the only thing worse than being alone...

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the following is the text of my very first comment to any blog ever--to a post written by the first blogger i ever came across (a natural storyteller who unfortunately and inexplicably abandoned his very successful blog almost a year ago with a post ironically titled "this blog is not abandoned").

anyway, this comment (a drunken, heartfelt comment, it goes without saying), made almost three years ago, ended up teaching me a cold, hard lesson about the blogosphere i've never forgotten.

see, this blogger had written a really eloquent, touching post about his parents--so eloquent and touching, in fact, that it inspired me to write my own tribute to my mother and send it to him in the form of a comment to his blog.

in my naivete, i assumed that not only would he actually read my little comment and be touched by it, he'd then honor my request to delete it afterwards--i didn't realize then that, unless moderated, comments just appear for all the indifferent world to see.

and appear it did--to my chagrin, my very personal tribute to my mother not only showed up on his comments page, it sat there like this turd on the cyber-sidewalk that all his subsequent commenters carefully stepped around to avoid--and boy, that stung. and, despite a follow-up email to said blogger, he never took it down. in retrospect, i realize he probably never even saw the comment or the email--i guess at that level of superstar-blogdom you've got bigger fish to fry.

but you know what? ultimately it all worked out for the best, because i was able to go back later, grab that comment and turn it into the best birthday card my mother ever got in her whole life--i remember her calling me the day it arrived and telling me how she sat there at the mailbox, tears rolling down her face as she read it over and over, realizing one of her kids really understood her.

anyway, she won't see it here, but you will. happy mother's day, ma.

* * * * *

came home from college one weekend and, as always, headed straight for the food. munching on something (i don't remember what), i perused the latest offerings on the ever-changing magnet-covered billboard that was my mom's refrigerator.

distracted by notes from friends, school pictures of the neighbors' kids and various clippings of interest, i almost missed the one that mattered--tiny, tucked discreetly around the corner, scotch-taped so it wouldn't get away, was a one-liner from what looked like the reader's digest--you know, one of those little items they stick in at the end of too-short articles to fill up the remaining space. it was short, sweet and to-the-point and probably nothing more than a throwaway line to its author:

"the only thing worse than being alone is wishing you were"

all of a sudden, a totally new insight into my mom: this warm, beautiful, charismatic woman--widowed young when dad decided to take himself out of the game, who had recovered from the blow (at least outwardly), had dated occasionally and even developed a couple of semi-serious attachments but always kept her distance, reserving the full measure of her love for her kids--was unwilling to settle for anything less than what she'd had with him, flawed though it had been and he had been (think of that mix of dark attraction and subtle menace that was clint eastwood in "high plains drifter" and you'll get my dad--lots of heartache, but a hard act to follow).

i never discussed it with her--never had to--but it's stuck with me ever since. truth is, that little quip has become my mantra. every time i lightly deflect a request for a second date (or a second trick), or get a too-close look at one of the nightmare 'relationships' that los angeles homosexuals seem so adept at inflicting on one another, i repeat that line to myself; it's served me well and i truly understand it.

thanks for that and for everything else, ma--i love you.