Dredge

Dredge
By G.W. Hogg
©10-9-1999

(I have never seen him since that day, but I always wondered what might happen if we both met at one of the High School Reunions. I can only guess.)
“Hi”, was all I could say, at first. Inadequate, but there it was. I struggled to hold back the memories, ones I had left stored away in boxes. Thoughts and feeling that I put away and didn’t want to dredge up. But up they came, unbidden.
“You’re looking good.”
“Thanks. Time seems to have been kind to you.” I answered as I struggled with my feelings.

I always dreaded coming to reunions, just for this reason. They were always people I wanted to see. Old friends, girlfriends, but not this person. This was the one old friend that I wished had died, or at least never came into my life again. It is hard to talk to someone, even to look at them, when the last time you saw them, they told you were going to die. It was said as if the person you were turning your back on knew you the best, knew how you thought, knew who you really were. But I turned my back and went away with another. I could not be friends with both of them, they despised each other. I had to choose between a deep friendship of over ten years or one of two months. I threw it all away for a chance at a happiness I’d never thought would come. I chose the right path, but I didn’t know that then. All I knew was that I was told to choose between the two. And when I made my choice, there were these parting words, “When you kill yourself, make sure you don’t get any blood on her sofa.”
It wasn’t an “if”, it was a when. As if this person knew me so well that they knew my fate.
But my fate has not been that dire prediction, not even close. But I think a part of me did die, the day I turned my back. Never have I had the same friendship, the same bond. I may have thrown that away and never realized it.
As I think about it, I wonder. Maybe a therapist could figure it out, I cannot. But therapy would probably bring out other things that I have successfully buried. Resurrections can be ugly and I am happy to leave them buried. I do not think that going through the pain would make me any happier. Best leave it alone.
But now I have to face a small part of what I buried. The part that I could never figure out. How my leaving cause us both so much pain, how it caused me less.
“I only came to see if you were here, to tell you one thing and then to leave. For I can’t stay here, be in the same room with you.”
I didn’t know how to answer, so I kept quiet.
“I always loved you. And I still do. Your leaving me hurt me more than you will ever know.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I know. I also knew that you didn’t feel the same way towards me and I couldn't change you.”
“I am sorry.”
“Don’t be, it is who you are. I will leave now and I’ll never come to one of these functions again. The pain is just too great.”
He turned and left, I mumbled “bye”.
I watched him go and could do nothing. I couldn’t reach out to him and I didn’t want to. What I needed was to get a drink and find some quiet place to think. To somehow figure out this new part of the equation, something that I had never thought of before.
But there was no time. I could see my wife approaching, chatting with one of my old girlfriends. Thirty years together, but this was something I could not talk about. So I did what I always do, and put my thoughts and feeling back into a box. So when my wife came up to me and handed me a drink, I could smile and tell her that I was having fun. Tell her that I was having a wonderful evening and how happy I was that she came along.
I smiled at the old girlfriend and we told a story about our days in High School. Others joined in the tale and we all laughed at the end.
“Hey,” someone asked, “did you see Bill Robertson here?”
“No”, I answered. “ I didn’t see him at all.”

Bring out your Dead

By G.W. Hogg
©2-12-00

“You know, you really shouldn’t keep your feelings bottled up.”
“I don’t.”
“Yes you do. You need to let your feeling show. It’s just not good for you to keep things inside. You don’t want to explode someday”
“You’re confusing things. There is a big difference between keeping things bottled up, and neatly packing them away in a cupboard.”
“No there isn’t.”
“Oh but there is. Bottling them up means that you stuff them away and try never to see them again. I know where my demons are kept. They are neatly shelved and put away. I can get them out at any time and look them over. I just don’t want to.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“No. To me, it’s like a gravestone. It tells you what is buried there. I have no desire to dig up the corpse just so I can experience the smell of rotting flesh.”
“That’s a disgusting analogy.”
“But that is how it is. Airing things out will not remove the stink. Things happen. If I do not understand why I don’t want to dwell on it. I know something happened. I know I was hurt by it, but I do not think I’ll ever understand the why, so I put it away. If I ever feel the need to experience the hurt, I can always drag it back out again. I just don’t see the point in feeling the pain again.”
“But you’re not dealing with it.”
“Yes I am. It is one thing to fall and break your arm. You know how it happened. You remember the pain of it. And you can say to yourself, ‘I’ll never do that again’. But when someone does something to you, understanding why does not mean it will never happen again. It is something that someone did and they may do it again. You learn to deal with it and put the hurt away. The hurt is there, always will be. I just choose not to keep experiencing it over and over.”
“But wouldn’t you feel better if you could forgive someone for what they have done?”
“No, that doesn’t change what was done, it only makes them feel better.”
“But talking it over helps.”
“No, it doesn’t really. I’ve just learned to accept what happens.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“The why of some things cannot be understood. Endlessly going over something is like poking yourself with a pin. You may get used to it, but you’ll never like it. I just don’t see the reason to go and poke myself.
“But you need to deal with these things.”
“You may like to, I don’t. Sure, I could get used to poking myself with a pin, but I’d rather not. I deal with things by not poking myself with them.”
“But talking about it helps.”
“I’ve never found it so.

Unrequired Love

Curious.
I was IM chatting with Fibberkin the other day and we had a nice long chat. She told me that someone that she chats with she really likes. She asked me if you can fall in love with someone just through chat and phone conversations. Well, I am not sure if you can fall in love, but you can become really good friends. As I have said before, I have some friends where the friendship developed before we had ever met, or seen each other.
For others, we were well on the way to becoming friends. Meeting in person just sealed the deal.
I had to think about Fibberkin’s situation. She is single, so maybe she is, maybe she is not looking, but she keeps her options open. So if she is starting to have feelings of friendship for someone, is she confusing the feelings for something more? Or maybe they could lead to more?
This will be interesting to see how it plays out. She is a nice kid, though I have never met her in person.

The other interesting thing is that I suspect who she is talking about(no names were mentioned).

Less than perfect.

Amusing that if Wonder-Girl falls asleep while watching one of her shows I have to be careful when changing the channel. If I lower the volume and switch to one of the network channels, no problem.
But if I switch to the History Channel and start watching ‘Modern marvels’; she invariable wakes up and mumbles, ‘Turn it back.’ I switch back, and she falls asleep again.

I kinda wish she was like Skinner or Filet. Both of them love the History Channel. Well, I guess you can’t have everything.

Sayings

Things I heard a friend say.
Or things I have said
Or things I wished I had said.

--
I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleaze.
--
Is a man more than the scum of his parts?
--
I may be slime, but at least I’m self lubricating.
(does that work better for a woman? :-)
--
You know where his mind is at.
Every time he gets an idea, you see it!
MTM
--
‘Cook?’
‘Don’t ever call me the ‘C’ word!
RP
--
Love hurts,
but only if the cuffs are too tight.
--
The last time I let my feminine side out,
she slapped me!
--
It’s not that things have gone down the toilet yet;
but the waters are swirling around us(me).
--
My mia culpa runneth over!
--
Are butts all their cracked up to be?
--
I have so many black marks,
it makes the white ones look bad
--
So much to do, so little time.
So many words, so few that rhyme.
--
Breakfast, lunch,
And always dinner.
Why is it,
I don’t get thinner?
--
Never hurry a naked woman.
--
Waist not,
flaunt not.

--
The voices say I should not listen to them.
--
Why is it called infidelity,
when you are out of fidelity?
--
What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine.
WG
--
Hey, we’re friends, you share
WG
--
As Grandpa used to say, “I’ve become a believer in old wives tails.”
--
Can you get to a stable relationship by horsing around?
--
It’s the singer, not the thong.
--
Does enlightening ever strike twice?
--

Kith the girls and make them cry.

Well, I don’t think that I have ever done that; but I do like the little pun in there. However, since most of my friends are girls, you can say I ‘kith the girls’ (And don’t even try to get uppity with me. I won’t use ‘female’ or ‘woman’ The old saying uses ‘girls', so I will use ‘girls’ But I digress :-).
Unfortunately, there is a danger there. By becoming friends, you grow fond of them. You like them and you would like to see them happy. I suppose, by being a friend; that makes them happy to some degree. Someone likes them more for just who they are. Someone to remind them that yes, they are quite fetching. Someone who simply likes to be their friend.
So I want to see them happy. Want them to find someone who sees what a nice person they are. Someone that they can fall in love with and who will, in turn, love them back. I can’t do that. And I am puzzled at times, to understand why someone does not see them as I see them. For it can’t be that I am the only one who sees them is such a positive light?

So I sit and watch, and count them off. This one seems to have found a nice guy. This one is now married and happy. Oh, I so wish that she could find someone.
Someone to make her happy.
Then I would be happy.

And I wouldn’t think that sometimes; it’s kith the girls and make me cry.

An, a pit of knees.

(see, it doesn’t quite work. I could try, an a pit of needs, but it just doesn’t flow into ‘an epiphany’.)
My arms, my shoulders, my knees are froze.
Well, mostly, my knees. They were sore this morning, they will be sore tomorrow. But most of the eves are painted and the wood on the house is prepped. (Thanks in large part to Wonder Girl, who has been working tirelessly at my side this last week. Or perhaps it is I that has been working tirelessly at her side? :-)
Either way, we have gotten a lot done. I will be glad to go to work tomorrow and let my poor body relax.

But there has been no rest for the wicked. Saturday, while it rained and I couldn’t paint, I drove over to my dad and stepmom's house and spent the day installing a new kitchen faucet and repairing the bathroom drain.
I hate working on old houses with galvanized pipe(their house is eighty years old). Everything is fragile and you have to be very careful. At least with the faucet, I was careful and brought everything. From new nipples, shutoff valves etc. I learned a long time ago to replace everything. After all, the stuff is old and any part could break or leak at any time. So you replace everything.
Faucet done in two hours and went well.
The bathroom drain was a bastard. The bad leaky fitting in the basement broke off in my hands. But because of the limited space, I couldn’t cut off the pipe like I wanted. So when I attached the new fitting, the drain pipe moved out an inch. So the other end of the pipe, upstairs, moved in an inch. Into the wall an inch, so now the pipe from the sink would no longer reach the drain pipe. I tried various things with the pipe in the basement, but I couldn’t make it better. So a trip down to the hardware store for a new (longer) P-trap.
With a new P-trap. The job was done in five minutes. What I thought was going to be a simple job took three hours.

And now it’s Sunday and my knees are sore and stiff. I would say that I am getting too old for this, but my dad is much older. I couldn’t have my dad doing this kind of stuff. He can’t twist and turn like I can. And you know, after all he has done to help me grow up, the lest I can do is fix a few plumbing problems.

I joked to a friend of mine, that when I get old, I am going to buy a house next to my son so I can be a burden on him! :-)
Actually, I would like to live near him, so he can come and help his old man. And I can listen to him complain about his knees!

Women don’t know

We were watching ‘what not to wear’ the other day and there was this odd looking woman on the show. WG said ‘If she plucked her brows, she could be a knockout.’
‘No.’ I answered, ‘she could never be a knockout.’ WG gave me a funny look. I didn’t add that the gal could not be a knockout even if you double-bagged her and turned the lights out. And the fact that you could use her eyebrows for paint brushes had nothing to do with it.

Oh don’t even start with me. You all know people that you find attractive and those you don’t. But have you ever thought of why you do or don’t?

The next day we were talking about Skinner and WG said, ‘Well, she’s not very attractive.’
I didn’t say a word. Women never like to be contradicted in this situation.
Skinner is very attractive. Though sometimes, cameras catch her in a less than attractive light.

And I can tell you the quick one-word reason for the difference between these two women. Proportion.
The first woman had a body shape that was just…well wrong. Nothing fit, flowed, or worked. Legs too long for her body, posture sucks. (Okay, and her face was seriously not worth looking twice at.) Plucking her eyebrows wouldn’t change a thing.
Skinner, though petite, has everything in approximately the correct proportions.

And women can never see this. The will get stuck on eyebrows, or breasts. Sorry, they really don’t matter that much.
Is she proportional? Does she have the .7 hips to waist ratio? Is her face symmetrical?

Oh, my personal preference, does she have a good smile? Is there a hint of an impish sense of humor? Can you see the intelligence in her eyes? And when she smiles, do her eyes sparkle?

So remember ladies, you don’t know what we find attractive. And if we find you attractive, shut up and don’t negate it. Nothing is more annoying!

Not a kid anymore

A small vacation and we are painting part of the outside of the house. Just the eves and trim. The walls will be easier and later.
I bought US a pressure washer to scrub the walls. WG has already found other uses for it. She will soon be able to scrub down all kinds of stuff in the backyard. Deck, driveway, fish pond. She will have fun with it.
But right now it’s all climbing ladders and painting under the eves. It is slow work have it sure makes your hands, neck and back tired.
Since I am a little younger than WG, it does take quite the toll on me that it takes on her. But it is not a big difference.
I do agree with her, that next time, we will hire it done.
We aren’t kids anymore and ten years from now, we will be even less.

A Muse to amuse

Sometimes, the Muse climbs up my back, parks her cute little butt on my shoulder and starts to whisper in my ear.
If I have time, I can listen, mull over what she says, play with the ideas and then weave the story.
If I am really lucky, I can get it written down.

Alas, at times I can’t concentrate on the Muse. And when I finally have the time to think it over and write it down, the story idea is incomplete. No matter what I do, I just can’t get the ideas to weave together.
And you can’t force a Muse.
And I am stuck with a fragment…

Green Eyed Monster

In the warm humid night, a dark shape glided down onto the roof. The sylph-like figure climbed onto the parapet at the edge of the roof and hunkered down. Her sharp talons dug into the cement and she balanced effortlessly on the thin edge. Her glowing eyes scanned the night sky. Lori was hungry, always hungry, but she waited, motionless, patient.

She did not have long to wait. For within the hour, she saw a shape coming across the night sky. Dark against the starry sky, the shape flew silently.
‘I told them we had to watch.’ She thought to herself. ‘What good is power unless you exercise it occasionally? If you don’t, they will doubt your power.’ She smiled to herself, as she watches the dark shape fly closer.

Still motionless and undetected, only her eyes moved as she tracked the shape as it slowly glided down towards the hotel below. It appeared to almost stop in mid-air, then alight on the balcony wall. Then she smiled as the shape almost lost its balance and half fell onto the balcony.
“Amateur.” She hissed derisively as she stood and unfurled her dark leathery wings. She effortlessly launched herself off the parapet.

The young man didn’t hear the thump on his balcony, nor the noise of the sliding glass door slowly opening. He stirred a little, when a wing thumped into the door frame, but continued to sleep.

‘Foolish mortal.’ Nuby thought as she came through the doorway. ‘Leaving your door unlocked made it too easy.’ She walked slowly to the bed, her talons silent on the deep carpet. He was big and she would feast well tonight. She bent down and could sense their mark on him, smell where they had touched him. ‘It means nothing.’ She thought. ‘Your marks do not frighten me.’
His eyes suddenly opened and she met them, held them. “You are dreaming of a young woman in your room.” She commanded. His startled look was replaced by one of dreamy lust. She sat on the bed and let his eyes rove over her. “Embrace me.”
As he sat up and snaked his arms around her, she could feel his warmth, feel the life pulsing through him. Soon it would be hers.
She kissed him gently on the lips then moved her mouth over to his neck. “I doubt they even suspect.” She whispered to herself.

“I don’t suspect, I know!” A voice hissed behind her.
Startled, Nuby leaped to her feet and spun around, her wing scraping against the young man’s arm.
Lori’s arm was already in motion and her backhand cracked into the side of Nuby’s face. Stunned for a moment, she could not defend herself as Lori’s other hand, clenched into a tight fist, smashed into her jaw. Pain exploded through her head as she fell back on to the carpet.

Ignoring her adversary for a moment, Lori walked over to the dazed young man. She gently raised his chin until he was caught in her gaze.
“You had a strange dream tonight, nothing more. You will tell no one about it, for saying that you dreamt of us being in your room, well, it would embarrass all of us.” He nodded.
Lori noticed that he had a cut on his arm and that there was a thin trickle of blood oozing down his arm.
“A cut here is more dangerous than you can imagine, my friend.” She said as she leaned forward and licked the blood off his arm, savoring the warm salty taste.
“Mmmm…the taste of you on my lips always thrills me. But now is not the time and I will have to be patient. Lie down, go to sleep.”
As he did as he was told, she turned her attention to the poacher who was still lying stunned on the floor. She reached down and despite her slim build, pulled Nuby to her feet.

(seriously needs more work)