Month: December 2004

  • Something surprising happened tonight.  My youngest told her grandmother that “dad gets drunk and yells at night.”  This is her son she’s hearing about. 


    Somehow she never believed me or maybe she didn’t care.  I think she believed that he wouldn’t have yelled at me if I hadn’t of aggravated him.  I never told her how he started yelling at the kids, after I left, because I wasn’t there to yell at.  The youngest is his baby, his favorite.  If he’s starting in on her, then he must be pretty upset.  He’s freaked out about the one in trouble. 


    He’s a wonderful man but he’s pretty much a drunk now.  He never learned how to deal with his feelings.  He stuffs them down until they erupt.  Then he says horrible things, in a fit of anger.  It’s like watching a two-year-old having a temper tantrum.  It used to scare the shit out of me though.  I would leave and go to a hotel for the night when it got bad. 


    It’s like everybody’s secrets are coming out.  The family is unraveling.  His dad was a drunk and his mother quit drinking maybe ten years ago.  I can’t imagine how she must be feeling tonight.  I feel like I’ve been vindicated.  When I left, not only did I lose my home, I lost the only mother who’d ever been good to me.  This crisis with the child who is having a hard time has brought us back together.  H was in Mexico so the only way she got information was through me.  We’ve been talking every day since.  It will be interesting to see what he does when she confronts him.



  • My favorite part of getting the tree up is opening the Christmas boxes and pawing through the tissue, wondering what’s inside.  I fondle each new piece, happy to have found it. 


    I left all the Christmas stuff with the family so I have started fresh.  At first it was sad, but now I am happy to have a tree with ornaments that seem to go together, which were hand-picked by me.  One of my best finds was a set of five finger puppets.  The heads were carved and painted and each animal wears a suit of clothes.  I found them at a garage sale with the price tags still on. 


    Last Christmas I had the kids come over to help me get the tree up but they lost interest after watching me fuss with the lights.  When I broke out the boxes and oohed and ahhed over all my finds, they didn’t want any part of putting things on the tree.  The oldest said, “I’ve never even seen this stuff, you put it on.”


    So today, I did it all by myself.  I’d seen a tree lot, right down the street.  I drove over there this morning and looked around.  They were just untying a noble that looked promising.  He shook it out and I said, “I’ll take it.”  Then he cut the bottom off and tied it to the top of my car.  Meanwhile his partner was getting me hot chocolate while I wrote out the check.  I don’t know what you’re used to but I felt like I was in another country.


    It was the perfect size for me to pull off the car and into the house.  It’s probably six feet tall but not that heavy.  Getting it into the stand was a breeze, I don’t know why it was always such an ordeal with my ex-husband.  I got the whole thing done in no time.


    The outdoor lights were fun, too.  I’ve never had all these bushes to decorate so I didn’t even bother with the house.  It makes a bigger splash and it’s closer to the street. 


    I’d made a fire and was listening to some Christmas music when my oldest came through the door.  We sat in the living room and enjoyed the tree.  Now that I have that gate up and the dogs can’t get in there, it was nice to spend the day without them.


    People make a big deal about Christmas on my street.  Almost every house has their lights up and I was feeling like they were waiting for me, hoping I’d come through.  I hope they approve.


     

  • Stuff always comes to me in the shower.  When I was done shaving my legs, I put the razor up and stood for a moment appreciating the fact that there was any hot water left.  This house has an inadequate hot water heater.  The plumber had been here earlier installing my reverse osmosis water filter.  I now have even less water pressure, in the shower. But as I stood there savoring the thin, warm flow, it reminded me of my approach to life.  I take what little I can get.


  • I went to the movies this afternoon with a friend.  Even though it was my pick, I suggested we leave three quarters of the way into it.  Closer was a big disappointment.  I sat there listening to stilted dialogue that even good actors couldn’t pull off.  It made me worry about my book, how my characters sound.  One of you, I think it was lionne, suggested the next time I went to lunch, to pay close attention to the table next to me.  Notice things like how they talk over each other and change the subject.


    The premise of the movie was reasonable, but the story was just so lame.  And the way it was told, jumping back and forth in time, made me nervous about my own timeline.  Now I am wondering where I should begin my story.  In fact, I wonder if that would be a good exercise.  You know?  Maybe I should look at it from a more physical perspective.  I’ve been so caught up in the words.  I had no idea it was going to be this complicated and I know I’ve said that at least twice now, when I’ve realized some new aspect that I was probably screwing up.  Actually, it makes it more fun, gives it more depth.  


    It’s probably like a good song.  You have the lyrics, you have the melody, and you have the rhythm.  So I’m figuring out the words now, I’ve already got the story line, just not the right order of events, and I need to focus more on the background, what it looks like. 


    jerjonji said to use my pain and I assume that will allow me to give my work more intensity.  But, and this is hard, she said to leave myself out of the characters.  Finding that balance, where there’s just enough of you to make them real, but enough of them so that each character has a strong identity.  I’m guessing that’s how you do it. 


    I’m preferring writing to real life.  I can orchestrate the kind of world….Oh, no, I just realized some new pitfall.  That can make or break a story, too.  Orchestrating some tidy little life for my characters won’t make for a good story.  Drama, people like drama.

  • Isn’t this a pretty tree!    I made a little flyer today, for a healthy holiday baking class I’m getting together.  I am going to start doing my blogs from Outlook Express.  There’s an option, I saw, where you can just send them from here. 

     

    I feel a little guilty about not writing my book today.  Not one word.  And I didn’t even think about the characters.  But I wanted to tell you about meeting a new character of mine.  If I had made this guy up he would have sounded …not authentic.  When I went to the gym, for the first time in forever, because if I sat here one more minute — I mean this sedentary life style is doing a number on my body.  My mind is delirious but my body is aging rapidly.  Anyway, when I went to work out, and it was touch and go at first, cause my heart rate got up there and I got out of breath, but I made it through, and on my way out I picked up the schedule.  Like I was going to go again.  And on Monday and Wednesday nights it said they offered Dance/Cardio. 

     

    Shit, I drove back the same night.  I mean I haven’t seen dance anything in a gym for 15 years.  So here comes this black guy with a biker’s bandana.  In dance class I always get right behind the teacher so I can mimic her.  It makes it a lot easier.  So to match a guy’s movements, especially this guy, was a real trip for me.  Very empowering.  He’s this tough motorcycle guy who’s a real sweetheart.  At the end of class everyone crowds around him to find out how he was doing.  I guess he dumped his bike a couple weeks ago.  The women love him.  My oldest daughter says she’s going to go with me.  We’ll see. But this guy solved a little problem I was having, so now he’s going into the book.  He’s the only character who I will have ever talked to, but he’s the least real. 

     

    I also want to brag about solving my heating problems.  This huge old house has no heat upstairs.  I’ve never even heard of such a thing.  I mean this guy was a successful physician with kids and he was too cheap to put heat upstairs?  But he builds this huge greatroom with extravagant windows and all this brick.  It makes no sense.  I’ve NEVER lived in a house this cold..  So I bought these heaters that look like radiators.  Because I didn’t want to start messing with venting until I know what I’m doing up there.  The other really good thing I did, in terms of heating, was to buy a dog gate.   Then I can leave the doors open to  the living room.  It’s freezing out there, too.  Progress, I’m making progress!

     

     

ydurp

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