select posts I Met a Girl You Opened the Door. Conservative Pop Music? Doing Roots With Geeks David Says Cynic

Sunday, December 08, 2002

Yes it is a good thing to lay out a journal of our days. I know that someday they may hold as much value to you as they do for me. It is so frustrating that for several years now these journals take second place behind the ever present tools breaking and my exhaustions. There are large gaps in time which I fill in letters to you every day, but which never make it to the page.

I am a different person through out my journals of my youth. Reading them now I see myself as a stranger. I know who I was. I know why I did what I did but I no longer understand the pressures I was under. I no longer recognize the reasons why I had these needs. So if when you read this as an adult you say to yourself, "this may seem like the privates notes of my dad but they are not the dad I know." it will be okay. You change everyday. I change everyday. That is to be expected. Do not be surprised and don't feel let down if the person you were does not live up to the expectations of today. Don't be let down that the person you will become does not live up to your dreams. It is all an illusion. Both your dreams and their realizations are there as guides.

Tonight I am sitting in a coffee shop I have not been in many years. I was to appear on the Susan Block Show this evening but somehow the effort in the midst of all of this just amounts to a gathering of stress I'm not willing to accept this evening. When I was younger I would have both scoffed at the notion of appearing on tv and been quite eager to participate in such a television show. But today I recognize that what I can do to care for myself and hence you is to simply let another appear on the show and serve my own needs lest I simply collapse from it all. You will be back home from your girlfriends' soon and we will sleep and tomorrow will be another day.

This week I discovered that your mother is searching for work back home. I know so many folks back there that I always seem to discover when she begins making the rounds in another adventure. In some ways I find it very disturbing because I have become like some kind of voyeur. I know many stories now about the various escapades which she has initiated. If she knew that i knew all of this, and she were in a healthy state of mind, I have no doubt she would be very embarrassed. Conversely I am confident she knows nothing whatsoever about what we have been doing. One of the brilliant things about being here in this town is that we are in control of who knows us and all those we come in contact with are now strangers to our old life. We only have a handful of friends left from the days when L was in our lives and they, above all others, are jealous guards of our privacy knowing full well the chaos which L leaves in her wake.

So L is going from restuarant to restuarant in town searching for work. She is in one of her very ill periods as the stories coming back are full of tales of her manic energy, her crazy whack job stories, and her intense rolling eyes. Apparently her resume has now been expunged of her exemplary record of waiting tables, her record of dutiful work caring for the developmentally disabled, and her near PhD status in Russian literature. Now L's resume is full of references to her history of stripping in all the major clubs throughout the west. She has deemed herself to be a new type of dancer who has reinvented the sport that is exotic dancing by conflating the normal bump and grind with classical ballet of the orthodox Russian variety. [filchyboy]
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Wednesday, November 27, 2002

No More Land No Matter
No More Land Matters More

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Thursday, November 21, 2002

{this was a long piece of steaming doo which I have censored as being basically worthless}
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Tuesday, November 19, 2002

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Monday, November 18, 2002

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Thursday, November 07, 2002

During the first few weeks of this I would go to the door and knock. Almost every time L would call out from the other side of the metal door, "Go away!"

When this started I wasn't too clear on what exactly was going on. But I persisted. After L yelled; you, being all of two years old at the time, would whisper "Daddy." I would crouch down near the ground and talk to you through the door. The tears would be in my eyes as I talked to you and told you how much I loved you. At some point I would say something which would set off L and she would grab you, put her hand over your mouth, and carry you back into the recesses of the apartment to your room where she would slam the door. As she grabbed you you would cry out in pain "Daddy! Daddy!" and then I would hear the muffle of L's hand over your mouth. After you were gone behind the slamming bedroom door I would lay there slumped against the cold steel door and cry.

The neighbors would walk by and look at me with horror. I would gather together my strength, get up, and walk away in a daze.

Eventually, after I realized the pain I was putting you through by trying to see you like this, I stopped coming by. Instead I went to court.

One of the last times I showed up to see you I knocked at the door. I heard you say "Daddy?" through the door. I said, through the door, "Hi honey I just came by to tell you that I loved you." You giggled. "I love you too!" you said. Then I heard some shuffling. It seemed to go on for quite a while. Then you opened the door and we saw each other for the first time in over a month. We both laughed and hugged each other. You held my hand and trundled us over to the couch. I sat down and you plopped onto my lap and hugged me and we started playing the finger game. We were having a wonderful time. Then suddenly L walked out of her room. She began screaming at me to get out of her house. She screamed "How did you get in here? I'm calling the police!"

You burst into tears and hugged me as tight as you could and didn't want her to take you away from me. L wrenched you off of my lap and out of my embrace and demanded I leave. You were screaming and trying to get away and I said "It's okay K let me in and I'll go. I just walked in when I was invited in." I told you I loved you and turned my back to walk out as L screamed and slammed the door behind me. I could hear you screaming in pain and the bedroom door slammed once again. I stood there outside the door with everything spinning. I could smell my daughter on my skin. I could feel her hair on my fingertips and I resolved then that I was being a coward. I resolved that I had to sue L for custody.

All of that is almost 6 years ago now. Writing this down now I can feel it all again, I can smell the air, taste the metallic shock in my mouth. I wonder if all of that visceral memory will ever go away.

This last month you brought all of this back to me in such a strong fashion. I never knew how it is that you had opened the door. I mean the door handle was far over your little 2 year old head. But it turns out, as you were so proud to inform me the other day, that you had gone into your bedroom and dragged this green plastic toy box out to the door so you could stand on it and let me in.

I am constantly amazed at your ingenuity. And pleasantly surprised at your willingness to fill in the gaps in what I know about what happened to us both in those days. I so love you "Miss Tunes"!
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Monday, October 28, 2002

Yes.

"Well, I don't think you're making a good faith effort at getting money from my mom."

What do you mean?

"You know how I want to do stuff like taking classes, like hip-hop dancing."

Yea.

"If mom had paid you, what is it called?"

Support.

"Yea if mom had paid you support how much would she owe us now?"

Well I don't really know. We could figure it out. Or at least make a guess. The last job she had that I know of was as an exotic dancer.

"What's an exotic dancer?"

Well some people get on a stage and dance and take off their clothes. Then they sort of slink about nude and people watch them.

"Why would they do that? That doesn't make sense."

Apparently some people like to watch others dance nude. Some people call the strippers. The people who do this are usually very beautiful in some way. Like your mom was. Some people call them strippers because they strip off their clothes. I think some people like to dance nude. I know I'd like to do that.

"I'd get cold."

I bet. But from what I know of the money she would make as a dancer I'd say she makes somewhere between $4000 and $5000 a month. I know when I originally went to court with her I would have had to pay about 40% of my income minus some formula of how much time I spent with you.

"Huh?"

Well I assume she would have to pay about 40% of the money she makes so I figure she'd owe us something like 21-22k.

"That's a lot."

I think if she never did pay us anything she'd have well over 100k in debt to us. That could pay for you to go to college.

"Like Harvard."

Yea like Harvard, I suppose, but you know I have made a good faith effort. Don't get too dreamy eyed about thinking about your mom's money. She hasn't been around or paid us anything. Since we haven't heard from her in so long and she's certainly never given me any money since that month years ago. She may have no money whatsoever.

"How much did she give you?"

$250.00

"That's a lot of money."

Yea it is. But it's not much when it's only one month. So it's important you understand that I have made a good faith effort and that we should both be strong whether she ends up helping or not. Given her past behavior we would be setting ourselves up to be disapointed if we expect anything from her. Do you know why I haven't gone back to court?

"No."

For a long time it was because I just couldn't handle it emotionally. Then last year I was ready for it but I couldn't afford an accountant. So on January 1st 2002 I began preparing to present my tax return to the court in 2003. I've been meaning to discuss this with you because I wanted to know how you'd feel about my plan to complete the divorce and force your mom to give us support.

"You have made a good faith effort!"
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