Pluff Mud

I still have not located my little sister.

I have tried calling her at the commissary, where she works, but I think her shift is overnight and they don't answer the phone at that time. I think I might write a note and leave it for her asking her to call me. I only have a couple of days left to find her before I leave. Not that it will do much good, I'm sure!

Mom is about the same as always. A bundle of joy to be around. I came this morning to bring her to her eye doctor appointment. After the appointment I asked her if she wanted to do something. I suggested all sorts of fun things and all she did was sit there and shake her head no. She said she just wanted to go home... negative, negative, negative. She is now, where she always is, asleep on the couch. I suppose I can't force her to go out and enjoy life. I am trying to not let it drain me but I'm not so good at that.

I took a break from Mom this weekend and did some stuff for myself. On Saturday I was invited to a dinner party given by my ex-boyfriend, Jonathan, in Bamberg. I dated Jonathan about 20 years ago. We were just kids. He was a bit older than me and was attending the College of Charleston while I was in high school. My parent's would get so mad at me because I would leave Friday night and not return until Sunday evening. I had a boyfriend that had an apartment downtown and I was rebellious... what did they expect? I was a bad kid. I am not sure why we broke up but I am sure we just drifted apart. I didn't have a car and he eventually moved to Canada to attend the University of Montreal. We kept in touch sporadically. Before Saturday, the last time I saw him was when he had his opening at the City Gallery around 8 or 9 years ago.

On the way to Jonathan's, which is an hour drive, I spoke with Kat who said "Hey! I've been meaning to ask you something... I hear you are fucking a guy!?" Well, well, well... It took the cesspool long enough to network! I told her "No (not that it's anyone's business), I am not fucking a guy, but I am dating one." I asked her how she heard and she said someone told M.D. and M.D. approached her and said "So, I hear you turned your last girlfriend straight?!" Nice.

I have met M.D. once and it was for 5 minutes and it was dark. I could not pick her out in a line up so why are people reporting to her what the fuck is going on in my life?? I was wondering how long it would take before I was questioned about it. I asked Kat how people knew and she said it was something that I posted in a MySpace bulletin. I knew immediately what it was. It was the bulletin I posted called "20 on 3" where you answered questions about your top 3 friends. The question was "Is this person your boyfriend/girlfriend" and I think I answered the question, pertaining to Justin, as "I have no idea what is going on there!" or something to that effect. Don't think for a moment that I didn't know EXACTLY what I was posting in my bulletins and blogs. Don't think for a moment that I didn't know that the cesspool would eventually catch wind of things and run with it. With that being said, the only people that have access to my blogs and bulletins are people on my friends list... and very few of those people are involved in the cesspool so it's not so hard to narrow the gossips down to a few. It seems that the people that bitch about the evils of the cesspool at very much the center of the cesspool, themselves.

I make no apologies, I will not label myself and I am doing what makes me happy. It is what it is.

Anyway...

I arrived at Jonathan's around 4pm. When I pulled up he was walking out of the house with Estella, the most precocious and adorable 3 and a half year-old that I have ever met! It was so good seeing him after all of these years. He looked the same, just a little older. I was trying to remember what I looked like the last time he saw me. I think my hair was longer and I weighed more - blech. He said that he had to go to the Piggly Wiggly and asked me if I would watch Estella. We had fun while he was gone. She was all over the place. We played on the swings, played croquet, played with blocks, played go fish... all in a half hour! I really need to have one of these! Shortly after Jonathan returned the first of the other dinner guests arrived. His name was Robert and I believe he was one of the music professors at State. He was smart, well traveled and it was very hard to get a word in edgewise with him as he was quite a manipulator of conversation! We sat and chatted while Jonathan prepared dinner. I played with Estella during most of the conversation. Soon, the other guests arrived - both art professors, I think. During dinner I kept thinking to myself "what the hell am I doing in the middle of all of this... I wish Justin was here!" He's a mix of both worlds and would have fit in nicely. Being that Robert was the manipulator of conversation he spoke the most during dinner about opera's, castrato's and music in general. It would have been fun to pick the other's brains about art, but that just wasn't happening with Robert there.

After dinner, cake and ice cream (it was Jonathan's birthday) the other guests left and Jonathan and I sat on the porch of his huge victorian house and chatted. It was nice to finally be able to talk with just the two of us... oh! and Estella. Earlier Estella had given me a tour of the house, which is massive. Jonathan asked me if I remembered the portrait that he painted of me. I had totally forgotten about it since it was so long ago. He said it was in the guest bedroom but I never actually got to see it that night since it wasn't part of Estella's grand tour. I can barely tell you what it looks like, just that it's Picasso-esque. It's kind of nice knowing there is a painting of me hanging in someone's house, especially an ex-boyfriend's!

It was getting late and Estella was wound up from all the sugar she had. I helped Jonathan clean up and decided to head home. I was wishing that I lived closer because I sensed he could really use a loyal friend to lean on during his custody battle and separation. I feel so bad for what he is going through. I promised him that I would see him again before I left so we made plans to get together on Thursday... no children or babbling dinner guests - just two old friends! Jonathan and Estella walked me to my car and with a kiss, I was off on my way to Charleston.

Yesterday I decided to do some caching. I had a bunch of Kat's travel bugs to drop off and I wanted to make sure that I did that before I left South Carolina, plus it was a much needed distraction from the stress of being around my mother. I hadn't been downtown yet and I have been here for a week! The first cache I did was in a Charleston park. I am so surprised at the lack of cache's on the peninsula! There are a couple of micro's and a couple of virtuals but that's about it. Also, the micro's aren't even that clever, which is a bummer. I think these Carolina cacher's need to take a trip to Piqua, Ohio and do a couple of Pinewood Ave's cache's to see how difficult a micro can be! I called Mark because he wanted to cache to prove to his co-workers that caching is not a myth but he was unavailable. I left him a message to call me if he was interested in going. He finally called me on my last couple of cache's right when I was heading to the beach again. I told him that I would meet him on the Mt. Pleasant side of the Ravenel Bridge.

The first cache we did was on a nature trail near Patriots Point. Jesus God, the Spiders!! They were so freakin' big and they were everywhere! I don't think you really understand... you know 50 cent pieces? Well, these spiders were BIGGER! And the damn mosquito's! I already had a ton of bug spray on but they didn't care! Little bastards! I had so many bites on me. When we were in the woods Mark started beating me because I had them all over. I may have bruises from the beating, but I think it was worth it. On the way back on the trail, Mark yelled "Snake!" and I looked where he was pointing. I was a cottonmouth. Ugh. It slithered in front of us and into the creek. I was surprised at how calm I was. Normally I would be peeing my pants and fainting - in no particular order! Well, there were other cache's to be had so we continued on through the massive spider lair.

We drove out to Sullivan's Island to do a couple cache's out there. Ahhhh, the ocean! You know if I could bottle the smell of the sea air... I cannot even describe to you the feeling it gives me. You know those stupid survey's that we all fill out where it asks your hometown? Well, being a Navy brat I never know how to answer those. The ocean is my home. That's where I grew up. It's what I know. The salt air on my face overwhelms me to the point of tears. Samantha and I had a conversation the other night about the ocean. She said that she didn't know anyone that has never seen the ocean and I told her that I know people in Illinois and Ohio that have never seen the ocean... Can you imagine? Can you imagine growing up inland and then in your thirties you see the ocean for the first time? That blows me away. My Grandmother never saw the ocean until we moved to Virginia in 1971. Wow. We have a picture of the first time she stepped foot in the water. I grew up with the ocean in my backyard so I can't remember my thoughts the first time I saw it. When I see the ocean now it still takes my breath away. I just can't imagine how it must feel to see it for the first time as an adult.

Speaking of snakes...

So there we were... Caching on the beach - Mark was navigating (big mistake!) so we ended up walking WAY out of the way to the next cache. He made us walk over the sand dunes (which is illegal). I was bitching the whole way there about how I could not believe that the cache owner wanted us to walk on the dunes and how I was going to write a note about how walking on the dunes was bad... yadda, yadda. Mark yelled "snake!" but I didn't see it this time, thank God. We got closer to the cache... lo and behold an actual footbridge that we should have taken on the other side of the lighthouse to avoid the dunes. I knew I should have navigated!!

I was dirty, sweaty and smelled like bug spray and needed to take a shower desperately before the Violent Femmes show. I drove like a mad-woman home, jumped in the shower and got dressed quickly. Samantha was already dressed when I arrived. We left the house around 8 and went to the Plex, which is an old movie theater turned into a concert hall. There were a billion people there. We looked around for Devin since he was covering it for the paper. We finally caught up with him and planted ourselves to wait for the show to start. It was a weird crowd. Lots of younger people and a lot of people my age. I started to get a really bad headache because of the horrible ventilation system. The smoke was awful. Devin told me that they are trying to ban smoking in bars and I am all for that. My eyes were stinging and my sinuses were acting up - I could not breathe, the air was so bad.

The opening musician was awful. He sang and played the banjo and it offended my ears. I tried to get Devin to put that in his article for the paper but I think he scrapped the idea. After waiting a REALLY long time the Femmes finally came on and put on an awesome show. I stood there in the back of the venue and watched the show... watched the people. It was weird hearing those anthems of my teen years live! During "Add it up" I sat there thinking, here are four people (Me, Devin, Samantha and Devin's friend, Tim) that are true fans of the Violent Femmes... I wondered if seeing them live for the first time had the same effect on them as it did me? Their music totally brings me back 20 years - listening to the Femmes in Carol's car... driving around Charleston on hot and humid summer nights... downtown parties... warm beer. Was it really that long ago??

Devin asked me if I wanted to do something after the show. I most definitely did want to spend time with him but I didn't have my car and and the smoke really had messed with my sinuses. I had the worst headache and I felt like crap. I gave him a kiss goodbye and said I would call him later. Samantha and I were hungry so we stopped at Alex's on the way home. OMG! Alex's was closed!! That was the first time in 20 years that I have seen Alex's closed - WTF!? We went to Waffle House instead. Justin was in Indiana spending time with his family for his birthday. He sent me a text message saying he would be on the road for the next couple of hours while driving home, so I called him and we talked for a while before I went to bed. He told me that his family had a place set for me at the table. Ummm... what? That made me a bit nervous and freaked out. Apparently they asked several questions about me. I'm not one that normally gets nervous when meeting family, so why now? We are going to a paranormal conference next weekend in Louisville and Justin informed me that I will be meeting his brother and possibly his sister at dinner that night.

I think I have to throw up.