pantoum's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW TO STOP KILLING YOURSELF
It's nineteen years today since he last held • Ugh. Read that after feeling completely out of place with my chorus pals last night. The board met for dinner than went en masse to the Gay Men's Chorus's anniversary concert (which was fantastic). My pals were going out for ice cream after the show, but I just wanted to be alone so I came home, sat on my deck and smoked and drank two glasses of red wine. (Killing myself in slo-mo, I reckon.) My friend Zulu called this morning, said she was in a rental car driving from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham and needed to reschedule our lunch date tomorrow. What up? Her mom had lost weight suddenly and was having horrible stomach pain, was really ill. She went to the emergency room and they ruled out appendicitis, ovarian cyst, a couple of things, didn't know what was wrong, then just sort of left her there for hours, in horrible pain. She called her other daughter, a nurse, who started a morphine drip on her own mother after calling some doctor pals and basically throwing the world's largest hissy fit in order to get some a-c-t-i-o-n. Good thing too because she wound up in emergency surgery to remove six feet of necrotic intestine. She coulda died while they left her lying there. Lawd. I have to say that, when I realized I CAN make a clean break, sell most of my stuff, downsize, and just move the hell on even if it's not the wisest financial decision, I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I am not bound to the house the Ginger and I chose with no options. I don't have to hold onto it for five years because that might be the best financial decision, can choose to sell it or rent it out tomorrow. This house feels like such a weight to me right now, a financial commitment that we were both supposed to be paying for that has left me struggling. I can sell the huge-ass desk that the Ginger gave me (that I refuse to move again), sell the antique china hutch and matching buffet that just take up space. Sell the cello and one of my guitars. Give up on my failing found poem series from Martha Stewart Living and donate that huge stack of magazines to a nursing home or hospital. Sell all those the albums I never listen to and throw away the cassettes I rarely listen to too. And I can buy myself an iPod with the money. Or use it to pay down the credit card I stupidly let the Ginger transfer money to (because her interest rate was so high). I am only optionless when I convince myself that I am. • And now, a completely new topic. A woman in my writing group who was very kind to her aunt, who turned out to be a homophobe who wrote her out of her will in a nasty and hurtful way, has been decorating her aunt's grave and showed me a photo of two plastic hands sticking up out of the grave (which had a witch's hat on it and a sign that said "Help! It's hot down here"). Wow. 2:02 p.m. - 2005-06-19 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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