February 21, 2003

           Here is a picture of Sharon, the last gal I dated from the phone company. Well, I shouldn’t say dated, because pure and simple, she was husband-hunting. I could not dissuade her from continually mentioning the subject. This was some shopping center we’d gone up to in Vancouver, Canada.
           Sharon was nice, but obsessed with marriage and relationships. The second time we went for coffee after work, she stated she felt she was “putting more into our relationship” than I was. I wrongly assumed she was joking. Let me describe the obsession.
           At her condo, she had removed all trace of pictures of younger women. Even magazines with something like a cigarette ad showing a young woman had that page torn out. She would also go on about how happily married her older sisters were, but was careful never to mention she had unmarried younger sisters (the guys at work told me about them, and they were apparently quite luscious).
           Also, Sharon was constantly prying into the nature of my affairs with women earlier in my life, something I scarcely ever talk about. The best I could do was point out to her that I was not the least bit interested in the details of the guy she had lived with for eight years, unmarried. She took this to mean I didn’t care. Yes, I did, and that was why I never considered marrying her. But she never listened and we split.
           6:33 a.m., Miami. My first bad day in years. Something woke me up at 3:20 a.m. and I couldn’t fall back to sleep. I dragged around all day but can’t afford to be sick. It was Julie’s birthday and I had to miss that. I skipped seeing Jaimie and went as straight home as Miami traffic allows. It is strange how there is not a singe freeway through the city for 150 blocks.
           This meant I was up at 3:30 a.m. again on Saturday, another book about settlers. Apparently somebody called Bartram thought Florida was a paradise. He also thought alligators were beautiful. I, for one, consider them to be one of the ugliest things on earth, right up there with 45 year old divorcees who follow me around shopping centers humming to the overhead musak.
           [Author’s note: Julie was the lady who finalized the payroll where I worked. Jaimie was my former roommate, a waitress from downtown Miami. Roomies only, she was not my type in any way. When my sleep rhythm was thrown in those days, I had to often re-train myself to sleep at night. Never had any such problems once I quit working for a living.]