hamandeggs44

yesterday went into the crapper rather fast.

I'm still struggling with accepting that I probably won't go to L.A, and attend a Neil Finn Largo show. However, after my run last night I got a long chatty email from a friend. It was all 'I'm here, did this, saw that, tomorrow I'm over there...' and it made me smile. Made me very happy.

I took the time to send him an equally long and chatty reply. Talked about a lot of stuff and a lot of nothing. Just what the doctor order. A cathartic exercise.

... just got off phone with husband. He wants to go to Dallas for the weekend on the 31st, I think I need to make that happen. Talked about taking the girls to Six Flags Amusement Park as a whole family. We never do anything as a family - it's always me on my own with the kids. Always on my own. It's got to the point where I've taken to not including him in my plans - it's the way he lived his life before me. I'm just now getting up to speed with that.

In response to a Dallas getaway weekend I said 'it's not LA, but I think we should go..' to which he replied 'I'm sorry.' It's not his fault. Just what I've been handed & need to deal with.

I just can't put my finger on it. Just have this overwhelming feeling of why do I even fucking bother? Despair? Relief? I don't know. Maybe. Kind of a everything is crystal clear before me and I'm left with thinking how in the hell do I make this work? How do I reconcile what I had, have and want?

I can't have what I had. Absolutely impossible.

I know what I have. It can be disappointing, my reality. There are days when my real day to day life scares the fuck out of me. An overwhelming suffocating blanket of *this is it for the rest of you life.* However,some days it's really good. Great even. I can find that thing that was perfect and hang my hat on it. Then I get a crushing disappointment and I lose focus. The good, the great even, gets lost.

I know what I want. Can't have it. Oh, I can get it in bits and bobs. But the lifestyle I use to have is long gone. I have dreams. I have great fantastical desires, but they get shelved. It doesn't fit. Mourn it. Let it go.

I need an escape clause. A back up plan. A career. Sense of self worth. Yeah, maybe in 7 years when they're both off at college, if I can afford college for them.

When in doubt, go run. I need to go run. I can control that...

I've had the fortune to be able to drive some very sexy, very fast, very expensive German engineered cars in my youth, all due to my father's career with VW/Audi/Porsche. This availability of a large selection of automotive porn for free did much to shape the woman I am now.

I love cars.

Cars are to be held in awe. Respected. Revered. Wash, wax, detailed and driven very very fast.

As long as your dad or his associates don't catch you.

In 1987 my friend Gita got her hands on a Porsche 911 Carrera Targa imported from Europe. Gita and I went to high school together and she had the blessed fortune to have a father who was a engineer for Porsche. Whereas I got Rabbits, Golfs, Audis(which was very nice) and whatever else those wacky Germans came up with, Gita always had Porsches. Shit, she worked in the local grocery store all through high school and bought herself a 944. Besides her being a great friend, she always had a great ride.

One summer afternoon I stood in Gita's driveway silently orgasming over the Porsche 911 Carrera Targa her father had brought home for the weekend. It was to be used for a BOSCH shoot the following week and 'would you girls like to take it out?'

HOLY SHIT! Uhhm, yes, please, thank you very VERY much!

Here we were, in our prime, 22 years old, pretty, alluring and strapped into a racing red rocket. Life was good. Until...

We had manged to go no less than 10 miles when it happened.

Sitting at a traffic light in the oak tree lined historical section of town we were rear-ended! Gita got the worse of it, as she had turned to scream 'look out!' and badly wrenched her back . The meatball who destroyed the back end of the Teutonic masterpiece of automotive engineering was whacked out of his mind on drugs and had previously hit no less than 1/2 a dozen cars parked off of Main Street. He was so high, he tumbled out of his car and just sat in the middle of the street like the lump of shit that he was.

No screaming or terroristic threats from us was needed. Men seem to leap to the aide of young ladies in distress and we were well taken care of, after a short stint in the local ER. The 911 was towed from the scene, never to be seen by me again.

Fast forward two summers - I'm sitting on the deck of a massive yacht that belongs to a retired couple my father knew from VW/Audi/Porsche. Lovely people. Perfect late afternoon in the marina, cocktails were flowing and enjoying my first taste of steak tartare. Upon retirement they sold their home and the contents therein and proceeded to cruise around the world. They had just come from the Caribbean, made their way through the Erie Canal and were spending the summer up in the Great Lakes.

This, by the way, is exactly what I had in mind for my own retirement.

Laughing over Germanic tales of yore, watching my father hold court, as he is apt to do, my dad turns to me and says 'tell them the story about you, your girlfriend and that 911!'

Well lubricated with a few glass of white wine and an old fashion or two, I tell our pitiful tale of woe and that short lived spin in sleek sexy German engineering. With fits of laughter rolling about the back deck our host stops mid-guffaw and says...

THAT WAS YOU?

Patti, this was THE photographer who was suppose to photograph THAT Carrera THAT Monday morning for THAT BOSCH ad!

oohhh, shit.

I thought my Dad was going to wet his pants from laughing so hard. He set me up! He totally motherfucking set me up! His oldest daughter! His favorite! Like a lamb to the slaughter! 20 years later and I still laugh to myself when I think of how Dad knew that this was THE guy that was suppose to photograph THAT car. Patiently he bided his time, sent me in and watched the show.

It was fucking brilliant.

Personally, I think that if at 10 o'clock in the morning I manage to run 5k in 90 degree heat with a 'feels like temperature of 96' that I should be allowed to slice 10 minutes off my time, 5 at least.

I think I've sweated my brains out, my ballcap is wringing wet.

The dead guy has more hats than I have shoes! What in the hell? 33 baseball hats!

This only goes to prove, I need more shoes.

Last night I moved it all off the bed and into the living room. The kids have claimed some things and the rest will go into the hall closet, which means reorganizing the hall closet. Which sucks.



Now the hard part, putting it away properly.



My shoes & boots are happier now, up on the shelf, no longer being trod upon



and I'm happier too.

Last night I told Robert of my plans to get Dave out of my closet.

That's a funny thought, Dave out of the closet. If he weren't cremated, he'd be rolling in his grave for that one. I told Robert it was just time, as far as I knew Dave wasn't coming back and didn't need my shelf space. I can't live like that any longer and it has to move behind me. One foot in the past and one in the present is not healthy. At least it's not for me. I don't mean I want to throw any of his things away. I had decided years ago what was important and precious. I just didn't need for it to be in my face everytime I need to change my clothes or get a pair of shoes.

From there it seemed to be a natural easement into everything else I have been wanting to tell Robert. I told him I am sorry I can't be Terry for him. I can't be the wife he use to have. I can only be me. I'm a good person though, but I'm not going to be happy if I keep doing things for the wrong reasons. I finally said the words

'I don't want to go to Sunday Bible class any more.'

fuuuuuuuuck.

There was a pause that seemed to last an hour. He had been hugging me, as I was talking, and with those words his caresses stopped. I had decided that the worse thing he could say to me is 'you have to leave' or something equally as awful. But I wasn't going to play this charade for the rest of my life. I resent Dave for the overflow of my closet and stewed over that for 2 years - how was faking it through a bible class, where I wasn't wanted and didn't want to be, going to be any better? Miserable. Every single Sunday I was miserable. I sat there out of respect for my husband, but I was doing him a disservice. My resentment of him and this life I found myself with was beginning to fester. One way or another it had to end.

Very softly he said 'I understand.'

Now, whether he means it and won't try to make me attend class this Sunday is another matter entirely. But I've said it and I'm far better for having done so.

Why now? Why after all of this time have I finally said something? Because I am no longer afraid. I've remembered where my backbone was and have put it back in service. I've found my groove. Got my confidence back. I've reminded myself he knew who I was when he had us move here. No secrets. No agendas. What you see is what you get. Being a pushover is not me. I'm a damn strong woman. I've been through hell and back. The worse that could've happened is not the worse. I've seen the worse. Been there, got the t-shirt. If he has a problem with my decision, then it is his problem, not mine.

The bigger problem was not saying what I have felt all along. That goes for everything in my life. I know how important it is to speak what's in your heart. Life is too short and who knows what tomorrow brings? The beauty, the majesty, the empowerment of speaking from your heart is the gift you get when you aren't laughed at. Reciprocation. That it was okay all along. That the issue was never a big deal and you could've saved yourself years of misery if you had spoken up earlier. I can't live a life of regrets and I won't. An added bonus is how fantastic it is to say what you have felt all along. It doesn't mean what I've said is right or wrong, but it feels so damn good to have it out there in the universe.

yea me!

I'm going to stand up for myself.

I am going to have to tell Robert I don't want to attend bible class with him on Sunday mornings. I hate it. I mean I really REALLY hate it. The only person who wants me there is Robert, but that's not enough.

I disagree with everything they say. I can't stand the narrow-mindedness the permeates the room. I'm not wanted there. I'm not Terry - I don't fit in. I'm not quiet, dowdy, conservative, reserved, submissive (well, not in church ;-) - I don't fit. Not only do I not fit, but I don't want to fit! He fits in there and I'm happy for him! It works for him, but it doesn't work for me. I like me! The woman Robert married the 2nd time around happens to be a loose catholic practitioner, occasional utter of 4 letter words, wants to dance, likes to drink adult beverages, plays her music loud and her music is adult alternative, not my mom's easy listening elevator music.

Now I just have to do it. Will take some time. Taken me 2 years to arrive at this.

fuck.

I am sick and tired of sharing my closet and the house with dead people. So, I am taking EVERYTHING that was Dave's out of my closet. This week. I am.

Shirts, CDs, toy cars, awards, baseball caps - all of it, out of my closet!

No idea where I'm going to put it all, space is at a premium around here, but I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Hope, Arkansas and the boyhood home of President Clinton
Getting lost and turned around in Memphis, Tennessee
Graceland
a terrific thunder and lightning storm in Nashville, TN
countless Cracker Barrel restaurants
truck stops, trucks and truckers
road alligators a.k.a tire debris
Smokey Mountains and the winding roads through those mountains
McDonald's which you can always count on being open somewhere
First impressions proving you wrong, the front desk lady at the Day's Inn was very nice and her teenage kids were quite well mannered
Mary screaming bloody murder two hours out from Bristol, TN when she realized she forgot her Nintendo DS back at the Days Inn.
Phone conversation with manger of the Days Inn in Bristol who ran to the room, found the DS and mailed it off to us at our destination in Pennsylvania
Civil War Battlefields
Shenandoah Valley
passing within 5 miles my friend Melissa's house, but sadly she was at work
passing within 1/8th of mile of Dave's parents old house in WV and wishing them a slow and painful death
crossing the Potomac
Whooping and clapping as we crossed the Mason-Dixon Line
arriving in the rain to our old Valley and seeing nothing had changed
my old neighbors
our old home
Bruno hugging me after we gorged ourselves on his fantastic pizza
the cemetery
Deb hugging me so tight I thought I'd never catch my breath, whispering 'I've missed you so much' into her ear though she is deaf.
My kids running and flinging themselves into the arms of Deb's kids
Dave's signature on the paperwork at the bank when I closed out my accounts
Alex's Lemonade Stands and countless paper cups of sugary sweet lemonade.
The nice lady at FedEx who was just pleased as punch to have someone to chat with
The best roast beef on a hard roll sandwich I've ever had in my life at the Phillipsburg Diner in NJ
The sweet Sikh boy who told me that it is his life long desire to move to Texas, the 'Promised Land'
Sitting with Lucy as our kids were off playing in the cul-de-sac
the sadness over how the new owners of my old home have neglected the gardens that Dave had planted
Lucy making me laugh when she said she'd like to plan a nighttime commando raid, dig up Dave's peonies and plant them in her yard
Sitting in Terry's kitchen with her and her husband having a nice laugh
My kids playing with friends
Chinese dinner out with just my Mary
The reddest, juiciest, sweetest watermelon in the world at a roadside stand in Grantville, PA
riding the Comet rollercoaster with my girls & cursing how hard it is to ride amusement park rides when you are party of three
attending mass at our old parish and seeing friends
The Statue of Liberty
dinner with Mike & Maribeth and our kids playing as if they've known each other their whole lives
doing laundry at 1am in the hotel and sitting back with the night staff and chatting
emails and messages from friends and frenz
downtown Bethlehem, PA
wondering if we could keep count of the deer carcasses in the Poconos
Upstate New York and the guy who kindly made my day
laughing with the Customs Officer at the Canadian border
Embassy Suites in Niagara, Ontario - where we stayed 6 months after Dave had died. We've come so far
Being the talk of the restaurant in Brantford, Ontario because I had driven there all the way from Texas with two kids in tow
Missing the turnoff for I-69 and heading south all the way to Selfridge Air Force Base on I-94 before I noticed, which ended up being a very nice detour
Seeing my sister and brothers, nieces and nephews and pleased that everyone is well
Running in the rain around the lake and giggling to myself when my sister calls it 'jogging' - sounds so 70's
Watching my kids learn to fish and liking it
Going for a ride in my brother's very nice and very fast roadster
Getting gas in Gary, Indiana and explaining to the girls that this was where the Jackson 5 were from. Then explaining to them who the Jackson 5 were.
Wondering if Central Illinois was as flat and less populated than Central Texas
JH Hawes Grain Elevator Museum in Atlanta, Illinois - officially the oddest museum I've heard of
President Abraham Lincoln's home in Springfield, Illinois
The the tour called 'The Widows Tour' at Lincoln's home and being really pissed when the young & naive park ranger stated '200 years ago widows didn't have the resources and life insurance payouts they have now and relied on taking in borders in order to not lose their homes.' Except she doesn't know that in 200 years not much has changed.
Realizing we had seen 4 NASCAR tracks on our journey - Bristol, Pocono, Michigan and Gateway
Being first in line at the St. Louis Gateway Arch in the driving rain
Being pleased I didn't have a claustrophobic freak-out on the pod ride to the top of the arch. I've never gotten over the Mission Space ride at Disney World
Wondering what the total would've been if I had counted all the sex shops we've driven by
Getting absolutely LOST in St. Louis and not one traffic sign to direct me back onto I-44
Being saved by the Wonder Bread delivery man who got me back to the interstate
Amish Boys driving their buggies
Ozark Mountains
Missing a rock slide by about 30 minutes
Old woman pushing a wheel barrow alongside the road
A dairy cow lose on the roadside - farmer and a guy in a little red car frantically trying to corner it
Laura Ingalls Wilder House. Was everything I had seen in my minds-eye.
Pa's fiddle
Laura's crochet all about her home & knowing how badly mine is in comparison
The awful tollway system in Oklahoma
Cheering when we crossed the border into Texas
Sitting in the worse traffic I had encountered on our trip, in Dallas, and not caring because we were almost home
Walking into our bedroom and finding the food section of last week's newspaper propped on my pillow that read 'Hey There Cupcake!'

I suppose it's all a matter of perception and I never perceived myself in that way.

I had a guy come up to me in upstate New York and say 'you know that everyone is looking at you because you're so pretty, right?'

I was stunned. My initial thought was 'here's the guy whose going to kidnap & murder me.' My second reaction was to stammer out 'okay, thank you.' Mary was holding my hand at the time and said 'he's right, you are mommy.'

I expect my kids to think in that way, only because their mine. I'm their mommy. I've always thought that my audience is fairly small. I aim to please myself and look nice for my husband. I've always thought that people looked at me because I stick out or look different and not in a good way. I just don't see myself in that light. I'm constantly in awe of how much my husband gushes over how beautiful he thinks I am and he's seen me at my worse! It's not that I don't think I look okay. I think I look just fine, but I never, I dunno, I never really thought I was anything to admire.

So, here's a big 'thanks' to the guy in upstate New York whose caused me to re-evaluate how others might perceive me. Not middle-aged, not a mom, not a housewife, but a pretty woman.

before I returned to my Jersey Girl smart ass ways.

As I had mentioned earlier in the week, once I had us checked in at our hotel I took the kids out for pizza at Bruno's.

Upon our return to the hotel it was pouring rain and temps rapidly descending to the 50's. This sucked in many ways, but mostly because I had a carload of luggage and 3-days worth of kid crap that had overtaken my little car that now needed hauling up to our room.

Backtracking...

During our 2 years away from Bethlehem, the city had received a gaming license and Steve Wynn built a Sands Casino on the site of the long shuttered Bethlehem Steel Furnaces. I don't consider a true casino as Pennsylvania law only allows slot machines. feh. Still more fun to trek down to A/C and at least watch people lose money at the tables. During our week back in PA the Sands was having a soft opening - yeah, just like 'Ocean's 13', but with pensioners fighting over the nickel slots. The hotel we were staying at was hosting quite of few wanna-be high roller local yokels. Seriously. It's SLOT machines! Sexy is not dropping quarters into a machine. Sexy is baccarat tables in the British Virgin Islands.

Back to the rain and cold...

Thankfully the hotel had a overhang at the circular drive which would enable be to get my flip-flop wearing children into the hotel without drenching them and I would be able to wrestle the suitcase out of the back of my car. Here's where my Jersey Bitch came shining through. Upon pulling under the overhang there was an Audi in front of me. He had parked, but seemed to change is mind and pulled away. Fine, I thought, I pull up, so as to allow another car the opportunity to get out of the rain as well. I park, usher my kids into the lobby (with firm instructions to sit nicely, don't fight and BEHAVE) and begin to lug the very LARGE suitcases out the car. As soon as I start this, Mr. Audi has re-thought his earlier decision to drive back into the rain and is now squarely behind me. Several things, though obvious, need to be pointed out here, as Mr. Audi didn't seem to register any of it.

It's 9 o'clock at night, cold and raining buckets.
I am a woman, very much alone and struggling with the damn luggage.
The car's plate say 'TEXAS', do you THINK I might be tired?

Mr. Audi put down his car window and yelled over to me. 'Hey, are you going to BE long?'

Are you mother-fucking kidding me?

My response, as I was pulling a duffel bag out and flinging it to the ground?

'Being that I am alone, exhausted, cold and wet, uhmm, yeah. Yeah, I will BE long.' To which I then turned around and said 'Douche.'

No! Oh NO! Don't feel you should offer any help, or in the very least shut the fuck up and wait, since you had decided to pull away earlier! OHHHHhhhhhhhh NOOOOOOoooooOOOOOOOooooo! Don't find it any where within you to utilize the minuscule amount of chivalry that eons of evolution had planted within your pathetic remnants of manhood! Let alone the fact that the tart sitting next to you didn't poke you in the ribs and yell at you to 'go help the poor woman!'

Okay, maybe calling the guy a 'douche' was bad form. But hell, he had it coming.

Once I had the kids in the room and I shuffled all of our nonsense in I went back down the front desk to buy a soda from the hotel's pantry. Mr. Audi was checking in and gushing about how wonderful the Sands Casino was, as he had just been over there for some 'gaming' - his word, 'gaming' not mine. No, pumping quarters into a slot machine is not gaming. It's boring.

Like I said, douche.

I have to say that I flat out have the most wonderful friends on the planet. All of 'em. Every single one of them. God love them, as do I.

What I think is brilliant is that I can walk up to a friend's door, after having been away for 2 years, and it's as if I never left. I sort of slip right back into place. Have a drink, sit at the kitchen table (I love sitting at kitchen tables) and have a good old chinwag about everything and everyone.

I miss dishing gossip with my girlies.

I miss having friends nearby.

It takes time to create an inner sanctum and recruit members. I don't take friendships lightly. There's no halfway, no half in and half out with me. I consider my friendships to be my cobbled together family. It's not that my friends are like minded. No, they are all vastly different from me. My only criteria is that they be good people, which is kind of difficult to come by. Too many times people want to pass judgment, pigeonhole you, befriend you only when it's convenient. Being a true friend is standing by someone when it most inconvenient. You have to overlook faults and silly mistakes and take in the big picture of a friend.

Here I am, two years into living in Texas, and I've just begun to make friends. Robert seemed to had thought I would just become friends with his late wife's friends. That's all so wrong and far too uncomfortable. I need my own friends. My want for friends comes fast but the creating of friendship takes time. Patience is a virtue, eh?

In the meantime I am comforted by the fact that I have great friends, though they are physically far away from me. In my heart I am always sitting at their kitchen tables.

• 14:53 HAPPINESS! 3 Stephen Fry novels @ library! 1st up The Liar... #

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I managed to shake off the expectation of finding Dave and found our way to our home for the next week, the Marriott Courtyard, a brand new hotel 2 miles from our old house.

The staff was wonderful, the front desk man in the evenings turned out to be a fellow Central Texan and UT grad - he took very nice care of me and my girls. I can best sum up the hotel as a stationary cruise ship. The kids fell in love with the ginormous HD-LCD TV in our room and the morning breakfast buffet.

Once we had checked in & found our room, we decided to go for pizza at Bruno Scipioni's. That was where we always got pizza from and, after Dave passed away, where we ate a lot of our meals. First we decided to cruise by our old house.

It was strange. It felt like it does whenever I return to the town where I grew up. Everything felt smaller - closer. My mind had mangled my memories of our neighborhood to a sprawling oasis of large lawns and wide streets. No. It was, and always has been, middle American suburbia plopped on 1/4 acre lots. The wide expanses of Texan ranches and farms, the ability to see into the next county while on a small rise on a farm to market road, the privacy that acreage allows you, all of that and more has tainted me.

I've never felt attached to an area of the US other than NJ. I consider myself a Jersey Girl first, though I was born in DC and lived in Maryland until I was nearly 5. Moving from state to state in my 20's, 30's and now my 40's, has made me feel as if I have no homeland. No allegiance to where I am from or where I live. I admire a friend of mine who wrote to me that he is prouder to be a Geordie than British, or something to that effect. I don't have that. While I deeply appreciate how fortunate I am to live in America and be a US citizen, I wish I had a place I could call home. Instead I am hodgepodge of my experiences, which I suppose is all right, as I do quite like myself. Still, would be nice to have a place to call my home. Even here is not home. It's Robert's & Terry's house. And while we have a great marriage, it is nothing like my previous marriage. At times I feel like a roommate. I support myself. Pay my own bills, groceries and necessities for the kids and myself. I receive no monetary assistance from my husband, other than he pays the utilities, homeowners insurance and satellite internet. It's a weird existence, one we stumbled into - it works, but yet I still feel as if I'm an outsider.

Oh boy, talk about going off on a tangent.

When we came upon our old house we met a neighbor who told us that Dave's father still drives by our old house and as recently as a month ago. That scared the fuck out of me. Why does he still do this? Hoping to find someone who would rat us out? Delusional that he was a loving father and grandfather? Bastard. He'll rot in hell, no matter the lies he tells to justify what he did to us.

What upset me the most is that it drove home how, even if I could have afforded it, we had to leave.

• 11:25 thinks it's a pool day. Feel I deserve some lying about in the Texas sun and a jump in the pool. #

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as to if you can go home again, the answer would be a big fat

no.


Our epic journey through North America was wonderful, but the excursion to Pennsylvania was a bit too much to bear.

It started with how I felt inside when I drove the highway into Allentown. It was if I had never left. That these last two years in Texas was a blur. A dream. I honestly felt as if I had just been away for a few weeks and totally expected to be able to drive up to our old house, walk in the front door and find Dave waiting for us.

I was reminded of the heartache of being where we lived as a family. How every place, store, street, EVERYTHING was linked to a memory of our lives with Dave. It was awful. I don't know how Robert does it, the day in & day out of living where he had such a long life with Terry. I am certain that had I not left for Texas, I would've lit out for some place else. Canada, Florida, somewhere - I would've never been able to stay there.

more on this later...

• 18:08 303 pictures from vacation - oy, this is going to take a long time to sift through. #
• 18:16 @denzillax hmmm a liquefied den? makes you all that much more portable ;-) #

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• 09:03 I'm freezing & my sister remarked it's going to be warm today. HA! #

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• 20:45 Ready to go home - I miss my bed #

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• 21:13 all packed and ready for vacation with my little girlies! #

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