Unrequited

The night has shifted toward morning--for most. We are just getting to sheep. Light from downstairs drifts in through the door. I roll over and regard her face. "Are you happy?" I ask.

She looks happy. Happy to be at home at least; happy that another work day is done, happy that her child is asleep, happy to be lying in bed. There is a relaxed, overtired giddy nature about her at these times that make them one of my favorite times to talk. Her guard is down and she has more patience for my questions.

"Is this one of those projecting questions?" My little student of Psychology has been paying attention but it wasn't a statement projecting my feelings onto her. It was an honest question though I suppose it could have been.

She brushes off the question smoothly with an off hand joke and turns it around on me. "Are you?"

I try to articulate an answer but the words come slowly for me. She often thinks I hesitate on purpose; that my silence is a lack of desire to say what is on my mind. Truth is I don't usually know what is on my mind or how to express it.

"I'm worried." I tell her. "I'm worried about my job, the economy the future". Everything is changing quickly in the world. It has been years since I've felt ahead of the curve.

But there is more, I want her to be happy. I think I am searching for a little stability for myself. I don't know if we will live together for another two months or another two years sometimes. I am not ready for it to end.

* * *

Devils night. We are tired. I coax her off the couch and into her Halloween costume. She wants me to take nine inches off the length of her skirt. I try to do it while it is on the floor and find it an impossible task. She puts the skirt back on, turns on re-runs of Friends and stands in front of the TV while I make jagged cuts along the hem.

The process is still not easy. I accidentally cut into to the black sweat pants she is wearing under the skirt and we break down in a fit of giggles. She takes off the pants and now is in fear of her legs being cut, more laughter make it hard for me to make even cuts in the flimsy material.

Our banter over the skirts length, or lack there of, is comical. She is worried she looks like a kid. She keeps looking at herself in the mirror, further slowing the over all process. I don't mind. I am not in a hurry to leave her side. She looks beautiful. She will out shine everyone at the Halloween party. Still, she has no confidence in her appearance.

It is a good night. One that can never be easily explained or appreciated the next day around the water cooler when someone asks, "What did you do last night?"

There is a saying, amongst the pictures and phrases she put together as a collage for my birthday. It reads, "Simple moments make great memories." That moment is one I want to remember.

Friday Night

Friday night.

I go out with L after her hockey game. L, her boyfriend and I meet up with other members of the team at 24 Seconds bar and grill. Two blond girls across the table catch me eye. They are sitting and talking close. One plays on the team, the other I assume is her girlfriend. A lot of dykes play female hockey. It turns out I'm wrong.

"So what's your story?" The hockey player asks after a minimal amount of small talk. "Are you married, single how old are you?"

"I'm 44."

"Seriously, I would have thought you were in your mid-thirties." It is flattering. To #1 i'm just old.

"Ok, I'm in my mid-thirties."

"Are you?"

"What do you want me to be?" We go around a couple more times, good naturedly.

L and her boyfriend end up leaving. "You're not going are you?" The hockey player asks, she is obviously the spokes person of the pair though both are eyeing me up and down.

"No I think I can stay a bit longer, " I concede. I slip off to the bathroom. When I come back I sit between the two. Both are attractive.

"All right now give me your stories," I say to the quieter of the two. She defects the question and begins to the me about her friend. I get the stories eventually. I'm not surprised. The are both mid-thirties, both married (though one by common law), both have one or more kids, both unhappy at home. We end up closing the bar then going a few blocks West for breakfast. I leave them with a handshake and a nice to meet you. I promise to make it to another game.

They are so stereotypical it's almost cliche. I'd like to see something different for a change. I don't think there is anything different out there.

Anyone will do tonight,
Anyone will do tonight,
Close your eyes, just settle, settle
Close your eyes, just settle, settle

Well I got a bad feeling about this, I got a bad feeling about this,
(To hell with you and all your friends it's on)...A Decade Under The Influence, Taking Back Sunday

Where Are You Going

Our ancestors followed the herd, migrated west, boarded ships for a distant land. It was do or die. It was survival. The times they are a changing. Technology is changing the way we live faster then ever before. Are people being left behind? Globalization, shifting jobs, do careers last forever anymore?

We live too long, the need to reinvent ourselves should be taught in school. We are still teach our children trades as if they will last them a lifetime. The U.S. is in decline. A decline feed by it own corporations. The baby-boomers will be the last generation to live a comfortable retirement.

Yeh, I've got all these thoughts in my head; swirling around. I wonder how long my current job situation will last. What will I be qualified to do when it ends? What jobs will my children obtain? Will they be able to afford houses and families? What direction should I advise #1 to go. What should she take in college. Which job won't be farmed out overseas to the lowest bidder?

In My Head

It seems these days I have little time and little drive outside my disjointed new routine. Sometimes I wonder if we fill up our lives with things just to avoid facing ourselves. Priorities.

I glance at the roller coaster financial market. My 401K's have not advanced in years. The American auto industry can be bought up by the next dot com millionaire but will probably be bought by a billionaire from India. They will milk the last remain knowledge from the carcass and then toss it away. The technical centers GM and Ford built in those foreign countries will take over and Detroit will become the first Urban dust bowl (if you don't count Flint).

And where will that leave me? Will I be prostituting my knowledge in some country far from home just to survive? Or will I throw in the towel and become the next new greeter at Wal-Mart? We live too long, the world is changing too fast. Keeping up with the changes in the job market, the social norms, the technology, it is more then we can handle. More then I can handle.

So I turn my head away. I am passed crossing my finger. Passed being afraid. People worry about tomorrow, I worry about the 18,000 tomorrows after that and hope it will be more like only 1800.

Settled, Settle, Set

Last night Alexis dragged me to see Nights in Rodanthe. Not only a chick flick, but a chick flick where the two main actors have no chemistry and the story is a transparent by the numbers Hollywood bore. I've just checked the reviews, seems the critics agree.

Alexis liked the movie but then again she still believes in that kind of love. I don't. I don't think I can even fool myself into believing it anymore. "I won't settle," she tells me later after the movie at Goldies-- the bar with the coldest beer ever. She thinks I've settled. I look into my future and I see no one. So I have decided not to spend my time alone. I don't think that is settling. Perhaps I've settled because I am not open to meeting new people. That can be said to be true.

The next day #1 and I pack the dog into the car and head off to see the fall colors. We recap our evenings. Both revolve around the stupid things women do. "Perhaps I do hate women," I conclude. She has often accused me of just that. I've never really thought it true before most of my friends are women. "But you are okay," I continue and somehow she is. The difference may be subtle, it my just be all in my head but there is a practicality about the way she approaches relationships that I envy.

"Yeah, well I don't like guys very much either but you are not to bad."

Perhaps that is part of what has brought us together. Beneath the needs, the loneliness, the desire-- we fit into each others lives.

Back at Goldies I tell Alexis, "over the last fives years I've gotten more out of my friendships then any relationship."

As Summer Turns To Fall

She tells me she hates the cold. The thermostat is one of the things we will be fighting over this winter. We lay awake. She tells me about sleeping outside of her school at fourteen or fifteen years old, all matter of fact. "If you sleep in one of those tube slides you need to put a rock at the bottom so your feet don't slip out."

I roll over and stare at her in the dark. She is a dark silhouette within the blackness of the covers. I try to form words of condolence. I want to explain that no one should have to go through that but she doesn't want pity or sympathy. It is what it is and she has seen worse. I have not seen worse.

If anyone I know deserves a chance to make something of herself it is her. They say we all need our own goals, our own passions. Perhaps helping others is my passion, maybe it is what makes me feel good inside.