So I did what I said I was gonna do. Climbed in the shower with her. The World did not come to an end.

Hence I now know this fear of rejection stuff is in my head.

Push on.

She will take her shower soon. I will climb in the shower and claim her.

Stroke her body.

When she says she’s in a hurry, I will tell her I’m not.

When she says she’s uncomfortable, I will say “Too bad.”

Time to end the lame-ass drama that crushes us.

J worked a shift from 10:00PM-3:00 AM this morning. She came directly home and went to bed. She fell asleep and remains asleep. I also have been sleeping. I did much of my sleeping in a separate bed in a different room. I listened to fado as I fell asleep. The fadistas were all female. Women’s voices, in seductive, emotional song in a language (Portuguese)  I do not understand. Right now, I am aware of the prison of COVID-19. the perfect venue for the prison of my marriage. Don’t tell me you love me any more. Turn off the TV, wake up. Smile. Desire. Kiss. Tell me you want to forget every bullshit idea you ever believed about sex. And love, Life might not ever get any better than right now.

Haircut. I got a haircut.

How is that for clickbait? I am sitting on my porch on a lovely Spring late afternoon, early evening. I know that the lily beds need thinning, desperately, the azaleas could use cutting back. The mimosa saplings, in all their ugliness, should be dug out. I need to put the forsythia in some sort of cage or train it on a stake. It is just this skinny little vine. For all I know it might even be a flowering quince, not a forsythia at all. 

Strange to be a prisoner in my own house, like a recluse from a Dickens novel.That has been the trajectory of my life, even pre-quarantine.I see my neighbours, whom I recognize from my daily walk. The family with their adorable toddler just walked by. I know many of my neighbours by their dogs, beagles, Malamute, setters, pug. One woman walks her dog, after work, wearing her scrubs. 

There are chores to do, unfinished tidying up, as if completion would compel me to look at that the rest of the quagmire of untidiness, unexpressed needs, sex acts not consummated that is our marriage. 

Let me sit here now. Just sit. Just watch. Just be neighbourly. It seems so hard to shut off the mind. Toss the politics out. The media and politicos have done a Hell of a good job, making themselves indispensable. It used to be we were hooked on cigarettes, pushed on us by media. Now we’re hooked on politics, pushed on us by media. Instead of smoking Marlboros, we like Trump. Newports? We like Obama, Virginia Slims, Hillary, perhaps? If you don’t think politics can be reduced to brand identity, maybe the media people and the Mad Men have failed.

Back to the bird songs, the motorcycle noise, the dogs. 

I have been watching episodes of the BBC 4 archaeology series Time Team on YouTube. Great series. I recommend it. They talk about The Bronze Age, then The Iron Age. What comes after The Iron Age, The Permanent Press Age? Did the Polyester Peoples live in that epoch?

1) I need a haircut.

2) My head is totally messed up around human sexuality

3) I have been in some sort of physical pain most of my adult life

4) If I don’t know where I’m going, I will probably end up someplace else.

5) Chastity isn’t as bad as sex with an indifferent partner.

She is upstairs, her shower just finished. I could go up and kiss the water droplets off the nape of her neck.

But I refrain, fearing the rejection, of hearing the reasons why intimacy is impossible now, the empty promise of soon.

Wimp.

This is what the Northbound Silver Meteor, Amtrak 98, looked like passing through Ashland, Virginia on 11 May 2020. It is headed to New York City, starting from Miami, Florida.

It is a smaller train, due to the slack in demand from the coronavirus. It looks like they still have dining car service on this train.

My readers who live overseas may be unfamiliar with what an American passenger train looks like, as well as some of you who live in The United States. So here you have it.

I have been up awhile. J gets off work soon and should be home around 5:30. I guess I could sleep then.

Today I remember my mother. I miss her, dead now for nearly twenty five years, but why?  Mother was chronically depressed in a world where treatments for depression were worse than the disease.

She was bright, but could not afford college in a world where a job to support a widowed mother meant everything. She was a drama queen, as only the daughter of an alcoholic father can be. I remember her laughter and her rage. Her rage contained all the angry thoughts she ever had, externalized. She would say  she only wanted two children, but Dad wanted more.   There are four of us. I was the second. Let me tell you about Survivor’s Guilt.

She liked sit coms, from I Love Lucy to The Golden Girls.  Her favorite soap opera was As The World Turns. 

So remembering that angry, tragic, paradox of a human being is hard. I got through my sentence in her household of a prison, devoid of self-esteem,  filled with self-hatred that alcohol could never purge.

On balance, she loved us and did the best she could. That is all any Mother can hope to do.