Told by his aides that 3 Brazilian soldiers had been killed in Iraq, the president broke down and cried. Finally, regaining his composure, he asked Secretary Rumsfeld: “Just exactly how many IS a brazillion?”
I’ve been corresponding the past few days with MB, my lost soulmate. She’s coming back to town to pick up some detritus she’s had stored here and can now accommodate in her new home she’s just purchased.
We’ve broken each other’s trust and shall never again have what we once had, which was beautiful, brilliant and very deep. I love her still. I believe, without knowing, she still loves me. But, life goes on and some bells can’t be unrung.
She told me she’s read this blog and that I’m “messed up”. I believe her when she says that. I expect it’s EXACTLY what she thinks. Besides, she never quite had the facility to lie.
Most of all, I suspicion that she thinks I’m “messed up” because life DOES go on. She was the most comfortable with her first X husband who never found any woman to please him after her and lives a quiet life in some kind of hunting cabin in the backwoods of Arkansas near Hot Springs. How she could expect that I’d follow that example is beyond me — I don’t hunt or fish and I think it’s camping out when there’s no mint on the pillow. Ah, well.
She tells me that we can talk about anything but what she doesn’t want to talk about. I think it’s funny that she believes she can set the agenda and be in charge of what I’ll bring up and what I won’t discuss. We’ll have dinner when she gets into town Saturday and, in fact, I’ll likely respect most of her wishes as I’ve always done.
And, therein lies the nub of it all.
I respected her and her wishes. I catered to her. I deferred to her. What I finally got for my troubles in that regard is that she took it for granted and felt entitled to my deference and attentions. When, finally, it became a matter of HER compromising what she wanted for the sake of making ME happy … well, it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
I guess the universe unfolded as it should, even if it wasn’t the way I wanted it to unfold.
I wonder if it’s unfolding to suit her.
I wonder if there are nights when she thinks that it isn’t so easy to find a man like me. That I’m not so fungible and easily replaced. I wonder how comforting she finds her independence and absolute control over herself when the nights get cold and lonely under grey skies.
I wonder if she misses my companionship as much as I miss hers.
I wonder if there are times when she thinks it wasn’t so unreasonable for me to want to be a first priority for her at least some of the time and to resist being out of her top 20 priorities so often.
I wonder if she sometimes thinks that maybe, just maybe, that at age ____ and twice divorced that a naive and virginal attitude doesn’t quite play out the way it did when she was 20.
MB was and is the nicest, sweetest, kindest woman you could ever want to meet. Part of the charm of our connection was that I was the piquant sauce. I am NOT nice, sweet and kind. In fact, I’m quite the bitch at times and then I’m a revolving door, card carrying, brass plated bastard the rest of the time. We balanced. My “naughtiness” delighted her as long as it was once-removed.
I also balanced her naivete because, as you must know by now, I’m a carnal and passionate man. There was a time when she was delighted by that as well. In the end, not enough.
We shared a spiritual sense that went far beyond religion and it often seemed that the only possible answer for our happiness together was that God had ordained it. We often seemed to love each other beyond all human reason. Oh, the loss. It still hurts after all this time to lose those feelings.
She complained that I’d not written enough about how she’d broken my heart and that it seemed to her that the more recent KW had taken care of that. MB, I never felt you broke my heart nor I yours. I was heartbroken beyond all words, it’s true, but I never really blamed you. Our parting almost broke me. I spun into a depression that was beyond anything else in my life. I wanted to die without you. Literally. No other woman — and there were more than one — was able to replace you nor even to distract me for long. I flopped around and longed for you for months. I woke up morning after morning yearning for you. I went to bed and dreamed of you, no matter who was next to me in the bed. I couldn’t live that way and I couldn’t or wouldn’t just die, although I prayed for that release. So, I’ve gone on. I’ve put together a life without you. There was no other reasonable choice.
And, now, neither you nor I can ever “go home” again.
My mind is strange.
My first thought is that it’s 13 months before the ‘06 election and will he have a preliminary hearing before then that will be showcased on television. A conspiracy charge isn’t very sexy image-wise, but there will always be the courthouse steps refusals to speak to the press under advice of attorney.
How well will that play in the Congressional races in OK and TX?
The latest political scuttlebutt around here is that Ernest Istook will be in the race for governor, although I can’t imagine a greater disaster.
That will leave the 5th District, essentially Oklahoma City, an open seat in Congress and therefore a hotly contested seat nationally between the national parties. I hear that’s the seat that Mary Fallin may seek.
What Democrat can take that seat from the GOP?
My own personal choice is Bernest Cain, but my personal conversations with him have been sincerely negative. He says he doesn’t have any interest and I hate that, but I have to believe him since he’s told me this on several occasions and has even refused my fundraising help. We went to law school together and we’re friendly, but I don’t claim to a “source close” to Sen. Cain.
Given the heavily GOP nature of the 5th District, I would think there would need to be a “tough” and/or “reform” Democrat to cross party lines on registration.
Oh, by the way, FUCK Tom DeLay. I think the death penalty’s barbaric, but…
10 years on each count. Hmmmm. This is serious shit for a Majority Leader from the U.S. Congress.
Since DeLay had to step down as Majority Leader, don’t you know there’s some dancing, wining, dining, arm twisting and shitting bricks going on in Wash. D.C. These are the times to enjoy being a common, ordinary voter and not a member of the political class.
I haven’t even touched the commentary yet, since I’m waiting to see the Sunday papers go all righteous and indignant, pulling out the big guns and coming up with a “watch this closely” summary. Assholes.
Our friend, SuzArt, danced out of VZDs tonight singing “Tom DeLay’s Indicted! Tom DeLay’s In-Dieee-ted!” Oh, how the closed captioning spun by!
Conspiracy has always been a curious criminal charge to me. Talking as a crime. Free speech and association problems anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
After the success of Napoleon Dynamite, I think the 5th District Democrats ought to find a good liberal Hispanic named Pedro …
I was hoping to get this in before midnight…
Dear friends and family,
Got this missive from my daughter regarding my son in law who has the privilege of serving his country in Iraq. He got shipped out on his birthday in mid-Sept. As much as I hate this war and this administration, I love my son in law. Most fathers of daughters can’t believe any man is “good enough”, but this one is pretty darn good and I appreciate how much he dotes on my daughter and grandchildren. He’s a really really really smart and nice guy. Drop him a line if you find the time.
John
Holy Smokes! Jesse called last night and told me he was the only guy in his
group to get zilcho at mail call. Since I can’t seem to send out a post card,
perhaps one of you can? He should get a new address when he gets “in country”
and for that I’ll be more timely with distribution.
Here you go!
CPT Jesse A.M. Ballenger
153rd RAOC
Bldg 500B Basement
Ft. Bliss, TX 79916
Unlike a lot of people I know, I rather like my life. I work, paint, write, go to art shows and live music, I’ve started this blog and I’m working with friends who are making a film. My social life includes a small group of well-tested friends that meet regularly and share intensely and honestly about ourselves and each other — there’s an honesty about us that is borne of trust and loyalty. Tonight, we’ll meet on the Paseo, decide about dinner, eat together and a smaller group will come to my house for a movie. Tonight’s movie is “Being There”, but it could be anything and often is. I think that only boring people are bored and that there’s always something interesting to do. Or someone, he leered. Tuesday night for me was formerly “Take Out Tuesday” and included me sharing the evening with a wonderful friend and we got takeout Chinese food from a place near my house and watched something on the tube and cuddled. That’s over, sadly, and I’m trying to put together another way to behave on Tuesdays and last night was my first real test. I picked up fried chicken from Church’s, an artifact of a coffee conversation at 4:30 p.m., and ate alone in front of the computer and then watched “Finding Neverland” by myself. Late, about 10 p.m., I popped out of the house and went to Galileo’s and heard a little acoustic guitar, mandolin and harmonica music before dropping by the lovely Juliet’s house to meet the parents. YIKES!!! Dad was all about sports and baseball and Mum was looking at me with an appraising eye that was daunting and I could see her calculating the difference between 29 and 56 (relative ages) over and over and trying to make the calculus work. I got home a little after midnight. Today, I was thinking about missing my “Take Out Tuesday” and my first thought was that, without it, Tuesdays might well be boring. On second thought, it strikes me that Tuesday is like any other day/night: it’s what you make of it. I might well have gone to Heterosexual Night at the HiLo. I didn’t have to eat alone, it’s that I made no other arrangement. Moreover, considering my social schedule after 5 p.m., there’s something to be said for a quiet night of reading, painting, writing and recovering all on my own. Might that be boring? “There is nothing good nor bad but thinking makes it so,” as Shakespeare wrote.
You don’t have to like it
My friend, The Gary, told me this morning that the guy who got me excited about Barbara Olson being arrested on the Polish border with millions of counterfeit lira was not excited about my post. I understand. Later, after I posted, he brought me a printout of his source: a guy named Flocco who is supposedly an investigative journalist. It’s not like Higgins just made it up. But, gee, this Flocco person had other, equally outrageous items posted on his site, not all of which — OK, none of which — seemed to be credible TO ME. Maybe, like my cajun friend, it seems all very well and good to you to believe in giant government conspiracies to change the weather and cover up the role of space aliens in our midst. That stuff just doesn’t resonate with me. I find it very very unlikely to be true. Does that mean that there is NO evidence of the veracity of those notions? Oh, hell no. I simply find myself thinking about Occam’s Razor and coming down consistently on the side of those who don’t find it credible. (Look up Occam’s Razor for yourself, I don’t do links very well at this point. It’ll do you good.) So, disagree! Tell me where and how I’m all wrong about it. The lovely RebL has made an absolute passion out of being iconoclastic where I’m concerned. I’m always ready to be “taken to school”, most especially when I’m wrong and out in the intellectual boondocks barking up empty trees. Sorry, Mike, I just think that there are some holes in the story — starting with the fact that you’d think Ms. Olson would have Euros instead of Lira and that someone in the “mainstream” press, the New York Times, Reuters, AP, SOMEONE would have been willing to take a flyer at what would be the biggest story of the 21st Century to date. I’ve been a journalist and most of the ones I know would absolutely take the risk of assassination for a scoop of that magnitude — it couldn’t be kept a secret, not even when Rupert Murdock owns every press in sight. My experience with government employees of all types is that they CANNOT keep such a secret, much less fix the potholes, and that they just simply are not the brainy chess players of fiction and are, in fact, rather mediocre as a rule. For one thing, massive conspiracies require massive identity of interests that don’t change over long periods of time and that’s just impossible to believe. Even the undoubtedly brilliant Karl Rove finds himself with his ass in a crack over the Valerie Plame affair. Truth has a way of getting OUT! Petty jealousies and hurt feelings that generate a desire for revenge come into play. Government spooks are still people and they have emotions and they can be very self centered. Politicians have their egos. It just doesn’t wash out for me. Don’t be offended, MH; I still think you are one very swell guy. I just don’t buy everything you tell me.