Tips For Handling The Break-Up Of A Dysfunctional Relationship

First, don't get into a relationship with anyone you do not actually consider a friend. That's right, I'm going all preemptive here and stating that if you are in a relationship with a friend, then chances are you will not treat each other like crap after the glow of whatever it was that attracted you to each other (physical appearance, attitude, life-long fantasy/desire, convenience, etc.,) wears off.

Friends have a lot in common, and do things with each other that are fun, sometimes funny. They are usually a joy and desirable to be around. That's why couples that claim they value each other as friends stay together. Who woulda thunk?

Now, if you entered into a relationship with someone before developing friendship, before actually discovering whether or not you are truly, deeply... compatible and wake up one morning to discover you are involved with a demon...well, then you have a problem on your hands.

Let me clarify what I mean by a "demon." I am not talking about someone you just no longer have feelings for or don't find attractive on some level or other anymore...I am talking about the kind of demon that desires not just you...but your life. The demon I am talking about is the type that starts to chose your friends, picks out what clothes you're going to wear, tells you exactly how it's going to be from now on in...and gets either physically or verbally abusive when things don't go their way. The type of demon that creates an air of tension so thick it makes it nearly impossible to breath. And then, when you do give them back some of what they're feeding you, somehow turns your reaction back on you and makes you out to be the problem.

To those of you who have never experienced life with one of these demons, bravo - you have won at life, or are at least currently winning. Those of us who have experienced one of these demons...know well what I mean.

Here are a few tips on how to deal with that problem.

1) Run away. Immediately sell all of your possessions that you cannot pack into your car, break your lease or put your house on the market (pray that it's a seller's market) and get on down the road. Someplace very far away that has little or no infrastructure is preferable. If possible, fake your own death.

2) Get rid of anything and everything that could possibly remind you of the person you're fleeing. You do not need sentimental reminders of a demon. The friend of theirs you kinda got to know and really sorta like? Ditch city. Seriously.

3) If it is absolutely necessary to communicate with the demon, do so in a decisive manner. There's no need to be mean, but you also do not have to be nice. Say what you have to say and get out. 

4) Do. Not. Look. Back. Not physically. Not mentally, and Lord knows, not emotionally. This is not one of those "closing-a-chapter-in-a-book" dealios. This is a "sealing-a-demon-in-a-demon-proof-tomb-that-will then-be-hidden-in-the-base-of-an-active-volcano-that-is-guarded-by-frost-giants-riding-dragons" dealio.

5) Once you're gone, move on. Get back into the dating scene with a renewed energy and focus. The focus should be on finding a friend who is compatible with you on as many levels as possible. Do not look for someone based on appearance or attitude or wish fulfillment. Sanity is what you want. Sanity and pleasant companionship. If the new person is also smart, fun, funny and attractive, sacrifice a chicken to the gods for favoring you.

Good luck. 

Look Back In Laissez-Faire

It's easy to look back on a situation long since gone and wish the moment could be recaptured. The thing is, those special times, those seemingly exquisite, glorious days of youth, when all was right with the world...they didn't exist. 

It's easy to romanticize the past, to re-imagine it as something it never was...but that's wallowing in nostalgia, that's forgetting the day to day struggle of trying to fit in, of trying to feel like you belong.

The trick to enjoying the here and now is to get up everyday with the intention of creating moments that are as great as those you think you remember - but in the here and now.

Shapes Of Things That Were

Claiming to be a Pharaoh's bride
She sat on the edge of the fountain and cried
Lamenting the life she claims she's been denied
Since Egypt fell and Ptolemy died

Her clothes are covered in grime from the road
On her hands and her face the years of hardship showed
Some of the people who pass by toss a coin in her cup
Everyone walking past wonders why she gave up
On pursuing her dreams, on engaging in life
She tells all who ask it's the curse of the Pharaoh's wife

In the middle of the day she snacks on stale bread
While rocking back and forth, nodding her head
Wishing and hoping for the chance to lay in bed
With the Ptolemaic son she said she had wed

"He was the real ruler, not his harlot sister"
She says under her breath in a mumbling whisper
"The jealous witch who took Romans as lovers"
She says as one who genuinely suffers 
"She poisoned my King, so vile was that Cyprian"
She says with her eyes dulled, dark as obsidian

So she spends her days sitting on the edge of the fountain
Lamenting a fantasy life and reeking of sloe gin

Thoughts On The Fourth Of July

I did not have to take any extraordinary risks

To get here

Didn't have to make my way 

Across a temperamental ocean 

Crammed aboard an overloaded boat 

Full of people leaving behind 

Everything they had ever known

Family

Friends 

Common language

Common culture

Didn't have to pay some stranger 

To stow me away in a truck full of people 

Packed in like sardines 

All hoping to make it across the border undiscovered
Alive

 And with at least a chance of blending in with others like me

Didn't have to forge papers or identification

 Didn't have to steal an identity

Didn't have to live in fear of being taken back 

To the homeland I fled

All of  that was taken care of by my ancestors

 The people I never knew from whom I am descended

They risked their very lives on a chance 

That life here would be better than it was there

 That here there would be opportunities 

Opportunities to work

To learn

To become something more 

To make something more

 For themselves and for their children 

And their children's children.

I'm just a descendant of very brave

 Very strong 

Very determined 

People 

And for that I am grateful

Another Fact Of Life That's Difficult To Comprehend

Influences. Life is full of 'em. And there must be something inherent in human nature that allows bad influences to carry far greater weight than good influences. There has to be. 

Not one human in the history of humans has had to put up much of a fight against the temptations of a good influence. It's always been, "Sign up for a Pilate's class? Naw, I think I'll sit in front of the tube and drink some beer."

That's because bad influences are coercive to the Nth degree. They come at you with all the firepower, speed, and relentlessness of a Blitzkrieg...but insidiously subtle like.

Not really fair when you think about it. Good influences should be given the same ability to overwhelm us as bad influences have. Wouldn't it be cool as all get out to be able to say, "I don't know what came over me - I just couldn't stop eating low fat, nutritious food and going to the gym 5, 6 days a week, and now I've ended up fit and healthy."

A Bouquet Of Ashes, A Detective Sonia Gilman Mystery

The Detective stared off into the distance, eyes unfocused. 

Mentally however, she was as focused as a Sniper's scope. Several questions presented themselves as she methodically reviewed what she had learned about the events leading up to the discovery of the body of Mrs. Lynda Towne.

The most telling would be whether or not Mrs. Towne was indeed the woman that was captured on video leaving the B of A branch on the corner of Garnet and Bayard at 3:30 last Tuesday afternoon. If so, why was she wearing clothing that concealed her appearance? It was 98 degrees at that hour in P.B., and all of that clothing would be extremely uncomfortable.

There was also the issue of the safety deposit box. The annual fee for the the large metal drawer was paid by automatic withdrawal from an account at the bank - an account that was now empty save a token $25.00.

The woman who came into the bank claiming to be Mrs. Towne, and who presented what the bank clerk swore was valid ID, had the original key - the bank clerk swore it wasn't a duplicate. 

Mrs Towne had not been in that branch of B of A for almost eight years, and no one working that Tuesday had ever had any contact with her, save for the employee who had answered the phone when she called in that morning to inquire as to the possibility of accessing her safety deposit box.

When the warrant was finally approved and they were able to open Mrs. Towne's safety deposit box, all that was in the large metal drawer was a small coin purse with twenty-eight pennies in it. All of the pennies bore the date 1978, and all of them were well-worn. Were they left behind intentionally? Was it just an oversight?

Detective Sonia Gilman returned her attention to the notecards on her desk. The 5" X 7" cards all had three or four short sentences scribbled on them in a small though very legible script. As had been her habit since she first read the Confucian adage that the faintest ink is better than the strongest memory, Sonia wrote all of her observations down as soon as she could. It was a habit that allowed her to graduate top of her class in High School, College, and the Police Academy, and it was a habit that facilitated a quick ascension from evidence gathering scrub to full-fledged Detective.  

It was a habit that helped her solve problems. The problem in front of her today appeared fairly simple - a body was found in one of the many canyons that surrounded the enclave of La Jolla. The body had been identified as that of 73-year old Mrs. Lynda Towne, a woman who had not been seen by her neighbors in nearly eight years. Mrs. Towne was dressed for hiking, or some outdoor activity, and she was found only a few hours after the time of her death. 

At first her death had been attributed to heat stroke, a probable result of hiking on such a blisteringly hot day. However, after the Coroner had made a more thorough examination (at the insistence of Mrs. Towne's daughter, an attorney in Costa Mesa) two small puncture wounds were found in the back of her right thigh, directly above the femoral artery.

And the puncture wounds were clean, made with an extremely small and sharp pin. The tip of which had been dipped in Aconitum.

Murder by wolf's bane was almost a cliche - but not here in the dry, though irrigated desert that is Southern California. This was something new, something unexpected. This was a challenge, and it was a challenge Sonia Gilman relished, macabre as the motive may be.

Photos From 1943 Of The Little Country Church On North Argyle Ave In Hollywood, Ca.,

More of my Father's old pics - these three are of the Little Country Church of Hollywood, which burned down in 1997.