2.26.2005

we are never alone

have you visited Breakup Babe?

2.23.2005

welcome back (to me)

dear readers,

sorry for my delayed absence. it's been awhile. it's been almost 4 months. one could argue, almost 3 years. one could argue, almost seven years. anyways, i'm back.

how back am i? hard to tell. what is clear is that it's a feeling. kind of like finally feeling better after a really bad illness. like waking up from a coma, maybe. like returning from war, maybe. like, wow, here i am again, and i'm ok, and the world is ok, and no one's shooting at me. kind of like that. i feel better.

how better? hard to tell, but getting less so, less hard to tell, that is. feeling more normal. more baseline. you know -- water on the stove for tea and laundry in the dryer normal. not the spinning out of control, grasping, gasping, clinging-for-dear-life abnormal.

feeling done. better, but done.

moving on is odd. interesting, intriguing, bizarre. here's one indication: i spent a portion of last night lending my ear and support to a stripper who's having relationship problems. and another portion chatting with some mid-30's woman who was raised by a stripper/hooker (well, not-raised would be more accurate, based on her pretty straightforward description of her mother as "not mother material -- it's like she never matured." she pretty much has spent most of her life mothering her mother.) i was attracted to her hair, so sat down next to her and said hi. she had strong rough hands, and a rough face semi-hidden by make-up in that way that makes a woman look about 5-10 yrs younger than she is from across the room, but up close you can tell. can see the lines. can see the rough spots. she talked pretty much non-stop, and i listened. talked about her kids, and her on-again-off-again boyfriend, and her ex-husband ("he's 42, but he's old -- and he wants to be -- he wants to be an old man").

about how she likes to dance and is a very good dancer, as is her 9 year old daughter, about her mom, who danced for larry flint, about how she quit drinking for 10 years but started again recently, about her brother, who she loves but is tired of enabling, how he's in jail now, for burglary, but before, when he was living with her, was stealing her food and giving it to junkies, and how he punched her and she slashed his forehead.

about the job she lost making $50K/yr because of a drug habit that her mother created, how she's looking for work, because she got laid off from her last job and she's thinking of waitressing because she's worked with the public since she was 19, was on her own at 13, about how her uncle died recently from a drug problem, and she inherited the leather couch that he died on because no one else wanted it, and all his clothes, and how she was close to him, so was glad that, though they'd been fighting, they'd reconciled about two months before he died, about how badly in debt he was and no one knew.

interesting. pretty hair. not quite my type. finished my beer while a vietnam vet fondled a beautiful young woman who was i would say 3X younger than him. she took it in stride. a complete professional.

they say when you can begin to help others, you must be on the mend.