September 20, 2002

Today has been abandon Lauren day. Let's all abandon Lauren!

I'm feeling sick, like I might actually have the flu or something...

I spent two hours in the radio booth playing CD after CD hoping that someone would be listening somewhere and maybe someone would call in but no one did. No one listened.

That’s okay, I like my music, and I've come to the conclusion that I really like Rilo Kiley a whole lot.

Now all I want is to bake cookies, or for my room to clean itself, or to go roll around in the wet grass with someone, but everyone says "no thanks".

There are twelve hours and a day between us, and you called to say you’re sorry in your own way. There are oceans and waves and wires between us, and you called to say you’re getting older. Sometimes planes they smash up in the sky. Sometimes lonely hearts they just get lonelier. How did you survive all those fires and floods? How did you survive your insufferable friends? It was the plow that broke the western plains. And it’s just my heart gets rejected by my veins. Sometimes planes they smash up in the sky. Sometimes lonely hearts they just get lonelier. (Wires and Waves – Rilo Kiley).

So, it's been a few days. I've been lying low.

I went to see Oasis last weekend. It was good, but I'd have preferred it if they'd actually plugged the guitars in. Richard Ashcroft was good, too, although basically it was like watching the Verve if they'd all been taken ill shortly before the gig and replaced with session musicians. Or, it's as if Ashcroft didn't get on with the band, ditched them, and hired session musicians on short-term contracts in their place. He's looking well, in any case.

Electric Soft Parade weren't bad either. Saved me having to go to Portsmouth to see them, anyway. They're all young, you know, and they liked my girlfriend's housemate's friend when they met her backstage.

Soundtrack of Our Lives turned up, too. And were good. I like them. Big men with beards, singing. Not normally my thing, but gotta say, they're good. Go buy "Behind The Music" if you don't believe me.

Before the music, there was the great pleasure of being in Manchester, on a day when United lost in the morning, surrouded by a whole bunch of Mancs, watching Sky announce firstly an equalizer against Liverpool (cue: rampant manc delight), then Liverpool's winner (cue: rampant delight from everyone else, theboy included).

And having done all that backwards, let me segue smoothly into anagrams, which have been occupying my mind for the last few days. You should find one or two on the homenode.

I'm not all that good at it, but it's fun in a geeky wordsmithery way.

You, too, can anagram!

Simply write your phrase down, cut out the letters, and move them around until you've formed a few words. You'll probably end up with 8 consonants and no vowels, so rearrange a little more, and...

For instance:

"Mission Drive within Everything"

spews to:

"Videoing shirty white vermin sin"

"shivering with my tidier venison"

"invite wee rhythm division grins"

And, if you have your dubious content filter turned off...

Divine Virgin with semen history

Yes, well... it's only words, after all.

Meanwhile, I am faced with the discovery that my name can be turned into at least one (inaccurate) embarassing description.

Can I derive a WU consisting entirely of softlinked anagrams?

(He boots bull idea)

I don’t know why I’m doin’ this, it probably makes sense to only me and could be considered something of a GTKY. It might be a little long and convoluted but I gotta put it down somewhere. Maybe its because recent events in my life dictate that it be this way or maybe its just because I’m a damn fool. A little history…

I re-located to my present place of residence about ten years ago from New York City. I left behind three kids, two girls and a boy and an ex-wife. At the time their ages were 13, 11, and 7. It wasn’t easy but a combination of the circumstances and my own selfishness led me to that decision. I’ve only seen them 3 or 4 times since then and maintained what can best be described as sporadic contact. For a while, I shirked some of my financial responsibilities (since remedied). I was not a good father.

In the space of time that followed, I’d re-married, had a child (she’s gonna be eight next month) and divorced. I am fortunate enough to share dual custody of her with my ex-wife and get to be a parent on a week on week off basis. I’m obviously older now, better (I hope) at parenting and look forward to her stays with me. She knows she’s got a couple of half sisters and a half brother and recently began asking questions about them. I was embarrassed at how little I knew.

She began writing letters to her half siblings via snail mail and enclosed some pictures of herself. The words were simple, the kind you would expect from an eight year old and revealed little about her except that she liked animals and other assorted tidbits. I was kinda leery about the response she would get. Would my other kids take their frustrations and justifiable anger with me out on her? After all, I spent more time with her and did more things with her than I ever did with them. I was the “daddy” to her that I should have been to them.

Well, a couple of weeks went by and I got an e-mail from my oldest daughter (now age 23). She had lost my address and wanted to reply to my daughter’s letter. I replied (via e-mail) with the info and also asked that she be kind enough not to say too many bad things about me. Here was her answer, verbatim.

“First of all that really offends me that you think that any of us would go out of our way to make you look bad to YOUR DAUGHTER. She is a little girl and we would never do anything like that. It just shows how little you know us. Your relationship with her is none of our business. Us writing is not about you , its about us getting to know her. And whether you know it or not we are not bratty little kids who will try to ruin your relationship with her. We're not like that. I'm sorry if I sound harsh but that comment offended me a lot.”

Well, talk about feelin’ like shit. She hit the nail dead on and I felt humbled beyond belief. There I was, worried about me again, with no consideration for the feelings of others. Anyway, after much apologizing and attempts at an explanation, an understanding seems to have been reached. Letters and e-mails are being exchanged on a regular basis. Last night an envelope arrived that contained recent pictures of the kids I hadn’t seen in over four years. My God, what had I missed! Two separate letters, one for each us, were also included. The words were hopeful that a reunion might occur and that a reconciliation of some sort might be possible. Needless to say, my tears flowed freely.

I’ve since found out that my oldest child is working, has her own place in Brooklyn and is going to school three or four nights a week trying for a degree in philosophy. She worked three or four blocks from the Twin Towers and actually saw the second plane hit. We now trade e-mail on a regular basis. My second oldest daughter, now age 20, is attending college full-time in pursuit of a teaching degree. My son, soon to be 18, has gone off to college, major undeclared. I wish them all the best and don’t know how to begin to express how sorry I am for the way things turned out. I hope the final chapter has not yet been written.

My life seems a little fuller these days and I don’t know who to thank first. The innocence of an eight year old astounds me and the forgiving nature of my older ( jeez, they’re not really children anymore) kids is a quality that I wish I had. Kudos go out to my ex-wife for instilling that in them. Hopefully, we can get to know more about each other in the very near future.

That being said, good thoughts go out to all family and friends, past, present, and future..

Thanks for listening….

I went on a blind date last night and I'm not sure if it went well or not. We talked and had a nice dinner at a good restaurant here in Baltimore of which I won't tell the name because I don't like to advertise for people all that much. We both had surf and turf type combination meals and that helps conversation when you have fish on one side and beef on the other. The more things you have to talk about on a date the better off you are by far although you have to make sure you don't say too many things your date doesn't understand or gets confused by because she doesn't know all your stories yet.

She was wearing a red dress with black stockings and medium height high heel shoes which was very nice to look at. I liked her because of the way she sat with her ankles intertwined and that probably means something in body language but I'm no expert. I didn't try to convince her to come back to my place because it was a weeknight and because I didn't want to scare her too much but she did give me a kiss on the cheek when we left the restaurant and I asked if she liked to go dancing. She said she hadn't gone out dancing in years so I suggested she end her streak of not dancing with me and she said she would think about it which could mean different things. I also offered to fill her gas tank before she went home because I always believe that when you meet a woman and drive in seperate cars to a restaurant you should put gas in her car as a sign of good intentions but she said she had plenty of gas. I should have thought about getting gas coupons if they have them because then she could get gas when she needed it and I wouldn't have felt like I was leaving her hanging but I did pay for dinner and it was pricey.

My friend Dale says that in modern dating you have to wait a couple days before calling someone after a date and that doesn't make much sense to me so I'm going to call her tonight maybe. I was going to call her on her cell phone to see if she got home okay but I didn't have the number just her home number and I knew she wouldn't be back yet. She has two grown children and one of them is in prison I think but not due to her upbringing of him. The other is a girl and she works as a photographer for some magazine here in Baltimore of which I have forgotten the name. There is interesting stuff for more conversation but I want to see those ankles again. They were very tasty looking and maybe I've been too long without female companion.

I have another day of free weekends and I think I do some extensive research on my writeup I want to do about the Baltimore Colts and maybe have it for reading on Sunday.