I wonder who taught her how to talk like that.

Baby's into running 'round, hanging with the crowd,
Putting your business in the street, talking out loud,
Saying you bought her this and that
And how much you done spent.
I swear she must believe it's all heaven sent.

— Boz Scaggs

As I have said here on any number of occasions, Stella, my ex-girlfriend, has seen fit to libel me on her blog. She's also disparaged Kathy, my current girlfriend. And we've pretty much just let it go. We both stopped looking at her blog because time had marched on. However, mutual friends, family, and acquaintances interested in the main subject of her blog continue to read it, as well as Portia, the ex-wife.

Portia and Stella have struck up a relationship that I have taken to calling the Paramour Revenge Squad after the Superman Revenge Squad of comic book fame. Again, no skin off my nose. In fact, I think it both a little funny and sad that the two of them get together and compare notes as to how horrible I am.

At any rate, word got back to me that she had made a big life decision and had posted same on her blog. I think it a positive life decision and I was glad to hear it. I mentioned it to Kathy. Kathy, who has a relationship of sorts with Portia, mentioned to Portia that she thought this was a good decision. And, apparently, Portia told Stella. And Stella went what I shall charitably call "cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs®."

She assumed that I got the news through a mutual friend, Whitney, and proceeded to libel Whitney on her blog while excoriating Whitney for telling me this information. And she repeated her many lies about me for good measure.

Whitney is a wonderful friend. But as Stella is going to find, she's even more a tremendous enemy. Stella should not have done this, especially since she puts her own business in the street in the form of a blog that is open to the world. So pretty soon Whitney will "bring the chick around to the sad, sad truth, the dirty lowdown."

---

The dirty lowdown.

Endless Summer and Derek Winter, parts 1 and 2

Endless Summer & Derek Winter

©2012, JCT

Love Letters

"Are you listening to me?" The veins in Max Valentine's square head were throbbing as he asked the question, his perfectly coiffed white hair a calming contrast to the red in his face.  Considering Max is my boss and that he was chewing me out, it was to be expected.

As to the answer to that question, it was 'No.'  I was not listening to him, because 1. there was someplace else I wanted to be and 2. he was chewing me out for doing my job.

My job has no exact title and just a few specific parameters.  They are "Figure out what's going wrong" and "Fix it."  The reason my job description is so roomy is because Max owns many different enterprises of varying states of legality and I am the caretaker of all of them where those two questions are concerned.

The most recent job involved someone using Max's business to smuggle drugs.  To solve the problem I had to bring in the authorities.  The problem with that is that the business involved was a strip club and John Law is bad for the booby-shaking business.

"If this is how you're going to do your job now, then maybe I should reconsider having you on my payroll!"  Later, after he'd had drinks with Evelyn Dusenberry, his secretary, and listened to that 40s music he loved so much, he'd realize that if I could have fixed the problem any other way I would have.

But right now he was having none of it and frankly, neither was I.  I walked out of his office in mid scream, nodded to the long-legged Ms. Dusenberry in the anteroom, and rode my Yamaha Striker back to my condo.  Max wanted us to have some time apart and I was going to take it.

---

Identity Crisis

He could have seen that the frustration in my face matched that of my voice, if he had, in fact, been looking at me instead of staring at Jill's breasts.

To be fair, Gillian Sweeney's breasts commanded attention. They were dramatically large, an asset in her earlier career as a stripper (Gigi Chesterson) turned house mother at the self-same club that Max V. was so angry about. And even though she was not dressed to highlight them, in a modest, pale blue blouse with a high neckline, they still had the effect that the Good Lord intended them to.

She and I were in the lobby of the Sea Breeze Hotel in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, trying to check in for an impromptu summer vacation in a quest to keep from punching my boss in the face. However there was a problem, as the hotel was insisting that I had, in fact, already checked in.

"Mr. Winter, our records show that you changed your room to one with handicapped access and checked in a few hours ago."

I leaned across the counter. "Do I look like I need handicapped access?" At this point he actually looked at me.

"No. You don't. There must be some mistake. Mary!" A hotel employee came in with an unfolded towel in her hands. "It says here you checked in Mr. Winter"

She snapped her chewing gum. "Yeah. I did."

"Well, this is Mr. Winter."

"No, it's not."

"I ought to know who I am, ma'am."

"Well, you might be a Mr. Winter, but the Mr. Winter I checked in is a black guy in a wheelchair."

"Did he show you ID?"

"Yeah, but he had a different credit card than on the reservation."

"So there must be two of us booked for this weekend."

"That's what it's looking like, Mr. Winter."

Just then two young men in their early twenties walked in. One was a short, elf-like white guy and one was a taller, square black guy. "Excuse me," he said, "but there are people in my room."

"And you are, sir?"

"Derek Winter."

National Story Noodling Month

November is National Novel Writing Month and if you were reading this blog last year, you may recall that I did, in fact, write a novel during said month (by Thanksgiving no less).  I wanted to do it again this year, but I just couldn't bring myself to block off the time for it.  But I still wanted to write something.  So I am taking a character and a situation that I have had around for years that I wanted to write either a movie or novel about and am going to write it in snatches here.  I will post blog entries about being an adult child of an alcoholic here as they occur to me during this period as well.

---

Endless Summer & Derek Winter

©2012, JCT

"Are you listening to me?" The veins in Max Valentine's square head were throbbing as he asked the question, his perfectly coiffed white hair a calming contrast to the red in his face.  Considering Max is my boss and that he was chewing me out, it was to be expected.

As to the answer to that question, it was 'No.'  I was not listening to him, because 1. there was someplace else I wanted to be and 2. he was chewing me out for doing my job.

My job has no exact title and just a few specific parameters.  They are "Figure out what's going wrong" and "Fix it."  The reason my job description is so roomy is because Max owns many different enterprises of varying states of legality and I am the caretaker of all of them where those two questions are concerned.

The most recent job involved someone using Max's business to smuggle drugs.  To solve the problem I had to bring in the authorities.  The problem with that is that the business involved was a strip club and John Law is bad for the booby-shaking business.

"If this is how you're going to do your job now, then maybe I should reconsider having you on my payroll!"  Later, after he'd had drinks with Evelyn Dusenberry, his secretary, and listened to that 40s music he loved so much, he'd realize that if I could have fixed the problem any other way I would have.

But right now he was having none of it and frankly, neither was I.  I walked out of his office in mid scream, nodded to the long-legged Ms. Dusenberry in the anteroom, and rode my Yamaha Striker back to my condo.  Max wanted us to have some time apart and I was going to take it.

Do you really want to hurt me?

A charge of the religious-based retreat I went on a few weeks back is to go out into the world and share your faith. In the context of that, I have been thinking a lot about my people problem. That is to say, I dislike lots of contact with people. And in reflecting on it I have gotten some insights as to why I have the problem.

Part of the reason I have this problem is that I find contact with people fatiguing. And that's because there are few people with whom I feel I can truly be myself. A lot of people can relax when they are around other people. That actually makes me tense. I have to do the social thing as an active pursuit. It's work. It's not unlike people's problem with public speaking, only all the time on everything.

Where that falls into the realm of ACoA is secret-keeping. I feel like I'm putting on a false front, because if I acted as a felt, no one would want to be around. Or at least that's what I think or feel. But another thing I have realized about people is that for me for the most part people equal pain.

People hurt my feelings, even the people who are supposed to care about me. People tease even when it's no longer amusing to me. People let me down. People basically suck. I have also realized that this is really a child's view and experience of people, socialization, and companionship.

There are many positive benefits to hanging out with other people. There are a lot of joys and laughs. There is support, if you think people's assertions of support are valid. But for me, I am still in the nascent stages of emotional development, where the pain is much stronger in effect or importance than the pleasure.

The equation is still in imbalance. I need for people letting me down to not hurt so much, for it not to count so much. In a different context, I have told people "Don't say 'Don't take it personally', because I take everything personally." That's ACoA traits at work.

But what I have to figure out, if it is able to be figured out, is how to lessen how much something hurts. But now at least, I have a better understanding of my condition. I doubt I will ever be an extrovert. But perhaps being so introverted won't be as debilitating anymore.

---

Culture Club

I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you kill me?

Apparently, I am some really powerful stuff, because here we are more than a year past when she dumped me, and yet I am still the subject of Stella's blog. I had pretty much given up reading her blog, as the person that I am now is so far removed from the person who would have been in a relationship with her.

However, she has maintained relationships with other people that I know, so it came to my attention that yet again I was the subject of her blog. It's basically just more of the same: exaggerations, mischaracterizations, and absolute lies about me. She topped this by branding me with the epithet of "Loser". She is a fan of Glee, so I guess that's where she gets it from. Or maybe it's indicative of her maturity level. She even threw in a shot at Kathy.

How crazy was it? So crazy that even Portia couldn't believe Stella had written it. Kathy was a bit concerned that I would be bothered by the blog post, but it really doesn't bother me that much. I'm writing this blog post mostly as catharsis to get it all out of my system, because she isn't worth me spending any more time on it from this point forward.

I have said to Kathy more than once that I wish I knew what I did to cause Stella to hate me so. But now I don't even care. Because, frankly, anyone who is still this fixated on someone she dropped is, well, a loser.

---

Soy un perdedor!

Ciribiribin

I'm not quite sure if this fits in at all with being an adult child of an alcoholic, but I thought I would share with you a mysterious thing that happens to me from time to time, this time involving the song Ciribiribin.

Ciribiribin is a ballad by Italian songwriter Alberto Pestalozza. It was a standard of the big band era, recorded by a number of people including Frank Sinatra. How I came to focus on it was through a recent listening to the song Java Jive by the Ink Spots.

In the song at one point whomever is the lead sings

You know, well I'm not keen about a bean,
Unless it is a cheery cheery bean.

As it turns out, that line was supposed to be a pun and should have been sung

You know, well I'm not keen about a bean,
Unless it is a cheery beery bean.

This is roughly how the song name is pronounced in Italian.

Spurred on by reading how the lyric was supposed to go, I found a copy of Benny Goodman's band with Harry James on lead trumpet doing this song. I found it familiar and then remembered that I had heard it before for many many years as part of Glenn Miller's Jukebox Saturday Night. Since the Ink Spots section of JSN is a faux Ink Spots tune, I had always assumed the Harry James section was just a generic song to show off trumpet playing.

I also came to find that it was Harry James's signature song. I was aware who Harry James was of course, but only as a name in jazz history just as J.E.B. Stuart is only a name in American history to me (and war comic books, but I digress).

Well, and this is where my personality if not being an ACoA came in, I began listening to the song a lot. I mean obsessively. I found many different recordings of it, including several by James himself. There was a point were I "had" to listen to it at least once a day.

It was not long after I decided that I would write about the song that it finally stopped being a haunting presence in my life. I have no idea why I was drawn to the song and I will probably be drawn to it from this point forward. I say this because a similar thing happened with the song Perfidia many years before and it hasn't abated.

But, as I said, these things sometimes come over me out of nowhere and I just have to ride them out and deal. The joys of being me.

---

Harry James

Question

But in the grey of the morning
My mind becomes confused
Between the dead and the sleeping
And the road that I must choose.

— Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues

I have warned most of the people I am close to that if you find me listening to the Moody Blues then it's best if you just leave me alone because I am in a bad place. Well since I am opening with a Moody Blues lyric, consider yourself warned.

A few days ago I sold the car I drove down here in. It's now something like 16 years old and it was time for it to go. But it bothered me to sell it because of links to two friends. Because of a problem with my finances, I had to borrow money from one of my friends to pay for it. But the part germane to today's post is that I bought it off of another friend.

I worked with him in radio and in an effort to feed his children he also started working as a sales rep for an automobile dealership. I have no idea if he gave me a good deal or a bad deal. I needed a car and he sold me one. He was a man of faith who walked his talk.

Oddly, he was a lot like Job in that he just kept getting crappy thing after crappy thing thrown at him, but he never once renounced God, even after his step children had scrapes with the law, even after his wife left him after an affair with a church official, even after he suffered a devastating physical illness that eventually cost him his life.

Because it was a tangible link to my late friend, I hated to get rid of the car. It did not rest easy with me, even though I know it was the right decision. However, he came to me in a dream and assured me that it was all right and so was he.

Dead people have come to me in dreams before to tell me things. And they are usually also a portent of a shift in my life paradigm. So what comes next? Watch this space.

And when you stop and think about it
You won't believe it's true
That all the love you've been giving
Has all been meant for you.

— Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues

---

To learn as we grow old
The secrets of our souls.

— Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues

Sadness of Soul

Cleveland Browns Stadium, the current home of the Cleveland Browns football team, has developed a nickname over its existence, the House of Sadness. And it was in the wake of another Browns loss that I realized something about me and sadness that, well, made me sad: sadness is my default emotion.

It seems like if I am not feeling something else specifically regarding my immediate circumstances, I feel sad. I feel there is at the core of my being a palpable sadness, a profound lack.

As to what I am lacking, I cannot say. My life, while not perfect, is actually rather good. My current thought is that it is a reflection of my continued reluctance to accept myself as I am. I am taking the desire to be more, do more, and have more as an indictment of who I am and what I have done.

This is an old program that needs to be overwritten with zeroes, the idea that if I am not where I would like to be that somehow where I am, what I am, who I am is wrong. It comes from dealing with fulfilling the expectations of others and apparently something I have internalized.

From other things I have worked on in my life, I know that awareness is the first piece. But, as I am also fond of saying: I've identified the problem. Now what?

---

Felix Mendelssohn

Well, I think it's going to be all right.

I heard on the news this morning that it was just about a year ago that Hurricane Irene came through the North Carolina community in which I live. The hurricane was the marker of an important change in my life.

Right before the hurricane, I had to put down my dog who had been with me for all but a few months of my entire time living here. And then, during the hurricane, my now ex-girlfriend Stella took the decision of ending our relationship out of my hands when she dropped me via text message.

That was my high bottom for being an adult child of an alcoholic and I started working the steps in earnest and started writing this blog. Since that time I have written a novel, had my new girlfriend Kathy move in with me, and gotten divorced from Portia.

There are some adjustments going on dealing with my living with another human being, but things are a lot better for me than they were a year ago. I'm often happy and even more often content.

I'm sorry that I haven't been updating this regularly, but my life is very full at the moment. I'm trying to come up with a frequency I can sustain but that allows me to do the many other things in life I love. I'll see if I can figure out.

Oddly, even a year later, Stella still talks about me in her blog, although thankfully less frequently. Portia is still being as demented regarding Tina as she was in the spring, so I may have to consider other options where that is concerned.

But as for me, I have moved on and life is good.

---

Yeah, the worst is over now. The morning sun is shining like a red rubber ball.

Sacrifice

Well, just as I had gotten back on track, the last few days of my Easter trip derailed me from posting here. It was a good time and worth the sacrifice, but I still wish I had written.

---

Elton John

I need a hero

Last night, traveling from one side of Ohio to the other, I got caught in a very large, very slow moving (as in stopped) traffic jam. And I was still trying to deal emotionally with having accidentally had my girlfriend's jewelry thrown away. And my baseball team had lost the game. And I needed a sponsor.

And that is problem with having had to take myself through the program, is that in times where I can feel the old feelings and old programming creeping in, I have no one to call to help boost me back to my new behaviors. It is hard being your own hero.

---

Bonnie Tyler

Because sometimes there's not plenty of time.

His name was Frank. He was a lover of the English language, good writing, science fiction, and comic books. And he loved Deep Space Nine. He and I got along wonderfully in the comic book forum where we met. We always talked about meeting each other, but never did anything about it. I wasn't worried. There was plenty of time.

And then one day, as a complication from a recent medical procedure, he died. There was not plenty of time. I thought of him as I met with others from the comic book forum today. Connect with someone today.

---

For Frank

So you had a bad day...

Weeks ago I found out the Cleveland Indians were going to play their High-A affiliate the Carolina Mudcats, so I bought tickets and planned to take Kathy and Tina as part of my meandering sojourn north to visit Ohio.

Well, because of how Kathy had to come to where I live, she was unable to go. And because Portia is withholding Tina right now, she was unable to go. So with these strikes already against me, I ventured out to watch the game alone. I get to the intersection right outside the ball park and the car just dies.

So I walk to the ballpark to watch some of the game while I wait for the tow truck to arrive. I get back and I have to be towed to a town a half an hour away. I have to rent a car. And on the way out with the rental car, I get a ticket for speeding.

Today, as I am wending my way further north, I find out it's the timing belt, which is not a cheap repair. But the wonderful thing is that I didn't freak out about any of it. I wasn't stress and took it all in stride. It all doesn't ride on one roll of the dice anymore. And I am happy for that.

---

Daniel Powter. See, I have heard of music past 1985.

Beautiful Ohio

I'm going home for a few days. Normally that would suggest that I wouldn't be able to post, but these days, it more likely means I will. Kathy's not going with me though. *sigh*

---

Connie Francis.

Waiting is the hardest part.

I accidentally rose to the bait of message board drama Monday. Identifying behaviors is easy. Changing them is hard. And waiting for that change to stick is the hardest part.

---

Tom Petty.

What a fool believes

Somewhere in my youth I got rather tired of April Fool's pranks. So other than participating in a few things while I was in radio (because that's what you do in radio), I gave them up. I think it's because I already have enough of an issue deciding what is real and what is not and what to trust and believe in. So no pranks today. Everything I posted today is what I meant and how I feel. No fooling.

---

As she rises through her apology, anybody else would surely know he's watching her go.

Games People Play (redux)

One thing Portia promised when we were trying to negotiate our divorce was that she wouldn't use Tina as a pawn, and that is exactly what she has done and continues to do.

I love sports and bought tickets to several different sporting events with the thought that I would take Tina. She doesn't really like watching sports, but she loves the spectacle of it, and the food, and horsing around with the mascots, and things of that nature. These tickets were bought in advance, because often that is how you have to do it.

Well, Portia is refusing to let her go to these under the pretext of protecting her from me because I have an anger problem. The only anger problem I have is an annoyance with her. Seriously. I asked my therapist just to be sure about it.

It is my belief that Portia will eventually get over being a sorehead because I managed to get divorced without her, but for now, the games go on.

---

The Alan Parsons Project, showing a little bit of the people who actually sang the song.

"Am I the same girl you used to know?"

Early on, I told Kathy that our relationship has been much different than it was with women prior. She later asked about that when Portia told her about something that superficially was like how she and I have done things. I assured her (and I assure you) that things are a lot different.

In my relationships with both Portia and Stella, there was a point where I needed to say how I felt and get my issues and concerns addressed. I needed to assert and have them honor that I was an equal in the relationship. In the case of Portia, I didn't do it when I should have and by the time I actually did, just the very act of speaking my mind destroyed the relationship.

By that point with Stella, I realized that the conversation needed to happen and if it did end the relationship, then there was something wrong with the relationship in the first place. It was the right time to have the conversation, but before I could, she ended the relationship.

So when it seemed like Kathy and I were headed down the same road, I carefully wrote an e-mail (as she was out of town and I wanted to make sure I said everything I wanted to say and said it in the best way possible). I sent it to Kathy with fears that this was the beginning of the end, but secure in the knowledge that if this ended the relationship, it was supposed to end.

It didn't. She and I discussed what I wrote on the phone. Some of what I perceived / felt was a misunderstanding and some of it she understands how I work and we're working on it and around it. It was calm, rational, and loving. And believe me, that is not at all the same.

---

Swing Out Sister

I know you want to leave me, but I refuse to let you go.

This isn't about me and Kathy. Oh, well, it sort of is, but not the way you might expect.

With Kathy living here with me every day, we're spending a lot of time together. And this time has to come from somewhere. So many things I used to do are getting squeezed out or lost altogether. One of the things that has been suffering, of course, has been this blog.

But much like the ACA activities I have been doing, this blog has been a big help to me, so I refuse to let it go by the wayside. I have known for a while that I couldn't keep up daily posts forever, but I had hoped to keep up the daily pace for a year. I am about half-way there and I intend to finish.

---

The Temptations

Give me some water

I have not been respecting Water Wednesdays the past few weeks. I need to get back to that.

---

Right on the money. Eddie Money.