June 25, 2006

12:22 p.m.

A-a-a-a-a-a-aaaaand, They're Off!

The race is on. Eggman has a crush on me; it's official. I stopped to pick up eggs today and to thank him again for... oh, but I'm ahead of myself. I'd better digress...

...and this is the bad part. Can I just encapsulate, because I've been talking about it for much of the day and I'm tired? Rose and Mike came back early from Peru. Mike was horribly ill with something... but that's not the reason they started home. The reason is that they're divorcing. He got sicker and sicker on the planes, and then they got stuck overnight in Charlotte, NC, because of weather. The only flight they could get back last night was to Boston, and their car was in Hartford. I had a gig and couldn't pick them up. As I was calling my bandmates to see if they knew anyone in Boston who could give them a lift, a call beeped in and it was Eggman. I asked him if I could call him back because I had a little crisis, told him what it was, and heard him say, "Oh, I'll go pick them up."

So he did (encapsulated version), Mike went to the ER last night til 1:00am, then went home and got comfortable, and this morning Rose moved out of the house.

Needless to say, though I knew there was trouble in Sisterland, the suddenness of the breakup came as a shock. I haven't been able to talk to her more than briefly since she arrived, so I don't have the latest details. I'm in the studio the next two days, but we're planning to get together Wednesday (unless they have to meet with the lawyer then). She's staying with a friend who is close to her work and can house her four animals, but she might come here on weekends when she doesn't have the commute.

Obviously I love my sister; but I also love my brother in law, and it's very painful to hear him weeping on the phone. I feel like I'm grieving my own loss of family as well as theirs, of each other.

Oh, I started this entry so happily! Such a jaunty title, about all the beaus I could have. How ironic. This is the best part of a relationship, isn't it? The part before anything really happens? :(

Anyway, I know people will heal and reasons will unfold; they always do. Meanwhile, though, this isn't the universe I thought I was living in.

********

So, (slight ahem), anyway, the Eggman is making cow eyes at me and suggesting all sorts of things we could do together. Today I was just too busy, in addition to being distracted by the above events. But the other side of my little talisman is Board Member Guy from the benefit last weekend, with whom I've had some correspondence. I'm calling him Janus (after the Roman god of passage, gates and doorways, also of agriculture -- in later mythology Janus was the son of Apollo and migrated to Italy, and he happens to be of Italian descent). I know a few things about him now. He was a rock & roll musician in his youth, a reluctant Elder in the Presbyterian Church when he first had kids, later got into Thich Naht Hahn and Pema Chodron. Last year his daughter got him to go to Quaker Meeting, and there he's stayed. He's a Draft Counselor, a Celebrant, sings with a Sacred Harp group; likes Dickens and Shakespeare, Doyle, Kipling and Rumi (and the Little Rascals and Laurel and Hardy); has three tattoos, a fish, a bird, and Viking runes that spell Loki; has an enormous house and flower gardens. He majored in theatre but now runs his own business as a consultant for marketing strategies. He's a good public speaker and a good writer -- astute, clever, insightful, knows the difference between "comprises" and "composed of." He looks good in a suit. He wants to work for a healthy nonprofit organization, maybe dealing with issues of homeless people.

On the more chaotic side of things, he just got divorced (the day I met him) after living away from his home for 14 months; is moving back into the house tomorrow, as his ex wife (long story, and I've only heard one slice of it, but she's disassociated from the family) moves out, and now has the responsibility of creating some kind of order there, as two of his kids and their respective S.O.s live there, as well as his son's band, sometimes.

He has a lot of work to do.

I've enjoyed my correspondence with him in spite of myself, and have tried not to let it get out of hand. I think that's what happened with Steve, and I didn't want to get lulled into thinking I knew someone when I hadn't had more than one conversation. I told Janus I didn't want to get to know him by mail, and then surprised myself by saying I'd actually rather get together sometime, if situations permitted, than go on writing indefinitely. Maybe that'll happen next month. He's invited me to a day at the beach in Rhode Island. I'm thinking I might just go, get some sand in my shoes.

It's not a crush yet. Might be later.

(Sorry, Eggman. Better luck neggst time.)

Now I'm tired; thinking about Rose again, and all they still have to go through. They've put so much money into the house, many tens of thousands. The Japanese gardens, the pond and waterfall, the sunroom. It's just tragic, all of that that they did together, and now someone else will live there.

Aaaaaagghhh.