bleckblog: musings of a community college english teacher

I wrote just a couple/few hundred words yesterday, Friday the ninth. Today was a better day. I'm over 15,000 words for the month. Though if I keep this pace, since the month is now one-third over, I'll end up with 45,000 words, give or take. I think that's about what I did last year. The good news is I have Sunday and Monday to crank out some words, and I think I have some ideas to work on. Other good news is we closed on a condominium today in Dover, Idaho. As I've said at times, death has been good to us. Several years ago we inherited money and bought some waterfront property. We admitted we'd never have the money to build on it, so we sold it, at a price much higher than we paid for it, thanks to the booming market in waterfront lots in the region in general, and Lake Pend O'Reille in particular. Today the condo, that took a little more than we received from the property, became ours. The downside is we have a mortgage on our home, on a rental property we're trying to sell (that is languishing on a very slow market) and now the condo. Everyone should have such problems, that's for sure. Fortune has smiled on us, there can be no doubt. And now, for today's entry:

2 December 2005

B----,

As you may know, your brother and his friend Portia will be spending this weekend with us. Alexis and I are looking forward to spending more time with the two of them, Portia in particular as we hope that she and Roddy will be together for quite some time, though that clearly remains to be seen. Certainly Alexis and I hope that’s how it turns out. Please do not call or write at this time, nor should you expect to hear from us beyond this note.

L-----

3 December 2005

Grace,

Can you imagine the note from my father? Don’t call us because we’ll be busy with your brother and his girl friend, of the month I should add. What the hell makes him think we’d be calling, or dropping by for a visit? I can barely stand to think about him, “his” family, the lot of them, plus some woman who will be out of everyone’s life in the very near future. Fuck, he makes me crazy.

B-----

12/3/05

Yeah, it’s a little odd to send someone a note telling them not to contact them. It seems like it’s all about control, that he can decide when things will happen between you. If you don’t write or call, then it’s as if you did what you were told. If you do, then you are clearly going to be acting out on your anger in their eyes. Should we plan on dropping in on them? We have a few days to make arrangements, get someone to come in to feed the cats, and we’ll take the dog. We can just show up on their doorstep when they’re expecting Roddy and what’s her name. Something tells me that wouldn’t go over too well. Maybe we better just stay home. You know I’m kidding right? About going, not staying home. I don’t want to go anymore than you do, but you’re right that I don’t get it. Why bother to tell you not to call or come by when the chance you would do either is all but zero. Weird.

Grace

12/4/05

L------,

This letter won’t arrive until after you’ve had your weekend with Roddy, Alexis, and Roddy’s girlfriend. I wish I could recall her name, but it escapes me at this time. I have to admit to being hurt by the request that I don’t call or otherwise intrude on your weekend. First, I had no intention of doing so, though I can appreciate not finding myself in some awkward situation. More hurtful, however, is the implication that I don’t belong as part of that family—you, Alexis and Roddy—and my presence would somehow detract from the time you would be spending together, even if it were to be a phone call, or the arrival of a letter. The impression this creates in me is that you don’t see me as part of the family, which is something I’ve tried so often to talk to you about. It’s as if you have a family and I am somehow this mostly unwelcome appendage. I don’t know if you regret the time you spent with mother, and you regret me as a reminder of that time, or if there is something else. All I know for certain is that when I am actively shunned, it hurts a great deal, so much that I wonder why I want a relationship, why I want to be a son to your father. Maybe it’s the biology of it all; maybe it’s some other thing, some longing that I can’t explain. What I’m hoping is that we can meet on some neutral ground, with a family therapist. I know you don’t want to make the drive here to sit and talk with a therapist and I can’t make the drive to you. What I was hoping is that we could perhaps find a therapist in the Seattle area since it’s a similar drive for each of us. We could meet with that person, perhaps once, maybe twice over a weekend, return home and work with a therapist suggested by the Seattle area therapist, and then return after two or three months to the Seattle person and see what sort of progress we can make. We might try this for six or nine months, maybe a year. I don’t know what else to suggest to show you that I’m serious and committed to working on the problems we have in our relationship. If you have anything else to suggest that might work, I’d be happy to listen to what you propose.

With love, B-----

12/5

Portia,

Our time together this weekend was wonderful. I look forward to your next visit.

L------

12/5/05

Portia,

It was such a pleasure having you to the house with Roddy over the weekend. When Roddy lost his last girlfriend, who we never took to be such a gold digger as she turned out to be, he was heartbroken, crushed, for quite some months. Since he began spending time with you, and since you moved into his house, I’ve seen quite the revival in his spirits and attitude. I won’t give you all the credit for this, but I do give you quite a lot. That you give him so much makes it easy for me, and I think L----- as well, to open our home and our hearts to you. Thank you so much.

One of the highlights of the visit was sitting and chatting among the four of us. This really helped us to get to know you so much better. Before the visit, we were quite fond of you. After this last visit, I know that fondness is well deserved. The insight you showed in our discussion, particularly of our difficult family situation, and the wit with which you were able to help us work through our struggles with Roddy’s brother, was both keen and appreciated. I think that is one of the best discussions we’ve ever had, certainly with a girlfriend of Roddy, but maybe with any of our long-time friends as well. You are a most welcome addition to the household.

What really caught my eye was the way in which you were able to dissect the jealousy and anger we see coming from Roddy’s brother. L----- and I are in complete agreement that B-----‘s mother, despite the love he professes for her and the way in which she raised him, is at the root of the problem. She was so poor, and so often had to move from town to town to find work, that it seems B----- just cannot see the damage done, the harm that this caused him. Rather than blaming her as he ought, he focuses his anger at us, particularly since her death. Since she is no longer her to receive anger, anger that he would never had shown her were she still alive, no matter how bad things got, he directs that anger at his father, as if the failings of their marriage are all his doing. Never does B----- care to know what sort of wife his mother was. I doubt he tells the story of L-----‘s parents came to help right after B-----‘s birth, how they ran the household while she was recuperating. The story she tells is that when L-----‘s parents came, L----- and his mother and father left her alone in the house as they went out to have coffee or lunch, as they went to see the sites. L----- assures me that nothing could be further from the truth and I have no doubt he is right.

Speaking of L-----, I have to say it seems he has taken quite a liking to you. Roddy has brought a few girls home over the years, most of them in high school when he was a good bit less mature than he is now. L----- has never been indifferent to any of them, and has liked most of them, but you seem to be the first he is truly excited to see. I have to know that this is because he sees what it is you give to Roddy and we can only hope that he provides you with as much in return.

I hope you found the plans for Christmas agreeable and that your family won’t mind you spending the holiday with us. It just feels so good as a family to have you with us at such times.

With love, Alexis

5 December 05

Diane,

You won’t believe what a crazy weekend I had. Roddy and I visited his parents, spent the weekend with them. You wouldn’t believe how much his mother loves me. I think she sees me as some sort of savior for Roddy after the last girl that broke his heart. She told me the story of that girl’s mother saying something along the lines of “I can’t believe my Melinda is still wasting her time with that surf-bum Roddy.” As you know, Roddy likes to surf, and spent a lot of time surfing while in Hawaii, but who wouldn’t. I guess she, Mel’s mother, didn’t see much in Roddy, and sometimes I have to wonder just how much I see in him. I learned more this weekend about his time before coming to Portland.

Before buying the house, he had renovated a coffee shop in Depot Bay. Before that, and somewhat at the same time, he was helping with his mother’s bed and breakfast just up the coast from there. What I didn’t know until this weekend was they bought him the coffee shop because he was getting bored helping at the B&B. It sounds like he was something of a glorified handyman, but if anything big needed doing, they called someone in, someone who knew what they were doing. I’m beginning to wonder if Roddy knows what he’s doing. I hope this all doesn’t sound too harsh, because there are a lot of things I like about him. He is sweet, there’s no doubt about that. And sensitive, caring, and considerate.

I’m starting to wonder if he can take care of himself. It’s beginning to dawn on me that I do the bulk of the work about the house. I do the cleaning, the wash, I make the bed. He’ll cook an occasional meal, dinners usually, but mostly we dine out. For breakfast he east some kind of kid’s cereal or another. I’m starting to wonder just how mature he is, how much he can take care of himself. Did I mention his parents gave him the car? None of what he has is something he actually earned, unless you count working for your parents at a job they created for you as earning something. I’m not sure I do. These things trouble me about him, as much as he’s fun to be around.

But I know you don’t want to hear about all that, at least not after my last letter. You want to hear about his father, and I don’t blame you. I had the hottest time with his father. I don’t want to go into detail about it, but it was everything I’d imagined and hoped it would be. Maybe this is why I’m finding Roddy and his ways less attractive. As with the last visit, L---- and I spent some time alone. Alexis and Roddy went shopping for dinner makings, and that left the two of us alone. It was getting on in the afternoon, so he offered me a glass of wine, which I was more than happy to take from him. Before Roddy and Alexis left we’d been having a rather good discussion between the four of us about the politics of the Iraq war. As you can guess, the four of us are all against it, but the way we dissected the lies that led up to the invasion, you would think we had all been reading from a script. But L---- was the most insightful, the points he had that made things so much more understandable, just blew me away. I never knew that we’d armed Iraq to fight Iran after the Iranians invaded our embassy, or that we’d trained and supplied so many of the terrorists in Afghanistan before they turned on us. These things just blew my mind.

But that’s all beside the point. When Roddy and Alexis left, we sat on the sofa together, almost the same as the last time, and drank our wine, chatting about Roddy, how he was doing in his career, which isn’t all that well, but I didn’t say that. We chatted about me some, and what I was hoping to do once I’d finished graduate school, which you know all about, so I won’t bore you with that. I was a little nervous, so I drank my wine maybe a little too quickly. L---- offered me another glass of wine and I accepted. As he walked to the kitchen, I thought a bit about our last encounter and started feeling, well, feeling like I wanted him again. He hadn’t said anything about the last time, so I didn’t know if he was feeling the same for me. Let me just say that when he returned with the glass of wine, it wasn’t long until I knew what he was feeling for me and I let him know that I was feeling the same toward him. I don’t think I can describe how it felt, other than to say I could do it all again, right now.

The only problem was that when we had finished, we lay together, our bodies tired from the exertion, when we heard the garage door begin to open. They drove the damn Prius to the store, and that fucking hybrid doesn’t make a sound when it pulls into the drive. If it wasn’t for the garage door, and the fact that they had to unload groceries, I think we would have been caught. I grabbed my clothes and pulled them on as quickly as I could. It’s good that Roddy likes it when I go without a bra, good for L---- and me as well, so I was able to dress quickly. L----- is always plodding around the house in his stocking feet, so the fact that he didn’t have shoes, or socks this time, on, when they came in, wasn’t seen as anything out of the ordinary. That’s another great thing about dreadlocks, they never look like they’ve been mussed. They didn’t have a clue.

That night Roddy wanted to fuck, make love he said. We did it, but I was thinking of his father the whole time. My imagination is good, but not that good, but Roddy couldn’t tell. Really, I don’t know how long I can do this, but I think I’m going to keep trying, at least through the holidays since we’ve been invited to visit them. When I see you next, I’ll plug all the holes in this letter.

Ever yours, Portia

6 December, 2005

Portia Girl, you are insane, but I love it. I’m not sure what I’d do if I found myself in that situation, but I can’t say I wouldn’t do what you’re doing. Sometimes I’m so disappointed in the boys I know, even though they should be men by now. They’re too focused on themselves, on the things they want for themselves, and sometimes those things are the likes of you and me, but mostly for what they can get from us, not like they can give us much of anything. But aren’t you worried about hurting Roddy? He has been kind to you, loving even in his boyish ways. Don’t be too hard on him.

Diane

7 December 2005

B-----,

I read your last letter with interest, especially the suggestion that we seek family counseling. I’m not sure what to make of this suggestion and I have to tell you that I view it with some suspicion. In talking with Alexis, we discussed the possibility that you are suggesting such an approach as a way to avoid dealing with the anger and resentment you hold to me, toward us, me and my family. Going to a therapist with the two of us would enable you to validate the notion, because my participation would be validating the notion, that the problem is not with you, but that there is some blame to be laid at our feet. I reject any such notion as this out of hand. Until you stop resorting to, or trying to resort to, such tricks, trying to cast the blame on me and Alexis for the way you’ve sabotaged our relationship, well, it’s nothing short of absurd and we won’t have anything to do with it. We do agree, however, that you should seek counseling so you can get at the root of your problems, the anger and resentment you hold toward me, Alexis and your brother. Only then will we be able to being working on the pain you’ve inflicted on my wife, son and me. Once you are ready to take such a step, we’ll consider meeting to address your behaviors.

L-----