The end of the trip

Then there is the end of the trip.

This actually happened on Sunday, September 15. I'm posting it a couple of days later because I'm splitting up the elements of this trip into separate posts. No other reason.

I think I mentioned that I took the train this time, instead of flying. This year there has been a little too much drama in the news around air travel, and the train was a relaxing interlude. Mostly the trip was uneventful. There were only two exceptions.

When I got to the train station to go home, there was a man who got to the line at the same time I did. He insisted I go ahead of him. All visible patches of his skin were covered with tattoos—this means both arms plus his face.  At one point I inadvertently stepped on his foot, and apologized. Then he started to complain to me about everything that had already gone wrong for him today. (It was still morning.) I joked, "And then I stepped on your foot!" but he waved it away. He pulled down his pants to show me a spider logo on his underwear, and a matching logo on his shirt. (I don't know what this logo was supposed to tell me.) He didn't appear to have a seating assignment, and I debated with myself whether to remind him of this or to let the Amtrak staff do it. Then suddenly he stepped out of line and joined another line instead. I lost track of him shortly after that, and did not see him onboard the train after we left the station.

The train trip took something like 32 hours, but finally we got to my town and I reclaimed my suitcase. Then as I walked away from the station, my right foot stepped crookedly on one of the train tracks I had to cross. I lost my balance, and for one terrifying moment felt myself lurching forward. I was sure I was going to plant face first on the empty track, possibly rolling just enough to smash the computer in my backpack.

Then by some miracle I staggered a couple paces and did not fall. I don't know how that happened, and I walked very carefully the rest of the way home.

Right now I'm just grateful for miracles.

The trip was otherwise uneventful, but I got home somewhat shaken. 

Marie and Walter

Another thing that happened while I was visiting Marie … well, I mentioned we went to a bookstore. While there, I picked up a stack of second-hand movies. So one evening, Marie and I watched The Big Lebowski.

Marie had never seen the movie before. She found it very funny, and immediately connected with the character Walter. It's interesting, because she doesn't normally approve the kind of casual violence that Walter threatens, and I'm certain she wouldn't endorse his accommodating remarks about Nazism. ("Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.") But clearly there was something in Walter that sparked a kind of recognition in her. Maybe it was just his insistence that "There are rules!" in so many areas of life. I asked her if that was it, and she laughed.  (Compare, for example, this post here.) 

 

Talking with Marie

What did we talk about during the visit? 

We never discussed politics, or almost never. I think she mentioned a couple of things she had heard recently—once she said she'd heard that Donald Trump was going to round up LEGAL immigrants into concentration camps, along with illegal ones—but I just let them drop or made a joke.

The week before my visit, Debbie came to town briefly for something unrelated to me, but she and I had dinner one evening. Afterwards I sent a note to Marie because I remembered that I had promised always to let her know whenever Debbie and I were together. But I asked her, did she really want to keep hearing about these events, even if (as always) Nothing Happened?

During my visit, she said No, not any more. Marie explained that when I first visited Debbie, her insecurities were so severe that she assumed, As soon as he sees Debbie he's going to remember all her virtues and contrast them with all my weaknesses; and right away he will break up with me to be back with her! In the ensuing eight years, of course, none of that has happened. And I reminded her that Debbie and I have agreed we do better without the added complication of sex and romance. For her part, Marie said she finally realized that even if I did ever fuck someone else, that wouldn't have to mean that I'd break up with her. So she has finally decided not to worry about it.

In practical terms, this isn't going to mean anything. I'm pretty sure my fucking days are over at this point, as noted above. And it's not like any of my girlfriends ever overlapped any of the others, except for the brief period when my involvement with D overlapped my marriage to Wife. (See this post. For the sheer comedy of it, compare also my remarks about D's jealousy of Wife here and here.) But in the abstract I suppose it is nice to know that she's finally not worried about possibilities that could never have hurt her to begin with. Does this count as progress, even if it is meaningless?  

Visiting Marie

I've just been visiting Marie for a week. Now I'm on the train headed home, and I'm thinking about the trip. What worked, and what didn't?

Marie lives in a dingy apartment. She has furniture she doesn't use, which is generally clogged with junk and whose surfaces are all scratched to ribbons by her many years of cats. (In the terminology of the current election cycle, Marie is definitely a Childless Cat Lady, with all the political predilections that term implies.) The furniture she does use is scarce and spare. There are two mismatched chairs (one an office chair, the other an overstuffed living room chair with gashes scratched in it) flanking one small glass-topped table. Her setup is clearly fine for one person (who can use the glass-topped table alternately as a dining table or a desk); when both of us are there, we can use the table together after a fashion, but there is no opportunity to serve an elaborate meal because there simply aren't enough square inches on the table.

The comparisons with my space are unsettling. I too have enough furniture for one, but it is awkward for more than one. I do have a usable desk that is different from my dining table; and I have extensions that I can put in the dining table if I'm going to seat more than three people. But I have no sofa; my chairs are all dining chairs, which makes them not very comfortable for long sitting; and my living room has stacks of junk that I keep meaning to deal with. (Compare, for example, this poem from eight years ago. Nothing has gotten any better since then.) On the other hand, I don't have cats. (You may remember that Wife got the cats we owned back when we separated. They have both died since then, and she's gotten another. I've never had any.) Briefly, Marie and I both live like graduate students (only without the classes, or scholarly productivity, or promise that it will all get better after we get our degrees and get jobs). 

Her apartment seems (from the times I've visited it) to be often dirty. Of course there is always cat hair on everything, no matter how often she cleans. And of course there is a litter box in the bathroom, which means that there is often cat litter sprinkled across the floor. When I arrived a week ago, the sink and counter in the bathroom were scummy, though it seems that she cleaned them a day later when I wasn't looking. And she started vacuuming the carpet my second day there as well. She did dishes very often while I was there, so the dish drainer was always overfull. Nonetheless there were open containers of food scraps or other oddments that she was collecting—I think to use as mulch for the miniature garden on her porch. Her toilet has long-term stains on it.

Again, the comparisons with my space remind me how far I am from where I'd like to be. When I first moved into my apartment (eleven years ago) I set myself a schedule of vacuuming once a week and mopping the kitchen floor once a month. It has been a long time since I have stuck to that schedule, or—realistically—to any other schedule instead. Maybe when I get home I can take the inspiration to give the place a deep clean. My toilet is always clean, or at least it has been ever since Kimberly Steele issued her clean-toilet challenge. My counters are usually clean, and I don't cultivate homemade mulch. But I've got to do something about those floors.

What else did I notice?

We went swimming a couple of times at her local recreation center, and I couldn't swim nearly as far as I did the last time I visited her. I have let myself get flabby and out of shape.

We had quite a bit of sex, or at any rate she did. At this point I can't get hard enough to enter her, and the only way I can come is through masturbation. So there wasn't a lot in it for me, but it was (as always) gratifying to be able to do so much for her.

I've been trying to teach her lately about whiskey, so she bought two bottles this week. One of them we finished off between us Wednesday night (along with a bottle of wine); the predictable consequence is that we did very little on Thursday. Friday night we had just one glass each (an ounce or two, judged by sight), with much better results. I reminded her that whiskey is something to drink slowly.

We went out and about, though we managed to miss a couple of the sights we had in mind to visit. We also went to a bookstore, which was a reliable entertainment for both of us. Last night we went out to dinner with some of her friends.

Also we visited a cemetery. Nothing profound and there was no one in particular whose grave we were visiting. We looked for the oldest graves we could find (mostly from the late 19th century) and read the inscriptions. One of them reminded me of a story that Florence King tells in her memoir Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady, but Marie hates Florence King so I avoided recounting it. 

So from the perspective of writing a travelogue, there's not a lot to say. From the perspective of general observation, I'm made uneasy by how she is living, and by how closely it matches how I am living.

I don't know if there's more. Maybe after I have mulled a while longer.