WITH APOLOGIES TO MISS MANNERS

I take--and give--a ton of flak...

My readers admonish me for "too much anger"and "too much profanity", both "off-putting" and "alienating" to members of my audience...

I admonish them for being too fragile, and myself for being a curmudgeon...

Here's the thing:  Lisa was my "governor"--you know, the devices they put on engines to keep them from revving to "red line"...she was my voice of reason...she was my quaalude...   Without her presence, I am now rudderless...a large and old rustbucket vessel circling in the harbor, making waves and threatening collision with the party boats...

I think my personality is that of a hardened cop in a lot of ways...you learn to approach every situation with at least a tinge of suspicion...you "hope for the best" but are "prepared for the worst"--especially in people.  I know I am textbook "personality disorder" in a lot of ways...I am ill-tempered, quick to confront, have no impulse control....

At my age, I can now say "tough shit"...  It's kind of liberating...

However, there is a caveat...I don't give a rat's ass if people "like" me, but I really do want to say my piece and have it received by--if not friendly then accepting--ears...  I want someone to take me head on with factual information which may blow my thesis out of the water...not some prepackaged pablum prepared by The American Heritage Foundation or Wayne La Pierre's Flying Monkey Squad...not some mole-fed mush supposedly coming from Liberal, trusted sources but which is in fact nothing more than well-camouflaged Karl Rove propaganda...  Facts.  Certifiable, creditable facts.

Or at least a damned interesting hypothesis well-stated....something to chew on..

Sorry if that sounds condescending or self-aggrandizing... first of all, I am a classic narcissist...secondly, "tough shit"...

Love and kisses to all.

"That's life...that's what people say..."

Well...this was the year that was...we sold our little oasis in Los Angeles and headed for the big pines of the Northwest...we found another, different oasis...one with 50 foot pine trees in the backyard...with tadpoles in the pond...with fuscia and perrywinkles and clematis abounding...we went from dead broke to flush to dead broke again...we, along with our intrepid steed--the redoubtable, massive black Expedition nicknames "T.T." in homage to Tina Turner, another big, black and ballsy broad--traversed 1200 miles of geography and light years of anxiety...we had landed, safe, on our home base...

Then Lisa died.

The horrific irony of that is something I will spend a long time trying to "get around"...

We had finally found our home.  It was owned free and clear, purchased with cash.  Lisa was about to reap the fruit of her horrible labor--her 50-year "galley slave" existence as lackey to her adoptive mother, fraught with physical and emotional abuse--...it was over.  The Wicked Witch--morphed at life's end into some Norman Rockwell sweet biddy--was dead.  All the legal maneuverings to keep white-trailer-trash "relatives" from raping the Witch's assets...all the expensive lawsuits...all the court appearances...all the confrontations culminating in a remarkable conservatorship which preserved not only money and property but also the Witch's personal dignity....all were going to finally reap reward. Lisa and the Witch's grandchildren were going to share in a substantial estate.

The first payment arrived in January...now 6 months ago...We giddily deposited money in separate accounts under Lisa's name....we bought her clothing and shoes, things she had done without for too long...we put up a fence around our new oasis...we sent her on her first vacation in 11 years, somewhere it wasn't raining....somewhere sunny and warm and lined with ocean...we sent her to Kauai...

She died there, in her sleep, on February 29, 2016.

And so I sit here, 4 months after my personal apocalypse, trying to make sense of the first sentence--"that's life"--

All I keep saying is..."What the fuck???"