These things (and people) keep popping back.

Most of you know I am divorced and was married to Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, for about 25 years. I filed in 2002, about three months after she departed our love nest without warning and eventually moved in with her toy boy surfer. This all happened in southern California, and a little over four years after she bolted, I had sold off everything including the house and moved here to where I was born and raised, after a many decades-long absence.

One revelation among many that I encountered during the 3 year divorce was that most of our friends knew about her serial cheating and many infidelities. In the first year of the split her girlfriends, many of whom no longer were on speaking terms with the ex-wife, came to me and spilled the "beans" about her undercover activities.

I collected many stories about her awesome conquests, how she bragged about it to the girlfriends, and how "Jon is totally clueless, so let's make sure we keep it that way."

I thought it was a perfect marriage.

But this all happened many years ago, and I have been laboring past the wreckage as best I can.

Anyway, and this is my point here, I have been receiving emails and handwritten letters from one of our old friends out there. This woman and her family were good friends with us. We were that way for at least a couple of decades. We did social things together. We took a vacation trip together. I fed and entertained them. We gave them Christmas parties and many, many presents, including gifts to their children.

We stood up for them when their children were christened in a church.

This woman was one of the "confessers" who came to me and told me about my ex-wife's indiscretions. She personally informed me, a year after the wife bolted, about six affairs that I had not previously known - from the other girlfriends. (There were probably around 15 that we totalled on the bottom line. Maybe more, but who cares now?)

The tenor of her letters and emails are this: She and her husband want to "keep in touch" with me. They "miss" me and often talk about me.

When I departed the scene out there, I visited most of the old friends, had a drink, patted backs, etc. I made the tour around Long Beach and some other places just to say goodbye. My visits were cordial, without blame or even discussing the past.

It was my intention that once I left California, they could all fade away.

That is still my intention. It is bad enough that they keep popping up in my dreams. I don't really need to be reminded. I don't care about them or that past anymore.

So I have been laboriously writing an email, trying to encapsulate my feelings about staying "in touch" with people who participated in the cheating and lying along with my ex-wife. It is a hard task to say what I want and what I should without appearing to be an asshole.

I just want them to go away and remain there.

I could simply write something like "F**k off." and be done with it, but that's not nice.

I would like to simply leave them with their guilt and missing the Hell out of me.

Maybe that's enough.

Maybe I won't reply.

Maybe if I do it should be "Go away."

How about, "Who are you? I don't remember you."

Hmm.

I know who my "friends" are.
............

Meantime...
I am beginning another makeover on my web site, www.jondude.com

It will be a while before I can upload it. I am breaking up the art page into several separate pages. There will be pages for

Current work I'm doing
Paintings in collections
Paintings for sale
Paintings from the past
Special projects such as the trash cans, rocking chair, cowboy hat, etc.

and who knows what else? Maybe a page about pending shows and/or exhibitions.
..........

It became Friday again. Such a speedy week. Now I must pay a couple bills, visit the post office (where's my body armor?), go purchase a package of coffee filters (unbleached and low fat), and catch a few words with my uncle Don, who has a bad prostate problem. Tomorrow I travel to the far side of Cleveland for a memorial service for my old friend Tony. I will collect my first wife, carol, on the way. Remember to not smoke in the car, Jon. I could give a very long eulogy for Tony, but I promised to keep it under five minutes. I haven't scripted it, but I have it in my head. All I have to do is keep from tearing up my eyes. He was a Mensch, in my book, a mentor and a really good man. Maybe that last sentence is enough.