The Long Road Out

There are many things I loved about my ex. This journal entry is about why I think she's an asshole. I was having a relatively OK day today. Goodbye 2024 which as been a bear. Hello 2025. Maybe my PTSD and depression symptoms will abate as I begin another loop of our solar system.  Then—My realtor sent an update about why my ex-home in NYC hasn't sold. Since I co-own this cash nightmare with my ex, we're on the message together. Mina respounds "thanks. Best wishes to all of you for 2025. A sweetheart! A clever and insightful writer and communicator.  A life coach to the masses. Someone whose messaging would have more sincerity if she ran her prompts through ChatGPT first.  I am not your realtor. I do not work for you and I no longer care if you stand up or fall down. I unblock you for a few days and I get your sick performative pablum. You are a problem for me—an obstacle to my own success in life. Just as you have been for so many others.  Here’s how you gro...

I woke up and was repeating out loud to myself "you're so weird! You're so weird!" I wonder which part? My guess is the part that dreads being with people. I'm still not used to that part being so talkative and present. That's the part I want to spend NewYear's Eve with. My own sleepy party. Nothing to drink. Maybe a hit of pot? A sage ceremony to clean more of the psychic trash out of my home, and quiet meditation music. And more early, weird dreams alone. 2025. My first year being myself. No one to please before me. What will that be like? Me first! Me second. Not letting anyone in unless I want to. A sage ceremony for my own life. Then keeping the doors closed to the outside once the air is cleansed by the smoke. So weird and hopeful. Not lonely.  Lonesome.  Speak up while I’m awake now and let me know what you’ve been unable to express.   I know.  There’s been lots of noise, but the stage is all yours for the moment.  And I know I h...

I have more optimism, which is to say I have some optimism after hellish years in 2022, 3023, and 2024. But I've faced emotions (and mental states) I could not overcome. That scares me. I know my future may be unpleasant or filled to the daily brim with loneliness. What percent of this new year will I spend unable to rise off the couch? Will I experience better energy and contentment from accepting whatever happens on each day? Will the fact that I have so few people left to disappoint give me the peace I crave? There's no one but the cats to please most days, and I'm safe and secure. Will I make new plans? I've enjoyed a few projects here at home, improving old features I don't like.  I enjoy disposing of the artifacts of the life I no longer have access to.  Today I got rid of some pepper grinders that now remind me of a hollow love.  Trash day is tomorrow, early.  I need to make sure to get everything to the curb. I don't know what I want, and I ...

I've had a few bits of good news recently…my company grew a bit this years after 4 years at more or less the same level,for example. And it appears the financial drain of divorce lawyers is coming to an end. Without the legal bills, I'm closer to break even, though I'm 70 and I need to keep working to pay my other bills. Making progress though. Maybe my old empty home in NY will sell soon…there seems to be a bit more activity…and I can finally breakaway from my sad past there. Meanwhile, it's difficult to assess, but it feels like my energy is becoming more positive with the higher dose of anti-depressants. It feels less forced to laugh sometimes. Talking to others feels easier… I've fixed a few things around my house, have some thriving house plants, and enjoy sitting by my wood stove with the cats more. I've bought a few things for myself, taken care of what I have, and appreciated little things… a new pepper grinder is really fun for cooking, ...

Strange mood on this rainy mountain morning. Like fuck y'all. Don't usually feel this way. Aggressive, independent, not interested in pleasing. For someone who's spent his whole life trying to satisfy or appease, this feels like being another species. Special message for you, Beth. I hope your day sucks. I feel like it might? That would be fun for me! Don't put yourself out sharing.

As I continue therapy, I increasingly understand that the multiple betrayals I suffered at the hands of my ex are not what's holding back my recovery. It's that her ghosting behavior communicates to me that I failed as a partner. I've been trying to succeed with the most important women in my life since I was 4.  I have invested most of my vitality and life energy into trying to earn the "he's a good guy" merit badge.  (In the case of my mom, it was the contract to be "the best baby in the world."). Then, I ran into my ex.  True,. she's never been satisfied by what she's received from anyone.  I can see that, but I can't use it to exonerate myself from failure. And at some level she knows if she ignores me she can keep me in pain.  IT takes no work on her part to hurt me, she never puts much effort into others, and it feels powerful to someone who's never really succeeded.  Win win win for my ex. Lose at an epigenetic level for me.  T...

I increased the dose of Zoloft I've been taking two months ago, and I don't think I'm loving the results. I'm no happier, for one thing. But, I feel like I'm losing my vitality. My muscles are tired all the time, getting up from chairs seems to take more effort, I'm sleepy and thinking of taking a nap constantly, and I have very little interest in social interaction. Writing in this journal is the one activity that still seems normal. Or interesting to me. I haven’t been a good pharma testing subject. Holidays alone and the last week I drank more…2-3 glasses of wine five nights in a row.  No question I wake up more slowly than on day when I don’t drink anything.  Getting back to that now.  If I spend less time with people I’m prone to drink less or nothing— making “happiness” a strong argument for living alone. Weird.  Sad. But this is me now.  What a surprise even after three years of PTSD and depression.  

My ex-wife believes I'm an angry, drunk, aggressive cocaine addict.  Sexual weirdo. I choose my cat--like nearly all animals, she's a truth teller.  My ex---god knows what's going on in that frontal cortex.  If any of my ex-friends are with my ex-wife on this holiday, shame on you.  You know how many people she's hurt and you're endorsing that behavior with your silence. Yikes.  Shivers.  Happy holidays. In her defense, it appears she's been diagnosed with a not-uncommon disease that plays havoc with the chemicals that allow us to determine friend from foe.  I feel that this condition may have existed for years or decades before our relationship completely combusted.   I empathize with my ex and wonder how she's learning to live with this condition.  My empathy is of the lowest sort.  She knows she has this disease, but it hasn't occurred to her to apologize to acknowledge that her antagonistic behavior toward me and many others may have...

I received a lot of " let's do Hanukah and Xmas together and be friends" messages yesterday. The US is the most religious and fundamentalist country on the planet, so the starting place for joint work to return to a culture we can all respect is to attack the roots of religious extremism. A logical first step in this process would be yo hold clergy liable if a member of their congregation commits a violent crime. If you claim you’re a shepherd, make money from your vocation, and one of your sheep goes stray, you go to jail too.  As a radical right nutcase friend of mine says dozens of times a day, “I’m sure we can all agree on this!” We already are friends, and yes the US and Israel have the same problems that would be wonderful to fix together: 1. Let's start with our secret police forces. Let's get rid of all of them. If a country is so embarrassed by what it’s doing that it’s most significant initiatives and investments are covert, it should be thrown out o...

In 2012 my wife met some guy in Arizona and left me. I think the guy was as shocked as I was. I have no idea what happened but I do know my wife was in Denver 8 days later broke and in tears. Then my dad died. That's another story. Four months after that my wife showed up again, unwilling to share a detail about her fun adventures. She came back with one of our cats who died the day after her return. I posit the concept that my wife is a toxic psychopath. If you disagree, it's because you accepted this vicious inhumane behavior and endorsed it. You are complicit. I took my wife back, dead cat and dead father and all. We lasted another ten years. Until the same thing happened—disappeared for a lover (this time a dominatrix from Montreal who told her she was a natural at licking pussy). 2022– our other cat died a month after my now ex-wife came back again. I know the lover's name and gender this time—my wife is learning disclosure as she approaches 60! Caroline ...

It's natural to feel sad when you're alone on this holiday. It makes sense. Normal people would probably agree. It's still hard to cry this much. I'll go to sleep soon. Tomorrow will be better.

I desire to be with family on Christmas. Biological or legal at the center.. The traditional model, with additions from those in the larger orbits around us. I have two people among the living who qualify. My dear brother who I love. He is bipolar so often is completely unavailable. Even at his best he struggles to offer reciprocal attention. Then there's my ex wife. She doesn't ever want to hear from me. She believes I'm undeserving of help or kindness from her or from any of our joint friends, and has severed relations with those who have tried to aid me. She hasn't shared herself with me in many many years, and does not reply to my texts to show that I'm not entitled to her love or attention. This is my biological/legal family. I am lonely even in crowds, and the holidays are nostalgic tornadoes. I have a family hole in my life. I work on climbing out of depression every day, but this hole is so deep and wide I often can't take the first step ...

It shocks me still, how much she needed. How little she had. How highly I valued her. She was small and precious to me.   I alone shared or stayed. Others saw what I could not? Did they surmise  negative return on investment?  She disliked addition with others and would not multiply. She envied those who would. Few others tarried longer too. They witnessed their own worthlessness so they never aided. Those who rose from her ranks never invited her along. At work and play, always a plateau of her own design, and unresolved silences.  Those who caught bright flashing red attended once and never returned, fearing their own paths would be invisible after a second crossing. Those holding spaces for sacred journeys soon closed them and changed phone numbers. More than once they died soon after. Her readers. Her parents.  Her lovers.  No gifts. Not even thanks or praise.  Did they know after one gratuity that the money had been pocketed?  Why didn’t I se...

Thirty years ago I gave my trust and faith to my life partner. The day has passed now and I am the only person on earth to acknowledge that memory.  I have walked away from the life I had with my ex, ceding all our mutual friends, our home, and our favorite activities and places.  They are all tainted, poisoned or disfigured—if they’re recalled at all. I tried to be a good partner and a true friend. I think we were good companions, at least when we weren't engaging in war over sex—or just generically. I believe her narrative is that I was a constant disappointment, angry, addicted, and a shitty sexual partner.  At least that’s what her campaign talking points were before I chose my own witness protection plan to escape the shock and trauma of endless betrayal.  But, I stayed with it. I faced every day with her as the center of my life. I experienced periods of deep love for her. I stayed, though I often had to retreat to separate bedrooms and late evening trips to...

I got fucked over by my best friend in 2012, 2022, and 2023. As a result of these events, I live alone, I'm being treated for depression and trauma-related illness, and I am struggling to build new relationships with anyone. Currently, I'd rather be by myself.  The low point of my collapse was the epic line:  "I absolutely will not help you.  You need to save yourself."  I should mention she was my life partner, best friend, and wife of 29 years at that moment.  Humans specialize in atrocities. We live surrounded by the mass graves of enemies of the moment. My own US government is a willing, cheerful participant, but what it prefers to do is sell weapons to others, and lie about any US citizens who are involved. Case in point:  you think the CIA and elite secret military units aren't active in the Ukraine right now?   "I will never help you," spit out with hostility by my sole family member, was my personal introduction to atrocity...

I continue to withdraw. A friend here. An activity there. I left a group of friends in New York a few hours ago to get home and be by myself tonight. Why? Depression is part of it. I've been fighting this long enough that I'm tired. Brittleness is also a factor. Because of the daily anxiety I'm getting triggered very quickly by uncivil behavior. I'm on a plane right now. Two people in the row behind me are stupid drunk and both have hacking coughs. They're loud and incoherent. Is strangulation legal in Illinois? That's what I mean. Mostly I was in such a hostile marriage for 28 years that I desire solitude. Bored…lonely…lethargic…tearful…worried…aging by myself. These are better than that. I will not be abused again.

My wife got upset with me and left to be bi-sexual and to join a polyamorous group. I thought she hated that kind of stuff, and it seemed self-defeating for someone who desires to be the center of attention to leave a monogamous marriage for a situation where orgasns are parsed out by consensus. That's not the type of multitasking I mean, however. I mean: being in a room, or in bed, or at a movie, or doing a workout together—and being less than half there. Can you multitask love? I don't know THE answer but I know AN answer: not with me. No love is so much more rewarding than the type you performed. 

 I regularly have dreams that I'm running a marathon, but I can't find the start, get diverted off the course and loose my way, or can't complete complicated sections. I never finish. I didn't finish the race last night either...I woke up right after another fast runner told me I had four miles to go and I was beginning to tire.  I had made a few mistakes, but in each case they resulted in shortcuts, so at that point I was doing well and running in the front the the thin crowd of sub-3 hour runners.  Mostly men.  I don't believe I've ever had a dream of successfully running a race before...and in this case even my mistakes allowed me to move farther ahead in the event, when I saw the correct course in front of me and rejoined the pack. I was passing runners still, though I was slowing.  I was making jokes about the difficult parts of the course (there were climbing sections and portions with deep mud and wild animals that looked like dogs with short legs.  ...

 I was married to someone who distinguished herself at not being available when the shit hit the fan.  My solace...the only solace I can find in her absence...is that I am not alone.  I share the heartbreak of realizing you've been abused with many others. Too late for me.  Too late for my comrades. So, why do I destroy myself still worrying that she'll be OK when it's so easy for her---and she's always clear on this--that she has no desire, ability, or willingness to lift a finger for me?  I'm being literal.  She's ghosted me for three years and here I am, a pathetic sot, trying to sell my home so she can feel the fleeting safety of $4-5 million in the bank. So she can reinvent herself for the next sucker (I don't know how many lives she's hurt since she walked out on me for the third time, blaming all the way. Trashing me to everyone who would listen, and checking in every three months or so with my remaining friends to see if they too had abandoned me...

My apartment in New York once felt like it teemed with life.   I had many guests and visitors, was active in the building community and friendly with all of my neighbors, and even when just the two of us (I was married then) were home alone, I felt vital and hopeful energy.  Each day was a reason to make something of my life, and those days returned as much life force as I put in. The apartment will sell soon and the number of nights I spend here before it's gone forever will probably be counted on one hand.   It is empty and quiet, and there is no energy from any source.  No dynamism.  I walk slowly down the halls and into some of the rooms.  When I stop for a second, there is no sound other than the gentle undertone of tires on rainy Riverside Drive.  Perhaps an energy-efficient bus or two. No energy.  I will never share this space again with another human, and not even a pet...my beloved cat is safely with a sitter in California, and I will see...

  This single young mare approached me out of a herd of wild mustangs, after I sat in the middle of the Washoe Valley for hours silently observing.  She became my best friend for a long time.  Synchronized breathing with an animal filled with tranquility is out of this world…my thanks to her…

 I used to have so many good friends. But, man cannot live on vapor alone.  I’ll never know quite what happened but no one in my couples group stood up for me. When the shit hit the fan the 2nd and third major time, I had been propagandized against so thoroughly that I’d lost while my ex was still in the joint masturbation phase with Caroline. Then I was PTSD and alone.  That’s my perspective. No one cares or knows the actual scenario.  It occurs to me that my ex couples friends chose my partner who is not creative, backstabs everyone, and who has never succeeded at anything.  I thought those same people believed I was empathetic, kind, generous, and supportive of my difficult partner.  I guess not. Or those traits aren’t valued.  I would have chosen me back then. Not any more. I’m a depressed mess now. But then I was probably a decent guy. 

What sort of cruelty is behind this gesture of allegiance.  I can't understand it.   My brother is mentally ill.  He's been beaten up by gangs of white 20 somethings.  He ended up in jail…none of the kids did.  Then he spent six months in a mental health institution, recovering from PTSD from the violent attack.    I beg you, Donald Trump…stop hurting the weakest of us.  This is cruel.  It endorses lethal force without review.  I can't speak to the facts in the case.  All I can say is that it suggests that mentally ill men are fair game in this country, which disgusts, terrifies, and damages my belief that there's any chance our country will survive.   This is a terrible incident.  People were hurt.  Why would you celebrate it this plague?  I already don't watch football so there's no voice I can think of to register the pain this stupid gesture causes me.  I do not respect you ei...

 Airport time today…going to a work meeting for a few days. It doesn’t feel like it matters much these days.  To and fro.  Driving the car. Flying places.  Packing a few things in a bag.   Walking down moving walkways past clusters of boarding passengers.  Going to Tampa.  Or LasVegas.  Or Cleveland for gods sake.  Alone.  Always alone in 2B. Soon I’ll return to where I am now.  I don’t think I’ll be different then.  Perhaps but why? I’ve done this forever. I recall the optimistic awakening I carried within me for nearly my entire life.  Each day would be a new day.  The smiles of family or companions.   Literally every day is the same now.  I can't distinguish one from another--each day a cascade of deferring things I might do.  Of not planning anything that excites me. How strange to be this sad person now.  Well, time to drive down to the airport and wait near my departure gate.  Expecting ...

 1. You said you liked foreplay but you always rushed to insert me as soon as I got hard. 2.  I was afraid to cum unless I was inside you, for fear you would sulk or pick a fight.  Was I correct in these assumptions? 3. You never had orgasms with me, correct?  I stopped trying to figure out whether you came after your Arizona affairs in 2012.  It felt to me that you didn’t want to grant me the satisfaction of knowing I satisfied you in any way, sexual or not.  Correct?  Most importantly, or course, sexually.   3b.  I was right that nothing mattered to you except insertion.  Right? 4.  Why did I put up with you in bed?  Sex was war.  It was a scoreboard and I was always the visiting team. Like an abused puppy I kept groveling for some sign that the abuse would stop. Yes, that’s a statement.  Not a question.   I feel sad writing this post. I’m 70 and no longer attractive to myself.  I’m certain I’m not attract...

 For so long I haven’t been allowed to have strong feelings.  If I did, they were discounted by my life partner because: —I’m aggressive —I’m angry -I’m a drunk —I’m a cocaine and poppers addict —blah blah blah.  Basically my strong feelings suck.  And it’s true that I stopped expressing them except when tortured.  I learned to just suck it up— I stopped even trying to be polite—it made no difference  I got laughed at or belittled or ignored or fucked around on no matter what   Also, I had no experience before my ex having yo fight for attention, love, respect, or human decency   It was always given to me   Now I know what it’s like o face daily derision  and, when you beg for kindness, to get kicked in the balks and dumped    Whew  makes sense I’m full on pTSD and depressed  I was an unarmed child in the face of Stalin’s Red Army…in this case it was just one cruel asshoke from London Ontario—but I was still a child ...

 As usual, I'm here alone with my cats.  But I'm having an unusual experience that is unpleasant.  I do no know why I'm here. Spiritually--I do not know.   Physically--why am I in California, but why do I exist in the physical realm at all. Teleologically--I do not know what my purpose is. I know that I don't want to harm others, and that I want to protect animals, particularly those that are my best friends.   So that's one reason I'm here. I've experienced purposelessness before, and loss of corporal connection--recent ketamine-assisted psychology journeys gave me some infinite insights into disassociation. But, at the moment, I am filled with sad emptiness because I don't know why I'm here for any reason. Here on my couch as the sun sets, and the lights on my Christmas tree begin to take over the illumination of my room. This is different from the common "if I died now, no one would notice."  This is a philosophical disconnection with b...

What gift did you leave behind for me? What kindness or sign that I am worthy of living. I can’t locate the  wrapped package. You put so much effort into proving I was bad. Not worthy. All those interruptions and insults and gaslighting and yawns, and your back always turned when I needed love or affection or a caring glance. I thought we were in this together. You weren't in anything….other people's pants? God knows where you were. Not by my side. Not my partner in life. Not a friend. Doron was kinder to me than you were. I never got a thing from you, but you stole so much. You'll waste what we had and squander it and devalue it without telling anyone. As you've done with every body and every thing you've ever touched. It's gone, right? There you are, scared and lost and lonely, just like you were the night I met you. Fuck, I wish I'd ignored you instead of sharing my closet. Get out now. You can keep the crappy sweatshirt. I wish I...

Wow. A year wasted resolving nothing. Then 3 1/2 hours of mediation resolving everything. Then 15 months and $200,000 in additional feees trying to turn a nine-bullet list into a document for the NYS courts. A process that's required expensive mental health support. It will never end. This system of conflict resolution is extortion. Like being in prison, but you have to pay for the room and board. And there's no tunnel you can dig or fence you can climb to escape. No exoneration or parole. Isn't this the western definition of hell? I wouldn't know. I'm not a Christian. I think Revelation is stupid blather. Atrocious poetry. Faulty ethics. Not something that anyone who reads could base their faith upon. Revelation appears to be the guiding text of the matrimonial bar.  The seventh circle inside the fifth paragraph subheading "C." I haven’t had a meaningful interaction with my ex in two years. We have no social contacts in common. I’m not a socia...

If I met someone socially who: — referred to investors as " bean counters"—what else are they? — admitted to his friends that he was suffering and needed their help — saw and thoughtfully accepted the soul-crushing aspects of the capitalist myth —was appalled by the zillions of daily examples of US exceptionalism —actively participated in a book club and posted on Goodreads, and —recognized that we have the worst health care access of any country, wealthy or poor I 'd immediately like them. A fellow traveler, and wise for a young guy. Too bad mental illness or the wrong kind of alienation or whatever destroyed you and set us back. You have turned your truth into trash by weaponizing it, just as America does every single day. You are now a sad sick footnote, forgotten and beneath notice. An idiot. Trump, not Ghandi. You never met the Buddha. What a fucking disaster and waste.

 How would you respond if you were betrayed by your best friend and life partner?  And blamed.  And then ghosted. I can tell you how I responded.  The events around the end of my marriage threw me into dangerous PTSD immediately.  I tried to self-medicate, which helped by deferring some of the impact of the torrent of deferred grief (I had never been able to confront the loss of my parents and the illness of my brother because I was deeply invested in my wife).  Obviously, coke and martinis are not a long term solution--but then again I can't say multiple varieties of anti-depressants have provided any miracles either.   What I can say is that coke gave me some short moments when I felt meaningful and good about myself.  I'm thankful for that.  The last three years have been unrelenting self-criticism.  I'm not going to beat myself up about a few three hour segments when I felt attractive and energetic. The PTSD led where it usually does...

I was listening to 101.5, our local radio station, this morning and they were on a roll Alison Kraus doing "Baby Now That I've Found You"—I built my life around you and you don't need me…ouch. That hits close to my heart. Beautiful. Then Xavier Rudd singing about "Follow the Sun." Always a good topic—just ask Lennon and McCartney. If society is weighing you down, stroll to the nearest water. Many moons have, and will rise. Wise rock n roll counsel of the Buddhist sort.

 I help a few people financially.   A friend who has been my roommate recently who, after some really unfortunate setbacks, is finding a new exciting path for herself. My cleaning woman in NY who has two kids.  I pay their rent, mostly.  I worry she’ll get deported, though her kids are US citizens.   My brother, who is bi polar.  That’s really complicated and I don’t know how to make sense of him, or build an effective relationship.  Mental illness isn’t solved with logic, and I’m being treated for depression too.  What a pair, the two of us at the end of the family tree. My ex wife who receives multiples more than the rest of them combined and only wants money.  She’s unknown to me.   Another friend who is recently pregnant.  I’m the only one who knows, partially because I’ve supported her travel for the various treatments. I hope she carries to term.  I know that’s what she wants.   Why do I do this? My motivations are d...

70. Nothing. I want to do nothing. I want to be by myself here and reflect on the good and the bad. I want to be safe and to avoid performing. I want to hold my cat and tell her I love her. I don't want to eat or drink anything except water. I have too much and while I live a small life I consume too much. Not on my birthday. I want to turn off the phone and the computer and disconnect the wifi for 24 hours. I am not part of the internet of things. I want to be my own thing. Proud, alone, tall in my space. I do not have the answer for anything. My words are wrong. They don't describe and they don't answer. Let them go too for my birthday and maybe afterwords. A silent retreat for 30 days? I don't think so. How would that be unusual or a gift yo myself. Let it all be quiet where I am. I think I'm done with people. They don't give me anything back. I don't ask. My needs are not relevant to anyone. This is me. Alone. 70. On anti-depressants ...

Awesome means being calm as all the world spins around us. Christmas trees, kittties etc. means sanity.

Each day feels the same now, but also different. Being alone with my cat and Diana's cat. Feeling ambiguous around others. Going to bed early and waking up, as I am now, in the wee hours to write to myself. I prefer this now, in the dark, to messaging others. I try to get outside each day for cross country skiing. That's ok. I'm glad to get back to the lodge and then my old truck for the three minute drive back up here. Come back to the cats. I still work, and pay my bills. I wish my apartment in NY would sell so I can forget about that responsibility and the part of my life I spent there. I want to be this new person I'm turning into, but I have so many anchors behind me. And I used to be able to change my circumstances by investing in change. Now I don't have any liquid assets so it feels harder. I'm older too so big projects may require too much follow through. I have the feeling that the anti- depressants are making me feel less conn...

What’s written in this journal post is the only explanation I have for the violence and trauma I’ve experience during the period between 2010 and 2023. It’s the only way I can understand the events of my life since then as well.  My life partner planned for years to escape our marriage. She didn't like, respect, or loved me. To carry out her scam she diagnosed me as a drug and alcohol addict, stole money from our joint accounts, was in a long-term affair with a sex worker, and refused to respond to my pleas for understanding or help. It took her 12 years to leave and during that time she plotted, was emotionally and sexually absent, and engaged in regular gaslighting. She did this because she wanted money for herself and I was an easy mark because I trusted her.. I was a victim of a scam. I became so traumatized during this long battle that I fell into PTSD, deep depression, and alcohol and coke and cannibis abuse. I had no one to help me since my ex had told all our friends that...

My long marriage was like a daily quiz show. Except for one thing: the question was the same every day: How will you disappoint me today? I did really well at this reality TV show. I didn't want to disappoint her, though I eventually began to stop battling to stay in the game. I stopped believing I could ever change the rules or the outcome. In the end, I guess my ex could see I'd surrendered so it wasn't fun for her. So she just started making up answers about me that justified the nasty stuff she was doing to me and others.  And herself disturbingly frequently. In love as in cheap TV, it’s all about the ratings.  Love, from me alone at last sighting .

 Excuse me, but it's this "Client Alert" from Kroll about as tawdry, cheap, and offensive as you could imagine?   Kroll:  We're Ambulance Chasers! Remember the romantic driver and security guard in The Handmaid’s Tale?  In both the book and season 1 he impregnates the central character played by Elizabeth Moss  now we know who he worked for. OfKroll! Someone approved this email message. In light of Wednesday’s fatal attack on the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Kroll’s Enterprise Security Risk Management team is seeing a surge in client inquiries regarding our operational and physical protective solutions.   This tragic event reminds us of the fluid and complex threat landscape worldwide, where risks range from targeted violence to opportunistic incidents. It also highlights the need for robust security measures as we strive to protect our companies and communities.   Kroll offers comprehensive protection solutions tailored to fit all types of corporations, e...

Quite a collection of sulking men we have in the public eye—the felons and addicts and gropera and thieves and tax frauds. The best are feckless and the worst lack all moral standing. These folks are loyal to their daddy though. Until they aren't. They're all people who will have written a book about how Trump fucked them over within two years.  This is the genre referred to as "Rudy Giuliani memoirs." Will there still be a market for this genre when the 200th of them is released later this year? Even Harry Potter only had seven or whatever. (I read the first HP. I will never read a book or article or blog by anyone who accepted a job in the Trump government.) Be gone further into the chilly evening. The snow falls on the dead. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. The center cannot hold. I'm flying home from Heathrow today and looking forward to my arrival tonight! My cat. My bed. My fireplace…ahhh.

As I type this one of my remaining friends from my past life is sitting on a business class flight from London to New York. Across the aisle is another woman who was part of a large group of friends in a previous life. The 2nd woman, Ann Benedict, does not recognize the first. I am glad I'm not in the seat where my current friend hides. I would not know what to say to Ann, though we shared many conversations in the past. I liked her. My ex hated her. I wonder if they still socialize. They’re all older now, as I am, I let go of much I valued and enjoyed. Having learned it was all a chimera. Poof. A wisp in the early morning sunlight, evaporated by vectored rays. I don’t want any of it back.  Just the friendship I believed I had with my ex.  I sense now that my ex may have been the acid that caused the whole structure to poison me as I tried to hold on for dear life. The seawater that drowned me. She was that sort of being I suppose. A thief of love and money?  She...

Drop the pencil—what's my best guess? Answer: there will be a significant reduction of civil liberties in the US based on the "unruly mobs of leftist thugs armed with pipe bombs" that are killing people. Why on earth people like me would make pipe bombs when anyone with a credit card can buy an AK-47 at Cabellas is beyond me. Plus, most radicals like me don't have cellars. Aren't you supposed to build pipe bombs in cellars? All of the 600 criminals in jail now for January 6 will be liberated, and hired by the government to track down commies like me. Thugs who murder mentally ill men on subways get invited to football games with JD Vance. That could have been my brother. The Handmaids Tale in the Garden of the Finzi Continis. 65/35 odds I'm right.  That’s my guess. Don’t know what Las Vegas oddsmakers say, but I’m certain they too have fear and loathing, like Vance and Perry and Trump. Small men.  Small minds.  Penises attached to billboards.

I don't know. Do you? Send answers. I would have said "safety" for years, and at the time I was probably right. I desired and needed safety and I looked to my wife to help meet that need.   Like the holocaust movie where the father (Giovanni Ribisi?) convinces his son that their concentration camp is a vacation together, I sold myself on the idea that I was happy and in a good marriage. Colored in the grey with bright reds and deep Sierra blues. Vermont fall colors. I needed safety that much. Whenever it rained, which was often weekly, my colors would drain and I'd dry my paper and begin filling in between the black lines again. Alone, the light is dim, but the colors I apply stay where they were put. I avoid black as much as I can. I'm not safe, but I accept the way it is. I don't feel unsafe. Just sad. (I think my increased dose of anti-depressants is numbing me—I don't like that. I think I'll decrease the dose soon after this experiment.)...

Wow, here come the piranhas.  The Atlantic .  The NYTimes .  The usual list of suspects. (T he Nation , and the Guardian , as usual, are much smarter.) Joe Biden pardons his son within 24 hours of the time Trump nominated several pardoned felons he pardoned into his junta.   And you shithead "progressive" publications call Biden the equivocator? He didn't give Hunter a job. He didn't promise Hunter money.   He gave his son a hug days before he left the White House, after it no longer was a political issue.   It's the classiest, most optimistic, most beautiful gesture I've seen out of Washington DC in my lifetime. Joe Biden…  I offer you a standing ovation.  You are a class guy. I'm radical left.  I voted for Gandhi in the recent election.  But... Finally, we have some one worthy of hope.  I applaud your effort, Pete Honeybutter and the FBI turd are going to get their jobs anyway, even though they will never kno...

That took some courage to let your son take the full brunt of the crooked law.   And some courage to ask "why should my son be the only person in the country who doesn't get exonerated?"   I respect you, and your family, for that.  It's the least we can offer after the unbalanced and fabricated crap we've witnessed.  I'm sure I only know 1/100ths of it…and even at that level, what's occurred is below any standard of civilized society.   I hope Hunter and the rest of your family find peace and success going forward.  You faced a moral quandary together, and handled it with elegance.  As a country, we've lost track of both morality and the strength to respond to complexity with wisdom and class.

 Harvey Weinstein was apparently a calculating predator.  This worked for him until it didn’t. Now we find out Pete Hegsworth, or whatever his name is, is just a sloppy black-out drunk.  A random groper.  A poster child for the idea that some men should have scarlet letters tattooed on their foreheads.  How does a failure like this keep getting hired by bastards like the Koch family or Trump?  Who admitted this troll to Princeton?  Some one trying to take the pressure off Yale for George W? I know these folks are inspired by violence against women…but even if titilated, they have to realize that paying off rape victims is expensive, time consuming, and ineffective.  It appears this is the behavior these fat fucks want to promote.  Keep “em scared.   I’ve spent some time with black-out drunks.  I have a scar on my right shoulder from a woman who was screaming “ I flew all the way out here and you won’t fuck me..”. Among other enticin...

The subject is journalists, of whom I'm not that interested. Charles Dickens, a journalist of such Victorian energies that he managed to write some fiction on the side, was a keen observer of human vanities. Of a minor figure in "Our Mutual Friend," he wrote, "Mr. Podsnap was well to do, and stood very high in Mr. Podsnap's opinion."   In our time, journalists have been made to realize that they are widely viewed as Podsnaps: privileged peacocks, stubbornly unreflective, "happily acquainted" with their "own merit and importance."   Reliable outfits such as the Pew Research Center report that the news media, which, in the middle of the twentieth century, was among the most highly regarded institutions in public life, now dwells in a dank basement of distrust, alongside the members of the United States Congress. As I write this, I am sitting at a bankette in an upscale pub in London, with single individuals—a man to my right and...

After these last years, and the crises that precipitated them, I'm sad.  I'm medicated for depression and PTSD and continue to be in therapy and other treatments to try to "cheer up," if nothing else. The treatments have offered benefits including periods of richer self knowledge, effective grieving, better listening to myself and others. And,  new skills at setting boundaries and clearer communication of my needs.  Thank you "that makes sense," and "this is not working for me." Cheering up?  Hasn't happened.   I keep hoping, though today it's almost 2 pm and I haven't gotten out of bed.  A rugged lonely day in a strange city.  Maybe I'll face the day and take a shower after I finish this post to myself.  Perhaps not.   Am I a shell of the man I was?  Probably, but I still feel substance inside.  I feel weighty, though soft and perhaps sick.  But not like a shell.   Am I a heartbroken romantic?  That would be fun, but...

 I witness so much ugliness--my own, the daily news and the puppets who participate in it, and of course small, mean actions from individuals. Ugliness encroaches and colonizes.  It’s opportunistic and impatient. I, at least, always found you beautiful.  You were beautiful to me. Always. What have you done?  Why your current defacement?  Are there people who find you attractive now? Are there people who see you and respect you more? Are those the people you hope to attract, or control, or befriend?  Are you more attractive to your desired tribe?  More importantly, to yourself?  You won’t communicate so I will never know your story, but as someone who lived with you for decades,  I can't imagine a version of you who would not look in the mirror now and scream for hours.  Clearly I don't know you, and even more clearly, never understood who you were (unless you were under duress at the time you moved to Montreal and flipped somehow?). You ...

On a sunny mid-day walk in London, completely alone, I'm struck by the fearful hate for family and friends my ex-wife spewed across her lifetime. A powerful short bolt out of the brightness. Bam.  That was a solid hit. She's long moved on to others…and I'm certain someone in that new group is being hurt badly by her.  Equally certain my ex knows it's that individual's fault. (Only men had to fear in the past...apparently she's now an equal opportunity demon across the rainbow?) The pieces of her regularly shatter, and she redesigns herself with startling rigidity—but since there are no shards for shame or guilt or apology, each iteration has the identical fatal flaw.      She has no other way to reinterpret herself: It is your fault that I'm empty inside . A specific call out: my ex had no understanding of her own sexuality.  Based on current scant evidence, she's even more unhinged about sexuality than she was when we were together.  This is...

Thanksgiving has passed. Once again I have a long weekend without a single plan.  Feels almost normal to have long periods of unstructured time. Not threatening as much as it did two years ago.     The concept of disfigurement is still on my mind this morning.  The way I am disfigured by trauma and grief of course. I’m still addicted topic. They are my default state.  I’ve worn the veneer off my neural tableware, fretting it so much. I’m one of billions sharing suffering on this fine day, and how many will suffer further this hour, this minute?  How many will take self-destructive steps, knowingly or not.  Cutting off the hair you love to spite your face.  Ignoring your ill parent.  Being a shitty shitty friend when a gesture of kindness would cost nothing. We humans, me included, are large language pain models.  LLPMs!  Can Trump send out the jackboots and begin the formal part of his programs when he’s not official yet? I’m more c...