Prologue:

 

I like to write.  It isn’t that I think that I am good, as it is something that is to me, what golf is to the duffer or knitting is to a grandmother.  It is something that I do to relax and measure how I relate to my surroundings.  I say this because I know that there are a few folks who get ‘Entry Alerts’.  I don’t want anyone feeling compelled to leave a note or even to read.

 

This is what I want to call, an ‘active journal’.  I really use this to track my daily spinnings and travails (ooh, good word! From the French I think!).  I will get into why it is out here later in this entry.

 

As to me, dag!  That would be hard for me to do, because checking my email is  part of my daily routine!  Sometimes I get behind, and sometimes I simply don’t have anything to add.  I guess that is how it goes out here …

 

WEANED UPON SOLITUDE

 

No really, I had to learn to play by myself.  My Mom was WAY ahead of the curve, trying to get me to golf, ice skate, and to write.  I say that because there weren’t any kids who were from my neighborhood in any of the classes she had me in.  And the few that were, often came from the safe and stable homes of hard-working,  ‘Families’ that, if you believe the press, is on the way of the dodo.

 

Hockey toughened me up.  Having to get up early in the mornings and pursue something that was foreign to most of my peer group, and due to the climate, unexpected of my teammates, is where I think I understood that I was going to be alone.  But I wasn’t lonely.  I had my imaginary world, where I was a big time basketball player like David Thompson (who went where to college??) or a Super Bowl MVP running back from school in fly-over country (even though they had there problems with OU and the wishbone!!).  I had learned a new word, ‘avatar’.  I had a crew sock where Linus had hisblanket.  My brother gathered shoe strings (like I said, when Pecan Sandie finally saw US together, a light went off for her …). 

 

And I lived in that world.

 

I wasn’t totally friendless.  Just as jocks, cheerleaders, and the stoners, hung together, the outcast lot, playing ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ did too.  But we only rarely crossed paths after school, and it felt like I had to always go to people’s house.  My Mom let me have little odd jobs along with my paper route, so I had the money to finance my own adventures.  Often I would drag Jan and my brother out, and we would ride the DOT to the malls and shops!

 

At some point, things change in our little family.  Dad was gone and the twins were on the way.  We moved to a nicer neighborhood (at least it was then!!), and stuff just started to …

 

… happen.

 

…AS THE MC’S CAME TO LIVE OFF THEIR NAME …

 

My best sister, my Army sister, and my darling brother.  Then you have someone ‘coded’, our sister ‘Jan’.  Why only her?  Because she is to our family what ‘Jan Brady’ was to hers … and while I was indeed ‘Greg’ to everyone else growing up, for her, I may as well have been ‘Marcia’.

 

Not going to get all coal-miner on digging here, but she brought my first wife into the family, by BEFRIENDING her after our divorce.  Not only that, SHE was the one who came to my rescue (and that is exactly what it was … perish the thought of her being 5 minutes too late).  That confirmed what I had known for awhile about her and about my life’s direction.

 

When Tommy Hearns lost to Sugar Ray Leonard, I was despondent.  It wasn’t just that he beat someone who was representing Detroit, he beat ME!  Sugar Ray was all the cool, 'in crowd' kids, the girls who wouldn’t even give me a glance, the hip boys who drove their souped-up cars, splashing me as I stood waiting for the bus.

 

Surviving my first marriage, then finding out that somehow my family was on my former wife’s side, hurt.  That was something that I can admit to being in denial about.  Jan, by her jealousy and deceit, had taken my family away from me.  Hard to remember how I chose A&T over ‘the House’, because I got into both.  But I would be away from there …

 

… had never saw Detroit as my home anyway.

 

THE FALL GUY

 

… not me, the show!  Since his name isn’t coming to me, I won’t look him up out here, but there was a guy with Lee Majors and Heather Locklear, who was a ‘professional student’ and had been to schools everywhere.  I like the idea of just going places just to go, learning things just to learn.  Another media character I glommed onto, was the cat Tom Cruise (!!!) in the movie ‘Cocktail’.  The Aunt that shook me from feeling sorry from myself, said she could see me doing something like that …

 

… noted and kept under advisement.

 

One of the things that has struck me during this redux with Mookie, is that being alone isn’t a problem … feeling LONELY is.  I feel alone, and I don’t feel like I ‘fit’.  I have my regular places, and that is well and good, but I don’t feel like I fit here, in her house, in her mind.  Being social isn’t the problem.  I think Nebraska would attest to that.  Still, I am lonely.

 

So I started my journal.

 

There is something undefined, something that isn’t in my catalogue of experiences missing here in this provincial town.  I wouldn’t mind staying here for a bit, being around for lil’ Mook, but oddly, THIS is a less safe place for me than the hometown.  As to Mookie, that is closer to a point that was brought up by a recent comment.

 

Though I do think she wants to be with someone, and she used to want that person to be me.  But for her (and unfortunately, many women like her), getting to the get, the person she want, SHE isn't the person she thought she needs to be.  It has taken her too long to readjust to what she has.  If I had to say, I would say that she would want to give us a better try…

 

…  which I would have been waiting for, for over two years now.  You do the math.  I have ran my computations.

 

I consider everyone who decides to stop by and look into this window of my life, a friend.  I appreciate the advice that I receive, because I am simply worn down having to be my own best friend.  It would be nice to have someone to tap me, get me to consider something else.  Or for me to do what I do, buck someone up, and let them know that they AREN’T in this alone, and if I can’t be there physically, I will be sending all of my ‘want it’ for you to use.

 

CROSSING THE PAINTED DESERT

 

Anyway, the comment mentioned that perhaps I was getting ready to make a less than good decision.  Noted, and taken under advisement.  There is a moon and there is a sun … shoot for one, land on the other and you still can still say you made a great accomplishment, which no one can take from you.  Besides, you may find your obligation by doing that, reaching out and pulling in what you can grasp.

 

What lies outside your grasp ..?  Leave it be, maybe someone else is meant to grab it.  Take what you have, cause the dealing is done!  Time to go and count your winnings!

 

I want to give someone away at a wedding, and I hope to have three chances to do that.  I want to provide my step mother some company, and I want to give someone a great romantic partner, who would never tire of doing for them, and from picking them up and sweeping them off their feet.

 

There is a market for cats like that, and I will find it!