Potland couple shares their journey to debt freedom

I meant to post a link the other day to an Oregonian article about a couple that paid off nearly $70,000 in debt.

It was pretty easy to tell by the phases used in the article, and the title of their blog, Beans & Rice, Rice and Beans, that the couple followed the Dave Ramsey plan to get out of debt. The story didn't actually credit Ramsey, but the writer of the article did confirm that Ramsey was an "influence."

I wish I was doing so well at documenting my process of getting out of debt. One complaint, though, about the blog, is that the blog cannot be sorted by date, only by topic.

It is good to hear, and read, the stories of people who have reached their debt-free goal. It make the journey more bearable and serves as inspiration.

What's wrong with this meter?

I found this meter on my friend 3T's blog, so I decided to check it out. She had this Cuss-O-Meter on her blog that showed an 18.2 percent swear rate on her blog, with the needle just about reaching the red. So, being the perverse fuck I am, I figured I needed to rate my blog. At times I pride myself on being a foul-mouthed son of a bitch, capable of swearing enough to make sailors, marines and every other branch of the military blush.

But when I tested my blog I Only got a 10.8 percent cuss rate.

There was some small consolation though. After testing the site, I was informed that this blog does have contain more cussing than 20 percent of the sites that took the rating test.

Fuckin' A! I'll take anything I can get. But I think I need to post more often and use a little more colorful language!

And if you don't agree, well, who the fuck cares!

Maybe I need to start blogging about the weather here in Western Oregon this so-called spring. That's enough to make me swear a blue streak. Brrrr-fucking-rrrrr!


Created by OnePlusYou

Having keys doesn't mean you can get the engine started

I've been sitting here, looking at a blank screen. Classic case of writer's block. I can't figure out what to say, or how to say it. But I've been feeling guilty for not having made a post in a week.

I'm still here. Still breathing in and out. Just not good at tapping text out on the keys. I guess I need to clear out the cobwebs.

But it's not just writer's block that has kept me from posting. I had a busy weekend with family. And I feel no guilt for that. I'd much rather spend time living life than writing about a life I wish I was living.

That should make for some good writing fodder. But now, today, I just don't have it in me to pour it out of me onto the digital page.

Let's get the f---ing blogging started!

Thanks, 3T, for pointing out my pathetic blogging habits of late. At least you admit that your efforts aren't any better.

Actually, I've been spending a fair amount of time working on websites of late. Just not this one.

Sorry.

I'm not sure if I am ready to admit this or not, but those of you left reading this site are friends, so I guess I can admit that I have started a new blog. The new one, is more public in that I don't use a nom de plume. It's just me. The me behind the G-man.

I am not interested in cutting this site loose though. I have put too much time into it at various points over the last few years. It has been an important outlet for me and think it still will be. It's where I can wear the half-mask and be the bolder, cruder, ruder, version of myself that I don't let casual acquaintances or blood relatives see.

I need this version of me. I need the escape.

Now, with that said, I have a favor to ask those of you who know the other me and who find (I whom I tell how to find, in a moment of weakness) the "other" blog. Because minor members of my family (and my mom) may be visiting my new site, I would like to avoid link to this site, given the fact that I've been know to fucking write about fucking (or the lack thereof) and use fucking colorful language from time to fucking time.

And for the fucking record, there better be some fucking in 2008. This is getting ridiculous!

All offers will be given serious consideration.

Maybe this means the Terrible Twos are over

I knew it was coming up, but wasn't really thinking about it. But when I checked the date after work, I realized the date had already past -- the third-year anniversary of Digital Fishwrap.

It's not like it's one of the most significant dates on my calendar. There are holidays and birthdays and other people's anniversaries that are far more important. But if I were to be completely honest with myself, the start of this blog has been a significant factor in my life.

The blog got me writing again. It got me exploring feelings, even under the guise of ignoring them. I have enjoyed the exercise and ignored the obligation in turns. I've needed the release and needed the breaks too.

I was proud to write daily posts (sans Thanksgiving) for Novembers National Blog Posting Month. And I'm a little ashamed I've only written 6 (now 7) posts in the first 18 (now 19) days of this months. And I'm flat out disappointed that my Technorati rating has plummeted to a 1, even as I've gotten better at making posts and exploring new topics. I tell myself this was never about having a popular blog, but the very nature of a blog is to be public and get some feedback -- some interaction -- from other people. The problem is, I don't play the blogging game very well. I don't check other blogs sites religiously, like I once did, and leave comments on their posts to interact with them (and secretly hoping they would come check out my blog too and become regular readers).

So I guess I can live with the low ranking. Hell, I can even take it off the site completely I suppose (and just may). In the span of three years, there have been a lot of changes to the blog, including changes in jobs, cities and aspirations. It's not what it once was. It's more. And less.

Like a first love, it's special to me in a way no other web venture could be and like that first loved it has been a source of disappointment and unfulfilled potential due to naivete.

This blog is me, for better or worse, and I'm woven through it, as are all of you who take the time to read and especially those of you who have taken the time to comment.

I never really expected this experiment to last this long. It was a momentary diversion and a way to dabble into new and ever-changing technology. And now the moment has lasted three years.

Last year I didn't make note of the anniversary. I had no posts for the month of December at all. But two years ago I noted some of my favorite posts from my first year. Those are still probably among my favorites. The posts have been more infrequent in the last two years, but in honor of the third anniversary of Digital Fishwrap, here are dozen more posts I am proud of:

Parenting by MSN Messenger
An intimate birthday gift from Sheryl Crow
Now I do have to thump on Lance Armstrong
Do you think these guys vote?
My brown-eyed girl
I didn't shave my head for this
Oregon: Come for the natural beauty, stay for the majority Caucasian population
Prom corsages, birthday candles and hazard lights
They eat their young, and not so young
Grandma, I'm coming home
Life is decidedly not fair
Today, God cut the apron strings

Thanks for sharing part of the anniversary week here at the Fishwrap. And to other bloggers out there, thanks for being brave enough to share your opinions on issues and your experiences with others. And for those of you listed in the Blogroll in particular, thanks for sharing so much of yourselves with me over the years and inspiring me to want to be not just a better writer, but a better person.

I need a little less blogging and a lot more skinny dipping

Wow, I can't believe that November is almost over already. I don't know about you, but I'm not ready for December and Christmas. I am living in denial about it actually. If I close my eyes and pretend it's not happening, maybe it will all go away for a while. Slow down the world, I need a little more time.

Now that I've got that off my chest, I'm actually feeling pretty good about the fact that I've had a post every day this month, except for one day, which was Thanksgiving day. And I managed to do all that, even though I was sick for about a week. Given the fact that my posting has been pretty sporadic for most of this year and the year, before, I'm pretty proud of that. My posts this month account for nearly a third of my posts for the entire year. That, I'm not too proud of. But maybe I've got that turned around now.

I've also spent untold hours trying to add labels to some of my older posts so they are more easy to find by topic, should anyone ever want to do that. I learned that I post an awful lot about the weather, like I'm some sort of amateur meteorologist or something. There is a certain irony to the fact that I have so many posts about blogging, like I'm some sort of expert on that, but have been such a pathetic blogger, this month aside. I've still got about 100 posts to label, so I'm going to keep working on that. And I'm going to try to write fewer posts about blogging.

Not counting this post of course.

Yea, there are way too many posts about blogging and the weather, and not nearly enough about skinny dipping.

Three questions

I was having trouble coming up with a blog topic for today, so I opted to seek out a meme.

This comes from the blog DailyThree.

1. What temperature do you consider to be "cold" or when you would need to wear warm clothes?

Anything below 60 degrees is cold for me, but that makes me sound like a wimp. Certainly anything below 50 gets cold. And any temperature where you can see your breath gets into the frickin' cold category

2. What is a typical winter like in your area? What are the average temps this time of year?

Winter here is typically rainy and chilly. (Although the news today was of snow falling in the higher elevations near Portland and through the mountain passes) Compared to most parts of the country, the winters are pretty mild. Average daytime temps (off the top of my head, not looking at actual weather norms) is probably somewhere in the 50s, with nighttime lows in the the 40s or upper 30. Of course all that goes out the window when the skies are clear, and temperatures can dip down below freezing at night.

3. If you live in a cooler climate, what is it that you enjoy most about it? Why do you choose to remain living there? If you live in a warmer climate, have you ever visited places that were seasonably cold? What did you like or dislike about it?

To be honest, I don't really care for the climate, but the weather here does make this a beautiful place when the sun shines and the skies are clear. The lush greenery of the evergreen trees makes a lovely contrast with the blue skies and snow-capped mountains in the winter time. Even the fall foliage, which is mostly gone now, is picturesque. I don't live here for the climate. I live here for my family and for my job. But I lived 10 years in Southern California, 5 in Palm Springs, where the winter daytime temperature can reach 70, or close to it. Now that was a climate I loved and a place I would live again for the climate alone.

I hope wherever you are when you are reading this, you are surrounded by comfort and warmth.

Life is decidedly not fair

My mom often used to say it during those times I was complaining about the seeming inequities of life as perceived by my then childish mind and screaming that she wasn't being fair. "Life is not fair," she would say. I didn't understand what that meant then. I thought I learned what that meant in the years since. But I had no idea what that really meant until today.

A person should not have to outlive their mental faculties and physical capabilities. Children should not have to commit a parent to a nursing home against their will.

My parents and my uncle, who flew in from out of state, set out this morning to take my grandmother back to her former home state of Nebraska, to try to get her in to see her former doctors and to be closer to other family members and amid familiar surroundings for the final sad chapter of her life. They had to grudgingly admit that they are no longer able to care for their mother.

Hour to hour, minute to minute, she doesn't know who the people are that are around her, not even her own children. She sometimes masks the unfamiliarity by refusing to use people's names. She can be chatty and friendly, but the conversations are non-specific. She shows the cracks in the mental armor when asked specific questions or in other subtle ways.

Last night she was confused and scared, thinking that "her people" had dropped her off and hadn't come to take her home, even though we, her family, were gathered around her. She did not know who we were and it wasn't completely clear that she knew who she was.

This morning, she was lucid, and even chipper for a while. But when talk came of preparing to leave for their long journey, she got very upset and said she didn't want to go. She wanted to stay with her family. She knew she had been living there for years and said "This is my home."

She calmed down after a while and seemed downright chipper even. But when the time came for them to leave, she grew very agitated and upset.

"I don't want to go to Nebraska... This is my home... I want to stay with my family."

In turns my father and uncle tried to explain to her why they were doing what they were doing. They tried using reason to explain the unreasonable behavior she had been exhibiting. But she was beyond reason.

"You are killing me. You are killing me. Oh, no. Please, God no. ... God won't allow this to happen. He won't let you get away with this."

Amid the tears -- hers, theirs and our -- my dad and uncle pleaded with her to get into the wheelchair. She cried all the way to the car and once we got her into the car. I sat with her, my arm around her, while the final preparations were made, the last few items were placed in the car. It seemed such an empty gesture, but all I really could come up with to try to let her know that amid her pain and anguish that she was loved. I held things together until it was time for the final goodbyes.

As I got out of the van so my mom could slide in, I hugged my mother goodbye and held her as she sobbed. I told her it was going to be OK, though I had no conviction it would ever be OK again for any of us.

Grandma, I'm comin' home

It's only about a four-hour drive, but I have a feeling the next time I make it it's going to seem a whole lot longer.

This weekend I will probably be driving to my parent's house to say goodbye to my grandmother, a woman so important to my early life and who now I don't know nearly as well as I should. Worse yet, she usually doesn't know me at all when I do see her. At 93, her memory and her body are failing her. On one of my last visits my mom asked my grandmother if she had said hello to me and grandma said, "Oh, no one introduced us."

When I spend time with my grandmother, I will talk with her about whatever she wants to talk about. Her memories now aren't her own. The stories she tells are vivid and filled with drama, but they are no more based in fact than an elaborate work of fiction. The repetition of her tales gives the illusion they must be true, but the wiring of her brain has shorted out, connecting disparate facts in a mad jumble. She doesn't know where she is and often doesn't know who the people are she lives with, specifically her daughter -- my mother.

It's been very difficult on my mom to see her mother deteriorating and to be a stranger to her own mom.

In addition to the memory problems, there is pain that makes for sleepless nights for everyone in the house, particularly mom and grandma. The doctor recommended that my mom and her siblings consider putting their mother in a nursing home to provide a level of care they can no longer provide in the home. Grandma was in a nursing home several years ago but hated it, so my uncle moved her from Nebraska to his home in Nevada. She didn't like it there either. So my parents took her in. She isn't happy there either.

Her world has gotten very small. My old bedroom is now hers. With the aid of a walker, she would make the short trip from her bed to a glider rocker in the living room where she would spend her waking hours and take her meals. Then back to her room. Her view of the outside world is limited to a large picture window in the living room and a television stationed across a wide expanse of carpet. Since my last visit just two months ago, the walker is no longer enough to manage even that short trip and she needs the help of a wheelchair to make it.

But in spite of her limited mobility she's getting ready to make an extended trip. My parents are planning to take my grandmother back to Nebraska, perhaps as early as next week. So, I am going to make a little road trip myself of about 250 miles to see her while she is still close by.

I know that it's likely to be the last time I see her in this life. She may not know me, but I want to see her and spend a little time with her. I want to look for a few signs of the vital, robust larger-than-life figure I knew in my youth peaking out of the tiny, frail frame my grandmother now inhabits.

As a small child, a visit to grandma and grandpa's house was a Sunday ritual broken when my parents moved my brothers and me to Oregon shortly before my 8th birthday. Our family was divided, living on opposite ends of the Oregon Trail. Return trips to the Cornhusker State have been very few and far between. My last three visits to Nebraska were for funerals -- my mother's father, then her sister and most recently for one of my father's brothers.

I'm not looking forward to my next trip back there. I can't say I'm really looking forward to the trip to my parents' home either. But I would rather see my grandmother now, with what life she has left, than have our next meeting involve an even longer trip and her in a fancy box.

A couple of summer's ago I took my daughter to her first, and probably only, meeting with her great-grandmother. Much of my time with my daughter is spent with her mother's side of the family. But I wanted her to see a little more of my family. I wanted her to have an opportunity for some sort of memory with my grandmother and a bit more exposure to the other part of her heritage. I wish she would have got to know my grandparents, my grandmother and my late grandfather. But maybe that's because I wish I got to know them more and spend more time with them and with my father's parents, who both died when I was young.

So, my attempt to blog every day this month may come to a screeching halt this weekend. I may be on the road and not have an opportunity to post to the Fishwrap. I've enjoyed trying to get back into the writing groove again. But this weekend I will have something more pressing and important to do that will take priority.

Hang in there grandma, I'm coming home. I'll get there just as quick as I can. We'll both be home real soon.

Sleeping away a chance at riches

I was supposed to play in a second round of an online poker tournament yesterday. I had been looking forward to it all week. In addition to boasting about it on this blog, I had even told some friends and coworkers about it.

But what did I do when tournament day arrived?

I slept through the start of the tournament.

I though the tournament was starting in the afternoon. It trying to convert East Coast military time to normal West Coast time, I got the time wrong. So, by the time I got up and got online to check how much time I had before the tournament started I found out the tournament had already started and I was not able to get in.

I messed it up.

Yes, I am a moron. I'm learning to come to grips with my stupidity.

Time is short

OK, I'm running out of time for a post today, so I will keep this short. I messed up on my poker tournament today. Details to come.

Is it possible to suck and Blo at the same time?

In honor of National Blog Posting Month (and because I'm far too lame to attempt to participate in National Novel Writing Month) I am going to attempt for 31 straight days to make at least one blog post every day.

Given the fact that prior to this post I have only written 62 posts all frickin' year, that may be a bit overly optimistic. But I have been attempting to put a little starch back into the DigiWrapper, which has been crumpled up and tossed into a corner for far too long.

This may just be the motivation I need to get off my asterisk and get typing again.

So let the blogging begin -- for better or worse -- as part of November's National Blog Posting Month, aka NaBloPMo. Yea, it's probably Blo all right, but what the fuck else is there to do in November?

I think I am missing a step

Well, I'm getting nearer to my long-time goal of becoming a professional blogger. I finally have a PayPal account, which would allow me to accept donations from the legions of fans that happen across my blog.

I also recently signed up for a Skype account, which seemed to be the online communication software of choice for international bloggers, podcasters and vloggers.

It would be ideal. I've been needing a part-time job to help cover some bills, so this would work out perfectly.

There's only one flaw to my plan.

The piece to the puzzle that I'm missing is that I only seem to make a new post about once every blue moon, this no one come here and there is no one to donate to my new "profession."

It's always something.

Music to blog to

I haven't posted for a while, because I've been spending most of my computer time trying to get my laptop back up and running and into shape. I was able to salvage my iTunes files from my iPod.

So now that iTunes is running again, I've been able to see what I've been missing the last few months. I decided to try out some of their new functions to share some details on the music I like and some of the stuff I've bought off iTunes. So now you all can see how warped my taste's really are.

Epilogue to How long does it take to get over someone completely

Every day, it seems, someone comes here looking for answers as to how long their broken heart will take to mend. I guess that shouldn't surprise me, as I turned to all sort of online resources when I was in the midst of my own heartbreak and despair, searching for answers. Searching for something to cling to when my world collapsed around me.

Searching for hope and reaching out for help.

And I found it too, but not on some website or blog, and it wasn't some profound discovery like finding some new continent after sailing across a vast empty ocean. It was more like the ocean tide itself, creeping up ever closer before retreating again, over and over, until finally, one day I realized I was afloat again. No longer aground. That's not to say the hull hasn't scraped bottom a few times since, but I've never end up high and dry again like before.

To those of you still searching, I empathize. I truly do. And perhaps on some of the posts here you may find something that you relate to, something that resonates with you and helps in some small way. (This post is feeling an awful lot like a rerun. Note to self: Need new blog material.... oh and a Powerball ticket.) But I don't have the answers to your quandary, because only you (and hopefully your family and friends) can effect how long it will take to move on from a relationship that once meant so much and is now gone.

Perhaps having a teenage daughter has helped me. It's hard to hate and entire gender when the person you love and care most for in the world is of that enemy camp.

It was amusing to me recently to see her with a new "friend" as she called him, acting all flirty and affectionate (OK, that part didn't amuse me very much) when just the day before she had broken up with the boy who was then her boyfriend. No long-lamented suffering there. Just youthful exuberance that I could only hope doesn't, and didn't, get too exuberant, if you know what I mean.

I wish I had some great "happy ending" to write for all you heartbroken seekers out there, but I can't do that. Not yet. For the ending to my life and love story is not yet done.

Once upon a time, my every waking moment was consumed with pain and loss. Now, I can't say there is are no down times or irritations. But it's normal life shit -- frustrations with work and gas prices and trying to balance the checkbook, not getting to spend enough time with family and friends or just living life to the fullest. Normal, old, boring life passing the time until the next time I get to express the passion and love for life and another person again.

But I say it again, people, this is not an advice to the lovelorn column. Someone left a comment on an one on my earlier breakup posts and I was tempted to fire back and just say "get over it already, and get over your damn self. Move the fuck on!" But I realized that isn't fair. For many, the pain is new and fresh or lingering. And they aren't trying to pull me back into my previous pain. After all, I chose to write the things I wrote and post the things I did. And maybe, just maybe, it will help someone to have something to read, or a place to vent some of their emotions too.

But I am not whomever the modern equivalent of Ann Landers or Dear Abby would be. I'm just me and past heartbreak doesn't rule my days or my dreams anymore. In fact it's not much more than a fading memory, like when I realized the other day that I got 4 stitches once after getting cut playing baseball, but I couldn't quite remember just how I got cut or just how much it hurt.

It's just a line on life's resume.

There are more important problems in my life now, like broken computers and the inability to update my iPod. Now that, my friends, is the stuff of 21st century Shakespearean tragedy.

The computer ate my blog-work

Yea, yea, I know. I haven't been around much.

But I have good reasons.

First, I got all caught up in the College World Series and Oregon State's run to repeat as national champions, which, in case you weren't glued to ESPN like I was, they did! Go Beavs! (And thanks for noticing Gene, I was touched that you did, and commented as well.)

Then, well, then....

I was going to say I got busy, but that's not quite true. I just sort of never got back here.

Oh, I've had ideas for blog posts.

Like the day I filled up my car with gas and was so thrilled to be paying under $3 a gallon again until I realized I don't want to be happy about only paying 50-something to fill up my tank instead of 60-something. I want cheaper gas! Like under $2 a gallon. Which, sadly, we will never see again.

Or like the day when it got hot and I once again lamented the fact that I don't have air conditioning, before stopping to realize it's only hot here like one week out of the year and I don't need to spend hundreds of dollars so I can buy a window air conditions to cool one room of my apartment for a grand total of 8 days a year. It's sort of like me buying a box of condoms. Good to have around, but let's be real, will it (they) ever be needed?

Or like the day when my laptop computer died and I was going through withdrawal without being able to check for new podcasts every 5 minutes on iTunes or check my e-mail while brushing my teeth.

And perhaps the dead laptop, as much as anything, has kept me away. My old computer is slow, and cranky. Sort of like me. And we get in arguments frequently because we are both stubborn and like to do things at our own pace, which is similar, in that that pace can generally be described as "when I fucking get around to it." Of course I want to be the one who says "when I get around to it" and when I want the computer to do something, I want it right fucking now. For all the fucking being fucking bellowed around here, neither of us are is popping off any orgasms, but we are both pretty well screwed. So, when we fight, I send it (leave it) to its office, and I go off into my room and we both sulk. Me, because my iTunes and treasured photos of family and friends are now gone, and the computer because it is a pain in the ass with a bad attitude.

So I haven't posted.

Does that bother you? Does that make you unhappy? If you want more posts, why don't you pay me more!?!? Oh, that's right, you don't pay me anything! So lick my Fishwrapper and leave me alone! You'll get new posts when I'm damn good and ready!

OK, maybe the lack of air conditioning is making me a bit cranky. Crankier than normal.

Oh, shut up! No one asked you to comment!

Fucking mouthy computer.

Three strikes

Sorry, I haven't been posting much lately. I supposed that deserves some sort of explanation. There are basically three things going on. One is that I've been a bit busy, which has been good. Because in the times I haven't been busy I've been moping around a bit, and that's not so good. And I really haven't felt up to doing a lot of self analysis.

The third thing is that I got a little freaked out about my blog a while back. I was walking past a coworker's desk and saw my blog up on my colleague's computer screen in my office. My first reaction was to just shut this thing down once and for all. I've also thought about going completely the other way, and just being completely upfront about who I am. But I'm not sure I'm quite ready to do either of those things. But one thing is certain, I haven't really written much that's very interesting since the point where I got worries about people in my offline world discovering my little online journal. It has made me timid and tentative.

It's just not much fun being half-hearted.

We'll blog no lines before it's time

Sorry I haven't been posting lately. I've just had some stuff going on that I haven't quite got settled enough in my own head to post about just yet, and I've been a little busy too. So I hope to be back soon, but I'm just not quite there yet.

Sorry folks.

Post for the broken hearted

I may turn this blog into an advice-to-the-broken-hearted blog. A lot of the readers who are coming here lately (and that's not a lot) seem to be coming based on a search of "how long does it take to get over someone?," or something to that effect, leading to an old post.

I wonder if I have any helpful advice to offer? I wonder if I could make any money at it?

If you are coming here to find out how long it takes to get over someone, or how long it takes for a broken heart to mend, there is no simple answer to that question. From experience, if your heart is truly broken, it will take a while. And sometimes, when you think you are past it, or the worse of it at least, something or someone will remind you of your pain and loss. The good news is the scar tissue builds up and eventually the pain is less severe with each passing hour, or day, or week, or month ... or year. It's not a linear progression, but a progression none the less, in spite of the regression and backsliding that inevitably occurs.

For me, as I remember it, the first few months were exquisite torture. When my ex moved out of town a couple months after our breakup, that helped, especially since we worked together. Seeing her every day for a few months kept the wounds too fresh and open. After she left, I could go for short periods of time without thoughts or memories of her and us crossing my mind.
The first six months were rough. The first year in fact. In the second year I changed jobs, moved to a new state and started some whole new routines, which helped me move on even further emotionally.

By the time I felt ready to date, there were no immediate prospects. Perhaps meeting someone new and spending time with someone new would have helped things progress faster. It had in the past, even if those rebound relationships didn't amount to much. That does not mean I would suggest anyone date just to date for the sole purpose of trying to mend a broken heart. And fortunately I have had someone to talk who I hope will be part of my life for a long time to come, but so far we have been kept by miles, bad luck and bad timing. The end of that particular story is not yet written.

We all move on in our own time and in our own way. If you are nursing a broken heart, I empathize with you, my friend. It does get better, even if it doesn't feel like it ever will sometimes. The time it will take will depend on how deeply you were in love, how long you were together, the depth and number of memories you creating with your ex and how often you have to confront the memories after the break up. A few significant "anniversaries" of dates important to the relationship may have to pass before those dates quit haunting you.

I just realized, just now as I wrote that, that one of those significant dates came and went a few weeks ago with no notice by me. I had no conscious thought of a certain date in mid-March. That date was supposed to my wedding anniversary. I forgot all about it.

Hmm. Imagine that.

I am very thankful for the friends who helped me re-establish a life as an individual again, talking to me about my feelings when I needed to vent and talking about anything and everything else when I needed to forget about my pain for a while.

Now that pain is distant, like a mirage on the horizon. It's like my mind is playing tricks on me. Was I really once engaged? Was there once a person I thought I would spend the rest of my life with? Perhaps, but whereas that once defined me and comprised most every waking thought, now that is just a fact of life. A small fact getting smaller, like the name of a third grade teacher, or knowledge gleaned for a college course. It's there, tucked away in a corner. Part of who I was. Part of what has made me who I am. But only a part, seemingly less significant with each turn of the calendar page.

Yes, if you bother to read any of the recent post here, you will not that I am not always a happy guy. I have good days and bad days. But even the bad days now are about me and the life I have now, my current struggles and foibles and failures. But they aren't about a life I may have once felt I lost, or was taken from me or someone who broke my heart.

No, on second thought, I have no desire to turn this blog lamenting a lost love. I empathize with the heartbroken who may come seeking help and hope, but I have no desire to try to remember how bad it felt when I felt bad about a lost love. This blog may not yet have evolved into what it will be someday. But one thing is clear, it is not the blog it once was. The posts with broken-heart themes are still there, but they aren't all that's there. It, and I, are just struggling to find our way and dreaming of what we may be, if and when we ever grow up.

There's a song, The Lonely by Toby Keith, on his Blue Moon album. It's one of those sad, broken-hearted country songs featuring a play on words. The lonely refers to the broken hearted people who congregate at a bar to drown their sorrows and The Lonely is also the name of the band that plays there. There's a line in the song that says: "If you are here to see 'The Lonely,', it's standing room only, for 'The Lonely'."

Well, if you are here to see "The Lonely" folks, that band has moved on down the road and is touring elsewhere. Sure, the band stops in and plays a set now and again. But "The Lonely" is no longer the house band.

Confession of a cheater

I admit. During my hiatus I was cheating on my blog with a MySpace account.

OK, let me explain.

I know I'm tragically unhip. I missed the whole initial MySpace craze. I did create an account at one point a while back, but that was primarily to see what the hell my daughter was putting on her MySpace page. Shortly after a cardiac event and a frantic phone call to my daughter's mother to see is she knew what was on our daughter's MySpace page I saw the wisdom of not necessarily believing everything a teenage girl puts on her web page -- if for no other reason besides the fact that ignorance can sometimes truly be bliss.

So, I stayed away from MySpace for a while. But for some reason I got looking for something on MySpace and came across a friend who had a page. And then another. And another.

An odd thing happened. I started connecting with some old, and not so old friends. Most recently I've reconnected with friends from as far back as high school, including one now living in Europe. It's been nice to get back in touch with old friends and recall a lot of fond memories, that I didn't even know I still possessed.

I can't, I wouldn't, tell them about this blog. But in another place in cyberspace, I've found some old friends by cheating on all of you. And I don't feel a damn bit guilty about it.