Happy mothers day in Normal entries

I’m writing to keep from going mad,or, perhaps to exacerbate madness, but, most likely, to purge demons. Purged one yesterday; ex-wife. To tie that purge in with the general tone of most of the last weeks day to day; I haven’t really been watching TV marathons on the computer so much as listening to them, the screen is too bright. I won’t name the show but it relies heavily on R&B and pop tracks the sort of shit Sunny would cover. I had this volkswagon bus once, it broke down beyond repair in Dayton WA, thirty miles or so east of Walla Walla. I loved that bus, it took me two seconds and two hundred bucks to exchange it for a dodge dart. That bus didn’t kill my dog or sell my house. So, that’s sort of that. Oh, and the bus played whatever I put in the tape deck, which didn’t preclude pop or R&B but hardly relied on it. If it wasn’t for the first wife that came with the bus it’s tape deck would have been rife with travesties of decency, aurally at least.

There was a big drainage problem in this house and workmen had to yank up the pipe that likely hasn’t been touched since 1947 (no that’s not hyperbole) that goes to the city sewer system which, likely, predates WWII though I can’t swear to that that’s where I’d place my Jackson. Among the things that needed to be done was remove two large weed trees which my mom wanted to call Cyprus and which I wanted to call a security hazard (you can’t see the street from any but one bedroom, I’ll get to that in a minute) . I can’t imagine the roots of those things doing much damage, but the workmen claimed they did. No love lost between me and those things.

The one room you can see the sidewalk and street coming to the front of the house is what was in later years my dads bedroom. My earliest memory of it was when it was my parents room and I had killed a spider and was haunted by it in my dreams and came into their room to sleep with them. The shadows from what then were Great Elms outside the house cast eightlegs and a body on the ceiling and walls. My little sister cleaned out the room after my fathers death. Sort of. I honestly don’t know why and I didn’t ask. I figured and still figure it was a process for her. It is so not a process for me that I’ve kept the door closed and not thought about what it would entail to clean the rest of the room. It’s the door right before entering the attic I’ve been cooped up in for the last week, month, three years. I opened it a few days ago to get a sense of what the workmen were doing without having to take in too much light.

I closed it this morning. It’s a few weeks shy of a year since my fathers death. I don’t know that it’s sunk in properly. Grieving? I don’t know, besides a pity party or two that I’ve held for myself that no one else was invited too, years and years ago, I have grieved for many things. I grieved for Herschel. I half grieved for Levi, I shed some tears for Levi at least, mostly for Levi, in part for my daughter.

What? Why? Yeah, no, her and Levi weren’t close or really had much to do with one another or, honestly, ever shared a zip code. When I divorced my first wife — wait, no, when I separated from her with the intent to divorce somewhere down the line, my kids went into those stupid stereotype that you just want to smack off a shrinks face, broken home stereotypes, and no matter who or what you are you find yourself in the role that compliments it. For me that meant the guilty father who overcompensates. Now that’d make sense if I was an every other weekend dad; I was not. I had the kids Wednesday through Saturday. My son played, oh shit I don’t remember the shrink names any longer, he was very good as if by being very good the parents would rally around him or, as some shrinks might say, because he thought being a bad chil;d is why we split. Yeah, no, most people couldn’t tell the difference between the normal good sam and the broken home extra good sam.

The daughter was different. God it went on for years and years, she’d always try to engage one parent or the other in a discussion of reconciliation. I think she’s a very bright young woman and was a very bright child. It’s true, objectively. I have never called her subtle, ever, not even with a smile. And so that’s part of why my daughter is involved in Levi grieving. She didn’t like Sunny. Not the point. The point is Levi’s death is why I would never consider reconciling with my second wife, and the persistant notion of reconciliation always makes me think of my daughter.

If I were throwing a pity party now instead of purging red blood cells that won’t carry oxegyn properly, perhaps or perhaps some other demon real or imagined, I’d rag on Tennyson for the second time this year with something along the lines of ‘ … It is better to have loved and lost my ass’. Keep in mind I loved that fat little couch eating dog, if he had killed the ex wife perhaps I wouldn’t have forgiven him, but, no, it was the other way around.

That is, honestly, the difference between romantic love and love of a child or a pet. Hmmm, this might be the second time this year for this as well, don’t fuck with my oxegyn deprived cells or whatever, Love of a child or pet really is unconditional. Doesn’t make it better or worse, though one could argue either side, this one could without even trying hard, but it makes it different. If, for instance, Levi had called me and said he was in a hotel room with a dead junkie, he’d be calling for me to get him out of there and I would without judgment. Sunny not only expected to stay in the hot parking lot with the cops explaining how I was the estranged husband and no I wasn’t there and no I don’t know if she’s ok or sober or a danger to herself or others, but expected me to take her to my house where she immediately got on the phone to retell the story with tears to everyone in the entire world. By six o’clock I had called her brother and said ‘I can’t take one more minute of this will take her away?’ Levi I would have hid under the bed with. Or, for that matter, either of my children, though they would have both gotten stern paternal lectures after the danger had passed.

That’s the different between unconditional love and romantic. My kids and my pets get my protection no matter what, they don’t have to follow my moral code, they are integrated into my personal moral code. I’d be disappointed if I had to bury a dead hooker for my son, but I’d do it in a heartbeat and it wouldn’t mitigate my love for him. I’d do it for my best friend, though that’d pretty much be the end of the friendship. I wouldn’t do it for any romantic entanglement to date and it would be the end and I might even call the cops. I am not in favor of dead hookers and I don’t think it’s funny. Change it to dead Steward or self employed, I don’t care, I will protect my kids and my pets.

This is what makes unconditional love so very far from true love. For one thing it’s real. I mean I don’t know, when I’m in it I never think “is this romantic love true or false?” Though, like you, with more or less frequency I’ve certainly slept with someone I wasn’t in love with at all and again did not consider that false love or the possible ramifications of the future or chipping away at my heart or any other such happy horseshit, which is not to say that shit doesn’t get messy, it’s just not messy for long.

Now, being a child, an adult child, passing his dead fathers room almost on the eve of the anniversary of his death — that I’ve never quite dealt with before. I did close the door earlier today. I don’t know. I think my father could have written this entry, probably better in a scholarly sense, definitely more entertaining (he was a funny man) probably colder in a human sense though this entry isn’t very warm. I’m just saying I don’t think my father was quite invested in love or family though he seemed to have a deep appreciation for duty and tradition. There are reasons to dispute that if on no other grounds than it isn’t very polite. It’s not. I think it’s probably true; I am not traumatized by that. I’m the prodigal son. I strongly suggest that if you don’t really know that story just the saying and the context you’ve heard it used in, look it up, it’s not a good thing.

I think my father really loved my oldest sister and if he were writing this entry that’s who it would be about. I think my father really enjoyed me, like a short little smart ass peer. I think my other two siblings probably struggle with that stuff. Especially my little sister who never had children of her own. My brother, a very wise man, is sort of going through things with his own daughter and grandson now that may give him pause. I don’t think my father’s seemingly lack of understanding of love conditional or otherwise was a character flaw at least not in and of itself, there were a lot of things he didn’t quite understand. Landscaping for instance and home repair, hence the razing of bushes and replacement of pipes.

He could probably tell about a different kind of love altogether, in that respect he was very much like Sunny; love of an audience. It’s temporary but intense and I’m not ashamed to admit how great that is, I just don’t crave it. There really isn’t any other feeling quite like taking a bow on a stage and see people rise from their seats applauding. I know, some people have stage fright, some people, too, have intimacy issues; the solution is exactly the same, quit whining and just do it. Um, yes, solution, not cure, there is no cure. Famous actors and second graders at the school play get sick to their stomach before a performance. Why do the famous ones do it a second time? The sick is over ‘what if I’m not good enough? What if they don’t love me?’ The continuation is because — what if they do?

Both my dad and sunny were very good at working a crowd. When you live behind the curtain though (um, maybe that’s a bad analogy, I mean when you’re with the crowd worker after the show …) and the paint comes off … yeah, I’m about to lose a good point in a bad sentence. If we are going to call that a form of love, it’s lost after every show. My dad and Sunny both aren’t really very close to anyone, though hundreds would swear that wasn’t true. Again, this isn’t a pity party. You know people like this, you just might not know you are the audience, or, in a kinder way, you might not know just how many people you know like this. I have absolutely no idea what attracts me to that character type, it might really be as simple as ‘the devil you know’.

That character type will also tell you one day ‘What if everybody figures out that I’m a fraud? That I am not qualified for …anything. I just do the monkey dance and people clap.’ Note that moment so that next time you go fishing you can tie that lure on, it’s a good one.

So for some amount of time I was like Schroeder, the peanuts character, head down and my chubby little cartoon fingers banging at the keyboard. I stopped to answer the phone to talk to a real person. Thank god the momentum was breeched. There is a little bit of love of an audience in on-line journaling. There is absolutely no reason this entry needs be seen by anyone and yet I’ll post it … Now