First of all, thank you to Lyle Lovett for unknowingly letting me borrow the title of one of his albums for this here beloved journal of mine...
Ok, so here it goes: I will summarize an argument I've had many times:
Other person: "Being gay is wrong"
Me: "What about 'though shall not judge'?"
And then, O.P.: "Oh, I'm not judging, I'm only stating what the Bible says"
Yes. Ok. So isn't that what Judges do? Don't they tell us what the written law is??
Just a thought...
I suppose I have been purposely avoiding talking about my marriage for a reason: Everything is going fantastically well, but I am in disbelief. So at facing the risk of writing something that: a) is a facade; b) realize I've become one of those women who fail miserably to recognize the fairytale is anything but; c) I will regret reading later... I've avoided the issue completely.
The changes in him have been unbelievable. I feel really loved and all that, but most importantly I see a change in him, in his spirit. He's much more relaxed, way more emotional, more conversational, more considerate and attentive, just miraculous changes to say the least!
The most beautiful part is watching this man I've loved for so long come up to the surface. So I don't have to dig and dig to find him anymore... I want to spend more time with him and have recently turned down great offers for entertainment because I wanted to stay with him and the kids... I finally feel that we are a family.
Tomorrow I'll wake up and it will all be different I'm sure... But that's how it goes.
I feel a migraine coming on... UGH!
Wow, I got back to Indy at just the right time. Spring has definitely started and all kinds of critters are coming out of the woodwork.
Most importantly (and thanks to AOL) I found out that this wonderful state of Indiana is one of the hosts of nature's 17 year ritual of the Invasion of the Cicadas. If anyone has ever seen the Land Before Time kids' movies, it's just like the episode where those bugs invade everything... Except that it lasts about a month.
Seemingly (and this time thanks to National Geographic), these bugs go underground for 17 YEARS and then come out sometime in May, when they do something else and then die. This year there will be more cicadas than ever, BILLIONS of them and they will be crawling up everything and making noise... I'm just so thrilled about this.
My 5-year old FREAKS about the smallest of bugs on her... I really don't know how I'm going to help her through this, except I did come up with two ways, and here they are:
1) Start telling my daughter all about cicadas. I can go out, dig some up and put them in a glass container so we can be part of their cycle. I can make a point of doing cicada crafts, look for the first few that come up and really help her understand the whole thing so she's not afraid, OR
2) I can stay indoors the whole time, express my disgust at the cicadas crawling all over everything, let her freak out and use the cicadas to help me convince her that moving to L.A. in June is the best thing since there are no bugs in L.A.
Now that should make her forget all about her friends. Of course, when she grows up she'll never want to return to Indiana, but I guess that's why we have therapy.
I've heard some people eat these buggers, and if I had any balls or had gone completely insane I would, just so I could say the very catchy "I ate-a Cicada", but on the other hand it's just not worth it.
Yes, it finally happened... Stefan bought a house in L.A., so we are moving back to the place I once called home. We'll finally be leaving Indiana for the almost perfect California weather WOO-HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't believe it. Now I just have to finish the house here (painting, etc.), wait for the school to finish for the year (mid May), stay for the 500 race (end of May) so June will see my ass running out the door heading west. I will be driving across with the kids and hopefully my friend Christina. I also hope she'll be ok w/the kids in the car for that long.
I assume we'll be back to Indy sometime in July for our daughter's birthday and to finish the big move.
Yay.
On the way back to shore Jim showed us an infamous sailboat that had very recently gotten stuck in the sand (remember my comment about the 4 feet of water? This is a place where you only get a foot deep for every mile sailed). It is a tragically funny tale about a man spending too much on a sailboat he will never be able to sail in *those* waters... I personally thought he should leave it there and turn it into some kind of rental room on the water for those romantic souls, but changed my mind when we were told the next day that the boat had started to sink because it had tilted to one side.
We finally made it back to the house. I swore I would never go on one of those rides again, but as I sit here typing this I wish I was out on Jim's boat, waiting and looking around for something to happen. Full of anticipation: will the fish bite this time? Will we be needing rescue? Will this boat start back up? Is the guy on that boat saying hello or flipping us off??
Later on I had to go out for some things to a more "metropolitan" area, so I asked Jim if he needed anything. He said (dramatically overacting): "Love and understanding!!"
I want to thank Stefan for introducing me to James Rosenquist, just one of those people...
As with the previous visit, Jim took us on the traditional/ceremonial fishing boat ride, and as before, in the spirit of tradition I suppose, we caught nothing. Without any doubt though, the best part is watching Jim rig up the fishing poles. I believe one of them was used by Christopher Columbus when he took time off to go fishing after reaching America. The other two I don't know about, but added to the fact that we could see the bottom of the ocean (all of 4 feet deep), I was sure we went out on the boat not to fish, but for something only obvious to Jim that we will probably never figure out.
The boat's motor by the way (and again following tradition), died a few times. Additionaly, I noticed the fuel gauge was on empty. This didn't seem to concern Jim at all, and at least the kids weren't crying (*they* were wearing life vests). I, on the other hand, felt like crying when I started to think about how we would get back to shore if God forbid something happened or how we would call anyone if in need of help as I saw no radio, no horn not even fire for smoke signals...
Eventually, Jim bent over to pick up a small plastic package that held an even smaller air horn. As Jim quickly opened his Dollar Store find (pure speculation on my part but with good reason, given that it's Jim's favorite store and from the way the horn looked it's a pretty safe assumption), I didn't feel much better. Mostly because when he let our son blow the horn for the first time it failed... as a matter of fact it failed a few more times. Finally, the sound came out of it and it was as if the horn was actually calling for help for itself, begging to be put out of its misery... After a while, the horn blew more steadily and we all re-joiced. Actually we just laughed, really, since the mighty sound of the horn could not even get in the way of just plain conversation and even less catch someone's ear to come to our rescue...
It was a shitty trip, with one exception: Nevermind, two exceptions: I finally took the art class I referred to in "Artsy and Fartsy" and we got a chance to go back to visit my husband's friend, artist James Rosenquist. I didn't know this, but for those of you that know about art, James has just finished his Retrospective at the Gugenheim Museum. This just so impressive. But the best thing is getting to know Jim, or I should say trying to get to know Jim...
I met Jim through my husband quite a few years ago, but everytime I see him I get to know him a little more. He is truly wonderful, funny, very creative, amazingly talented, and just great fun to spend time with. Conversation with him may often go the way of a boomerang: it starts to get away from its point of origin, almost too far to be recognizable and after making a huge circle it quickly and surprisingly returns to where it first started, thus completing a very fulfilling trajectory that makes all the sense in the world. So while his mind is like a maze, his lifestyle is very simple and extremely uncomplicated. His home is by the water on stilts and the town he lives in is like a small country village, where everybody knows everyone else and they all seem to either love to fish or just love the water, I suppose like in other small towns by the water. Anyhow, while there one can hear the sounds of silence, the water is very calm and there are hardly any disruptions anywhere, you can even hear the bugs flying around...
So upon arrival at his place we show up with: his & hers laptops, his & hers PDAs, his & hers cellphones (which didn't have a signal the entire time we were at Jim's) and so many gadgets spewing off wireless signals that any alien flying by would have gotten a hard-on. Jim, on the other hand, had an old model cellphone that I never saw on him, two hybrid cars, and some boats that many people would take pity on.
CONTINUED...
