And now, something completely different.

I have to stop and smell the roses from time to time.  Today was one of those times.  Even though I didn't get the sleep I feel I need, I felt rested.  Yet, it was a nice day to stay indoors and enjoy a "jammie day" for most of the morning and afternoon. You might wonder why I opened up my entry this way.  Well, I've been thinking of a lot of things as of late.  And one of those things has been understanding and appreciating the options I have as a "semi-retired" person.

- - - - - -

Recently, I went on a couple of interviews for part-time positions.  One of these positions would likely have resulted in me (if hired) being taken on for full-time employment within a year.  I would have enjoyed this, but would have felt a little sad due to the loss of an ability to take long cruises whenever I wanted to and could afford to do so.  If I had known the importance of experiences when younger (youth is wasted on the young), I would have lived my life very differently than I did.  Yet, I have few regrets, as I know that I would have needed much of the knowledge I have now to have effectively use my experiences to nourish my soul. And that includes the choices I made involving work, the career I chose, and my work/life balance.

When I was young, I never appreciated personal relationships, the value of chit-chat, or the need to stay tuned to what's going on in my community.  I ended up marrying a woman who was very much like me in this respect, and we had a relationship that pulled each of us closer to the other while pushing all others away.  Couple this with a job that would have me on call 24 hours, isolated from the trends in the computing industry, and minimally connected to others, and I would have problems in late middle-age when I lost many of the things that initially brought me success in life.

What would my late wife have thought if she could see me now?  There's no way I can know that.  But I think she might chuckle to know that I am regularly out and about as Marian, and that I'd scheduled a fancy dinner tonight with Vicki #1 as Marian.  Hopefully, my wife would smile because of the confidence I've gained in the past few years due to my ability to present myself to the world as Marian without embarrassment.

- - - - - -

Several years ago, I'd have worried about what others would think if they saw me when presenting as Marian.  Now, I don't give it a second thought - especially when going out to a nice restaurant.  Tonight, I drove to Vicki's place at 6 pm, then she drove the rest of the way to Purdy's Farmer & the Fish for a Restaurant Week dinner. If I had known how bad her night vision was, I'd have volunteered to make the 30 minute drive.  Not knowing where the restaurant was, Vicki overshot the place, and she made some driving mistakes on the way back to where the restaurant should have been.  I noticed the entrance, and Vicki found a comfortable parking spot.  Unfortunately, the ground was uneven, and I could feel the rocky ground beneath the soles of my shoes - this was the first of many rustic touches involving the restaurant.

Before opening the door, I noticed that the building built in 1775.  The front door looked like it was as old as the house, and we both enjoyed the rustic atmosphere upon entering the place..The setting was nice, but the tables felt a little cramped; the food was tasty, but something was off.  Both of knew what the problem was - the lights were way too dim to allow patrons to fully enjoy the food.  Even the best of food presentations will be harmed by poor lighting, and we missed out on much of the visual experience of eating a good meal.

I told Vicki about things with GFJ and with my former cruise partner.  Vicki understood the situation with GFJ, and made a comment that reflected a problem that GFJ and I had from the beginning of our relationship.  Unlike my former cruise partner, Vicki clearly sees our problems and understands what we have to overcome if our relationship is a long term relationship.  We talked about her life and issues with money.  She has to be the frugal person, as her husband is not as good as she is with managing significant sums of money. Then we got talking about the cruise partner.  Vicki agreed with me about my need to sever the connections with this woman instead of seeking out a reconciliation - some people won't grow unless unneeded scaffolding is removed.  Now, Vicki is very glad that she never had the opportunity to meet this person....

It would be easy for me to go on and on.  Even though I don't see Vicki that often, I am glad I have her as a friend.  I appreciate how level headed she is and how we connect with each other.  Too bad that sometime in the next few years, that she will retire and move elsewhere.  Until then, I'll cherish the friendship I have with her....

And the week started to get busy....

Last night, I saw GFJ for dinner to talk about the problems in our relationship.  Some of you can guess what they are.  But for now, I won't discuss them here.  I want to give her enough room to process her feelings - and discussing them here may not help things.

- - - - - -

Waking up this morning, I felt rested, but lethargic.  Checking my blood sugar levels, I knew why - they were a little bit lower than usual for this time of morning, and I knew that it was time to have something that would pass for breakfast.

Once I took care of this, I figured that I'd check my email.  I received a notice from a TV show filming in NYC that I had a confirmed ticket for tomorrow.  This was no good anymore, as I had dinner scheduled with Vicki #1. So I sent a response cancelling my ticket, and continued checking my emails.  It's amazing how much low-priority email is getting tossed into the spam folder.  Since I see them on my cell phone before they are folder-filed, I know that they have little value.  So I decided not to change my filters for now.

And then, I looked at my schedule....

The rest of my week looked like this:

Tuesday:
1. Volunteering at Arts Westchester
2. Dinner with the Beacon Meetup Group

Wednesday:
1. Volunteering at the LGBT Center
2. Dinner with Vicki #1 (Hudson Valley Restaurant Week)

Thursday:
1. Speech Therapy
2. Dinner with HWV (Hudson Valley Restaurant Week)

Friday:
1. (Possible) Volunteering at Arts Westchester
2. (Possible) Visiting MoMA with my niece.

Saturday:
1. (Possible) Visiting JS and seeing her Psychic.

Of course, many things end up filling in the gaps.  Chores such as laundry, shopping, etc. take up a lot of time when one has the time to burn.  And I burn it well....

- - - - - -

Around 1 pm, I drove to Arts Westchester to do a volunteer stint.  Today's task was to slice and dice information collected on a spreadsheet, and separate each organization's visitors into separate row entries, so that further analysis of that information could take place.  Unfortunately, the instructions given to me was a little flawed, as well as my understanding of those instructions. So I ended up wasting a little time (as well as having to do some rework) because of mutual misunderstandings.  But I got enough done correctly, so that I'll be coming back next week.

After this, I drove to the dining meetup in Fishkill, with a stop at BJ's Wholesale Club.  I figured that I'd pick up some plastic cups and paper plates I often use, killing time before the meetup. Once done at BJ's, I drove to dinner and found a parking spot near the restaurant without any problem.  (Sometimes, it pays to be a little bit early.)  Then I sat down across from a new member, next to one of our regulars, and across from WDJ.  Although it was noisy, I had several good conversations. And all too soon, dinner was over. 

Driving home, I tried to reach GFJ - but her line was busy.  She was chatting with her son about Thanksgiving issues, and called me back as soon as she was off the phone.  It seems like the big family Thanksgiving dinner may be called off due to family complications I can't go into detail here.  Instead, she may end up spending the holiday with both her sons at her youngest son's place.  Although she was originally planning on renting a car and driving 600 miles each way, I suggested that she look into Amtrak.  She could leave her car at my place, hop on the Lake Shore Limited, and reach her son's place about 16 hours later. (That should be enough information to guess where he lives.)  We ran the numbers for the trip, and doing this will cost less than the car rental.  Hopefully, that fare will still be available if she needs to use it.

- - - - - -

Once I got home, I turned on the political news.  And I found that the Democrats won big in the State of Virginia.  Of course, my curiosity was piqued.  Did my favorite Virginia politician win?  YES!!!!!

Danica Roem
Member of the Virginia House of Delegates from the 13th district

On November 5, 2019, Roem defeated Republican challenger Kelly McGinn, becoming the first openly transgender state legislator to be re-elected.

On the whole, this was a very good day - even though I found out that a job application I sent in was rejected.  (I didn't really want to work in a call center.  But it was a full time position in a firm which makes sure that transgender individuals are protected. So, why not email a resume?  It couldn't hurt!)

Missing a monthly meeting at Arts Westchester

Sometimes, I screw up things on my schedule and forget appointments.  Today was one of those days.  This was the day that the monthly Arts Westchester arts ambassadors (read: volunteers) meeting was held.  And due to the confusion that's been messing around with my life lately, I totally forgot about the meeting until mid afternoon.  AARGH!

- - - - - -

Last night, I put on my CPAP mask around 2 am, but didn't get to sleep until (at least) 3 am.  When I awoke at 7:45, I didn't feel as if I had enough sleep. And nothing was going to help - even if I laid in bed for another couple of hours.  So, I got out of bed without checking my schedule for the day and took it easy.

Eventually, I decided to look for my Freshly delivery - and it was not on my landing where I expected it.  So I got dressed and found it in front of the mailboxes.  I was too tired to complain, so I brought the box upstairs, loaded the meals into the refrigerator, and then went out to my car to clean it up for Thursday.  (HWV and another board member are going with me in my car to a Restaurant Week dinner.)  It amazed me that I found so much garbage in the back of my car, as I dumped three overflowing supermarket bags into the dumpster, and filled the Freshly box with stuff I planned to keep.  By the time I had the chance to look at my email, I realized that I had screwed up - I had missed the monthly meeting.  I contacted the volunteer coordinator to let her know what happened.  And then, I went inside to get ready for dinner.

GFJ and I are still talking.  Over dinner, she mentioned that something I said triggered thoughts of what the real problems are.  But I won't go into them here.  All I will say is that they are valid issues, and if I had been in her shoes, I might be feeling the same way that she is right now.  At least, we will be able to maintain communications between us, and see what happens in the future.

When I got home, I got an email from the art gallery I interviewed at last week.  They chose another candidate for the position.  And strangely, that makes me glad.  I wasn't the right person for the position, and they knew it.  But I did make a suggestion that I hope helps them in the future - they need a floater employee who can fill in when one of the other two people need to take off.  Who knows, maybe they'd consider me for the floater position if it is created.

Waking up early on a Sunday morning.

Since GFJ dropped her bombshell last weekend, I haven't been sleeping that well.  And I was very surprised that I could wake up early, chat with GFJ by text, and then go to church for the first time in a couple of years. 

But I am getting ahead of myself....

Last night, it was the "Fall Back" part of the year - just as the clock struck 3 am, my phone shifted back to standard time and now read 2 am.  And that's when I put my CPAP mask on and tried to go to sleep.  Several hours later, I realized that it was a little before 8 am, and I had the option of going to church.

Looking again at my phone, I saw that GFJ sent a message.  I figured that I would reply, and that got us into a chat.  She'd like to see me again for dinner tomorrow - and that doesn't bode well for a relationship already on life support.  So, I have to gird myself for further potential feelings of grief and lose a night out with a meetup group.  (Why couldn't her timing be better?) By the time our chat was done, I realized that I could make it to church.  So I got showered and prepared to attack the world as Marian.

Leaving the house at the same time as my neighbor, I knew that I was going to get to the church before her.  It's a nice feeling to know that people remember and accept me there, as I was greeted by one of the church's more active members when I arrived.  After the service, I had some nice chats with several people there before retreating to have lunch at an Ossining diner.

I sat down at my seat, and placed an order for breakfast - something (strangely) that was not on one of the menu pages.  (Was the menu put together properly?  Or, is there a separate breakfast menu?)  While waiting for food, I looked at my phone and noticed that my former travel partner had started her own meetup group, and scheduled meetings for Thursdays.  I took two things away from this.  First, without the ability to use me for a crutch, she was forced to do this on her own - something I'm glad she did.  Second, I feel that she chose Thursdays so that I wouldn't join her group or go to its meetups - more her problem than mine.  I sent a quick message to GFJ on this and mentioned the first point.  What I didn't say is that I was glad that I cut off contact with my former travel partner, as I didn't want to be in a codependent relationship with her - something that could easily happen given our mutual weaknesses.

On other matters....

Throughout the day, I exchanged messages with JS.  Her daughter has lined up a job, but with no way to get there and back from where they live.  It's a shame that Mother and Daughter don't make a move to a more mass transit friendly community, so that the daughter can get a job and establish herself as an independent entity.  JS is killing herself with her long commute and is not doing what needs to be done to see that her daughter can make it on her own.

If I don't get together with my niece next weekend, I'll end up accompanying JS to see a psychic in Massachusetts.  Do I really think this person will be of help to JS?  NO!  But I want to see the scam for myself.  JS is an emotionally weak person, and I fear that she will get preyed on by an unscrupulous person - and many psychics are unscrupulous by the nature of their "profession".

Wish me good luck.  I think I'll need it.

They've paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.

I think it was Joni Mitchell who penned the line "You don't know what you got 'til it's gone." And she is so right!  I lost my wife over 20 years ago, and I didn't appreciate her presence in my life until she was gone.  No, I don't beat myself up over ignorance and mistakes in my past.  Instead, I do my damnedest to avoid making the kinds of mistakes that I'll regret in the future.


So why am I referencing the line from a classic song?

Lately, I have been thinking about the impermanence of life and the people I miss.  There are times that I want to visit my friend Barbara in Cape Cod, and then I remember that she isn't with us any longer. Not all of the friends that I miss have passed away. But some are just too far away to be in regular contact.  For example, YGM now lives in Florida, and it is very inconvenient for us to keep in contact.  She has a job, two kids to care for, as well as a mother and a husband.  I can only imagine what she has to deal with, and keeping in touch with her friends is not high on her list of priorities.

It's been ages since I've heard from my friend, WDS.  He gave me the present of a fully loaded iPad when I got the job with the payments firm in NYC.  Sadly, I lost that job due to my own inadequacies for that job.  But in many ways, it was the best thing that could happen to me.  I didn't know the freedom I'd have when I decided not to work on a full time basis anymore.  And I didn't realize what I lost when I had to start watching my pennies again.

Change is an ever present constant in our lives. The older we get, the more we lose from the lives we once led.  Yet, this gives us new opportunities - if we're lucky to see them.

A visit to the doctor and more

Today, I had only two planned things on my plate - a visit to the doctor, and a volunteer stint at the LGBT Center.  I had already postponed my stint at Arts Westchester to Tuesday, so that I could have enough energy for the LGBT Center, and thought that this would be the end of my day.  Instead, I ended up seeing GFJ for dinner and had a mixed ending to a good day.

- - - - - -

Yesterday, I called my cleaning lady and arranged for her to visit my apartment today.  After 6 weeks, things were getting in need of her magic - and she said she'd be visiting this afternoon.  So I was very lucky to have a 9:30 appointment with my doctor, giving me enough time to change from my masculine presentation to my feminine presentation for the rest of the day.

The doctor's visit was booked to be my yearly physical.  Instead, it ended up being a "follow up" visit from July, as my last yearly physical was in December, not November as I had remembered.  Of course, this made the visit a quick one, and I was back in the house before 11:00 - enough time for me to change into my female presentation before going out to volunteer.

Shortly before noon, I left my apartment and took the slow road to the LGBT Center.  On the way down, I returned WDJ's call from yesterday, and we chatted for about a half hour about things I won't mention here.  And then I arrived at the LGBT Center for my weekly stint.

Today's task was simple - verify all entries on the published event calendar on Meetup against that in the center's flyer.  Catching an error or two, I fixed them without doing too much thinking.  But then, two other people came in - and they disturbed my short train of thought.  One person was an older woman who needed to talk with someone - and I was that person.  Then the other person came in, a young man, and got involved in the conversation that I was really not in the mood to have at the moment.  By the time I was finished with the event calendar, two hours had passed - and it was time to leave.

On the way home, I received a call from GFJ.  She wanted to know if I wanted to have dinner tonight.  So it was off to my apartment, then to change, and then to drive to Newburgh.  Of course, I had to change back to a male presentation for dinner before going out again.  I made it to the Flaming Wok Buffet at 7:00.  As usual, GFJ was a little late.  And for the next hour, we chatted about unimportant stuff. (One of those topics was the shutdown of my old blog and my relationship with my former travel partner.) Then, it was time to discuss "the elephant in the room" - our relationship.  Neither of us are sure where it's headed, but I figure it best to give her the time she needs to be sure of what she wants.  (I have ideas, but won't taint her decision process by mentioning them before her decision is made.)  She's a good person to have in my life.  But I have the kind of love that knows that I may have to let her go to have the happiness I want for her to have.  Hopefully, that won't need to happen.

Then, it was time to go home.  I was more alert on the way home than I was on the way to Newburgh.  That was good fortune.  I'm not sure I'd have made it home had I been as tired as I was in the afternoon.  I have mixed feelings after tonight's dinner, and so does GFJ.  But I won't let them get in the way of doing what has to be done in my life.

I'm either getting forgetful, or my Pooka was getting bored.

Elwood P. Dowd and Harvey.  This is a picture of cinema's most endearing couple.  Yes, they are likely a "same sex" couple, but not a "same species" couple.  Never once was Elwood known to say anything bad about his favorite pooka.  This is better than most couples I have come into contact with over the years.

- - - - - -

When I woke up this morning, I was still sleep deprived from last night.  Yet, I had to get moving and out of the house a bit early, as my cleaning lady was likely to come today.  (It has been 6 weeks since her last visit, and I have gotten used to her missing a visit now and then.)  So, I got showered and dressed, did some last minute straightening up the clutter in my apartment, and went out the door to have lunch with Vicki #2.

It normally takes me about a little over a half hour to reach Hastings on Hudson. So I took it slow, and overshot the town a little on the way there.  Yet, I still made it to the place with time to spare.  Vicki sent me a message, asking if we were still on for today, and I messaged her to let her know where I was.  So she rushed from her place, and met me about 15 minutes later.

Wild Culture Waffles is a little shop set in the rear of Hastings' former movie theater.  It's a pleasant place to pick up a specialty waffle with a cup of coffee to wash it down.  It is not a place for a "real" lunch, and it is not a place likely to do well in the winter.  There are no tables inside the building where one can sit.  The only tables are outside, exposed to both cold and heat. This is why other coffee shop like places tended to fail before in this location, and why I expect this business to fail once the weather gets a little colder.

Vicki and I talked about many things.  But I dominated the chat today, talking about issues and events I've reported in this (and my previous) blog.  Thankfully, she didn't shut me down.  I needed someone not too close to me to tell me that I wasn't getting crazy myself - and she did just that.

Around 2:45, Vicki noticed the time, and said that we should get going.  I barely had enough time to get to Mercy for my weekly session.  Before I left her, she mentioned that she was usually free at this time of day, and that we could make this a regular occurrence when I am in her area.  And then, I was on the road.  I took a little bit of a chance driving to Dobbs Ferry, as I had to get around a bus (not a school bus) that I knew would have a very slow acceleration time.  Although nothing happened, it was a little too close for comfort if I had thought about things.  At least, I made it to Mercy on time.

Arriving at Mercy, I couldn't find the check I usually have in hand to pay for my session.  I spent some of the time I saved in driving there to find a missing check.  So I told the center that I'd make a two week payment the following week.  After 45 minutes, my session was over, and it was time to go home.  Little did I realize it then, I was in for the night, as I took a needed nap, waking up around 7:30.  At least, I found out that my pooka had played a mind trick on me.  I looked at my checkbook and found that I didn't write a check for this week's session.  And now, I was much more at ease....