but there is some level or hierarchy given our age difference–Power / Hierarchy on the graphic. I think that will be the same with her best friend. The climber does some communication dynamics and is Romantic with some manner of Emotional Intimacy. Maryland was correct, as this graphic is really helpful with conceptualizing relationship. My best friend and I cross over so many areas on this graphic, so you can see visually the import of our connection.

(Gotta walk the dogs now.)

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Wildlife and Other Life

Female robin

About two-weeks ago, I saw a robin digging dead grass out from under the area in our backyard which grows terrible grass because of the lack of rainfall that lands given that it’s right under the eaves. A robin’s nest is really, really cool. It looks like it’s spun around. She’s been chilling there this week–I’ll bet that there are eggs, but they’re pretty deep in there because my 6-foot-tall son can’t even see them jumping up.

She’s been eating and standing on it too, so I know that she and her mate who also visits are working on something. Many bird species, given their short life span as a mammal, mate for life. They’ll probably be hatching babies soon and it will be so cool. We don’t have the wrens this year in the red bird house in the other corner of the patio, but we do have sparrows in the opposite side and that house has been here a really long time with no inhabitants, so it’s exciting.

She and her mate are so industrious. They really make you realize the short evolutionary distance that we have between ourselves and birds.

I did the community walk this morning, and learned about the pancreas. I thought it was excretory. Yes, AND responsible for hormones and blood sugar too. Nice, little 2-mile walk and good connections. My dog got tired, and my ex’s dog got weird. They’re both fine now. I had to take a nap because I have a sinus infection. Five pets on the bed with me. I made a quesadilla and will eat it soon. I put seeded a jalapeño in it. Nothing is very hot for me anymore. I want to have eaten recently when we go to dinner.

I even ate ghost pepper tenders on Tuesday and was fine. I’m going to hot Thai tonight. Our neighbors and I are making the trip to the strip mall for 2-3-Hour-Thai. Honestly, you sit FOREVER. The food is incredible though. I’ll time when we hand back the menu to our server and when the food comes and update peeps. My neighbors are like my family now. I am so, so lucky.

Work was so trying this week. I think that I work 2 or 3 days next week, and then I have a few days off. I’m going to Oregon, and I’ve never been there. I’m so excited. I’ll spend almost a week there. I’m open to whatever experiences will unfold there.

I’m supposed to go hiking with my buddy tomorrow. I haven’t heard from him for confirmation, but I think that he has a friend in town. The woman that he’s dating I think is older than me, so I’m bringing my son so he doesn’t get the wrong impression of me. I really like hanging out with men. Monday I have a birthday party for my new friend who is super young and works in IT. I think that she’ll be the ballet dancer. I don’t want to reference age anymore. I don’t have a nickname for the blog for my new guy friend, but if tomorrow happens, I will easily be able to craft one which I’ll use in this blog.

My colleague who almost died has a roommate. That is so, so good! She tends to deny all social needs and her roommate is a former colleague of ours and such good people. She broke up with her serious girlfriend. They even lived together. I am not positive, but I think that they were together at least 3-years. It’s really sad. She is so cool though, and I am so glad that she’s living with my colleague. My colleague won’t be able to drink herself to death either which creates a piece of mind for me.

I met with the realtor on Zoom. I’m still a bit attracted to her. It’s ok. I think that I like the way in which she doesn’t half-ass work. She is such an Ace at what she does! She speaks and writes three languages too and is very bold. Like I wrote in December she wants to be friends, so that is what we are. I’m having her over for dinner on Father’s Day with my son and I. I think that she’s an extrovert, so it will be a very easy time. I’m introverted and can do a little better with an extrovert because I don’t have to work as much and I can always ask really good questions. On the 15th, the climber and I had long periods of silence in the car because we’re both introverted. It wasn’t awkward–it was quiet.

For whatever reason, I’ve had a higher than normal sex drive, which is a little bit annoying. I don’t want to be intimate with anyone who isn’t in love with me. Hopefully, I’ll have a fun summer and make some good connections.

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Futures

Image by WOKANDAPIX from Pixabay

Yesterday, I had gotten my son an hour early to the venue, so walked around a little bit. I had some errors in the paperwork that I need to address going forward regarding ensuring a phrasing in client goals so my colleague talked to me about that. I told him that I would ensure that I had phrases about specific classes or careers going forward. Then the colleague who told me that she was too busy to work with a client came in and I realized that my colleague was thinking that I was like her. Beyond reproach. Can’t take feedback. That’s not me in the slightest. I mess up, make mistakes and try to improve every single day that I’m graced with life. I still feel like I could punch the other colleague that wouldn’t meet with the client, so I think that I’ll talk to her about that in August or September. Not seeing her for ten-weeks will be very nice.

My son talked about being a COVID high schooler in his speech. He then transitioned to talking about dropping out and making the best decision that he could by transferring to a small, tight-knit high school wherein you’d be checked in on all the time. Finally, he thanked the Principal, the Mental Health Provider and each of his teachers personally with a few sentences. They were really touched. He tied up by addressing the fellow graduates. His class was small: 58; and I think had he not dropped out of the comprehensive high school that he attended he would have been one of about 400 next May. We went to a pizza place that is a chain, but does brew beer and sat around with my cousin, her husband, his Godfather and two kids, our neighbors who are now so much like family to my son and I, a mother from his school in 6th grade and her child and several of his friends. It was a nice couple of hours. I printed thank you notes today and have some envelopes that were left over so I made notes in Word wherein I wrapped the thank you font text with a loyalty-free mortar board on it, folded the notes and cut them so they fit the envelopes.

I was looking at his diploma yesterday and got really choked up seeing my brother’s name where my son’s middle name is on the heavy stock paper. It’s so weird to me that my brother never graduated. My parents weren’t at my son’s graduation. Neither were his Dad’s parents because they attended their other grandson’s graduation out of state which was the same day. That makes sense. It’s legitimately that grandson’s graduation year. It’s not like I want to have a large amount of people around, but it’s still weird. Like I’ve written before, I had a typical nuclear family for a child of Boomers with me and my brother. At 47, there was only me left.

I like my son’s current girlfriend. He had a couple more and now feels like he’s settling on this one, and I like her best if that sticks. My son has done his fair share of cheating. And, the love of his life, got back with him by saying that they were undefined, but exclusive and then made out with one of his good friend’s friends. So, he has some relationship baggage already at the age of 17. I’ve been talking to him about ethical non-monogamy. I think that he’s listening too. The only time lately that he is hostile and vile is when he can’t bully me into getting his way. He wants to store nicotine vapes in my garage, and I don’t want to smell rotten Kool-Aid odor when I grab my bike helmet off of the shelf. His argument took shape as a gaslighting bully; however, these events are few and far between, so I’ll take it.

Parenting is often a real treat. I can’t wait to be an empty nester. It’s really soon–14-months away. I’m willing to cook for him and a significant or friend when he prearranges that with me, and I’m willing to take him to Costco. I’ll insure him for dental and medical, pay for a flip phone, and also will write any tuition check that he produces. Otherwise, he’ll just have to figure it out. He’s tall, good looking, smart, charming and talented, so he doesn’t really need anything that he doesn’t ask for. He used to tune me out completely and then after two citations he started realizing that I’m not totally full of shit. Again, he can be a bully on occasion, but it’s rare.

I think that mainly what you can wish for is that your children have it a little better than you did. According to Putnam (2015) that won’t happen though. I’m just hoping like I told my best friend from work when I was talking to her on the phone today that I can pay into long-term health insurance and all he’ll have to do is interview a CNA, check on me to have dinner that someone prepares once a week, and then do a simple probate when I’m gone. I don’t want him to go through anything that I did. And, I also don’t ever want an intimate partner wiping my ass.