Chuck is in California helping his friend Roi shake out his sailing skills.
Roi is an archetype: the life of the party; the loud teller of outrageous stories that turn out to be (mostly) true. He has a noble dream that will make the world a better place, and you will want to jump on board to make this dream come to fruition. However, details bore him and stifle his spirit. Roi is a big picture guy. I was a believer at first: that he would would get a huge contract to build shipping container structures for disaster relief or maybe low income housing. That he was going to hire Chuck to be his plant manager. The Haiti deal, the Colombia deal, and now the New Mexico deal? Nothing seems to get off the ground. He's stuck, broke and homeless, driving back and forth and trying to negotiate a contract as the months go by. Do I dislike Roi? No! I love him, but with my eyes open. Chuck, though, has tirelessly helped and supported Roi year after year.
Roi has met a beautiful, brilliant woman. Depi is emotionally and financially stable. She has a son who is mentally ill, unwilling to get help, wandering the streets. Roi is worried about Depi and wants to keep her safe. At Roi's urging, she has bought a sailboat. It is in a slip a few minutes from her home in Long Beach. A boat would give Depi a place to hide out from Johnny. Roi would like to take her sailing. When he was young, he sailed a lot, shuttling boats back from the Caribbean. That was a long time ago, though.
Depi is out of town this week, visiting family in New York. Roi wants to get comfortable with this boat before she gets back. He wants to make her happy about the purchase - she has not sailed on open water before.He and Chuck practiced motoring around in the marina, fixed a few broken things, then sailed across to Avalon this afternoon.
Chuck called me tonight from a mooring in Avalon harbor. He said that Roi had gone ashore - wanted to try to call Depi from a noisy bar in Avalon. Typically of Roi, he didn't hail a water taxi - just flagged down some people in a dinghy, jumped aboard and made for shore before Chuck knew what was going on.
I told Chuck to hail a water taxi and follow. Finding him should not be a problem: the noisiest bar will be where ever Roi is.
Sunday, August 25, 2019
Saturday, August 24, 2019
Dark Dashboard
I used to write a lot.
My kids were little and always doing cute, fun things. Generating anecdotes. Thanks, kids! They are pretty much grown, now.
I had breast cancer once. Somehow, I managed to write my way through that with humor and grace. I made cancer fun! I have been cancer free for about 10 years, now.
I had a marriage. It was unhappy. We became swingers. I fell in love with another swinger, and we had an affair. I left my husband of 19 years to be with the object of my affections, and it worked out! We are still swingers. We have been married for over six years, now.
No wonder I have abso-fucking-lutely nothing to write about any more. I do like it, though. Secretly. My husband thinks I am a magical person who would write the next great American novel, if only given some elbow room. He wants me to retire, so I can focus on myself. And him, I suspect.
Ever since I fell in love with him and we built a life together, I have written almost nothing. It's like he loved the edges off me. I need him off my back.
Maybe I should start trying to say something and see what happens.
Our little cast of characters:
Chuck is my husband. He is 58. He is easy-going and gentle. He is a physical, spacial person with roughened hands. He loves politics and to be listened to while he talks about politics. He hates to be interrupted and interrupts constantly. I don't think he has ever said a single mean thing to me, ever. We are close and value our closeness - we have both been married to difficult people.
My daughter is Sara. She is 20, and she lives in Missoula, Montana, where she attends the University of Montana. She is starting her junior year and shares an apartment with her roommate, Erin. She is emotional and can be fierce. She loves photography and hopes to have a career in photojournalism some day. She hates to be kept waiting. She struggles with an eating disorder.
My son is Nathan. He is 17, and a senior in high school. He lives with me full-time at the moment, which I enjoy and which also drives me nuts. He is brilliant and would like to study astrophysics at MIT (if anything were possible). He loves to run. He hates most of the other kids he goes to school with, and his palpable contempt often causes problems for him.
I am calling this blog Dark Dashboard. I have a 1965 Mustang that has no dash lights, and I quite like driving it at night - flying through the dark, unable to see even my own hands. This blog needs to be the same - a silent rush of total honesty. I need to write without an audience and without a care.
My kids were little and always doing cute, fun things. Generating anecdotes. Thanks, kids! They are pretty much grown, now.
I had breast cancer once. Somehow, I managed to write my way through that with humor and grace. I made cancer fun! I have been cancer free for about 10 years, now.
I had a marriage. It was unhappy. We became swingers. I fell in love with another swinger, and we had an affair. I left my husband of 19 years to be with the object of my affections, and it worked out! We are still swingers. We have been married for over six years, now.
No wonder I have abso-fucking-lutely nothing to write about any more. I do like it, though. Secretly. My husband thinks I am a magical person who would write the next great American novel, if only given some elbow room. He wants me to retire, so I can focus on myself. And him, I suspect.
Ever since I fell in love with him and we built a life together, I have written almost nothing. It's like he loved the edges off me. I need him off my back.
Maybe I should start trying to say something and see what happens.
Our little cast of characters:
Chuck is my husband. He is 58. He is easy-going and gentle. He is a physical, spacial person with roughened hands. He loves politics and to be listened to while he talks about politics. He hates to be interrupted and interrupts constantly. I don't think he has ever said a single mean thing to me, ever. We are close and value our closeness - we have both been married to difficult people.
My daughter is Sara. She is 20, and she lives in Missoula, Montana, where she attends the University of Montana. She is starting her junior year and shares an apartment with her roommate, Erin. She is emotional and can be fierce. She loves photography and hopes to have a career in photojournalism some day. She hates to be kept waiting. She struggles with an eating disorder.
My son is Nathan. He is 17, and a senior in high school. He lives with me full-time at the moment, which I enjoy and which also drives me nuts. He is brilliant and would like to study astrophysics at MIT (if anything were possible). He loves to run. He hates most of the other kids he goes to school with, and his palpable contempt often causes problems for him.
I am calling this blog Dark Dashboard. I have a 1965 Mustang that has no dash lights, and I quite like driving it at night - flying through the dark, unable to see even my own hands. This blog needs to be the same - a silent rush of total honesty. I need to write without an audience and without a care.
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