07-04-04 - 10:00 p.m.
it's a good night to sit on one's patio/covered carport, drinking beer and watching fireworks explode over the nevada desert. i did just that, alone and loving it, listening to patti scialfa and reflecting on contentment or a lack of it, redemption and a desire for it, and love and a need for it.
the sweet lummox who lured with me ice cream and promptly tried to bully his way into my finances and future really disgusted me, yet just today my pulse was quickened by a sexy silver tongued devil in a dirty denim shirt, who found his way to my register not once, but twice, on the 4th of july.
you're awfully cute, he told me the second time, with one of those direct looks that i am so very capable of returning.
yeah, i thought, and you're probably awfully married.
apparently, i am not that disgusted.
back to the patio, the beer, the fireworks. back to redemption. a need for it.
i'm not sure why; maybe it was menopausal hormones and pre-natal nutsies, but berries and i had a face-to-face screaming match a few nights ago; she was bratty and disrespectful enough to be forced to a sitting position; a moment that shocked and filled her with shrieking indignation; this is, afterall, a child who has never been spanked. she told me she was sick of me, my mood swings, my stupid relationships, she told me i was a psycho from a long line of psychos. forget my affection for anthony perkins; the term "psycho" does not sit well with me. after a failed attempt at suicide on an air force base in germany, my father spent two years in the "psycho" ward of a mental hospital and pretty much abandoned us in a foreign country. i have grown beyond the hurt but inherited his genetic depression. i take medication, and have for many years, and for the most part, prozac to me is like lipstick or hair gel. it makes me prettier. just don't call me psycho.
so she wants to return to california, my berries, in spite of the fact that the father of her child has adapted to this new state and loves his job and is busy making friends. california is golden; expensive and competitive, but she doesn't care. she will get a job and an apartment and raise the baby on her own if she has to. this is what breaks my heart, you see, this struggle for independence and contentment. i have raised two babies pretty much on my own, back when it was much easier, but it was no easy task and i longed for love and the support of family. this is what hurts, you see; her willingness to scrap love and the support of family for what i know is an empty empty life.
so i promised her money; the money i've been saving for a lifetime desire; a horse. go back to california, i told her, but inside i was thinking about this monstrosity of a house i'm buying; big enough for grandchildren and horses.
i am so tired of sacrifice with a smile.
don't tell, but i like my job at walmart. i have made friends; lost young souls who drift to me thinking i'm cool because i act my shoe size instead of my age. i had a barbeque under strings of silly lights; it began with babies scribbling energetically on pavement with colored chalk and ended with someone vomiting cape cods into the sand of my back yard.
i think i'll retire now and fall asleep to the thomas crown affair, the original one, the beautiful one, with faye dunaway and steve mcqueen. it's the movie that taught me how to kiss. oh to be kissed by steve mcqueen....