|
05/17/07
Back In The Groove
Well, It's been a busy few months, trying to get all my work done and stay out of trouble. Okay, well, at least I did get some work done. I'm dreading the end of school this year. Dana is too old for camp (or so she says, though if I could afford it there'd be no discussion) and too young for hanging out with guys who, as her father says, are interested in only one thing. He should know. He's still only interested in that, but then, emotionally, he's closer to Dana's age than mine. Jesse wants to just pal around with Danny and the other boys on the block, which of course is courting trouble, or so Drew says. Not to mention that Jesse could use the exercise and sports skills. Lys is definitely going to camp, and if I can find a way to swing it finacially, so are her brother and sister.
My mother's old boyfriend, Carmine (heof the Mafia connections) called and left a message for me. Don't know what that is all about.
Drew left a message, too, and you can bet I know exactly what that's about!
09/30/2006
|
|
Dead Again
|
|
So there's been another murder on Long Island and Drew Scoones seems to be the only detective who can possibly solve the case. Which is to say that he has cancelled our date for tonight and I am doing the sketches for Mrs. Maisel's bedroom instead of seeing the inside of Drew's.I wonder what his looks like? Mrs. Maisel's gets more masculine by the moment. She wants pale blue. So done you could stick a fork in pale blue for a bedroom.I bet Drew Scoones' bedroom isn't pale blue. I bet the's left the walls white --almost all apartment dwellers do -- and that he's got dark wood furniture that matches and a navy blue comforter on the bed. He could really use my help. I'd staple fabric behind his bed--maybe black with narrow red stripes. And I'd use a red comforter and paint his furniture black. And I'd paint me in his bed. ..
|
|
|
|
09/27/2006
|
|
New date
|
|
Alyssa is back in school, feeling fine, and I have a new client who wants to redo her den in retro 50s style, which I personally adore, and Drew wants to see me Saturday night. And the way he said SEE me. . .The phone nearly melted in my hand! |
|
|
|
09/24/2006
|
|
Oh My God
|
|
Okay,a phone date is just like phone sex! Drew called last night around10:30. He said he was sorry he couldn't call earlier but he had an emergency at the precinct. And then he asked if the kids were all asleep. I told him Lys was and that I was watching a movie in the den with the other two. He asked if I wanted to watch the movie and I said I already knew how Adventures in Babysitting ended, and that I'd go upstairs. I took the portable so the kids couldn't pick up the extension--not that they ever would. . .I hope! Anyway, I took the phone into my bedroom and snuggled under the covers. And pretty soon it got pretty warm under those covers. He did not say one dirty thing, but that voice of his. . . and him in his bed and me in my bed. ..There's a movie with Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant. . ."Notorious?"where he's in his bed and she's in hers and there is a split screen, and I kept thinking of it while Drew talked about how beautiful he thought I was, and how someday he'd like to take me out somewhere really special. . .Okay, I may have embellished that a little. He said I was "cute" and he thought I might like going to the stock car races sometime since I drive like I'm in a demolition derby.The thing that bothers me is that I think I really like him, and I wonder if it's because he's another man my mother would hate. |
|
|
|
09/23/2006
|
|
Ring, damn it!
|
|
Drew called this morning to ask how Alyssa is. I told him she isn't well enough for me to go out with him tonight. He said he'd call instead and we could have a phone date. I wonder if that's like phone sex. Only he hasn't called and it's nearly 10 pm.Lys is asleep and I could tell him to come over, if he wants.I'd still be here, on call, but we could watch Cheers together instead of me watching it alone.
|
|
|
|
09/21/2006
|
|
Alyssa is sick
|
|
Alyssa has strep.She's running a fever and I had to cancel my date with Drew.He pretended to be very understanding, but having no kids, he couldn't really understand why I couldn't leave Bobbie with her.When a child is sick, they want their mommy. Heck, when a grownup is sick, they want their mommy,don't they? Okay, not me. Not unless you count Angelina as my mother, but revisiting that mess gives me a headache.Gotta go...Lys wants some ice cream. |
|
|
|
09/18/2006
|
|
Drew called!
|
|
Okay,I'm done pretending that I don't want someone panting after my panties.In fact, I even bought new panties! Black ones that if the kids caught me in I'd die of embarassment from. Oh, my life is good. I mean, if I hold my breath there isn't even a belly roll over the top of my jeans!Bobbie gave me zipper lube for the jeans for easy access.I'm borrowing her lipstick.What if he never gets to the panties? What if he just wants to talk? Or what if he just wants the panties and doesn't want to talk?I feel seventeen. I'm glad I'm not.I wish I was.Maybe I won't even go.Maybe he won't even show.He better show.I'm wrong.I feel 12.
|
|
|
|
09/17/2006
|
|
advice coming out of my ears!
|
|
Why does everyone think they know what I need better than I do? I've had dating, and it led to marriage, and I've had marriage and it nearly led to insanity. So why would I want to get on that merry-go-round again?Okay, so watching Cheers re-runs isn't a life. I'll grant Bobbie that. And ordering in pizza every night isn't healthy for any of us.I'll grant my father that. But wearing ratty clothes when I don't have to see a client is not--contrary to my mother's opinion--going to lead to alcoholism and ruin.Why can't they all just leave me alone with my remote control? Bobbie says I'm afraid.I'm afraid she's right!
|
|
|
|
09/14/2006
|
|
Getting the kids back to school
|
|
Well, it's been crazy getting the kids back to school. And then I spent two days doing the happy dance around the kitchen before realizing that now I am all alone and nobody needs me anymore. This led to an incredible funk, which had Bobbie trying to get me out of the house and into the"real world" as she calls it.Real world,for Bobbie, translates todating. And "dating" translates to "sleeping with" and also to "lots of men." Truth is I have a little crush on the detective who investigated Elise Meyers' murder. . . |
|
|
|
08/02/2006
|
|
blogging on eharlequin
|
|
Amazingly,eharlequin is interested in my, Teddi Bayer's, journal!I'm bloggingover there for the month of August.I'll return here in September, but in the meantime, please check out http://community.eharlequin.com/webx?14@152.lRERakYESHe.0@.4a83c52d(orjust go to eharlequin.com click on talk, and then on Teddi Bayer.)You can even participate!Thanks,Teddi
|
|
|
|
07/17/2006
|
|
Never
|
|
Rio wants to make up. He wants me to forgive and forget. Like that will ever happen.He says that we have children who will always bind us. I said that I'm not into bondage.There was this real long pause, and then he tried to talk to me about sex and how much I liked certain things.I told him he should watch Harry and Sally and that I taught Meg Ryan everything she knew about faking it in the deli scene. He said he misses the way my skin feels, softer than Alyssa's. I asked where Marion was.Turns out she's visiting her mother in some state like Georgia orNorth Carolina. He couldn't remember which. I told him that sex with me wouldn't happen again in this lifetime. What I meant was that he wouldn't me having it with me, but he turned it around and said I shouldn't wait too long, cause the longer I waited the less chance there was. . .I think he's been talking to my mother! |
|
|
|
07/11/2006
|
|
the World Cup
|
|
So Italy won the World Cup, whatever that is. I know it's soccer, but Idon't get how some countries have leagues and pick their players from all different teams, and some have only national teams, but it doesn't really matter because that's not the point. The point is that Italy won and you'd think my ex, Rio Gallo, was the quarterback, or whatever is the most important position on the team. He's still strutting, two days later. And poor Jesse. He doesn't want to be proud because it links him to Rio, so he's going around telling people he's glad Italy won because his grandfather was Italian. Not that he ever met the man, but he doesn't like Nona Theresa, Rio's mother -- how incredibly great was it that her mother named her Theresa just so that she could be as self-sacrificing as the real Mother Theresa. And I thought Jewish mothers poured on the guilt. Let me tell you that my mother never ironed anyone's undershorts. . .Anyway, Jesse is only claiming distant lineage. Sad, don't you think? |
|
|
|
07/08/2006
|
|
Not happening
|
|
The woman thinks she can bully me into seeing Maurice the Murderer.Maurice, the Money-hungry Murderer. Maurice the Old, Money-hungry Murderer. And Bobbie, good, kind, supportive Bobbie, who helped me stay sane and get out of South Winds last summer, thinks I should not just go out with him, I should sleep with him. "You so need sex," she keeps telling me. It's her new mantra. "Men," she says, "are like tissues.Use them once and throw them away."This from the woman who took her husband back after a torrid affair with a hypnotherapist who he claimed to know from another life.I don't miss sex. I don't need sex. What's that saying about needing a man like a fish needs a bicycle? I don't need a man, a fish, or a bicycle.I don't care if my mother did go to a lot of trouble to arrange this date. I don't care that she will be embarrassed. I am not going out with someone whose grandchildren call him Oom-papa.And you can't make me.
|
|
|
|
07/04/2006
|
|
Fireworks
|
|
My mother is furious with me. I'm not exactly sure what it is I've done,because she won't tell me. I guessed wrong half a dozen times (and in the course of my guessing told her a few things I regret and which I know will come back to bite me in the butt) and then gave up.Apparently, you are not supposed to give up. You are definitely not supposed to throw your hands up and say "Whatever!" And adding "be mad if you want to, but I'm outta here," as though taking the kids to see CARS is more important than my mother's emotional state.Hey, it's hot, I can't afford to keep my air conditioning running, and the kids are bored. We're going to the movies and then we are going up to the park to watch the fireworks, and if she doesn't stop hounding me, I am going to do the extreme thing, the thing I never, ever, not under anycircumstances do.I'm turning off my cell phone.
|
|
|
|
06/30/2006
|
|
Mom
|
|
My mother is not an easy person. That's about the kindest thing you can say about her. Or at least, it's the kindest way of putting the fact that she is impossible, incorrigible, and out to get me. Her new approach is to hang over my head the threat that I will be a bag lady and my children will starve if I don't find a husband. And quick,because, as she reminds me, the clock is running out on my potential saleability.She has a boyfriend picked out for me. His name is Maurice.He is a widower with two grown children and six grandchildren. But,according to my mother, he doesn't look old enough to have even two!She says the rumors about him murdering his wife for her money are probably ridiculous (probably???) and, she says, it only proves there's lots of money.When I argue with her she reminds me that my own choice, Rio,didn't prove to be a winner, now did he? I suppose that a man who tried to have me committed to a mental institution so that he could have "a few weeks off for good behavior" can't really be classified a winner, now can he?I hate it when my mother has a point. . .
|
|
|
|
06/28/2006
|
|
you get what you pay for
|
|
Sixfree membership weeks at six different gyms. Have I been to one? Am Istill fat? Do I have a real paying client yet?Does life suck?Can I not say that in front of my kids because I told them not to use "suck?"
|
|
|
|
06/27/2006
|
|
Plan B
|
|
Okay,so when the gym didn't want to pay me, I offered to do a trade. I would get them the carpet, etc. at cost, and they could pay me with membership.Woo-hoo! They bit!Soon I'll be a card-carrying member ofSlimming Down!
|
|
|
|
06/23/2006
|
|
Plan A
|
|
Okay,this is so cool. I went to several gyms in the area to see how their lobbies looked and found two that were absolutely dismal. I made an appointment with the managers of each one and my plan is to convince them that they would get more clients and could charge more if they made their entrances more upscale and less depresing. They, naturally,wanted to sell me a membership, so I've got a free trial week at 6 gyms! I can lose 10 pounds in six weeks, right?
|
|
|
|
06/20/2006
|
|
the harem
|
|
Met with pasha-woman. She is fatter than I am. Her husband is fatter than she is. Clearly, I have weight on the brain.I am making sketches (and reading one of theBertrice Small novels the woman gave me. Oh, My, God! It's the first time I've missed Rio in months. Okay, so I don't miss the rest of him, but that one part. . .) |
|
|
|
06/11/2006
|
|
Oom-papa
|
|
He doesn't want to go out with me. Can you believe this??? I'm still in my thirties, and yes, I'm ten pounds overweight, but I carry it very well,and I'm still in some of my size eights, if I hold my breath. And I'm a graduate of the Parson's School of Design, and I own my own house (with a mortgage that is strangling me) and I have three lovely kids, and construction men still whistle and say dirty things to me when I walk by the new building down the block from Parsons, and I didn't want to go out with him anyway.So why does this hurt?
|
|
|
|
06/09/2006
|
|
NIbble, nibble, little client
|
|
So there is a woman my mother knows who just might be interested. She's a lovely woman (I don't know how she could be friends with my mother. ..)who wants to make her bedroom look like a pasha's room she read about in a Beatrice Small novel. I'm going to draw her some sketches.I am soo going to love this business if it ever gets off the ground!
|
|
|
|
06/08/2006
|
|
Looking for clients
|
|
They aren't beating a path to my door. Oh, there are the ones my mother has threatened, the ones my father has cajoled, but while they all listen politely, none of them are biting. And speaking of biting, the kids are hounding me for a dog. I just got rid of Rio, do I really want something else that expects to be fed when he does nothing to help, and pees on the floor in the middle of the night?
|
|
|
|
05/22/2006
|
|
Getting My Degree
|
I get my degree from Parson's the end of this week. Then I will be a real decorator. I will be able to stand on my own two feet (if I'm not wearing shoes that Bobbie has picked out and which I can't even balance in!). I will get clients. I will be a success.I will tell myself that over and over on the way to the poor house. . .
Or worse, on the way to my parents' to borrow money!
|
|
|
|
