We’ve packed most of the house. The big parts remaining are the kitchen and art, and the art is stacked. Movers arrive Monday. If all goes well, then we depart Monday night, perhaps stopping in Arkansas, or perhaps driving through to OKC.
The family came and went for the holidays, and aside from a few minor challenges, the three days passed without incident. Yesterday I emptied the storage unit into the garage. Today I packed much miscellany, clothes, and disassembled the garage shelving. Tonight was chili, and we’re resting for the remainder of the evening.
By New Year’s Eve, we’ll be in Oklahoma City, unpacking again. I’m still struggling to comprehend how quickly my life changed. I’m amazed. Here’s to the New Year, and here’s a Mushoku Tensei screen capture.
I have a brief hour of respite while folks are out of the house. Even so, I’ll make this quick.
The house sold. It was less than 30 days from listing to close. We cleared enough money that I won’t need to worry about losing equity in the sale. A Christmas miracle, if I may be so bold.
I got another recruiter contacting me about an even MORE lucrative opportunity. I don’t think it’ll lead anywhere, but it’s interesting to see how things open up now that I’m not trying to stay in a particular place.
I must endure my family for another 36 hours of Christmas holidays, then pack, then move, then try to start a new life in a new place. I’m still struggling to wrap my mind around it.
I think it’s the constant chatter which bothers me most, and my son-in-law’s apparent need to remain the center of attention and always speak without ceasing. I much prefer the visits when my daughter comes without him.
My brother is here, too, with my parents. This is a mild surprise because I was sure he would stay back at his old place by the lake prepping to sell it, but I suppose my parents twisted his arm, so to speak. Just a few minutes ago, they arrived, then departed again. My mom was to attend a Christmas Eve service with the family – sans my dad, brother, and me – but decided at the last minute she’d rather check into the hotel. This is what passes for normal for my childhood family. We have plans, somebody gets emotionally bothered, the plans change. Mostly, it’s Mom who gets emotionally bothered, but it can be the others, too. I think I’m mostly recovered from those highs and lows, but that’s a combination of significant mental discipline and self-regulation. And meditation. Lots of meditation.
In any case, I reckon I have maybe 30 more minutes of quiet solitude before the circus clown cars empty into the house again, so I’ll make the most of it while I can.
I reached another milestone in the move to OKC: I signed the lease for the rental home. We’ve already got the keys. I’ll leave my car in the garage so that there’ll be enough people to move the other three vehicles.
The retirement dinner for the guy I’m replacing is tonight. Open bar, multi course dinner, restaurant closes at 10 pm. Tomorrow will be a busy day with a minor deadline, and then the office closes for the holidays. [I told you this was a good job!]
We’ll return to Arkansas for Christmas week, and then finish packing and celebrate New Year’s Eve in Oklahoma. Much of my family will visit for the holiday, so the One Year House will get a proper send-off.
I’m still struggling to realize how quickly my life has turned in so little time. Within the length of one year I switched from expecting to spend the rest of my career in Arkansas “doing what I do,” to a different state and a different career. Wild. I’m taking it as a dare to do even more strange things.
I’d hope to write this post much sooner but illness got the better of me. Because of the delay, my recollection won’t be as precise and my insights not as useful.
I drove down from Oklahoma to the farm in Texas Wednesday afternoon. The drive was longer and more tedious than I’d expected. I chose a route through several Indian nations in Southeast Oklahoma. Although the distance was shorter, the duration of the drive was the same as if I taken the interstate toward Dallas. The countryside reminded me of East Texas once I got clear of the high plains around Oklahoma City. But the little towns reminded me more of the desolation in Louisiana than the peculiar culture that can be found in Arkansas, Missouri, and East Texas. When I finally crossed the Red River into Texas, the highway was more traveled and less improved than I anticipated. Even so, I eventually reached wide open road at Mount Pleasant, and then the familiar twisties from Pittsburgh to the farm. It is a great joy to travel a road you know well built for horses and wagons and then improved sometime in the ’60s for automobiles, and to take that road at 70 miles per hour and more. I finally arrived at dusk.
The wife arrived the Monday prior to get the house ready for guests, that being a task beyond my parents at this point in their lives. I found out later that she wasn’t able to begin cleaning in earnest until that Wednesday. As any good lord should expect, his servant desired praise for the arduous task. There was some grousing, but she did receive the reward that her effort deserved.
My folks are getting older. I’d predict they’re in their last ten years of life. That inspires all kinds of morbid thoughts. Mostly I’m trying to balance my obligations to my son and daughter and the grandkid and my wife and, I suppose, myself against what my parents will need for me during this decade. Both have health issues at this point, but they’re also both competent. I can’t imagine the whore of seeing a parent slowly lose his or her mind. Even my granddaughter, at her worst, remained sharp. In a way I think that makes an aging parent even more of a challenge. There’s so much they want to do. The will is there but the body is weak.
In any case, I visited with my parents on arrival for several hours until we finally retired for bed. They returned down to the old house to stay the night. There are two houses at the farm now. The old house was built in the ’30s by my great-grandfather during the Depression. My grandmother renovated it and the late ’70s and early ’80s. My parents just completed another major renovation where they reframed the floor in two different rooms. Construction on the new house began 2009. The majority of the work was completed by the end of 2010, but finish work continues as my dad completes projects as time allows. Both homes are modest by any standard, but the finishes in the new house are very nice as my father has spent considerable time installing tile and wood floors.
My brother arrived late that night after driving up from Galveston. I think he’s worried about several things related to his old home that he hasn’t sold in Central Texas not far from Dallas. It’s in quite a state so whenever he has time he tries to get to the house and clean up some stuff. I didn’t see him until morning after the girl and her husband and the grandbaby showed up. As such I didn’t get much opportunity to talk to him during the whole visit.
Thanksgiving Day was the usual flurry of a light breakfast followed by piles of kitchen work. I managed to avoid most of the cooking but I did contribute some prep work. Holiday gatherings seem to me uncomfortable. The reason for this is not necessarily what you would expect. There’s the usual friction among family members, but what bugs me the most is that me and mine now makes a majority of people at any of these gatherings. My brother is a lifelong bachelor, and my parents have no other children besides him and me. Which means I’m bringing three descendants, plus two spouses. Mercifully, the boy spent Thanksgiving with his roommate, so my mom, dad, and brother were a little less overwhelmed. Of course I understand that this is probably all in my head. My parents are delighted to see grandchildren and great grandchild and even in-laws. Still, I try to keep my head down and avoid the center of attention. As much as I can, I visit with my brother and talk about whatever seems important to him at the time. Beyond that, I did drag him on a walk with me down to the pond.
The farm consists of almost 400 acres of scattered parcels. The homestead sits on 100 acres split into 40 and 60 acre parcels by an old dirt road back to the neighbors property. The neighbor’s property behind the farm was once the land which belonged to my great great grandfather who came over from Florida after the civil war. My great grandfather did not inherent that. It instead fell to his younger brother who didn’t keep it but instead sold it. My great grandfather cobbled together almost a section’s worth of disparate properties within a short ride from the original homestead My grandmother sold two parcels, which reduced it to its current size.
All that being preamble to this description: we often walk the dirt road through the 100 acres from the farm-to-market road back to the neighboring property. While making the hike, I usually split off at the gas well, cross the pad, and walk down the pond on that side of the road, they’re being another smaller pond on the opposite side. The land being a mix of timber and fallow, the path to the pond is not as clear as it once was. My brother, for reasons of that nuisance and his own less than ideal fitness, complained of having to follow me down to the pond which he did reluctantly right up to the weir where he said, ” well we’ve seen it, ” and turned right back around to head back to the house. I lingered for a while and took some photographs which I’ve included here so you can see the pond.
The pond
Most of the rest of the holiday followed as you might expect. A few notable details included the following. At some point late Thanksgiving Day my parents and my brother went into town for some odds and ends groceries. They returned with more donuts than we could possibly eat healthily. Friday morning the wife and I drove to Longview and used the gym briefly. My brother left for his house in Central Texas around lunch time. That afternoon, the wife and kids went into town to shop on the old town square. I handed the wife a pile of cash and she spent most of it except maybe $12. Easy come easy go. While the wife and kids were in town shopping, and my dad was tending chores around the farm, I sat and talked with my mom for two hours or more. I don’t think it was much of a serious conversation, or that we covered anything of any import, but it was good to sit and talk with her like I’d done what I was a younger man.
I think we ate a light supper after the wife and kids returned from town, and then the girls and my son-in-law played Scrabble. I distracted everybody by watching TV in the same room. Eventually everyone departed to beds, the kids to a hotel room.
Saturday was a brief visit before we departed.
I feel as though there is much more I need to say about this but it’s hard to put my thoughts into words. I think the hardest part about these visits now is that the farm is not the restful place it once was. My parents tend to collect stuff, needless unnecessary stuff. Atop that, they have also collected cats and all the terrible things you associate with people who collect cats. The cat collecting first started with my grandmother who, unlike my great-grandfather, didn’t have the stomach to dispose of unnecessary kittens. My parents at least have the sense to spay and neuter. But a cat in the house is still a cat in the house. So between the clutter and kitties I want to spend more time outside than inside but so much of the property is fallow and not properly timbered that it’s hard to walk it for lack of fields and proliferation of underbrush. I do love my parents and genuinely enjoy their company, but their passing will probably be the first opportunity in two generations to put the land back to work. I’ve attempted that conversation more than once, but it doesn’t get much of anywhere because my mother is so set on preserving what’s there, and my father has his own ideas about what should be done with the property.
Until very recently, I have for decades contemplated selling it all and purchasing a larger property in Arkansas. But these last few months have changed all of that. I now find myself relocating outside Arkansas after three decades. And I have no idea what makes sense for the future. I do know that neither of the kids wants to be a farmer, or rancher, etc. Going forward, the most logical choice is to purchase a property good for recreation, hunting, and timber: a retreat capable of paying its own property taxes. Alternatively, we just keep the old homestead which already does pay its own property taxes with gas well proceeds. A decision for another year in any case.
These are all probably rich people problems. I probably seem like I’m complaining about the responsibilities associated with my family’s hundreds of acres of farmland. Texas farmland. With gas wells. Yet it really can be a nuisance and weigh on my mind when thinking about my responsibility to my kids and their kids and so on
I do miss Thanksgiving when I was young and ignorant of all these concerns, or the way forward seemed more obvious. I think it’s a bit like realizing there is no Santa Claus. Not in the sense that there’s no magical man who delivers presents, but rather in the sense that there’s no magic that will happen to make things better and solve problems outside of personal effort. The real magic of childhood is the innocence of thinking everything will turn out okay with very little effort to make things okay. Not everybody has such am untroubled childhood I suppose, there are certainly terrible awful things that happened to lots of us when we’re kids. But I like to think that there’s a little bit of hope out there, truly unjustifiable hope, that despite any particular bad day the next day will be better. In my 50s, I really miss that. I miss the idea that things will get better.
I miss it so much that most of my waking hours are spent making things get better. I wish you all at least as much success as I have had, and I wish you a Merry Christmas.
I’m back at the house again this weekend. The drive back from Oklahoma was relatively uneventful. Yesterday evening was a bit of catch-up with the boy, who arrived home from college a few hours ahead of me. Then bed, exhausted, as has become the norm after my illness which started two weeks ago. I’m mostly recovered now, but still lethargic.
Today started with some much delayed fucking, but sexy times got interrupted with a phone call just as we were headed for an escalation. At first, the wife declined the call, but after I confirmed it was her friend of more than three decades, I told her to call her back. Her friend just lost her grandmother, and other stuff is happening to her lately, so the wife needs to attend to this friend’s needs. They talked awhile, then she got antsy and went downstairs for her morning workout when I declined a walk. [I’m still not willing to trust my lungs versus cold air.] I lingered in bed a little longer, then cooked myself breakfast (orange juice, amoxicillin, five eggs, and three leftover flour tortillas), and then started laundry. Thereafter, I showered and packed the clothes in my closet that I won’t need until after the move (mostly business suits, a tuxedo, and outdoors clothing). I rested thereafter, ate a little (it being noon), and then packed the wife’s library in exchange for avoiding kitchen packing, with which the boy assisted. Then a guy came to get my old desk (I’m not moving it), and anticipating my animosity toward the man, I chose to fetch Christmas presents for the wife & boy instead. I returned home in time for supper.
Later this evening, the wifi went down. I assumed some ISP issue, but a breaker for that circuit tripped. Not long after, the wife came back inside from the hot tub and called for assistance. The hot tub wasn’t working. I confirmed the tripped breaker, reset it, then tried the hot tub again. No luck. After a few foolish attempts to get the hot tub working (the wifi appeared to be restored), I tested the receptacle with a shop lamp: all my outdoor receptacles on that side of the house don’t function. The weather forecast for Sunday night is for temperatures below 20 degrees Fahrenheit, so I found a good plug on the outside wall of the garage, attached an extension cord, and fed power to the hot tub. Success!
Except not.
We’re in the middle of selling the house, so now we must repair the electrical – whatever might be awry – and no matter the cost. And I won’t be here after tomorrow afternoon, and if we can stay on schedule, the wife and boy will join me in OKC next week.
I am, I hope you understand, a little anxious about all the expenses. Still, my compensation at this new job alleviates long term worries. I just need to get beyond the home sale and then finance becomes a matter of long term planning and my usual miserly penny pinching.
But I will have a motorcycle.
Motorcycle!
In the meantime, I’m bingeing Mushoku Tensei again. There’s something about this story that appeals to me. Maybe it’s the adventure, or the old man reincarnated, or the harem. I once read that Tolkien said stories are meant to bring comfort. This one does that for me. Mostly, I like that, despite the challenges the protagonist faces, he overcomes, or at least pushes through to the other side. I’m in the second half of my life, yet I still need to remind myself I can push through.
I don’t want to post this. I’d rather write about Thanksgiving, or my third week on the job, or this week’s interesting anecdotes, or some philosophical ideas from before I got sick (and boy was I SICK). But tonight was another disappointment during this narrow window where I have the time to make social connections. I’m writing what I’m thinking at the moment so I don’t forget.
—
Total failure.
I attempted another connection with the BDSM crowd in OKC.
I decided that tonight, as previously, I’d “look before I leap.” I arrived early this time (no traffic, and I have a better feel for routes through town now), sat in my car until the appointed hour, and then walked inside. I saw maybe two “leather” women (or one woman and one trans-ish man?), but ordered at the counter anyway. I didn’t see the organizer. I sat near the middle of the dining hall facing most of the room. The women sat behind me, and to my left. Eventually, the organizer arrives. His haircut is a bit different, but he’s there, at least. He greets the women, orders food, then sits. A third woman arrives. No other men. The organizer is gay.
It’s a “Dom” gathering with no heterosexual Doms, one (or two) gay Dom(s), and (two or) three Dommes.
I couldn’t bring myself to join them.
I ventured out because I want to meet other men dealing with vaguely the same stuff. No such person arrives.
Some of you that read this are more active with BDSM groups than I (I’ve tried the social stuff before and it always fails). Are these groups so overwhelmingly queer? Do straight men do BDSM as Dominants, or is that some weird porn fantasy?
I had more comforting interactions with strangers I met at a chain restaurant bar off the tollway, and in the Plaza District at a dive bar, than an ostensibly “Dom” gathering.
Maybe I’m too cis-het-straight for current year BDSM?
—
Honestly, I should know better. Decades ago I attempted a social connection and it failed mostly due to the weirdness of the group members at that time. My reading of the landscape tells me things aren’t better now.
The boy returns home (to the house we’re selling) for the holidays tomorrow, same day I drive back. Due to all the upcoming efforts, this may be my last missive for several weeks. If I get a chance, then I’ll attempt another.
“Having sex” (read: “getting laid,” “gettin’ dat poosay”) is the easiest thing in the world. I could make a dating app profile and lose my virginity by dinnertime. But very few people alive have ever actually had *sex.* They’ve performed a social ritual, sort of like hazing. They’ve slapped their damp, clammy body against another damp, clammy body, like the wriggling of a suffocating fish. Maybe, possibly, their tongue came into contact with another tongue during the process. It doesn’t even sound enjoyable or enviable. They’ve never made love. They’ve never experienced passion, or tried to melt into another human being. To be crude, for a moment, it sounds like it’s more or less the equivalent of a salaryman dipping into the bathroom and having a 30-second wank, simply so that he can more-easily concentrate on whichever set of numbers he is currently moving from one column of an excel sheet to another. It’s nothing but a physical phenomenon, removed of any telos. There is no desire to unify, to become one; or even at a baser level, to control, to own. Leave alone any thought of the fruit of passion, the creation of another life inside of the woman; perish the idea. There is no yearning, no primal and beastly need even, other than a poor simulacra, the simple desire to fulfill a base bodily instinct. It’s like eating—: and not to craft a meal, not to provide oneself art, not to turn passion itself into a physical, sensible monument, to provide unto oneself an appreciable reception of one’s own soul, but to microwave a frozen sandwich, or gulp down a cup of instant ramen, merely to stop one’s stomach from growling. We live in a world of walking stomachs; hylics, all. And most of it is nothing but glorified prostitution, anyways; even within most marriages which occur today. Piers’ Wife says that she wears the trousers in the family, so perhaps the dynamic is simply turned the other way, and Piers is like a sort of gigolo. Maybe he’s even too stupid to realise that that’s all he is. But all that he has ever provided to the world is nothing more than the vulgar commentary of one.
To ask about someone’s sex life in an interview, leave alone on a platform like that, is so heinously stupid and crude as to be a thing surpassing any parody. If I ever tried to make love, to reveal the deepest and most primal aspects of myself to a woman actually perceptible to others of mankind (3DPD need not apply), I would that not only should the world never know, but that the world lose any and all knowledge of her, that every photograph ever taken of her disappear, that every thought of her undergo damnatio memoriae, that she be mine in totality and no other human even think of her existence, leave alone to ever enjoy the visage of her smile, before I could ever desire to disclose what had occurred, or how, or for any person to ever have even the faintest or briefest of thoughts about what I had done during the process, or to ever imagine an actual act that had occurred in her opening her life to me. So, no, most people have not “had sex.” They have performed mutual masturbation with some kind of escort; which is why it is a social symbol, no different from losing one’s virginity to a prostitute in elder days. Because if they had, they would never seek to disclose it. A random mangaka living out their fantasies through the process of drawing an H-doujin has come closer to “having sex” than any of these people.
If you read this post and wonder why I haven’t commented on your blog, then please know that I am ill. It’s not terminal, just “the flu,” but with the new job & a hotel room and trying to find a house to rent, it’s been really tough. I’m thoroughly drugged and vitamin enriched, but I’m still not recovered. My diet is suffering, too. I want a steak, but I’m eating takeout teriyaki at best.
The house is under contract for sale. The terms are better than I ever anticipated for a sale one year after purchase. We must vacate by New Year’s Eve. So, the clock is ticking, and none of the rentals I’ve found yet suffice.
The wife suggested I stay in OKC over the weekend if I don’t find a place on Friday. Despite saving myself the drive, that would be very difficult. Hotels are not home. I haven’t slept through the night yet.
I’d write more, but I need to hack up a lung now. Later.
A Life Un-Lived 
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