Will wonders never cease...

Just when I thought I had it all--peace and contentment--my past comes looking for me. First it was a friend from high school and then two more guys came looking for me. One is a friend from Ohio. He and I used to meet at Starbucks every Saturday morning to chat and trade jokes while he told me how he was getting along with his flying trials. You see, he told me he could actually fly and not with a plane, but he never actually got around to showing me he could fly more than a few feet.

Well, a few weeks ago Duke emailed me and told me he was going in for heart surgery. He came out of it just fine, but he surprised me by asking me if I had ever considered him as a boyfriend. I told him no. I always considered him as a friend, a good friend. He was a little sad about that. Seems he misses those Saturday mornings eating muffins and showing me how far he could fly.

A couple of days ago another surprise arrived in my email. A retired reporter from New York living in Israel emailed to ask how I was doing and where I was. I haven't heard from him in at least three years, but being the good reporter he is he tracked me down. I must be leaving trails of radioactive bread crumbs or something. Anyway, he's still in a kibbutz in Israel running his little B&B and he is about to be joined by an Australian lady who has a thing for retired Jewish reporters who just can't stay away from typewriters or peanut butter. Surprisingly, he informed me that all his previous attempts to get me to Israel were not just for my patronage of his private B&B but for nefarious purposes of hedonistic pleasure. Go figure. I thought he was kidding all this time.

A bigger surprise is that he has read my journal and told me, and I quote, "I forgot what a good writer you are." High praise indeed from a syndicated investivative journalist of his stripe, even if he is retired. Imagine that.

He also chastized me for my self destructive low self esteem in getting involved with married men, but I don't quite see it that way. Of course, he does have a personal prejudice since he is a single, retired, naturalized Israeli kibbutz living B&B owner, but he did have a point. I explained that I was closing some doors to the past and getting rid of the self destructive tendencies and low self esteem by living in this mountain cabin alone sans male companionship eating pork. To which he replied, "You ain't never going to find a nice Jewish accountant or fanatical Muslim beheader eating that filthy stuff." Pork, he means. Like I can afford pork. Besides, no Jewish accountant or Muslim beheader is going to be happy up here in the back of beyond without numbers to crunch and people to behead, so it's a moot point.

At any rate, I need to find those radioactive bread crumbs and sweep the trail for tracks or I'm liable to end up over run by men and there goes my peace and contentment. I mean, really, men and me in a secluded cabin? What are the odds?