i'm tired

i have been working our pretty much every day for the last month

i'm tired

i have been snoring more

this is keeping Smitten awake when we sleep together. i have told her to wake me and get me to change positions. she does, but i become paranoid that i will snore and don't sleep well.

i think i just need to sleep more than my usual 6 hours. i think that all the exercise demands it.

yeah - i know it's not very exciting as posts go, but i'm tired and uninspired.

my alternative post for today was about the all you can eat sushi place we went to yesterday...

Pulitzer here i come!

maybe i won't suck at posting tomorrow

some good things about my new life

in no particular order:

1) i went to upstate new york on a wine tour last fall
2) i have a woman in my life that loves me
3) i love her
4) she wants to have sex with me
5) constantly
6) she says that this was never part of her life before - she had written off sexuality as being an "also ran" until she met me
7) she has discovered she is multi-multi-orgasmic
8) she thinks i am physically sexy
9) she thinks i am emotionally, mentally, and personality sexy
10) she tells her friends the above as well (and they tease me about it) so it is probably all true (it all appears to be true from my vantage point - but my capacity for self delusion has been substantial in the past)
11) i am in the best shape of my life (even if not completely healthy yet)
12) i am telling people to "get stuffed" pretty regularly
13) they are taking it
14) we had a christmas party with more than just family
15) people actually came to this year's christmas party
13) they are still raving about how great it was - unsolicited
14) my girlfriend didn't wear underwear at the party - just garters and stockings under her little black dress
15) i make more money than i ever have in the past
16) i feel stronger and more confident than ever before
17) i have been to a bunch of really cool concerts this year
18) more concerts in the last 18 months than in the last 20 years
19) i travel to other cities to see concerts
20) i (we) go away for the weekend on whim
21) i seem to be able to balance my personal budget without oversight and seem to have more money left over at the end than before
22) i seem to be able to get marginally ahead, pay down debt, and do the cool things i want to do
23) i get to pick out my own clothes
24) i am considered fashionable, even by the younger hotties around that use me as an example of how you can be in your 40s and not be a schlep
(did you know that schlep is actually in the firefox built in dictionary? i didn't even have to add it to my personal.dic [personal.dic always kills me for completely adolescent reasons - my guess is that it is another computer guy with the same sense of humour that first coined that filename])
25) i get to buy all the music i want
26) a large cross section of young people in my life think my taste in music is really cool (and want to go through my collection for their own [of course i am not talking about copying here - that would be illegal])
27) my kids and their friends think i am cool - and say so - except when they tell me i'm lame - well - that my jokes are lame
28) i'm not really trying to be cool - i'm just engaging in life with a relatively "fuck you, i'll do what i want" attitude - and it turns out to be apparently cool - not that i would change if it wasn't, because i was ok with not being cool too - it's just the validation is nice
29) i am getter better at being a dancer
(the down side is that the instructors [it's a club/society so they are in it for the love of dance, not money - volunteers] are paying extra attention to me and i am getting a little extra defensive - even if they are telling me it's because they see aptitude. Smitten is already a dancer so learning the moves and stuff is way easier for her. she is also used to the whole instructor critique thing. i'm just defensive about criticism - i'm trying, i'm doing well, leave me alone - let me practice and get more comfortable before you put the demand on me to get better - it's all way out of my comfort zone - but i am persisting)
30) i have been invited to social events
31) my daughter is looking like she'll be coming back soon

clock battery back-up

yeah

called the house today

last day for my son to get an assignment in that will make or break his mark in this particular class - it will also be one of the marks that will make or break his ability to get into a special multimedia program after high school.

he's not with me. he's at the stbx's house. i still have to get him out of bed. i don't do it as much this year after i drew the line in the sand with him and the stbx. but occasionally.

like today.

today i actually had to wake all of them up. it seems there was a power failure last night. i'm told two of them. seems the stbx doesn't have a battery in the clock radio anymore. she used it for something else.

just like she used to do before i left. just like she used to do with the smoke detector and the carbon monoxide alarm.

except i'm not there to give a shit anymore. so she's late for work, and son makes me 45 minutes late for work because he's way behind.

what an asshat. both of them. i'm really not the most anal retentive person in the world - even if it sounds like it sometimes - but i do know a few things. one is that it's really important to have fresh batteries in the detectors and the clocks.

oh,

and that it's important to dig out snow pants on a day when it's fucking minus fifty-one degrees. even for a boy who's sixteen. because he's too much of an asshole to think of it himself or even to dig them out himself. because he waits for the bus outside, sometimes for up to 15 minutes - which, at fucking minus fifty-one degrees, is a really long time.

but then i discover this morning, the stbx thought it was really weird that i should phone her last night and ask her to get out snow pants for both children, and to make sure they had scarves to cover their faces against the wind.

when son suggested i was a caring father, she repeated that she thought it was weird - especially related to my sixteen year old son. son pints out that she does lots of things pre-emptively as a concerned parent. she says "that's because i'm your mother". son asks her if only mothers are allowed to perform caring acts.

she says "well, he never did before. i think he's just doing this to make a point to me - to suggest i'm not a good parent." son tells her she's full of shit. she pouts.

----

son's bedroom is being painted. for the last month or more... son has been sleeping on the couch. son wants to go to bed at 9pm because he is tired (son wanting to sleep before fucking midnight is a rare thing and should be encouraged). wife and son's friend (who is still living there) won't get off the couch from watching TV for 2 hours. son plays computer games because stbx won't let him sleep on the upstairs couch.

son is tired as a dog in the morning

----

fuck

been walkabout

"Walkabout is an Australian pidgin (or perhaps quasi-pidgin) term referring to the belief that Australian Aborigines "go walkabout" at the age of thirteen in the wilderness for six months as a rite of passage. They then trace the path of the ceremonial ancestors of their tribe, following the exact route that those ancestors took, and imitating in a fashion, their heroic deeds. These paths are known as the Songlines." - wikipedia

----

"Songlines are an ancient cultural concept, meme and motif perpetuated through oral lore and singing and other storytelling modalites such as dance and painting. Songlines are an intricate series of song cycles that identify landmarks and subtle tracking mechanisms for navigation. These songs often evoke how the features of the land were created and named during the Dreaming. The Dreaming Spirits as they travelled across the Earth, created and named trees, rocks, waterholes, animals and other natural phenomena. Molyneaux & Vitebsky (2000, p.30) augment further: the Dreaming Spirits "...also deposited the spirits of unborn children and determined the forms of human society." Therefore, establishing tribal law and totemic paradigms.

By singing the songs in the appropriate sequence, indigenous peoples could navigate vast distances (often travelling through the deserts of Australia's interiority)." - wikipedia

----

been singing the songs of the old ones

i've been singing new songs

i won't be able to give you a chronological narrative of the passage of my life since last september/october

i'll just have to make references as appropriate

just pick up where things are now

----

i've been walkabout

i've been singing the songs of my ancestors

fighting the election and it's aftermath

the election is long since done

my friends have long since been fired from their jobs with the change in administration

others of my friends are only being found and fired now

my family has been here many times before

i'm physically working in roughly the same office my father worked in in the late '60s when he was roughly the same age as i am now... fighting as opposition staff against another right wing government with the same kind of agenda as the new one

"Songlines are an intricate series of song cycles that identify landmarks and subtle tracking mechanisms for navigation. These songs often evoke how the features of the land were created and named during the Dreaming"

i am now keeper of the library. having been surrounded by the old ones most of my life, and having heard and knowing most of their stories, i have the longest corporate memory of any of the people left fighting the battles.

"They then trace the path of the ceremonial ancestors of their tribe, following the exact route that those ancestors took, and imitating in a fashion, their heroic deeds."

----

it was my daughter's 12th birthday recently. i was able to celebrate it with her, sort of.

her birthday was on days with her mother (daughter has begin spending some days/nights at my place again).

a week prior to her birthday i booked a tatami room at a local Japanese restaurant. the six of us went - Smitten and I, her two children, and my two.

we ordered much food. spent about $275.00 on the evening - about $100.00 more than i originally intended, but i decided to order some saki and beer for Smitten and I and let the kids go nuts on ordering. when you are going out for an evening like this you don't nickel and dime, and i'm able to afford it. i couldn't do it regularly, but it was ok.

the kids were able to order raw squid and octopus and whatever they had the whim to try. Smitten kid's are less versed (actually a bit of pain in the ass about food) than mine in non-north american cuisine, but they were in there like a dirty shirt too.

Smitten is always surprised at her kid's reaction when i take them out for different foods. her kids will try pretty much anything when i'm around - not otherwise. i'm either a good or a bad influence, i guess.

having the private room was good with Smitten's daughter being there - she is 9 and a real go girl - plenty of energy.

we had a very pleasant time over several hours at the restaurant. Smitten's daughter declared she wanted to do it again.

my daughter said to me later "That was awesome!"

----

daughter and i have been getting closer again

she is starting to stay with me and phone me regularly again. she is getting to the point where she may be able to break free of her mother's clutches.

her mother has pulled out all the stops - talking about suicide or just leaving the kids - just leaving town

those and many other histrionics

i had my lawyer send a letter to her lawyer telling the stbx to stop it.

but that is all another post

the grey skies outside

It's the tears that still surprise me the most. When they'll just surface. I have to control myself when i'm around other people, or at the office. I don't want someone to walk in and find me all red-eyed... especially if it's a member of the press that has popped by to talk to me for whatever reason (yes - that happens on a regular basis).

The tears.

They'll just come out. Music. Smells. Moments. A sudden memory.

I try not to hold them in too much.

It happens mostly in the van when i'm driving somewhere - often when i'm driving back to my apartment after exercise. The physical release of the exercise - music - that i've been thinking for about 2 hours straight. I try not to dwell on the past, but it's sort of a contemplative time. I focus on my exercise - on being in tune with my body.

The dopamine from having run for an hour and a half and pushing myself on the weights.

Tears

They'll just come out.

Like a few minutes ago.

I was searching for references to tears and crying in my previous posts. Mostly because I didn't want to use the same opening line as a previous post (sorry - the professional writer in me still surfaces even when it doesn't matter).

I read these words from last year's Valentine's post:

"And then the last item. A child's valentine with our names on it. My eyes began to tear. That was the first "valentine" I had ever received from a female. Certainly cards as an adult, but never one of those valentine cards."

I just made the arrangements for this year's valentine's evening. I asked Smitten if i could ask her out for Valentine's on our way to dance lessons last night (she said yes :-) yes to both - me asking her, and her going with me)

I've got us booked a little bistro in the trendy part of town. It's where we went for new year's last year (06/07). The one i wanted to take her to is closed for renovations and won't be open again until Feb 1 - so made this reservation. Made sure that I modified the menu so that it would match Smitten's tolerances. Things like switching desert from their amazing chocolate brownie (milk and wheat...) to a champagne sorbet - blah, blah, blah.

but back to tears and back to emotion.

i'm very much smitten with this woman. very much in love.

i re-read our online dating profiles (how we met) and our first messages again yesterday. i saved them. i still have our emails as well. I will be putting them together in a book for her someday. i was thinking i might do it for this Valentine's day.

I was struck by the consistency in what each of us wanted then and what we still want now.

i was going to cite a few examples, but the writing muse has left me for the moment - so i will post this and perhaps discuss consistency another day

gloves

you know something that pisses me off?

gloves

my children's gloves to be exact. or more exactly, their lack of gloves at my stbx-wife's house.

i went to pick son up this morning to drive him to school. he comes out without his gloves. i send him back to get them.

he can't find them. his mother is up and she can't find them either. they can't seem to find any gloves.

when i left that house there was a box full of gloves and mitts for every occasion. in sizes to fit each member of the household. in different colours. some were brand new and were in the big plastic container just as spares. along with spare scarves and touques.

you see, my kids were forever losing their gloves. mine kept disappearing because the stbx would always steal mine whenever she lost hers because my gloves were always where i put them - oddly enough, in my goddamned coat pocket.

my kids were forever leaving them at school. my stbx was leaving them at work, at her sister's and at her mother's. then, her mother and her sister, were to cheap to buy their own fucking gloves, would wear the gloves that i had bought for my family and when challenged would proclaim them as their gloves. in fact one time, the stbx took my gloves and left them at her sister's. when i saw her sister wearing them a week or two later i mentioned (very mildly and very politely) that they were mine. her sister insisted that she had bought them... until i pointed out that the gloves had a little tag on the inside that said [my first name]. you see i was sick of my stbx stealing my gloves and insisting they were hers, or giving them to my son because she couldn't be bothered to go downstairs to the box of spare gloves - mine were always handy in the closet in my pocket. anyway, my mom has a sewing machine that does letters and made me some tags to sew in. sister-in-law looked, and they indeed had my name inside. wife and sister-in-law got all huffy.

wife ripped me a new asshole after her sister left for embarrassing her sister, and why couldn't i just leave it alone... blah, blah, blah

and

now...

now somehow they don't have any gloves in that house anymore.

did i mention that i have spare gloves for myself and each kid at my apartment? and that i carry spare gloves and touques in my vehicle for the times they inevitably forget?

assholes

i should let them fucking freeze sometime

it just pisses me off. i have never lost a pair of gloves. or a touque. myself, that is.

historically they have managed to lose them in a single day - sometimes in less than an hour. sometimes i would go over to the school and just go pick up all the shit my children had lost at school. one time i found a pair of my missing leather gloves at the school - when i inquired i found out stbx had given them to son (as described above).

yeah

my blood pressure is up.

breathe in

breathe in

exhale

repeat

did i mention that the same thing would happen with my stbx-wife's keys? i used to have to keep spares of all their fucking keys around because she could never put her keys in a consistent place. like her pocket, or on the fucking little rack of key hooks right by the entrance door. i forgive the kids to an extent, but she's a goddamned adult.

recently she was missing her car keys for two weeks. then son put on one of his spare coats and found her keys in it, you see she would wear his coats and go outside and smoke because she would have put her coat somewhere other than, oh, maybe the closet in the fucking front entrance - and so she wore his coat. and he wouldn't wear it because it smelled like cigarette smoke. and so her keys were missing for two weeks because she's too much of an asshat to keep her shit together [uncharitable expletive loaded descriptions of stbx deleted from this spot].

son has only lost one set of my apartment keys to date. he thinks they are in his room at the house...

gloves

fuck

mutter