This. Not just for the message itself, but because I’ve been waiting my whole life to arrive home at 6 p.m. and not, say, 10 like tonight.
That’s the first goal. Then we can work on the “someone fabulous to come home to” part. Assuming I ever get out early enough to meet that person.
For lack of being able to say what spun me into a dimension of doom I haven’t experienced since the month before I left D.C., I will say that going 12 rounds with the kid did me in the afternoon when I told him I had a “hard out” to go apartment-hunting really pissed me off.
Seriously, between people throwing me under a bus and retracting it privately, being accused of near treason because of it, and someone who doesn’t follow the instructions after being given them seven times in a row … Not to mention hating the apartment and coming home and almost falling at mine because the exterior lights are off for the third night in a row and everything is draped in black plastic so I can’t see … I’m really going to try hard to want to get out of bed tomorrow.
But no promises.
Funny how my life can be reduced to a series of Brat Pack movies. Sigh.
“Shame we have to lick undesirable dick sometimes but we do.” — Mom
Not quite done being mad yet. About other things.
“Do you want to update the year to 2015 on just this or on everything?”
Between the teeth-loosening construction and Evil Landlady 5’s bullshit and the inept maintenance man and the horrible smells and the general dumpiness of it all, let’s thank mom for cleaning the mess off the balcony so I could enjoy some Tennessee Honey and love my view while it’s still mine.
2014 wasn’t too bad.
Today was for shit. And so will tomorrow as I work the holiday.
But the year brought some good things too. And some great ones.
Every year we try to ring in the year with traditions (what’s left of them) and silly things done “for luck.”
Of course, on a year like this one when you don’t do them, you wonder briefly whether their absence will affect 2015’s outcome.
And yet, annually gnawing on a hunk of pork on New Year’s Day hasn’t produced lifelong happiness. So the fact that my bifteki and tsaziki wrap caused temporary bliss, I’ll call New Year’s Eve a victory.
The year is ending on an OK note. Work sucked many days but I have a good job overall. Mom drove me nuts most of the year but I am glad to have her. My heart has been all the fuck over the place but it’s still beating and even racing.
I didn’t get to see the world. But one trip led to a chance meeting that turned into Something.
And as 2014 comes to a close, when people ask about the best part, I won’t answer.
But I will smile and remember the best parts. And even the others that made me appreciate them all the more.
I got to talking with one of my boys about what would have happened if he had looked me up like he was planning to, a handful of Decembers ago — before everything changed in both our lives.
I’m always quick to point out that it was a messy time for both of us and it would have ended in disaster.
But I got to looking at the calendar and thinking that particular December was actually pretty good. Best part of that nutty year for me, actually.
I would probably have picked up that phone. And unbeknownst to both of us at the time, we were about to embark on big interstate moves.
I might not have found my way to sunny Florida — at least, not as soon as I did. But funny to think that maybe I would have been too happy to not know what I was missing because I was really happy somewhere else with him.
Life didn’t happen that way. So I don’t spend a lot of time wondering. Or thinking that maybe we would have followed my path instead and gotten here anyway.
Perhaps I didn’t think my greatest love affair would have been with Florida. But that’s what did happen.
He didn’t call, but it sure did. And here I am …
Another Christmas survived. Another sad little day but we made it through.
Mom says it’s the last one she will be able to do. Her health is too shot.
Next year I cook. If she’s still here.
If not, well …
Not ready to think about that yet.
There has to be hope. Has to be.
I mean, we give health insurance to idiots who take years off of their competent colleagues’ lives. Why can’t good, useful and loving people like her get the same courtesy?
She cooked her little heart out today. And though she didn’t feel well, she pushed through the pain and went with me to see some Christmas lights.
I loved it. I hope she did too.
As always she thanked me for working so hard for us. She wished she could give me a gift. I told her she does every day that she’s here.
Enjoying a moment together is gift enough …
It’s 4 a.m. And I’m wide awake.
Not that Santa is coming. I gave up on him long after he gave up on me, though.
I bought one gift and it apparently didn’t ship before the recipient left town. Good job, small business.
In any event, back to work Friday. No plans to get out of bed tomorrow. So here are some crappy photos.
Ho.
One of my two beachy-themed palm trees. The iPhone doesn’t do them justice.
Here’s the other.
I have a little reindeer under my tree, too.
