I went to bed knowing I’d let you all see my unattractive side.  I just made it protected.  When I told him about the blogging I said I had a group of friends here and that I told them everything, like I was writing in my diary. 

When Sam kept trying to kiss me each time I figured he just wasn’t hearing me so I was very clear about how I didn’t feel about him.  What I discovered was that he was hearing it but he was forgetting it.  He forgets everything.  I hear the same stories over and over.  I used to tell him he’d already told me but I’ve found that he still wants to tell it, even when I indicate it’s old news.  So when I say he’s strange that’s what I’m talking about.  Mostly. 

But the reason I love him is that he has what one friend once called “no moral compass.”  He goes to church every Sunday and is a member of their adult Sunday school, bible study, and every damn committee they come up with but he has his own set of principles.  Like he believes in same-sex marriage and that a woman should have the right to choose.  He’s always helping someone move or build a bookshelf.  He’s the best dad I’ve ever met.  But what I really love about him is his lust for learning.  He reads EVERYTHING.  Unlike me, he’s pretty political.  I’ll call him and he won’t want to talk because there’s some show on about the war.  The best thing, though, is his sense of humor.  He’s droll.  But when he tells a funny joke he laughs and laughs.  Then he wants to tell it again like he’s a little kid.  I don’t know what the deal with his brain is but he’s plenty strange.  But then so am I.

Fuck.  I just talked to “Sam” and he sounded smug.  He and this new woman had gone hiking, their second date.  The first was the night he made her dinner.  Actually, the first was the blind date with their mutual friends.  Then he asked her over for dinner, Wed.  He joked to me that I was his Tues and she was his Wed.  I thought it was cute that he was getting … well, that he was getting more used to the idea that he wasn’t married anymore.  

The hike must have gone so well that she stayed for dinner.  When he picked up the phone I asked him how it went and he answered, very up-beat, “just fine,” chewing with a self-satisfied sound, like she’d kissed him.  We’ll see how long she lets him keep me around. 

The trip changed me somehow.  I can’t put my finger on it but as I was driving home from a birthday party for my sister, at which only the siblings were present (including the mentally compromised one who is now out of the shelter and in an apartment with a good job), a Joni Mitchell song came on.  The year before I married I lived in a really cool building.  I listened to Joni every morning from my claw-tooth tub.  Henry hated her so when I moved in with him I listened to his music.  Hearing her again hooked up the 20-year-old with this present space I’m in. Though, I am living with a level of satisfaction I don’t remember.  It’s a satisfaction which comes from years of waiting and struggling toward independence. 

Usually, coming home from Florida is harder.  Yes, it was cold and raining when I got back at midnight but what I woke up to was a life I would never want to leave.  My recorder group had a party for — I can’t remember the name I gave her but she was the one who befriended me.  Anyway, she just finished chemo, so after we played we took all the fabulous food we each brought and sat out in the garden.  You can’t believe how gorgeous this garden is.  Remember how controlling the hostess was?  She is someone I am really becoming fond of.  Yes, the group is quirky and eccentric but I fit right in.  I brought hummus and “crudities.”  In my absence they had assigned me dip and were visibly relieved to see it wasn’t onion or crab or something with a lot of mayo.  I hadn’t realized they were health nuts.  So, more points for me.

Then my Spanish class had their annual party.  This teacher, who I thought was nuts, has a following going back 20 years.  Every year all of her classes cook something from her recipes, which are in the back of the workbook.  One of the students owns ten acres and horses and a fabulous house, and she has the party every year.  After a while the spouses start coming, so everyone knew each other.  Because my class is disbanding, I tried to find another group I could merge with but they were all too advanced.  The great thing, though, was that mostly they were women in their 60′s and about as interesting a group as I have found myself in. 

There were only three of us in class:  me, the woman I called to get the assignment from, and Jerry.  When Jerry saw me heading from my car to the front door of the building he started honking his horn:  three quick toots.  I stopped and waited for him to get out of his car.  He took his time.  He hugged me, which was odd, and told me how good it was to see me.  I remarked about his new facial hair.  He had the beginnings of a little something at the bottom of his chin and I forget what else but it looked fashionable.  And grey.  Maybe he is more my age than I thought.  By now the teacher was approaching and he hugged her, as well.  She looked surprised.  I apologized for setting him up with the tortillas and the teacher admonished him for not attending the party.  It was a hurried, confusing conversation, with Spanish, English, and some mix of Asian minds merging, but he and I acknowledged what had occurred. 

Toward the end of class we discussed how the three of us might proceed.  It was decided that we would start our own study group in order to catch up with the group who meet on Mondays.  We will meet at the Mexican restaurant at the shopping center on Thurs.  Jerry wanted to hire a tutor but Kay and I both have family members who speak Spanish so we weren’t up for that.  We exchanged phone numbers, and on the way back to our cars Jerry yelled, “Call me for breakfast sometime.” 

Maybe part of this feeling that all is so well stems from having been included in a family birthday party for the middle one.  Did I mention that Henry got married?  His wife wasn’t there but her daughter was and we got along well.  His mother was there and was very nice to me.  I congratulated him while everyone in the room held their breath.  The only reason I got to go was because it was at my daughter’s.  This was the first family function I have attended in seven years.  It was all the same people, except for her daughter and my daughter’s boyfriend’s family, but I was different.  

I guess I’m finally where I’m supposed to be.  I’m at home with being alone.  I went to all my favorite places in West Palm and Singer Island, deeply grateful I could be there.  It was the first time I’d gone by myself., and I did all the things my youngest never was up for (she’s in Spain).  Sitting at those two parties with each of my families, we are all in a good place with ourselves and each other.  It’s a feeling of peace.  

Edited to add:  I will say, in his defense, he explained that he didn’t want to say anything negative at dinner; that he was trying to be pleasant.  And because the class probably asked him about how the food was, he didn’t lie.  He just doesn’t add up, though.  Even his car is weird.  He drives a plain, white sedan, almost like a police car.  And his clothes are odd, just as nondescript as his car.  When the teacher was asking why he wanted to learn Spanish he said wanted to be able to communicate with the “Mexicans on the farm.”  She pressed him about whether he employed them or worked with them and he wouldn’t answer, waving his hands and saying something like he didn’t want to go there.  His English is sometimes better than other times, depending on the conversation.  Like he plays dumb.  In class he sucks up to people, saying muy bueno to the older gal who is way on top of things.  The weirdest thing, though, is that he refuses to sit at the long table with the rest of us, opting for the table perpendicular to it.  That puts him at the opposite end of the teacher, sort of like the other head.  I was teasing him about choosing a position of authority and he said under his breath so only I heard him, “that’s where I sat at meetings.”  I said, “What meetings?” (he’s retired)  And he said, “never mind.”  The other thing he’s cagy about is his age.  I would think he was somewhere between 35 and 40 yet at dinner he said he was an old man.  He tried to pay for my dinner but I told him “Unless I’m sleeping with a guy, I pay my own way.”  I was horrified when the words just popped out.  I didn’t have the nerve to look over.  But I could feel him react.  Maybe that was insulting.  I thought it was a slutty thing to say.  I’ve never said anything like that to a man I barely knew.  I act weird around him. 

I got the Palm Treo 700WX.  And it only took three phone calls, a trip to the mall, and three “chat” sessions with the Verizon online sales department.  I swear, it took that much to get the price down.  They are tricky like that. Part of the ordeal was renegotiating my plan and getting them to take off $100, which was a promotional thing the first woman didn’t do.  Online, it said free shipping overnight.  Right before I hung up the phone with the first gal she said, “So, you should have it in two to three business days.”  I said, “But I thought it was overnight.  I’m leaving Sunday.”  So now it’s touch and go whether I get it in time, plus I won’t be able to have those little “chats” when I can’t figure the book out.  That’s what I get for procrastinating.

I had my Spanish class today, which I love.  There is a party the Monday I get back, and we are each supposed to cook something from the recipes in the back of the workbook.  There is a guy in the class who I thought I liked but now I’m not so sure.  We went to dinner after class last week.  I had to leave dinner early so just ordered an appetizer.  I had a cooking class to go to.  He ordered the chili relleno, and when I got to class today he had told everyone it wasn’t very good.  The restaurant had been my suggestion, as I’d eaten there once before and enjoyed it.  He, in class, had asked whether there were any good Mexican restaurants around and I said I was going there after class.  He invited himself along.  I liked the way he pretended he could speak Spanish with the waiter.  I liked the way he steered us to the best table.  And I liked the confidence with which he ate. 

He’d acted like it was good, but today in class he wrinkled up his nose. 

“I thought you said you liked it.”

“Oh, so you are going to cry about it?” (English is his second language, one of four.  I can’t figure out what mix of Asian he is.  At dinner he said all these odd things like he lives on a farm and used to have horses but it was “too expensive to hire the Mexicans.”  Now he just has chickens.  Well, I know he has Hispanics working for him, that’s why he’s taking the class.)

I laughed at the cry joke and so did the class but a little part of me was hurt.  So I ignored him today.  Usually I sit by him but three people didn’t come today so I sat up by the teacher.  Normally, we walk to our cars together but he hung back with the teacher.  Then he yelled my name and told me to have a good trip. 

I went back to that restaurant tonight and had the chili relleno to see if it was okay.  Not that I’d know, I’ve never ordered it, if you can believe that.  I thought everything seemed good.  At the table he did say he made better tortillas.  I was impressed that anybody would make their own.  But when the teacher was asking each of us what we were bringing to the party he said he didn’t cook.  I said,  “What about those great tortillas you make.”  HA!, nailed ‘im.  That’s when we were leaving class and he and the teacher stayed behind to talk about his recipe.  Something about that guy bugs me. 

I leave for Florida next week, and the hotel does not have a computer in the lobby.  So, once again I am looking at PDAs.  I bought one for the trip I took to visit my daughter in Flagstaff over Thanksgiving but returned it when even the cingular store couldn’t get it to work.  I just used her laptop every morning, but I am going alone this year and with no laptop.  I need a new phone, anyway, and my contract just expired.  I have been living without a camera phone, and that’s just wrong.  I would like to have music, but the one or two I’ve found don’t have that feature.  The sales guy on the phone said he had a Mototola Q and loved it, but their stock has been struggling so I’m not sure what that says about the Q.  The IPhone will probably be fantastic but I need one now.  If any of you use a PDA with a querty keyboard and it has a pretty good-sized screen and the reception is good, let me know.

I have been giving my friend a bellydance lesson every Tues night.  Right after Sam feeds me dinner.  I took him out once and will do that again.  They live near each other, and he lives right by the hospital, so it works out great.  But he went out on a blind date Sat night so that may end.  I’m just hoping the woman he ends up with lets me talk to him on the phone about stocks.  It has been SO nice to chat with him every day about what our stocks did.  He’s read a lot about the market over the years and does it all by himself now.  We have almost exactly the same amount of money invested and it’s odd but we don’t have any of the same stocks.  We did share one but he sold it.  I probably should have, too.