Gulf Coast, Florida
June 2007
annual family vacation
mom/daughter tour

This is the huge, sloppy blog of a beer swilling, gum popping , root showing red head.

Right now I’m all sad from watching Candy, a heroin addict movie filmed in new wales or Australia, some where down under, with that gloriously beautiful, yummy Heath Ledger.

I watched it in installations, I couldn't watch it straight through and run the gamut of my emotions - irritation, disgust, envy, heart break, anguish, loss, pain and more. Hmm. where are the positive words? Did I have some? Hmm.

So watching something in pieces gives me a chance to think, make predictions, form opinions, experience some emotions, all of which may change in the next piece watched.

But overall, it left me bereft, hurt, stifling sobs,

Why do they make movies like that? What is the point? Just to make me feel? Shouldn't there be resolution no matter what the start?

Or is it catharsis? Is it to make me cry hard, weep, get that hiccupy breath that comes from trying to keep the huge sobs from busting loose?

Again, if so, what is the point?

And movies, like short stories. I don’t like hanging at the end. I want resolution! I want an ending of the story, good or bad.

Did they have a love affair with each other? Was it the heroin? Was he the brave one for sending her packing, all with love, ugly, at the end?

Was the point that such a great love cannot exist without destroying what itself?

Look too close to the flames you feel the warmth, the heat feels good. Suddenly the burning sears, you scream, pull back?

What the fuck, basically.

The V*******s, 13 years, two children, professional jobs, no drinking or drugs. Straight types, the social one drink. Even before marriage when hanging out, none of that.

Divorce, the husband attempts suicide as manipulation, throws cans of food in the kitchen with the eight year old present. Verbal abuse, cruel words.

What the fuck?

Who is better off? Candy and Dan or Eric and Laurie?

Who loved greater or better, or not at all? Is the whole fucking thing a sham?

What the fuck, it’s all I can think of, it just seems to fit this huge, ginormous mystery that at middle age, with 30 years of relationships behind me, I cannot figure out. I seem to have even less understanding than I did yesterday or the day before that.

Romance, attraction, hurt, pain, anger, sadness, how far apart are these words?

Like the other side of the mirror?

Only the young can act in movies like that and not be affected. No wait, there are older people who are not affected. It is pretense, all. And for some, it is the center of self and the belief that could never happen to (them) because they would never allow it or they don’t care or they are in control, or whatever story of the day works.

Who else is this sad and alone? And do they join together just to keep the wolves at bay? To keep the sadness and aloneness from creeping in under the door and in on the cat’s fur?

Do they make choices out of fear?

Bruce and Dena?

Laurie and Eric?

Terri and Jim

Mimi and Poppa?

Donnu and Whitey?

Greg and Cris?

Dave and ???

Bill and ???

Are we driven by desire or fear? Or when does one become the other? Are they age related?

Desire rules as long as the flesh is firm? Then fear takes over but wears other colors? Ambition? Greed? Selflessness? Community volunteers? Altruistic jobs? Or just fucking jobs? Yard work? Pets?

Delusions – good or bad - discuss

Illusions – same as delusions? How can you tell?

Gulf Coast, June 2007.
Nothing directly to do with the post but I like the photo and it's all related.

I want to edit the last post but I can't get to it. I seems like it's been edited because some of the text looks like it's been cut and pasted incorrectly.
This is the third entry about breaking off a friendship with the same person. And like I said last time, I think this is the last time but that's what I said last time so . . .
but this might be it. I managed to get out a few of the thoughts I've developed since the previous fight. And I've been able to look back at this one clearly and see, clearly how I was more in the wrong place at the wrong time than in the wrong.
I usually write her long, thoughtful emails after such "discussions," but this time I did not. And I also blocked her from my buddy list and moved her photograph (We're not gay). But I've had it with making excuses for someone who does not know how to be a friend. The irony is that she told me several months back that she was a better friend than I am. She thinks because she is spontaneously generous and will come pick you up if your car breaks down, she's a better friend.
Once she made me take her to a guy's house, he was an out of town construction worker living in an apart. He was married and had asked her to come over earlier that night but she declined. After a night of drinking and dancing she decided she would go.without calling. When we arrived I asked her if she wanted me to wait until she got in, she said no, go on. I warned her. I said be sure because I am not going to come back and get you. It's about 2 a.m. and I've been drinking quite a bit and I don't want to expose myself to DUI arrest. She later cited that as one of the ways I've let her down in the past. Not one consideration about the consequences of being arrested for DUI. I could lose my job, my car, and who knows what else. But I was selfishly putting myself first when she needed me, because it turned out to be a big mistake to drop in on the guy because it pissed him off and he made her feel bad about herself and she was stuck there. Yet note she was not driving that night because she wanted to drink. She didn't want to drink and drive, she wanted me to.
but I've made excuses for her because of her horrible childhood. Raised by an abused mother with five or six children and an alcoholic father who beat everyone in the family. they lived in the projects in atlanta and were dirt poor. she quit school when she was 16 or so. She raised herself and had to love herself and that's hard to do on both counts. So I've focused on her good points, and she does have them. But I'm through. I will not be shouted down by someone who is in a horrible mood and is determined to control the conversation and say what she wants and then actually force me to keep quiet. No, f-ing way.
The only time a friend is a good friend to her is when that friend is doing what she wants her to do. She will not do things she deems boring with a friend and then berates a friend who won't go dancing with her as a someone who does not want to spend time with her. So the friendship is on her terms. It's not me she wants to spend time with, it's me that she wants to accompany her while she searches for whatever it is that she is looking for. There's none of the give and take of a friendship like. Me: I don't feel like dancing, what about movies? Her: okay, what about movie and then dinner after? Me: Okay.
No, it', Her: I want to go dancing, you don't want to go dancing. Okay, well I'll guess I'll stay home or I'll call someone else.
Anyway that's what I told her. She was a manipulative, self-centered bitch and I think that might just be the straw that broke the back of this decades old bond.

color sets mood. color me bruised. At least my psyche, any way.