Under further review

Well, I was hell-bent on cleaning tonight, but once again, was stopped when I got a faceful of chlorine gas. The only effective agent for cleaning cat whiz is bleach, but uric acid and sodium hypochlorite react and produce a sometimes-hazardous level of free chlorine gas, particularly if the windows and doors aren't open, and I ended up scorching my nose and throat. So, I stopped cleaning and came back in the bedroom to watch more college football and read.

One thing I read was the period of early 2004 in this very journal, the period from New Year's to June. Watching me go through the transition from Penny to Melody was interesting and educational. I realized I really did care about Penny a lot more than I thought I did, but I knew (and know now) that she and I were not right for each other in the longer term. As transitional partners, particularly when it came to sex and all the fun surrounding it, we were great, but it wouldn't have worked longer.

Even more educational was my writing during the time I met Melody. Reading it now, I should have realized Melody was wrong for me about six weeks after she and I actually met. I had been so mesmerized by her writing prior to ever meeting her that when we did meet in person, I warped my own sense of what was right and what was problematic and I let signs blow by me in the interest of taking the higher road. She didn't like my house, she wanted to remake me, she was self-absorbed and possessed of ideas I didn't hold with. I should have been happy for the early time I had with her, and moved on.

Sure, it's easy saying this shit now, a year and a half later, but there, I'm saying it. I made a mistake.

I'm not sure any of the other people I was meeting then would have been better for me... possibly Marie, though on her visit in April (the other day I found the ticket stubs for the Tennessee Williams one-act-play festival at the Kennedy Center) she showed traits which really, really troubled me, too.

That all seems like a very long time ago.