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.