The Past Comes Back to Haunt...

I lost a good friend yesterday, one from my "wild and wooly" teenage years. His name was Jonny, and he was in a band with someone I had been "in love" with for most of my life. Note I use quotes around "in love," as I never really knew what being in love was until my Greg came along. But that's another story...

Jonny was very sick for a very long time. He had terrible kidney problems, and was a very brittle diabetic. He had two kidney transplants, and both failed (the donors were two of his brothers). He was on dialysis daily for at least 20 years (yep, I said 20 years). He was never expected to live to be 25, much less 40+. It was a miracle we had him with us as long as we did.

He was a sweet, kind man, with a good heart and a sould filled with love for all that knew him. He never married or had kids, but his family and friends were extremely important to him. He was a gifted songwriter, singer, and musician, and a great friend. We will miss him very much.

That "someone" I mentioned earlier, the one I thought I was in love with for so long? He called me to give me the news. I had already heard, but I told him I appreciated him thinking of me. Before I hung up the phone, he said, "I love you, Sweetheart." I said, "I love you too..." but I realized that it was completely different now. I loved him as a friend, as a part of my past, as someone who once meant the world to me, but now was just someone I am very fond of. I told Greg about the phone call, all about it, and he was fine with it. Greg said, "it was nice of him to think of you." It was...

New Layout, New Post...can you tell I'm bored?

Hello All,

Okay, so I'm house/dog/cat/chicken-sitting for my friends Jane and Kevin this weekend, and my Greg has gone to get our little David at his mom's house. They won't be here with me until tomorrow, and I'm bored, bored, bored, bored, bored--as our old friend Garfield the Cat used to say. I was out of work today because of the snow (and I was out yesterday also), so I came down to Jane's early. I've had lunch, checked on the chickens, watched a little TV (how people can watch afternoon TV is beyond me--it's horrible!), and now I'm bored stiff. I could read, but it seems I never want to when I have time. Besides, the house hasn't really warmed up yet, and I can't read when it's cold. Maybe later.

So, here I am on the old blog. I changed the layout (which goes great with the photo of the sofa, huh? I'm loving it), and now I'm posting what is probably the most worthless prose in history (short of Ulysses by James Joyce, and I don't care whose "best of" list it's on, I HATE that stupid book--stream-of-consciousness writing only worked for Virginia Woolf, and thank God, unlike Joyce, she wasn't under the delusion she was getting paid by the word). If you read this, Lorri, and you are fond of James Joyce, forgive me Dear One. I just don't dig the guy at all. Give me Steinbeck any day--good, short books that pack a punch and get to the point--well, except for The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden, but man, are they worth the time you spend wandering around.

Well, now I've made myself want to crack open a book after all. I brought Phillip Dick's (not one word, Onie, no matter how close the pun is to the tip of your tongue--lol) anthology that includes A Scanner Darkly (which was made into a very cool animated film last year, btw) and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? which was the basis for the film "Blade Runner."

Have a good weekend, everyone. Take care.