I actually do have other things I've been meaning to write about lately, namely Italian charm bracelets and fibromyalgia, but I need to get the rest of this out of my head. I was going to write yesterday, but I'm glad I didn't because I was surfing last night and found out some things I didn't know before and now I'm even more confused...
First to finish the post office story where I left off, one of my favorite clerks (we know all of them by name and vice versa) called me to come on up and be waited on next. So I walk behind the ex (who I'm going to just refer to as K. from now on), luckily I only had about half a dozen packages instead of my normal three shopping bags full, and the clerk starts talking to me as I walk up and we banter back and forth for a minute. Then the lightbulb goes off in K's head and he turns and stares at me and then saunters over and says hello. He said he thought it was me, but when I spoke he knew. Now, while he looks pretty much the same, he's filled out a bit (he was always really lanky), I, on the other hand, don't look exactly the same anymore. My hair is darker than it was, I'm having to wear glasses to read again (the RK is wearing off and my MS is messing with my vision), and I've gained about 30+ pounds since 1990. And at 5'1" every bloody pound shows. I like to blame it on the MS and other various health problems I've been suffering from, it's hard to work out in Houston when you're not supposed to get overheated, but as my dad would say, that's probably just a "cop out" on my part.
So there I am, no makeup, baggy tee shirt, my long hair pulled back in a ponytail (none of which is unusual, just a bit embarrassing) and he's talking at me while his poor wife is finishing paying for her postage. Face to face, I can see he really has not changed much at all, he's still wearing his pseudo law enforcement stuff, a shirt with a badge of some sort, several little pins, an American flag pin (I hope he hasn't gone Republican), and the assortment of phones and pagers. Which may not sound unusual today, but in 1983 he was the only one I knew who carried a pager everywhere he went 24/7. So I start reading his symbols on his shirt and asking "so what are you up to now?" and he quickly says he's "retired" and hanging out with the Fort Bend county folks, etc. We both really wanted to be cops in the 80's and neither one of us successeded. I came really close several times, but being a SWF (short white female) I was told by several departments that no matter how well I tested, they really didn't need me. Years ago my brother (who would see him occasionally and used to help him do odd jobs) had told me he'd gotten married and they were living in a house in a neighborhood near my old junior high school. Now it seems, he's living in a house oh... let's see... about 3 or 4 miles south of where we live! Like the next major intersection west of us. There's proof right there that I don't get out of the house much that we've never run into each other until now. He asks about my brother, I ask him if they're doing eBay (yes), mention I'm a powerseller and have been doing it for ages now. His wife is selling things for someone who lives just up the street from my house.
As the clerk is finishing up my packages, his wife comes over and he introduces her and then me as his "could have been wife". I honestly don't even remember hearing her voice, I don't think she actually said anything. But the three of us all walked out to the parking lot together, where ironically we were parked next to each other, and said our goodbyes as his wife hastily jumped in the car and drove them off. She was short, had short brown hair, was dressed in a tank top and shorts, and seemed to be older than us (we're the same age). In retrospect, she reminded me of what I remember his mom looked like last time I saw her, which makes sense because he was very much a mama's boy. (For good reason, though, his father died very young and he was I believe the next to oldest son in a family of about 5 kids) When we were walking outside, I thought "man, I have a crappy old car" but their car was in worse shape than mine.
So to really try and make a long story short, being a detective by nature (and former profession) also, and an internet freak, I came home and spent two nights looking things up out of curiousity. I had really mixed feelings at first, I felt sorry for his wife, both for having to put up with the legal problems I know he'd gone through in the 90's (it was on the local news, another story for another time...), and the fact that they obviously weren't very well off financially, that her Ebay packages looked like they were wrapped in empty Kleenex boxes... I still had a million questions and a strange desire to help. Not that I'm wealthy or anything, but at least we're comfortable, and I'm really good at eBay, it's sort of been my life for about for many years now. (Sad, huh?)
But I jump on all the search engines, he had mentioned they had an email account with Juno but he doesn't seem to be real active on the net, I only found a few traces of him, an article I'd already read about his legal problems, a note he's left on someone's guestbook (with his full name and email) bragging about how he was a retired police officer, etc. He's in the phone book, so his address and all three phone numbers came up. (Following my parents example, I've always had an unpublished number and been very careful with what personal info I allow onto the internet) His sister seems to be very prominent in the local churches, good for her, she came up a lot. His wife was a ghost, though, which perplexed me. I thought maybe she's going by her maiden name, I still do in some situations, so I actually managed to find the vital records for Texas and Harris county online. I found them backwards, though, through their FTP site, so it was slow going. I found their date of marriage in 1993, and a woman's name that didn't match the name he'd introduced her by... maybe she's going by her middle name, half the people I know seem to, including my husband and my father. I do find this new name (with his surname) on one of the major people search boards, but I'm not willing to shell out any money to find out anything else about her.
Weird thing also, the woman he married in 1993 was 13 years older than him. So I don't feel so sorry for her anymore, she's old enough to know what she was getting herself into when she married him. But something still doesn't seem right, so last night I looked again and actually found the front entrance to the vital records site (it's searchable, duh!), so I stick in his last name, which is unusual like my own, and I get a couple of apges of results. Births, marriages, deaths... and divorces. Including one for him from 1999 from the 1993 wife. But no remarriages. Unfortunately, their database seems to stop at 2001. So is this the same woman (who would be in her mid fifties by now), or has he remarried... I dunno, I'm still curious.
I know it sounds dumb, but K. is one of the few ties I have left to my past, he was a big part of it, though often a very painful part. He went out with another (much younger) girl while he was living with me (which I found out later), he's a very self-centered person who likes to have the spotlight focused on him. He pretends to be things he's not, he lied to me numerous times, even borrowed my Corvette to take the other girl out. He's not actually a bad person, though, just rather misguided and irresponsible in his own weird way. He used to brag that all the girls he'd dated had remained friends with him afterwards, which I never believed but it's a nice thought.
Hi all, I've begun a new category that wasn't supposed to exactly be about this type of thing, I meant it more to be a way to record the snapshot memories of my past before they fade away (occasionally to be accompanied by actual snapshots). It's after 5am and my brain is starting to make that humming noise and I've yet to shower, but I had to at least start on this little story to get part of it out of my brain...
Long story short (for now), a week ago I went to our local post office, where Sparky and I have been going for over 10 years, we know everyone by name, they're used to us dragging in three and four shopping bags full of stuff to mail 3 to 4 times a week. Usually Sparky is nice enough to bring them in for me, but both of our businesses have been slow lately, so I've been going in more often. He goes around lunch time, I go right before they close normally, at like 4:30. Why? Because I work nights and sleep all day. And sometimes when I get up some eBay payments have arrived in the mail or by Paypal and I try and get them out the same day.
But anyway, I walk in to the post office and there are only a few people in line and several at the counter. As opposed to the often scenario of having the line to the back of the building that I often encounter, this was great, I waltzed up to take my place in line. The person in front of me was called and I'm head of the line, yippee. I glance around and notice a couple at the window in front of me delivering what are obvious eBay packages, complete with a bin to carry them in. Short woman, very tall man. Something starts to click in my brain as I'm looking at him from behind... hmmm.. cellphone and what looks like a pager, the ever present shorts, right height (about 6'4")... And then he opens his mouth to say something witty to one of the other clerks and I know. Before he even turns his head a bit to look at his wife, broken nose, strong profile...
It's my ex boyfriend, whom I haven't seen in over 10 years. I broke up with him the day after I met Sparky. He was not only my last boyfriend, but also my first REAL boyfriend whom I met on the eve of my 21st birthday as I was about to move out of my parents home into my first apartment, the first person who lived with me. This all began back in the early 80's. I was working security graveyards at a hospital and he brought a patient in to be transferred (he was an EMT) and we talked some, he flirted, but I balked. So he came to visit me at my day job at Foley's and basically was so persistant I eventually agreed to go out with him. We dated on and off for years, he'd stay with me and then sort of panic and drift back to his mom's house for awhile. He's promise to do things and then just not show up, very frustrating yet highly charged relationship because we had a hell of a spark between us that never really went away, even after I'd given up on him after he'd promised to move to Austin so we could be together and then called me in the middle of the night at work to decline. That was one of my moments of clarity.
Now in between our on and offness I didn't sit around and pine. I dated several people, mostly people I worked security with, even married one because he had the balls to ask me. Of course, it turned out I was his fourth wife and he basically just needed someone to run the house and clean up after him. That one lasted less than two years, but it alienated me from most of my friends, resulted in five different moves around Texas in said time frame, and left me in Austin all alone after it was done with two big dogs. While there I dated a few other guys I worked with, all disasters.
The ex actually tracked me down in Austn and showed up at my work (at a time when someone was trying to serve lawsuit papers on me so when I heard there was a guy with a walkie talkie at the security station I was more than a little shook up). But it was him, in full faux police regalia (more on that in the next entry), tall and handsome and full of blarney. (We're both Irish so I'm immune)
The weirdest part was a week or two before I had a dream about him so vivid I actually wrote it in my diary. I was working nights (even then) and during the day I dreamed that he was there, in town, looking for me, and he was really upset that he couldn't fine me. Turns out that on the day of the dream, he actually had driven up from Houston and went to my last address, a few miles down the street from where I'd moved to. He'd run and address check on me and came up with the old address.
By this point I was officially divorced, and sort of dating/living with a guy I met at work (in my house, as always), and my brother, who had followed me and the ex husband to New Braunfels and then Austin to help with our failed business. It was a way wrong relationship, but I hadn't figured out how to get out of it without him getting all suicidal and depressed so he and his dog remained for a little while longer.
I was also feeling rather suicidal and depressed living away from my family, with few friends, and a boyfriend who would come and visit when he felt like it (or I'd drive into Houston to visit for a day). So in January of 1990 with my parents help, I moved back to Houston and settled into a nice little rental house with my two dogs. And here comes ex boyfriend drifting back. I had mentally blown him off when he backed out of coming to Austin, so it was easier to resist his charms this time, though we did go out a few times, etc., etc.
Then a few months after I'd moved back to Houston, I got an invitation to a Dark Shadows fan club party that I'd joined when I was in Austin and I thought, what the heck. Fan people usually sort of scare me, and there were several scary ones at the party, but there was also this tall good looking young man who I instantly felt at ease with. I think we were probably the only two "normal" people there (no offense guys and gals). And he was funny, and engaging, and asked me to go to a midnight movie after the party, which turned out to be near my house. This was all odd for me, because I rarely date anyone I haven't known in some capacity for awhile, but something clicked.
So I get to the theater (late as usual) and he's waiting on the steps out front for me and I run through the parking lot and we joke and go in and watch a terrible movie (The Guardian), which, I'm told, I babbled nonstop throughout. (I do that when I'm nervous). He was working the next day, on which I had a date scheduled with the ex, and asked to see me the day after and we've literally been together since. We give the day we met as our anniversary, and seven years later we got "officially" married on the same date.
So I called the ex, left a message on his machine ala Tim Burton, and basically told him I didn't think it was working between us, and I wasn't happy. And I didn't see him again till a few years later when he showed up on my porch one day looking for my brother in a big shiny truck. Sparky saw him though the window, but I don't think they ever officially met. Soon after I heard from my brother that he had met and married a nurse. So much for an inability to make a commitment.
Yikes, almost six, off to bed, more tomorrow...
1. Is the name you have now the same name that's on your birth certificate? If not, what's changed? Techincally yes, I've been married twice but I've never changed my last name legally, though I go by both names. It's all very confusing. Also I was adopted, but it was at birth, si I'm assuming I wasn't given another name...
2. If you could change your name (first, middle and/or last), what would it be? There are lots of names I'd choose, I've always wanted to be a Samantha, or Cassandra of something more interesting and cooler than Rebecca. My middle name is Susan, so the field is wide open there. For a last name I always wanted Collins because of Dark Shadows ;-)
3. Why were you named what you were? (Is there a story behind it? Who specifically was responsible for naming you?) My parents gave both me and my brother standard biblical names, though my brother got my dad's name as a middle name. I'm told my name means enchantress lily. The lily part is cool.
4. Are there any names you really hate or love? What are they and why? I love traditional Irish names (I'm Irish), Siobhan, Sinead, Paige, etc. If I ever would have had a child I would have named her Samantha, though it seems all my friends are using that name, so there will be a lot of Sams in the class of 2016 or so. I dislike silly girly names, like Tiffany or Crystal, or any name that was once a liquor or perfume.
5. Is the analysis of your name at kabalarians.com / triggur.org / astroexpert accurate? How or how isn't it? Ok, astroexpert's analysis makes no frigging sense at all to me. The only thing on triggur.org that wasn't offensive and made sense was "Emotional - Rebecca is a quiet loner". Kabalarians.com was more interesting. Not completely true, I'm not that friendly though I can appear to be when needed. The best line from their analysis is "When asked, you are able to give others good advice that you would probably not follow yourself". That's me in a nutshell, I'm an amateur psychotherapist and the one people always come to for advice. It also nailed half of my health problems "headaches, eye, teeth, or severe sinus conditions", though the other half was inaccurate and it missed my major ones completely...
However, I just put my diminuative name, which I go by normally, Becky, into their site and it gave me a much more accurate description. I'm "positive, self-assertive, and independent" and "creative, inventive, and ingenious in practical matters, such as handicrafts", which are true though I'm not nearly as optimistic as I was when I was younger. I "have many bitter experiences and generally rather unsettled conditions in your life, with little progress and financial accumulation", which is dead on. Also true "You cannot tolerate any domination by others, or circumstances that restrict your freedom and independence. You are inclined to make changes abruptly in your life as an escape from such conditions", I've had many jobs and moved over a dozen times in my life. I'm not a rude or argumentative type, but as the older I get the more I tell people exactly what I think, so this is true "When annoyed or offended, you can be very candid and sarcastic in your speech. Many disruptions in friendship and association have thus resulted. Verbal expression is difficult for you, and you can be forthright in situations requiring delicacy, even though it is not your intention to be." Very interesting...
What did I do today? I slept, damned near all day. It stormed all day here and I haven't had even a semi-normal night's sleep in weeks so today seemed like a good day to just sleep. Then when I got up and flipped over to the watch the news while I ate a bowl of cereal, it hit me what day it is. I'd just spent the entire day in a state of oblivion, which isn't such a bad thing.
What was I doing 2 years ago? Ironically, my husband and I got up very early that morning because we had our annual physicals scheduled for that morning. He got up before I did and turned on the TV and came running in to tell me that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, which got me out of bed immediately. We were both sitting there watching when the second plane hit and we knew the world as we knew it had been irrevocably changed. Still, we had doctor's appointments to get to. We continued watching as the first tower fell, and then in the car driving over, we heard that the second tower had fallen also. In a surreal state of mine, we went and signed in for our appointments, and when we were called in, the nurses and doctors were all running around worried, speculating on what else would happen today. There were rumors that a passenger plane had been lost from radar in the Houston area, we heard bits and pieces about the Pentagon being hit, and the fourth plane which had crashed in a field.
In the months following 9/11, I participated in eBay's "Auction for America", which helped to raise money for different 9/11 charities. I donated costume jewelry and other items to help. I also sort of lost my sense of fear and began spending too much money and not really worrying about the consequences. My brain went into a "live for today" sort of mode and stayed there for well over a year. My actual sense of unreality began with the 2000 Presidential election, and 9/11 just seemed to sort of cement it into place that the end of civilization as we knew it had begun. I can't really say I was afraid, suburban Houston doesn't seem like much of a target for terrorists, but I knew that alternate reality world had begun. We never went as far as the duct tape route, but I did stop by Academy and buy some extra bullets in the days following 9/11. And we put up the flag my parents had given us years before (still new in it's package) on the front of our house where it stayed until the mounting finally got wobbly, and we were so disgusted with what had happened in the government that by that time we wanted to take it down.
No, 9/11 didn't frighten me for my own safety. It deeply saddened me, my husband had stayed at the WTC Marriott several times during the 90's, the Dark Shadows convention that he normally went to annually had just taken place in August 2001 at the World Trade Center, he didn't go that year. I just kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, the sense of "something else is coming" would not go away. It's still there hovering in the back of my mind today. A sense of unease, and the continuing feeling of enjoy today, just in case.
All I can hope is that the world will someday get back on track, especially the US. I thought that 9/11 might have shocked the average American into realizing what a mess the world had become, but instead it prompted people to put American flags on their SUV's, and buy even bigger cars to "protect" themselves. The story goes that US intelligence knew about the strike on Pearl Harbor in advance, but they allowed it to happen to shock the isolationistic Americans into participating in WWII to literally help "save the world" from the path it was on. And it worked. But in the self-centered, ego and power driven society of today I don't know if anything will put us on the right path again.
Just thinking of the damage the Bush administration has managed to wreak in just a few short years, we've managed to go from a balanced budget to the largest deficit in history. From a seemingly happy normal world to a virtual depression of unemployment and despair. From a land of free speech to a land of suppression and hostility towards those of us who disagree. Our civil rights are being continually stripped away from us in the name of "our own good".
To finish this rant off, a few words of wisdom from Benjamin Franklin:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Actually, my mom has always had a maid and she always drove me nuts in the summer because she'd come in while I was still asleep and want to rip the sheets off the bed to wash. My mom still "cleans the house" before the maid comes. I think I'm actually too much of a control freak to let someone else handle and dust all my collectibles, I'd like to just be able to wiggle my nose and have everything just magically "be clean".
1. What housekeeping chore(s) do you hate doing the most? Dusting, it's never ending and it kills my allergies for days. Don't really like washing dishes, hubby usually does that. I don't like to make the bed properly, I like to throw the comforter up over the pillows so it's easier to unmake at night, but my husband likes to make it military style every day. I don't like picking up or taking out the trash.
2. Are there any that you like or don't mind doing? I love sorting and filing things, but I'm OCD. I don't mind doing the laundry, I can't fold worth a damn, though, so hubby usually does the towels. I don't mind putting the dishes up from the dishwasher (more OCD I 'm guessing). Oddly enough, I don't mind cleaning the cat box (I love my kitty!!), I just don't like sweeping the floor afterwards. Even stranger, I've gotten where I don't mind cleaning the toilet, though I use those disposable gloves and wipes when I do.
3. Do you have a routine throughout the week or just clean as it's needed? With keeping things straight I try and do that daily so junk doesn't pile up. We do the dishes after every meal, my husband vacuums fanatically, when the hamper gets full we do laundry (before we run out of everything). I clean the toilet and vanitory before guests come over which seems to be about every week, or whenever I see anything gross starting to grow in the toilet. Dusting is an as needed thing, though I take a swipe at things whenever I have a cloth handy just to get the surface layers off. We only do windows at Halloween so we can put the decorations up (the house also gets a good cleaning for our annual Halloween party).
4. Do you have any odd cleaning/housekeeping quirks or rules? I don't know, I rarely to use anything that has really strong chemicals (for mine and my cat's health). I won't use anything with bleach or ammonia, I'd rather scrub. I'll use baking soda instead for bathroom cleaning. I like to put the dishes straight into the dishwasher and my husband would rather hand wash them and perch them precariously on the counter to dry. I don't like to be around when he's vacuuming because of my allergies (and the noise).
5. What was the last thing you cleaned? The dishes ironically from tonight's dinner. And a load of laundry last night.