Dave died.

I heard it from a colleague, a fellow survivor of a department that spent the late 90's absolutely in flames ... a difficult time.  Several of us work in headquarters now, and whether or not we knew or liked each other back then, we share a bond.

When I saw Rowena this morning by the elevators, she walked straight up to me with purpose.  I waited.  She put her hand on my arm, "Did you hear about Dave?"

We'd worked with two Daves; I assumed she meant the one who was currently in charge of that former department.  But it was the other one, Dave who has been retired for years.  Dave who I used to date.  Dave and I fooled around but never got serious because he told me quite honestly that he was in love with another woman, a woman who wanted nothing to do with him.  (I knew that woman -- she was  bitter and hateful, taking out on others the frustrations over the life and career choices she had made.  "She didn't used to be like that," Dave would say.)  He'd known her 20 years, kissed her once, and never got over it.  Once he kissed her, it was over for us.  He wanted to give it a chance and thought she would let him.  It was a gentle breakup, and it was fine, and we remained friends.  I felt sad for him, really, because whatever she used to be, she wasn't anymore.  She was selfish and mean.  It didn't last with her, but he met someone else and immediately, it seemed, got married.  I heard she was nice, but what I witnessed was that however nice she was, she was not the nice that tolerates a husband's female friends.  I've known more than my share of women like that, women who are so insecure that they force their husband to cut all ties with former girlfriends, even with women who never dated their husband.  It's happened to me.  The first time, I didn't believe it -- I was heartbroken.  The second time, I tried to fight it.  I lost... lost two great friends.  And I lost contact with Dave.  That made me sad, too.

Dave was not your traditionally handsome dude.  He was short -- maybe 5'5 or 5'6, overweight, bearded, and almost elf-like.  But he was clever, funny, and kind -- those are the words that spring immediately to mind -- affectionate, smart, told great stories, and loved the outdoors.  We spent time hanging out at my apartment playing cards and telling stories -- he taught me how to play pitch -- and at his place on the lake, sitting outside, poring over camping gear, or fishing.  That guy sure loved to fish.  I love to fish too, but he took it seriously with a lot of analysis and specificity -- this rod/reel/bait for this fish/season/location/time of day, etc..  I just like throwing a hook in the water and reeling one in every once in awhile.

He died in his sleep Sunday night, Rowena said.  Heart attack.

"A blessing," she said, "He didn't suffer."

I asked about his wife, how she was doing.  Rowena didn't know, but shared the information about a wake and funeral this afternoon.

Dave, I'm sorry we lost contact.  You were kind and sweet and I've always thought of you fondly.  I hope the years since I knew you were happy, I heard that they were.  I hope you enjoyed the few years of retirement you got, I hope they were filled with hanging out at the lake and fishing to your heart's content.

The next hook I drop in the water is for you.

She invited me to lunch, I said next week.

She said soon, I said, okay, Monday?

She showed up at my desk at 11:30, today.  Could I go now?

I try to limit my time with this person; she is toxic.  She is a flamethrower.  She takes people down with her.

She recently involved me ("I'd like your advice") in a relationship crash'n'burn with a co-worker.  At work.  ("I'll cc you on this e-mail telling her why she hurt me and we can't be friends anymore.")

I said please don't cc me.  I suggested not sending the e-mail.  (Are you sure?  At work?  From your work e-mail?  Are you sure you need to send it at all?)

She did not cc me, but IM'd me a day later:  "I'M FREE !!!"

A few weeks have passed.  I heard yesterday she was demoted.  So I knew why she wanted the lunch.

At lunch, I learned from her that she was asked to move to this job because the previous person (who was promoted to her old job) failed to perform.  Ah, it's going to be like that.

I congratulated her and she was happy.

The VP has other plans for her, she said.

That's wonderful, I said.

In conversation with her, I feel like she's a ravenous cannibal and I'm a human pretending to be a very supportive carrot.  If she finds out I'm human, she'll eat me too.

I have increasingly been on my guard with her since receiving one of these "you don't respect me" e-mails  -- at work -- myself, back in December.  And myself, I was mystified at what I had done.  I had not been drunk.  I had not said or done anything out of the ordinary.  I left when I'd said I had to, announcing that I was meeting Al at W&W (another bar).  She later accused me of openly flirting with and trying to "steal" the guy seated on her right (I'd been on her left).  She later went with the guy back to his hotel & spent the night.  We'd just met him, but fine, whatever.  Was she lashing out at me from some puritanical guilt she felt about that?  I mean, I'd been flirting with Al - - whom I was then seeing -- and had just said I was going to meet him.  ??  I got right away that it wasn't about me, this crazy rant ("and I could tell that your aura was aroused and aggressive and red")  I received.  AT WORK.  Okay I made up the part about auras.  She didn't say aura.  I don't even know if I'm spelling that right.

I want a story scene where something like this happens and aura / aerole (which I also can't spell) come into wordplay and something else entirely happens.  Still working on that.

So anyway.

I congratulated her on her new position yesterday when I ran into her.  It seemed appropriate, regardless of the fact that it's what's best called a "developmental move."  Today, she complained bitterly that no one else had congratulated her.

They probably haven't seen it yet, I said.

They probably don't want to walk the minefield, I thought.

As bettyc said, this friendship is not going to end well.

I think the same will be said of her career.  Surreal to watch the self-destruction.  I can't stop it.  I tried.  I guess I finally relate to a photojournalist who snaps away while a city burns.

My celebrity crushes seem perfectly reasonable.

Sean Connery.

Ed Harris.

Joe Montegna.

Mark Hamill.

The painted-face savage on horseback in The Mummy -- swooooon

The only weird thing is that three of them -- the first three -- appear to be really lousy kissers, based on my cinematic observations.  The same kind of lousy kisser:  that loose-lipped, sloppy, over-reaching kind, lips as tentacles, groping (or, at best, overly tentative), seeking purchase on solid form . . . .  I hate that kind of kissing.

All of them are mostly known for hero / savior type roles, although Harris does action-movie-bad guy, Montegna does duplicitous bastard, and Hamill does stalker/ serial killer so well it's genuinely creepy.

I don't know what else the Mummy guy's in (imdblah blah) and it's fine.  He can remain that mysterious horsed rider.  Mm-hmm, yep, I'm fine with that.

Frankly (pun intended), where men are concerned, I've had enough of reality for awhile.

Celebrity crush in effect.  Cue:  Mark Hamill.  I wonder if Netflix has "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia?"

With the past two years being a bikey chick -- Ride Every Day!  I forgot the pleasure I used to find in writing.  Reading through 2003 posts, full of Nanowrimo-word-count shared panic and triumph, I was reminded that I was part of a Xanga community -- part of a writing community -- part of a community of support.

I found that supportive community in biking too, and then lost it after (now 2) car accidents in 2010, 2013/ shoulder (now wrist) surgeries.

Losing daily biking shot me down.  Way down flat, some days fighting just to leave my bed.  I couldn't ride my bike to work? I didn't want to go.  Didn't want to drive, didn't want to pay for parking, also didn't want to gain the 20 pounds added since October's crash .... fat lot of good "not wanting" did.

I forgot that some of that writing I used to do was kinda good.  Not just good FOR me, but sometimes just plain good writing.  Sometimes really good.

I'm not supposed to be on a bike at all, but I can write.  I'm typing one-handed, because the other's in a cast, but I'm getting pretty speedy.  It's tiring, but I can DO IT.

I feel like I opened this extra door in my heart that was hidden, covered with scabby vines, hinges rusted almost solid.  Reading 2003 posts provided the oil for the hinges, dropping my brain into some familiar old Nano characters called forth some kind of hero sword, with which I hacked away (with mah one gud arm) at the stubborn vines.

Maybe my new bike will come today (it has a battery!)  Maybe I'll be able to ride without straining my wrist/shoulder/neck and be bikey chick again.  Until the next surgery, until things are healed up.  Maybe I'll soon be able to leave the vehicle in the driveway again and return to WINDINMYHAIR morning commutes, you know, the kind that make you laugh out loud as you beat the #2 bus on the downhill and share a grin with the driver as you meet, head to head, at the light on the top of the hill.

But if I can't ride, I can write.

Gotta keep this door open.

One thing should be abundantly clear by now:  I am not good at dating.

I didn't mean to let all the kids grow up without dads, I didn't!

Oh Frank is "around," doing the Monday eves and every other weekend non-custodial parent gig.  Yay for Norway.

But Jesus, I just looked away for a second and now there's Stan away in college and Ollie an inch taller than I . . . both accelerating rapidly past the point of finding any relevance at all in a father figure.

I always thought I'd meet someone.

I also always thought Stan/Ollie dads would return -- not for a relationship with me, but just to investigate this independently walking talking part of their DNA.

I do try.  Just last week, I asked Handsome Clever Bob to a university lecture.  (He was too busy with work.)

And my teacher friend (who only wants sex, and is neither handsome, nor clever) is almost always available, but . . . .

Really, what's called for here is a giant shout-out to my 20-year-old self:

HEY.  DON'T BE SO GADDAMNED PICKY.

OH AND, BTW, HORMONAL TYPES OF BIRTH CONTROL DON'T WORK FOR YOU.  JSYK.  (HAHA, YOU ARE THE 1%... THAT JOKE WILL BE FUNNY IN 2013)

OH, ONE MORE THING?  GO AHEAD AND BUY THAT BERKSHIRE STOCK.

I had my opening line when I woke up this morning, which was going to direct my whole outline, and how many main characters, and probably my title... which is all I wanted to do til 23:59 on Oct 31: outline, title, a few characters, the opening line...but

I forgot it.

I can only remember that it was two lines of dialogue between the main romantic leads.  She said something; he responded.  It was poignant and evocative.

And it was the kind of opening that could serve as foreshadowing for the ending.  The kind of opening that would generate a closing.  All I'd have to do was fill in the middle.  The kind of half-dreamed perfection that only exists before dawn, so you know you must write it down, because pre-dawn perfection is fleeting.

But it seemed so memorable... so I didn't.

And it wasn't.

Which makes me want to go back to bed immediately and try to simulate the environment of last night into this morning.  Which would require going home. And wine.  And reading until I fell asleep.  But I'm okay with that.  It's for art.

Sigh.

I just found this note to myself from March 2010.  I probably put it on FB at the time.  Are all these sweet memories archived on FB, like they are on Xanga?  I mean, archived for me, not the NSA?  Here we go:

Is seeing red.  Literally.

The 4 year old locked himself in the bathroom last night.

Anytime Norway goes into hiding, the outcome is not good, but it’s usually related to food or his brother’s Nintendo.  (He created a new version of “pancake mix” last week under the kitchen table, with raw eggs, colored cookie sugar, and applesauce.)

Last night?  I jimmied open the door to see a bath towel with two red legs sticking out.

Red?  Red.  Red legs, red.. everything.  Norway, completely naked except for red marker.  From his hairline to his toes:  solid, bright, cherry red.  Just the front of him, of course, his whole back side was untouched.

My scream probably frightened the neighbors.  In Canada.

Then I asked the stupidest question all parents ask:  NORWAY!  WHY DID YOU DO THIS?!

He had a meek little answer:  Mommy, I wanted to be Hellboy.

Is there such a thing as a bad penny, really?  And if money turns up, in any denomination, wouldn't you welcome it? 

But anyway.

Back.

Again.

Again again.

Yes, xanga, it's true I've been spending a lot of time with facebook, but she's a slut and it doesn't mean anything.  With you, it's love.  Swear.

I turned 40 this year, the age by which I thought I'd have it all figured out.  (SNORT)

In preparation for 40, last year I started running.  I liked it and all, but then I started cycling.  I dropped that running like a hot potato.  Biking is freakin' awesome and fun.  I was talking with the big kid Stan about running v. cycling, because there are advantages to running, of course.  You just go run.  Maybe put on shoes, okay, and an ipod, but you can just go.  And you learn to rely on your own body and power, you listen to your neck and quit hunching forward, you listen to your heart and lungs and realize you can go a bit faster, you pay attention to your feet and how they hit the ground.  For some of us who might have a bit of a control issue  (coff coff me coff coff), it's pretty heady stuff.  (Cue ET, the older brother Michael using his Yoda voice: You have ultimate power.)  So that is the kind of conversation I wanted to have with Stan, about why I loved cycling so much even though running had really touched something inside me, but I'd hardly opened my mouth when he replied:

Wind in your hair.  Duh.

Well yeah. 

Wind in your hair, cycling down a long slow curve, it's like ...flying.

If running is self-reliance, cycling is freedom.  Cycling is payoff, too.  You pedaled up that gdmfsob hill, you get the downhill in return, wheeeee!

But a week before I turned 40, Stan and I and Shelby, the everlasting mini-van, were hit by a guy in a bigass truck who forgot to look before he changed lanes.  Totaled the van.  We got hurt.  Stan got better and went on to join the JV tennis team (and as of this week, is trying out for the basketball team).  I did not get better but have gone on to dr's and LMT's and x-rays and MRI's and now, PT, which is finally giving me some kind of hope.

Meanwhile, I haven't been on my bike since that night we got hit.  I suffered through JULY and AUGUST in this blasted heat we had here and am missing the best cycling weather in the history of Nebraska.

And I'm so FRIKKIN mad I just want to scream.  I want my almost-40 life back, before the accident, when I could have sailed into my birthday on a downhill curve, showing off my awesome new clip-ins not to mention my awesome new hard calves.  Oh yeah.  Another benefit of cycling....

Soon, I think, soon I can get back on the bike.  It's scary.  It's not going to feel right, and then of course I've gone the past 5-6 weeks with no exercise whatsoever.  I'm back to square one.

In real life, I can't moan and cry about the tragedy of not being able to ride my bike.  The tragedies of the real world far outweigh my little whine.  But this is xanga!  Where it is all about me.  Wheeeee!

I think I am really about 52.  My driver's license says 39 (and a half), but I've never believed it.  It's not feeling tired or obsolete or out-of-touch (I mean, it's not only that-lol), I just feel about a decade out of place.  And my hair, no matter what I do with this new short cut, keeps settling into some matriarchal Laura Bush type thing.  WHERE are the whimsical waves and sassy spikes that I gelled and blow-dried into place?  And am I seriously wearing a girdle?  Under my capris?  Well nobody wants a 52-year-old-looking ass, not even a 52-year-old.  But who actually wears one?  Crap.

The 3 boyfriends with whom I got along best were all 10-15 years older than I.  (I should have stayed in Texas with that first one.)  The girlfriends who lasted I inherited from my mom, when she moved away, and are all much closer to her age than mine.  I want to talk big picture, okay, not drama.  I want to discuss retirement planning, not fucking American Idol, for Pete's sake.  And of course, I took my first hit (and my first lover) at Woodstock when it was okay because everyone was doing it.

Okay, I'm kidding about Woodstock.

I got to go to a great concert on Sunday night; music I really like.  I certainly felt old looking around at all the 20-somethings, maintaining carefully bored faces, bobbing their heads in time to the beat.  But I felt no jealousy for that age, oh hell no.  A brief prayer of gratitude for having survived it, yes.  And I'm not oh-so above it all.  I bobbed my head right along with them, but with a big, stupid grin on my face, because I dig the groove, man.  And I got nobody to impress. 

I remember talking to my mom in high school about feeling old.  She said that's normal for teenagers.  No one feels like they fit in. 

"When does that feeling go away?" I remember asking.

"Sometimes," she said.  I waited for more of the answer, but that was it. 

Sometimes,

We fit in our places, smiles on our faces, moving through darkness in time to the beat. 

But often we slip from the novacaine drip and wake up to the morning sun's heat.

That warmth that can feed us, direct us and lead us

Can be instead eyes, ever probing for lies, to judge and then claim our defeat.