Last night I went to Julie’s for dinner.

She was worried about the tone of my last blog.

Before my father died I would call him every day. If he was happy in my morning call, I breathed a sigh of relief and the rest of my day went well.

I almost didn’t want to call back later in case he was feeling low.

I know that when I’m feeling good and I write about it, my whole family feels better.

When I have a set back they are sad.

I can’t think about that though because this blog is too important to me.

Recently I read it from the beginning and I could see the improvement. I am sad way less often but lately my sadness occasionally feels like despair.

I will say that now I can push it away and go on. In the beginning I couldn’t.

Someone commented on one of my posts saying,

“If you truly believe that it’s over, then I think you should really put the wheels in motion to get him out of your life for good”

I realized then that though all my friends kept saying ” He’ll see what a mistake he’s made and come back” and “This kind of thing never lasts”, I never believed that.

I knew that morning 6 months ago that it was over. There was no discussion of couples therapy or trying to work on it.

It never even occurred to either one of us.

So my darling Julie, don’t be sad for me.

Although I don’t fully believe it when people say that what’s ahead of me is will be better than the past, it might be.

And I do know it will be better than it is now.

Last night was the first time that I had a dream that wasn’t about getting left behind or rejected. It was about cleaning my house.

One of the musicians we know is coming over on Tuesday. I can’t tell you who he is because he’s famous and I didn’t ask him if I could talk about him.

I really want my house to be neat so he doesn’t pity me for behaving like the Collier Brothers. ( only really old people know who they are. The others have google.)

I remember that a few years ago he and his girlfriend and dave and I went out to dinner. He lives in one of those middle states and we didn’t see them that much.

I really loved this girl and I was getting progressively more annoyed at this guy because she was younger than him and terrific. I felt like he was using up her youth and taking advantage of her.

Finally I couldn’t take it any more. I started yelling at him for wasting the girl’s time if he wasn’t serious when they both started laughing and told us they had just gotten married. I just mumbled something like oh, then never mind. In spite of that he stayed my friend.

I’d like to say it was unlike me to butt my nose into someone else’s business but anyone who know me knows that isn’t true.

dave used to say that his job in this marriage was rebuilding the bridges that I burned.

Well I’m learning how to rebuild my own bridges, fuckface.  Notice fuckface doesn’t have a capital letter.

dave answered my last email.

He said he appreciates that I am being fair and he thanked me for being who I am. He asked me to please forgive the stupid things he said when he was mad or upset or scared.

The truth is I do.

Then he gave me a list of things he needs me to do for his business.

I realize that this email was more hurtful than when he’s mean. It was polite and businesslike. As I’ve said before, the opposite of love is indifference.

The main reason I have to finish this relationship off is because every contact is painful to me.

I know he doesn’t want to hurt me. He isn’t a mean person however there is no way he can do what he’s doing without causing me pain.

But enough about me.

Today I went to Goldie Schwartzberg’s funeral.

If ever a funeral was a celebration of someone’s life this was it. No one was crying. We were all laughing about the joy of spending time with Goldie and how she enjoyed being with us and was always laughing.

Al quoted the time we were all sitting around the table in Montauk and she couldn’t stop laughing while I tried to convince her that Allan was gay. I even had proof.

When  dave and I bought tennis racquets Al was totally disinterested. A new television, nothing,  but when he heard that I had a sewing machine he was over there like a shot trying it out.

There was no joke that she didn’t get.

She wasn’t perfect though. She actually believed that her neighbors loved when Allan practiced the drums day and night while he was growing up.

Just before the funeral started I heard Al tell Sue that he had to pee. I told him that though there was no bathroom nearby, there were big bushes all over the place. Just step behind one and pee. Noone would see him. I would go with him and we could pretend that we were talking. I had already seen Allan’s pee pee years before so he didn’t have to be embarrassed. (more about that another time but I will say that when I told Goldie the story, she laughed)

I guess he thought it would be disrespectful so he refused.

While I was listening to the Rabbi I noticed that the tops of all those bushes were green and healthy but the bottoms all had dead branches.

All of a sudden it came to me. With all the mourning old jews coming to that place you gotta assume that 90% of them have to pee and not all of them are as gentlemanly as Allan Schwartzberg.

Goldie would have let him pee. She thought that whatever he did was perfect.

I got a call from my other nephew who lives in Israel today.

He thinks I’m too soft on dave. He could be right.

I never answered dave’s email when he asked for another $15,000. Like everything else I figured if I ignore it it would go away but it didn’t.

He asked again and I wrote back this time.

I explained that while I had been cutting expenses he was spending about $500 a day.

I told him I would send him some money but then I got tough.

I wrote:

I’ve put over 36 years into building up a life and secure financial future that it seems I will not be enjoying.
I am trying to be fair with you but since you are no longer taking care of me I have to take care of myself.
Because I am who I am I am trying not to do that to your detriment but I still remember you standing in the living room telling me that I’m lucky you don’t just go to Japan and good luck getting anything from you.

That’ll show him. I’ll send him money but he’ll get a good tongue lashing.