Sucker Punched

Well, crap. I missed Him today like I haven't in a while. I was driving to work and had a thought that I would tell him something when I got to work, then just as quick realized that would not be possible. Between that, and being back to work after not working much at all for a couple of weeks, and crappy weather, and feeling BLAH in general, it was not my favorite kind of Monday at all.

Few Thoughts at All

Yep, no random thoughts, nor especially focused thoughts for that matter. I spent most of the week in New Orleans, which was fan-freaking-tastic, and took today off for no reason at all, which I almost never do. It also was pretty awesome. I cleared two movies off the DVR, did some prep for tomorrow's birthday(s), and mailed a voodoo doll to Him (wicked grin). Other than that, I did nothing at all, and life is good.

Bad Voodoo

So a friend and I used to hang around with a group of guys from the second floor of the dorm. They always seemed to have something going on, either in their suite or around town. Then one day one of them pissed us off. I really can't remember what happened, only that we were mad at him, and by association the others. I don't remember which one of us brought up the idea of a voodoo doll, but either way we took the idea and ran with it.

With limited resources, we used a box of birthday candles to make a tiny likeness of the offender. It bore a pretty good resemblance, down to the red shoes and the tiny stud in the ear. D said we were supposed to include something from the person on whom we wanted to work the voodoo. Somehow, she managed to snag some hair from a brush we were pretty sure was his. We sort of melted it onto the head of the doll. Then we held a little ceremony to christen the doll and bring some bad mojo down on the jerk.

After a few days with no results(?) we got a little bolder. One of us would hold the doll with a pin at the ready while the other one called and asked for him. When he answered, the signal would be given to stab the doll with the pin. After a couple of tries, he was still walking around in good health.

I guess we knew it wasn't going to work, but we sure didn't want anyone to know what we were up to either. D's roommate knew about the doll, but it didn't seem like a good idea to just leave it hanging around, so we took turns carrying it around in a little purse. More than once someone asked what was in the purse and we had to come up with a story. We finally admitted that it hadn't worked, but we still wanted him to know we thought he was acting like a prick, so we decided to send him a message.

We waited one evening until we knew he wasn't around, then D ran up and put the doll on his pillow. Then we hung around downstairs, trying to act normal. I was in the game room when I saw him stomp by, followed by T who looked at me with a WTF look. About five minutes later he stomped back the other direction. T came in to tell me about happened.

The guy had come in to discover the voodoo doll on his pillow, which needless to say freaked him out a little. He found D out on the front steps and waved it around in her face, yelling and acting tough. Then he broke the doll in half and tossed it in the bushes. T said he was personally was sort of laughing, but also sort of incredulous at what we had done. D was doing all she could do not to laugh at a big guy waving a tiny wax doll in her face and screaming "Do you think this is funny? Well do you?"

After that, we started hanging out with a couple of them again, or we came around when there was a happening of some kind, but the two of us didn't just hang out in their suite like we had before. It wasn't that we didn't feel welcome exactly. More like we didn't want to hang around with someone who could be such a jerk AND had such a crappy sense of humor.

Appendicitis

When my brother was 13, he went hunting with my dad. After a couple of days, my dad had to bring him home because he didn't feel good. He kept complaining about his stomach hurting, but didn't have any other symptoms. My dad had to make a trip for supplies, so he brought P home even though the week wasn't over. His first day home he felt OK, but my mom made him an appointment anyway. The next day, she had to go to the airport to pick up a client, so my aunt took my brother to the doctor.

I got home after school to find my other aunt waiting for me. My brother was at the hospital with appendicitis, but they couldn't operate with parental consent. My dad was at hunting camp, and my mom was over an hour away at the airport. This was long before cell phones, so the only way to contact my mom was to call the airport and have them page her. I told her what was going on and she told me where to find a copy of the paper that the schools sends home giving them permission to take your kid to a doctor. My aunt and I left to go to the hospital, which was a thirty-minute drive of its own.

When we got there, my aunt pulled up at the entrance. I ran in waving the piece of paper and was met by a doctor who told us that we were just in time. He had made the decision to do the surgery anyway, without consent, and hope my parents were more appreciative then litigious.

Turns out my brother's appendix had been ruptured for several days. They removed it, but he would have to stay in the hospital until he healed. Because they had to literally pull out his other organs and clean them before putting them back, he had a big opening across his stomach instead of the usual one or two smaller openings. He ended up being there about two weeks to wait out any infection, then home for another week to gain strength and recover from pneumonia.

My mom had to change the dressing on his stomach a couple of times a day. In her typical thriftiness, she figured out that the $8 pads the hospital used were essentially the same as feminine hygiene products. I remember coming home and making fun of the fact that he had maxi-pad taped to his belly. I of course got the mom lecture about being nice to my brother, he was the only one I had, blah blah blah.

I don't remember ever feeling a lot of sympathy for my brother. He never required a lot, and my mom was always glad to baby him whether he needed it or not. But I did feel bad for him when he went through that. Two weeks in the hospital, feeling like crap, catching up at school. He even ended up having medical problems and additional surgery as an adult as a result of that.

Which is part of the reason I spent three hours at the ER last night, getting a pain in my stomach checked out. It had some of the symptoms of appendicitis, but turned out not to be. What is is (yes, it's still there), I have no idea. Too bad my mom doesn't have some legal useful home remedy to avoid for paying for needless medical attention :(

Ellie and Bubba J - Chapter 3

I still think and write about him for two main reasons. The first is pretty straightforward. The other is pretty straightforward too, but more embarrassing? downright pitiful? to admit explain.

First, I just miss him. He will always be someone I just like and care about and enjoy being around. In fact, being around him was always so EASY. In college, I was still becoming the person I was going to be. With him, I never ever felt like I was anything but my genuine self. Bonus that he seemed to like me anyway. I don't remember ever feeling tense or anxious about us, or looking farther ahead than the next time I could see him. If I came around and he was gone, no worries. If he was there, great. Part of that was pretending I didn't know the end was coming, but also just because the present was always good. We had fun just hanging out. We didn't really make any demands of each other, or promises we couldn't keep, so there was no opportunity for disappointment. It was just so f***ing easy.

Fast forward to a time in life where nothing is that simple any more. And there he was, still the same in many ways, and still a great way to pass the time. Again, we spent a lot of time just talking and hanging out. Again, it was nice to know he wasn't too far away even if he wasn't right here. Again, I suspected the end would come eventually, which it did. So there's where the whole missing him thing comes in. I'll get tired of pouting about it and move on.

But what makes it so hard to do is that thing that makes me sound whiny and selfish and pathetic. It's that besides just missing him as a person and a friend, I miss having that easy thing in my life and I am not doing a very good job of filling the space left over.

See, he exited the picture right about the same time things went completely sideways for me. L lost his job. Life got busy with school and work. Things that would have been mere annoyances became monumental without two incomes, compounded by the fact that L kept some things from that he shouldn't have. Some things I used to do for fun and socialization, like my writer's group, have gotten put aside while L tries to get his new business up and running. I didn't go to the doctor when I should have and now I have a headache all of the time. None of these things are insurmountable, but I miss having someone to either talk to about these things or to distract me from them.

Instead, I am grumpy to people for what seems like no reason, because I can't begin to explain everything that is really bugging me. Or I latch onto complete strangers and behave like a socially inept stalker (sorry, you two). Yes, I have people who are willing to listen for a bit, but the lazy, greedy part of me wants back the person who knew all of it, from beginning to end, and was willing to listen anyway, or ask the right questions, or say the right things to take me in an entirely different direction for awhile.

The responsible, grown-up part of me knows that life will never be that simple again, and that sometimes I make things harder than they have to be. But certain other parts of me will always miss him, as a person and for the easy thing we were together.

to be continued...?

I Know It When I Hear It

When L and owned the restaurant, we were in a weird position. We were in our late 20s. Our employees were either the same age as our parents, or in high school. I never felt like any of them took us very seriously or thought we had a clue about anything.

One night after business had slowed down, Brian asked if he could turn up the radio. He was trying to score some tickets to an Ozzy Osbourne concert by calling in whenever they played an Ozzy song. (Side note: Brian played guitar and listened to many types of music, so he wasn't completely ignorant on this subject.) Sure enough, a while later a Black Sabbath song comes on the radio. At about the same time, L and I look up and over at Brian to see if it has registered. He looks back at us all "What?". We tell him to hurry up and go call before it's too late, but he shakes his head and says it's not Ozzy. We say we know, it's Black Sabbath, which was Ozzy's band, but he doesn't believe us. Of course by the time I decide that if he is going to be an idiot then I might as well call, the song is over. The DJ does the whole "Hi, you're the nth caller" thing, and Brian gets this foolish look on his face. We were nice and didn't gloat too much.

But c'mon, even if you don't know the song, who doesn't recognize the Oz man when you hear him? This is my current favorite:

Ellie and Bubba J - Chapter 2

So what kind of thing did I have with him? Depends on who you ask, and on what kind of day. Depends on if you will accept a definition of what it wasn't as much as what it was. Depends on my ability to just write it down without trying to be witty or wise or without editing as I go, so here goes...

It was not an affair, although it shared many characteristics of that kind of relationship - it was thrilling, and intense, and meaningful in its way. It was something I looked forward to and planned my time around. It could have completely consumed me if I had let it. It was also something I instinctively kept to myself and something I tried not to examine too closely. It was something I held on to even when I recognized that it was a bad idea.

It was something I couldn't explain, which was fine, because in many ways no explanation was needed. To use an already overused phrase, it just was what it was.

His wife was convinced it was something more. My husband accepted it when I told him it was a Facebook reconnect with someone I used to know. In many ways, that's all it was. True that we spent a lot of time texting or chatting, but more often than not we talked about music, sports, work, plans for the weekend, or whatever. We talked a little about the past, but it certainly wasn't like we were trying to relive it, or plan a future for that matter. A few times we talked about what we might do if we got a chance to meet up, but we never made specific plans to get together. Other than a couple of pics, I still haven't seen him since college.

So, no meeting, no plans, no phone sex, ha ha. No more contact from his wife. Why then am I still going on about it?

to be continued...

Today

Today I voted, but I am pretty sure I was outvoted 2-1 on most issues.
Today my knees are killing me. Can't complain, we need the rain.
Today football was canceled. Thanks again for the rain :)
Today L and I talked about important stuff for the first time in awhile.
Today has turned out OK after all, if I ignore the election results :)

Must Get Sleep

Finally exhausted enough to try going to bed. Ending the day with just these very random thoughts:

Who really cares if the Land Commissioner is a Democrat or a Republican? It's a job for bureaucratic tool no matter how you look at it.

Why do people make such a big deal about kids putting their shoes on the wrong feet? They're the ones that have to wear them all day and it doesn't seem to bother them.

A telescope is more practical, but a catapult seems like more fun. If I had to choose.

Not sure why I am not sleepy. It'll be better tomorrow, when the Tea Party starts.