i hear the sound of mandolins

almost like some comedy my father cancelled his latest plan to visit and oddly, i felt a relief more than anything else. half the time i feel he just feels obligated and really, don’t bother on my account. i hardly can make use of a regular system of broken plans, scoop them up each time, carry them around and think of you when one jams into my skin? really. don’t sweat it. this is not entertaining enough to be a weekly series. i honestly don’t even know how embarrassment doesn’t crush his typing hand every time he makes new plans. 4-decade habit of abandoning a setup. and now he wants to see luna? but why? to pass on the broken pile? life. we need to cut that, jefito. we need to not get anyone else’s hopes up.

on the old ex front, on the First Love front, its been a long time since 16. and a long time since L was 19. she’s 42 now…and pregnant again. sadly, her new husband turned out to be a wackjob and now she’s stuck with a new baby (baby #6? 5? different fathers? sure you ain’t latin@, L? so she’s coming after me hard for cash. mijo (20 yrs old) tells me any money i send him through those channels doesnt get to him….

i guess lately he’s living in a trailer in her back yard. and i guess that’s what he wants! because i offered for him to come live here and he turned it down. that was actually unexpected. i deliberated so long to make sure it was a situation i wanted and that i could handle and that would be good for him or could be good for him. i thought for sure he’d want to. he used to want to. he probably has a girlfriend he doesn’t want to leave. bet you. i know my son. i wouldn’t be surprised if i get a call in a week or two after he breaks up with her, looking to get out of there. but you never know. maybe he just has his sights set on community college in woodsy Noreast.

nor did my brother come over and i was sure he would. in fact i was already planning on how to incorporate him into my video business here which i felt would be good for him and for me and for us! wow. and i deliberated on that just for a few minutes, too. and the obstacle wasn’t my own thoughts, as i also thought (wrongly) with my son. 

and my wife and i are now no longer fighting. nor living together. nor is my little girl waking up crying. or having to run free in an empty apartment as her parents fight in a closed room. nor sit and hear her father or mother say nasty ugly things about each other. nor is my stomach sewed up tight with anger or shame during the day anymore. and i do feel we are not right for each other. and that this dissonance tears at me and her and everything when we live together. but i dont feel good about the splitting up either. its all ugly. it all sucks. look at how i’ve let her down. look at how i’ve turned a pretty cautiously hopeful girl into a wreck. i feel terrible about it all. the fighting, the sticking through the fighting for so long, the separating, too. i think there is no happy way out anymore. i dont feel i deserve to even mourn that lacking in my own path. who am i to indulge in the sweet toxic drink of self pity.

but still…it’s true. it’s what hangs around my neck like the silver guitar from Mexico that Annie gave me for christmas a million years ago on rose road. i wanted to be so good for her in the beginning. i wanted to elevate everything beautiful in her. i wanted to soothe and heal all those tears and stains the world had visited upon her. i guess that’s what i wanted for all of them, isn’t it. and in the end i’m left with only more stains. more cuts. more want. and i’m terrified of gifting it to anyone anymore.