Take Two
This is my second attempt at blogging. The first lasted about two years and focused on national and international politics. Occasionally I would lapse into something more personal and close to home, but such posts were infrequent.
I ended blogging spontaneously, without even posting an epithet. It was right after Katrina when the federal government had been caught flat-footed and George Bush’s political incompetence took center stage. This incompetence had less to do with the feeble efforts of his FEMA minions as it had to do with his willingness to allow the disaster on the Gulf coast to become the poster boy of the Hollywood/MSM elites at the time when they were obviously working overtime to undermine his efforts in the Middle East. A single visit to the SuperDome with Laura Bush would have done wonders for his Presidency and bought him renewed support.
But frankly the politics wasn’t what caused me to abandon writing. My second long-term relationship (let’s call her “B2”) was starting to unravel. I had dedicated a small post earlier in the month to her, lavishing her with praise for finishing law school and passing the bar. I coupled this with some additional kudos to my eldest daughter, who is in college and always struggled with math. A day later B2 sent me an email at work, raging about how thoughtless I was not to have written something about my youngest daughter. Sadly this was becoming a familiar pattern: the drinking, the depression, and the abusive emails being sent in the middle of the day while I was busy at work. (I am in product development, and at the time was rewriting some basic security for a piece of software that powers half the IT houses on the planet.)
I threw in the towel, gave up my blog, and hunkered down for the next two years trying to salvage our relationship, which by all measures is clearly on its last legs. We recently put the house up for sale, and B2 is moving back to Massachusetts. I am spending a lot of time trying to figure out how I screwed up so badly.
I don’t like particularly like the idea of using a blog as a confessional. But I need an outlet to grieve, and this will have to suffice. A lot of what I write will be personal and I think I will be touching on the interesting problem of politics, values, and personal relationships.
About six months ago one evening, right before turning out the lights to go to bed, B2 lied down beside me in bed and lamented loudly, “Poor Yasser Arafat. I heard on the news that he is dying." I quietly left the room, walked downstairs, and quickly downed two or three shots of gin.
It was all I could do to contain myself and avoid having another fight.