Category Archives: Love

Dear today's Facebook meme, you're on my nerves.

Soapbox

In which I post about my life on Facebook, because the Internet is self-reflective like that.

I don’t know if it’s The CurseTM coming or I’ve just used up the day’s compassion for sloppy thinking, but when I logged into Facebook and saw the utterly meaningless meme traveling through it, I got a little worked up.

Many people are posting this as their status: “No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick. If you agree, please post this as your status for the rest of the day.”

So, being me, I posted this: “No one should die because they cannot afford health care (unless they spent all their money on stupid shit and actually deserve to die), and no one should go broke because they get sick (unless it’s their own fault because they ate at McDonald’s three times a day for 27 years).”

Heh. Pretty clever, huh?

Apparently not. My friend Jake asked, “So… You don’t think we need health care reform? How disappointing, Mush! Who are you?”

Well, when your friend asks you who you are, you gotta answer! And this is what I said:

“Of course I want health care reform. But it ain’t just gonna suddenly be free awesome health care for everybody, now is it? I know from reading my Vonnegut that people are NOT all equal, and pretending that we are is idiotic because it leads to handicapping and I will be damned before I’ll accept handicapping to make me as dumb as the chick I just got off the phone with!

“In some schools, they don’t let sports teams win because they don’t want the losers to feel bad. This is what happens when we try to homogenize and make everyone equal. We’re not equal. Some are much better at living, much better at liberty, and much better at pursuing happiness. Others are stupid, or lazy, or ignorant, or entitled, or just plain nasty.

“We are not all equal. We are entitled to equal opportunity under our country’s constitution, but we are not inherently equal in value or talent.

“Some people are deliberately more expensive, health care-wise, than others: smokers like myself, addicts, and the grossly obese, just to name a few. Do you want to pay for that?

“Right now we have a country full of obese, addicted, and old people. Do you want to pay for that? Do I? Hell, I’m poor enough I can’t pay for my own healthcare; how can I afford to pay for that family down the street, who, because of their choice to eat nothing but fast food, will all have diabetes and heart disease by the time they’re 35? Those conditions are both expensive to treat and avoidable.

“And although I respect the idea that everyone deserves to live, we don’t all deserve it equally. Pretending that every life is equally valuable is absurd: I myself don’t have as much value to my society as a gifted heart surgeon, but I do have more value than a 90-year-old with terminal cancer.

“So while I think that every effort should be made to save every life, I know that the world doesn’t work that way. If it did, we wouldn’t have the word ‘triage.’ In the UK, they say that deaths go up significantly during the last two months of the year because surgeons have quotas to fill and tend to quit doing operations after they’ve achieved them. People who need surgery in March are not inherently more valuable than people who need surgery in November, but they’re a lot less likely to die. Studies show that only one in five people who need surgery to reduce the risk of stroke actually get the surgery in time due to the way the healthcare system works there.

“Over here, if you’ve got the money, you get the surgery in time. So at least a portion of society gets adequate care… it just doesn’t happen to be the portion I’m in.

“There is in my estimation no way to make a perfectly fair system of health care in this world as it is, so today’s “post this as your status” Facebook meme is essentially empty. It doesn’t mean anything other than that we care in a half-assed way – only enough to repeat something toothless when it only takes us 5 seconds to do so.”

Let’s all remember that not too long ago I needed surgery myself, and I had no health insurance. Because of my extreme poverty the hospital gave me their services for free (somewhere around five grand worth) and it took me slightly over two years to pay off the surgeon, the lab, and the anesthesiologist. The only reason I’m not still paying it off is that my rent was only $50 a month during that period. That was LUCK, not worth. I didn’t “deserve” the excellent care just because I draw breath, and as a grown person I certainly hadn’t taken the responsible steps to grow an emergency nest egg or obtain health care insurance on my own. My results were, as I said, simply good luck.

So I’m not being a heartless bitch; I’m just saying, THINK ABOUT THIS, PEOPLE. Our system sucks, yes, but it may be that it sucks less than it could.

Thoughts?

To Do List

Music

In which I’m planning my weekends.

I agreed to work 5 hours tomorrow from 8 to 1, so I’ll not be going out tonight. (Not that I would have been anyway; I just wanted to sound like I have choices!) I’m thinking of watching Mad Men (season 1, episode 7) and doing some knitting for a swap that I should have completed, like, a month ago.

There might also be some Mexican food, or pizza, or something decadent along those lines because I have basically been eating really, really well and want to splurge.

This weekend, I need to get my nails done and clean the bathroom and do laundry. Next weekend I’m busy: I’m playing the Fair on Friday night, have a hair appointment Saturday morning, and a winery gig Saturday afternoon.

The weekend after, there’s the Rally in the Valley (blues for bikers! w00t!) on Friday night, then my mom arrives (I haven’t seen her in, like, a couple of years) on Saturday afternoon, and right after I have a benefit gig in the Tri-Cities. Sunday I’ll probably be inundated with aunts, which will totally rock.

So THIS weekend? I’m gonna be mellow. And knit!

Guess Who's Going to Die Alone? Me!

Admissions, Love & Marriage, , ,

In which I’m not looking, oh HELL no I’m not, but if I were looking there’d be a pretty stringent list.

Apropos of absolutely nothing, here’s what my standard looks like these days (this applies only to mates, and not any other type of relationship):

1. You must not be a goddamned stoner.
2. You must not be an alcoholic.
3. You must not be currently or recently addicted to speed, pills, coke, heroin, or any other street, pharma, or pseudo-pharma drugs.
4. You must be a devotee, preferably of Amma’s.
5. You must not be a slob at home, at work, or in your car.
6. You must not watch more than five hours of television per week on average.
7. You must have a few hobbies or directions of study that interest you so deeply that you occasionally wander off and immerse yourself in them.
8. You must have a broad command of grammar and be able to spell.
9. It would really help if you were a ‘roo.
10. If you smoke cigarettes, it’s less than half a pack a day and you’re thinking about quitting.
11. Your glass is half-full.
12. You must respect the place you live in enough to clean and repair it as needed without being told by an outside source that it needs to be done.
13. You must not be co-dependent or passive-aggressive.
14. You must not be fundamentally angry.
15. You must know or be willing to learn enough about music and computers and my other interests to nod at the right places when I talk about them.
16. You must support yourself financially.
17. You must love to travel and be well-traveled.
18. You must be essentially good-natured.
19. You must not be obsessed with material possessions – actually, you shouldn’t be obsessed with anything.
20. You must be tolerant.
21. You must be contemplative by nature.
22. You must be reasonably healthy and take a certain amount of care of your person.
23. You must consider compassion to be one of your basic personality traits.
24. You must be vegetarian, or very close to it.
25. You must be very, very intelligent.
26. You must read. A lot.
27. You must never have been routinely cruel to persons or animals and you must not be so now.
28. It would really help if you’re not a morning person, but if you are be mellow about it.
29. You must not blame the shape or condition of your life on anyone but yourself.
30. You must be funny, and laugh a lot.

I’m made in such a way that I would genuinely rather be single than put up with things I’ve come to know that I hate: like stoners, for instance. Dear God, if I never find myself attracted to another goddamned pothead I’ll consider it a miracle. (Fat chance, though. Why are so many interesting men hell-bent on retarding themselves with endless bong hits? And DON’T let me hear again that “at least pot’s natural.” Whatever, you dumb stoner. Crude oil’s natural, too, but I don’t see you smoking that. And no, I don’t agree that everybody would be better off if they’d just get stoned, and how utterly unique of you to say so.)

And slobs: Christ! I cannot figure out what makes an adult person want to live like a pig! Pick it up, wash it, and put it away already. Messy rooms smell bad. Your mother doesn’t live here. Whoever let you think that masculinity was synonymous with slovenliness totally did you a disservice.

And unhealth: if there’s something wrong with your body, adjust your lifestyle. Continuing to party like it’s 1999 and eating crap food because you “don’t like vegetables” is suicide, so why not just save us all some time and fucking shoot yourself and quit with the trying to get laid already? What makes you think you have anything to offer if you can’t put your own house in order? And what sort of grown man is too much of a pussy to lay off the fast food? Hello! Are you twelve or what?

I particularly dislike listening to someone say mean shit about people because it’s exhausting to be around. We all have bad days, sure, and I’m all for a good venting session, but if you’re negative and mean all the time I just plain old don’t want to hear it. Your attitude is your problem, not mine.

I’m no longer interested in non-devotees, either, let alone atheists. Clearly I’m too intelligent to believe in the Sistine Chapel ceiling version of god so quit assuming that I do. My philosophy is fundamental to me and I really don’t want to have to hide it, nor do I want to explain it in endless detail. It’d be so much easier if it was understood implicitly.

As much as I wish I could let it go, bad spelling and grammar drive me batshit. I’ve always thought people who sucked at English would at least be good at math, but while probably sixty percent of my lovers couldn’t spell ‘thorough’ if they tried, I have yet to bed a mathematician. Go figure.

I don’t like TV. There are shows on TV that I enjoy, yes, but overall TV is crass and evil and fills your head with shit. It is a waste of time. While I’ve been known to veg in front of the glass teat myself, it’s a diversion for me and not a lifestyle. TV makes you complacent, stupid, and greedy, and while it does so it systematically makes you think you’re cleverer than you really are while simultaneously undermining your self-confidence. Fuck TV. People who watch too much TV are voluntarily crippling themselves.

I’ve tried to be tolerant of FODA, too, but I’m going to just come on out and admit for the first time anywhere that it grosses me out to taste meat in someone’s mouth or smell it in their sweat. It’s been so long since I’ve eaten meat myself that I can no longer perceive it as food: to me, it’s the dead body of a living creature that you just chewed up and swallowed because you’re, well, most likely thoughtless or greedy. Meat-eating is as disturbing to me as eating human flesh would be to you, actually. I just don’t say much about it because I know how statistically insignificant I am in this culture of rampant meat-eating.

Of course, I stink like cigarette smoke, so, yes, I’ll just shut the fuck up now, but the majority of my lovers have been smokers so the comparison isn’t equal.

Oh, and you should have already figured out that you need to have a job. If you’re still working on that one, fine, take your time, but I don’t wanna watch. I’m not a freeloader and no man has ever supported me; the reverse should be true for you. I’ll pay my way, you pay yours, okay?

And please, know what you need to be happy. Don’t expect me to know, because I’m not you. Have your own interests and pursuits and hobbies, and get your various needs met through them on your own. People without interests are both creepy and impossible to satisfy. And please note that buying things then abandoning them untouched in the shed does not qualify as a bona fide hobby.

I don’t care if you’re competitive and aggressive, just don’t take it to the point that you really believe that compassion is for weaklings. That’s just stupid. Compassion is fundamental – I am That, Thou art That, and all of This is That – so man up and volunteer already…

Uh, yeah. I could go on for hours, but I’ll just quit now. Don’t I just sound like a card-carrying bitch? I really do, don’t I.

The good news is that I’m quite prepared to die single, because the bad news is that I obviously will.

Oh, well. Someone has to be the childless old maid in the family, I guess.

Working Musican

Music, ,

In which you hear all about the fascinating stuff we rockstars do on Wednesday evenings.

Yesterday was that dreaded day, the one where I had to actually follow through on my promise to go to band practice and learn some songs.

I hate band practice. I always have. Practicing is boring because it doesn’t involve an audience, and really, half the reason I’m a rockstar at all is because I like being the center of attention. And when you’re the chick with the big voice on stage, you’re the most important chick in the WHOLE ROOM. But at practice? You’re just sitting in someone’s basement wearing saggy underwear because you couldn’t be arsed to do your own damned laundry last weekend.

Anyway. “Band practice” failed to mean the whole band and consisted of me, a guitar player, and the drummer hanging out in the guitar player’s mother’s basement. She hasn’t been down there in years and he apparently wishes he lived in a shanty town, because the whole space is a freakin’ mess and there is trash down there from 1986. But it has air conditioning, and since it was 104 degrees or something yesterday, that A/C was really a more salient point than the garbage from 1986.

We thought about how we’re going to do Use Me Up to make it our own. We discovered that I can’t do Some Kind Of Wonderful in the key it was originally recorded in. We seriously discussed doing a Jackson 5 cover. We did a verse or two of a couple of the songs we did last year but have pretty much forgotten how to get through. Then we sang silly, unrelated crap for awhile, including Brick House and some freakin’ REO Speedwagon tune.

The whole process took an hour and a half and we didn’t learn any new songs at all. And we’re doing it again next Wednesday since it was so helpful.

Maybe next week I’ll actually show up prepared, like, with some lists and some lyrics or something. After all, the whole point of the practice was to learn new songs for me to sing, sheesh.

Weekend, lovely weekend!

Music

In which I had an awesome weekend, even though I never did get around to being a consumer.

I was gonna buy a bicycle this weekend, but I didn’t. By the time I got moving on Saturday, any good bikes over at my co-worker’s street-long yard sale would have been gone so I didn’t even bother to swing by. I didn’t go to Walmart or the local bike store, either.

But I did take a killer nap each day!

Here’s the band from Saturday night’s gig. No pics of me because by the time someone we knew got there to run the camera, it was too dark.

Oh, yeah: I know this site was down all weekend and I’m sorry about that. It’s been decided that the current host either won’t or can’t solve the problem, so a move is imminent. Good thing I LOVE MIGRATIONS LIKE LIFE ITSELF.

Last night I went and saw District 9 with my brother. I dug it. Excellent aliens! (Annoying hand-held camera work, though. It’s the Blair Witch of sci-fi.) It’s worth seeing, but sit in the very back of the theatre to avoid too much motion sickness.

Aaaaaaaand family descends upon the place like locusts.

Family, , ,

In which I love them but they’re totally exhausting.

When I got home from work last night, the house had been verily overrun by persons sharing my genetic material. It was insane: aunts, uncles, cousins, even a brother – they were all over the place.

Dinner 08/12/09

We ate on the patio. There was a bucket of KFC (I avoided it), sweet corn, and potato salad. There were three half-gallons of ice cream (I avoided them, too). I wasn’t hungry but I ate anyway because G’ma told me to and I know better than to argue.

I dutifully brought out three cameras to take the Four Generation photo below (an Argus C3, the Polaroid Land 103, and my cell phone):

Dinner 08/12/09

It was already too dark out for the C3, but I shot a frame anyway. The Polaroid came out technically nice (I LOVE HAVING A BAG FULL OF FLASH BULBS!!!) but only one of my subjects was actually looking at the camera at the time. (Several other family members took the same picture, so I’m sure at least one of them came out.)

I did the dishes afterward (for which my uncle Blue gave me a quarter and told me I was “a good kid”). I tidied up the kitchen. I took out the trash.

Later I escaped into my room, but my aunt came and found me. We talked until a quarter to twelve, yawning and blinking. I finally had to tell her I had to get some sleep. I crashed out so hard that seven o’clock arrived pretty much instantly.

This morning I had girl-cousins on the living room couches, an aunt in the front room, and a G’ma about to leave town for a week giving me lists of things to do while she’s gone. Apparently I’ll be watering the plant on the front porch daily, bringing in the mail, getting my brother to mow the back yard once it stops raining, and eating two large tomatoes and half a loaf of bread. You know, before they go bad.

Dinner 08/12/09

But all chores aside, I have the whole house to myself for an entire week! Ah, blessed solitude, I shall bask in your silence. And run around nekkid.

I'm a (crazy batshit nuts) rockstar, baby!

Music, , , , , , ,

In which my weekend was one part really good… and one part REALLY bad.

Friday was nasty. Whoo boy. Out of the blue I had a panic attack for the first time in a really long time and it sucked. And all because my heart decided to go arrhythmic. I sat at my desk in my own private hell and waited for the day to end so I could go home and curl up in my room in my misery.

The Dread continued on Saturday. I walked the dog and did laundry and cleaned the front bathroom, but was in and out of anxiety all day long. There were a few bouts of scary arrhythmia that pushed me from anxiety into full-blown panic.

Saturday night, I had a gig to go to. In spite of feeling like shit I took a shower and got dressed and went because I’m tough like that. Somewhere between the second and third sets I had a moment of pure terror, certain that this was it, it was finally happening, I was having a heart attack… but I didn’t pass out. I didn’t even fall over, actually. So I reminded myself yet again that the problem was actually my panic disorder and not some kind of actual physical malady and soldiered on out the door, which was where I’d been heading when my skin lit on fire for a second.

Continue reading I'm a (crazy batshit nuts) rockstar, baby! →

Dax's

Music, , , ,

In which I do open mics two nights in a row. Hell yeah.

Last night RB picked me up from work and drove me to Richland. We ate dinner at the BK Lounge. He had a double bacon cheeseburger. (WTF is up with restaurants these days? Apparently it’s getting damn near impossible to order anything with fewer than two dead animals on it. Been watching TV commercials? The typical sit-down restaurant special these days has three to five different dead animals per plate. It is, quite frankly, obscene.) I had a junior whopper, no patty. And fries.

Dax’s is an adorable little biker bar. The crowd was mainly older; the youngest kid in there was probably in his thirties. The bartenders were individually busty and tattooed, the drinks were strong, the crowd was nice, and the music was good. The Kings had a slot pre-booked at nine and went up and did a few tunes, then they invited me up. The voice was in good condition and I pretty much wailed. IT WAS REALLY FUN.

Dax's

When I got off the bandstand I couldn’t stand still without ending up in a circle of appreciative dudes. It was awesome. It was probably the best, most appreciative, groovy crowd I’ve ever seen on a Thursday anywhere in my life. Bonus: not a single person mentioned Janice Joplin!

LCG tried to make it over for a bit, but she’s a mom and moms can’t always get out.

Shortly after the set, RB and I drove back to Walla Walla. He invited me to guest with the Kings at a few gigs, so I need to get dates from him and update my gig schedule. It’ll be nice to actually have something to put on there again.

The blues return briefly. The singing of them, rather.

Music, , , ,

In which I had great big fun yesterday! There was music, there were old friends, there were new friends, and there was vodka!

Since Left Coast Girlie and I are going to see The Taming of the Shrew together next month, sometimes we have to get on IM and congratulate one another on our cleverness. We were doing so last night; I was still at work but not on the clock. It was 103 degrees out but guess who’d worn black? and long sleeves? and didn’t want to walk home in an oven?

Yeah, that’d be me. Me the genius.

I sat at my desk in the A/C and called RB back. Out of the blue (haven’t gigged with him since last December) he’d left a message on my phone yesterday. Turns out there’s a Sapolil gig in September he wants to book me for. Since the other band never called me back, and I still haven’t managed to institute my ‘go to open mics and meet people’ plan for musical world domination, plus I happen to enjoy his company, I was stoked to hear from him. Music!

We chatted for about 40 minutes, and then he said something about “a party for Jimmy the Fox’s 80th birthday tonight” over at Barn Disease. I made noises about being interested in going, even considered walking home to get the truck, and we finally got off the phone. I started to pack up to leave the office, and shot off an IM before logging off:

goblinbox: Okay, I’m going to the brew pub for a drink or three. G’night!
leftcoastgirlie: Have three for me!

“I’m going to the brew pub, for a drink or three,” I told RT, my co-worker, as I was leaving. “LCG told me to have three for her, too.”

“That sounds good,” he said, grinning. “Have three for me too.”

I laughed. “Nine’s too many!” (FAMOUS LAST WORDS.)

“Oh, so you know about nine, do you?”

“I know enough not to do it again!” I laughed as I walked through the lobby.

“Late!” he said as I pushed open the door and stepped outside. “Bye!” I called back.

It was hot out. I walked over to the brew pub. I sat by myself looking like a total dork, texting RT from my iPod and talking on the phone with Baby Girl. She told me about the awesome new convention center, that she and her hubby see shows all the time now, and that there are now near-constant open casting calls…

See? I move away and Fairfield gets all groovy. Stupid town.

Theatre’s been whispering to me lately. It’s been years since I’ve done a show, but people have been saying random things about theatre lately. After I see Shrew, I’ll probably really want to get back on stage. If my work schedule stays the way it is, I’ll audition for the next fun show I hear about. I’m too old and pudgy to play the ingénue any more, but I’m more than ready to play me a wicked old stepmother or two.

I had three drinks and was discussing neediness and exes over IM while getting ready to cash out when RB called to see if I wanted a ride over to the birthday party. “Sure,” I said, shrugging, even though he couldn’t see it over the phone. “Yeah. What the hell. I’m always ready to sing a little!”

He arrived in his giant maroon van and took me to Barnaby’s. I met the guest of honor, 80-year-old Jimmy the Fox from Chicago (or possibly Kansas City), who was wearing an amazing suit and who when I mentioned it went off on a well-rehearsed schtick about suit-wearing black men and the laaaadies.

“This one can sing a little,” RB told Jimmy the Fox, indicating me.

“Oh, oh, okay,” Jimmy said, nodding. “She’ll have to come up,” he said, and walked away.

He sang a bunch of Chigago-style blues, and later played drums. He was really fun, and danced with some of the laaaadies. The guys on the bandstand most of the night were pretty solid, so it wasn’t your usual aurally dangerous open mic.

p_00066

I sat down next to Emilio, gave the bartender my card, and started on the first of LCG’s three drinks. Then I mingled and talked to Mike and Tony and other musicians I know. RB and I sat for awhile and I heard all about his customer speaker cab company.

Eventually we got on stage. We did three or four songs and got the first people of the night out on the dance floor. (I love that McClinton “Shaky Ground” groove; plus there was a horn player at the party who sat in and blew the solo! Sweet.)

When we were done, RB needed to do a few things with gear so I started – only started! – on the first RT’s three drinks. After THAT was gone I was dropped off at home. THANK GOD.

As I was walking onto the porch my phone rang. It was Josus! I love that guy! I laid in the grass in front of my house at midnight and laughed my face off. Then I went to bed and passed out like the lush I am.

People, I need a handler. Three is fine, five’s okay, but SEVEN IS TOO MANY, YOU STUPID BITCH, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING. When I woke up this morning I felt as if I’d been mummified. Even my dog looked at me funny. I got dressed and put on my glasses and as I was walking through the house G’ma said, “You’re losing weight.”

Naw, that’s just wicked dehydration, I thought. “I hope so!” I said. “I gained twelve pounds last year, damn it.” She chuckled.

I thought about toast. Mmm, toast.

I did not brush my hair this morning (it’s still in ponytails from yesterday, actually) and I’m wearing my glasses, but I did get me some breakfast, and I walked the dog before work.

Points for having my shit together so early in the day! You will give them to me!

Tonight I’m going to Dax’s in Richland with RB for another open mic. He needs to schmooze with some people, and he’s taking me because, he says, he likes to show me off.

“Show me off? Like, ‘O hai, I brought this pudgy Irish chick. But look! She sings good’!”

“Yeah, something like that,” he said. “It’s just fun to drag you around and show you to people.”

I’m a pet vocalist now. W00t!

So: after eight hours on the phone unfucking the convolutions of inside wiring for various DSL customers today, I’ll walk home and brush my teeth and then go to Richland to sit in at another open mic. Going out on two school nights in a row!

This is pretty exciting compared to my evenings of late, which have involved walking home from work and… uh… basically not doing much of anything. Relaxing and rejuvenating, sure, but I’m ready to go out now thx. But just don’t ask me to have one for you! Oh no, not after this morning. Drink your own damn booze!

A letter…

Love & Marriage

In which I share a copy of a letter I’ve written.

Teh BF reminded me the other day that I’m still not legally divorced.

Which got me to thinking about The Ex and all the other stuff he hasn’t dealt with that I’ve been waiting on him to deal with. So I wrote a little letter, and it goes like this:

Dear [The Ex],

Hello! Apparently I no longer have your phone number. For that reason I’m resorting to sending you an old-fashioned letter, because I need to go over a few things with you.

First, can you please send my Brownie camera? I don’t mean to nag, but i’s been a year. Please? I really want it.

Second, didn’t you say that you were going to file for divorce? Did you ever do anything about that? Are you going to?

Thirdly, when we were in Indianapolis and I signed that Cingular contract, you and [our friend] swore you’d do right by me no matter what. Well, it’s not your fault the way Indianapolis turned out, of course, but its been three years and that account is still in my name and it’s still in collections:

CINGULAR WIR…
2612 N Roa…
Attn Cr Bur…
Johnson City, T…
(888) 383-2…

Can you pay off your DirectTV account too? It’s also in my name and in collections:

Aid Associa…
370 7th Av…
New York, NY 100…
(212) 330-9…

Please understand that I’m paying off our four defaulted credit cards ($8444), the judgment against my checking account ($1000), and our defaulted U.S. Cellular bill ($626), all of which were our bills and which I’m not asking you to deal with at all, and I signed a quit-claim deed on the farm. Please get these two handled as soon as you can? Thanks.

I hope you get this letter; I have no idea if you’re in Iowa or still out in Wyoming! Hope you’re enjoying springtime, wherever you are. Give my love to Shiva.

When I finished writing this little missive, I had my co-worker Left Coast Girlie proof it for tone. After she was done reading, I said, “Is it bitchy?” and she replied, “No, not at all. It sounds like you’re trying really hard not to be a bitch!”

Which was exactly the tone I was trying to strike!

It’s so very much like The Ex to not, in a year, have managed to do a simple thing like ship me my camera. He said he’d do it, but of course he didn’t. He also said he’d serve me divorce papers, but of course he hasn’t. He also promised he’d deal with the Indianapolis cell phone fiasco, but that never happened either.

Hmm. I wonder whatever possessed me to leave such a wonderfully pro-active person?

Honestly, it should be water under the bridge by now but I’m still pissed off. I spent nearly eight years running that man’s life for him while he sat on the couch, and I will probably end up paying not most but all of the bills we racked up together AND filing for (and paying for) the divorce because he’ll just… never get around to it.

I keep hoping he’ll surprise me.

I remember him telling me way back in the day, before he proposed, that marriage was a good deal for women and a shit one for men; well, I’m here to tell you that my marriage cost me eight years of my life and somewhere around fifty thousand dollars, and his got him waited on hand and foot and netted him 27 acres with a house and a barn and sure he’s got a mortgage, but he’s also got equity. Which I don’t have.

All of which is why the following is still my favorite joke:

Q. Why does divorce cost so much?
A. Because it’s worth it!