Maybe I Should Have Settled

John, say it ain't so

You know...I don't usually get hyped up about marital infidelity.  I truly did not care when Bill lied about Monica.  Said more than once that I would have done the same thing...lied under oath.  Who I have sex with is my own business, blah, blah, blah....

BUT this week's admission by John Edwards makes me angry.  It took the greater part of yesterday for me to figure out why.  Why care so much?  Why think less of him?  Why be angry at him and not at Bill?  Well. I figured it out...as the girl who has always struggled with weight and self-image (always maintaining I have a "radio face") -- I felt more connected to Elizabeth Edwards.  I liked her and what her marriage to the Breck Girl/Ken doll said to the world...big girls are worthy of the handsome boys, too.  There it is.  You don't see it often.  I've had more than one girlfriend say she won't get a boyfriend until she loses weight.  I hate hearing that.  Hate believing that, but I have believed it.  Somehow the John and Elizabeth romance seemed more genuinely about the people inside the skin, but now it's not.  Never mind the cancer sub-plot...that's a whole other discussion. 

And, worse, apparently I only get riled about marital infidelity in a man when I like his spouse.  What does that say about me?

Maureen Dowd wrote a great NYT column today.  She gets it.  She always does.  Note to self: today's inner dialog needs to be a discussion of my own apparent warped sense of right and wrong.  I don't like what this says about me.  Not one bit.

Mortality - it gets more real at 45+

I just heard from one of my dear college pals that his very-young mother may be days away from death.  She can be no more than 66 or 67 years old.  She had a stroke a number of years ago (a second one - she recovered from the first a few years earlier), and has basically been incapacitated ever since.  Stephen sounded shocked, exhausted and all manner of emotion you would expect.  He and his wife had brought their dog along from their home in MA, and realized when they got here that a kennel might be a good option for the days ahead.  I am the dog-person of Portland...so I was called for a reference.
In just the last few days...I feel like the spectre of death has been all-too-present in my life.  Made me question all kinds of things.  Most importantly...why waste a minute of life?  And as my favorite expression goes..."Life is not a dress rehearsal, say the lines like you mean them."  BUT I'm so fearful that  I'm wasting precious minutes and hours on ridiculous things, but I can't seem to find the focus I need.  is this what happens as you get older?  You get more clear about the finality of life -- just as your mind starts to get fuzzy and overloaded with minutia, and you can't make the most of things?? Arggghhh.  Damn the passing of time.  I am becoming old because all I can think as I type this is that "youth is wasted on the young."

Didn't see that coming

Yesterday was an odd day.  I was dropping off a package at a clients' office...to a lunch-time receptionist.  She looked at me and remembered me from years ago during my days at the local newspaper.  I had worked with her husband.
We yacked for a bit, and when I asked how her husband was...she casually mentioned that they were newly divorced (6 whole weeks), but were still living together, and, oh yeah, had not mentioned to their children (who may or may not still live at home...my ears had stopped working by that point).  I beg your pardon?  Let me just say I was dumbstruck.  She went on to say that he has not been able to hold a job for all of the years since he left the newspaper, and she thinks he's mentally ill.  OK...TMI.  I knew her just a smidge, a teeny, tiny smidge.  Like she joined all of us for drinks every once in a while.  Not enough to drop these multiple bomb shells.

Fast forward to the evening.  Ran into one of my very favorite printer vendors at Portland's Greek Festival -- great time by the way.  I had not seen him in months, and he introduced me to the woman he was with.  I had never met his wife, but was somehow keenly aware that this. most definitely, was not his wife.  The people I was with knew him and when I asked...they said he had been blindsided by a divorce last year.  Did NOT see that coming.  He was the man I imagined married for life.

Here I've been feeling like I just don't get relationships, and everyone else does...and kapow -- these two things.  Does any relationship ever work?  Don't know why I felt so rocked, but rocked I did feel.

words sting

words sting...that is all

Saying Goodbye to a sweet friend

My beautiful golden (retriever) girl of nearly 13 years had to be put down this week.  This is my second pet in just two months who has become too sick to go on.  I had never been in charge of euthanasia until now.  Nearly 45 years old, and never the one to make this choice.  My ex-husband got our two cats in the divorce, and he was the one who made the decisions for those two gorgeous coon cat boys.  I cried for them, and for the kitty we lost in February, but nothing feels like this feeling with Isabelle.  She was the most loving soul (a term used by our vet's office in the sympathy card they mailed).  My daughter and I stayed with her until the end...the very end.  We hugged and kissed her as her final breath was taken.  It was peaceful and it was the right thing to do, but it feels, even three days later, like there's a hole in my heart.  She had been with me, with us, since she was all of 7 1/2 weeks old. 

See her here with my daughter (a photo taken shortly after we got her).    She was my companion in those early years of being divorced and my daughter would be with her Dad for the weekend.  She was the constant in my mostly single existence of the last 13 years.  These final months had become hard, and very expensive.  She had all manner of ailments, and had to be poked and prodded a lot.  She stood it well, but in the last few weeks looked like she was scared of me -- scared of what I had to do next...to her ears or her eyes.  Her eyesight was gone, her hearing was gone...the real Isabelle was gone.  I'll miss her more than I know how to say.  Rest in peace, Lady Isabelle of Durham -- my goldie girl...I love you.