my careless contagion

Dolly Parton has been a fixture in country music and popular culture my entire life. Her career started way before I was born, in fact. I Will Always Love You is a classic, and it came from an era when country music was very different. She wrote the song in 1972, reportedly the same day she wrote Jolene , which is my favorite Dolly Parton song. Also, take note of Dolly's seated position in the above video (recorded in 1974?), which is a very hard way to sing a song like this, yet she does it naturally and beautifully. Most people are familiar with the 1992 Whitney Houston version of this song, which is very good (though I don't care for the sax). Whitney was one of the greatest singers of our time, and I was deeply saddened when she passed. Still, I have to agree with this comment on YouTube: " Whitney's version makes your knees weak and gives you goosebumps; Dolly's version makes you break down and cry like a baby." Indeed, while Whitney's voice can...

This is a long post, but it should answer many of the questions about Cindy and her behavior and how I handled things. There is absolutely no judgment here. There is a stigma to autism that should not exist. I hope this post offers insight that cuts through some of that. For the record, I do not see Cindy as a girl with autism; I just see Cindy, the girl I love.    Cindy shared this link with me July 28, 2017, which was days after she ended our relationship. Go ahead and read it. I'll wait. Was Cindy in an abusive relationship with her ex-husband? From my perspective, absolutely. She told me quite a few things that were definitely abusive behavior, which was probably just the tip of the iceberg. Even after they were separated, there was an incident when she stood up for herself, telling him he couldn't keep coming into her house whenever he wanted. His reply was to act like he was going to chest-bump her (threat of physical violence, and this guy is huge), which reduced...

I know I'm posting this on Oct. 27, but what happened last night is the crux of the matter. The problem is, I don't know how to talk about things properly because there is something that needs to be explained first. And I will. In a future post.  Cindy messaged me and wished my son a happy birthday in advance. Somehow it ended up being a texting match followed by a half-hour phone call and her frustrated in tears and me feeling like I'd been hit by a bus. None of that was planned, and that's probably why she doesn't want to reach out to me anymore. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the straw that broke the camel's back. This summer, when I tried to "break off" any chance of a future relationship with her, I felt she said she didn't accept that. Well, what she was telling me was there was nothing to break off because there was no relationship. What I was trying to break off was the chance of something — someday. I thought sh...

This post may rub some the wrong way. I put forth some opinions which are not popular. I'm simply chronicling my experiences with my ex-wife. Katharine (misspelled in the above quote) Hepburn has long been regarded as a "feminist icon," which, as a matter of fact, led my ex's mother (my ex-mother-in-law; gotta love these ever-expanding titles) to choose Katharine Hepburn as my ex's namesake. She changed the spelling to Katherine.  What on earth does Katharine Hepburn have to do with me, you ask? My segues are brilliant. Hey, I'll tell you.  Here's a quote from Hepburn's 2003 obituary at The Guardian : "By the time she went to Hollywood in 1932, Hepburn was regarded as difficult and lofty. Her first employer, David O Selznick, was horrified: she wasn't beautiful, she wasn't sexy, she talked back, she didn't flatter fools. How could she survive?"   Yep, that sounds familiar. Though she displayed a virulent and earl...

I wrote this post to myself. It wasn't intended to help anyone other than me, but if it helps someone else, then okay. I've gone through life trying to avoid being triggered by bad memories. As I sit here, I can cough up quite a few, but those are merely at the surface. I can recall the time my dad and I built a crude birdfeeder, which I hung pretty low (so I could fill it) on my favorite ponderosa tree. My brother later told me he would take the BB gun and go up to birds feeding on it and blow them away at point-blank range. I stopped refilling it. My dad probably thought it was a waste of time to help me build it. Then there's the time I was playfully snatching popcorn from the giant bowl my ex sat down with next to me. There was literally popcorn for ages, but she got upset and threw the whole damn bowl on me because it was her popcorn . And, of course, there are other and numerous romantic heartbreaks, which seem to be the gift that keeps on giving.  All of t...