My (perhaps controversial) thoughts as a "newbie" to CA.

Hi Lori-- I love the name Alpha Bear! Am sure he will be so neat to hug while you're in the hospital!!

DisneyGirl--Well, you asked for it. Am attaching here a photo of me taken by my boyfriend when we were in NYC.....as you can see I'd said adios to the paisley Cher pants, choosing the all-black clothing New Yorkers are famous for by now... It was 1966. Cigarettes were 35 cents a pack, you could walk into a drugstore and get your script for methedrine (Desoxyn) cracked after visiting a doctor and just telling him you were "down." Right. At a party Chuck showed me how to soak out and then shoot meth right into my buttock. We could go for days without blinking. Sex never climaxed, it just went on and on until Chuck fell off me or I rolled him off.

(I was letting loose. My poor parents were at a loss as to what to do. Chuck and I met and were living in DC and Chuck was ostensibly taking over my Karmann Ghia's payments but unbeknownst to me was really using my car registration to cash bad checks. In DC any crime was a federal crime. On Pennsylvania Ave he hit a diplomat and ran. I lied to cover for him. Down the road when C and I were living in Ft Lauderdale, my father--who'd hauled the KG out of Blue Plains and paid off my bank note--(saint of a man but also one who later, when I was "toying" with the idea of returning to good ole Chuck said, "Go with him and don't come back here again." It worked. No do-overs, Chuck.)

My father wrote and said the police said "someone was cashing bad checks on your car's regatistion." Chuck played dumb and then tellingly hopped a freight back to DC......he'd write a book called "Stories I Never Told My Daughter" and I have parts of chapters, but in it he lies--saying I was in cahoots with him with his criminal activities when I was being used the whole way in every way. I'm surprised he never pimped me out. (He sorta did when he pushed me to take waitressing jobs and then he'd goof off while I worked, stole my tips while I slept., etc.)

I was into art back then and had no idea his good friend and ex-roommate was Rick Hart the sculptor, who did the National Cathedral sculptural work and later I think the Vietnam Memorial sculptures of servicemen. I would have loved meeting Frederick Hart!!! But Chuck was selfish. And I think he feared I'd be drawn to Rick--which I would have, or course!! C was a poet-to-be and took himself, like many amateurs, super-seriously. I started writing high on pot and had no thoughts or cares if I was any good. One day he came on a poem still in my typewriter. His reaction after reading it was to turn to me and say facetiously, "Trishie, you want to get married?" Meaning: he was seeing me as being in competition with him, which I guess is how he viewed married life. He'd been married up to that point twice, had kids out there he didn't help support. So he ignored them and infantilized me, forever calling me "Trishie."

That hot, hot summer I lived in this outfit. I was wearing the biggest turtleneck I could find to cover up the back and chest zits, stuffed hankies in my bra to give me a chest. The wide-wale cords were super-tight. I'd "wash" them by taking a shower in them and then go outside and walk

round and round Dupont Circle till they dried.

Chuck and I were visiting his good friend Rod. No a/c--see the fan in the background? That was it. Rod let us have his tiny bedroom. I think he slept in a lounger. The "bathroom" was a closet off the bedroom containing just a toilet. It had no lights and was so shallow I couldn't close the door so my knees stuck out...me with my issues about bathroom things was mortified and 100% uncomfortable the whole visit.

Right after this photo was taken Chuck told me he didn't love me anymore.

Duh???

I was so heartbroken and stunned I stopped talking for a day. We went to Max's Kansas City and I was silent the whole time. How could I not be? Later I found out that Chuck was stepping-out while we were there--"visiting" an old gal friend.

DisneyGirl, see what you did---brought back the (strange) past? Like somebody said--Faulkner?--"The past isn't gone. It's not even past."

Hi Molly-- Glad you like the photo! O to be 130 lbs. again!

P.S. Your tip led me to order a gel pad from Amazon....just can't take another night sweating it out....

The effort at the close of my day--we're talking about 2-3 am.--involves so many little things, as it I'm sure does for all of us:

Wash and put fresh water for Panty in her two bowls, drop tablespoon of wet food into her "wet" bowl, clean her box, add dry kibbles to "dry" bowl, when she's finished clean her wet dish, then weaken and add a little more cause she's looking wan-ly up at me, do saline nasal rinse, floss and brush teeth, close living room windows, take trash and recycle to trash room, let Panty run up and down the hall, clean her bowl and put away, do the budesonide nasal rinse, feel her brush against my ankles and take down P's bowl and put little more food down, wait, then clean up her bowl and give her "that look" meaning NO MORE THAT'S IT!, take shower, fill glass with h2o, spritz of Mio, and Ice and stand here debating whether to drink it or lean over and pour it over my wet, sweating scalp, take Benadryl and Melatonin, do Nasonex spray, back to kitchen and put 1/2 tsp in Panty's bowl, wash bowl for third time and put away, then turn out kitchen light and hope she comes out and no more requests, check to see if I have anything drying on a light fixture if I've done some light laundry of panties, etc as one never knows--the renovators might be here in a few hours to finish up the job started 3 months ago of repairing hole in my hall wall--and they come o so early--tidy sofa, etc for same reason, get out robe in anticipation of them knocking, close bedroom window, aim the fans my way, throw pillows all but the buckwheat hulls one on the floor, turn off light and turn on kindle and continue reading A Bridge too Far.

Then remember that Chillow died yesterday

and that the head is glued to the pillow and the t-shirt is soaking wet.....

I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE. PANTY!

Get out of bed and dump contents of ice tray--including ice water because it's not all frozen yet--into ziplock bag. Take to bedroom and then right away go back to kitchen to put this into a second ziplock--not taking any chances and not using Dollar Tree bags either--and take to bedroom and throw this on the pillow and then suffer the lumps and bumps and too-coldness because

IT'S BETTER THAN NOTHING AT ALL!

ChiSandy, WOW! Talk about a shy introvert finding her inner Michael Phelps! (Forgive me, ladies. Am starting up my Michael Phelps mania period now that the Olympic trials are underway. I love MP, love that he beat Lochte over and over. I say this not because i'm an awful meany--well, not ALL the time, anyway--but because to me MP is that Huck Finn snaggle-toothed kid who was never the jock, never the popular cutie that I'm pretty sure RL was....it just did my heart good to see our local fella do so well, mom Debbie by his side--and that the (louse) absent father, still and always absent, diminished MP's drive and heart not one damned bit....)(And now he has a month-old son named Boomer! Boomer Phelps!)

Sandy, you came totally out of that shell. And what a great career! Law and Music!! Am so glad you have kept at it as you have. Will note your albums and check them out when I can figure out how to do that online. I've been musically unconscious re the massive changes in technology, am still sorta knocked out by the fact of the concept album idea--and when did that begin? 1960's?? My most recent purchase was an mp-3 player I got to listen to while walking to the Dental School and which died out by the time I hit the Lexington Market....so off to the back of the drawer it went...

I have no idea what I did wrong, or, even more mysteriously, what i did right.

Have you ever heard of a singer named Judy Henske?? High-Flying bird? Or Jesse Winchester? Two faves.

Hi DisneyGirl--- The book is there--always there--and I know I should get to it but right now other things call to me...it'll get done, of course. I have an epilogue chapter to write but otherwise it's pretty well finished. But you know me--I can always go back and add new details etc--story itself doesn't change--and those are the times I have the most fun. Filling it in, fleshing it out.... Will let you know when it's finito. (I can always with your email addy shoot you a chapter if you want--send it as a pdf file attachment. I've done this a number of times and it works out.)