Connecting the dots.

I woke up this morning emotionally twisted, just beating myself up about everything. I should have taken the time to understand our finances more before the divorce. (Ex sends me spreadsheets with attached appendices outlining monies in and monies out--so many charts and graphs! Why can't I be more like him?) I should be working on my second novel instead of worrying about the first one. I should run more and cycle less. I shouldn't have to stand in my closet in my underwear every morning searching for something to wear after the amount of money I spend on clothes. And so, like the true crazy alcoholic I am, my first thought was that I must be depressed and should see someone.

(I have to take a moment here to explain my alcoholic hypochondriac theory. In my experience, they often go together, which is odd because although I am quick to blame my emotional or physical state on any undiagnosed disease or infection, it never occurs to me blame it on alcoholism. Can't get up in the morning? My first thought is anemia, not the state of my spiritual condition or the fact I haven't been to a meeting in almost a week. And don't get me started on what I was like before I got into recovery. Anything that could go wrong in a human body? I was convinced I had it.)

I got dressed and as I was drying my hair and looking at my reflection in the mirror--My face looked really puffy. Was I retaining water? What did it mean?--a tiny thought came into my head that things weren't THAT bad with me. Sure there is uncertainty, fear, worry, all that future-tripping, and the fact I forgot to save for college, let alone retirement, but everyone was healthy and we have a comfortable home. What was wrong with me? Then I remembered that a friend called me the night before as I was getting ready to leave work. This friend is in the final weeks, maybe days, of her life. It was hard for me to understand her on the phone. She was mumbling and her speech was garbled and she seemed confused and disoriented.

"Is this Julie?" she asked. "I keep butt dialing people."

Her sister took the phone, told me my friend had had a rough night. That today she'd had a piece of toast and jelly, but mostly slept. The sister put my friend back on the phone. She was trying to tell me something, but I didn't understand. I'd walked to the lobby of my building, but I felt self-conscious that people could hear me repeating, "I can't understand you." And so I told my friend I loved her and hung up while she was still mumbling. I grabbed my purse and left the office.

Outside, the neighborhood appeared to be on fire. A huge plume of sooty smoke was pouring from an apartment complex under construction that was just a few blocks from where I was walking. I couldn't have asked for a bigger distraction. Fast forward twelve hours and I am crying in my bathroom about my puffy face. And then it hit me. I am not crying about my swollen eye lids; I'm crying for my friend who is dying and doesn't want to be.

Months before she got too sick to put a sentence together she told me she was sad to be leaving a life that she loved. I told her I could imagine, but in reality it was too sad for me to imagine. And a part of me made a mental note that it might be a good idea not to get too attached to my life so I'd never be in my friend's situation. And then I thought I probably shouldn't have gotten so attached to my friend, either, because I didn't--I don't--want to feel loss. And I don't want anybody I know to feel loss. Here's the thing: denying it doesn't make it go away. It just gets put on hold. Which is why, before I got into recovery, I sometimes cried and yelled and over reacted for no apparent reason. I'm thinking there probably always was a reason; it just happened so long ago I forgot about it. As a woman in the program said to me, "You gotta feel it to heal it."

Yesterday I had a twelve-hour disconnect from my emotions. That's okay. In fact, that's pretty fast for me. Progress, not perfection.

My friend will have 26 years in the program next month. I've learned a lot from her about gratitude and change. She showed me how to be patient, how to ask for help, how to laugh at yourself, how to be humble, and how to be a decent human. She's a spiritual giant. She and I could be super woo-woo together. That was a true gift. She was a gift. I'm really going to miss her.

I could have grown a baby since the last time I posted here.

I've been busy learning these things:

1. I should never, ever, ever work in an all-female company.*

2. Patience.**

3. Boundaries are not just for countries.***

4. Even when people you love are sick and dying and something you expected to happen didn't, everything is going to be okay.****


*Separated from the pack, maybe each of the 400+ women I worked with at the makeup company (What was I thinking?!) would have been a pleasant coffee date. (If only being the busiest girl in the building wasn't one of the numerous things they were competitive about.)  Collectively, they were a pack of hyenas, suspicious and shifty-eyed. My favorite person in the building was the corporate attorney if that tells you anything.

**I'm starting my eighth year of work on my novel.

***Just say no. With love.

****Cancer sucks. And so does a certain publisher. 

Call me crazy.

I think I want to go back to school. I think I need an MFA. I'm just putting it out there--pen on paper (well, fingers to keyboard) toe in water--to see what it feels like. It feels anxiety provoking, which is altogether normal since anxiety is a mixture of fear and excitement. But where? And when? No--that's letting fear take over. I'll just let the idea of going back to school marinate for a while.

GOMI: so bad it's good.

Everybody visit Get Off My Internets. It's the antidote to my personal love/hate relationship with blogs. I've always disliked the idea of blogs, and then I began writing one, but this works for me because I have a love/hate relationship with myself. In fact as soon as I hit the 'publish' button for a new post, I'm already composing snarky comments in my head. It's very post modern.

Let's discuss mommy blogs for a minute. If you really want to get at the truth beneath the perfect lives, you must read the comments, the replies to comments and the blogger's twitter feeds. That's where the sociological learning is happening. GOMI is the Cliff's Notes to this hypocrisy.

For instance, GOMI's latest post was about the comments to a post by Caitlin, of Healthy Tipping Point. Apparently, Caitlin's whole philosophy is promoting self esteem and she even wrote a book and a separate blog called 'Operation Beautiful' where she encourages women to stick post-its with positive messages in random places like this:

And this:

On her regular blog she posted this:

And then lost her shit when a commenter asked her if she was pregnant. She called the commenter 'crappy.' And then her loyal readers defended her and said the commenter was jealous. And then it got into another us vs. them situation, the haves vs. the have nots and it was fascinating. I loved it because I felt slightly superior in that shitty, gleeful way that feeling superior gives. So I read more GOMI. After an hour in GOMI land, I began to feel sad for humanity, myself included, that it's come to this.

On second thought, don't go to GOMI. In fact, don't read blogs about other people's lives. Just go outside and live your own.

Hello, little blog.

I'm so glad this thing is like a cat. I can ignore it for weeks then come back and see that nothing's changed. Lots has changed out in the real world, however. Big Gun's dad died in January. He was 98.5 plus three days. I love Jewish funerals. There is so much symbolism. The rabbi pinned a short piece of ribbon onto the immediate family members then tore it to signify their broken hearts. After the service, we all went to the cemetery and helped bury Louis. Every guest shovels three spades of earth, the first with the spade inverted as a sign of reluctance. Then, of course, we eat.

How are things in divorce land? Almost finished. I will be happy when I never have to write a breathtakingly large check to a divorce attorney every again. It's like paying a contractor but without getting a new bathroom or brick walkway in return. When all is said and done I will have nothing to show for it.

How is Clooney? Getting along with Baby Kitten. Look, here they are napping together. 

This is as much of the bed that Baby Kitten will allow Clooney.

My big son got his college applications done. One school had a deadline of midnight and his went through at 11:55p.m. The rest of them went similarly. In fact, the whole process has been like this. For instance, last Friday he informed me at 3p.m. that I needed to fill out some thirty-page income/tax document before the end of day. He is hard to live with: ungrateful, unorganized, entitled, and selfish...and I have just described an alcoholic. Teenagers are like alcoholics. He's sullen and morose one afternoon, then chatty and euphoric the next. Either way, I will jump through hoops for him. If he acts like an unpredictable drunk, I'm like a crazy fan. Ex says I should set a boundary and then let him fail. As if. I find that eating a lot of candy helps.

Yet another thing to feel anxious about.

I have many recurring nightmares: teeth falling out, swimming with sharks, being stuck in precarious high places, but yesterday I had a nightmare I've never had before and it was so bad I couldn't get back to sleep. This is what I dreamed: my oldest son didn't get into and couldn't afford any of the colleges he applied to and as a last resort was filling out an application to Stanilaus State, Turkey Tech. He wailed at me, "Why am I doing this? I don't even want to go to this school."

I sat up in bed. Why? Because your parents failed you and can't afford tuition. Because we separated, in effect doubling our expenses without doubling our incomes. I grabbed my phone and pulled up the calculator, punching in numbers and dividing by 18 years to see how much we should have been saving for college all these years: $925 a month x 2 (As cute as my other son, Mario, is, he also will need a degree)= $1851.19! That was our mortgage payment. I'm the queen of "should haves" but this number was so outrageously un-doable that I felt a little better.

The bad news is feeling better didn't solve my problem, but my sick little person (that worry gnome who lives in my brain) thinks that worrying might. I will fret and lose sleep and feel anxious about this until the Universe steps in and everything works itself out, just like always. I have proof of this.

I finished my second round of novel edits last week and sent them off. I had two days of freedom before I started worrying about how I was going to fill my days and pay for the new shoes I just bought. I said aloud "I guess I need some freelance." The next day I get an email asking me if I am available for the next three weeks. I reply "yes" and marvel at the power of intention. The next day I get an email saying the project has been cancelled. Do I freak out? I do not because I'm starting to believe that everything happens for a reason. I say as much to a friend. Actually, this is what I say: "I guess it wasn't meant to be. Maybe something better is coming?" She faints. The day after that I get another email saying the job is back on. If I'm being tested, I passed that one with flying colors.

The post where I get labelled a Hater.

I have mentioned the blog, His Giant Mistake. This woman's husband cheated on her and she's kicking his sorry ass to the curb and moving on in spectacular ways, which include climbing mountains and swimming in the bay and dating lots of men. I can't decide if I hate her or I want to be her. Where are the worries about money? Health care insurance? Jobs? The future?

(RANT ALERT. Skip ahead to the next paragraph if you don't want to stain your soul. I fucking hate this woman's self-righteousness, as if her high and mighty judgmental attitudes had nothing to do with the demise of her marriage, as if she did nothing wrong. She signs off every post with "love yourself," which isn't a bad thing. I agree that we should all love ourselves, but can we do it too much?)

I guess she's too busy hiking, swimming, meeting men, and loving herself to worry about such things. I wish she'd struggle more. She makes divorce look easy.

I was rummaging around my bookshelf yesterday looking for a blank journal to write in. I found one that was mostly blank, I'd filled the first three pages way back in 1991, right after I got engaged. Eerily, in the last entry I was questioning what love was/is and if I loved Ex and whether we were right for each other or if I was just marrying him because we were so alike: self conscious and introverted. Then nothingness. I suppose I got wrapped up in the whole wedding pageantry. Not that I have anything against weddings. I went to a lovely, heartfelt ceremony on Friday. The room was divided: the bride's family was sober and the groom's were normies. Were the drinkers the ones cutting it up on the dance floor, wildly gyrating and sweating and shouting joy? No, that would be the sober guests. The drinkers were standing on one side, holding beers and watching the action. I used to be on that side of the room. I'm so glad I crossed over and joined the dancing fools.

Acceptable dating material

I recently went on a date during which the guy admitted he was married. I actually considered seeing him again. My therapist says that when I learn to love myself, I won't mind  being alone. I don't mind being alone, I just like having someone I can call and ask if I'm crazy.

I'm pushing 50. I know women my age become invisible to men. When I hear stories about dirty-dog men who cheated, quit their jobs to avoid paying spousal support, or gained so much weight they stopped having sex, I don't think that woman is lucky to be rid of him; I think ooh, that means he's single.

However, my list of criteria for what's acceptable dating material has expanded beyond he must have a job and his own car to include he must not be married. This is progress.

Side note: my friend C says when she first got back into the dating after getting sober, her criteria was the guy must have all his teeth.

Coping.

I was reading my friend, Therese's blog. (I don't know her; she just feels like a friend.) This part struck me:

Coping your way through life is not a way to live ... I had incorrectly assumed that coping is what everyone did. No one actually wants to be alive, I had always believed (and still do when I get depressed). They just pretend they like they are having a good time on this excruciating planet because no one likes to hang out with a downer. “La la la la la … Sing a happy song …”

I consider it more of a slog, but I assumed everybody thought living was a chore. My joke in high school--and I was a teenage girl at the time so everything was dramatic--was that I'd like to speed things up and get this life over with. That was sooo long ago. And I'm still here.

Coffee with Ex on Sunday. It's good because the more I see of him, the more I realize that we shouldn't be together. Apart, I can spin these fantasies that maybe we could still work things out and never have to pay another lawyer $400 to read an email. A little face time with him clears that up. On the money issue, he says there isn't enough. He has to dip into his savings to take vacations. Doesn't everybody?

Brick walls.

A woman I respect greatly quoted this piece of wisdom which somebody had shared with her: "Keep moving forward and when you come to a brick wall, turn."

Sounds easy, right? This is something I rarely do. I curse the wall. I try and climb it. I bang my head on it, kick it, and punch it. Then I camp out at the base and fume and stew and try to convince any passers by to join me.

My divorce is a brick wall. I need to turn and leave it behind me, but I have a hard time letting that shit go. Partially because it's not final yet and we'll still be tied together financially until we sell the house, but also because I keep going over why, why, why things didn't work, as if it matters now.

I'll just have to keep putting it out to the universe to remove my fear, obsession, and tenacious, sick desire to beat myself and ex up.

Here's to turning and walking on.

You're like so funny.

Have you seen this site? Do you have a couple of hours?

But You’re Like Really Talented, Terry Richardson.

 

Still no job.

Archangel Uriel is gonna burn away your bad shit. You feel me?

I found out on Friday that I didn't get the job that was mere blocks from my house at a successful, pre-IPO start up. I was sure the stars and planets were aligned on this. How could it not be God's will? The rejection hit me hard and I've been fermenting a stew of anger, shame, resentment, and guilt for feeling these things. Then ex called to report he hired a lawyer who told him he'd been overpaying support for the last three years and I owed him money. This did not bode well for the stew. In fact, I fell into the old pattern of me doing my Warner Bros. Tasmanian Devil and him clamming up. It would be funny if it weren't happening to me.

I couldn't calm myself enough to pull an Angel card until this evening. Here's what I got:

Archangel Uriel
Your emotions are healing. I will help you release anger and unforgiveness from your heart and mind. I simply and lovingly ask them to be willing to release toxins from their mind and heart. If they are willing to do so, then the release will occur. In this way, the person retains their dignity and control, while choosing to be clear of lower energies.

I have the dignity and control of a tired two-year-old, along with this desperate need to feel secure and, for me, security means a full-time job and money. It's a false sense of security, really, because both of those things are paper and ephemeral, and yet I am beholden to them. I am clinging to them as if they were my lifesavers. I've been down this road before. I know these things, but then I forget.

Then--and here's God at work--a friend forwarded me this piece by one of my sisters in spiritual progress, Anne Lamott, who describes losing it Tasmanian Devil-style like this:

But eventually I am too tired to continue and my head has become too uninhabitable, and I realize I’ve been driving this rickety temperamental old bus of my mind around for too long. I’ve lost all sense of direction and am feeling confused and pissed off and bitter and resentful and nuts; but then finally, finally just tired. I begin to worry that I have had or
am having a complete nervous breakdown, and that I am about to start weeping or barking and won’t be able to stop. Sometimes I still look more or less okay on the outside except for the tics, which can actually be pretty unsightly but inside I’m feeling a little bit more like Ted Kaczynski than I like to. And I realize I’m just crazier than a shithouse rat; and that it’s all hopeless. And that the sun is burning out.

She always makes me feel better about being crazy and this makes it easier for me to forgive myself for feeling scared and acting like a little kid and for picking up that rock of money fear AGAIN. And AGAIN, I am stating that I'm willing to have this fear removed, that I'd like a few angels with bleach and sponges to go to work on my psyche. Thank you. Good night.

Bad ad placement.

I was doing a bit of research and came across this page. Really? Does anybody pay attention to this stuff? I hate to think it might have been purposeful. If you can't read it, it's an ad for guns on a website for suicide prevention.

Dude, we have an agent.

Now I can say things like "I'll have to check that out with my agent" and "I'm having lunch with my agent." She's bi-coastal. She repped Wally Lamb. I know this is her job, but she loves my writing. I sign the contract next week. She asked me what my dream was and I realized I didn't have one. I'm too scared to dream. How pathetic is that? So she helped me out and tossed one out for me: "Would you like to be a bestselling author? To get paid to write novels?" Yes. That's my dream. It was just too out-of-scope for me to ever imagine. This is just the first step. The odds are that dream will stay a dream but, as my friend Tracey puts it:

YIPPEE!

Going down.

I woke up okay. I made coffee, Clooney's antics made me smile, Mario liked the Valentine I gave him, I felt mentally stable. And then that snake of panic and fear that lives in my guts woke up and the ghost of future-tripping started rattling its chains: you'll never get an agent, you'll never get a job, you'll never have healthcare and will die a painful death from a treatable disease. Not even the kitty could pull me out of it.

I think, besides hormones and the fact I don't sleep at night, my problem is that the writer's conference is this weekend, along with the speed dating for an agent business. The closer it gets, the worse I get. Because, in my head, the before is full of hope and anticipation that things will work out. But come Monday...well, it could be bad, day after a bad Christmas bad. I have psychically put all my eggs in one basket. 

Really, God?

Dear God,

I don't hate being a woman. Thanks for the hair, makeup, pedicures, clothes, and vagina. But menopause, really? Let's just go through my menstrual history.

First you made me wait. I was the last of my friends to get the curse. Did you even hear those prayers? They lasted three years. Then came the hemorrahagic years of of anemia, white-pant avoidance, and worry. Next came the amenorrhea caused by starvation, resulting in whole other levels of worry. Things eventually normalized, if you consider normal a week every month of tender breasts, major bloat, insomnia and moodiness, followed by a week of leak worry. (Oh, and tampons cost $8 a box now. That adds up, God.) Haven't I suffered enough? Apparently not.

Two weeks ago I began waking up at night in a puddle of my own sweat. At first, I blamed it on Big Guns. I thought he turned the heat up. I'd throw off my moist covers only to realize it was freezing in my room. Then these hot flashes, more like flash floods of sweat, started happening during the day, all day, over and over again.

The spark begins in my solar plexus, where my pilot light apparently lives, then spreads upward like the Santa Ana winds until I'm sure my hair is on fire. I rip off all my clothes, grab anything to fan myself, and sweat. Even my calves sweat. In minutes, it's over and I start shivering.

You have thrown some compassionate people in my path, I'll give you that. My therapist had plenty of sympathy. She said it gets easier, that the first two to five years are the hardest. Two to five years!! She offered me her industrial size hand fan. She's small and it covers half her body. She told me a story about driving somewhere and having 23 hot flashes in the space of an hour. We laughed and laughed. I still laugh when I think about us jumping off the bridge and opening our t-shirts to enjoy a final, cool burst of air on the way down.

Intelligent design? Fuck that. This is a faulty design. An unnecessary glitch. I wish Eve had told you about it. And she probably would have, but by the time she figured out your error, she'd already eaten that apple and I'm sure her guilt prevented her from saying anything to you.

If I have to go through this, then could you please make it as brief as possible? I'm sure you have some pull in that department.

Thanks,

Eileen, I dress for sweat

Heidi Klum and Seal?

	They look happy, don't they?

There are some couples I kind of expect to divorce. And then there are couples like Heidi and Seal who I assumed were happy and fulfilled. (What's it say about me that I have fantasies about other people's lives?) I should thank them for demonstrating that I can never know what a marriage is like from seeing pictures of it in People magazine. I can't even know what a marriage is like when I know the people.

This is NOT right.

 

Behold the Brownie Burger.  These little delicacies are actually brownies sandwiched between two peanut butter cookies and dressed with coconut "lettuce" and red "ketchup" icing. 

I'm not opposed to food masquerading as something in the same flavor category, i.e. tofurkey. At least they are both savory. What really turns my stomach is when the food jumps categories. I'm all about whimsy, but this is just white trashy. (Although, shockingly, the Brownie Burgers came from Martha Stewart!) It subverts the sensory process of eating.
 

Spaghetti and meat ball "cake."

Candy "sushi." Yum.

Meatloaf and mashed potato "cake."

A little program in the day.

When my marriage was taking its last breaths and I was freshly sober and working with my first sponsor, I was an anxious, paralyzed mess. Here was my self-fulfilling prophesy fulfilling itself, years of self-evident beliefs becoming truth: My husband did not love me, I was unlovable, people will always abandon me, nobody can be trusted, everybody lies.

My young and grace-filled sponsor gently, insistently reminded me that everything happened for a reason, that it was God's plan and that it would be okay. I would be okay. I did not believe her. To believe her would have meant I had to shift my perceptions in cataclysmic ways. This would have required a 7.5 earthquake.

Instead, over the years, I've experienced minor temblors and my view is starting to shift.

I need to hear something hundreds of times before it sinks in. At every meeting, people talk about faith. I had no faith, but thankfully I didn't need it because the rooms are full of proof. People can tolerate difficult life changes--divorce, death, loss, and unmet expectations--and be okay, even learn something from the experience. Some, in hindsight, even begin to view the trials and enormous roadblocks thrown into their lives as gifts. This is the proof I need. Proof of faith.

Now I have some proof to share. The last three years have been difficult--end of marriage, financial fears, two teenagers--but I am okay. Work has showed up when I needed it to pay my property taxes. Here's the thing: I believe that I will be taken care of, although what I'm given may not always be what I want.

I wrote this in the margins of page 65 in my big book: Willpower is my thoughts. Life is action.

For me, willpower is not pushing myself to go to the gym or pass on dessert. It's the voice, not always kind, that's trying to direct the way I feel about things: You will never find the job you want because you did not go to a good university; nobody will want your novel because it's not great literature; nobody will want your novel because it's not commercial enough; your stories only get published in tiny literary journals where the editors/undergrads will publish anything.

I have spent years of my life worrying about things I can't control, namely the future, but also other people, climate change, politics, and the economy. I believed that life was a veil of tears and full of hardship or luck, there was no in between. I was going to die fighting or win the lottery. Everything I had was given to me by mistake or as a payment for something I was going to have to pony up for in the future. This is my will talking. The action to keep that will in check? I make a gratitude list and, suddenly, things start looking like gifts.

“The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs.” ~James Allen


I just read that quote on Tiny Buddha. You can read the whole post, but basically the writer says that our lives are shaped by experiences which we then turn into beliefs. For instance, if you spent your whole childhood being fed a food, say strawberries, that made you sick, you would eventually believe all strawberries were bad and avoid them. When you read the newspaper, you would give extra attention to stories about e coli outbreaks--See? your self would think, Strawberries do make people sick!

Maybe the strawberries your family fed you were always bad? Maybe you just got unlucky? But avoiding strawberries as a child served you well. Now that you're grown up, you're missing out. If you want to enjoy shortcake and smoothies and sorbet and a lot of other lovely things, you have to challenge your beliefs. This is very SCARY and there is no way around the scary part. Sorry.

It helps to hear stories from other people who have eaten strawberries and been okay. It also helps to have a lovely woman hold your hand and tell you that you'll be fine. I will be fine. I am okay, no matter what happens.

Sending my baby out into the world.

I'm preparing my novel for its launch into the cold, hard world. Part of that process is a one- to two-page synopsis of the whole enchilada, which I have written and re-written numerous times. It's much harder than it sounds. I worked for a couple days then released it to my writing group. We met at our usual place: Hong Sings, where the food is nearly as bad as the decor: beige walls, fluorescent lights, and the faint smell of sewer if we sit close the restrooms. When it was my turn to be critiqued, the group went silent. I could tell they were searching for something nice to say when one mentioned the nice font. I was crushed, but managed not to cry until I got to my car. I'm taking this novel to the SF Writer's Conference in two weeks in the hopes of landing an agent and my group had nothing nice to say. What a waste of $695. This is the hard part, letting your work go, which is why I've had it on my laptop, finished, for over a year. I'm prolonging the honeymoon phase.

I didn't look at their comments for two days and when I did I noticed I'd sent the wrong file, an extremely old draft, not even a draft, a stream of conscious-gibberishy piece of the dog's lunch that I hacked out long, long ago. It didn't even make sense to me. I resent the correct file and they loved it. I'm at peace again, until I start getting rejected by agents. Just see what happened to my friend, Simone. Ouch is right.