Neptune’s Yellow Sands

 Different blog, same Halloween tradition.  Cruise ship day so a totally different vibe to prior years, but there is always a wrinkle.  The year has flown by and we have our second parade in the books.  AA and JB rocking the dinosaur outfits, and splurging on the lobster nachos and double rum cider seemed the natural thing to do.  Well stuffed. Four years ago it was here you waited for the flight out to be married the night of Biden’s win.  Trump, incredibly, is on the verge of a return.  Please no.  Let’s banish him and his ilk to the past as best we can.  A new way forward.   Book completed, contest won, edits and website in the works.  That’s the big fun of next year, as the UARB files will be a slog but with an even temperament you can find a way to make it all click. Go enjoy the fog and the memories.  Time marches, and the new possibilities are to be savoured.  Well done, McMahon.

Interested to hear what this will be?  On the meeting with the parents?  The epilogue?  Nanny?  Something not even on the radar?  Worked out well to provide the advance copy…  actually just about moving up the ring and adding the pearls from his mom’s mom and showing affection and the epilogue being a tad long.  Easy fixes. More concerning is the return of the drinking and smoking since the Thanksgiving trip, which seemed to go well and yet.  The desire for wine on night one, switched to rum on night three, and all the old terrible signs - the glossy eyes, the slurred words, strange behavior with the boys.  Managed to avoid triggering an escalation before the inevitable passing out, upright watching some show. Need to be delicate in raising the concerns pre-London.  It’s the price you pay for the selfishness of the trip back to the Thames, but the sanity requires it.  I’m sure it will work out.  The guys need the wake-up call a...

Into the danger zone in terms of the month, so spot the warning signs and act accordingly to avoid disaster, please.  From failing to close the curtains (that are meant to be closed) to boiling over inside at the waiting around, the exhaustion of the parenting.  Not knowing when to print, when to wake, when to do anything.  Time for cuddling.  Swallow your pride and sense of what’s right, or you’ll be sorry, I’m telling you.  Rest well and good luck McMahon.  Don’t forget the AA meltdown en route to the drop today.  The fun of seeing the boys playing with each other at this stage, the way JB walks with shoulders hunched and arms outstretched and a smile.

 The posts are always the same, one month or so apart.  When I become (along with you people) a narcissist who doesn’t listen because the thoughts in her head are not spoken out loud.  Or are caged in such a way that it is too difficult to decipher.  Laughably common, apparently.  Stick the meme on a wall somewhere.  Every f’ing month.  Particularly as you try and take a night to do something for yourself and it backfires drastically.  London is a test case in weighing what measures are worth it, but still feel the sacrifice must be done.   I have to leave, so entitled, all the old classics.  Controlling, judgmental.  The keying off a word that will be thrown back in your face for decades.   Extreme. I swear.  The patience has been slowly getting better, agonizing time by time.  Never enough though, to overcome the illogic of it.  Big communication problems, ha indeed.  If you hadn’t asked about the vaccine ...

How one sarcastic comment can set everything alight anew.  Another month, another explosion.  Just as you seem to be improving, it is never enough to avoid the catastrophe.  The weather and the call to see Twelfth Night once more could not be denied, even despite the delays in getting ready, the silence, the King Burger, the rushing, all to make the curtain exactly, as if they were waiting for you.  Say this, that AA knows when his love toward Mom is needed.  And that JB’s enjoyment of the walk out in your arms was a powerful memory.  How to improve?  Need to ingrain the communication rules deeply into the brain.  Stop expecting the waiting and the inopportune phone calls and other minor irritants in the grand scheme to change.  And maybe learn to live with an acceptance of these ups and downs.  The slamming of the steering wheel from Corner Brook to Robie Street for the untimely return of the keys is of a pattern.  The anger is not...

The usual story, again.  The no apology this time?  We’ll see.  Beer and cigarettes, glossy eyes and plastic smile, confused behaviour and strange words.  All the same signs.  The jealousy as well, inexplicable.  Jamaican poutine, a bad thing to point out, apparently.   Always left so sleepless and fearful, the 10pm return and the driving with child this time a new cause for panic. Response to the circumstances never works, always escalates it, the late arrival and then the drinking - accused of being a coward, etc.  twice since you’ve been home from NYC, it’s been the beer and cigarettes, probably the nights you were away as well.  Sad to think you just cannot be away and expect to return to stability in the aftermath.  Oh well.  Conversation with Coop most apt.  Nothing to prepare you in literature or family life, until you are in it. And so far the only sure remedy is to pray until the morning.

Two days away, not the result we hoped for, and the return environment negativity all too familiar.  Funny how the conversation ended with Cooper on literature and other word of mouth avenues absolutely failing to pass on the reality of experience when it comes to the hormonal rollercoaster of relationships.  The madness.  The non-logic.  The same old patterns, the same words and scenes brought back again and again, the inability to move on.   But worst the failure of my own reaction to the predictable and recursive behavior.  The inability to remain above, not to be cut to the core, to see the frustration rise, to just let me without panic and trust in the morrow. Should we even include the details of tonight’s Jazz Fest version, an aged Emmylou but spirited AA and good luck with the Bishops parking, only to return to a snoring, unwakeable partner, the smell of smoke and disappointment.  Where did I go wrong?  Leaving in the first place sadly. ...