Month: September 2017

All I know of love is how to live without it…
All the years of useless search have finally reached an end.
Loneliness and empty days will be my only friend.
From this day love is forgotten I’ll go on as best I can.
John Bettis & Richard Carpenter, 1972

When you see through love’s illusions, there lies the danger,
and your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool.
So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger,
and your loneliness seems to spring from your life,
like a fountain from a pool.
Jackson Browne, 1974

“Because I feel like a big mistake that you managed to not quite make.”
“You took something that felt so good and crushed it because you could.”

No life’s without uncertainty
We both know how hard this love can be
It’s just this hurting inside of me that threw it down.
(2010)

My reward is in the knowing that I held it in my hands for a little while.
(2016)

Em Cee Squared

Dedicated, with enduring affection, to:
Ffikus Pydaxel, Diva Dearest, and Early Riser

14 February 2004 — “Other Sweetie,
I’m afraid things are going to be tough for us for a while, but I think we can hold on to each other if we try really hard. I love you. Now and always, your Sugar“

1 October 2022
Oh, it WAS tough. Much tougher than necessary. Tough for the sake of the injury itself, just because the bitterness and resentment of some were insufficiently celebrated. And I tried. I tried really really hard. I tried so hard to be false and pleasant and superficial and pointless, but it was never enough. The depths of my sincere objections apparently were just too much to tolerate. I nearly broke me in the attempt, and in the end, finally, it was just another case of sprinting to miss the bus.

12 July 2023
I’m beginning to have my doubts about “always.”
It’s not like they can throw me out much farther, and yet I still “act like this.” It’s possible I was NOT deliberating manipulating their emotions. It could be that they just got fed up with my continuing to not be the me they imagined, but remained the me I’d always claimed to be instead.

update 210202: It was many things, but in the end,
mainly, it was Wuhan Flu™ and Medicare.
(With a disgraceful lack of properly bleating compliance.)
update 210713 (201103 redux): And voting! Voting was bad. Well, voting in person. Who knows how many times I killed them by standing in that line, with my mouth shut, outside, in that anti-viral sunshine? Voting (and then telling the truth about it) was clearly a mistake.

update 210307, Reflections of the “Discussion”: Once the truth was revealed (again) that I was always telling the truth (again), what I remember most is the look of horror, disgust, and revulsion.
When I hear that, “It doesn’t mean we can’t be friends,” it tells me I have no hope. I had no intention of backing away at all, so SHE may back away as much or as little as she needs to. Standing still may look like retreat, to those retreating, just like falling slower looks like flying upwards to those who are falling faster.

update 210308, I am the Microbial Roach Motel:
My vigorous immune system doesn’t get the respect it deserves. I guess it’s bad enough that I’m not getting sick and infecting other people, but worse yet, I also tend to destroy most of the pathogens that breach my barrier. Out in the daylight, if a virally laden droplet were to land on my shoulder, they would die of dehydration or UV poisoning in a matter of minutes. If it landed on the wet welcoming membrane of my eye, or if I sucked it up my nostril, eager leucocytes and attentive antibodies would destroy them in a matter of seconds.

update 210325 — Rescinded:
“You’re posting that anti-mask stuff again.”
“It isn’t ‘anti-mask;’ you’re misreading into it.”
“I don’t know why you have to… forget it. The invitation is rescinded!“
210403 additional reflections on rescission
On the other hand, maybe it was only Medicare, as the virus itself has now been eliminated from the complaint.
So it isn’t Wuhan Flu™ that’s sickening them. It’s all me.

update 210408 — Detached:
So I saw Kittens at GrubCo™ yesterday and disclosed maybe more than Bud and Sugar may think prudent, but I feel that if I stay fully detached, like a delicate bloom from the green stalk, I will wither and die.

update 210411 — Cicisbeo no mo‘?
It isn’t Italian, nor any secret language. It is actually English, albeit a little archaic (“And eat it, too”). Still, it shows no sign of renewal, so it may as well be from a dead tongue.

April First, Abandon that hope.
It wasn’t the First. Weeks later, it occurred to me that the hammer dropped about the first of the month and maybe I was being April Fooled. Well, this doesn’t mean I’m NOT a fool, but in fact, it was March 25th, not April 1st. So, it’s still no joke. When she says we’re quits, we’re quits!

Enrollment of Distinction, April Nineteenth
This is too too rich, too too apt, too too funny, and too too risky. I would like to give Klint proper credit for inspiring the christening of the latest member of my Rogues’ Gallery of Former Arch-Nemeses. I put a great deal of thought and care into selecting those loving sobriquets, but when presented with perfection, how dast I amend? Henceforward shall The Sweetie Formerly Known as Sugar be known as Ffikus Pydaxel.

Still Rescinded, May Fifteenth
A child who pulls the wings off butterflies is heart-broken to realize that they can no longer fly. Just because he’s the source his own heartbreak doesn’t make it any less painful. I find it both sad and amusing that parties who eagerly seized offense at exaggeration, stereotypes, and parody are now mourning the consequences. 

211030 — Rudderless, Hopeless, Pointless, and Friendless?
I don’t actually have a paddle. Or a canoe. Or a map. Or a lake. Or any idea of where I should be going. But I am confident that once I’ve dragged myself out of the water, help and advice will abound. (They’ll be telling what I should have done, but they won’t lend me the keys to their time machines so I can.)

211125 – Conflicting Criteria?
Klint once told me that Ojuxit “can’t take care of everybody,” and I understand that. There is only the one of each of us, and we all have our limits. But I never asked for care, though I offered it plenty. It has been confirmed that the future I saw of tending to the infirm and the frail and the failing into their advanced years, helping them up and down the steps, or into and out of the bath, was not to be. Because of my vigorous good health and high tolerance for discomfort, I guess I’m just a little too low maintenance to qualify. I’m not sure this makes any sense, but I’m not inventing it either.

221003 — On Squandering Our Irreplaceable Time
I often wonder how much richer, sweeter, and more productive our lives together might have been if we had also devoted the time that SHE spent raising issues, WE spent discussing them, and I spent recovering from them. It often seemed interminable as, frequently, she would raise new issues before I’d recovered from the previous episode. Sometimes the issue was my “not getting over it” (because everybody recovers at the same rate, I suppose). Talk about your positive feedback loops! Was there no getting better allowed?
(Who’s “she?” Go ahead, pick a former arch nemesis, any one at all!)

(“IKYR Anyway, even if only metaphorically”)

9 January 1986 — Thirty-Three and a Third                                   

It gets pretty cold up here in the loft, but not as cold as in the house.  Lucretia MacEvil doesn’t seem to mind.  She’s on my lap no matter where she finds it, as long as I’m not smoking one of those awful brown cigarettes.  When she sees me spark up, she will frecuently come join me.  Unless she smells tobacco.  Then she splits.  Right now I’m smoking green and she’s settled comfortably under my notebook.  So, it could be colder.  At least I get a little animal contact to satisfy that frustrated inner pack critter.

Today was supposed to be a big deal.  I’d been pointing it out for a couple of years, so it wasn’t intended to be a surprise.  I’m not a fan of birthdays, in particular, nor of holidays in general.  I like to be happy when I’m happy.  Smiling on cue doesn’t work for me.  Off stage, anyway.  I’ll put on Christmas music in July if I feel like it, but I am not apt to take notice of “normal” birthdays or holidays.

Oh, I do believe in indulging children.  Of course!  Birthdays are an extra big deal to small children, and I hope to share these milestones with my sons for many years to come.  They are less of a big deal for older people, and for some, they are an actual nuisance of a painful reminder.  For me they are no big deal, and I will take them or leave them, but for others, well…  In general, unless a birthday ends in a zero or signals some other threshold, like voting or drinking, I would prefer to pass on them altogether.

So, as I said, birthdays ending in zeroes are cool (as they demark the decades, I suppose, although they don’t, really, but they look like they do), but even cooler would be the whole fractions of a century.  Five, ten, and twenty years are all integer fractions, and so is twenty-five, and so is thirty-three years and four months.

I try to make myself understood before commitments are made or misunderstandings are embraced, and my thoughts about birthdays had been shared and discussed since long before the birth of the boys.  There shouldn’t have been any surprises or disappointments based on that.  So on the day of Early Riser‘s thirty-third, when it had become clear that there were no gifts or cards or banners, the question was raised and my response was, “Just as I said.  The big blowout’s in January on your Thirty-Three and a Third.”

Well, that has made for a very cold autumn in this house, and an even colder winter.  Lucy and I got a little peace while Early Riser took the Young Lethargy League away to Grandmama’s over Christmas break again, and when they returned, I got hugs from the boys and more chill from Mama.  (She also got a fresh shot of cat urine in her shoe again.  She and Lucy seem to have other issues as well.)  I have tried to revive my big “birthday” plans over the last week, but have been blocked and rebuffed.  “Forget it.  It’s not going to work.  You already ruined my birthday.”

Of course, I could have assumed she was LYING and forged ahead with gathering our friends to celebrate her first third of a century anyway.  But our relationship was supposed to have been founded on honesty.  I may not like her all the time, but I still trust her.  She is no liar.  If she says “No” the answer is “No.”  The mother of my sons, my workmate and (alleged) bedmate and (presumed) soulmate wants less to do with me, but still looks forward to the legendary engineer’s income.

In the future maybe I should try to treat women more like children.
Telling them the truth doesn’t seem to work.

9 July 1986 — Dads’n’Grads 

Well, that’ll show me!

We see them every year around this time.  The newspapers are filled with advertisements heralding the end of the school year and the celebration of paternity.  “Congrats to Grads” and “Honoring Dads” are a good enough excuse to cut prices on tires and firearms, I suppose.  But I’ve made it a practice in life to not fall for orchestrated joys; I’d rather be happy when I’m happy, and proud when I’m proud, and otherwise not pretend.  If my sons WANT to honor their Dad, I shouldn’t wish to denigrate their desire.  I know that such an event is no more about me than is my birthday.  But when I actually accomplish something, I really don’t mind its being acknowledged.

Beaver Tech has just seen fit to confer degrees in Physics and Mechanical Engineering upon me.  Those are both four-year degrees involving considerable rigor and skull sweat, and they only cost me five years.  I’m hoping that it was a shrewd investment to double my appeal to possible employers at only a hundred and twenty-five percent of the effort.  Such efficiencies should speak well of my qualifications as an engineer, but that remains to be seen.  So far there has been no response from NASA or Boeing or Grumman or Northrup or CH3M or, well, the list goes on.  But the summer is young, and they are no doubt besieged by applicants this time of year.  Fortunately, even though I’ve been graduated, Evanite is willing to extend my “student internship” until the new engineering freshmen show up in the autumn, so I’ve got a little breathing space.

But hey, college was a blast!  Thanks to the GI Bill, I was paid to go to school.  I doubt that I’ll ever find a better job.  But the GI Bill played out after only four years, so for the last I’ve had to find other ways to cover the rent and groceries in addition to going to school.  Now that I’m only working full time, it almost feels like I’m on vacation.  And there’s no hurry.  I’d rather be hired after careful deliberation than too hastily.  Haste often carries the seeds of regret, and I’d rather be hired by someone who is fully aware of what he is getting than believing I’m something I’m not.  The repayment schedule of the few modest loans I took to supplement expenses don’t kick in until later, and they appear to be tractable enough.  I’ve also faced car payments and rent, so I expect I’ll manage.

But anyway, THiS is my season!  Dad AND Grad!  Or so you might think.  I can be pretty foolish sometimes.  Not one word.  NOT ONE WORD!  Not one card.  Not one mention.  Not one cheap classified ad in our local Cow City Chronicle.  Not one knowing wink or nod or gesture.  Not from Early Riser, nor The Young Lethargy League, not from other relatives, nor from friends.  Apparently, when I do something cool and otherwise “noteworthy” it doesn’t count.

update 210107:  Make that mythical engineering income.  Still no word from NASA et al.  Going to college WAS fun, and I have fond memories, but it was probably the worst financial decision of my life.  Since then, Busy Body chucked me out.  Later, Drama Queen chucked me out (and still later died), but not until after gracing me with the most beautiful daughter imaginable.  At present I am “retired” (a euphemism for “fired at a late age”) and eating my savings for a while before tapping tax victims.  No matter how meagre my income, or onerous my commitments, organized criminals (F’eral, statist, or municipal) never failed to help themselves to hefty portions of it.

update 210109: And now it appears that I may have been singled down again. Ffikus Pydaxel (formerly known as “Gurawf“) seems poised now to join the ranks of Lethargy Lad’s Rogues’ Gallery of Former Arch-Nemeses. As “secondary” I lasted thirteen years, twice. Having reset my criteria and accepted a position that was instead tertiary and subordinate, I lasted almost twenty-two years until the awful truth was revealed. At least this time there were no innocent children involved whose lives I could ruin.

7 April 2024 — “Stimo Tahec Yemw” (A Dream of Early Riser)
“We would like you to come to church with us.”
“Uh huh.”
“What would it take?”
“You know what I want.  You’ve known what I want since long before you threw me out the first time.”
“There’s more to marriage than just sex.”
“Sure.  Lots more.  Like church.  And gardening, and washing the dishes.  Everything costs something.”
“My sister would like it too.  She came here long before you came back.  We like the heavy lifting and the lawn care…”
“But you’d like to look respectable to your church friends.”
“Put it like that, then.”
“Okeh.  How ’bout I put it like this?  You want my ass in that pew on Sunday morning?  I want my dick in your mouth.  I’ll put my ass in that pew for a full minute on Sunday for every minute my dick gets to spend in your mouth for the previous week.”
“Church service is usually an hour.”
“That sounds about right.  That’s maybe four proper blow jobs a week.  I know you can, and I know you’re good at it.  You’ve probably also had a little more practice since our divorce, so I’m hoping you’ve even improved.  And even if you’re a little out of practice lately, I’m sure you can pick it up again.  If you want.”
“What about intercourse?”
“Oh, I like that, too.  But you never seemed to.  I remember your complaining a lot that I was hurting you, but you nevertheless seemed to take pride in a cock well sucked.  Okeh, maybe you were faking that, too.  But you were still good at it.”
“But still…”
“You know what?  Maybe I’m not being fair.  Fellatio is skilled labor.  Sitting in church is pretty passive.  How about this?  One minute of cocksucking will buy you two minutes of my sitting in church.  So that’s still three or four blowjobs a week for me, but maybe quicker for you and less wear on your bionic knees.  And I’ll even let you subcontract out half the work to your sister.  If she’s game.  You did say ‘we,’ after all.  Oh hell, I’ll even fuck her if she wants. But anal will cost extra. I find that distasteful, but tolerable if she insists.”