Tonight is Mike West’s retirement party. It’s being held all the way out in Holbrook, at a restaurant called Trio’s. I’m driving there myself, actually going on the Long Island Expressway during rush hour and a possible snowstorm, and I’m petrified! Plus I have a doctor’s appointment with Jacob first, for a check-up, and wish I didn’t, so I wouldn’t have to rush from there to the dinner. I wish I hadn’t put all this pressure on myself!

I’m happy for Mike, who underwent a liver transplant while working here and had a really tough time afterwards, but I’m also jealous for me, of course. He’s selling his home here and moving down south, to North Carolina, I believe. See, my plan is to stay wherever Brad lives, so I can watch my grandchildren grow up. But New York is expensive, cold in winter and just a tough place for retirees to live.

Speaking of Brad, he broke up with Ali last Sunday. He did it over lunch, came home, worked in his office, and didn’t reveal this gigantic piece of news until we were having dinner at Bellcrest, in Bellmore, very close to where Ali lives. I know my jaw dropped. I half figured it was coming, but Brad, despite his doubts about the relationship, kept on seeing her. He told her he didn’t want to keep leading her on, letting her believe they had a future when, in his mind at least, they don’t. I understand she burst into tears, very upset, and became angry with him, accusing him of being in love with Rachel, a mutual acquaintance of theirs. I know he likes Rachel very much (they bowl on the same league), and prefers her, a more down-to-earth girl, to Ali, who is high-maintenance.

Brad, relieved to have that chore behind him, wants to concentrate on getting tenure at school. I get that. And yet. . .I thought about how awful Ali, a spoiled young woman accustomed to getting her own way, must feel now, after devoting five years of her life to a young man she loves, expecting an engagement ring and a wedding, and instead getting dumped. I feel so terrible for her. She wanted to marry my son. Who can blame her? Yet he didn’t feel the same. That truly sucks.

I never went through that experience. I never had my heart broken. I dated very few guys, and when Dan and I met, we went out for four months, felt an immediate attraction and conviction we were right for each other, and got engaged. There was no sex because I came down with mono, so I was a virgin with an engagement ring on my finger, something probably as common as a dick on a cow.

I’m not certain, but I suspect Brad and Ali were each other’s first, sexually. Many feel that never works out well in the end, that it’s better to have a selection of sex partners so when you get married, you pick the right sex one. But doesn’t that attraction fade eventually, for everyone? Dan was my first, and only, which makes me believe I made a mistake in not taking more guys out for test drives when I was younger. Even though Tracey feels we could resurrect our sex life if we try, I just don’t want to; I’m no longer attracted to him that way. That giant pot belly just turns me off. Or is that just an excuse I’m using? When Dan comes to bed, usually two hours or more after me, he always awakens me by wrapping his arms around me, touching me with cold hands and feet. It pisses me off and I try to work my way as far away from him as I can, but he crawls into my personal space anyway. I become angry if he falls asleep without his C-Pap machine and I hear him snoring. He claims he wants to hug me when he comes to bed, and that he’s lonely. Well, I’m THERE, right, so why does he have to awaken me so HE won’t feel less lonely? Isn’t that being selfish, robbing me of much-needed rest?

I told Tracey about all this, and about how he buys me jewelry even when I tell him not to.

HE DOESN’T LISTEN TO ME!!

Tracey asks me why I don’t get more insistent with him about all this, and I told her I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. But then, she pointed out, you don’t get what YOU want. That’s true. So I made a point of telling Dan NOT to come to bed and wake me up, not to touch me with cold hands and feet. Yet he still did it.

So now what do I do? Leave him? My relationship with Dan isn’t passive-aggressive, it’s simply passive-passive. I guess he has enough good qualities to keep me hanging around, although for the life if me I wonder what they are. He’s making less money than he used to, annoys me while I’m sleeping, doesn’t satisfy me sexually, goes online and has internet sex with strangers. So why are we about to celebrate 30 years of marriage together? I guess it’s because he makes me laugh, still. The more I think about it, the more I wonder!

Getting back to Brad, all I want for him is happiness, lots and lots of it. More than he can handle. I want him to have a wife and kids who love him, a nice house, hobbies, excellent health, enough money to be comfortable. If Ali had been the one he felt could give that to him, then I would have welcomed her as a daughter-in-law.

Right now, I know her heart is broken and I feel for her, as any woman would.

Love, Robin

Tracey asks me why I love SUPERNATURAL so much. She's asked at least three times, and I've tried to come up with an answer that satisfies not only her, but me as well. I mentioned my problem on my SUPERNATURAL lists today, and we had a lively discussion.

Here goes:

SUPERNATURAL appeals to me on a gut level. Very few things in life get to me that way anymore. I see Sam and Dean suffering together, working to rid the world of evil, not getting paid, rarely getting thanked, and it reminds me sometimes of my own stupid job and the mindless a**holes I work for/with. The bond the brothers share also reminds me of the strong love I share with my best friend, Sharon. She's the sister I never had, the person with whom I share everything, and we understand each other so completely, it scares me sometimes.

So there are parallels between my life and the lives of the Winchesters, which makes me feel very close to them and the show itself. I've always been drawn to TV shows with supernatural elements (DARK SHADOWS was a huge fave of mine back in the day).

Yes, I adore the hot actors, but it goes beyond that--they are excellent performers, and it's been my pleasure to watch them mature and get better and better over the past two and a half years. Jared was a zygote in GILMORE GIRLS, competent but not much of an actor compared with now. He was spot ON in "Mystery Spot," and I was as proud of him as if he were my own son! Jensen has amazed me with his excellent performances on so many occasions, I want to sue the Emmy Award committee for neglecting him.

Ultimately, this is a show about family. My parents were divorced when I was five, so that appeals to me, in a wistful way. First, we saw Mary, John, four-year-old Dean, and six-month-old baby Sammy, happy, for all too brief a time. It was beautiful. Shortly thereafter, Dean was running with his little brother from the burning house while John tried, fruitlessly, to save his dying wife, who was pinned, surrounded by flames, to the ceiling. What viewer can't comprehend and want to pursue this tragic story and see where it goes? I know I did, and still do!

Now well-trained hunters, seeking to kill the demon who murdered Mary, the three Winchester men are separated when Sam, at 18, chooses to go to college rather than remain in the family business--"saving people, hunting things." Sam wants "normal". He's fed up with credit card scams, chasing poltergeists, nasty ghosts, werewolves, etc., and wants to be a lawyer. Infuriated, probably hurt, too, John orders Sam never to come back, thus separating brothers Dean and Sam, who by this time must have become seriously bonded--to each other and their father. Sam goes off to Stanford on a full scholarship. He falls in love with Jess, works hard in school, gets superb L-SAT scores and is all set to interview for law school when Dean drops back into his life to tell him their father is missing on a hunting trip. Sam has not told Jess about his other life as a hunter, so he speaks to Dean (who, hearing of his decision to keep Jess in the dark about his former life, proclaims sarcastically, "Well that's healthy.")

Lingering resentment plus his continuing desire for normal compel Sam to tell Dean he doesn't want to join him in finding their father, but the two do go on to complete a hunt John started--solving the mystery of a Woman in White. This, the pilot episode of the show, was exciting, scary and sexy, and hooked me right into Sam and Dean's world. When the Woman in White snaked herself around Sam, who insisted he'd never been unfaithful and whispered in his ear, "You will be," I got chills EVERYWHERE! Watching the brothers interact, tease, solve the case, was so much fun, and you could already see the chemistry bubbling between Jensen and Jared. I loved it!

Dean dropped Sam back off at his college apartment so he would be on time for his interview; the brothers were going to be separated again. Even though he'd admitted to Sam he didn't want to do it alone, he was leaving to search for John by himself. I recall wondering how they were going to get the brothers back together, on the road, since I knew the premise of the show. Next thing I knew, Sam was lying on the bed, blood dripping on his forehead, and his girlfriend burst into flames on the ceiling above him. Holy Christ!! Sam, grim-faced, tosses a rifle in the back of the Impala. "We've got work to do," he says, and so begins the saga of the Winchester boys.

They had lost their mother and a beloved girlfriend in the same way, and someone had to pay! So the boys set off on their own adventures, searching for Jess' and Mary's murderer, learning more about each other along the way. They had me laughing, crying, cringing, clapping, cheering. When they finally found John and he hugged them, I cried. Family, together again! That was short-lived, however, when, at the end of season one, they were racing from an encounter with the Yellow Eyed Demon, who, it turned out, had killed both women because they interfered with his nefarious plans for Sam and other "special children" (with various powers, Sam was psychic) like him and the Impala was t-boned by a semi.

All three Winchesters ended up in the hospital, Dean in a coma, so near death that a reaper, in the form of a beautiful woman, paid him a visit and urged him to walk into the light.

John made a deal with the Yellow Eyed Demon: he'd give him the Colt, a gun that could kill anything and the one magic bullet remaining inside the gun, in trade for Dean's life. The YED wanted John to "sweeten the pot"--sacrifice his own life and head straight down to hell, immediately after making sure Dean was all right.

John accepted the deal. Dean recovered. His boys, horrified, watched him go flat line and the doctor call time of death: 10:41. This left the Winchester family down to two, Dean and Sam, both of whom were suffering severe guilt.

This was another weeper for me, and I wanted to wrap those two boys in my arms and cry with them. They'd lost both parents, to the same evil son-of-a-bitch. Why?

This show makes me FEEL things so strongly, as though they were happening to me. I can't explain why, but that's how it is.

It snowed today, Friday, 2.22.08, then turned to rain. The ride to work was treacherous, and I turned off main road Route 110 to take the snowier (but less SUV-traveled) New Highway. I had that road to myself and my new Honda Civic did a wonderful job moving through the snow.

I wasn't busy at work, but Gary and Mike were in an accident on the way to work, hit from behind by a truck, which I'm sure wasn't a great way to start the day. If Mike weren't in the car, I would have wished for a harder hit, damn it! Neither of them went to the hospital, but should have. I heard Gary say he wasn't wearing a seatbelt. The shmuck. I think he had Mike driving him because he was afraid to drive himself. But *I* drove myself to work! I envied Connie, who's on vacation in the warm islands this week. Lucky bitch.

I worked a straight six and went home, stopping first at Walmart to pick up bread, milk and medication I'd called in yesterday. The snow had turned to rain and the roads were much better than they'd been in the morning. Sure, I could have stayed at work, and Rudyk tried to talk me into staying, but I had made up my mind to leave, and I left. I just don't want to be there anymore, especially since I have NO work to do! And I'm spending all my time on the net on my personal e-mail and web sites I'm sure aren't work-approved, but what the hell else am I supposed to do to look busy? I'm constantly blanking out my screen so Gary and anyone else can't see what I'm doing, which is a pain in the ass. I'd rather be home on my own computer, able to do whatever I want. I hate the whole business, and I'm bored at work much of the time. But it's not my fault most facets of my job have disappeared, leaving me with very little to do all day!

You know what? I'm going to sign off now. Brad went to Atlantic City and stayed overnight with Mark, a friend of his. I was really worried about them coming home to this snowy situation, but they made good time, and it had already turned to rain by the time they arrived on Long Island. They had a great time and Brad came out several hundred bucks ahead, playing some strategy on craps someone told him about that apparently proved very successful for him. He put the winnings in the bank and went off to bowl tonight as usual. The only thing I'm concerned about is his car, which stalled out when he dropped Mark off in Seaford. Given how wet it was out, I guess that isn't too weird, but it concerns me--what if it has happened on a main road and they got hit? I guess we'll just have to monitor it.

Always something to worry about, right?

RIGHT!

Love, Robin

Where to begin? I Googled Ronald Fischer this week. For some reason his name popped into my head and I wanted to see what was happening with him. Ronnie was my mother’s boyfriend’s son, a child born several years after his two older sisters and never really wanted by his mother. Terrible, huh? Ronnie was three years my junior. He came to live with us for about a year and a half, if memory serves, because his mother threw him out of her house. I think she did it because she hated that her husband and my mother were “together”, and, knowing what a troublemaker Ronnie was, she hoped shoving him into our household would permanently break them up.

I know Ronnie got into trouble with the law several times, but exactly what he did escapes me. They couldn’t have been very serious infractions, because he did go to Medical School and become a doctor, so either they were expunged from his record or not evil enough to prevent him from doing so.

I liked Ronnie. I remember his mother bringing him over to our house to play with me when I was little. Yup, his mom and mine were friends before his father got between them! Way back then, he asked me to marry him. I said yes. When I explained about having babies, and how they’d have to cut open my stomach to get them out, Ronnie was so alarmed over that happening to me, he said we would never have any babies! Now that’s a guy who really cares!

Once my mother started dating his father, however, his mom didn’t bring him around to play with me anymore. She came over by herself, though, threatening to kill Mom, and once appeared brandishing a screw driver, which she used to hack through the screen in our door. She called on the phone, calling Mom “Whore!” and other unkind epithets. Once, when the whole family (including her husband) went out to eat, she showed up at the restaurant, screaming ugly words and accusations at my mother in front of everyone. Yes, growing up in my household was an adventure!

So, after Ronnie, who was 10 or 11 years old at the time, was thrown out of his mother’s house, he came to live with us. Unfortunately, my mother didn’t like him any more than his own did. He was a difficult kid, no doubt about it, but when you’ve felt as if your own mother wished you’d never been born your entire life, how would you behave? Mom begrudged him turning on the air conditioner in his room during the hot summer and huddling under the covers because it was too cold. He complained to his mother that mine wasn’t feeding him enough, but I don’t recall if that was true or Ronnie was just stirring up the trouble pot. I remember helping him with his math homework (me? Incredible!), arguing with him over who got to watch the new color TV set that his father bought us, arguing over naming the kitten we’d adopted (we settled on Peter, a name culled from my then-favorite TV show, DARK SHADOWS, which I gleefully snuck in because Ronnie didn’t realize it came from the show). Ronnie didn’t want any names from DS, but Peter was a minor, temporary character killed off on the show he wasn’t familiar with, so I got away with that one.

Despite his problems, I liked Ronnie. He was a good kid underneath all the anger and mother issues. We became like brother and sister, fighting and having fun together. The only reason I wasn’t happy having him in our house was the constant friction between him and Mom. Their fragile relationship deteriorated over a year and a half, so when the day came that her boyfriend (I’ll all him E) packed up Ronnie and moved back with his wife, I wasn’t surprised. Mom, devastated, started drinking heavily, and my most vivid memory of that day in July, 1969, when the men landed on the moon, was when my drunken mother and I got into such a terrible fight, I “ran away” from home to the local movie house and didn’t come home until after I’d seen the worse movie ever. (I can’t recall the name of it.)

Back to Ronnie. I felt that boy had good in him. He was a cute kid—red hair, freckled face and a sweet smile. He was funny, too. I enjoyed having him stay with us and loved the feeling of being with a real family (Mom’s boyfriend practically lived with us once Ronnie was installed in our home), but there was always the sour note Mom sang in Ronnie’s presence, and the ongoing battle between them for E’s affections and attention was exhausting to witness. So it was with mixed emotions that I saw my little brother exit my life.

Ronnie went to SUNY Brockport for a year or so, and that convinced me to go, too. Not that I had any contact with him there, because I didn’t. He ended up at Harvard Medical School, and when I heard that, I was very proud of him. The last I heard, he was working at Brigham Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts and, I assume, authoring an illustrious career. I thought about how I’d helped him with his homework and felt kind of responsible or the fine person he’d turned into. Ironically, I’d mentioned Ronnie to Tracey at one of my sessions with her a few weeks ago.

Until the Google. Ronnie Fischer’s name turned up on AMERICA’S MOST WANTED! Sure it was the wrong person, I quickly went through the story until I saw an early photo of a man, a former anesthesiologist who had lost his license, wanted as a convicted rapist!

It was Ronnie, my Ronnie, looking ugly in the photo, like a criminal. The boy I’d helped with math, mercilessly teased, took rides on his father’s boat, tricked into naming our cat Peter. The boy who had asked me to marry him when he was five years old. He had raped a woman—more than one, apparently—aboard one of his yachts (at least he’d been financially successful) and had been convicted. He had also taken off before his trial was over, and his ex-wife (he has two daughters!) seemed to think he’d escaped to Brazil.

Stunned, I called Steve when I got home, wanting to share this terrible news with my brother, who had been around for some of the Ronnie business all those years ago. When I couldn’t reach him, I called Sharon and told her. She seemed to understand why I felt sad, betrayed, lost. I had sort of bragged to Tracey about Ronnie, that while all the adults in his life had screwed him over, I had given him something valuable and thanks to me, he’d gone GOOD. Yet he hadn’t. He hated women so much, he was raping them. Was this the result of the treatment he’d received from his mother and mine?

Steve called a short while later. He was as flabbergasted as I to hear this news, and wondered about Ronnie’s older sisters, Joanne and Linda, who were his peers, and what this had done to them. It’s one of those stories that makes you realize truth IS stranger than fiction!

I’m sorry Ronnie didn’t have the illustrious career I’d imagined he’d had. I’m even sorrier I chose to Google his name. Some things, you just don’t want to know about because you’d rather believe the happy fiction you’ve kept in your head for many oblivious years.

Love, Robin

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate working in this office? I finish what little work I still have to do so early, then all that’s left are incoming phone calls and Betty’s occasional requests for runs to the back of the building to drop off paperwork. Otherwise, my only break is my walking break at 11:30 AM. If I didn’t have the internet to surf, I’d lose my mind.

Of course, Gary keeps peering over my shoulder and Betty is supposed to be watching me, but she has a plant in front of her that obscures her view. Gary told her to move it a while back, that it was blocking her view of my computer screen, but she didn’t. Ha. Ironically, the only stuff Gary has “caught” me doing comes from one of the gals who works here at the PO; she sends all sorts of feel good e-mails, including ones with hunky, half-clothed guys Gary saw me looking at today. So far, I’ve managed to minimize anything else I’ve been working on, including my personal e-mail and non-postal web sites. I don’t hear Gary challenging anyone else, and although I’ve resolved to wait and see if I can get one of the jobs at the Western Nassau VMF one day soon before taking any action against him, it still burns me to be treated that way.

I canceled Tracey this week because I had an appointment with Tom the appliance man to check out our noisy dryer at 5 PM and I was feeling too exhausted to run from my shrink appointment to meet him, deal with the dogs, etc. It turned out to be a $155 repair, and frankly, I wonder if we should have just bought a new dryer. This one isn’t all that old, though, so I figured let him fix it and perhaps it will last a nice long time, you know? Tonight I have an appointment with the ophthalmologist, where my eyes will be dilated, and I hate that so much, but it’s got to be done when you’re diabetic.

Just found out Charlie is going to be training as a 204B. I don’t know if he’s going to like it that much, but they do seem to have more freedom than clerks do, to wander off and disappear like Charlie likes to do. I understand they’re bringing in one of my favorite people to fill in for Charlie, a guy named Billy. His nickname is “Clark Kent” because that’s who he looks like. He’s one of the former drivers I’ve always had a bit of a crush on. I hope it will be fun to have Billy working here, but I’ll miss Charlie. Connie gets an office of her own, Charlie, a promotion. Where’s mine?

This week marked the 25th anniversary of my mother’s death. Hard to believe! Brad will be 25 in April, so those dates will always be linked in my mind and memory, unfortunately.

I learned today that a guy named Rich, who worked here, died suddenly a day or so ago. He was one of those odd people that everyone made fun of. I don’t think he was ever married; he lived alone; he rescued large parrots. He was a thin, short, nervous man who was probably in his 50’s, but I have no idea of his real age. He also appeared to have a very large penis, or at least he had a lot of something that made the front of his pants jut out. When someone pointed that out to me (I never noticed it myself), I made a cruel remark (paraphrase) about what a waste it was for someone with so little sex appeal to have such a large sex organ. As I said, everyone made fun of him, but now I feel badly about having done so. He was clearly a lonely, sad man who had little besides his job here at the post office and his rescued birds to sustain him. Whenever he came over to talk to me about his birds, or anything else, I was eager to brush him off, ignore him so he would go away. His over-attentiveness to his job annoyed his co-workers, and John here in my office also made some cutting remarks after Rich left. Rich was one of those souls I would have said was from another planet. He made me feel uncomfortable. It took so little to make him smile, but I didn’t want to invest the time to draw that smile out of him. I just wanted him to leave me alone. And I feel very shitty about that now, believe me.

Brad’s been sick this week. My nearly-25 year old baby came to me, complaining that he had the chills. (All men revert to children when ill.) I tossed a blanket over his shoulders, made him hot tea and gave him Advil. He refused to take any days off from work, however, and doggedly went in even though he felt like crap. I understand that he wants a perfect record while he’s on “tenure watch,” but he was clearly not faking it and several of his fellow teachers were out sick, too. Damn kid never did get a flu shot this year, either!

I think that’s about it for now!

Love, Robin

When I took my usual walk this week, I noticed an empty Magnum condom wrapper on the ground. Then I saw what looked like a pasty-colored, dead snakeskin--the giant-sized condom. I know it's a dead-end circle, and many lovers probably park there and hump each other's brains out, but to toss a used condom out the window seems the height of grossness.

And I wondered--did the guy really NEED that Magnum, or was he just trying to impress his gal? When she slipped it on him, did she say, "It's kinda big on you, baggy, ya know, I hope it doesn't slip off when we're doing it."

Or was she massively impressed by his gigantic member, almost afraid because he was way bigger than any other guy she'd ever been with, and what if he didn't fit, or it hurt, or. . .bigger wasn't better?

I know, I'm making up many scenarios, but it just struck me funny, seeing that wrapper, then the condom, which I couldn't tell in my quick walking pace if it had been used or not. And no, I didn't stop, bend down and examine it for semen in the tip; what kind of perv do you think I am?

Maybe the gal took one look at the guy's tiny dick, giggled, tossed the unused condom out the car window and said, "No thanks, I don't smoke!", promptly deflating the poor fella down to two inches of floppy flesh.

I'm working overtime today on this very rainy Friday. We had a terrific episode of SUPERNATURAL after six weeks without. It was all about suburban witches, gross, with bloody teeth, a dead rabbit and maggots, the most disgusting creatures on earth. Sam told Dean he was deliberately trying to become more like him--just killing without thinking much, so he'd be able to survive after Dean "leaves" (dies) a few months hence. Ruby and Dean finally met and fought over Sam, who became very upset, but when Dean nearly died, it was Ruby who saved his life. She confessed to him that she CAN'T save him from his Crossroads deal, and her purpose is to harden Sam to the realities of the demon war ahead so he can take care of himself after Dean has gone to hell. She also told him all demons were originally human (as she herself was, and a witch, too) and that being in hell strips you of your humanity. Somehow, she retained hers, and I have to watch the ep again to see how she managed that. Of course, demons lie, and who knows if ANYTHING Ruby told Dean is true? Sam has no idea she lied to him about being able to help Dean, and I suspect the latter won't say a word to his brother about it.

I'm looking forward to the weekend, which will fly by, and before I know it, Monday will happen again. Zoom! Sharon and I are going out tonight, and she's giving me tickets to a play she and Tom were supposed to go to but now aren't--George Burns and Gracie Allen. Tom wants her to go out with another couple instead, but Sharon was really looking forward to going to the play, so I feel bad for her.

I have to finish up my work now.

Love, Robin