the great saturday night swindle

i've been having car trouble. when i left work on friday, my car was missing, idling down at stops and wouldn't go over 60 mph. i made it home and called the garage but they couldn't take me until monday morning. i called into work on saturday because i was afraid to drive barry's car, which has had 3 new clutches installed in the past year. sure enough....sunday morning, barry's clutch went out. he had his towed and i drove mine to the shop. i got it back today at a cost of $750., which i put on my credit card. i've had the card for three years and this is the second time i've used it, even though they recently sent me a platinum card and raised my limit to $10,000. and on top of that, the dogs were at the last of their food and i was out of yogurt, which is about the only thing i'm hungry for anymore. and, barry got a ticket on his car for being parked illegally when he broke down. we think that rick, who bought the church across from barry's breakdown spot, may have called a complaint to the cops but i'm not sure. he's weird enough to do it....more on him, later.
so anyway, we walked over to get my car this afternoon and i told barry as we walked what the neighborhood used to look like. it suddenly dawned on me that i've been walking those same sidewalks for over 50 years. i've seen the area go way, way down and bounce back to its current state. and i passed the site of my first sexual assignation, which brought back memories. very strange.

i'm OLD!!!

this has suddenly dawned on me. the other day while driving, barry and i got into a conversation about our downtown and how it used to be. we talked about the buildings and businesses that are no longer there and how different it was then, how going downtown was an event and how there was so much to do.
then, the next day, i got into a conversation with one of the guys at work who is roughly my age, about the 60's. he was in town then and we never crossed paths but we had alot of similar experiences. it just reinforced how different the times were then and how much fun it was.
then, worst of all, someone took a candid photo of me and sent me an email copy. I DON'T LOOK LIKE THAT! good god, one of the drawbacks of never having your photo taken is that, when you finally do, you are not looking at the same person who was in that last photo, years before.
and then, i ran into someone i knew in the 70's from the bars at the thrift store. donny was the all-american boy, who everyone lusted after. he was southern and had that southern charm and even in the long hair days, always had the jock, cleancut look. he was a sculptor who made these really disturbing life sized figures. they looked like people who were decomposing while alive. not something that you'd want to live with. he was really a funny guy, though, not all dark. he raised orchids in this huge slum apartment that he paid huge bills to heat all winter so his orchids wouldn't freeze. well....i ran into him. he has shoulder length, unkempt hair, is missing several teeth and his nose has somehow become twisted. he looked VERY bad. we talked for a long time, he's working in a factory (he has an art masters), living with his sister and never goes out, hasn't had sex since the advent of aids.
just kill me now.

so here's my other bird story. when i was hired at my current job, one of the things that i noticed and talked about the first day was a bird that was flying around inside one of the enclosed concourses. they told me that the bird had been inside for over a year and that it had gotten trapped indoors when one of the shoeshine men had propped open the automatic doors. it was a sparrow, small, and seemed to be fairly well adjusted to so many people being around. i'd see it fly through and swoop down wherever people had been eating and left things behind.
it really bothered me that it was trapped and i worried about it. i should say that i'm really sensitive about animals. i don't even have conventional nightmares about being chased or monsters or that sort of thing. my nightmares always involve hurt animals or someone hurting animals, which literally usually hurls me out of bed.
so, one day i heard the bird singing at work and followed the sound. the sparrow was sitting in one of the overhead skylights, in the sun and i could see overhead that there were birds flying back and forth, wheeling about in the sky. the sparrow was singing to them but trapped beneath the glass. okay....nightmare time. i'd wake up in the middle of the night, thinking about that trapped bird and feeling horrible, plotting ways to disable the automatic doors so it might get free, thinking of wildlife places i could call and complain to, etc but mainly, just really feeling like shit because of that bird.
well....one day a woman comes into the store and says "did you know that there's a bird trapped in your window?". long story short, after maneuvering the displays and having help from a co-worker....I CAUGHT THE BIRD!!! i took it out to the lobby, had the service people open the doors for me and freed it. i felt so wonderful, thinking that if i didn't accomplish anything else, i'd freed that bird. it was almost spiritual, feeling i'd been in the right place at the right time and had managed to set it free.
until the next day. i went back to work and the bird was back inside the concourse. it had flown back indoors. subsequently, talking to barry about it, he told me that when he worked at home depot there were birds that had learned to fly under the electric eye of the doors so they could come indoors and peck the bags of birdseed open and eat it. he said there was a whole group of them who did it, flying in and out at will.
the bird is still in the concourse. it flies around, free loading on dropped crumbs and flying in and out of the food places, gorging on free food with no predators to worry it, in a climate controlled environment.
there are all sorts of philisophical and spiritual conclusions i could draw here. i'd rather not think about it.

uncomfortable night. i ate mac and cheese before bed, so i guess it's the equivalent of dreams of a rarebit fiend, sort of. when i came downstairs, i went into the kitchen and turned on the light. my house sits on a hill, so the windows in some of the rooms look out on a wall about 5 feet high and the hill itself, which was cut to situate the house. anyway, when i looked out the window there was a young deer standing on top of the wall, less than ten feet from me. she saw me but didn't act frightened, just kept eating the greenery. i watched her for about half an hour. when i was little, one of the things that i wanted more than anything was to see deer and i never did. now, they come up to the windows, even with the dogs here.
it's strange living here, so close to nature and so close to the city. the property that i'm on backs into a park and on one side is virgin forest that extends about ten miles around the hillside into another very large park. i see so many animals and birds.
i told one of the girls at work my cardinal story: last year, in the spring, i was driving home from work at about 7am. i was coming thru an area that is public housing, sort of rough, when i noticed a cardinal in the oncoming lane across from me, just sitting in the street. there was a car coming and as it went by, less than six inches from the bird, i could see in my mirror that the bird didn't even move. i turned around and went back and the bird still sat there and let me pick it up without much fuss. it was young, probably just out of the nest. i picked it up and took it to a tree on the side of the street and sat it on a branch and started to walk away when the bird made its first sound, a really distressed screech. i turned around and, i swear, the bird was looking me in the eye. it was this weird, cross-species contact that i've never had with a bird before. i went back and picked it up, again, and took it to my car, unsure what to do. the bird sat in my lap, totally unalarmed. by the time i got home, i had decided that it would have to take its chances on its own, so i took it into the woods across the street and sat it on a branch in one of the trees where it seemed content. i went back about an hour later and it was gone. every few days after that, i would go back and look for it and, being who i am, i'd talk to it and say that i hoped it was alright.
fast forward a month or two and i'm sitting at the computer, as i am now, with all of the windows open. i looked up and there was a cardinal, hovering like a hummingbird, in the doorway between the living and dining room. i was so surprised i just said, "oh, you can't be in here", at which the bird flew into the kitchen and out the window, obviously knowing its way.
now, i'm not saying it is the same bird...altho, it might be. maybe it came to let me know that it was alright and had survived. i'd really like to think so. and it was also amazing, there were young cardinals outside the back door that year, over and over, being watched by the mother bird while they foraged. i never saw cardinals there, before, it being so enclosed.

I HAVE COMMITMENT ISSUES, OKAY??!!

i started this blog as a way to pass time during my sleepless nights. then, i quit my last job and suddenly lost my insomnia. so i haven't really been sure if this is worth continuing since it has lost its therapeutic aspect and now is just an exercise in vanity. plus, i hate the feeling that i have to post something here, simply because it IS here.

so....where to begin? i have more or less lost my prostate infection, that's good news. my health insurance kicked in so i broke down and went to my doctor, whom i hate. she's a young woman who has an edge to her that i find unappealing. plus, she always says something to me when i see her that pisses me off. this time, she made an issue of thae fact that i'm sexually active (at my age, imagine!) and said that i needed an hiv test because "people with hiv have a fractionally larger percentage of prostate infections". then, when she examined me after i had described my symptoms including my testicles swelling, she's standing there with my balls in her hand and says, "did you say these went DOWN???". long story short, i was on antibiotics for six weeks and most of the problem is gone. still some sensitivity but i think i'll wait and see how it plays out. fortunately, the doctor has moved to another office several miles from me, so i have a real legitimate excuse to transfer to someone else (male) in the group.

let's see. barry's sister, robin, who always disliked me has suddenly become my new best friend, she'd like to think. barry and i have lived together since thanksgiving 1980. during most of that time, she was distant to him and i didn't even exist. when their mother, father and aunt all went into decline and had to be cared for, it forced some interactions and they became closer...and i still didn't exist. anyway, a few years ago, robin was diagnosed with breast cancer and had extensive chemo. she and he became much closer during that time and i, somewhat grudgingly, began to be mentioned and even spoken to. i should say that during this time, she also married her longtime boyfriend, who is black, and barry was the only one of the family to openly accept him and go out of his way to make him feel welcome. so, fast forward...a few months ago, robin called with the news that the cancer had not been eradicated and had moved into her brain and was a major growth. she invited BOTH of us to her home, introduced me to her husband and has been going out of her way to be friendly. the cancer, which was once again treated with chemo, she now says is in remission, again, tho her husband privately showed me the x-rays and told me that she had limited time left. i don't know what to believe and i really don't have any interest in becoming her new friend, just because she acted shitty all of those years and now may regret it.

my job? not bad. i had a few rough patches at the beginning, mostly personality conflicts but i think they are more or less straightened out or, at least, the same people are afraid to fuck with me now.

i'll continue this later...aol is becoming upset that i haven't navigated.