They Scatter, Like Cockroaches...
When you switch on the light, they scatter, like cockroaches. Quite an apt analogy, I think.


Soooooooo much has happened. I can't wait for 2003 to finally come to a screaming, creaking CLOSE, damn it.

Last I wrote I was fighting with barking dogs and gang bangers. They seem mild in comparison to recent events, but of course if I was still living in Chandler, in my house, and they were still going on, I'd still be driven crazy by 'em.

But I'm not there anymore, and it's a long, long story - more or less maudlin, and full of a martyr's tale, depending on how I'm feeling at the moment. I loved that house - it was pretty, open, and if "flowed." I had such great images of what could be done with that back yard that went on forever... But it was ruined by my own indiscriminate "habit" of letting in anyone that seems ok. I believe that houses - dwellings of any kind - "hold onto" the energy of the beings who have lived there. That energy might even be what more sensitive individuals perceive as "ghosts."

I have no idea where to even start with all this, so if it sounds disjointed - if I jump from "here" to "there," please try to keep up. I've tried making notes, but they sound as jumbled as my head and heart, so are really no help. So I'm gonna wing it, as I usually do, and assume that most of the people reading this already know me well enough to figure out what I mean, even when it seems I'm writing in a lessor known dialect of Martian...

I asked my roommate, Ran, to move out. Yes, he's been my best friend for nearly 25 years. Yes, I thought I knew him better than I've ever known anyone else, except myself. But we hadn't been getting along (no doubt a big factor there is that we're both "home bodies" - actually, he is, I've learned to be one, so we were rattling around that house too often at the same time), and it all kept escalating, until one afternoon/evening, it came to a head and things exploded. I happened to be on the phone with Brian (in PA) at the time, and he heard the insane screaming. I could tell he was worried, and said "Get him out of there, NOW." Also factored in was the fact that I was in love. Head over heels in love. And my love was moving to Arizona to be with me. In my mind and heart, I so wanted to feel loved, safe, like my house was a home and not a place where I just exist. And I was being fed these images almost non-stop. I told Brian that, with Ran gone, I walked a precarious line - I could not afford to live in that house alone. The house payment equaled more than my income, now that I wasn't hanging in smoky poker rooms anymore (my lungs can't take it). I was assured, and assured, and assured - that he was my love and it was all going to be ok and it was going to become a HOME, and on and on and on. The images I had! Brian and I, in my mind's eye, were everywhere in that house - MAKING it a home. We were in the kitchen, figuring out what was for dinner. We were laying on the couch, eating popcorn and watching a movie. We were sitting on the patio, watching the Arizona sky turn from bright pink, to mauve, to purple (the back of my house faces West). We were in a "hammock for two" in the huge yard, discussing the latest landscaping project. And of course there was the bedroom - ah, the bedroom, where I'd be held against his chest (hard muscles, soft hair), enclosed in his strong arms, forever. Sometimes we laughed so hard neither of us could *breathe*.

Those images were so strong - so vivid, and seemingly so "realistic," that I bought into them, hook, line and sinker, as they say. I'm not easily taken in by most things. I tend to see everything with jaundiced eye - cynical/aware/wary/jaded - always looking for the "catch." But my one weak point is the idea - the IDEA - of family. Though it might be unrealistic sometimes, family, to me, means stability, comfort, support - "I love you no matter what and we're going to get through this no matter what it takes, and I will never leave you because we're an 'us' and we will always be an 'us'." I've never had that, and it seems I've spent my entire life looking for it. Maybe it doesn't exist except as an idea in my mind. I can be rather, ummm... sentimental, I guess is the word. Doesn't seem to fit with me, does it? lol Well, you might be surprised. Cynics are *always* only disillusioned idealists. We're not cynical because we're "hard," but because we're "soft" - and we need our cynicism as protection.

In my young life, I feel I had been given everything. I was never hungry, I never felt cold or had to do without anything. We had money when I was growing up. A maid cleaned my room and made my bed. I went horseback riding every weekend, and to "horse camp" every summer. I always got what I wanted for Christmas and my birthdays. I'd ask - and there it was, most of the time. I was, very much so, the typical Chicago North Shore Suburban snob. And until I was 12, I'd say my life was almost ideal.

My mom has always been neurotic. I just accepted her as so. Besides, I had my dad, who made perfect sense to me - so who cared if I couldn't relate with mom? She had my sister, her obvious favourite, to "busy" herself with, so we more or less ignored each other as much as possible. I was a "daddy's girl" - I was *his* favourite. I didn't need anything or anyone else. Until I was 12, it never occurred my life could change so radically in such a few hours...

My dad died, a suicide, when I was 12. A particularly bad time for girls. I mean, he was my dad - my buddy, my mentor - the one who told me he was proud of me - the one who taught me how men should be. And he left me! He just...left! And what's more - he left me with this crazy woman! (no one believes my mom's as "bad" as she is until they meet her, by the way - I am not exaggerating) My sister was 17 when dad died, and got married at 18. Young, yes, but I understood - even though she was mom's favourite, she sure didn't want to be stuck in that house with her (or with me, I think). Her and her husband, who hated me, moved to Arizona soon after. I felt I had no choice but to live with "ma." I spent as much time as I could at my grandparent's house, which was the only sane island in my insane world from then on.

After five horrid years of her and I tearing at each other, lo and behold, mom remarried. I was so relieved! Someone to take the pressure off of me - to carry her attention away. Fantastic, right? Except, instead of it taking stress off of me, as I thought it would, it soon became apparent that I was *both* of their targets. You see, if you are having trouble getting along, and there's a rebellious teenage girl in the house, you can always focus on her and make it all HER fault, right? How convenient. So now I'm 17, and dodging bullets from both sides of the room. And that wasn't all I was dodging. I was also dodging my step-dad's hands, when mom wasn't around. I knew she wouldn't believe me, so threatening him with telling her only made him laugh. So I tried to avoid being alone around him - I kept busy - I had quit day school, got a full time job, went to martial arts school four nights/week, and the other nights I took accelerated courses of high school to finish up. I was virtually never home, except to sleep, and except on Sundays. I dreaded Sundays. They seemed much longer than any day had the right to be. Luckily, mom was rarely out of the house without Jim. But on Sundays I'd try to stay outside, sunning, when the weather was good. The Winters were just horrible. Holidays were mixed. Mom and Jim went to his daughter's house, to which I wasn't invited, and though I felt sad at being alone while everyone else seemed to have somewhere to be, I also felt relieved to have them gone. I'd lock myself in with videos of non-holiday-related stuff, eat ice cream and pizza, and try to forget that, everywhere, people were surrounded by loving families (it's my idealistic mind, remember). A couple of times I went to friends' houses for dinner, but that almost felt worse - I was there, but I wasn't part of it, you know?

Trying to keep this long story shorter, just because I realize it's boring to most, and a lot of the early stuff is a "had to be there" kinda thing. The point is, I haven't known stability or family or support, or love, really, since age 12.

Life does go on - long after the thrill of living is gone. Somehow we trudge on. Some of us, almost miraculously, find our way to "something" - whether or not its exactly what we want is another story, but we survive. Most of us.

I had some good friends in the Chicago area. A few really were friends. There was Judy, who saved my emotional life by being someone I could relate to, when I was 19 and she 24. There was Ran, whom I met in 1980 when I was 25, almost 26. Michael Lear when I was 29 (he is a book of writing all by himself). Part of my "looking for family" problem was that I wasn't looking for the traditional, while most of the men I dated, were. I didn't want to get married and have kids (lots of reasons - not the least of which was, I was still a kid myself, who needed undivided attention, but didn't know it then). I don't really *like* kids in the sense that I don't want one living with me. They always like me - and I like them, long as they go home when I'm tired of playing - lol. I find babies gross. They smell bad - kinda sour, when it's the outright smell of shit.

Inside myself, no matter how close I got to some friends, I always felt alone. And I always was watching, not participating. It was me watching me - not fitting in. I didn't even fit in with the other weird kids in school. They tried. I got invited to parties, and I even went to them - but felt apart anyway. I never had a "crowd." I shied away from cliques and groups of any kind. I found them to be unreliable, even dangerous, given the right circumstances. I noticed early on that people in crowds act differently than they do individually, and I didn't trust that difference. I don't recall feeling particularly lonely - just "alone." Often I liked my own company.

"They" say that you're lucky to have one really good friend in your life, and I've found that to be true. Unfortunately, I've had to find it true over and over and over again. When the light is switched on, they scatter, like cockroaches...

More when I can... thanks for reading, whoever does.