Get It While You Can

Three+ years on and I’m still haunted by dreams of The Amazing Bob in hospital. In this one though, we were at St. E’s not MGH. Weird. We never spent any time at St. E's even though we lived in Brighton for a fair number of years.

In last night’s ep, the docs were gonna let me take TAB home. Alive and everything! I was getting dressed in my own hospital room, for the cab ride home. I was taking care to pick an outfit that I knew TAB pariculary liked. It's always good to inspire we're-leavin'-the-hospital smiles

But first the good docs had to show me a real time Xray (like an ultrasound) of the rat bastards blocking my man’s arteries. But wait…are they, instead, showing me some of the motherfuckers who're killing time on my spine and in my brain?

OK so maybe I’m haunted by all the goddamn time I’ve spent in hospital both with and without TAB.

To live is to be haunted.
~ Philip K. Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

A truth that’s dawned on me – a real haunting has nothing to do with actual scary ghosties and everything to do with plagues of hard, sad memory. That's what a ghost is – a persistent, upsetting, even fright-filling fragment of memory come back to visit.

I welcome TAB’s ghost in Dream Land. I just wish he’d visit at non-hospital times too.

I now know how your anger
came from skeletons
that rattled in your heart
and you couldn't escape them.
~ Susie Clevenger, Dirt Road Dream

In my case, it’s not anger from skeletons, it’s melancholy wistfulness from the Ghosts of Happiness Past. I don’t want to escape them. Nope. I’ll keep them close, in my heart. This doesn’t mean I’m failing to embrace present tense happiness. Oh no, fuck that shit. Get it while you can, mes amis.

In this world, if you read the papers, darling
You know everybody's fighting ah with each other
You got no one you can count on babe
Not even your own brother
So if someone comes along
He gonna give you some love and affection

I'd say get it while you can, yeah
Honey, get it while you can, yeah
Hey hey, get it while you can
Don't you turn your back on love, no, no
Get It While You Can – Janis Joplin

Three Years On

I haven’t gone full metal Eeyore in a while. Ya know why? Ten.

On reading the very first comment he left here on Tell Me a Story, I felt a long dormant jolt. I wondered, the hell is this feeling. And then it came to me – OMG, this is a crush. I have a crush!

Yup. Big time. 

What’d he say to start me up? Dunno, can’t find it now (dammit!). He reminded me so much of The Amazing Bob though. Of course I knew he wasn’t TAB (duh) but, like TAB, Ten's kindness, gruff lived-a-life-or-three humor and smarts radiated.

Like I was caught in a tractor beam, I was pulled in.

I wondered, should I feel bad about this? After all, TAB had only been gone a couple years and I was still heavy with grief. I confessed my crushing to Jen. I made her read Ten's comments so’s she could tell me:

1. If he really did have a whiff of TAB about him
2. If having this big-ass attraction was too soon, unseemly and stone proof of my long suspected shallowness.
3. In my sea of grief, was I looking for a TAB replacement? That’d be pretty damn rude and unfair to Ten, ya know. Also too, I’d be setting my-own-self up for a Grand Canyon sized fall.

Jen allowed that:

1. Yes, Ten reminded her of TAB too. They seemed to have like sensibilities.
2. NO, it wasn’t too soon OR unseemly and, NO, I wasn't being shallow.
3. No. Though swimming in sad I was most def not scouting TAB successors. I just couldn’t imagine (and you all know that I have quite the active and expansive fantasy life) anyone tripping my trigger ever again.

And then a stranger appeared on the Western horizon.

You will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up. And you come through. It's like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.
~ Anne Lamott

Ten and I are waltzing, tangoing and lindy hopping together now. We both have limps but that doesn’t stop the dance.

Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.     
~ Elizabeth Gilbert

That was Michal. Michal lost her beloved four or five years before TAB took his final bows. She gave me hope.

Someone Saved My Life Tonight – Elton John

Rambling and Rambles

To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.
~Aldous Huxley

Including myself. The first time I went to Berlin (on my own, arriving from Krakow – still drunk and about to be viciously hung over after visiting the horrors of Auschwitz/Birkenau) I didn’t like it. It was too damn vast and unknowable – not neatly walkable like Edinburgh or Amsterdam. That and the wall had just come down. Everywhere was rubble and empty, abandoned, ugly, Soviet style high rises and then, more rubble. Not exactly enchanting. The next time I visited and the time after that things were WAY different. First, I wasn’t hung over. Second, I was staying with my cousin Della, (who moved there from Den Haag), and her awesome husband Martin – I got to see the joint from a native’s POV and LOVED it. Berlin IS vast and can’t be fully seen and appreciated on some quickie holiday. Nope. I gotta go back.

Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.
~ Ray Bradbury

Yeah, tell it Ray Baby!

I need some of that eye wonderment right now. I’ve been struggling to chill after the roller coaster ultra stress of nearly losing one of my peepers, meeting the sight saving Doc Jacobs, getting into BostonSight and then the make or break, deaf UNfriendly PROSE training.

I’d go sit on Nantasket (which soothes my soul to the max) except it’s summer now. The beach is packed. After The Amazing Bob shuffled off this mortal coil, I motored down there, in the pre-dawn hours, on the regular. I’d sit in the sand, absorb the peace and play of light as the sun crept up to the horizon line. I gotta do that again.

It’s three years ago next Thursday, that my man quit this life. So much has happened in these intervening years. The mind reels.

On the first two heartrending anniversaries, Jen, Oni and I got out of town. I couldn’t be here at home on the big, bad day. TAB-loss loomed insurmountably. This year is different. Ten is here and I’m blazingly in love. Every day I’m astounded by my brill luck.

Luck? After a life lived for the sound of music, I’m deaf, I've shit balance and keeping my sight’s a constant battle. BUT, BUT for 30 years I had the MOST Amazing Bob in my life. And now I have Ten. Two men in one life who get/got me and still love(d) me! What these startlingly awesome squeezes have in common is their wonderful big brains, their soothing kindness, EMPATHY, they live(d) proudly outside the mainstream and they are/were kitchen gods of the first order. And that's a very short list of their brill qualities

I still don't wanna be home next Thursday. On Wednesday, Ten and I will depart Valhalla for a distracting road trip to Vermont and Western Mass. He knows that I’m mourning TAB – that I miss him so deeply still. Wickedly bright bean that he is, he also knows that I’m wildly happy that he chose to leave his Oregon home to shack up with yurs truly.

Magnificently lucky is what I am.

*BOOM!*

It’s happening!

Thomas Ten Bears and I are jumpin’ over his sword and becoming a shackin’ up, committed thing. No, I’m not leaving Valhalla and moving to his awesome, slack jaw inducing, astounding High Desert. Nope the man is moving into Valhalla.

We decided this about a month ago. (AND I kept it a secret!!!) He needs a fresh crib and I’ve got that tiny cottage on the eastern sea. Plus there’s that whole BIG LURV thing we’ve got goin’ on. Logistically and big fat love story-wise, this makes a boatload of sense.

My friend Tim, awhile back when I was wondering where things could possibly go, suggested that Ten and I could live together for part of the year in Oregon and part in Valhalla. That sounded GREAT but I can’t really plan what my overactive little tumor assholes will do from month to month. This means that staying near MGH is pretty importante. Yes, I know there are good docs up in Portland BUT the big, cutting edge reseach for my rare shit's done in Boston and LA. That’s it. I aim to stay out in front of this bastid Nf2 so’s I can live a nice, round, healthy, long-as-I-can life. Not rolling under the thumb of the cretins in my bean and along my spine, means not ever being terribly far from MGH for terribly long. YES, that is limiting BUT I love Valhalla. Plus, Jen and Oni are there – they are mia famiglia.

So, this is a HUGE leap for Ten. His, now adult, children and most of his grands live in Bend. He’s lived here most of his life.

Am I worth his radical uprooting? Jesus, I hope so,

Where do we go from here? //shrugs// Dunno but we’re taking two+ weeks to drive cross country, back to our home. Adventure (and pics) WILL ensue.

Just curious, etc.

OK, rememeber how Moses (I’m talkin’ about the Bible dude NOT the jazz man here) came down from Mount Sinai with God’s Ten Little Life Hacks all neatly carved in stone? 

In the movie, (which is a real, true and faithful historical document, right?!?) pre-mountain climb, Moses was all dark haired. Specifically, our man was dark haired and molto studly. Afterward though, he’s rockin’ a shock of white and his long ass beard’s gone frosty too. Do you think, mebbe, his pubes blanched as well? Just curious, and shit.

Plus, I only mention it but our boy's skinsuit went from a lovely deep toast color to kinda pasty. What's up with that? Seeing and/or speaking with God(s) rips the melanin clean out of a person? This seems suspiciously Mormon-y.

And, if all this wasn't enough, it looks like Moses put on a few pounds up there on Sinai. So then, God’s high in calories too?! Sheesh!

This Moses contemplation shit naturally puts Mose Allison's tremendous tune, Your Molecular Structure, in mind.  OK, it’s also playing on the old internal hi-fi because it's that time of year.

In our early courting days, The Amazing Bob made me a mix tape which featured that sweet, sexy song front and center. Jesus, my TAB was a charm talkin,’ romantic thriller!

Your molecular structure is really somethin' fine
A first-rate example of functional design
That cosmic undulations is steady comin' through
Your molecular structure baby, me and you

Your cellular organization is really something choice
Electro-magnetism 'bout to make me lose my voice
Got all my circuits open, my system's reading "go"
Your cellular organization baby, stop the show

Your molecular structure is really somethin' swell
A high-frequency modulated Jezebel
Thermodynamically you're gettin' to me
Your molecular structure baby, ooh wee!

Ooh wee!

And here are the lyrics to that first Allison song link. Yur welcome.

Your Mind Is On Vacation

You're sitting there yakkin' right in my face
I guess I'm gonna have to put you in your place
Y'know if silence was golden
You couldn't raise a dime
Because your mind is on vacation and your mouth is
Working overtime

You're quoting figures, you're dropping names
You're telling stories about the dames
You're always laughin' when things ain't funny
You try to sound like you're big money
If talk was criminal, you'd lead a life of crime
Because your mind is on vacation and your mouth is
Working overtime

You know that life is short and talk is cheap
Don't be making promises that you can't keep
If you don't like the song I'm singing, just grin and
Bear it
All I can say is if the shoe fits wear it
If you must keep talking please try to make it rhyme
'Cause your mind is on vacation and your mouth is working
Overtime

Falling in Love Again

I'm wild about that tune or maybe I just love Dietrich's world weary delivery. Haven't seen the movie, Der Blaue Engel, since I was a kid. It left a mark though. Dietrich.

Falling in love again? Would I? Could I? Can there be romance after The Amazing Bob?

I can barely breathe without my MOST Amazing Bob so this is a hypothetical. My hero’s been gone two months now. It feels like forever and as though I just lost him yesterday. Christ on Half Moons (TAB’s faves!), I ache.

I've always been the type to think ahead, often WAY the fuck down the line, so I wonder. Of course I do. What will the rest of my life be like without TAB? Right now, the idea of having anyone else in my life, in my bed is anathema and a half, times 50 bazillion. I just don't see it happening. Anyone new would be forced to share the stage with my golden TAB – like Tessie O'Shea with the Beatles. That'd be a recipe for major tank-age – unfair to them AND me.

Now, Daddy told me, way back when he was in you’re-about-to leave-home advice giving mode, marry your best friend. Like a good, smart daughter, I followed his prescription. I've talked before of how, on first conversation with TAB, I fell tête over teakettle in love. He got me. I got him. We were twisted in just the right, complementary way. Our tops spun and danced in analogous arcs. We were humming along on the very same frequency.

Also too, he was hot. Very.

A friend from high school, with whom I've recently become reacquainted, said that she remembered me as always going my own way, not trying to fit in, just bein' who I was and fuck that being-like-everyone-else shit. Ok, she may have worded it a bit differently – like without the swears.

Funny thing is, I really wanted to fit in. I imagine, every 15 year old does. I regret that I tried at all. Obvs, I wasn't terribly successful in my efforts since this friend saw me more as a proud freak flag flyer.

And that’s another bit of advice from Poppy: to thine own self be true. He saw me struggling and tried to steer me towards I’m OK–You’re OK-ville, Go Your Own Way-burg. Took awhile but I got there.

 To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
~ Oscar Wilde

In any case, point of the story here, I'm not looking to get life partnered up again – maybe I never will be but most certainly not now. PLUS I don't think there's a bazillion potentials waiting for my dazzling neon personality to show up on the Norms R Us dating sites either. And that's fine. Truly and really.

Of my fellow widow pals, one says she's done with romance – she’s not lookin', not interested. Another has dated but chose, so far anyway, not to remarry. A third has been very happily involved with a new fella for about a year now. What all four of us have in common is that our loves, our gone-baby-gone spouses were of the brilliant, burn the skies up and down, hearts linked like titanium ringlets, Romeo-and-Juliet-all-grown-up brand of grand amour.

We were lucky. Most folks, it seems, don't ever meet, recognize and then marry their best friends. We did.

Love Stories – Jen and Oni

Today is Jen and Oni’s 20th anniversary. Yes, it's 20 years ago today that my two besties (apart from The Amazing Bob, of course) became a cosmically twined, awesome duo.

I asked her for an early, Christ Almighty, we are SO in love memory. She shared a way cool piece from their very first camping trip together (yes, they've been known to sleep outdoors in tents, on the cold, hard ground and everything! //shudder//)
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Despite growing up here in Massachusetts I'd never been to the Cape Cod National Seashore on the Outer Cape. Oni planned a weekend camping trip during our first summer together. We left Friday after work and arrived at the campground in Truro at sundown. I was stressed about putting the tent up in the dark, but OniI had it all figured out. He turned on the car headlights and pointed them at the site.

Et voilà! Illumination. Brilliant!

After we were set up, Oni invited me to hop on to the back of his mountain bike; it was time to show me the the beach and the magical giant sand dunes.

Oni pedaled us the mile and a half downhill to Campground Beach. The sky was so clear. I remember seeing the Milky Way for the first time from the back of his bike.

Oni, grilling on the roof of our Cambridge digs.

Amazingly we arrived in one piece and stowed the bike in the beach grasses.  The dunes loomed before us like dark giants, coaxing us to perch atop their shoulders and take in the view.
It felt like I was on a different planet. I loved the alien feeling and was just so happy to be experiencing it with Oni.

We laughed so much that night, drinking in the ocean breezes, gazing at the stars, sharing stories and listening to the rustling beach grasses. The ocean twinkled in the star light.
After we finished a couple of Sam Adams atop what felt like our own personal sand dune, we raced down its face to dip our toes in the cool Atlantic. Time passed in a blink.

Jen hiding from the paparazza.

Oni started digging in the sand and uncovered phosphorescence, which I'd never seen before. The sand had little glowing bits in it! Who knew? Somehow this was hilarious and we laughed some more, feeling like the only two humans on the planet.

Finally it was time to make our way back to the campsite. I felt awful that Oni was going to have to double us uphill, all the way back on his bike so I tried to talk him into just walking. Nope, he was determined to pedal us back so I tried to make myself as light as possible and held on for the ride.

We've been happily together ever since, laughing at things that aren't really funny and just enjoying the ride. As Oni says that beach was the perfect place to feel the force of nature and the power of the universe. The universe confirmed what we suspected, that our place was together.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ed. note – DAMN STRAIGHT!!!

Love Stories: Myla and Joe

 Joe and I met in 2013. 

He was the sales manager at the car dealership where I’d bought my car, so I would run into him whenever I was getting work done. I thought he was pretty cute from the minute I saw him. We always chatted while the work was being done.

Last April I was getting new tires put on the car. Again, we were talking like old friends.  I mentioned that I’m an artist. He pulled up my website and saw all my equine pieces. I was so surprised when he told me he used to have horses in California.

Two hours later, the car had been done long before, and we were still talking.  At that point he was called out of the office. I probably should have left but decided to make a sketch of a horse for him. It was a simple scribble on a yellow Post It note but it gave me an excuse to stay for just a few minutes until he came back so I could say goodbye.

I went home thinking that we'd really hit it off and there was some spark but then I didn't hear from him. I didn't really expect to but still.… He had my home phone number from the work order so I figured if he wanted to call he knew how to find me.

Two weeks later, I was fooling around with this app I have on my iPod, which is for my landline and TV, and I saw there was a text on it. I figured that Comcast was spamming me with texts so I almost deleted without reading it. Then I got curious, opened it and was floored to find it was from Joe! He said he'd so enjoyed our conversation and wanted to know if I'd go out with him some time. When I read those words I squealed and did a little dance around the living room but my joy was short lived.

I saw the date on the text was from TWO WEEKS AGO. Just OMG.

I have to admit that I am a texting newbie. I didn't have a cell phone that was text enabled and this was my very first incoming text and for a date no less! Aaack!!! I was sure I'd already blown it. CRAP!

After some desperate fiddling around, I figured out how to text him back and wrote, Hi Joe! I'm so sorry, I just found your text. I enjoyed chatting with you too and would love to go out with you some time.

Then I held my breath and hit send.

I didn't sign it since I ASSumed he would know it was coming from me as a reply to his text. On my app it shows both sides of the conversation so I thought his was like that too. WRONG. LOL.
He had long ago deleted the text he’d sent when there was no reply. Then, out of the blue, he gets this text from a strange number, with no name, telling him she loved chatting with him and would love to go out with him. He couldn't figure out who it was.

Can you imagine what must have been going through his mind? He works in sales at a car dealership and sees so many women going through there on a daily basis. Insert eye roll here.

So he called me. I didn't realize he didn't know who he was calling because my name wasn't in the text.

He said, Hey, my name is Joe Scobel, and I just got a text from someone at this number, and I have no idea who you are.

GAWD I almost hung up, I felt soooooo stoooopid. I thought, Wow, I really left an impression on this guy. NOT! My face was beet red!

The stammering and awkward confusion between us is really funny now but I felt like a gawky teenager in that moment.

I gulped and told him who I was and asked if he remembered talking when I got the car work done. He was so happy to hear from me and remembered me as the chatty artist who'd given him the horse sketch.

I then told him he had texted my landline and I had just found his text, by accident, through the app on my iPod. We dissolved into laughter and just howled about the pitfalls of dating through modern technology. We're both in our late fifties and sometimes forget we're not still living in the '70s. Dating is still every bit as awkward!

He said, when he didn't hear back from me, that he thought I just wasn't interested and was blowing him off. I never told him I'd had a crush on him since the day I'd met him and would always try to run into him when I was there.

 After several nights of phone confabs we went out on our first date—a traditional dinner and movie. It was a wonderful evening. The movie, The Longest Ride, was ironically about a cowboy and an art lover and the dispersal of an incredible art collection. We really connected to it and talked for hours after.  For the next week, every night, we spent hours on the phone.

Since I was living alone, and hadn't dated in over ten years, I was really cautious. I would meet him at either a shopping center or some other public place.

One afternoon he invited me to dinner at his place. Imagine my surprise when I saw the tiny sketch I'd made for him hanging on the wall! He'd saved it and told me how it had touched him. He said he'd kept it at the car dealership for some time remembering our conversations and, when he thought he wasn't going to hear back from his text to me, he took the drawing home and put it on his wall.

When modern technology failed, that little sketch played such a big part in bringing us together. He later told me that he had come right back when he was called out of the office and spotted me making that drawing so just peeked around the corner quietly watching. Something happened to us both in that moment that neither of us was aware of but there's no denying the bond that it forged and on which we continue to build.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can view more of Myla’s awesome work at HalfFastFarms.net and on Faeebook at Half Fast Farms Studio.

Diamond Fiction

Oh look, its Hallmark Holiday Day AKA Valentine’s Day. On this day you should be:

1. Married or otherwise involved and truly, madly, deeply in love. (check)
2. Going to an anti-Valentine’s Day/Celebrate Your Freedom event OR a Screw Cupid party or pub crawl.
3. In a bad relationship, contacting a lawyer so’s you can sue the shit out of Eros (and that fucking, fat, baby archer too) and doing your damnedest to ignore the day’s bullshit hype.
4. Dating, truly, madly, deeply in love and about to propose or be proposed to.

If you fall into category four, do think twice before you hit your local E.B. Horn or Cartier for the marital promissory note.

I’ve never been a diamond fan. Sure, sure, they’re pretty, sparkly things but I like color. In the, strictly speaking, precious realm, I’ll take rubies and sapphires over diamonds any day.
Semi precious is more my bag though—you know, garnets, amethysts, tourmalines to name just a few. Oh and I like sea glass and beach pebbles too. Why? They’re beautiful AND not so damn pricey. I just don’t get the whole spend-one-to-three-months-pay-on-an-engagement-ring bullshit. Never have. But then, I also don’t understand why anyone would shell out thousands on a dress that’s worn just once.

Best I can tell, most of us aren’t scions of mondo wealth. Is this really the best use of meager funds? Is this the smartest way to start out a life together—broke and in debt?

I’m not just being cheap or contrary here when I say diamond engagement ring, meh.

This didn’t become engraved-in-granite-tradition organically. Fuck no. Serious, Dark Arts Marketeers brought this wickedly extravagant practice into being.

The British businessmen operating the South African mines recognized that only by maintaining the fiction that diamonds were scarce and inherently valuable could they protect their investments and buoy diamond prices.
~~~snip~~~
Meanwhile, the price of diamonds was falling around the world (ed. note: this was around the time of the Great Depression). The folks at Ayer (DeBeers New York marketing firm) set out to persuade young men that diamonds (and only diamonds) were synonymous with romance, and that the measure of a man's love (and even his personal and professional success) was directly proportional to the size and quality of the diamond he purchased. Young women, in turn, had to be convinced that courtship concluded, invariably, in a diamond.

It worked. With slogans like Diamonds are a girl’s best friend and Diamonds are forever demand skyrocketed. Last year, Americans spent almost $7 billion on the rings. Jesus!

Advertising is legalized lying.
~ H.G. Wells

 Do you honestly like diamonds because you find them more beautiful than every other stone on the planet?  Do you believe that only a diamond can adequately symbolize ’til-death-do-us-part, forever love?

If so, have at it BUT keep this in mind about the obscenely overpriced sparklers—the Blood or Conflict Diamond phenom.

Some diamonds have helped fund devastating civil wars in Africa, destroying the lives of millions. Conflict diamonds are those sold in order to fund armed conflict and civil war. Profits from the trade in conflict diamonds, worth billions of dollars, were used by warlords and rebels to buy arms during the devastating wars in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Sierra Leone. Wars that have cost an estimated 3.7 million lives.

If nothing but a diamond will do, at least make sure it’s one that’s conflict-free and, for that matter, ethically sourced. Me? I’m sticking with my warm, deep wine colored garnet designed and created by Bill Butler of Artisans Hand in Montpelier Vermont.

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

NO, not me and The Amazing Bob—we’re stuck together with super glue, steel bolts and industrial cable. And sugar and spice, unicorn snot and fairy dust too. Oh yes we are!

You know that whole in sickness and in health riff in the wedding vows? TAB and I are getting our money's worth. Mind you, we lived in sin (so much glorious sinning!) for at least half of our nearly 30 years (so far!) together so we got to test-run the Sickness/Health precept before scrawling our John Hancocks. There was one brain surgery (mine), one ginormous back cutterage (mine) and one heart attack (his). So then, we had a few practice runs. Ya know, just to make sure and all.

As with all those tediously long Terms and Conditions things that most of us never bother to read before clicking I Agree, not everyone who says I Do actually listens to what those marriage vows actually entail.

A friend, who also has the big bad Nf2 told me about her ex—he didn’t want to be married to a deaf woman. What the giant slime covered FUCK?! The loathsome ex spoke those words “in sickness and in health." He made that declaration in front of witnesses even. And yet, when reality hit, he was all nope, that clause, that promise doesn't count. I had my fingers crossed beind my back. (he didn't actually say that but he may as well have)

Look, having Nf2’s no walk through the Public Garden on a brilliant spring day BUT, with good docs, proper care and diligence, it’s not the worst thing evah. Really!

I’ve been deaf for almost 11 years now. As I’ve written here before, I miss music something fierce. Face to face communication, whether it’s with hearing people or deafies, is a struggle—enervating even. I'm not fluent in sound or sign. BUT TAB and I make do. We push on. We’re all flexible and up for life’s challenges like that and shit.

The pile of rotted blobfish excrement who didn’t want to be married to a deaf woman? Dude, you so need to gain a better understanding of what it means to be in a relationship. It’s not all about you and your goddamned comfort and joy!

I knew another woman who’s mother had Nf2. There's 50/50 odds of offspring inheriting this thrilling fun-time condition yet the babe refused to be examined. Warum? Her husband told her that if you have it, I’m leaving. What’d she do, faced with this flyspeck brained moron’s pronouncement? She didn’t get checked AND she went on to have four children with this narcissistic atrocity. IF she’d had Nf2 the pregnancies would’ve triggered big growth spurts in the neuromas which could/would lead to a zillion and one half totally nasty-ass results. Oh and she woulda passed Nf2 on to two of her four future bairn to boot.

As far as I know, she never did have the test done. It’s unlikely she has Nf2 since, from what I understand, she’s not dead yet. Wouldn’t it have been nice to know the diagnosis before she made the choice to have all those kids. Before she took the risk?

I'll never understand why she didn't leave the jerk three seconds after he'd made such a spectacularly egotistical, icily heartless, callous statement. I wonder what his threshold for spouse illin’ was. Common cold’s OK as long as she can still make him a sammich and fetch his beer but it best not develop into the flu?

I doubt that either of these gents understand the concept of karma OR, for that matter, Newton’s Third Law.  I hope they die alone.
Tammy Wynette—D-I-V-O-R-C-E

How Can You Tell

How can you tell you’ve been married, all these decades, to your soul mate?

1) Upon exiting Chemo Land, after a long day of doc visits and infusions, we simultaneously broke out in Tomorrow from the musical Annie. Now, neither of us are now or have ever been fans of Broadway musicals. Never. Ever. Not in this lifetime or the next. So then, 'the fuck? Got us hangin'. Possibly, at the core of our beings, we're actually bright, shiny, Pollyannas. Nah.

Just thinkin' about
Tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs,
And the sorrow
'Til there's none!

When I'm stuck a day
That's gray,
And lonely,
I just stick out my chin
And Grin,  And Say,
Oh!

The sun'll come out
Tomorrow
So ya gotta hang on
'Til tomorrow
Come what may
Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
I love ya Tomorrow!
You're always
A day
A way

Yep, you can bet your bottom dollar.

2) As we road down the elevator in the Bigelow building of MGH yesterday, almost 24 hours after being ambulanced in to the ER, we turned to each other and, in concert,  uttered one word. Cake.

We’d hit Saint Fratelli’s on Friday morning to pick up some YEA, Chemo’s Working! celebratory pastry. There was still half of that yellow and blue pastel butter cream rose festooned beauty left and, boyhowdy, we were having dessert before dinner last night.

And we did.

How do we pass the long hours, the endless hurry-up-and-wait of our hospital days? I take walks, exploring odd, old corners found within the mobius strip-like corridors. TAB demonstrates the different ways to hold the ball if you want to, fer instance, throw a knuckle ball. We read. We nap. I people watch, offering up my usual mix of acerbic and/or appreciative commentary. Gotta say, the MGH ER has some awesome folkscopin’. We play scrabble. We breathe deeply in our attempts to meditate and release stress. Sometimes that even works too.

And we dream of cake.

In Flanders Fields

 In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

~John McCrae, May 1915

For Kevin Alexander Scott from his young, wild love and me.

Love Stories: Della and Martin

More love stories!
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I met Martin twenty-one years ago in what was a period of flux for us, having both just arrived in The Netherlands from two different corners of the world. By serendipitous chance we’d enrolled in the same Dutch language course and I remember sitting at a desk by the door when he first walked in. He was a few minutes late and settled in noisily, arranging his bag and books at the desk next to mine. I’d already been marveling at all the different faces and accents around the room, fascinated to be part of such a diverse group of newcomers.

My first reaction to Martin was distraction at the colour of his hair. It wasn’t only blonde, but the shade of pale wheat all the way to the root – evidently natural, and much lighter than I’d ever seen before on an adult male. I deducted from this that he must be from Germany or some other northern European country, and my assumptions, though naive, were soon proven right.

The teacher had grouped us into pairs so that we could practice a few simple conversational phrases. It was from this first, stilted conversation – Dutch rolling off his tongue more casually than it did mine – that I discovered he was from Berlin and the youngest of three children. I told him that I came from outside New York City and was also the youngest of three. These minor similarities felt like inroads to all that was different in our backgrounds and before long we were laughing at the same jokes.

I remember it was a giddy feeling to be making unlikely friendships in the most likely of circumstances. He and I, and others in the class who we befriended – no matter how different our backgrounds – were all in the same boat. We were struggling with a new culture and language, new rules, and for most of us, the reality of being a foreigner for the very first time.

By mid term my Dutch was advancing sluggishly. Memorisation and a grasp of the grammatical rules had little positive effect on my everyday conversation. But I continued to persevere, and was a little shocked on the day when Martin, sitting next to me in class, literally shut his text book and told me he’d had it with studying. I was shocked but also impressed, as from then on his Dutch only blossomed.

It’s more similar to German than English, he’d said to me kindly.

It was this type of remark, with its sweetness and sympathy, that I now know was not just very lovely but very characteristic of the man who is now my husband. Twenty-one years and another country have gone by in a heartbeat, and he is still full of sweetness and sympathy today. Whenever I think back I realise how chancy happiness can be – how lucky I was to have enrolled in that particular Dutch class and to have chosen a seat by the door on that day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Della DeMarinis is my fabulous, Berlin dwelling cousin. She writes young adult fiction, paints, has two tremendous kids and an awesome font crafting husband. Della's fluent in English, Dutch and German and is twelve kinds of wise and funny to boot. Check out more of her Tell Me a Story posts here, here and here.

Love Stories: Brian and John

I first met John in 2006, I believe I was living in Boston.

I am a member of a chat site that I use almost exclusively for keeping in touch with friends. I spent time in California, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts again. Phone numbers change, addresses change, but profiles on this site seem to stay, and if you're looking for someone to send a message, it's pretty much guaranteed that eventually they'll get it and return it, unlike email. The website shows people who are in your state depending on what you put as your address, and you can have a friend list to keep in touch with people everywhere. Once you have looked at everyone in your state, the profiles jumble, different locations, different people. This is how I met John, or should I say I found John?

I don't have a type per se, but when I saw his face, I knew I had to look at the rest of the pictures. This being a gay site, standard protocol dictates that you say something along the lines of a pickup. You can choose standard greetings such as 'you're hot', 'woof', 'you're sexy', 'nice honker', but immediately I wanted to separate myself from the rest of the pack. I usually do this by sending something nonsexual, and wait for either question marks or 'whatever' or a pat on the head and a 'thank you'. He was Australian, he was polite and he had a very handsome face, one that made me stop, pause, and pursue.
 We started chatting in full sentences right away and it was very comfortable to meet someone who was married but wanted to talk to someone from overseas. We had similar tastes and backgrounds, and John even showed my picture to his husband out of respect. We weren't doing anything but chatting just like the site said it was good for. Since the time difference was over twelve hours, it turned into weird hours for both of us when we saw each other. I looked forward to our chats, we even got clever and would have wine or drinks while we talked. It was always odd hours for one of us — the other would be drinking during regular business hours. We carried on like this for years, we were miles and miles apart but friends. It was unlikely we'd ever meet in person but we could talk like good friends about anything, offer objective opinions when we were having problems and, I have to admit, it was nice to have someone who I could anticipate seeing online.

We were both experiencing problems that we didn't address. John's partner was sick but they'd been together for over twenty years, and believe it or not, I was homeless for a good portion of our getting-to-know-you banter. If either had talked about these issues, we would have known exactly where we stood, but fear of the unknown made us keep our peace. Better to have what we had than rock the boat with hardcore life issues. We both say now that it was odd that we didn't discuss these things. I don't know about John's problems, but I can tell you the least attractive thing you can probably disclose to someone is that you're homeless and live in a shelter. Who needs or wants elaboration on that? Let's face it, it's ugly.

After John's partner passed on, he developed a traveling bone, and visited different continents, countries, and locations. It was only a matter of time before he came to the States from Australia. Unfortunately, I was also unsettled, and moved around from state to state, working, not working. We nearly missed each other one year when he visited Las Vegas, I was in Wisconsin. We laughed about that. He said he was visiting New York City, in nearly ten months, and we planned for a maybe meeting.

I counted the days, really hoping that I wouldn't have to leave, and believed him when he said he'd travel the additional four hours to meet in Boston. I showed his picture off, I talked to my friends about him. We had friends that couldn't believe we were planning something ten months in advance. It seemed as though something would screw us up. It didn't, we made our plans online to kiss as soon as we saw each other on the train platform. The Amtrak came and, through the glass, facing the opposite way I knew it was John. He grabbed his bag and came through the door and indeed two bearded guys shared a kiss in South Station. John will tell you he fell in love with me on the train to my house and I'm telling you when I saw his hat and how tall he was, with the face I'd imagined animated and not a snapshot, I knew I loved him before he even came into the station.

We were only supposed to be together two days, but that turned into five chaotic, spontaneous, dreadfully romantic days. The powers that be were working hard to dissuade us — we were oblivious. Once he'd left and returned to NYC, we chatted and it was different. It didn't take long for both of us to know that something wonderful had happened.

We had a real connection. He asked me to visit him for a month, I accepted. Before I left, we decided we couldn't be apart that long and he came to the States to stay with me. September sixth he came and within a few weeks we planned our wedding. We postponed the date til Halloween and each would ask "Are we really going to do this?" We were married in my sister's living room before the eyes of God October 28th. It wasn't a hasty decision if you consider how many years we'd been talking back and forth and imagining that we knew each other. Unbelievable is the fact that our imaginations were accurate. The man of my dreams and the sweetest human I know wasn't a myth at all, he was even better in person. As an added bonus, he seemed to have the same inclination towards me.

How I could be so blessed I'll never know, but it must be because here we are.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John shuffled off this painfully fragile mortal coil in late September. He is deeply missed.

Love Stories: Rick and Julie

Julie and I met at a dance class. Nothing fancy, a drop-in ballroom dance class in what had been a high school gym. We had both gone there before, but hadn’t been lucky enough to come on the same night. There were perhaps a hundred people there, in two concentric circles, men on the outside and women on the inside. You would rotate to the next partner after they taught you a few steps of the waltz, so you could get experience dancing with different people. Well, that was how it was supposed to work, anyway.

When I got paired up with Julie, we had a great time. She was beautiful and had a great laugh. We also had the same idea about dancing, namely to have fun. So if we screwed up our steps at times, we laughed it off and tried again. This girl, I thought, was too much fun to wait for 50 turns to reach again. So I began slipping around from just after Julie to just before her in the circle, much to the confusion of other dancers. Luckily, she wasn’t a stickler for the rules either, and we got to enjoy each other’s company quite a lot during the lesson.

Then came the free dance after the lesson, where we could try out all sorts of dances with anyone we wanted. Julie and I spent most of that together as well, lucky me, laughing and talking as we, um, tried out our dance moves. They say that dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal urge, and let’s just say all signs were favorable. Also at the dance was Julie’s former roommate, who was visiting from out of town. After the dance, we all went out for coffee. I guess I passed muster and got a favorable review from the ex-roommate, because we got together for dinner a couple days later. One thing led to another, and twenty years later, we’re married and still sappy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rick and I've known each other for a thousand years, more or less. He's a tremendous, dear friend and I'm happy as a sneaker full of clams at high tide to say that Julie is too.

Love Stories

Some days, weeks, years it seems like there's just so much damned sorrow everywhere I turn. Friends croaking, marriages and friendships foundering on life's ragged cliffs, our bodies and souls falling victim to the heart-ache and thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to — the very air is thick with this shit!

What's this mean for our determined-to-see-all-of-life-not-just-the-sad-bits, plucky little blogger?

Love stories, dammit! I've sketched out how Jen, Oni, The Amazing Bob and I came to be the righteous and awesome foursome that we SO are in the post How I Met Your Family. I mentioned that first, tectonic plate shifting convo that TAB and I had in the post I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends .

What about my chums. mes amis, meine Freunde, mine venner? Surely there are other love stories out there! And there are.

Stay tuned.