Time

Life is as I always seem to say with exceeding tediousity, just one thing after another. I last posted in July when I had just moved into this house. Now I am here six months and beginning to think of this as home and the loss of the other home is less painful. They say it takes one month to recover from a divorce for every year you were married. Calculating from when I first asked for the divorce that would mean I'll be well again by the last day of Julyl

Sandra Tsing Loh in The Atlantic bemoans (or celebrates) the end of her twenty-year marriage and I can relate...

In any case, here’s my final piece of advice: avoid marriage—or you too may suffer the emotional pain, the humiliation, and the logistical difficulty, not to mention the expense, of breaking up a long-term union at midlife for something as demonstrably fleeting as love.

July

For the past ten Julys I've spent two weeks in upstate New York but for this one I am home. I realized I had only been to the parade in this town once in the eleven years I've lived here. But I hate parades so I never missed it. I went this year and found that my feelings on the matter have remained the same. There is something about sitting still watching sweaty people in costumes or other people who seem randomly picked to ride in cars, progressing slowly in front of one that is not that exciting.

Change of plans

I did that thing that I have scorned others for...got into a real estate deal and backed out. I'm not moving to the country. I'm not rehabbing the old farmhouse on fifteen acres. I'm staying in the suburbs. I realized as much as I tried to believe that I could move an hour from my kids and still be a good mother, in my heart of hearts, I don't believe it.

So my fantasy of country life will have to wait for my dotage.

New Life

Today I signed the papers making my old house not my house anymore. This thing was supposed to have happened in December so all winter long what was once beloved has been empty. It would all be very tragic for me I think if not for the prospect of a new life in the country.

I'm moving to a house that needs everything done to it from pouring the foundation to the new roof and all of the infestations and vagaries in between. But the house has big windows and fews of mountains and sits on fifteen wooded acres with a pond. My task for the next...how many years?...will be to reclaim what is charming and decrepit, but what I'm really thinking about is enlarging the pond so I can swim all summer.

Someone Remembers

my work in advertising even while I can hardly recall that life at all. My old Milkbone dog biscuit commercial is up on YouTube and it got this comment:iwashko has replied to your comment on Milk Bone Dog Biscuits commercial, a testimonial of sorts:
" I am 29 years old and i have been quoting this commercial ever since we got our dog last year. The first time I gave her a milk bone I quoted the kid in the commercial. Can't believe I remembered that. My wife gives me a funny look everytime I say it. I drag out the word "PAL" though. yes i know it's wierd"