Get out of my house!

OK, see, I walked to CVS to fill a prescription, stopped for a tasty late lunch of tuna salad on romaine lettuce and watermelon; I walked back home and the place was empty except for a person I have met once who was sitting on my couch watching my TV.

You might guess that this bothered me somewhat, and you'd be right. Yesterday I had a conversation with my mom, that if she was going to spend so little time here, we could just as easily clean her stuff out and rent her room to somebody who might, you know, be around. I'd choose this somebody, not her.

She insisted that she'd be around more, and then she said something that bothered me: she counted Nick and Fred among the number of people who live here, and that's not accurate at all. Fred lives at his apartment, which is a good thing; Nick works here during the day, then goes elsewhere to sponge dinner off somebody and/or drink beer and smoke weed. He's a bit of a shameless raconteur, so this is not a difficult goal to reach; he comes back here to pass out on the couch.

The problem? My house is not my own. This is the same problem, the exact same problem that existed when I was a young child: too many people with too much access. I keep telling mom that my personal space is about 2,000 square feet, and she's aware how I feel about Fred. This has the undesired effect that I never see my mom, but I don't really have a problem giving her up. Whatever. If she can't be there for me, then she can't; there's nothing I can do to convince her otherwise. I just hope she knows that when it's convenient for her to have a family again, it might not be there.

It's not fair of me to insist on seeing her without Fred every so often, but it's no more fair for her to assume that I don't need to see her without Fred. So you see, we have reached an impasse. I wonder why she isn't aware that I might be slightly more tolerant of Fred if he wasn't her appendage. Unfortunately for both of us, this isn't a clue I'm willing to share with her; she can figure it out on her own, or let him figure it out. I don't care any more.

I know I sound bitter. I sound like I do care, quite a bit, but in truth I feel rather dispassionate about the subject. The thing that stirs my negative passions is Nick's entourage. While I've had conversations with him about this in the past, they don't seem to have taken because he's used to coming in and setting up shop. I think the key is to get the locks changed and not give anybody keys. I don't care if people come over, but I'd really like them to call first, and possibly even knock before they come in.

Is that so much to ask?

~~~~~

Katfish writes about her dad today, and insists that he's the best dad in the world. While I love my own very flawed, misguided father, I have to agree that Katfish's dad is prolly one of the best. He rocks, if for no other reason than he helped come up with a name that anagrams to he's inside me like rare tuna.

By the way, she is not exaggerating about her mother. I thought women like her existed only on TV, but I was wrong. Actually I think there's one lurking in every American family. My mom refers to a cousin, Linda Jane, as "The Perfect Cousin." I think Linda got cancer or something, but other than that, she had the circle of calm and organization all the way around her.

There's prolly one in your family, too; I'm sure you'll find her if you think about it long enough.

I just did something significant: I retired a nightgown. It's one of those floaty cotton Eileen West nightgowns with the buttons up the front. They're demure, comfortable, and feminine; in that respect you wouldn't really picture me wearing one of them--I tend to sleep in sweats and a t-shirt--but I'm very fond of the line. This particular nightgown was made of soft white flannel with pink roses. It had a lace-trimmed scoop neck and I know I looked good in it, not that anybody had seen me in this one for a while.

The only reason I hung onto this particular garment was because I was wearing it when I met somebody I would come to love in a better way than I thought possible, though that happened years later. When I refer to "the one who got away," he's who I mean. That's probably forever.

We met early on a Saturday morning, the second day of a house party in early spring. The sun rose red that morning; I rose with it, though that was out of character for me. I walked downstairs, coming from a liasion that would lead to an engagement but not a marriage. I didn't know what time it was exactly, but I thought I'd watch TV, or make some coffee, or whatever; anything to avoid waking up next to the guy I'd permitted to seduce me. I had no idea that the party had increased by one since the time I went upstairs.

He wore a black t-shirt and shorts. His hair was a mess, his eyes were puffy but they twinkled when he smiled. I knew who he had to be, but I let him introduce himself. We made coffee and drank it, talked a little; it was nice. He was nice. As he looked at me, I kept thinking about the bruises and hoping the neckline of the nightgown was high enough to cover them; I believe it was.

Every time I put the nightgown on, I'd recall that I was wearing it when I met him, and I'd smile, thinking of how well we got along that weekend, and how different my life might have been if I'd played my cards differently. So slept in it last night and this morning I noticed a hole where the fabric had worn through. I unceremoniously stuffed the thing into a trashbag after briefly wondering if I should save a bit of the fabric, then I scoffed at myself for being sentimental.

There's a lot of water under the proverbial bridge between that morning and today. Makes you stop and think.

before - after