Author Archives: David

Daddy/little girl

13 Tuesday Aug 2019

Posted by in Love and stuff, Relationships

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I mentioned in a comment that I had a light bulb moment around J. It’s taken some thinking and dot connecting, but I believe she is a “little”. She likes me to take care of her. At one point, she had a stuffed lamb and a stuffed bunny, plus some Beanie Babies© and the Taco Bell© Chihuahua. (¡Yo quiero Taco Bell!) When she was a little girl she had two Chihuahuas, Spot and Chico. I gave her some refrigerator magnets with a Fun With Dick And Jane theme that she loved. Her favorite television shows are nostalgic, sweet, and sentimental, Andy Griffith, The Waltons, Little House. Green Acres, I Love Lucy. The appeal of The Bachelor is its naïve theme of falling in love, kind of the way a thirteen or fourteen year old girl would imagine it to be. She likes her cookies at night.

Doing the income-earning thing is not her cup of tea. She comes home exhausted not merely from the physical demands, but by all the requisite “adulting” that comes with the job, I suspect. She likes Sudoku puzzles. I’m wondering if she would like to color. I think she is probably 12-13 in her little persona.

I realize this is probably an amateurish and incomplete assessment. But I notice I feel like her “Daddy” a lot. Her own father was a good and decent man, a soldier, very much of a modern day knight. She would never, ever, have “sexualized” him, but I don’t think she gets she has this hidden, inner need that is not a true Daddy-daughter relationship, but a working framework whereby love is expressed.

She put her stuffies away, off the bed. Since I make the bed most mornings, I wonder what would happen if they found their way back?

I don’t think I would have reached this conclusion without the help of Jadescastle at The Chrysantthemum and The Sword and Mrs McDaddy at The Succulent Savage. Thanks.

Nude Sleeping. Clothed Cooking

13 Tuesday Aug 2019

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After getting J’s lunch together, I was feeling sleepy and went back to bed. But I did something different. I took everything off, my clothes, boxer shorts, tee shirt, even my brown scapular. And it felt totally different from sleeping in pyjamas. It felt more comfortable, more sensual, more satisfying in a tactile sense. Big change is coming. I used to sleep nude all the time. I guess I stopped when the boys were little. Time to go back. J will notice. Let’s see what ensues.

I woke up after a two hour nap. I prepared our lunch/dinner J should be home soon. She has a medical coding continuing education class tonight from Five to Eight PM.

The other day, we bought some of those tiny potatoes, a little bigger than marbles at a local farm stand. I needed to use them. I decided to fix Mom’s Potato Salad.

I washed and cut the little potatoes in half, leaving the peel on. I cooked them for about 10 minutes til they were soft, but not mushy. I have Mother’s old recipe in my head, not written down. She used mayonnaise, “wet” yellow mustard (French’s), dry mustard (Colman’s), dill seed, celery seed, and chopped celery, adding them to the boiled potatoes. I “guesstimated” the measurements. I added some fresh dill weed that I needed to use in something.

I coated two chicken breasts with herb-infused olive oil and roasted them at 375°F (191°C). Let them cook for 45 minutes. Dinner is ready. No wife is home. No word from her. 3:40 PM she is headed home.

Time for some trainspotting and a cup of coffee. Swimming later.

Details at a later post. More satisfying activity..

Dreams

13 Tuesday Aug 2019

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I went to bed at Midnight. I had nearly six hours sleep, which is extraordinary for me. I remembered three of my dreams.

  1. I dreamt I found a box of paper ephemera and photographs from English people who lived in India during the Raj. The papers consisted of symphony programs, bulletins, various items. They were all autographed by the attendees, now long dead. Obscure members of The Royal Family were remembered in photographs.
  2. I dreamt that a woman I had a major crush on when I was in my thirties came back to Richmond to visit. At that time, I was married to wife #2. We made love one night. It was sweet. And it was the only time we ever had an opportunity to get together. In the dream, we were making plans to reunite when I woke up. My issue in the dream as I awakened was to how to let her know of my location so we could meet up.
  3. The third dream was about fixing up a house I lived in from 1962 to 1974. We were going fix it up to sell. It was smallish so entertaining would be a challenge. We could probably only accomodate the President and First Lady and none of the cabinet should they come by. I specifically thought of President Trump and Melania. My wife was none too happy about The Donald dropping by.

So there. I woke up, fixed J’s lunch, wrote this post and finished just as train #174 pulled into Ashland on the way to Washington and New York.

Yesterday, at dinner, I told J I was thinking about going back to work, so she could retire or maybe work less. Most of the piles of crap in the house are hers. They include old client files from when J had an accounting practice. This is important because the house is a hoarder’s paradise. We want to organize and remodel the house to make it livable and welcoming, maybe not to Donald and Melania though.

It’s going to be a beautiful day.

Last night I went swimming, did OK, swam a little over a mile. I came home fixed a pot of decaf and did a load of laundry. J told me how touched she was that I would consider going back to work. We’ll see how this develops.

Not Easily Forgotten

12 Monday Aug 2019

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I have come to the conclusion that my first wife never really loved me. I suspect that she lacked the capacity to love a man completely. That her concept of love lacks any sense of permanence, except for the Love she feels for her children.

All of those memories of first love stay with me. But now comes the suspicion that that was all felt by me alone. That there never was an “us”. We somehow believe the stories we tell ourselves about the world and love and how it’s all supposed to work out. We buy the stuff to outfit our lives: cars, clothes, food, houses. But none of this can fill or satisfy this fundamental emptiness. Those of use who are really lost try to fill the emptiness with alcohol or drugs, gambling. promiscuous sex. Those don’t work either.

I had been going through life thinking I somehow was responsible for the failure of my first marriage. Now I am not so sure. That leads me to my second marriage and its failure, and my current and final (hopefully) marriage. J and I, despite our frustrations and shortcomings, really love each other.

Another 4:00 AM Start

12 Monday Aug 2019

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J had work starting at 4:30 AM. She wakes up. I wake up. I got to bed before 11:00 last night. Still four hours sleep isn’t enough.

Right now I would like to go back to sleep, but I am also stimulated by all that is happening in my world Right now Train #86 is stopping in Ashland on Virtual Railfan LLC. I’ve read blog posts from my blogosphere buddies. I wouldn’t mind having a cup of coffee. I miss my wife.

I sit here. I’m thinking about sleeping again. I brushed my teeth, took my medicines and vitamins. I ate some food. I can barely stay awake. I think of couples in love with each other and have sex.

Metropolis-Fritz Lang

12 Monday Aug 2019

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I have decided to watch Fritz Lang’s silent classic Metropolis. I have the 2008 restored version. It seems more timely than ever, an early dystopian classic. The themes are humans dehumanized and brutalized by technology, and a vicious system of class stratification and oppression.

This predates the work of Huxley and Orwell. It is a stunning declaration for human freedom and dignity. Its challenges to the merits of science and technology remain to this day.

Mass+Brunch=A Good Day

12 Monday Aug 2019

Posted by in Catholic Life, food

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This was a Sunday that began with my feeling tired and wishing I could sleep some more. I went upstairs, looking to sleep some more and planning to skip Mass.( I had an excuse, as if Jesus cares about excuses). J and I decide to go. We get there in plenty of time. We extend comfort and condolences to friends who lost their 35 year old daughter very suddenly. We hear a good homily from our Deacon. We meet the seminarian, Armando, who will be something of parochial “intern”for the next year. He strikes me as a young man who will become a good priest. As always, there are plenty of cute babies and young children to boost the spirits of a man without grandchildren.

After Mass, we go to Maggiano’s to have brunch and people watch the mall customers passing in front of our window. The brunch at Maggiano’s is their best value and we had a coupon in our email. J had the crème brûlée French toast, which, for all intents and purposes, is a donut without the hole. I had the braised beef hash with poached eggs.

We get home. Now I take that nap. I fix a quick dinner, sit and rekax

I’m taking a Jeffrey Epstein /Ilhan Omar/ Donald Trump respite, watching Popeye cartoons. I always think, watching these cartoons, that we were perfecting animation in America, while the Germans were perfecting the tank, dive bombers and mechanized warfare.

Amazon

11 Sunday Aug 2019

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I have an Amazon Prime membership. I’m trying to take full advantage of it. I also have a Kindle, which I find difficult to read from. Truth be told, I wonder how useful any of this stuff is. And how much Amazon has stored about me, my life, values, tastes, and preferences. I have a paranoid fear that Jeff Bezos wants to rule the World. And if i don’t fit in, Bezos will have me killed, if I’m not dead after a suitable time interval. All because I buy stuff from Amazon, but not everything I want or need.

Call me crazy. But I’m like an addict at this point. Anybody else want out of the digital world? I realize now it is an “all or none” proposition. The name is control. Where can we “dropouts” go to survive, even thrive, without making these diabolical bargains?

Awake After Two Sleep Intervals

10 Saturday Aug 2019

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I fell asleep the first time while J started a video on an Indian restaurant in France. I couldn’t watch it because I had to contort my body into an uncomfortable position in order to do so. I listened and fell asleep. After a couple of hours I was awake, went downstairs, then came back up, put in a Seinfeld DVD from Season 6 that starts with The Jimmy. I remember that episode and the one that followed, The Doodle. I was up again around 0200 Hrs. I couldn’t get back to sleep, mind just working away on stuff, so I dressed, went downstairs to brew some decaf and watch YouTube videos.There is an interesting sound film of Kyoto Japan from 1929 playing. Girls are singing before a statue of The Buddha.

At this point I have yet to drink any coffee. I am fraught with guilt for “wasting food”. You are never too old to let parental messages of guidance from your childhood, kill off a good time, as if wasting maybe fifty cents worth of ground coffee will disrupt the economic equilibrium of the household.

OK time for the coffee. Had the coffee and a quesadilla. Now I am getting really sleepy. I think I am close to going back to bed.

Evening Ramble

09 Friday Aug 2019

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Today, J and I did stuff together when her work day was over. We did mundane stuff like go to the gas station, then a late lunch, then to Target to pick up drugs for me, (my regular maintenance drugs, nothing cool), and then to my semiannual psychiatric visit.

Lunch was at Red Lobster. We both had wood-grilled shrimp on a skewer. They were pretty good. The server was a nice guy. His amiable personality was worth the price of the meal. Target was a quick trip. I like this particular Target, because it’s where The Tattooed People shop and I wanted to check out the ink. One woman had a nice half sleeve but I couldn’t get but a half way glance.

Then to the psychiatrist. We drove through parts of the City/County area that were undergoing new construction in both political subdivisions. There was this ginormous thing with very tall nets that were part of a golf thing. I don’t play golf, so I didn’t know such a structure was being built.

In Virginia, hard liquor sales are a state monopoly. We drove by the liquor warehouses, that will be relocated and a fancy new ball park will be put up on the old site. Ramshackle abandoned buildings have been razed to make way for Wa-Wa convenience stores.

We arrived at the offices, part of VCU’s new pediatric mental health facility. The old one was built in the 1960’s and looked like it used blueprints for a facility built somewhere in the old Soviet bloc. It had a certain gulag quality about it. If the kid wasn’t crazy when he got there, he would have been shortly thereafter.

The new facility is modern, spacious, clean and cheerful. It was money well-spent. The building, even in its lobby and waiting area reflect hope. My pediatric psychiatrist has mostly pediatric patients, but I have seen him since my younger son was his patient. It’s an accommodation that works. He’s a good guy. I’m honest with him And it’s a good relationship. He is about my age.I told him I had some despair that seemed to be related to inactivity and sleep deprivation. I will track my physical activity and my sleep patterns to see if the issue resolves itself. If not, we will reassess the meds.

J and I drove home. She is exhausted from her work schedule. She is resting. I’m writing.

Funny how attitudes can shift quickly if one is committed to one’s partner.

I had a mango/ Greek yogurt smoothie with a little coconut milk, wheat germ and maple syrup. It is all I wanted for dinner.

A train pulled in on the YouTube channel. It discharged passengers in Ashland on its way to Richmond.

Tired.Bedtime.