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On This Day: Your History

Started by claws, November 10, 2022, 07:29:22 AM

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ER

March 1, 2020 I talked with my college roommate, Jackie, about the uncertainties of the plague manifesting like a shadow across the quivering globe, and she said she expected to soon be off work the rest of the school year. I'd been thinking things might be shut down for a month, perhaps, but she turned out to be right, of course. Then she and I walked back two decades down memory lane. In a signpost of our present ages we drifted into a conversation not just about Covid, but cancer, and the tone to the way we talked about it was less abstract than it would have been in the past: we were well out of life's safe harbor known as youth, and had lost a mutual friend. After we hung up, I canceled the leave of absence request from my work which I had recently submitted, figuring if the world was shutting down it'd be wasted, and found when things calmed down I'd have a short assignment doing instruction in Seattle, which didn't sound bad, but every time I left my family I hated it. I was in the homestretch to twenty-five year retirement, so I complied with the will of a boss infinitely bigger than me, but I was burned-out on the job to the point of irritation, and if I had not been able to end my career at the finish line, I don't know I would have stayed on much longer, retirement benefits or not. Besides, the spreading coronavirus had compelled everyone to think in the short-term anyway. Strange times.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

Alex

1st March 2010.

I was walking home to the block from work at lunchtime when a man in his 50s stopped me. I'd been thinking about how recently, every taxi I'd gotten in the drivers had decided to tell me all their woes and considering if I should charge them for the privilege of me listening to their problems. The man proceeded to ask me for advice on how to deal with his overdraft problems. I have no idea who he was or why he thought I could counsel him on his problems. I listened for a couple of minutes, but ultimately I was feeling hungry and only had a limited time to grab my lunch, so when my attempts to end the conversation politely came to nought having given him all the advice I could and directed him to a debt advisory charity, I simply walked off and left him there. I hope he got his issues sorted, but man what a fuss over being overdrawn by £20.

1st March 2008.

I got what would turn out to be my last message from Bev. Gave it a damn good ignoring, other than my eye happened to catch the last line. I think she was trying to call me an idiot for turning down her attempts to get back in my life but she had missed out the second 'i'. This did make me chuckle given the context. The place where I worked only had two people in it, and evidently, I was angry at the mere thought of her trying to contact me, because my boss refused to be left alone in the room with me in case I decided to hit someone, and he was the only target. I got the med centre to sign me off for a day, but that was more to make my boss feel better than anything.
Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

ER

March 2, 2007 I had a block of time-off, so I got up at 6:00 to walk with Landon above the river on the pedestrian-only Purple People Bridge, so we could watch the fog rise from the water below, and see the sleeping city shake off the night. It was something Landon and I did almost every morning when we were at his house due south of downtown. (And which once almost got us struck by lightning out on the metal bridge.)

When Landon went on to his work, I met up with Dana, and we talked about Anna Nicole Smith, whose death had capped off a fight over money that none of the combatants would live to spend, and there seemed a commentary by the divine in that.

We segued into politics and I thought Hillary Clinton, whom I expected I would support, was mendaciously presenting herself as more moderate than she was. We also speculated about whether she'd be the first President to have performed fellacio, but agreed probably not: thinking of you, James Buchanan! As for Barack Obama, I said he shouldn't run, that he was too inexperienced and his honeymoon would fade, which is Exhibit A. for why you should never bet the farm on my political predictions.

There were no Republicans in our family, and on that day I told her I could not comprehend why anyone would ever want to vote for one, which was ironic considering how twisted the political road would become for me in another year.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

ER

March 3, 2010 While paranoia may have been the common cold where I worked, it paid to recall Kurt Cobain's wisdom and remember that just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not after you. So it was that two and a half weeks before our wedding, I had to sit Landon down and candidly explain to him that I'd just been told I may not have had much of a future ahead of me as a living breathing person, because----forgive my dramatic phrasing---someone who'd taken my testimony against him as the most rancid of betrayals, wanted the coldest of revenge. As it had been explained to me, the ramifications of taking the steps necessary to make it harder for this inmate's wish to be fulfilled were going to permanently change my life, and if Landon married me, his life as well as our sixteen month old's. We rejected many of the security recommendations as being just too drastic, we still got married, and if you notice, either by luck or something higher, I'm still here a baker's dozen years later, but on that March day I truly believed it when I said my time in this world was soon to end.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

Alex

3rd March 2013.

In preparation for moving out of the barracks in into a house I went out and bought more stuff for the kitchen. I picked up cutlery, kitchen knives, a grater, chopping board, tin openers, bottle opener, a George Foreman grill, a blender, a toaster (which looks suspiciously like some sort of high-tech weapon, I may have to investigate it further), sandwich toaster, kettle, placemats and assorted implements that are either for use in the kitchen or possibly something to do with the Inquisition.

Within weeks of arriving Kristi would have burned out the grill, the sandwich toaster and the kettle. We still have the toaster though.

I also spent more time packing DVDs. At this point I was still below the 5000 mark that would be passed later on this year. I had packed away everything very carefully to fit in my room in the block, but getting it ready to move elsewhere created a minefield where moving around the room required great care.
Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

ER

#170
March 4, 1992 It was Ash Wednesday, and being in Catholic school we got the day off. To please my mom I agreed to give up my beloved Walkman for the next forty days, and left ashes on my forehead til bed. It was over eighty and sticky hot, breaking a high-temperature record for that date, and that night my dad's friend came over and brought his daughter Verity, whom circumstances kept pushing into my life. In retrospect I think Verity was probably a homosexual, because she was always trying to get me to undress around her, but even beyond that she was a combination of annoying and sad. Her mom had left her with her dad when they split up while Verity was little, and Verity liked to talk about her mom, who worked in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. Verity had gone to Fiji with her mother since the last time I'd seen her, and she told me her mom might be getting a part on an Aaron Spelling TV show. Mostly when someone tells you something like that you think, yeah, sure, but her dad backed up her story, and it was her claim to fame, having an absent mom who did glam things. Verity also told me her mom said Los Angeles was preparing to have eight-digit phone numbers by 1995, so by decade's end I should expect them where we lived in the "Flyover Country" which Verity said she couldn't wait to trade in for California as soon as she turned eighteen. The girl was tiring if not tiresome, and while I didn't dislike her, I was always glad when she left. Kind of like Lent itself.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

ER

March 5, 1991 My father was saddened to hear his favorite movie theater, downtown's Race Street Repertory, was closing. It was owned by a local rock DJ, Larry Thomas, and brought in movies that wouldn't be shown anywhere else in the city: obscure films, art films, controversial films, classic films, foreign films. Dad had taken me to the Rep a few times, once to see an international animation festival, and the seats were plush red velvet, supposedly salvaged from an old Detroit movie palace, and reclined slightly, and the hundred-seat space inside was more like someone's parlor than a cookie-cutter multiplex. They also served eclectic fare at the concession stand, like candy from Japan, popcorn made from blue kernels, and fancy water from Iceland, and it was usually overseen by the DJ's wife, who had the great name of Thumper. In thirty years nothing has come into the city to fill the void left by a cool little movie house like that, and with streaming it's hard probably hard to grasp what a big deal having a place like the Rep used to be.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

ER

March 6, 2021 Sometimes I deviled the psychologists my employer made us see each month, and that day I told the one assigned to me that I'd recently rented the one bedroom apartment that used to belong to my late boyfriend in the mid-1990s. (Which was true, by the way.)

The little game of twenty questions began then, when she asked if I was living there, and I said no, and she asked me why I'd done that then, and I said because I wanted it, and she asked what for, and I said it was a place of mostly good memories he and I made together there, the time we may have accidentally invoked the goddess Kali notwithstanding, so why not, it was available.

"You're trying to recapture the past?" she asked.

"More like enshrine it," I replied.

"And what does 'enshrine' mean?"

"To elevate it above the ordinary in reverential fashion."

She then asked in a typical psychologist manner how being in the apartment made me feel, and I said at first it made me feel nostalgic and good, if a little pressed by the weight of time, like how I was now sixteen years older than he ever got to be, but that lately I'd felt something malevolent there.

"The goddess Kali again?"

I said no, just an odd feeling of menace or danger that was making me question the wisdom of going there alone. (I was still being honest.)

We were drifting toward choppy waters, so I told her I'd had a dream in which I burned the entire apartment building down. I thought she'd leap into that but she segued into another topic, and I felt disappointed, because I could have merrily ridden that hint of pyromania through the rest of the hour.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

Alex

7th March 2011.

I was picked to be part of the renta-crowd to meet the archbishop of Canterbury when he visited the base. Since he is the head of the church of England, I couldn't help but think that they should have picked someone who was a) a member of his church and b) English. Seemed to be a nice enough guy, but he didn't mean anything to me and the whole thing had no more impact on me than meeting the guy who empties the bins (although he is more useful to me). We had a short chat and then I headed back to work, still unconverted to his faith.
Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

Trevor

Quote from: ER on March 05, 2023, 09:13:50 AM
March 5, 1991 My father was saddened to hear his favorite movie theater, downtown's Race Street Repertory, was closing. It was owned by a local rock DJ, Larry Thomas, and brought in movies that wouldn't be shown anywhere else in the city: obscure films, art films, controversial films, classic films, foreign films. Dad had taken me to the Rep a few times, once to see an international animation festival, and the seats were plush red velvet, supposedly salvaged from an old Detroit movie palace, and reclined slightly, and the hundred-seat space inside was more like someone's parlor than a cookie-cutter multiplex. They also served eclectic fare at the concession stand, like candy from Japan, popcorn made from blue kernels, and fancy water from Iceland, and it was usually overseen by the DJ's wife, who had the great name of Thumper. In thirty years nothing has come into the city to fill the void left by a cool little movie house like that, and with streaming it's hard probably hard to grasp what a big deal having a place like the Rep used to be.

There is a cinema like that in Cape Town which has been around since the 1940s: one of only two cinemas left here which can screen film prints. It has a bit of a strange name: the Labia Theatre.

www.labia.co.za
We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.

ER

March 7, 1995 Considering that in the near future a late twenty-something tutor of mine, who was working for his Masters with a goal of teaching, would commit against me what I later learned was called sexual battery---basically groping---it disgusts me to read things I wrote about him in my diary, like this from the seventh of March in '95, when I was off school for several days after my grandma had a stroke, and he came over to see me in this terrible time:

Phil came by tonight and Dad said I could go up the road with him. He basically did my homework for me at the table, except for French, since he took Spanish, and I said I wasn't going to be ready to go back Thursday, and Phil said that's all the time off they were going to give me and I had to make tomorrow about preparing myself to go back. He said I had to be strong and show the good influence Grandma has always had on me in life and said I have one-quarter of my DNA from her, so she's always going to live on in me. He gave me a hug and called me his favorite girl. He was really great to me.

Kinda makes me want to hurl to read that today. And of course he was also my teacher for a few weeks at the end of twelfth grade.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

ER

March 8, 1997 Brian and I volunteered to do cleanup in the aftermath of the highest flood waters in the area in sixty years. We went to the hard-hit Village of Newtown, which was founded as a land grant to Revolutionary War veterans, and they handed us latex gloves, since it wasn't wise to touch anything the waters had inundated. Newtown was a mess with trees in the streets, garbage everywhere, damaged homes, and SO MUCH MUD. Worn out by the time we went back to Brian's house, we cleaned up, ordered pizza, and watched a movie called Tommy Boy, which was an insult to brain cells but kind of pleasantly fit the mood of the strenuous, noisome day. Before bed I called and told my mom I was all right, since she'd been worried about me working by only-partially receded flood waters, and it felt nice to be fretted over.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

ER

March 9, 2014 Went to a Princess Diana exhibit filled with her dresses and shoes and tiara, jewelry, letters, photos, and, eerily, the sound of her voice welcoming us. All of it was displayed with loving lavishness, and it was odd how Diana still captivated so many people. I even saw one man sitting on a bench crying, while another man comforted him. And it was odd, too, how to Daisy, whom we took along, Diana, who felt recent to me, was just some lady gone eleven years before her life began.

Came home and changed for my Aunt Sarah's bridal shower---her second marriage, this one to a Jewish man, no less---and it was a thing of loveliness. My aunt, who is my mom's youngest sister and nearly my age (I used to have to sleep not just in her room but in her bed with her when I went to Ireland as a kid), has always reminded me of Naomi Watts. Celia was there but we left each other alone, and coming back I thought how that being the case I could have let Daisy come after all, as she'd begged to do, but given how volatile ever-dicey Celia could be, I hadn't wanted to take the chance.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.

Alex

9th March 2018.

The doctors decided to induce labour and have Ash arrive 3 weeks early. Kristi's body was not cooperative however and after a few hours of nothing happening, they said "Baby is doing fine just now. We can operate to remove him now, or we can wait until he starts to get upset and then operate then. Your choice."

Kristi decided now was the better option. I got dressed in scrubs and accompanied Kristi down to the operating room. They erected a screen so we wouldn't see them operating on her, but to be honest seeing her body randomly being jerked around in small movements reminded me of seeing a dog eating a corpse. I remember watching her blood run along the steel operating table and drip down onto the doctor's white shoes. I held Kristi's hand while I sat before her and chatted away. She wasn't upset or worried (not that I could see anyway). Neither of us were panicking or upset, just excited. Anyway, surprisingly quickly the doctor held a baby over the screen for a few seconds and then took him away to do whatever they needed to do. I sat still holding Kristi. She thought it was because I didn't want to see her cut open, but I just wanted to be there with her and make sure she knew just because we now had someone else, that she wasn't any less important in my life and hadn't been replaced. After a few minutes, they were cleaning up and I was handed Ash. This irked me slightly as I felt the mother should get that privilege first, but I was too happy to have a living person in my arms to really be upset about it. I stood outside the operating room, holding Ash and watching as he struggled to open his eyes for the first time, and I said the thing I say to all newborn babies the first time I hold them. When his head lay in the crook of my arm, his legs just reached down to my hand and no more. When his eyes finally opened, they were the most wonderful sparkling blue colour.

Putting Kristi back together would take a lot longer than cutting her open did. I don't know how long I just stood there holding Ash, letting him grab my finger in his tiny hand, but I could have stood there for a lot longer without comment or complaint. With Lilly-Beth I had been able to feel her moving around when I'd been holding Kristi, but I hadn't really felt that with Ash. What she'd been feeling for the best part of a year was now solid and real to me too. I wonder if women understand how different it is for a man going through that. They have this thing inside them that they can feel moving around, that messes around with their emotions, makes them ill and produces floods of hormones, while men just kind of have to sit and wait for the baby to turn up. It doesn't feel real for us (based on my own experience and that of other men I've chatted to) until then.

Happy birthday Ash.!  :cheers:

Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

ER

Happy birthday, Ash, indeed!!!!
That was the greatest post you've ever made.
What does not kill me makes me stranger.