848 MWG- The Return Home

Wednesday, August 23, 2006.

I returned from Florida on Wednesday, the 16th. A friend picked me up at the Newark airport, at a little after 4 pm. He was funny - for some reason he didn't want to park in the short-term lot, so he went 'round and 'round past the arrivals doors until he spotted me, and then he had to go around again to get into position to pull over near where I was standing.

The plan was that we would pick up his daughter, who lives near the stadium, and we three'd go to dinner. I was looking forward to meeting his oldest daughter (early 30s-ish), partly because he was excited about it. I was aware he and his daughters have a strained relationship, stemming from his divorce from their mother. He wasn't sure exactly where she lived, so he called her on the cell when we left the airport. There followed much missing of exits, U-turns, reports of "We're heading south on 3", "Now we've heading north on 3", "South on 3 again", "We just passed the Ramada" and so on. And then a car zoomed past us, and a female arm waved out the window, and he said "That's her." Egads! I couldn't help wondering, if they decided to meet mid-interstate highway, wouldn't it have been easier to simply park at the Ramada, and say, "We're in the Ramada parking lot?"

I guess I don't understand city folk.

We followed her to Hoboken, and ended up at "Lua", on a street or boulevard named after Frank Sinatra, right on the riverfront, with a view across the river encompassing all of Manhattan Island. Pretty impressive. That's the Empire State Building behind the (tall) stop sign. Look at the view, and then consider the prices of the drinks, and the menu. He and I were both under the impression that it was us three, but apparently she called 5 or 6 of her closest friends to join us. As it turned out, 2 more friends coincidentally showed up. We sat in the bar until our group got too large, then we moved to tables outside (where the photo was taken). All the friends were in their early thirties, except for one guy (wearing several thousand dollars of Wall Street suit and trimmings) who was 47. The girls kept trying to hook me up with him. I protested that "he's a BABY! Much too young! He'd be more interested in you than me!" And he was....

Nobody ordered a full meal, but there were a lot of appetizers shared. I began to wonder if, even with all the hugging and good-natured teasing of my friend, his daughter hadn't set this up to put the financial screws to good old Daddy. Or maybe this is normal for them. I don't know.

We got home a little before midnight.

That was a week ago this evening, and it feels like longer. I've been getting gradually more and more depressed since then, as a lot of stuff has begun to sink in - the stuff about my brothers, my breakup with Roman, the mess that is my house, finances (I committed to this trip before I found out I had to replace the roof), and other stuff. Daughter seems to be in power-struggle mode, I don't know what I did to tick her off, I'm lost in a lot of areas.

Since I removed my things from Roman's, the Friday before I left for Florida, he has called me four times, and I've called him four times at his request, a lot more than before we said we were finished. The phone conversations are fine, nice even, but we've seen each other twice in the past week, since I've returned home, both times before and after group dinners, and both were not fun. Strained. He wanted to come to my home last night before the dinner, maybe he could fix my phone, he said, but I said no, that I needed time to get used to the idea of him not being here before I could allow him here again. If you know what I mean.

It's pretty definite that we are finished, but it's also pretty definite that we're going to have to be a lot more definite about it. I'd like to be able to think of him as gay, so we could be friends, but I'm too aware of how interested and interesting he is otherwise, so that won't work. I told him last night he confuses me, and he understood, so I think maybe he'll be more distant now. Which is depressing. I think he's just trying to be nice, to show me that he really does still care, but his niceness, and the things he says and does to show caring, just confuse me.

Plus there seems to be a lot of things wrong with me. My tongue feels hot, it's coated, and it tastes funny. I've got a yeasty smell from my skin creases, ever since that last time in the whirlpool. And for several weeks now, I've been having problems with my legs. Sometimes one or both legs (usually the right one) stop listening to me. I've had the problem for decades, where when I first get up from bed, unless I "work" them in bed before standing, my legs don't work well for the first dozen steps, almost like the nerves have to relearn walking, and also a bit less extreme when I get up from sitting too long in a chair that doesn't fit right. But lately, it happens spontaneously. It'll be only for an instant, but the leg just "goes away". Mostly I just stagger, but I have fallen sideways a few times. It depends on how well I'm balanced when it happens. My legs frequently feel weak, and yet I can walk for miles with no difficulty, even when they feel weak. I suspect it's stenosis in my lower back. No pain, but then I always have a certain level of pain, so I might not notice. (No, it's not, or not yet, Cauda Equina Syndrome. That's what Ex#2 had, and he had it for years and years. My "lower body functions", with the exception of the leg(s), work just fine.)

I guess it's time to see a doctor. Blech! They'll probably want to poke holes in me, and torture me, and then tell me there's nothing they can do anyway. But the list of concerns is growing, so....

I'm going to the fair tomorrow. I am determined to have fun.