Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2002-12-23 - 7:20 a.m.

Rude Magick

I took the dog in to get his shots this week; the fierce take-no-prisoners Jack Russell, who trembled and cowered and rammed his head into my armpit. If I can't see you, you can't see me. If I don't look, none of this will be happening.

"That's usually a cat trick," said the vet, amused. And I remembered the cat does it too - just shoves his head in between my arm and my body at the vet's. If I don't look at you, you don't exist.

Today, I noticed (when trying to show them to someone else) that the fire pictures on the web are gone. They were being hosted by my ex-boyfriend...that term sucks...by Leo, who I told around June that we could no longer be lovers, and who has not spoken a word to me in any form since.

This was probably predictable. When I met him, he would not speak the name of his last ex-wife- he called her X, and that was X, not ex-. Although they had three children together, and although he saw those children regularly, he would not speak of her - told me that for him, she did not exist.

Well, it was not MY armpit he had his head jammed in - I thought it was rather bullshit, really, although I never said so. I mean, I'm not always crazy about my girls' father, and maybe sometimes I WISH he didn't exist, but I never felt I had the power to make it so. He's just there, and the more acceptance I can find for that, the better off the girls and I will be. But this was his way of dealing with her, or not dealing with her, and I knew that, so I suppose it is not a surprise to me that I no longer exist, either.

Poof.

It kind of pisses me off that my kids don't exist any more, either, though. And it pisses THEM off, which is a good thing. They thought they had a relationship with him, and they though they had one with his kids. They got kind of ripped of by adult actions, which happens to kids, but that doesn't make it right and they certainly have the grounds to be pissed off at me AND at him for what happened.

I did try to continue contact - I like the man; I didn't spend those years with him because I didn't like him. I phoned once. I wrote more than once. I did as much as pride allowed and then I did some more because who cares about pride? But then I stopped, because pride aside, I'm not as stupid as I look. I know an armpit when I see one. Eventually.

It doesn't feel all that weird not to exist, I guess. A little. I always knew the game, and I knew that because I play it myself - my mail doesn't exist if I don't think about it. La la la la la la la, I can't HEAR you. My housework doesn't exist as long as I don't get out of bed and LOOK at it. I never did the armpit-jamming to people, really, but I do it to obligations. Obligations only get bigger when you pretend they aren't real, we all know that, and eventually they will pry your arm away from your side and grab you by the hair and yell in your face - which is a good reason to hide from the NEXT one, isn't it? So I try to stay out of that loop when I can. Try to save my magic for better pursuits.

Max the WonderMutt got the shot anyway, armpit or no armpit. All the wishing in the world didn't make the vet *poof* out of existence. And I don't feel any less substantial than I did a few months ago. A little regretful, but still pretty damn solid.

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