Wax doll

I've been saying for decades that diabetes is curable and has always been curable. Ignore the doctors who tell you otherwise. Ignore me if you choose. I'm no doctor, but if I had it to do all over again, I would become a doctor in spite of what I was taught -- marry a doctor because you can only get there by marrying a man.

I'm sure in time my mother would've come around to my way of thinking, in spite of her belief that women -- like children -- should be seen and not heard. I never obeyed her rules about girls and boys and suffered for it. She enjoyed the accolades she got from my talents and hard work, but she believed she had guided me in my endeavors. What she believed was that men were of paramount importance and women were made to serve men.

Don't get me wrong. I like men -- boy-crazy Mom called me from an early age -- and she worried I would turn out like my biological mother -- a tramp, a whore -- someone she would've traded for a boy if that was possible and she never would havve looked back. I wasn't what she wanted; she wanted a son, a boy, anything but what she got -- me.

It took me a long time to get used to the truth in spite of what she told me when she revealed I was adopted. She said she chose me; she wanted me. I wondered what was wrong with me that my own mother gave me away without a second thought. Mom handed me a file full of articles about adopted children and how I was wanted and should be grateful I hadn't been born to her like her own three children. She had to accept what God gave her. In this case, I fulfilled what I had been adopted to achieve -- being the catalyst in producing children for her. The only problem was that I was born a girl. What a horrible outcome -- for her.

I started out with two strikes against me -- not a boy and born from a woman of questionable morals. No matter what I did after that -- which was fine by me, but less than optimal by my loving mother's views. No matter what I did, it was getting up to bat in baseball with two strikes against me. It would be nearly impossible, at least not by her standards, to make a run or hit a home run.

Turns out I not only made a hit, but I hit a home run. Shock! Dilemma! Horrifying! Unheard of!

I was born a wax doll, just like the wax doll in David Copperfield -- his mother. Maleable. I could be shaped and molded into what Mom wanted.  She proceeded to do just that, mold me into a form she could use, in any form except a boy because I was born a woman. That was long before the day of surgical changes that could turn me into a boy. Long before hormone therapy and the kind of surgery they now do in Colorado and in Sweden to change a person born a woman into a boy.

Even if the techniques, hormones, and surgeries had been available then, I wouldn't have fit the profile. I liked boys -- boy crazy remember? Being homosexual would not have been in my mother's plans either, not after putting all that money out to make me into a boy. Remember? Mom had her views of the fitness of things. Boys would be boys and girls would be girls. Never the twain should meet. It might have helped her plans if I had been a lesbian. She could have at least worked with a lesbian since I already would have been girl crazy. The physical change would have fit the form she planned for me. She could accept a lesbian changing into a boy because the mental programming would have already fit.

She couldn't reform me as much as she needed. Besides, I wasn't born a boy and she couldn't reform me physically by paying enough money to change my physical body into the form of a physical boy.

She thought at several points that I probably was a lesbian, but I would have been disqualified by my boy-craziness.  I was too much like my biological mother -- a tramp, a whore, a boy-crazy female. Too much like my biological mother and too little like the wax doll she could mold into any form she preferred - a boy.

I learned early in life that boys had it all -- everything I wanted to be, everything I could be. I prayed each night as I knelt by my bed to change me into a boy and every morning I woke up a girl. I didn't mind so much. I played baseball better than most of the boys my age, more proof that I was in the wrong body, a girl in a girl's body who never learned how to be just a girl. I liked clothes -- at least the clothes Mom bought or sewed for me, but I wasn't girly enough for Mom's view of me. I wasn't frilly or girly enough. I played with the boys, often beating the at their own games because I couldn't believe that I wasn't supposed to be better than boys because boys didn't like girls who bested them in studies or in games. It was a lesson I refused to learn. I told Mom that if God created me then everything I did with what talents he gave me would be just fine with him -- and with me. And so I excelled at the talents God gave me and I bested boys whenever I excelled. Oftentimes, it seems to me that Mom liked it better when I lost to the boys, except  I didn't lose often enough for Mom.

I could've been and often was molded, like a wax doll, into the shape Mom wanted, but the molding didn't stick. I didn't stay molded -- long enough to please Mom. 

She molded me in many ways, so I was enough of a wax doll to be temporarily molded, but then I would revert to type, or remember myself and revert to type. I think that was Mom's worst fear -- that I would revert to type, become more like my biological mother, and end up fat and alone and would die alone.

She died alone. All her manipulations and molding left her alone and she died alone. I have forgiven her for her abuse of me and for her mistakes. She was who she was meant to be. I am who I was meant to be, and I'm reverting to type. I don't need a man and I never did. I like men, but I am no longer boy crazy -- or man crazy come to that. I have left boys and men behind me, and good riddance. I am what I make of myself and those who follow still in Mom's footsteps will have to deal with that.

I practice drawing and writing and what will come out will be my own -- as they were always my own. I am who I was always meant to be -- now that I am putting the wax doll behind me -- unmolded by anyone but myself.

Can a wax doll mold herself? I guess I will find out.

That is all. Disperse.

Have We Met?

It's all about labels. People feel more comfortable with labels, even if the label says generic and inside there is nothing of value. It's labeled. It's known. And so too with people.

I was taught that in a group of people at a party, or anywhere people are gathered, there are three subjects you never discuss: religion, sex, and politics. As I have lately come to realize, politics is the most volatile of the three subjects.

In the short space of a few sentences or a couple of short paragraphs, while discussing the current situation in this country (that would be America), I have been labeled. Republican. Liberal. Wealthy. Privileged. Uncaring. Cheap. Of no consequence. Usually after reading a couple of sentences I have written in a comment on a post. I have learned that people don't really read everything written. They tend to pick out a few words and decide they know the person. As if we had met and had exchanged ideas about politics, poverty, etc. in long discussions into the night. But they haven't read what I wrote, not all of it, and that snippet of information is not indicative of my philosophy, experience, or all of what I believe. It's not even a drop in the ocean that is my life after 58 years, a life I have actually lived.

Europeans and Canadians decry America's lack of universal health care, point to our capitalist society and, with that look usually reserved for the illiterate, unwashed, and uninformed of the world, deem me a greedy capitalist who cares nothing for the plight of the poor, and all because I mentioned socialist in a 30-word comment. They know me. I have money and look down my nose at those less forunate than I. More than likely, I oppress the poor, kick bleeding dogs, and drown sacks of cats on the weekends all while driving around in my BMW or Hummer talking on my iPhone while cursing at slower drivers, honking at pedestrians, and breezing past the huddle masses trying queueing for mass transportation on my way to a front row seat at a seal clubbing so I can get first dibs on a new sealskin coat.

It is amazing to me how people go from 0 to outrage in 3 seconds or less. If only my car had that kind of speed.

The only way to know me is to talk to me. That means leaving outrage and preconceptions outside the conversation until they are needed. Such hair trigger emotion and ideas that my character is defined by a few random words you think I wrote -- as opposed to what I actually wrote -- is a waste of my time and yours.

Someone I know from high school, although I didn't know him well in high school since we didn't travel in the same social circles, asked me what I thought about limiting abortion to 12 weeks. Although the hope that I wasn't an idiot or a murderer were obvious in the tone of his voice, I answered his question honestly. I believe that all women should have the right to choose whether or not they should get an abortion. I do not believe that abortion is the answer for being careless or should be used like the Morning After pill or a condom, or just because you don't want a child by that person (then why were you having unprotected sex with them?). I believe in allowing women to choose because it is not my right or my job to tell them what they should do if they find themselves pregnant and unwilling or unable to care for a child.

That does not, however, mean that I believe aborting a pregnant in the 20th week -- or partial birth abortion -- is right or an answer. I don't have the right to judge them, but I do think that is murder. My personal opinion and of value nowhere else but with me. I think an abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is ample time to decide whether or not carrying that fetus to full term. Anything after that, especially at 20 weeks,, at least in my mind, is tantamount to murder because at 20 weeks, that fetus has a change of living outside the mother's womb.

This view doesn't make me popular with the far right religious conservative political crowd, nor does it make me popular with the far left liberal crowd. I don't care. It is what I believe.

Short version, directly from me to you, abortion should be limited to 12 weeks. If it takes you longer than that to choose, go ahead and have the baby and give it up for adoption, but an 11th hour choice is not an option.

I am used to taking flack. I get it all the time from my family, mostly because I'm a writer and I write about my own life, and my family is part of my life. I have had a lot of grief and recriminations from my family because they didn't read exactly what I wrote. They read a piece and weren't familiar with my personal definitions and decided they knew what I meant -- even though that is not what I wrote. Angry emails followed from siblings who haven't taken the time to answer letters or call or visit in the past decades. It was like being at the middle of an angry hive of wasps with only one intention -- kill. Reason was not part of the equation. The need to destroy me was the intention and nothing would stop them, certainly not the calm, cool voice of reason. That would be me. It's as if they had never met me.

Well, in effect, outside of a few holidays we were forced into each other's company once we left home and went our separate ways, they really hadn't met me. Their only knowledge of me was from what I have written -- and they didn't even take the time to read every word or understand what it was I wrote.  Sarcasm and satire are lost on them.

"That was private," they moaned, screamed, and spat at me.

"Did you tell me it was private?"

"I shouldn't have to," was the inevitable response.

"Have we actually met before?" I ask with my tongue firmly in my cheek. "If you didn't say it was private, then it isn't private."

"It was private."

"Well, thank you for telling me after the fact." I pause for effect. "If you will notice, your name was not used and I sincerely doubt that anyone who happens to read this will connect us. We do have different last names and most people, though aware I have siblings, don't know who those siblings are." I wait for the next scripted remark.

"Well, they might and then they'll know all my business."

"Not actually," I say with infinite patience finally wearing thing after this umpteenth discussion on the same topic. The inevitable phone slamming (a lot less effective with a cell phone) is the next move and I am cut off. That sibling won't talk to me for a long time, which won't be a huge loss since they haven't talked to me in years before they happened to read what I wrote.

They know that I was homeless when I was left stranded in New Orleans. They know that I worked for an escort agency for a while. They know I've been married and divorced twice, that I have given birth to 4 sons. They know those facts because I have mentioned them, but they do not know me. They know me about as well as the average reader who comes across one of my books or read something I wrote for Chicken Soup or Cup of Comfort or they knew someone who knew me and had nothing good -- or bad -- to say about me. They haven't actually met me before.

Reading about someone or reading their comments is not the same as sitting down and having a discussion with that person. It's also not the same as having a relationship with that person or having been with them as they laughed, cried, raged, and fell into a depression over a broken heart or devastating loss. The best the can be achieved is an inkling of a shadow of a faint idea of who and what that person is. Labeling them won't change that.

Label me as you will -- because you will do so anyway. If you're really interested, here's a thumbnail sketch. I was a Republican until I could no longer agree with the party line. I became an Independent and remain an independent. I believe that welfare is a trap unless coupled with more than good intentions. There should be a program to educate those on welfare by training or retraining to find a job, manage a budget, and learn that just because you want something doesn't mean you should have it. Spending all your food stamps or money in the first week of the month will leave you like the poor man allowed in to sit at the feast -- sated for a while but then starving when the food has been digested.

I know whereof I speak -- and write -- but you will never know that or understand what is behind my comment, the one you didn't take time to read fully and understand completely, unless you get to know me and discuss these issues with me. It is the only way to know me.

Put All Trash Here

I've an acquaintance online I've known for years and she is quite the business person and blogger. I don't know how she does it, but between Washington D.C. business, traveling all over the world for work and fun, and maintaining a home in D.C. and one in Florida, she is a success -- in everything but her relationship. That is a mixed bag.

I wonder what drew them together in the first place. They have their fun moments, and their fights and differences, but it seems most of it is good -- at least as far as is reported. Nothing is ever what it seems.

We look to the past and say that there were fewer divorces. That's true. There was the Catholic church to consider and ex-communication was not something too many people were willing to face if they divorced, providing the church allowed it, and there were lots of hoops to jump through (and money to be paid) to grease the wheels of ecclesiastical favor. There were also financial issues to be considered, as well as the destabilization of countries if marriages were annulled or the parties divorced. King Henry VIII comes to mind; he had to create his own religion as a result, despite being a devout Catholic, and Harry took it to the limit, marrying 6 times before he died, and producing 2 females that lived to rule. His only sons died young.

Marriages were more about benefits for financial reasons, lands, property, and power, and less about love and fidelity. That was relegated to the lower classes. They could afford to marry for love since they were unlikely to be able to marry for property and power. No wonder the divorce rate as so low. No one wants to give up land or money, and power even less.

Things today are simpler. Fall in love over Cosmopolitans, have the big fairy tale wedding that cost a few years' salary, and divorce before all the thank you cards have been written and sent. Disposable. The real reason was the fancy fairy tale wedding after all. An entire industry was created to service that particular excess of eccentricity and narcissism, which is strange to someone who put together a wedding in 2 weeks and paid for most of it from my savings.

I managed a nice ceremony with 5 attendants, 2 flower girls, a ring bearer, and 5 groomsmen (maids of honor need escorts), and a lovely and almost rowdy reception afterwards, followed by a honeymoon at the local fancy hotel in the honeymoon suite, which turned into a rush for clothes when Mom and a cop came knocking on the door. The cop was my cousin and Mom was carrying my overnight bag, which I had forgotten in the rush to get away from the people trying to overturn the car we were in because it wasn't the one they had decorated (and mined with exploding and embarrassing devices). That marriage ended, but not until after 3 boys, 7 years, and a load of grief from the typical mother-in-law and various and sundry infidelities from the male side of the relationship.

Not that I have a great track record, having been divorced twice, the 2nd time from an abusive spouse, but I do know what counts and what I want. One is not to go down the aisle again unless there are some pretty powerful benefits, none of which I've seen yet.

Every relationship is different. Some people marry young for love and stay together happily (mostly) for the rest of their long lives. They're the ones 75th anniversaries were created for. There are also those who get into marriage at the drop of a hat, usually worse for drink or other substances, and some actually stay together. There are still liaisons that come out of board rooms and social registers where the main focus is money, property, and/or power (usually all three), and there are the regular people who marry in haste and repent as soon as the divorce decree is signed a hot New York second after the ink is dry on the marriage license. Disposable and not recyclable, although sometimes the excuses and the people are as disposable as they are interchangeable.

Disposable is defined as a product designed for cheapness and short-term convenience rather than medium to long-term durability, with most products only intended for single use. The term is also sometimes used for products that may last several months (ex. disposable air filters) to distinguish from similar products that last indefinitely (ex. washable air filters).

Disposable is also defined as the amount of money that households have available for spending and saving after income taxes have been accounted for. Disposable personal income is often monitored as one of the many key economic indicators used to gauge the overall state of the economy.

I think the last definition is the most apt here, disposable meaning what is left over after all the bills and income taxes have been taken out of the net income. In other words, what is available for saving after obligations have been met.

I don't think that children should be part of the equation, unless martyrdom is the main point, because children do not thrive or end up whole and undamaged being brought up in an abusive relationship that is little more than a war zone, but the needs of the children should be weighed in and out of the relationship against what is gained or possible to gain.

All these fancy words come down to one thing. Is the relationship/marriage worth saving? How many people stop to ask that question when they sober up or come down of the high of a fairy tale wedding and honeymoon while the 5+ carat rock is still shining on their finger and the glow of nonstop sex and excitement still glimmering in their eyes?

Marriages come from all sorts of reasons, but the usual reason for divorce is boredom. Marriage wasn't quite what they thought it would be. It's drudgery, staying up all night with newborns and sick children, emptying the dishwasher and arguing over who takes out the trash, cooks dinner, or does the laundry, paying the bills, repairs on house and vehicles, and the cost of living together. It's not always cheaper with two people, especially not in the current economic climate when 2 incomes are often not enough. Spouses/partners with no children have to deal with potential crashes between personal and business issues and which house to live in, whose friends are more important, and a thousand other details that end up being a tug-of-war over whose life and needs take precedence, and then there's the sex issue. I don't know why it is, but partners always seem to come from opposite ends of the spectrum, one likes sex and the other doesn't, which is really code for I like sex but not so much with you. Soon, the relationship is on the rocks, which is where it began and remained beneath the haze of wedding festivities, alcohol, and vacation bliss before the real work began. 

Marriage and relationships are work because the people in them keep growing and change, or not growing or changing at all. The old saw about a woman seeing possibilities and what she can do with the raw material in front of her and the man believing the woman will stay exactly as she is, frozen in amber. The same goes for gay and transgender couples, too. One person wants stasis and the other sees potential.

Until marriages and relationships are seen as living things that grow and change and evolve, for better or worse, and until people realize that, for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, the commitment is real, people will come together willy-nilly and separate just as haphazardly without realizing that the most important part of their life is finding a way to fit with another human being and work together.

I don't have all the answers. Life is too complex to boil down into a simple blog post that offers enlightenment. All I can do is shine a light into the murk and hope that someone gets it. The "it" is that people are not disposable. We are complex entities with flaws and potential and we need other people, not to make us whole, but to make things interesting -- and lasting. Future generations depend on us and, if all you ever do is bring children into the world or help raise children and teach them that people matter, you've done a good thing.

What About Love?

The writer's block question this morning was about crying. As I went through all the reasons I cry -- or have cried -- I came to the one where someone I loved so much could still hurt me. I mean the man in my life.

As I wrote, I realized that there is a point beyond which there are no more tears, no more recriminations, no more drama. It's the point where someone has hurt me so many times they have exhausted every vestige of emotion from me and left me untouchable. You don't want to get to that point with someone because no matter what else happens, the relationship is dead.

When you can no longer be irked, frustrated, furious, loving, caring, and every color and emotion in between, there is nothing left. That's where I found myself with the man in my life. After years of tears and pain and frustration and anger, I had nothing left to give. That does not mean there is a limit to love, but there is a limit to how much someone can hurt you. It's like torture. At some point, the body shuts off all conduits to pain and you drift in that limbo between life and death until the torture is gone and there is enough of you to heal, or you die. That's what happens with relationships, especially when there is all pain on one side and all sadistic torture from the other side. Torture ceases to be effective and there hasn't been enough love and caring to balance out the pain.

On one hand, that's a good thing because it means the pain is finite and there will be a way out. On the other hand, it means the relationship is doomed to fail because neither party is paying attention to what's happening. The torturer cannot see that his actions are less effective and the tortured cannot see that there is an easier way to end the pain -- walk away. Getting to the point where the tortured no longer cares enough to cry or feels enough to be angry and hurt is not a good thing. Something inside the tortured dies a little more every day with every strike of the torturer's tools and it's difficult, if not downright impossible, to get it back. Unlike calluses that will eventually soften when the need for the callus is gone, emotions and love take a lot longer to heal, and sometimes never do. It takes love and patience -- a whole lot of love -- to regenerate love and caring.

I see it as adopting or taking in an abused animal or person. Every time you raise your hand for the most innocuous reasons, the animal and the person cringe away just as they would if they had been raped and tortured, which is usually the case. It's not often that an animal is raped, but you get the point.

Let's take rape as an example. A woman -- or man -- has been brutally raped. How close will they let a rapist of the same gender get to them in the days, weeks, and often months after the rape without cringing, crying out in terror, or even lashing out? Different for each person, but I'd say the personal bubble just expanded by magnitudes of distance.

In a very real sense, anyone who has been through an abusive relationship (and, yes, a relationship fraught with drama and pain is abusive) has been emotionally raped. Every time the abusive partner breaks away, for whatever reason, and makes his partner cry or leaves them in pain without communication, their actions constitute a rape of the soul. And the soul develops a callus that grows thicker with every infliction of pain, every silence, every excuse until all that is left is . . . nothing. It's the nothing of limbo where pain no longer has an effect, positive or negative, and the love and caring and softer emotions are gone.

That is what happened to me. Let me clarify that. That is what I allowed to happen to me. After years of moments together that add up to less than a month of continuous contact over nearly a decade, I had reached the point where he couldn't hurt me any more and I just wanted him to be gone. I no longer thought about him or wondered why he didn't call, email, write, or show up. I no longer cared if I ever saw him again. I was done. I wanted nothing more to do with him. I had given everything I had and got very little in return.

My family wonder why I don't date and don't care about finding a man. I've been hurt too many times, and this last time was the worst. I am no longer willing to live on promises and accept excuses for negligent behavior. My world is small, but I know everything in it and there is nothing here to hurt me or cause me anguish. There are no wounds to lick, only psychic scars that need time to heal, and I don't think they will heal any time soon. The longer I live, the more I realize that love does not come to us all, and that is all right. I've known love -- of a sort -- and I've known passion. When you get right down to it, that's all we get -- moments. The rest is slogging through the days and nights working, reading, writing, spending time with friends and relatives, and just living. At least I have a lot to write about and a lot of material to use in books and stories and in blog posts. I've lived.

Now, it is time to write.

That is all. Disperse.

That Dry Feeling on the Highway to Hell

I wouldn't have thought that a fizzy drink that is supposed to make my muscles strong and work better could affect my sinuses, but it does. Or rather, the lack of the fizzy drink has affected my sinuses.

The back of my throat has that dry feel that presages a bout of sinus infection, or possibly a cold, but it couldn't be just because I didn't mix up my fizzy vitamin and mineral drink for the past two days. Could it? Maybe it is the reason. Time to stop being lazy and mix up a double dose this morning. If it keeps the germs at bay, I'm all for that. I don't like being ill, except when I need a reason to take a day off work.

I was reading tedwords's post about his in-law and outlaw problems with his son-in-law and it reminds me of a similar situation with my eldest son.

Dred Scotty has been a trial since day one. He preferred strangers to me and spent his formative years lurking about and collecting information to feed to my mother so she'd get angry and slap me in the face. His reasoning was that whatever he did was copacetic because it paid me back for punishing him when he, say, climb out his bedroom window on a phone cord after stealing money from my purse to buy a toy I had forbidden at 6 AM or getting up in the middle of the night to pile chairs on the table after pushing the table closer to the door to the kitchen, which was locked with a hook lock to keep him out of the kitchen and away from the gas stove. He still managed to get the door unlocked until we padlocked it with a key lock. That thwarted his middle of the night and wee hours of the morning rambles and kept him from burning the house down so he went back to sticking wire hangers in the outlets to try to start fires and shock the crap out of his hand. As I said, Dred Scotty was a trial.

He continued to be a trial as he played my mother and I off against each other, working through her to control things because I know how he works, like the time he claimed a teacher had sexually assaulted him when the teacher didn't even know who he was, a fact I became aware of when I stormed into the principal's office to have the teacher fired and brought up on charges. The abuse claim came about because he had given Dred Scotty detention for wandering the halls during classes without a hall pass. Yes, my son, is a devious and manipulative fella at best, and you don't really want to know his worst.

He broken into my apartment twice to steal things to sell because I wouldn't give him any money, the last time stealing my first computer on which was kept (password locked, of course) all of my writing and journals transferred from paper. He didn't know the password and no pawnbroker would touch it, so he tossed it in a dumpster "somewhere." All that work, and a couple of books, gone with the foulest of winds. He stole my tool box and money and the usual things one steals when he's deep into the drugs, even stabbing himself in the leg with a pocket knife to prove that he had been mugged and that's why the radio was missing from my car, which I had loaned him to go out looking for a job. I didn't believe that for a second and he finally admitted to it.

I cut him off financially and seldom heard from him unless he was in dire straits, turning on the tears and that tone in his voice that said he just couldn't take it any more. He should've been an actor. He would have had a couple of Oscars and a few Emmies by now. I was adamant. This ATM was closed for business until he grew up and took responsibility for his own actions, and I was not about to be his ATM as long as he only popped up long enough to get money from me. The ultimatum was simple: Either have a relationship with me or stop asking me for money.

Cut to now.

In January he contacted me by letter and sent me pictures of his children and his wife. He was married again (for the third time) and had a beautiful set of fraternal twins, Connor and Sierra. We wrote. We talked. He didn't ask for money, but then I made a mistake. I sent the twins a really nice gift of clothing for their first birthday. I was happy for my son and not a little surprised when a letter arrived with an installment on some of the money he owed me. Then everything fell apart.

His wife Aldonza, a recovering alcoholic, was drinking again and he was drinking with her to keep her company, and covering up the drinking. He can't drink because it's a direct route to drugs, alcohol being his gateway drug. He had his back surgery and returned to work too soon and ended up with more problems. Aldonza got a job and soon lost it because she was ill, but the truth was she couldn't make it to work because she was drunk on too many occasions. They were in trouble and asking for financial help. I refused to help them out that way, but I did send two cases of diapers for the babies, and I kept sending them every month, something I stopped after Aldonza lost the children when she was found drunk and the kids running around the house dirty and getting into everything. She was charged with reckless endangerment two days after Dred Scotty went into a church rehab program to get sober again, falling off the wagon after four years clean and sober. We don't even want to talk about Aldonza's wagon, and it can't be completely blamed on her mother and father, both of whom are career alcoholics. At least her parents managed to keep their jobs and their children, although they did pass down the alcoholism like a bowl of stuffing or cranberry sauce at the Thanksgiving table.

Aldonza was supposed to go into a 90-day rehab program to get back her children. In the meantime, her stepfather took her car, a car she and Dred Scotty had paid for and on, even though stepdaddy's name was co-signer on the loan, which was not in default, and Aldonza took Dred Scotty's car so she could run the bars at night. She was even caught hanging all over some guy she swears she's not having an affair with and denies that the blatantly sexual text messages and pictures of the fella's not so privates were on her phone (she forgot to delete them when she took Dred Scotty's phone and lent him her phone to call someone). What seemed idyllic and working, with a few minor snags, turned into a full fledged five-car pileup on the highway to Hell.

True to form, Dred Scotty called me for help crying -- that snotty-nosed, hiccuping kind of crying -- that was supposed to soften me up. Some friend of Aldonza's was granted guardianship over the twins and her daughter from a previous liaison was with her mother and stepfather, who just couldn't deal with taking the twins, too. I'd rather mummy and stepdaddy not have the twins and infect them with alcoholism, not that it isn't a possibility if Dred Scotty and Aldonza ever get it together and put their family back together, a possibility that grows dimmer every day since Aldonza moved in with the bar guy that she wasn't having an affair with.

Their lives couldn't be more of a train wreck or highway to Hell pile-up than it is, and my son will be 38 next month. Holy hopping hell toads on crack.

It just doesn't get any better than this, unless you add in my larcenous younger son Ajay and his equally duplicitous wife Jack-em-all, but that's a tale for another time.

Even though I seldom talk about really personal matters, I do have them -- in spades.

That is all. Disperse.

Being Transported

There are always surprises when I least expect them and yesterday I needed a surprise. I've needed one for a long time.

A writer friend emailed that her husband died Monday evening. She was sad, but all right with his death. It's hard watching someone you love slide slowly into the abyss bit by bit. I sent her my condolences, not because I knew her husband Fred but because I know her and have watched his decline from the sidelines all these years.

Yesterday, she sent me a message thanking me. She thanked me for my kindness and for my book, Among Women, because it captured her and took her somewhere else when Fred was in such pain and she could do nothing to help him. That's a pretty big compliment. What else could I say but you're welcome? I am still sad for her loss, but also glad that Fred is no longer in pain and his family can now grieve, something they have been doing in fits and starts for years.

I remember what it was like to lose my great Aunt Ann when she had Alzheimer's, which is what Fred had. She stood six-foot-two in her stocking feet and was from solid peasant stock. She was creative and fashionable and had made a huge success in her life. She never had children, although her husband had a child by his previous wife; he was a widower when Ann married him.

When we found out about her, Aunt Ann had been living in her big brick house all alone and the neighbors were stealing her blind, which is probably why she kept so much of her cash in her vast book collection. Having Alzheimer's made it difficult for her to remember, except in brief and fleeting flashes, where it was, but it made her feel safer. She had lost so much weight she was a shadow of her former glorious peasant self. She smelled and was dirty and her beautiful home was a dump. That's what living alone for several years while she was ill did to her and her surroundings, as it eventually does to the people who love her.

My parents took her home and my father cared for her until she eventually died. They sold off her possessions, cleaned up and sold her house and took care of her during her few remaining years. My dad cared for her as if she were a child, and that is what she had regressed to in the end, a child with easy smiles and wide wondering eyes unfamiliar with the world around her or the people she once knew so well and had towered over.

I know how my friend felt because I've been there. There is relief followed quickly by regret when someone you love dies of Alzheimer's, and yet there is also peace; someone you have loved and who loved you is now resting in the arms of the universe, has moved past his body and away from his mortal coil to be a part of the universe once more, having been given a glimpse of the eternal while they were still alive, and silenced by the disease so they cannot tell those left behind the wonders they have glimpsed that brought them to their knees emotionally and spiritually. At least, that is how I see it.

The rest of the day was the usual battle with a pernicious computer program that had a stranglehold on my OS and I spent a good part of the morning trying to get rid of it. When I finally figured it out (turn off the antivirus program) it was late and I was hungry, so I ordered in. The delivery driver is one I have come to know well over the past three years and he had news for me. After a year, he has finally finished chapter ten of Past Imperfect (gotta change the name the next time around) and he was excited about the twist on the story the characters had engineered. I was just along for the ride, and to take notes. He has two more chapters to go and he's anxious to see which guy will get the girl, or which guy the girl will choose. Depends on your point of view. What he said next surprised me.

"I really should read more. If you only knew how big a deal it is that I am reading this book . . . ." He faltered there. "I'll get my mother to write you a note." I explained that wasn't necessary and showed him my latest book. "Are you giving this to me?"

Actually, no, but since your eyes lit up and you seem interested . . . . "I'll sign."

"Yeah, and I'll bring back the other one so you can sign it, too."

Surprise. He not only likes the book it has taken him a year to read, getting to it whenever he remembers there is a book to read, the only book he owns besides a telephone book (or so he told me), but he is anxious to read more and to read my latest book. Big surprise.

Two surprises in a row, each of a different origin, but both equally wonderful. People are reading.

If there is anything that would make me happier it would be that more people read, not just for work or because they must, but because they want to, because the story or the author engaged them and made them feel like reading, because they actually were transported and could forget the mundane details of every day life. What better purpose is there for authors and their books. Yes, it's for us, for the authors, but it's also to share a bit of how we see the universe and each other, and just because it's fun to pretend to be someone or somewhere else. Not every book has to have social significance, but it does help if the book -- no matter how badly it is written -- takes us away from what is to what could be or will be or just might be. That is the magic of books and the surprises found between its pages -- virtual or real. What better job could there be?

Yeah, I know. It doesn't always earn a lot of money, but whatever happens to my books, at least I know that at least two people who are not related to me enjoyed the books and were transported. That's enough for now.

Gathering the ragged ends of family

Since I began a nightly regimen, I've been sleeping better -- and longer. This morning I was awakened by Beanie calling on the phone. I was half awake already, waiting for her call, and reached out for the phone with my eyes still closed and sleep-heavy limbs. I didn't even open my eyes when I thumbed the cell phone open and said hello.

"It's done," she said. "Took five minutes . . . and Randy brought Terry. He lied to his attorney when he said he wouldn't be there. That's why he signed the paper yesterday."

No surprise there. Randy is a liar. He always lies, most often to create chaos, keep Beanie off balance and just because, even when the truth sounds better, he goes for the lie. That's who he is.

It is over. Beanie is divorced.

Randy didn't expect Beanie to bring the Mushroom, but she and I planned it earlier this week to make sure she had a witness of her own. The Mushroom said that Terry said hello to him after they left the judge's chambers and that Randy was crying. Randy is such a girl, a real drama queen, and he has some serious psychological problems. He's passive-aggressive, narcissistic, abusive, histrionic and manipulative, and I'm just hitting the tip of the iceberg that is the psychological stew of his warped psyche. After all, he is the son of a man who, after a lovely anniversary dinner with his wife, picked up a baseball bat and bashed in her skull while she was undressing. He went to prison for twenty years and, when he was released, he moved right in with a multi-millionairess who keeps him in a style he rapidly became accustomed to. His wife, Randy's mother Cathy, still has lingering deficits from the trauma and has undergone some extensive surgery to repair the physical damage. Randy and his father are close, although, after the brutal beating, he refused to see or talk to his father -- at least that anyone knows for certain. They are close now, very close.

Randy has anger management issues and is a control freak. It's a good thing that Beanie got out when she did, even after 26 years, but she'll not be free of him, not as long as he's alive, and that the sad thing about it. Randy has splintered our rudderless family in the wake of my father's death three years ago and our mother and Hoity-Toity supported him through this divorce, not Beanie, their own flesh and blood. Hoity-Toity has gotten very close to Randy, supposedly because they share a common history (her fourth husband left her for another woman, a Malaysian woman who gave birth to his illegitimate son while married to Hoity), having been dumped by someone they loved. Now Hoity and Randy are taking ballroom dancing lessons together and he's free to follow his heart -- probably right into Hoity's bed and home. You just never know.

With Mom, it's easier to see what's going on. She loves to be the center of attention and is a big supporter of abusive marriages, since she abused Dad for over fifty years. There's also that gleam that comes into her eye and the unmistakable signs of flirting whenever Randy is around, any young man for that matter. She's a tee-totaling Calvinist, but she's not immune to testosterone and flattery. What elderly heterosexual woman is? I've seen it many times, elderly women without men of their own who preen and flirt with any young man who comes within shouting distance, giggling and batting their eyelashes and hanging on every word with a discreet touch of hand or fingers on the masculine arm whenever one is close to hand.

At least this part of the drama is over and Beanie can move on with her life. Mom bemoans the fact that none of her children are married now and because of that she will not be hosting a Thanksgiving dinner. I guess those are reserved for people with spouses, however miserable they may be with those spouses. Family means two spouses and children; nothing else qualifies. She cries that her family is splintered, but there is no strong-willed matriarch clinging to the ragged ends of her family that should include her children (spouse or no spouse) and grandchildren. None of those matter without their anchoring partners to give them legitimacy. Any other mother determined to hold her family together would have a family Thanksgiving with her children and their children and their children's boyfriends, girlfriends and friends. That is how a family stays together, not because they are legitimate by right of marriage, but because they are legitimate by right of birth.

Beanie told me she probably wouldn't have Thanksgiving dinner either. "What's the point?" The point is family and stability. She could have dinner at her house with her children and her friends and their children and invite the Mushroom since he has nowhere else to go -- but to family, and she is family. The Mushroom might even bring his children and his son JC might bring a girlfriend. Family is family and the boundaries of family keep changing, should change as it grows and expands, spreading outward from a warm and loving center. If I still lived in Ohio, I would have Thanksgiving dinner and make sure Beanie, her friends and their children, my nephews and nieces, and the Mushroom were invited. I'd invite some of our other relatives, family that live locally and have fallen off the family map for whatever reason. A little help from everyone, a pot luck Thanksgiving dinner, and I'm sure it would be fun and warm and . . . family. But I don't live there and will have to make do with my usual gallery of friends and fiends for the holiday feast. Family is what you make it.

All I can hope is that the reality of this divorce sinks in and Beanie takes up the ragged ends of her life and moves boldly towards a happier future. She has the means to make it so and she deserves a much happier life than she has had. Don't we all?

Dysfunction on my mind

With everything that has gone on in my family recently, dysfunctional relationships are on my mind, and not just as it applies to abuse (emotional, mental, verbal and physical), but as it applies to many kinds of dysfunction, including addiction. Abuse can be as addicting as alcohol or drugs, and much more insidious. The really horrible thing about dysfunction is that there is no hiding it from the children or keeping them from being affected.

If you fight privately or keep the abuse hidden, saving it for those tender moments when you're alone, it still affects everyone in the family, especially the children. Kids are like open lines, picking up everything that goes on around them, and they are affected whether they realize it or not.

During my research, I found this and would like to share it. Although it was written for Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA), it applies to anyone who lives or has lived in a dysfunctional home. Take the test. It's not pass or fail, but enlightenment.

The ACOA laundry list 

Take this test. You may be an ACOA if you have any of these traits.

You don't have to have all the traits to be an ACOA. But this is the laundry list.

DO YOU...?

1. Guess at what normal is.

2. Have difficulty in following a project through from beginning to end.

3. Lie when it would be just as easy to tell the truth.

4. Judge themselves without mercy.

5. Have difficulty having fun.

6. Take themselves very seriously.

7. Have difficulty with intimate relationships.

8. Overreact to changes over which they have no control.

9. Constantly seek approval and affirmation.

10. Feel that they are different from other people.

11. Are either super responsible or super irresponsible.

12. Are extremely loyal, even in the face of evidence that loyalty is undeserved.

If you'd like more information, check out Squidoo and the ACOA website. You don't have to be the child of an alcoholic, or drug addict, to fall within these guidelines. Dysfunction wears many masks.

That is all. Disperse.

Serendipity and Loss

I enjoy reading essays and have discovered several wonderful writers by reading their essays. Sometimes I read a book and find out they wrote essays and search until I find them. I'm seldom disappointed. It's a habit I acquired a few years ago when someone introduced me to Henry Miller. I had already read Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn years before and then I was guided to the essays. I was entranced and inspired, so inspired I began writing more essays and getting published. I had found my way.

A couple years ago, I discovered a columnist/essayist named Caroline Knapp through an Amazon suggestion. I had just finished reading Elizabeth Young's book of essays and literary criticism, found by way of her chick lit books, and Caroline Knapp seemed interesting, and she was. The only complaint I had, and still have, is that Young and Knapp are both dead. They each died too early and left too many books and essays unwritten and I feel the loss. So, imagine my surprise when one of the books sent for review is a book that is about Caroline Knapp by her friend, Gail Caldwell: Let's Take the Long Way Home. Serendipity. Pure serendipity.

I was in the midst of Deadly Fear by Cynthia Eden and decided to take a look at Caldwell's book. It was short and Caldwell won a Pulitzer Prize, and I wanted to see why. Caldwell writes about her friendship with Brutita, her nickname for Caroline Knapp, and their dogs, which is what brought them together. They were as different as night and day on the outside -- Caroline short and blonde and very upper class and Gail tall, dark and rangy as a Texan should be. Caroline was a rower and Gail a swimmer, Mutt and Jeff on the water. Their love of their dogs and the friendship that grew out of their similarities (both recovering alcoholics, very shy and writers) are the poignant threads that shine throughout the memoir. Serendipity. That's how I discovered this connection and how it came to me.

Gail writes that her friends call her the gregarious hermit. I can relate to that. I am sure there are many writers who relate to those seemingly opposite words. Someone who is friendly and open and outgoing and yet spends most of their time alone, by choice, to wrestle and communicate with the muse. Caroline was politely persistent and Gail finally relented, forging and cementing a friendship that resulted in Caroline leaving too soon. Gail inherited Caroline's beloved dog and some other personal memorabilia, and she inherited memories of the kind of friendship that most people long to share, the kind that changes and makes one better, more in touch with themselves and with the world. What more could anyone want?

More life to write more essays and books.

I look forward to the next serendipitous entry into my life and essays that will inspire and fire my imagination. Don't we all?

That is all. Disperse.

On writing and communication

There are times when I wonder if I was not meant to live alone. I am more prolific when men are off the menu and there are no claims on my time and mind. Some of the best writing came from times when my emotional and personal plates were clear, and I have been clearing out a lot of people and things over the past few weeks. Finally, the muse speaks to me again, and she is casting gold beneath my fingers.

Of course, there is the possibility that this is all a dream and I shall awaken to find the gold little more than faery glamour, but for now, I am content to write and write and write.

I had been involved with someone for the past six years who was more gone than here and he finally got the message a couple days ago. He was sad and sorry, but he always is when I point out how long it has been since we last communicated. This time he responded by saying that we couldn't seem to communicate. I had to laugh. Only one of us was communicating and it wasn't him, unless he was doing it by telepathy. No emails for six months, no more than two phone calls over the past three years and, except for the 2-minute drive-by gifting in December 2009, I haven't seen him for eighteen months. That's not my idea of communication.

When he responded to me, he said that I didn't communicate, I wrote. I always thought writing was a form of communication. Evidently, I got it wrong. "We," he insisted, "stopped trying a long time ago."

He doesn't like to take responsibility for his actions. Stuck in some emotional adolescent limbo, he will only go so far as to share the blame, when the fault lies in him. I call. He doesn't return the call. I email. He ignores. And so I write, putting my message into a blog post because I know, I have seen, he checks that from time to time, preferring that small point of contact to a more direct approach. Of course I write. What other method of communication do I have when he thwarts all my attempts at getting closer, at talking things out?

When he read I laughed at his claim that the fault lay with us and not him, he responded in typically bruised ego fashion. He would keep reading my posts to remind himself why he "never wanted to have anything to do with me ever again." His final words were in full flounce. "I doubt I ever loved you." I doubt it, too. Had he loved me, he could not have lied to me so completely, so smoothly, so easily without a second thought. He would have communicated. Instead, he chose silence, brooding and lurking in the shadows looking for messages in blog posts instead of talking to me. He gave up on us a long time ago when he realized that for the first time in his life he felt something so deep and profound it dizzied his senses. He finally told me that two years ago after telling me for three years he wasn't sure if he ever loved me. Could I write a book about his waffling and roper dope bobbing and weaving he chose to call romance. The problem is that it wouldn't sell. People like clear story lines with mysteries that are possible to solve. This mystery has no solution because he plays the truth like a game of three card Monte where the queen is usually up his sleeve and not on the table. Emotional sleight of hand is his favorite game, after refusing responsibility and blaming everyone else -- in this case, me.

And so I cut him loose. It was not pretty and it wasn't easy, but it was long past time. Had we been roped together climbing some sheer, craggy peak and he dangled at the end of the line, pulling us both into the abyss, I would have cut him loose a long time ago. Better one of us should live than both die. I still have books to write.

Does it matter in the great scheme of things? Probably not. It isn't that love has left the building, quite the reverse, but I can no longer tend the fires of romance by myself, turning on the spit of love and desire endlessly. It's time to move on. I've given him six years to figure it out and he has spent most of it brooding in the cellar, silent and taciturn. I've no more time to give him.

Now that I have shut and locked the door, after removing the knob on his side, the muse has granted me audience and the words flow like spring thaw down the river of creativity until I am helpless in her grasp to do aught but write. To communicate the best way I know how.

Laughter is the only medicine

What cheers you up the most when life gets you down?


Any number of things. I have great friends who know me well enough to say just the right thing to make me smile and laugh out loud. I have a brother who never fails to make me laugh because he's such an idiot. That's the Mushroom. Passages in books cheer me up and certain movies bring me right out of the horse latitudes in no time flat, especially if there dancing and singing are involved. And then there are times like last night that something that was meant to be serious makes me laugh.

Last night someone told me that he was sorry things didn't work out and that what we hoped didn't happen, but it was because we couldn't seem to communicate. I couldn't help myself. I had to laugh, really laugh, laugh so hard I nearly wet myself. Couldn't seem to communicate. When I shared it with a really good friend, she made me laugh even harder.

"Communicate? When did he TRY to communicate with you? Was he attempting telepathy? Because he wasn't writing and he wasn't calling and he wasn't visiting."

I guess that was the couldn't seem part of the communication. I didn't have my receiver turned on when he was transmitting Morse code or telepathy. I was too busy getting on with my life. Working, reading, eating, sleeping, you know, the usual things that take up the hours I wasn't sitting by the phone or the computer or the door in case he popped up. Definitely laughable.

That's the thing about communication. When someone wants an excuse why things don't work out or how you could be angry with them, they use lack of communication. That is the second time this week someone has pulled the communication card on me, and Mercury doesn't go retrograde until next Friday, on August 20th. She asked why I was angry with her and had cut her out of my life like a malignant cancer, so I told her. Not all of it, just enough to let her know there were reasons I wanted nothing more to do with her. I hit the big points, the highlights, and she came back with, "But what did I do?"

Uh, weren't you paying attention? I listed a few more and she came back with, "That doesn't have anything to do with me. What did I do?" I realized at that moment, that even though I was communicating she wasn't paying attention. She was trying to suck me back in. I ended the conversation at that point. I was done. And when I'm done, that's it. There's no going back.

Communication isn't difficult. You open your mouth and speak, clearly and plainly. You carefully type out an email using simple words and ideas. You pick up a phone and speak without shouting or letting the emotions take over, keeping to the subject and stating the case simply.

I'm a writer. I communicate for a living and yet there are some people who cannot seem to tune in and pay attention, like one of my supervisors. I flagged an operative report and used the work number, job number, doctor's name and date of dictation. She emailed back and asked me which dictation it was. I responded with the same information again and added the patient's name. She emailed again. "Oh, that one has already gone back to the hospital. If you had just let me know a few minutes earlier." Now that was laughable. We'd been emailing for over 30 minutes. Well, it took her 30 minutes to figure out which report I had flagged, even though I had added flagged the report electronically as well as manually.

There are times when nothing seems to go right and the anger boils up like lava, and then something completely incongruous will happen and make me laugh and I can't hold onto the anger. Usually, it's someone farting in a serious situation, like while they're saying their wedding vows or tooting while walking down the aisle or shaking hands with the mayor. Let's face it. Farts during any occasion are funny and everyone laughs no matter how hard they try to hold it in, except if the farter is female and mortified beyond words. The red face is a dead giveaway.

That is all. Disperse.

Old-fashioned manners

One thing I find continually fascinating is how people view someone who is polite, even when they are irritated or angry.

I was brought up to be unfailingly polite and it has served me well in some very sticky situations. Being polite has also made some circumstances a bit weird.

When I worked in New Orleans as one of the attractions in a haunted house on Conti about a half-block from Bourbon Street -- I was the gypsy fortuneteller -- people often came through drunk. With all the daiquiris and Hurricanes floating around, it wasn't a surprise. Add cheap and plentiful beer in 32-ounce, or larger, cups and you have a sloshing mix of vomit, slurred speech, passing out and belligerence that makes everything else seem pedestrian. All that alcohol, especially in most men, super fuels their worst traits. One inebriated tourist who was scared when he found out I wasn't a wax figure, like Madame Tussuad's on Bourbon, tried to impress his friends with his knowledge of animal anatomy.

There was a small skull on my black velvet covered table next to the crystal ball on an ornate golden stand. "What's that?" he asked as he lurched over the short railing that surrounded my enclosure. "The jawbone of an ass," I responded, smiling sweetly behind my black lace veil. "Don't you recognize it?" He nearly broke his neck attempting to jump the railing to get to me as he shouted curses and spilled beer over his friends, the drapes and the walls. He wanted to kill me for killing his punch line. The roaming specter caught him just in time and hauled him off to the relief of his wife and friends.

Most of the people who have flung their disdain and pique and foulness in my direction have been similarly met with a cool and calm demeanor and some very cutting and quick retorts, but most of the time I prefer to rely on what I was taught: always be polite. Sometimes it's the best defense.

Recently, someone I know pretty well but who just didn't get the message that we were through until a couple of days ago, had contacted me on Monday morning after six months of silence to ask a favor. I didn't have what he required, but I did point him in the direction where he could find what he wanted. He thanked me and I responded with, "You're very welcome." It was a short and to the point exchange. No frills and no conversation. Just the facts.

When he later finally paid attention and found out that I was done waiting around for him to show up or carry on any kind of normal communication expected in a relationship, he was devastated. He could not understand how I could be so polite and obliging and not give him a sign that I was angry at him. It's because I'm not angry. There is a point where someone has ignored you and caused so much pain and so many tears that you reach a point where there are no more tears and no more pain. Emotional resources are exhausted, at least where they are concerned, and all that remains is cool politeness, common civility of the kind reserved for casual acquaintances and strangers. It's always best to save the anger, rancor, bile and venom for people close to you so you can hurt them as much as they hurt you. After all, we only hurt the ones we can reach. Don't you find that so?

He keeps searching for an answer. Why was I polite if I was so hurt and angry? The answer is simple. I am no longer hurt and angry. The emotional trash has been taken out and we continue now as common and indifferent acquaintances, as Jane Bennett observed. It never hurts to be polite to people, even the ones you can reach, and I've found that common civility and politeness usually leave a deeper impression than screaming tantrums and tearful scenes. I certainly left a lasting impression on the pickled and beer-soaked tourist who found himself likened to an ass. That was one polite retort I doubt he'll ever forget, no matter how drunk he gets, or at least that is the impression his wife left when she showed up at the box office the next day to deliver a message for the gypsy fortuneteller who put her overweening and pompous husband in his place.

A kind word, a smile and a polite manner always leaves them guessing. Old-fashioned manners are best.

Second chances

Someone asked if I have ever given someone a second chance.

Yes, and it didn't turn out well. Some people refuse to change. Like my brother-in-law.

Beanie filed for divorce, again, after 26 years of marriage. She has been in an abusive marriage for 26 years and has left him several times. He doesn't beat her. What he does is worse. He abuses her mentally and emotionally and treats her like a possession most of the time and a piece of meat the rest of the time. Well, she filed for divorce and Mom and Hoity-Toity came down on Beanie's husband's side. Beanie had to move out of her house away from her children and animals and the home my father left for her to move in with our brother, the Mushroom (mushroom because he's always in the dark).

Meanwhile, BIL, the brother-in-law, was calling and talking to Hoity-Toity every day and Mom almost as often. Hoity-Toity told BIL who Beanie's attorney was and about all the private stuff Beanie didn't want BIL to know, sold her right down the river. Hoity-Toity has her own agenda, but that's a story for another time. Anyway, BIL called Beanie's attorney and said he was ready to sign the papers and he began working on Beanie.

He went to a psychiatrist and got on Celexa to show that he was trying to change. He bought a futon and moved into the living room, which was before Beanie eventually moved out. He whined and cried and begged and told her he was sorry -- again -- and that he would change. This is a familiar song and dance number he has used in the past, this time with the psychiatrist and medication twist to show that he is serious. In the past he has given up alcohol, promised to changed and managed the change long enough for Beanie to become convinced he really meant it this time, and even started going to church and talking to one of the parishioners and the minister about their problems. He does love to talk about what's wrong with Beanie, I mean, their problems. As soon as Beanie drops the divorce or moves back in and settles down, he goes back to being his abusive self and blaming her for all the trouble. This is known as the end of the honeymoon phase of the abuse cycle, which quickly follows the begging, pleading and apology phase of the cycle.

At any rate, taking medication and seeing a psychiatrist (he only went long enough to get the meds and has already canceled all future appointments), convinced Beanie that he meant it this time. She also missed her boys, 23 and 19, who still live at home and who BIL badgered until they agreed to move out with him when he was planning to move, and her animals, Dad's house and her things. She felt like she was being punished and losing everything while BIL was taking it all from her. She also hated being alone. Living with the Mushroom is still living alone because he's caught up in his own world on Second Life with Jess from London and doesn't pay attention to her. Beanie has never lived alone before.

Fear is a powerful motivator. Add pressure from Mom and Hoity-Toity and the belief that maybe this time BIL really meant to change and giving up everything to be alone, and Beanie caved. "We have had some good times," she told me when we talked on Monday. "It hasn't been all bad. After 26 years, I feel I owe it to him to give him one more chance. But this is the last time."

I've heard this 'last time' speech so many times I could write it in my sleep, and have. I'm still asleep now.

Beanie is co-dependent and she enables the abuse, so she is right in saying that this is partly her fault. Then again, it's not her fault because she is caught in a cycle of emotional abuse. Yes, there are good times because that is how the abuser keeps her off balance and sets her up for the abuse. There has to be a reward in order for it to work. It's not love, as BIL keeps claiming, but control. BIL doesn't like losing control and he will use, and has used, every trick in the book to further his agenda. He gets Mom on his side by appealing to her feelings about divorce being wrong no matter the reason. He appeals to Hoity-Toity's sense of greed by telling her that he'll talk Beanie into selling Dad's house so she can have the money, despite the fact that he and Beanie have a survivor's deed and have been living in the house and paying the mortgage for three years. There's a lot of equity built up in that house after Mom and Dad living there for nearly ten years and BIL and Beanie for another three, equity that Hoity-Toity can use to pay off her debts and cover up that she's been skimming money from Mom's accounts for the past year so she can buy two more houses (a condo and a house) in addition to the condo and house she already owns.

BIL tried appealing to the Mushroom, who went through a divorce a year ago, but the Mushroom wouldn't play. He told BIL, "You can cook, clean, shop for food and work. The only thing you won't have is a relationship. You need to let my sister go and give her whatever she wants."

He knows better than trying to appeal to me because I know him for the skeevy abuser he is and he tries to keep Beanie from talking to me and having anything to do with me. That's also part of the abuse -- isolating the person from family and friends -- and he has isolated Beanie for years. Emotional abuse is all about control. Read about abusive relationships and check out the graph near the bottom on the right.

Not everyone deserves a second chance. BIL certainly doesn't, but Beanie can't see it because she's caught in the cycle of abuse. Some people never get a second chance because they're dead or brain dead from being abused.

It's not just abusers who don't deserve a second chance, but anyone who has no intention of changing. Seldom do men and women who cheat on their spouses and lovers give up cheating. Once in a while, it's a one-time incident, but on average people who cheat once will cheat again, and they'll lie to cover up their activities.

Be careful about giving second chances. Weigh all the factors and pay attention to what has gone before. If you're in an abusive relationship and want to give your abuser one more chance, talk to a counselor or doctor. You may be co-dependent and/or an enabler and the best thing you can do is get out. You can always get more stuff and, if you're afraid of living alone, find a roommate. No one should have to live this way. The only way to deal with people like that is to starve them of their food source -- you.

Okay, that wasn't what I intended to write about, but sometimes I just go with it.

That is all. Disperse.

It's complicated

I was watching It's Complicated again, for the tenth time, and had one of those ah-ha moments. I never had the kind of relationship that Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin had as a married couple, not in either of my marriages. Both times I was caught in a bad situation and made the best of things by getting married.

One of the things I've learned by watching It's Complicated is about what brings people together. I've also learned to recognize love. I never had that with either of my husbands. I see that now. I saw it when I asked for a divorce and I knew it then because it was so easy for me to walk away. No tears. No emotional breakdowns. No psychic upheavals. When I found out both husbands were cheating on me I was relieved because I had a way out. They gave me a get out of jail free card and I used it. Divorce was cut and dried the first time and difficult the second time; Nick didn't want to lose his meal ticket (me) and getting rid of him, most of my friends and family heard me say, was like scraping gum off the bottom of my shoe on a hot August day. It took strategy and moving away with no forwarding address, and two years of waiting him out, to get my legal freedom.

There have been two men in my life I have loved. I walked away from the first one because I was tired of being disappointed, weary of him making promises he never kept, and waiting for him to make up his mind about what he was going to do. He wouldn't move ahead, so I moved away, and I cried for weeks.

The other man has kept me dangling for six years and I have decided I'm not waiting any longer for him either. I love him still, but he's never going to be the man I want or need. Fear keeps him from moving forward, fear of losing his stuff and fear of an uncertain future. I cannot offer him a guarantee that everything will work out. I don't know that. I only know that I love him and I'll do everything and anything to work things out. That only works if there are two people willing to work. I cannot do it alone and he's not going to help, so I'm done. I've waited long enough, listened to enough empty words and apologies. He's a coward, and I know about cowards. He won't change so I'm making the decision he won't. I've ended it.

Just as Meryl Streep knew there was no way back with Alec Baldwin, I know there is no way forward with him. I love him. He will always be a part of my life, but I have shed enough tears, nursed enough pain and waited silent and alone for long enough. We are done. I wish him well, but he won't be happy. He hasn't been happy all these years, but he's used to the fear and depression and his stuff. That will have to be enough for him. For me, there is an open door and an open road and I plan to explore them both.

That's what happens with really good movies. They mirror the truths of life and make you think while you laugh and cry and sigh in the darkness. I will watch It's Complicated again and again and yet again because it's a great movie with some wonderful poignant and funny moments (how could it not with Steve Martin as the romantic lead?), and because I find truth and honesty, not only in the actors' performances, but in the story. Someone knows whereof they speak, and they made me think and reassess my life. I don't want to go back, but I can move forward. That's the great thing about movies and life, there's always another good movie and another good day ahead.

That is all. Disperse.

At the end of the rainbow

I mentioned to someone this evening that I had most of what I need and some of the things I want and that I was content. He said that was a perverse way of thinking and that it was sad that I didn't need anyone or anything. He didn't get what I said or what I meant.

I've spent most of my life traveling around looking for the place where I fit in. I didn't and don't fit in with my family; I'm too different: physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and financially. I don't have a lot of things and I don't own my own house. According to them, I'm a failure.

My brother spends his life on Second Life trying to find someone to marry because he is tired of living alone. He's been divorced for a year. He didn't realize he was living alone before. His wife led her life and he led his. She was gone most of the time, and so was he. He was working and she was chasing after bikers -- in the name of religious conversion, of course. When he was home, he was in his office in the basement on the computer playing Second Life. His life really hasn't changed. He's still paying his ex-wife's bills and doesn't see his children very often. The only difference is that it is quieter now.

Hoity Toity is into real estate these days. She has a big house she shares with my mother, but liked it better when she lived in it alone. That is, alone after four divorces. She has a sports car, a truck and a car she drives during the week. She owns two condos and just bought another little house for her daughter Shanna who hasn't held down a job longer than six months, hasn't worked in years, lives with a series of friends, has a drug dealer boyfriend who is the father of her unborn child, shoots up heroine, snorts cocaine and has a fondness for OxyContin and other narcotics. Her daughter is waiting for the renovations to be completed so she and another one of her friends can move into the house with her seven dogs. Her son is in prison again for drug dealing and breaking and entering. SWAT teams and the FBI had looked for him for months and even broke into Hoity Toity's house looking for him on several occasions. Her son was featured on Crime Stoppers in Central Ohio.

Hoity Toity retired from the state about two years ago and has spent the last two years working for the state as an outside contractor. She recently went back to work for the state in the same job for a huge salary and benefits.

Beanie has finally asked her husband for a divorce. Hubby responded by first threatening to kill himself and then kill whoever she was leaving him for. When neither of those tactics worked, he started whining to anyone who would listen about how Beanie is hurting him and how much he loves her while he slanders our father and whispers lies into their sons' ears. Yeah, he loves her. They have two homes, several horses and just got back from yet another cruise in the Caribbean.

I'm the odd man out with my rented cottage, fourteen-year-old car that still runs perfectly, working at home and making ends meet with book reviews, articles and published stories and novels. I don't have a lot, but I have enough. I still want a few things and I'll get them eventually, but my life doesn't revolve around what I want. I get paid for reading books. I don't have to fight traffic to go to work and spend my off hours writing and watching movies on DVD. I go out with friends, have a fairly considerable correspondence and keep in touch with friends and Beanie. I'm not married, having been divorced for nearly 20 years, and have a quiet life for the most part. I'm still working for my cabin in the mountains and living by my writing, and that will come in time.

The fellow who called me perverted didn't get what I mean. I'm not blissful, but there are blissful moments. I'm not ecstatically happy all the time, but I am sometimes. I don't think I could stand an extended state of bliss. It would keep me from writing or working. Yes, there are things I'd still liked to do and have. Yes, I sometimes miss having someone around all the time, but not enough to want to get married again. I'd have to get rid of too many books or move from my little cottage. My life isn't perfect, but I am contented most of the time. Isn't that what everyone keeps looking for -- how to be happy and contented? There's no secret to finding that particular pot of gold beneath the rainbow. It is, as Dorothy realizes when Glenda, the Good Witch of the North, asks her, in her own back yard, and she isn't missing anything if she doesn't already have it.

Happiness is a choice. I choose to be happy with what I have. I didn't enjoy always feeling lost and alone and like I was missing something that was always just out of my reach. Wanting things I didn't have made me miserable and sometimes I almost felt envious, but I've had a close look at how other people live and they are miserable, too, even more miserable than I ever was. They're trying to find happiness in things and houses and illicit relationships or online when happiness has always been within their grasp. They're looking in the wrong places.

I know what the fellow's problem really is. He's still trying to convince me that I'm missing happiness because I'm not married or don't have a friends with benefits. He's shocked that I don't need someone to make me happy and that makes me perverted. I've always been different from most people, so maybe being content with what I have is perverted. That is the kind of perversion more people need. Don't you agree?

That is all. Disperse.

The lure of money and social position

No, I'm not contemplating a marriage of convenience or a chance to power up. I'm pretty set in my my single ways. I wouldn't say no to an affair or a fling, but not for a while. I'm too busy with writing. However, the topic remains the same: what some women will do to get money and social position. The book is Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen. Haven't heard of that? Well, take a seat and join in.

Many people think that Jane Austen really had to pull a rabbit out of the hat to make it possible for Elinor and Edward to marry. Lucy Steele had been engaged to Edward for years, a secret engagement (Look, your future bride. Sorry, wrong story.) that cost Edward his inheritance which his mother settled irrevocably on his younger brother Robert who was a fop and a dandy. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. When Edward's sister discovered the truth from Lucy Steele she threw a hissy fit, that's modern American slang for had an attack of hysteria and the vapors. She threw Lucy out of the house, told on Edward and ruined the rest of his life. It was Fanny's fault because she made Lucy believe that Lucy could have any man of prominent social position even without a dowry; she had other attributes that made her an excellent choice -- just not for Edward.

Lucy and Robert had been thrown together while Edward was away on business and Lucy and Robert recognized in each other a soul mate, two people who were interested in social position and lots of money. Lucy engaged Edward's affections when he was relatively young and very inexperienced, but she knew what she was about. Edward stood to inherit a sizable fortune and a prominent social standing. That's all Lucy was interested in. Edward was too kind and honorable to break it off when he realized he was in love with Elinor, but I believe he would have if Elinor had given him any inkling of her affection and attachment to him.

Did Austen pull a rabbit out of the hat to make things come out right at the end? No. She had already foreshadowed the outcome with the fortuitous meetings between Lucy and Robert and their obvious common interests, and she made it abundantly clear that for Lucy the lure was not Edward's love and decency, but his fortune in her sights. When Edward's mother disinherited him, in spite of Lucy's attempt to get Elinor to have Sir John Middleton give Edward the rectory living on his estate, all Lucy was interested in was finding a way to be near people with money and social standing. If she couldn't have them for herself, she would make sure she was in close contact so she would be wined and dined frequently in the style to which she had become accustomed. It was always on Lucy's mind to throw Edward over at the first hint that she could have Robert, and that is what she did. Austen knew Lucy Steele's character better than Edward obviously did. So, no, there was no rabbit pulling, just characters acting true to their natures.

What do you think? Did she plot it carefully or did she stick the right ending on the wrong circumstances?

Down the Cyberhole

One of the great things about the Internet is being able to connect with people from all walks of life anywhere in the world. The sense of community and knowing that no matter what you've been through we all share the same experiences, or know someone who has, is wonderful. There is a downside.

Such connections and freedom of movement behind the anonymity of the computer, where you can be anyone or any gender you choose, also offers a breeding ground for games and cons. One of these cons has several different forms, but it targets vulnerability and ignorance of what people can be and are capable of perpetrating. It begins with the connection.

A man finding himself with too much time on his hands begins to surf the Internet. He gets involved in forums, bulletin boards and groups to help pass the time. It doesn't take long before he finds an empathetic someone to listen to his troubles and share hers. We are after all not that unique in our troubles and many people are just as willing to commiserate as they are to have someone tell them they're not alone. Beware. Danger, Will Robinson. You are about to fall down the cyberhole into the Con Zone.

It starts innocently enough, sharing tidbits of information and background between the usual getting to know you conversations in chat and email, and now on Skype. Such sharing inevitably leads to a more intimate kind of sharing and often cybersex is the next step, but there is another. Like Wilbur being fattened for the fall when he can be killed and turned into pork chops, bacon, ham, etc., this guy is being prepared for the next phase of the operation.

He's become enamored of his online connection and fancies himself in love, but she's not. She's too busy fattening other marks up for their time to be harvested. Once he's completely hooked, the troubles on her end begin. Her husband is ill or she's divorced and something breaks down, someone needs an operation or some disaster strikes that requires money to fix -- and she doesn't have it. She's barely making it as it is. Gentleman that he is, which is why he was chosen, he will offer to help her out. She refuses at first because she's shocked he would even offer, but this is where she embeds the hook so he won't wriggle free.

She may refuse a couple of times just to make sure he's hooked but good, and then she will reluctantly agree to accept his generosity -- on one condition. She'll pay him back. No matter how long it takes, she will pay him back. She won't and he won't let her. She has enough trouble as it is and he doesn't want to add to her burden. He sends the money and she goes out to celebrate and maybe buy that Prada purse she has wanted for so long. She'll keep tapping him for money until he gets wise or until she knows she's pushed just far enough so he doesn't figure things out. The last phase is the release.

One such con artist staged her online death. It was easy. She had several different email accounts and personae. She'd bump one off when it was time to hit the road so the marks would be sad and grieve for a while, but would forget her eventually. The usual releases include getting married, getting back with an ex-husband or partner, finding religion, etc., etc. There at least 50 ways to leave your cyberlover. Get out the back, Jack. Get a new plan, Stan. No need to be coy, Roy; just get yourself free.

People like that prey on good men and women who are lonely, sad or having trouble with their partner or spouse. They are ripe for conquest and the con artists know just how to find, hook and fleece them. The same pattern is followed every time with a few variations and the end result is always the same.

If you have a friend or relative in a similar situation, let them know what's really happening. They might not believe you at first and will be defensive, but they will figure it out eventually, hopefully before they send their money down the cyberhole with their innocence, generosity and emotions.

One word of advice: There are genuine people out there who find themselves in desperate straits that should not be confused with the cyber cons. It's easy to tell which is which because the genuine people are seldom aggressive about moving from one phase to the next. If someone turns on the waterworks when told that cybersex is cheating on a spouse or partner and then, once the emotional storm is passed, keep putting the cybersex on the table, you're in the clutches of a cyber con. Get to the nearest exit without delay because the cyberwhore is about to turn into a mini disaster movie and you're going to be paying the bills.

That is all. Disperse.

Where is love?

It seems there's a song title in there.

I've spent the past few days pondering love and great love for an anthology. I've had two great loves in my life and walked away from both of them for different reasons, timing mostly. The subject isn't quite as simple as it seems on the surface even though it's something I've written a great deal about, both fictionally and non-fictionally. It all comes down to a definitive definition of love, at least for me. Is a love great because the participants shout their vows to the skies or publicly display and celebrate their relationship or is it something more intimate that provides a less ostentatious show? How do you tell when people are in love? Is proof of love, as Elizabeth Bennett claims, general incivility or is it subtler and the bright thread of it through life stronger and less easily grasped?

Point out any number of couples and I can tell you very quickly whether or not they truly love each other. There's no real trick to it and they don't even have to speak. Sometimes open declarations of love are misleading, as are couples who shower each other with gifts. Love, as I have experienced and seen in others is clearer in small ways. Let's take two couples.

The female of one couple constantly calls her spouse her beloved, or uses some other form of adoration, and she constantly talks abut how good and kind and nice he is and how many other women missed the boat. He is a nice guy and he's creative and gentle and nice. He gave up his bachelorhood and a lot more to marry her. He is much quieter about his feelings as he's not a verbally or physically demonstrative guy, but he agrees that is a lucky man and loves his wife. He brings her flowers and chocolate, takes care of her when she's ill or feeling out of sorts. He supports her financially and emotionally in all her endeavors and she praises his work ethic and creativity. They never argue in public or loudly at home and say they never fight.

The other couple has been together for a very long time. You'll occasionally catch them holding hands or hear them heatedly arguing about some subject or other. He forgets their anniversary once in a while and doesn't spend a lot of money on gifts. She teases him when he is about to make a serious fashion mistake but she goes out with him no matter what he wears. Neither of them can be heard to say "I love you" out loud and they don't make a fuss over each other. They are private people and some would say they fight too much to be happy.

Now let's take a closer look.

The first couple, even though they've been married about two years, aren't happy. He spends more and more time at work and gets a look in his eye when he is informed the couple have commitments when he gets home. Despite their overt signs of affection, there is distance between then even when they kiss or hug each other. Tension crackles in the air and she frequently bites her lip when he talks, often cracking jokes about his little habits and social faux pas in front of friends and strangers. When she puts her hand on his so lovingly in public, her fingers are tight around his and her movements studied as though she is acting a part. She doesn't even seem to be aware of her actions or the wincing grimace that shadows his face from time to time when she interrupts or corrects him. After all, she says she does it out of love and from a sense of humor. Even though they smile and laugh, their smiles seem strained and their laughter a bit forced.

Even in the midst of a heated debate or outright argument, the second couple inhabit each others' space, not aggressively but naturally. When they pass each other he will lightly touch her lower back or brush shoulders and she often absently has her hand on his hand or his knee and the touch is light and familiar. They often finish each others' sentences or pick up the thread of conversation seamlessly where it was left off. Stories are told together as though well rehearsed, although the give and take is natural. When they sit together they lean slightly toward each other and when they look into each others' eyes it seems like time stops and some essential private message passes between them. They seem to be in silent communication. They argue, but the arguments seldom last long, like the last time he forgot their anniversary. He's always forgetting dates, but each day brings something new from him: a packet of seeds he saw at the hardware store he knew she'd been looking for, changing the oil in her car because she forgot it was due or tickets to a ballet for her and her best friend because he hates to go; he'll cook dinner that night so she can enjoy a hot bath he drew for her. She cooks his favorite meal because he's had a hard week or mend his favorite shirt, the one she can't get him to throw away because it's been mended so many times, and she'll pick up his socks for the millionth time when he leaves them on the floor, grumbling as she does and shaking her head with a small secret smile. She knows she can't change him, but she doesn't really want to because he picked up a packet of flower seeds she had been unable to find anywhere.

It's not the ostentatious shows of affection or loud declarations that prove a great love, but the little things: the way two people touch each other, the way they inhabit the same space, the subtle signals of body language even when their voices are raised in anger. Passion doesn't have to be loud; it is often silent and runs deep beneath the surface. A great love is most often characterized by a sense of oneness that does not diminish either and strengthens both without overwhelming either. In other words, great love is in the little details, the silent and not so silent signals and signs inherent in body language and the way people feel around them.

People who spend time with the first couple can't put a finger on what makes them feel so unsettled when it's obvious how much in love with each other they are. People walking in on a very vocal argument between the second couple may initially feel embarrassed but don't feel unwelcome or tense any more than they fear a summer storm that clears the air.

Great passion, like great love, often includes discord; the discord is momentary. People who are passionately in love are often also passionate in debate and disagreement. Like a violent spring thunderstorm, after it's over, a few leaves will be torn from the trees and dead branches will litter the lawn, but the sun breaks through the remaining clouds and shines brightly.

I've seen both kinds of relationship and it took me a while to put my finger on what was actually beneath the surface. One husband's jokes and humor masked a deep seated unhappiness and depression. A wife's closets bulging with the latest fashions and drawers full of jewelry couldn't fill the aching void of an empty marriage. Another wife who throws herself on her husband's cooling body and keens her despair and loss makes her cries of her pain and what she has lost seem fake when the people around her remember how she railed about how much she knew about pain when the morphine and radiation failed ameliorate the deep, gnawing, ache of bone cancer.

A young husband spends most of his time in his workshop or hiking in the forests and mountains to escape the silence that yawns from week to week when there are no domestic issues to discuss or items on his honey-do lists. They live in a world of silence punctuated by spurts of impersonal updates and family or local gossip, never touching, ever apart even in smiling family photographs, sealed in a bubble of separateness beneath masks that barely conceal their contempt and lack of respect. They celebrate romantic holidays and never miss giving each other cards for anniversaries and birthdays that are prominently displayed before being sealed away in boxes and scrap books, but they are strangers going through the motions.

I looked at my relationships and saw some of the same things, bits and pieces of barely contained contempt and calm familiarity. It was easy to see the great loves and the soul-sucking black hole relationships. The latter dominated. After going over them all, I know which relationship to write about. It's the one, despite the painful ending, where we were both emotionally naked and vulnerable and completely at ease with each other, the one that, when we were together, made people assume we were married even though we never got that far. It's the one with the sad ending and the rich, full and memorable days that still make me feel warm and incredibly blessed. It was the one great love of my life, the one I still miss.