Ill Humours — Oh to be (not so) young and fertile!

“Jane was by no means better. The sisters, on hearing this, repeated three or four times how much they were grieved, how shocking it was to have a bad cold, and how excessively they disliked being ill themselves; and then thought no more of the matter” ~ Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice

I am currently a miserable bundle of discontentedness in recovery from surgery  – had a tubal ligation (tubes tied, sterilization the doctor called it once) and a uterine oblation (burning of all the lining of the uterus to treat prolonged excessive bleeding).

Yummy!

As I said, hot mess. Grumpy. Cranky. Aggravated at not being able to do things that need doing and frustrated with my own body for its various deficiencies — both on the surface and on deeper levels. The deeper levels didn’t rear their ugly heads until the other day when I realized I was puting off calling a close friend of mine and started examining the reason for it. I never avoid her. Yet there I was, dreading talking to her. Just the mention of hearing her voice and I broke into tears. WTF?

The tears, I realized, were for the loss of choice, the end of any possibility of fertililty. I know in my mind that I made the right decision. Having children would be irresponsible and dangerous for me. I simply can’t do it given the conditions I have. I’ve never doubted the necessity of avoiding having any other children knowing that I have bi-polar disorder. I’m healthy and stable now, but it’s based on a balance of medications — medications that cannot be taken during pregnancy. Not to mention postpartum depression and gestational diabetes. So NO, there’s no question. Except for the fact that it’s all medical. If these things weren’t a factor, I would feel very differently. I would probably like to have at least one other child. Maybe. Point is, I feel betrayed in a sense by my own body. This is just another way the same thing is true. And I had this massively illogical feeling of no longer being seen as a woman because I was no longer a feminine woman b/c I cannot bear children — have no capacity to do so — as if that’s some fundamental requirement. When any 16 year old high school drop out can do it. As I said, it doesn’t make any mental sense – just all emotion that needed to come out. And it poured out once the thing was final. Come out the other end of the surgery and it’s done. No going back. An empty feeling. Blech.

In the meantime I had a bad night wherein I found out I’m not as recovered as I thought I was, when I thought I would have more strength and ability than I have. Left alone with my 5 year old and a new puppy and I couldn’t keep up, hurt myself, lost my patience with both of them. Big fail. By the end of the night I felt like a whiny bitch. Mr. K came home and when I need something, even though it’s really a minor thing like getting me something from across the room because I’ve been up and down all night and am in pain, I have such a hard time asking that we end up getting snippy with each other about it.

How stupid is that? He says, “Why can’t you just tell me what you want instead of trying to hint around and expecting me to figure it out, then giving me a guilt trip when I don’t?!” I guess that is legit. But I HATE asking for help. And I do think that a reasonably intelligent and compassionate person should be attentive when someone is ill. Still. Bad combo of emotions.

Inevitably I wonder (read – become paranoid) if I’m starting to sound like Mrs. Bennet with her continuous litany of high-pitched nagging complaints about every whim and fancied illness. Even now: I feel. I FEEL. I, I. I. Me. Me. Me. Enough.

But when I need help, I have to ask for it. Physical, emotional. And I need to pay as much attention to those I love to see that they are cared for too.

Perfect Happiness … a Day at a Time

But, in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union. ~ Jane Austen, in Emma

After the frightful fears of my previous post, one might wonder at my speaking of “perfect happiness” … under any guise. But perfection of any kind, which Jane declared made her “sick and wicked,” makes me highly suspicious. The pursuit of it, however, is another story. On those grounds I write today. On those grounds the beginning of a new chapter of this relationship began.

In answer, it seemed, to the very doubts I had, the man I had doubted so profoundly did the following unintentionally and wiped away the fears I’d been harboring without realizing he did so. Now I am happily enjoying the closest thing I’ve had to a “family” Christmas (meaning, of course, that the children are driving us nuts, that we’re arguing about whether the lights should be colored or white, that our house will never be clean enough for proper pictures …)

BUT …

There we were, leaving my step-mom’s house, where we’d had a lovely thanksgiving dinner, and we decided, what they hell, let’s brave the crowds out of sheer curiosity and see if any of the sales are as great as they say b/c Walmart is opening at 10pm. Naturally, we are as appalled as everyone else about this, and are equally hypocritical enough to take part in it anyway. We’re Americans, after all. As we’re wandering the isles, he starts talking about Christmas and what he wants to do for Christmas. (Huh? I think in my head. This is the man who 6 months ago when I got all squeaky about finally having a place big enough to decorate properly for Christmas — including dragging out all 8 of my Christmas bins — he just rolled his eyes and mumbled something about never getting to celebrate the holidays because he’ been deployed for years.) Suddenly out comes Clark Griswald … this is how we should do the tree, the lights should go here, what kind of wreath do you want? I like to have 6 different kinds of wrapping paper and lots of bows. We really go all out in my family with bows. (Again, I’m blinking a lot and looking around waiting for a camera crew to pop out.) What kind of stockings do you have? Maybe we should get these just in case. Let’s take the kids to look at the lights.

And the most important thing … the clincher … was the outpouring of childhood ritual and memory. He was sharing his family traditions with me and wanting to recreate this in our home. What a difference from a few months ago. Clearly he has decided that we are a family. He talks about us like we’re a family. And we’re having a full-blown family Christmas. One like I’ve always wanted to have, but the douche-bag never really cared — I always did it all myself. But Mr. K is totally involved and excited about it. And I love it. As we were in Target pouring over wrapping paper and coordinating bows, I looked at him and said, “I just want you to know that I fell in love with you just a little bit more today.”

He’s including me and my son — talking about “the kids” in all the plans. What a pleasure. What a joy. What an attempt at perfection — the joys and dreams we want for ourselves. Of course we know it won’t be perfect. But the effort toward a union that matters means so much. Ever so much.

Connectedness

“I am only resolved to act in that manner which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.” ~Jane Austen, in Pride & Prejudice

What is it that I want in a relationship so young? How does one determine the “age” of a relationship. By age I really mean development, though for some the amount of time reflects a degree of maturity – or rather they firmly believe that maturity only comes with the passing of time. And I am certainly no expert on relationships or gauging the proper degree of maturity when it comes to making healthy decisions. All I have proved thus far in my life in terms of relationships is that I have the ability to fail on the grand scale. To the tune of marrying too young and then dragging it out over years of drama, dragging a child into the mixture to traumatize his childhood as well.

Brilliant.

My current relationship started in a flash of light. We moved in together within three months. It seems incredibly stupid in retrospect, if for no other reason than that I now find myself in this current position of limbo/confusion and I have no recourse. Once you’ve moved in, you cannot move out without breaking the relationship. You shifted into high gear quickly – the only way is up, but the next “step” is a major one, one that a lot of men never want to take. Infinite limbo. Because defining this space between the “commitment” of moving in and being engaged or married is a no-man’s land of vagueness. What is the commitment level, exactly? To the end of the lease? Until you or I tire of one another? Until I commit some unnameable infraction? It is clearly different than a “til death do us part” commitment, though that one lost a great deal of meaning for me when I ended my marriage. Which brings me to my own dead end – that unanswered question.

What do I want? I know what it seems that I want. But I often find myself longing for something that I actually don’t really need – or am not ready for – once I examine it more closely. The longing comes from emotional retardation (immaturity is probably the better way of saying it). I think. I operate in this relationship the way I have always operated – for the long haul. How else would I do it? Why would I be in a relationship, living with someone, involving my son, investing my time and energy into his daughter – when it is something that may or may not last? Most of the time he operates this way, too. Except for him it is extremely business-like. Matters of money and finance. Fill the house with things; talk about having a house. He talks about a future with me in it. Even a distant future, so that should calm me. Usually it does. I remember him saying when we first met that he finally felt that his life was coming together: he had a good job and some stability, (I’m wracking my brain to remember if he listed the purchase of a new car in between here), and then he said finding me was a completion of a “new life.” At the time it sounded so great. Now I wonder if I was just an addition to a list that now continues on with – buy furniture, upgrade computer, surround sound, etc. All part of that “better life” that he wants.

I am not one who ascribes to the better life = more things philosophy.

The thing that gets me – cuts me to the core is the issue of what I consider the degree of love he feels for me, or maybe allows himself to give. Thing is, if he didn’t have a daughter, I might never think or feel this way. He is one way with me. Looks at me, tells me he loves me sparingly, is stingy with affection – prefers to roughhouse and be ‘playful’. When I brought it up, he says this is the way he shows his affection. He’s not “romantic” and never will be. It’s just not who he is; tells me that if I need that, I’m going to be unhappy. The implication is to go elsewhere if I’m not OK with the way things are b/c he is not willing or able to change. So part of me thinks that I know he loves me and I’m going to either accept it or move on. But then along comes his little girl … and he is completely loving and affectionate. He is all the things I want and need with her – without any reserve. And it’s in my face every time she’s here. And it hurts so much. I can’t help but think, ‘But you are capable. You just aren’t willing. Not for me.’ Which is so much worse. Because then that must mean (I think) that he is not truly invested in the relationship.

We had a talk last night again about this issue of commitment. The bad thing is that I can’t articulate what it is I want. I just have this sense that I’m more invested than he is – because when I ask him all he will say is something along the lines of – he doesn’t want to have to define it, he doesn’t want to talk about marriage, or where we’ll be 5 years from now, thinks moving in together shows that he’s serious about the relationship, and that bringing his daughter into our lives shows that he trusts me. But it’s all so vague to me. At the same time, do I want to commit to marriage right now? No. If for no other reason than that I’m not convinced that he will ever love me the way I need to be loved – and that I can not live with always being second to a child. Equal, maybe, but not second. I deserve to be loved completely, not with constant reserve, not with such stingy increments. I feel that I give. I put effort. I feel that I have invested … I’m not sure if I’m ignoring his ‘investment’ in the relationship. I think he sees investment in dollar signs, and therefore feels justified in emotional reserve, in refusing it outright.

I wonder if I just need to call it what it is. I really wonder. What a sad reality. What a cut to the heart. Especially so because I have involved my child. But it is about connection … and if he is not truly connected, then I must make my decision as such. Such a person “so wholly unconnected with myself …” when only my son is connected to me. We are the only two who matter. Once again I feel that I am the one trying so much more. That is not right. I will not make that mistake again.

Bad Time to Blog …

Tired. So tired. Overextended. Whose idea was this to be a grad student — full time teaching and coursework — and a Mom in a relationship? To think that it was possible to balance all of this with life? To participate fully in relationships with my family and friends who need me, who take care of me when I need them, who are important to me and who I want to be there for when they need me. To take care of the miscellany that is life … and somehow still pull off a schedule that requires me to work 14 hours or so a day when there are not that many hours in a day — certainly not that many hours uninterrupted. And therein lies the rubbiest of the rubs. Uninterrupted time does not exist in my life. So I get almost nothing done of my graduate work now that I’m out of course work. We are in week 6 of the 16 week semester and I am still working on book ONE of 20 that I am supposed to be annotating in preparations for my exam. AND I’m behind already in the ONE class I’m teaching, which is ridiculous, considering the few students I have. I look around me and think — What have I been doing? All this really random shit. Shit that doesn’t stop coming.

It’s a bad time to blog when you’ve just had another stupid fight with your boyfriend, whom you love. Who you just took all your stress out on right before he went out … and then completely freaked out when he left b/c now you’re absolutely paralyzed with fear that he is going to see lots of beautiful, thin girls out there who are not stressed out and hysterical, who are relaxed and fun and cool like you were before you had the hassle of all this life and relationship to juggle. How’s that for irony?

It’s definitely a bad time to blog when you decided to take all this pressure and drink an entire bottle of wine as a solution. Nice wine. Chill. Don’t really feel any better, but more relaxed. Less like your head’s going to explode, which is about where you were when you walked in the door … and when he walked out the door. Just going out with friends. Friends you trust. He isn’t that sort of man.

Just tired. No reason to blog. Just blow off some steam, take a bath and go to bed.

The Replacement, or Mr. K v. Douchebag

 ”I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.” ~ Jane Austen, in Emma

Back to the category of the new relationship. Post divorce. I love him. He loves me. I think … on most days. Then the doubts creep in to undermine what started out as the great second draft of my life. My newly healed and opened heart shrinks inward in terror. One bad fight and my flight instinct kicks in, pure panic leaves me cowering like a child at the thought of being trapped in another bad relationship …  I’ve bound myself into a lease and my kid’s in school here and the financial situation is complicated and … What the hell?!? I know this man is so much better than my ex that there’s no comparison. Every person comes with problems, but I do believe I’ve found a good man. And I love him. And he loves me. I think … on most days.

My marriage was a mind-fuck. I was not loved. My ex treated me like he was doing me a favor by staying with me — like he was being a saint dealing with me and all my problems. I walked away from that relationship with almost no self-esteem intact. Little wonder I entertain doubts in the present. Little wonder I second-guess the intentions, thoughts and feelings of my current love.

Love post divorce. What a terrifying risk/reward decision. (Er, OK technically I’m STILL not divorced because these legal proceedings have been stalled out by my douchebag ex, who is contesting the measly amount of child support he was ordered to pay by claiming to be destitute rather than going to get a real job. Asshat. Anyhow, we aren’t here to talk about him.)

Or maybe we are? That’s the hard part when you get into a new relationship. The inevitability of the old crap from the old relationship rearing its ugly heads — and they are legion. Old fears and hang ups and wounds — or just scars from old wounds that make you jump when someone touches them. The times you say, “I swore to myself I’d never do that again.” In some cases, those fears and hang ups were yours before you got into that other relationship — they just played themselves out and then went into the moving boxes when you left. But there is a certain degree of burned flesh still pungent in the air. Never again, I say to myself, will I put myself in a position where I am not loved.

I believe I am loved, but in this new territory, I am trying to understand what being loved means. What does new love look like? Feel like? Love grows and develops. What expectations are reasonable? Love is not fear, it should not be motivated by fear. I cannot command or demand love. I have to let go and let it happen. And I am not good at waiting or letting things happen. I’m a bit of a control freak.

In this relationship, the biggest fear is being out of control. Because I found myself a man who is as strong and pushy as I am. I like being in charge. Looking in the mirror at what that looks like isn’t always pretty. This man is actually more strong-willed than I am — which is saying a lot. Sometimes that freaks me out, because the threat is that I will be overpowered and made to submit. And I don’t do that. This creates a sometimes explosive power dynamic in our household. When we fight, there are fireworks. (Guess that was the opposite of the bedroom fireworks we had at the outset!) Not nasty or cruel or anything like that, because we are both good people. Just like two bulls knocking heads. Usually someone has to leave, time has to be taken, and we have to come back after a bit of time to revisit the initial disagreement. But we figured that out pretty quickly, so I think we get props for that. We’re both grown-ups, emotionally speaking. That doesn’t change our personalities, but it keeps us from imploding.

He doesn’t say it much, but he loves me. He’s one of those men. Maddening to a woman like me who needs that reassurance. When I ask him or remind him, he will make the effort … but then he lapses back into his nature, as we all do. I remind him. It’s a cycle. The fact that he always tries should say something. Then I remembered Mr. Knightley, to whom, as you may recall, I have already compared him. Mr. Knightley’s speech to Emma — the full speech from which I took the quote above:

 ”I cannot make speeches, Emma,” he soon resumed; and in a tone of such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably convincing. “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it. Bear with the truths I would tell you now, dearest Emma, as well as you have borne with them. The manner, perhaps, may have as little to recommend them. God knows, I have been a very indifferent lover. But you understand me. Yes, you see, you understand my feelings — and will return them if you can.”

Of course he loves her — passionately. He rode through the rain to secure her. The doubt is all in her mind, where imagination runs wild — in both good and bad ways. In many ways I am like Emma — sassy, flighty, imaginative, stubborn, indulgent, independent, fond of my own way of doing things. And my Mr. Knightley can be overbearing but is just as frequently and annoyingly right as Emma’s Knightley; he is a good balance to my flights and hurries. (Emma, Ch. 49. See 1st para. on “hurrying into the shrubbery.” Emma is frequently hurrying off to somewhere.)

The love is in the action. In which case, he loves me. All the time.

Just deal … is this being bi-polar, or just really stubborn?

Less alcohol. More sun. More activity. Less sleep, but not NO sleep. Not too much sleep. Regular sleep — same time to bed, same time to rise.

This is how to manage the depressed side of bi-polar disorder.

Because I want to sleep all day. Want to stay in bed, want to lie down when nothing else is going on, and sometimes right in the middle of it all, just lie down in my soft bed and pull the covers back over my head. Cocooned.

Until that bed becomes a prickly tortured space where sleep will not come, but usually that is the other time, when ants crawl under my skin, when I literally writhe with movement. I cannot sit still; I want to move but cannot be satisfied with any one thing.

It is such an ongoing maze of up and down, side to side. I just want off the ride. I want people to stop looking at me with distrust.

Someone show me where the straight path is and I’ll take it. I think. Though part of me thinks of that path as death by boredom. The slow death of the dull in mind and spirit. Novocaine. Blunted senses, that’s all those who do not feel are feeling. Maybe. What do I know, who cannot even maintain a steady agenda from day to day, week to week, across a relatively short semester — cannot keep my word, stick to a preestablished schedule — and resent the hell out of anyone who presumes to try to make me do so.

With a fiery passion that could cost me my career.  Not terribly smart, but so ingrained in my personality that to excise it might be more painful than the consequences. Yes, I know that’s saying something and playing a very dangerous game. One thing I am not is stupid. Forgetful and spacey at times, yes. But not stupid.

Finis. For now.

Comfortably Numb

Everything moving so fast, too much. So much to keep up with. It will take me three of four separate entries to make sense of the past week, past few days even. And I haven’t had the time to write it. Because writing takes reflection and the time to make sense of what happened — time to put it into words. And words do not happen at the pace of life.  But what is write-worthy happened at the pace of breathing — faster than that. At the pace of half-breaths. At the pace of thought and half-thoughts, broken thoughts. I could not even keep up.

It’s true that drinking makes things move differently in the brain. And I don’t do it too much because I know this and it’s not good to allow this fluidity to take over. Even though it frees certain things that are sometimes too contained and constrained. I remember thinking that when I listened to music there was something in it that approximated drinking — and perhaps by association drugs, though I never did drugs — and that was my one link to my brother, who killed himself with drugs, though not intentionally. I am maybe asking myself a little quietly if I am touching on the edges of it with alcohol. But it’s not like I drink enough of the time in my life to take it up. But enough to understand the numbness and the appeal, the escapism and the way it allows the pain in your head and your soul to ease off enough to relieve the worst part of it. Enough to breathe again. Enough to sleep. Or feel the relief of sleep. Or something like it. And alcohol can approximate it.

But music can touch it. Music takes the sinews that encircle your emotions and loosens them enough to allow the heart’s blood to flow more freely — to follow the rhythms and notes through the mind as thought blends with emotion and connects with the ideas of others.

This makes very little sense. Except when I think about my little brother, who loved his music passionately. And somehow I think he found the same thing — that similarity of fluidity, the movement of the heart, the release of emotion that you can only find when music gets inside you … or a substance takes your mind away and for a little while relieves that pressure … “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune … the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” … the burden that occasionally overwhelms some of us to the point of breaking (qt from Hamlet 3.1 ).

 

The Hole in the World

A hole in the world. You are gone little brother, and there is a hole in the world where you were.

That’s what we say, and feel and mean. But it still sounds poetic, and there is nothing poetic about the jagged edges inside of us where you should be, the empty spaces we find when our minds wander to you a hundred times a day and we remember all over again that you aren’t here anymore. He’s gone now, my mind reminds itself … then the mini-shock wave reverberates down my spine all over again, a pain clenches the sinews of my chest, and I close my eyes for a moment against the impossible light of a day that shines on me but not on you.

And it feels wrong. Like my skin turned inside out. Like the moon grew angry black eyes that stab instead of soothe as they have always done.

No matter how many times we say that we thought this day might come, it sounds hollow. I realize now that I never believed it when I said it; never believed it when I thought it. Ideas are as far from belief as the stars are from our hands. We can see the stars and talk about them, but the tangible reality could grind us to dust if we met them face to face. The truth is that I still believed in you. I was angry with you for hurting our mother. I loved you — I have always loved you just for being who you are –but I still believed that somewhere inside of you was the stuff that would help you conquer this thing. And I believed your luck would hold long enough for you to find it. Stupid me and stupid you. I could wring your neck for doing this to all of us — to yourself first, to our mother next, and to all of us who love you.

So you left a great big hole little brother, though you aren’t little anymore. You were a young man with a big heart, a big smile, a great sense of humor, a contagious laugh … and you had a whole life ahead of you that will stretch out now as empty years to those of us you left behind.

 

Re-naming the Ex …

[Disclaimer: This post has a lot of potentially offensive language in it, which is unusual for me. (The quantity anyway) However, it goes with the nature of the post. I therefore offer my (sort of, half-hearted) apologies.]

I have been apart from my douchebag ex for two years now. I am in a great relationship with a wonderful new man my friends and I have decided most resembles Mr. Knightley from Emma. (The choice was among the Austen heroes from the 6 major novels. This was an essential decision that had to be made once I decided to keep him in my life and they decided he was kosher.) There is only one reason I am not divorced yet. I haven’t been able to afford it and my ex is too cheap to do it himself.

See, the douchebage (we’ll just call him that temporarily) stopped paying child support about a year ago, and now he’s pissed at me for not giving him a boat he can’t afford that has my name on the loan (he’s clearly existing in a different dimension than the rest of us … but we’ll get to that later) so naturally he’s not going to come off of the money to file for a divorce. I’m sick of signing his name on everything. I’m developing a bit of a name-signing twitch. I make a low, growling sort of noise and squint my eyes as if in pain while curling my lip back slightly like an angry cat. You don’t realize how often you sign your name until you start to resent it. When I’m asked, I still have to explain in a variety of awkward situations that I’m married. I’m especially tired of feeling vaguely skeezy for having a “boyfriend” while still being technically married. On paper. To a douchebag. Who also has a girlfriend. Who, by the way, I can only assume is severely in the dark as to his character. Or possibly mentally challenged. I really don’t care about that part.

All this aside, what I’m really concerned about for the moment is that — as an aspiring blogger — I feel compelled to come up with a unique name to call the douchebag. I mean, anyone can call their ex a douchebag. And he is. When I talk about him to my friends (not my son, obviously) I call him an asshat (a great unique term coined by another hilarious writer Jen Lancaster who wrote some of the funniest books I’ve ever read, including Bright Lights, Big Ass and Bitter is the New Black). I’ve just discovered a new blog The Bloggess, and she coined a term “douche canoe,” which makes me laugh when I just think about it. So now I feel that a man who has sunk to the lows that this man has deserves something uniquely insulting as a referent on my blog. I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon. I am aware of the fact that this says more about me than it does about him. I am also confident that he deserves it and that coming up with the name will be cathartic, or at least amusing, which is the real point.

Actually, that’s mostly the point of my blog — to amuse myself. I’m pretty much talking to myself here anyway, which I’m used to doing, even when others are present. I have a five year old who only hears one out of every 100 words I say. I teach English, so most of what I say sounds like White Noise or that teacher in Charlie Brown unless I jump up and down or mention Jersey Shore while I’m talking. Even then, only 1/3 of them jolt from what I DON”T want to know they are thinking for long enough to figure out what I said, then they go back to … what I STILL don’t want to know they were thinking about.

The first key to a sufficiently insulting nickname is usually a body part that is either sexual in nature or that does something icky. Or else it refers to an object that does something icky to a sexual body part … or just something icky related to … anyway, you get the picture. Let’s review a few: douchebag (I love asking people if they actually know what a douchbag is and almost no one knows what douches used to look like before the current one-piece numbers we have today). Let me do my public service for the week:

[Hee!]

Moving on … Asshat. (Thanks again, Jen Lancaster. Awesomeness personified!) Bodypart + what? Absurdity? I mean, thinking about someone wearing an ass for a hat … it works. And it definitely describes my ex.

The more conventional insults. Dickhead. Same principle as asshat, almost. Shit-for-brains. Jackass. Asshole. Lots with the ass, come to think of it. Hmmm. OK, I just googled “insulting names” and found a list that put douchebag at the top. Other notables were asswipe, dipshit, and … um, things I would never say but would laugh like hell at were “bitch-tits” and “twat chops.” Will definitely file those away for the next time the D.B. calls to cancel another weekend with his son. (I told you he was a douche. When you only see your kid 2 weekends a month, and a weekend is a mere 48 hours, including sleep time, I think that cancelling one of those times makes you a little bit of a douche. It’s not like he makes an effort to make the time up or, god-forbid, see his one and only son who worships the ground he walks on extra time.)

Onward. Potential body parts: breasts, butt  (I’m clearly way too much of a prude to do this on my own.) OK, use the slang woman. Tits, ass, balls, dick, pussy. Oh my gawwwwd. I feel like I have to go bleach my mouth. Or go join the navy. G.I. Jane. But I like my hair.

Or I could use objects that are icky. Like the douchebag. I don’t really know what the parts of an enima kit are. But neither does anyone else. Plus, I had to give myself one and I don’t ever want to relive that experience in my head. Explosive bodily acts should be private. Ick.

Ooooh. I’ve got it. Ball Roid. Like hemorrhoids on your balls. Except that someone might mistake it for a sports analogy … like think it was a basketball and he’s on steroids. This is harder than it seems.

But if I want it to be specific to him, it would have to do with the fact that he really has lost his mind and is being a cheap dickhead while also neglecting his son. There is an episode of Angel (the spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) where a character who is a dethroned god comments about the fact that she has travelled through many of the other worldly dimensions. The human she’s talking to is fascinated and (naturally) asks her to tell him about them. Among some of the more expected possibilities she adds as a kind of throwaway line (classic Joss Whedon) “and there’s one made entirely of shrimp.” I am beginning to wonder if my ex sometimes visits this dimension, or perhaps lives there now in his head. It would make sense for someone who really just wants to fish all the time.

Oh, the other reason he’s a douchebag is that before we went to the hearing to determine child support, he asked me to forgive all the back child support because he “just didn’t have it” … followed by long pity stories about not being able to afford gas and groceries. I found out later he was still making payments on the aforementioned boat. I told him that he could think of it like a loan and pay it back when he had it — especially considering that I had to take out extra student loans at that time to keep a roof over our heads — and I would be paying those loans back for years. I thought that was fair. He responded by screaming at me. When the results of the hearing came back the judge ruled for him to pay the back child support ( go figure) he went ballistic and hired a lawyer. Apparently he did have money. Just not for his child.

Douche + something slightly absurd and possibly otherworldly. In honor of The Bloggess.

I’m working on it.

Yep He’s Great and My Friends Totally Hate Me

“I do not understand what you mean by ‘success;’” said Mr. Knightley. “Success supposes endeavour. ” ~ Jane Austen in Emma

I will only spend a brief moment attempting to catch up what has been six months of huge changes in my life (again) … all positive. Because, really, who wants summary. The day to day is much more fun and bloggable.

I found my Mr. Knightley. Totally by accident. I kid you not. I was totally not looking. If you read my last posts in December (2010 — it’s been a while) I was all, Tra-la-la, I’m playing in the field of oats, shagging the boys and leaving them begging for more. (Not really. We’re talking single digits here. It just seemed that way for me b/c I was w/ the same guy for 12 years.) This few months — which was all it amounted to — was soooo not me that when I finally owned up to it with my sister, she didn’t believe me. Her boyfriend was the one who said, I told you those “dates” weren’t really dates! 

So Mr. Knightley was initially a one night stand. (I just typed one knight stand! Ha!) Then he called me back like 10 times. He will tell you 4, which is probably more accurate, so we’ll split the diff and say 8. Hey, it’s my blog. He totally doesn’t even know about it. And I’ve decided I’m not going to be one of those bloggers who puts her face all over the blog. I like the anonymity of the internet. Or at least the illusion of it. Eventually I’ll be outed and lose my job. Or become really controversial and hip. Or just an awkward outcast who sits alone at faculty meetings.

Anyway. He called and I put him off. A very small part of the time it was because I was still playing. Most of the time it was because it was the end of a semester and I was either buried in papers or I had my son. Yeah, play time is very limited for a single Mum. Then, around the end of the year, two things happened — first, things ended with sort-of-but-not-really-married-guy (because I would NEVER mess around with a really married guy); next, I realized that I was kinda ready to move on from the field of oats.

So New Year’s Eve I wanted a date and I called up Mr. Knightley because of all my nights of play, he was the only one I really had fun with when we had clothes on and were out. We went out with my friends — not just the two of us. We had a blast. He went home with me … and he never left. Stayed all weekend. My son was gone that week and I was out of school. He stayed all week. He kind of never left. He’s kind, generous, responsible, not a selfish douchbag, he’s a good father, he has drive and a future, he’s crazy about me and values me for who I am, what I do, loves me the way I am … (Cue Bridgette Jones and Mark Darcy “And he loves me, just as I am …”)

This is not the way you are supposed to meet a man. This is what you tell your friends NOT to do. We tell each other to NOT expect this kind of relationship out of a one night stand. Neither of us were looking for a relationship out of this encounter … but when we met, we just recognized what we wanted in the other person. So … he’s great, and my friends totally hate me. I can take NO credit for it. I am absurdly lucky. I would hate me if I were one of my friends. Granted, I have had the shittiest 12 year marriage and the most heinous past 2 years of separation hell. Plus I’m now in the midst of a nightmare of legal divorce crap. But who cares? I found a good man. I will waste no more of my life with an asshat.

Also, now that the relationship is serious, it’s not as though Mr. K and I don’t have fights over stupid shit like popcorn (seriously, tears and yelling) and I think once the radio in my car. We have strong personalities and it comes out in fiery spats, much like I imagine those between Emma and her Mr. Knightley.

Yes, he’s MY Mr. Knightley.