Before I start today’s rant I must just share with you how beautiful it is in Malibu. The house is calm, the colours are peaceful and dreamy. The misty canyon is slowly clearing to reveal the ocean below.
Unusually there is a TV and it’s nice to hear it babbling in the background so I don’t feel so alone. I woke up too late this morning to go to my therapy group. Thirty minutes too late. Perhaps all I need is a TV and a little dog to be happy? I have been wondering since I returned from Europe what or how life will deliver next. Obviously if I were in NYC I would be enjoying the tail end of my relationship with him. Oh, I don’t know.
The insurance man came yesterday to discuss the burglary that happened here in Malibu before I left for Europe. He was polite and thorough. A friend popped by to take me to lunch, a young Japanese actor. We ate at the new Cuban place nearby.
I spent the afternoon imagining how the house might look if I made the essential changes I want to make before I put it on the market this autumn. I drove down to see how the new road is progressing. They have already carved out the route and huge yellow earth movers are shifting tons of debris from the 26-year-old slide. It excites me to see the changes. Driving up Rambla Pacifico is really beautiful overlooking the northern Malibu shores, past vineyards and the vast Santa Monica mountain range. As I have said before, the road makes sense of why these homes were built here. I was sure when I bought the house that one day the road would be repaired so seeing it happen gives me a huge sense of relief.
Went out for dinner with friends last night, they had an elderly black labrador who the Little Dog fell in love with and tried humping. He had such fun! Running around their lawn with his new girl friend.
Something funny happened yesterday morning after therapy. One of my co-conspirators (kinda famous) came up to me and told me that if I ever saw him in public that I shouldn’t speak to him. That my fame as a sex addict might reveal him as the same.
The news on the TV is all about missing boys, bigamy and bombs. For many people just like me yesterday’s great news was the over turning of the morally reprehensible proposition 8. A federal judge declared California’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional Wednesday, saying that no legitimate state interest justified treating gay and lesbian couples differently from others and that “moral disapproval” was not enough to save the voter-passed Proposition 8.
Even though marriage has been small part of my long story I have never really considered marriage between me and another man a possibility. If I stay in Malibu on the side of a mountain I am never going to meet anyone.
Meeting someone. Why has that become so important to me? Why have I abandoned my desire for glorious isolation? I suppose the very fact that for the past few months I have felt connected to someone has woken in me the desire to share what I have and learn to be a pair rather than a single. Of course this happened rather too late in the day. I miss him because he is intelligent and funny and warm and forgiving and when I am with him I feel complete. A rare combination. NYC is not far away but I will stay away because he has to make sense of his new life.
I must spend the morning putting the house together for new renters. The last renters left the house looking beautiful. Some people just leave a really nice feeling in the house. It is easy to remember only the bad renters and forget the good ones. I have been jammed solid with renters this year and most of them were appreciative and delightful. For that, this morning, I am very grateful.
2 replies on “Middle Ages”
whew, much safer in your comments today ..some times after working 12 hrs, reading the comments in here is exhausting!
i love the pics of your home, its so..serene and clean and just so pretty!
and your not the only one that thinks at times that youd like to be married, some times i think id like the companionship again, then i remember all the bad parts about it also.(being married several times ,ive had practice)
that and i dont think im very monogomous. damn.(again..practice)
i will always wonder because my parents were married over 50 yrs, and all i can think of is..ive never met any one i could stand for that long.
im just glad that everyone has the option to enjoy the misery !
Duncan,
The room does, as always, look beautiful. You do have an eye. And the light pouring into the room is wonderful. Rambla Pacifica, as well, sounds like bliss for someone who likes to have a great drive.
Ah, the TV. Harlan Ellison in one of his columns for the “Los Angeles Free Press” about the effect of television on society, collected in “The Glass Teat” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Teat), wrote about a touring rock band and how they’d always turn on the tube in the background as soon as they hit their hotels rooms. Video wallpaper, he called it. It is comforting, especially, for kids like me, an only child, who was left to my own devices. My books took me places in my imagination but the TV was like having someone read a story to me. With visuals. But I know that I can be totally addicted, as you’ve written about, so I need to take my old friend in measured doses. Although, I must say that as a person who could tell you if I woke from a coma, what day and time it was by what was on, the fact that I’m almost blissfully unaware of the TV schedule is a big improvement. I actually have to check the guide now. 😉
I’m so glad that Prop 8 has been declared unconstitutional. Even though I know that the fight isn’t over, I believe that more and more, the unenlightened souls among us will wake up and realize what century we’re in. There is progress. There is healing. I am relentlessly optimistic.
Being a pair and not a single… it ISN’T too late in the day and who’s to say that the new highway won’t bring someone to your door or you to theirs? Maybe now’s the right timing for you to meet them since you’re sexually sober, like being in your body and not numbed out and realize that you actually like the feelings of being a couple and have eschewed your isolation. Perhaps the traveling companion was the test run to prepare you for the main event. Even though you’re 50, you haven’t talked about many relationships. And being newly aware, you’re kinda just getting your sea legs in the dating/relationship department, so maybe if you just relax and stop grasping because you want it so much and just stay open, you’re get more than you thought of in your wildest dreams.
I wish that all your lovely dream come true for you. And better.
Blessings,
Amanda