Every now and again, I have to run through events in my head in order to figure out where I am right now.

You know the cliche about women never missing anniversaries and being all needy and wanting when annual dates come by? The comedy nugget between a New Yorker cartoon and a Cathy strip with men needing gadgets and women just harping on life’s repeating dates as they fly by missed in a cosmic representation of how their feminine feelings are ignored?

Well, I’m clearly not the chick my ovaries say I am. I can’t remember that shit worth a damn and to maintain some semblance of humanity I create crazy timelines in my head. Friendly questions like “How long have you and your boyfriend been together?” “When did your mom pass away?” “How long have you lived in California?” They create a whole parade of images in my head, before and after which things happen. Towhit:

– Pat moved back into her post-fire, restored house when the Egypt Air flight went down (October 31, 1999)
– I had broken up for a solid while with the evil ex and dated another guy until on or about 9/11/01. (Guy number 2 and I spent a weekend in New York that ended 9/9/01.)
– Pat was still alive on 9/11 (2001)
– The bad man who stopped dated me needed to be friends in the post-9/11 world
– Geoghan is convicted, the Vatican released new guidelines on ratting out pedo-priests and Cardinal Bernard Law apologizes to the victims (early to mid-January 2002)
– Pat was still alive to join the voices looking for himself to step down from archdiocese leading in Boston
– Cardinal Law steps down from his Boston gig and heads to Rome, leaving on the same day he is ordered to appear before a grand jury investigating sex abuse allegations (December 2002)
– Danny and I find the earthly remains of Pat, who has decided to leave, cosmically speaking (January 18, 2002)
– The New England Patriots win their first Super Bowl (February 3, 2002)
– M. and I have a date, it may have been Tax Day (April 2003)
– For reasons I cannot clearly explain, I performed comedy naked-style for the first time (September 2003)
– I start some pathetic ‘blogging attempt (http://homepage.mac.com/dee_rob/) , which grows into this bigger, longer still pathetic ‘blogging attempt (https://dee-rob.com/wp) (October 2003)
– M. takes off and moves to his first Silicon Valley gig. We part with no pre-conceived notion on how a cross-country love affair might last (December 17, 2003)
– In honor of America’s forefathers I have a second meeting with a psychologist and take a personality inventory (I have one) (July 3, 2004)
– My former employer and I come to an amicable agreement, I’ll go quietly in a non-crazy or threatening manner, and they’ll dole out some severance (mid-July 2004)
– The Democratic National Convention takes over the city of Boston, and I get a lot of comedy life from my Berkeley-purchased “Fuck Bush” t-shirt (late-July 2004)
– The Boston Red Sox win their first World Series since 1918 (October 2004)
– Me and my VW Beetle headed onto the highway, nose pointed west (March 8, 2005)
– M. and I sleep in our first apartment together for the first time (March 22, 2005)
– I shoot a gun and don’t become a libertarian (May 30, 2005)
– I remember I’m not independently wealthy and get another job, back to the salt mines (June 2005)
– M. and I get the keys to our real-life, California ranch house, just like in all of those sitcoms (October 20, 2008)
– America shakes itself from an 8-year, Republican-based slumber (November 4, 2008)
– I finish a crappy list to remind myself that I’ll soon be 45, my mother died 7 years ago, and M. and I have been together for 6 (February 3, 2009)

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