Diary of a Network Geek

This is not what I intended to write.
Really, it’s not, though I’d imagine my ex-wife will think I planned it just for her. I didn’t, but, then, she always was a paranoid narcissist. And, I know I’ve been writing about her a lot lately, all I can say is that I hope it’s because I feel detached enough from her that I can let that part of my past go and out. Anyway, a recent post on another blog sort of hit me where I live, though not for the reasons one might think. You see, my ex-wife left me twice. The last time, thankfully, for good, but the first time was years ago, before she was my wife.
I was living in Chicago at the time, in a suburb named Mount Prospect. She and I had been involved, in the Bibilcal sense, for a little over a year. She’d left her second husband, though not divorced him, and was lonely. I had obligations to my Masonic Lodge that predated her by several years. In fact, I was in position for a fairly rare opportunity to lead the Lodge, as Master, for a year at a very young age. She, however, wanted me to drop everything and move down to Texas for her. Obviously, being who I am, I told her I couldn’t do that and, if what we had meant anything, she could wait another year. After all, I figured it would be for a lifetime once I got there. What happened next should have been a red flag to me.
She started getting extra friendly with a guy from work. She and her daughter went to the beach with him and his daughter. They ate lunch together and more. It didn’t take long for the bells and whistles to go off for me. I asked her to stop seeing him and she gave me the old line about needing to get out and have friends. Friends, sure, but this guy was after a whole lot more than that and I told her so. She told me that I was just being controlling and jealous. That escalated until, finally, I was given the boot because I just was holding on “too tightly” and being “too controlling and jealous”. Before we were done, I told her exactly what he was after and how he’d get it. I knew because, in college, I’d seen or tried to do the same thing.
Fast forward about six weeks. I’ve become the Master of my Lodge and I’m already swamped with work. Pile on all the changes that were going on at my job, which made me the head network and support “go to” guy and I hardly had time to eat, much less check phone messages or e-mail. One Saturday night, I go over to my parents to eat and do laundry, as I often did. Since I was single and had nothing better to do, I stayed later than I intended and was too tired to check e-mail when I got home. So, I let it go until the morning. I don’t know how many e-mails I had from my ex-wife, but, let’s just say, more than one. And, since this was back in the days when everyone still used modems, when I got done checking e-mail, I had phone messages waiting for me. Again, more than one. More than one tear-soaked, blubbering, snot-bubble-blowing, barely coherent phone message, begging me to take her back. Oh, the litany of how I’d been right and how she’d been wrong was long and flowery and moving. And, like the fool I was, I took her back.
Later, I found out she’d left this “prize” because he’d been with prostitutes, was a self-confessed pedophile and had allegedly forced himself on her sexually. I often wonder if she’d have come back to me if he’d been less messed up. Would it have been such a mistake on her part? Or, would I have been, as I am to her now, Satan incarnate. See, the irony is, not long after she was promising to love me forever and do anything to make the relationship work, she was also telling me that she wasn’t comfortable with seeing me right away, either. She was wrong, she claimed, but she had to put limits and restrictions on our relationship so that it was “safe” for her. Yeah, that was red flag number two.
But, no, I still turned a blind eye to that and we met in San Francisco during the Folsom Street Fair to “make up”. And, so we did. Now, flash forward to this time last year, when that all played out again, the only way it could have. Only this time, if she comes back, I’m calling the police to have her removed from my property.

I try not to think too much about what my life would be like if I’d only held firm back in the Summer of ’97 . But, I do still wonder sometimes. Would I be happier than I am? Would I be better off? Well, maybe I would and maybe not. I’d like to say that I’m older and wiser now, but, mainly, I’m just older and not wise at all. I get like that at this time of year. The new year is approaching and so is my birthday. I find myself looking at where I am and how I got here. It’s never where I thought I’d be and the path is never the one I would have chosen, but I keep plodding on.
What else is there to do?

There’s something missing from my blog.
I’ve been reading a lot of blogs lately, which has led me to think a whole lot. Combine that with a little therapy and the time of year and, well, you end up with a very, very introspective Network Geek. So, while I’ve been introspecting and the other day, two things came to me about my blog and my life. There are two significant forces in my life that are missing here: the sound of my voice and cheerleaders. No, it’s not what you think. My interaction with cheerleaders has led to some of the most important realizations of my life. It’s still not what you think, but, that’s for another time.
Writers talk about finding their “voice” in their writing. Eventually, the writing books and pundits tell me, if you write enough, you will find your “voice”. But, that’s just not true. I’ve always had my voice, though it has changed over the years. It’s a voice I share with my older brother and my father. My mother used to say that when we were all in the same room talking she had a hard time telling us apart. In the end, she could only tell who was who based on how we used language. Over the years, that little family quirk led to some interesting conversations. Often times, I would answer the phone only to have someone address me by my father’s name and launch into conversation. “Oh, Bill, glad I caught you! Look, I have this problem and…” I learned some really interesting things about my father and the people he knew that way.
It wasn’t until I was in college that I really learned how to use that man’s voice. I was such child and, really, in so many ways I still am a little boy, but, somehow, I had the voice of a man fourty years my senior. In a lot of ways, it’s a good voice. Soothing, relaxing. Like the deep roar of the ocean heard from miles away, lulling the listener to a state of calm trust. It was in college that I learned to use that voice to relax people. Laying in a small, dorm bed, pressed up against someone so that she could feel the subsonic rumble in my chest like the purr of a big cat. Eventually, in the cold, dark hours, hypnotized by that soft, slow, reassuring voice the secrets would start to spill out. That voice was trustworthy, like the NSA. Information went in, but never came out. Safe, secure.
People seem to want to tell me everything when they hear me reassure them that it’s okay. That I want to listen, to hear. Even when I don’t say it, somehow, people hear that in my voice and volunteer so much of their lives. At my first real job after college, I remember sitting in an office on the night shift hearing all about the affair one of the Food and Beverage managers was having the the married man from another restaurant in the hotel. One or two simple, direct questions and the story just came flooding out, like I was a priest in a confessional.
Later, when I had to travel so much for my next job, I learned to bark like a drill sergeant. “Make a hole!” I’d bellow at the tourists who stopped at the end of the gangway, and they’d scatter, looking for the uniform. “Coming through! On your left!” And it was off in a hurry, always in a hurry those days, to get my luggage and meet up with the other consultant to scramble to the job site and get started. Or, it was a rush to get my luggage and get home, to laundry and my own comfortable bed. I’d learned to give orders to strangers and expect that they’d be obeyed without question, my voice deep and booming and endlessly confident. Then, I changed jobs again and I stopped shouting confidently at strangers.
But, I was an officer in my Masonic Lodge, so, now, the orders were to friends and Brothers. Tact was the thing, but the confidence had been weakened. Me? Give orders to men older than my father? Or, worse yet, give orders to my own father in Lodge? I was surprised that I was up to the task, but, my voice was there to support me. Even when I didn’t feel confident, my voice never wavered. I didn’t let any hint of the questions I felt creep into my voice. Strong and reserved and confident. My orders were carried out, for that year, and then I could step down.

Two women have fallen in love with my voice. At least, two that admitted it to me.
One night, my now ex-wife called me in my suburban Chicago apartment. But, she hung up when I answered. I called her back.
“Did you just call me?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then why’d you hang up?”
“You didn’t sound like you.”
“Well, who did I sound like?”
Silence.
“Honey? Who did I sound like?”
“You’ll laugh.”
So, I laughed and said,”Probably. But, tell me anyway. Who did I sound like?”
“A…” She paused. “A large, black man.”
Of course, I laughed. A little, white guy like me, and she thought I sounded like Barry White on the phone. I couldn’t wait to tell my father who his future daughter-in-law thought we sounded like.
The other woman, well, she’s a different story all together. She’s never even met me, but she said she fell in love with that voice, that laugh. Even before she’d seen a picture of me. Then, it was those eyes. I have my father’s eyes, too. But, he and I both know that the eyes are nothing without the voice. It’s too bad I’ll never meet her.

I was almost a therapist once. I was accepted into the program, but bailed out. The reasons are many and complicated. The joke I’ve always told was that I got into computers instead, where I could fix the problems. Everyone always laughs, but, deep down, I know it’s true. I’d have had to fix my own problems before being any real use to anyone else. But, still, even today, when people hear my voice, it’s not long before they relax and tell me everything.
So, I listen to my father’s voice echo out of my mouth, reassuring them, and then, I just listen.