How I would end ‘em, were I in charge…

ER - Helicopters randomly drop from the sky and kill off each character. Luca’s emo-ing it up on the stairs by the train? Helicopter drops from the sky. Pratt’s out clubbin it? Helicopter drops from the sky. Weaver is selling her soul to the medical board? Helicopter kill’s ‘em all. Romano is hanging outside the entrance minding his own business? Helicopter… oh wait, they did that one. Only John Stamos’ character will die differently - killed when someone put poison in his hair gel. Oh, and Doctor Ross comes back and claims Abby’s baby, and Carter finds Gallant still alive and held hostage in some third world country and rescues him with the help of the Singing Sword and Bob Newhart. Then as the final scene the camera pans in on a white sign taped to the hospital doors… “Help Wanted - Apply Within”.

Scrubs - JD finally confesses his undying love to Dr. Cox and they dump their medical careers to tour the country on motorcycles together, mapping each nude beach and hidden swimming hole. THey write a best-selling book out of the experience and retire as millionares in Costa Rica. Through a strange chain of events, Eliot winds up as Chief of Medicine, a position which she holds for a total of three days before single-handedly killing every patient within Sacred Heart. She gets her own spin-off as a book-smart prison babe who runs from shanking to shanking, dispensing medical wisdom and wit to the disinterested. Carla and Turk move to Mexico and open up a chain of road-side taco stands.

Battlestar Galactica - They find Earth. Earth’s military mistake BSG and the rest of the fleet of ships as an alien attack. Due to Earth’s “Shoot First and Ask Questions Later” policy, all are blown out of the sky upon achieving orbit. Only the Cylon Caprica survives and makes a KILLING making porn.

Jericho - All the characters discover that they’re really in an M. Night Shyamalan flick.

Seriously, though, I am disappointed to hear that Moonlight and New Amsterdam will not be returning after this, their debut seasons. Disappointed, but not surprised.

(Go here for the cancellation list.)

Whatever method it is that you procure music - download, CD purchase, by honest means or by means most foul - go forth and obtain the August Rush Soundtrack.

Also? Jonathan Rhys Meyers can SING. Do yourself a favor, regardless of if you get and/or listen to the rest of the soundtrack, click on the playbar below because you HAVE TO listen to “This Time”. Unbelievable.

LOVE me them Irish boys.

And if you’re a fan of acoustic guitar, “Bari Improv” and “Ritual Dance”, played by Kaki King, are both funky combination guitar/percussion numbers. Who knew smacking the frets could sound so cool?

Okay, so yes, I’m geeked about my new favorite album.

Upon reading the first installment of Our Story, Calvin pointed out that I wasn’t particularly clear about timelines and whatnot. The first time Calvin and I had ever met was several weeks before I was assigned to the MSB. We’d talked a few times, and he was in and out of the construction trailer for twice-weekly progress meetings. I described the first time we met in this entry, and how me and my ex and he and his ex actually socialized on one or two occasions.

And, we apparently spent more time on the project in the MSB than I had recalled. Hell, it HAS been thirteen years. So what I described, with our friendship growing, and the time spent in the MSB, was actually several months instead of weeks - I was there constantly for the first three weeks, then only there once or twice a week up until the building was signed-off. There was an actual final day out there, though, and that’s when the kiss happened - months after I was first assigned to the MSB.

I remember more clearly now, after talking to Calvin about the timing of everything.

I guess according to Calvin I made it seem like he pounced on me as soon as I walked into the MSB office on that first day, and I was sticking my tongue in his mouth a few weeks after meeting him. I made it seem slutty and cheap, when it really wasn’t.

As he commented, “After reading this entry it somehow makes it seem like watching your favorite movie in fast-forward. (TOOoo many details to cover here.) While I think we both knew right from the start that we liked each other neither one of us knew what the result could be when “doors are left open” in relationships. We were lucky! P.S. The timeline is a bit off - it was not that fast. I’m a PIG but not that bad.”

So! Clarity. I was doing it wrong.

** Updated to add, see Editorial Note. **

When Calvin and I met, it wasn’t love at first site. He was married, I was married, and neither of us was looking for a complete upheaval in our lives. I wouldn’t have had much interaction with him at all if it weren’t for the fact that my boss needed some grunt work done. At the time Calvin and I met, he was working for AcronymCo as a building controls specialist, and I was working for a general contractor as a purchasing assistant. This general contractor was running the construction site for a new office building on AcronymCo’s campus. During the start-up and turn-over process of the project, a person was needed to monitor building alarms in the mechanical support building (MSB) as everything came on-line.

My boss - a cigar puffing chauvinistic good-ol-boy from Rhode Island - sent me out to the MSB to sit in its tiny little office and call back any alarms over the walkie-talkies to Those That Cared. So I made my way across the site in my little steel-toed boots and pig tails and hard hat, and must have looked like a sixteen-year-old playing dress-up when I walked into that office (close enough… I was twenty). Calvin and one of his colleagues were sitting at the workstations. Calvin gave me that grin of his when I walked in - that one that lets you know that he notices you as an attractive female and he’s going to have a seriously good time flirting with you. Every single one of my female friends knows which grin I’m talking about. Heh.

The other man stood up to give me his chair, and then left the office with a half-serious warning LOOK at Calvin that I saw but didn’t understand. At the time. However, it didn’t take long at all for Calvin’s inherent personality to come to the fore. I had brought some bills and busy work with me to do while I was “stuck” in the MSB, but I’d forgotten my calculator. So I asked Calvin if he had one I could borrow. He took one out of a drawer, punched a few keys, and slid it over to me. I glanced down, laughed, and rolled my eyes when I saw on the display that he had typed in “69-69-69″.

Thus, people, our future relationship was born. Auspicious, no? I must say I was a complete novice at flirting, and being flirted with. But I certainly thought this guy was funny.

Calvin is a great conversationalist. He knows a lot about a myriad of topics and has mad story telling skills (unless you make him sit on his hands - he even gestures when he’s on the PHONE and the person on the other end CAN’T SEE HIM… that still cracks me up). He is well informed, and has a great sense of humor. He just loves to talk to people, and make them laugh. He likes to know everything about everybody. He likes to learn. He also likes to express his opinion about everything and anything under the sun. He’s NOT the most politically correct person I’ve ever met (if you’ve met him, BOY do you know that to be an understatement!), but his wicked sense of humor and way of expressing himself is something I really get.

It wasn’t something I could have even explained to myself at the time, sitting there talking to this guy in the MSB, but if a naive twenty-year-old and worldly-wise thirty-year-old could have shared the same brain, we absolutely were. And still do.

Inevitably, over the few weeks that I was assigned to the MSB, Calvin and I became very close friends. The time we spent working together meant that we had hours alone to just talk, monitor alarms and futz with the workstations, and talk some more. He told me his life story, and I told him mine. Seriously, LIFE STORIES, from “in the beginning, God had the good sense to create me,” onward. We discovered we could talk to each other about anything, which was a luxury neither of us had with our significant others. I don’t think either of us realized the great need we both had to just be able to talk, and express ourselves without censorship or risk of reprisal.

Of course, during our hours upon hours of conversation, the issues and problems in each other’s lives became apparent. I told Calvin what was going on with me and my husband at the time (I think you’re all clear on that story now, yes?). I listened as Calvin described a relationship with his wife that sounded more like they were brother and sister, than husband and wife. They fought ALL THE TIME. About everything. Big things, little things, stupid things, serious things. As he described it, the brief harmonies between them were just lulls in the never ending round of conflict they shared.

The majority of Calvin’s (very complicated, very dramatic) relationship with his ex is his story to tell. But the long and short of it is they met when they were very, very young. He was fifteen and she was thirteen when they began their relationship. As is the usual way of teenagers, things were far from perfect from the get-go. He cheated, she cheated, they broke up, they got back together, and they broke up again. She discovered she was pregnant at seventeen. Things were bad between them for a few months, and then Calvin applied himself with renewed dedication to their relationship. Michael was born. Three months later, she started a prolonged affair with Calvin’s best friend. It was particularly devastating for Calvin to discover this, since things were feeling so “right” to him at the time. Things were rocky for a while, but they managed to reconcile again. A little over a year after Michael was born, Calvin and his wife were married. Marie was born several years after that. Amidst it all there was more fighting and more drama, interspersed with occasional moments of peace.

Basically, Calvin likes to describe it as: “We were a We before either of us were a Me.” Their relationship began when neither of them was established as individuals, yet. So their childish bickering and fighting and punishing one another and getting back at one another never evolved into anything more mature, more stable. They grew up together, but in the process grew into people that neither one of them, well… liked, really. They were married and they had children together, but behind the mature All American Family facade was the same immature relationship in which they had been stuck in their teenage years.

Anyway. Did I mention the flirting? Oh GOOD HEAVENS, the flirting. EVERYTHING was an innuendo that sent his eyebrows a-wagging at me, and sent me off into fits of giggles. Calvin’s colleague would occasionally come into the office to do some task or another, listen for a few minutes, look askance at us and glare his “Behave Yourself” glare at Calvin, and depart again. Calvin would ramp his flirting up another few notches while he was there, just to make him glare harder and make me giggle more.

The more we talked, the more we discovered we had in common. The way we thought, the beliefs we held, our similar reactions and opinions. It was completely surreal and exhilarating at the same time; it had been so long since either of us felt as understood as we did in each other’s presence.

I was terribly sorry to see my time spent in the MSB at a close. The building controls were finally stable, my desk back in the construction trailer was piling up with contracts and amendments, and it was time for me to get back to it. Calvin and I knew we would continue to hang out on occasion, and see each other at lunch and on breaks. But it had been really, really fun to work with him. I’d looked forward to going to work each day for those few weeks in a way that I never had before. And it turned out, he felt the same.

So. Friday of the last week. Five o’clock. I stood up to leave, and he stood up to open the door for me. We stood across from one another at the door, mere inches apart… and an impulse popped into my head that I acted upon without thinking. An impulse that never occurred to me before, with anyone else. An impulse that was so completely OPPOSITE of my normal behavior that I didn’t want to look at it too closely at all. I just… acted on it.

I stepped forward, closed the distance between us, and kissed him.

To be continued…

To say that Calvin is the love of my life is an understatement. Since they haven’t come up with a word that means “all the love in the world and then some, and then some more”, I’ll have to settle with the word in all its simplicity. Maybe I’ll make up a new word.

Calvin is also my best friend - if you tell me something in confidence, that confidence had better include Calvin (for this there are very, very few exceptions - so few that I can’t think of any right now). Calvin is such an extension of myself that I feel less comfortable, less like myself, when we’re not together. He makes me more… me.

I understand him. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one that “gets” him, and he’s the only one that really “gets” me. Even when he’s making me mad (infrequent that it is), I still get him. I can make the connections and see his perspective even when we’re mid-argument (he can see mine too, but that confession doesn’t come until later). I let the stuff that needs to roll off, roll off; I let the stuff that needs to sink in, sink in.

I mean it literally when I say that Calvin saved my life. Not only in the heroic swooping in, kicking ass, and taking names that he so kindly performed during the whole drama with my ex; but also in helping me find my way back to myself, and then loving me even more when I did.

The me that existed at the beginning of our relationship is not the same me that exists today. I’ve done a lot of growing and changing over the ten years that we’ve been together. That growth and change could have meant dark things for our relationship; some people grow apart instead of together. We just got better, stronger, and deeper.

Calvin pushed me when I needed a push, slowed me down when I needed to pace myself, spoke when I needed to listen, and listened when I needed to speak. My inner mouse was slain, and now even if my strength is sometimes used against him (I actually insist on having things my way, sometimes, and voice the differences of opinion that I never would have voiced as the “old” me), I believe that the fact that I have this strength, now, is a source of pride for him.

I would also like to think that some of my “good stuff” rubbed off on him, but he’ll have to write a guest entry some day to talk about that. Which will probably take a multi-state petition with over 5,000 signatures to get him to do. Shall we start on it now?

We are in daily defiance of the statistics. Most of us already know that the divorce rate in America after a first marriage is from 41% to 50%. A figure many may not know is that divorce rate after a second marriage is from 60% to 67%, and even as high as 70% when figuring in blended families (such as ours). Those same statistics say that marriages between couples who live together before getting married fail between 70% and 85% of the time, and marriages where the couple’s relationship started as an affair fail up to 75% of the time.

We’re not perfect (shocker!). We never claimed to be. But our relationship and family grows stronger with every passing day and year. Thirteen years of friendship, ten years of living together, and six years of marriage, and Calvin and I are still ridiculously happy with one another. As Calvin is fond of saying, “I’ve never been this happy for this long, this consistently, in my life.” The four of us - me and Calvin, Michael and Marie - are happy and healthy and solid. We are all better now, together, than we ever had been or would be in our old lives. We took very bad circumstances, from our failed first marriages and the lives that me, Calvin and the kids endured, and turned it into a special kind of happiness that brings new meaning to the words “love”, “family”, and “home”.

So!  I am currently working on “Our Story” (alternate title, “How I Met Your Father”?) and it will be forthcoming within the next week. I’m having a lot more fun writing about my relationshp with Calvin than I did the whole saga about my ex. I hope you all enjoy it.

They’re finally figuring out what we’ve known all along.

I am so flippin’ tired. So tired that I didn’t get on-line all weekend long (except to post that song), or yesterday. So tired that I napped yesterday and still felt the crash at about 9:00. So tired that I neglected to change the tagline on this site for this week until just now. So tired that I’ve had two Diet Cokes, two cups of coffee, and now an overlarge iced tea just to get through the day. So tired that I skipped four days of workouts, then worked out one day, then skipped the next day. So tired that instead of trying to figure out what among the foods at home were diet-friendly last night, I just elected to have a bowl of edemame and a Kit-Kat.

I’m SO kicking my own butt in the weight room tonight. As soon as I get home from work. Which will probably be sometime around 6:00. Stoopid meetings.

Here. Look at my cats. I’m too tired to post anything more interesting. This is where they stare at me from every morning while I get ready for work - Oz from on top of the shower wall, Zoe perched on the bathtub.

As I mentioned previously, Taoist Biker is doing a series on his collection of 80’s music. He included a couple of Phil Collins songs in his list, but didn’t include “In the Air Tonight” - which I’m sure most can agree is one of Phil’s quintessential songs. Now, he’s only including in the list those songs that he actually owns in his digital library, so we don’t have to accuse him of poor taste for leaving ItAT out. He even implied that the song surely would have made the list, if only he owned it.

Though I do still require an explanation for why “Easy Lover” wasn’t on his list, either.

Anyway, I promised I’d post my favorite version of the song - extended, with a sweet piano entry, a nice back beat, and some strings and such. Enjoy!

Edited to add - Okay, hmm. It seems to be stuck in buffer mode. I’ll futz with it and try to get it to work. It may be that the file format is different because the CD was an import, since the other songs I’ve linked in similar fashion seem to be working just fine. Nuts.

Edited again to add - Yep, it was the file format. Try it now!

I have the best readers on the PLANET. You guys have left some really great, really kind comments during this whole saga that took SEVEN parts to complete. That’s, like, four more parts than I anticipated it to take. Once I started telling the story, I kept backtracking with the thought, “Well, I can’t explain about THIS unless I tell them about THAT. Oh, and I can’t talk about THAT without mentioning this OTHER THING…” Fifty-seven million words later, and you have a rough script for a made-for-TV movie on Lifetime (nod to Taoist Biker, who is currently doing a series of 80’s music themed entries that you guys should, like, totally check out, oh mah gah).

Now. To answer a couple of questions you guys had.

“Why the heck didn’t you write about any of this before?” Eight years into having an on-line journal, an excellent question. And I have no answer. I guess it was just time to write about it. I didn’t expressly, specifically not write about it. There just seemed to be more interesting or fun or relevant things to be writing about. I guess? Really, I just dunno. Perhaps I just like writing about the present and the future, more than writing about the past.

Yes, my former sister-in-law still works for AcronymCo, but on a different campus. Our paths do not cross (I do sometimes have business at the other campus but I’ve never seen her, AcronymCo is a Very Very Big Company), but if they did I’m sure she’d be perfectly civil to me. There were a couple of occasions over the years that we’ve had to talk or e-mail with one another, and she was always perfectly polite to me. Perhaps she went home and bad-mouthed me to my ex and the rest of their family, but what I don’t hear won’t hurt me. By the way, I didn’t report her giving my ex my unlisted number because, well, I kind of understood why she would. He (and their mother, I’m sure) probably pestered her to DEATH. And it didn’t really end up hurting anything, since he dropped off the radar shortly thereafter. Plus, I’m nice as HELL.

Yes, the whole story about how Calvin and I came to be will be forthcoming. Suffice to say he was in the background during a lot of the crap I went through with my ex, and in the foreground a lot after my ex and I separated. Obviously, our friendship progressed to something more than that, despite the two of us inconveniently being in relationships at the time. You’ll get the full story, rest assured. Calvin did want me to mention, that tattoo I talked about getting in my final installment? He was there with me getting HIS first tattoo at the same time. I believe the words he spoke as he read that part of the entry were, “Hey. We did that together.” Accompanied by the cutest little pout, impossible to ignore.

Now, the reason that I kept the description of Calvin’s role during that time of my life to a minimum was because I wanted to keep the story about just what was going on with my ex. Truly, my friendship and subsequent relationship with Calvin had nothing to do with what was going on with my ex. I would have left my ex under any circumstances; Calvin was NOT the catalyst that made me leave him. He just happened to be wonderful and supportive and a priceless friend during that whole part of my life.

Come to think of it, he’s still wonderful and supportive and a priceless friend. And he’s dead sexy, too.

I will write more about what happened during my life as a Witness (and the more recent times, Jen, that they’ve unsuspectingly knocked on our door). Perhaps it will whet your appetite when I state that I pretty much completely blame them for my Grandmother’s decline into senility. I’m still angry at them in a way that I’m not even angry at my ex anymore.

So, the Epic Entries of Doom brought all of you up to February 1998. There were two and a half more years between that time and my very first entry in my very first on-line journal.Two and a half years of romance and drama and step-parenting 101, before I decided to regularly blurt it all out onto the internet for all the world to see and judge. So, yeah! Plenty of more stories to come.

I welcome any other questions you guys may have, I’ll answer them to the best of my ability! Thanks again for all the positive feedback and support.

———————

On a completely unrelated note, Darkhorse is now featuring Rockband every Thursday night. These dudes come and set up their stuff (and WHAT a setup it is) and the folks in the bar (the drunker the better) try their hand at it. Calvin and I had never seen it being… ah… performed before.

You guys, it was totally TITE.

So! I enlisted the uber-geek skillz of one Miss Jen. She is savvy in all things gaming - video and otherwise. So she helped me pick out what we needed (completely gleeful that she had helped “convert us” to gaming), I ordered on-line, and at lunchtime she and I drove down to Circuit City and picked it up.

Calvin doesn’t know about it yet, but he’s on his way home and will surely see the GREAT BIG BOXES on the loveseat. I anticipate a phone call any minute now.

And now you know what WE’RE doing this weekend!

(Read previous installments: part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six.)

The evening of my ex’s appointment, I received an irate phone call from the counselor. He was completely pissed that I used my ex’s appointment to have him served. But I truly, honestly thought that would be the best thing. I wanted my ex to have the support he needed to be talked down off the ledge when he flipped out. And flip out he did. While I was on the phone with the counselor, I heard my ex shrieking in the background. I heard from the process server later that the counselor had to cancel the rest of his appointments for the evening.

Suffice to say, I never went back to that counselor again. My ex continued for a few more sessions, and then he too stopped. I was sorry to learn that, because if ANYBODY needed psychological help, it was my ex.

Several evenings after the divorce papers were served, I was at home enjoying some peace and quiet, reading a book. I heard a polite knock on the door. Since the porch light had burned out, I could see nothing but blackness through the peephole. I cracked the door open and peeked out.

The door was forcibly thrust inward, nearly knocking me to the floor. My ex came bursting in, furious and violent. He grabbed me when I tried to run away. I wrenched myself away from him and raced up the stairs. I got to the bedroom before him and managed to shut the door and lock myself in. I raced to the phone and dialed 9-1-1. On the other side of the door, my ex was screaming that he had a knife, and he would kill me and then kill himself. I stammered the situation out to the 9-1-1 operator, simultaneously yelling to my ex that I had called the police. The yelling and pounding continued for a few more minutes, until sirens could be heard approaching.

All of a sudden, there was silence. Then I heard a voice I didn’t recognize calling from downstairs, “Ma’am?” I unlocked the bedroom door and peeked out - my ex was gone. I looked over the railing down to the front door, and saw two officers with guns drawn, cautiously entering the house. I called down that I thought my ex was gone, but they made me stay locked in the bedroom until they had checked the entire house, upstairs and down, all the closets, the garage, and the front and back yards.

I explained the situation to them and told them where my ex was staying. One officer left to track him down. The other officer asked if I had a light bulb for the front porch fixture. I said that I didn’t. So he left for a few minutes and came back with a light bulb he had purchased from a store down the street, which he then installed himself. I was so grateful to the police for their response that night that I was bawling my eyes out by the time the poor officer left. My ex’s viciousness didn’t break me down, but this act of kindness did.

The other officer found my ex where I said he would be, and my ex was promptly arrested for violating the TRO, breaking and entering (since the TRO specified that I had possession of the house), and assault (because he had threatened to kill me). He spent a couple of days in jail for his pains.

Not long after my ex was let out of jail, I was eager to remove him even further from my life. His belongings surrounded me at my house and I wanted it all out. Since I knew the provisions of the restraining order allowed for one opportunity for my ex to pick up his belongings, Calvin and I met my ex and his sister and her husband at my house so that he could do so. An argument ensued, my ex got out of hand, broke some things and threw a mug at me, and I ended up having to call the police again. My ex was arrested again, but this time I was also served with an order to appear at court (just paperwork, no handcuffs and sirens for me!). I didn’t realize an officer had to be present when my ex got his belongings, and as such I had violated my own TRO. I thought having the other people present would be enough. Hell, I was twenty-two and didn’t know how ANY of this stuff worked. But, my ex had to spend another couple of nights in jail, while all I had to do was go to court and be told by the judge, “What the heck are you even doing here? Case dismissed.”

Things carried on. I think the few times he spent some time in jail finally persuaded my ex to keep his distance, somewhat. Also, I updated the TRO to include that not only could my ex not physically contact me, he could not call me or write to me or contact me in any other way. I changed my telephone number. My ex got a lawyer and responded to my filing by filing divorce papers of his own - demanding not only all physical assets, but spousal support as well. So I had to get a lawyer as well, to combat his ridiculousness.

My ex’s sister also had (still has) a job at AcronymCo (that I got for her several years before, go me), and her position was such that she had access to my personnel file. She obtained my new, changed phone number, and gave it to my ex. And their mother. Who called me INCESSANTLY, especially during the first few weeks of our separation, but even well beyond. Her questions were always the same - why was I leaving? Why wouldn’t I give it another chance? Why couldn’t I overlook my ex’s flaws and give him another chance? Then my father-in-law called (which was a big deal, since he didn’t usually participate in the hub of communication in the family), and told me that The Family and The Congregation and The Lord (in that order, I suppose) would FORGIVE me for my sins, if I would just reconcile and admit I was wrong.

Can you BELIEVE that shit?

Nothing I said to them, nothing I told them about their son’s behavior, registered with them. They absolutely refused to believe anything I had to say, and completely sided with my ex and whatever story he was telling them. Even my ex’s sister and her husband, who had witnessed some of his nonsense, sided with him. Apparently I had “changed”. Obviously I was “ill” to be behaving the way I was. They urged me to seek medical and psychological help so that I could “find my way back”.

Holy shit on a cracker. Those fucked up people.

I talked to Grandma on a regular basis, too. Now SHE supported me, wholeheartedly. I told her a supremely edited version of what had been happening (I was three thousand miles away and on my own, and I didn’t want her to worry, the sweet old lady), and the kind of person my ex turned out to be. When I told her I was divorcing him she said, “Good! You do what you need to do. Do you need anything?” And the constant refrain that had begun almost as soon as I left back in ‘93… “When are you coming home?” (Actually, it was September of 1998 before I could actually get back to Maine for a visit… by that time Calvin and I were together, and OH MY LORD did Grandma LOVE HIM.)

So, life progressed, as it has a way of doing. The phone calls and psychotic messages slowed down a bit, but my ex would still randomly appear - parked across the street when I was at a store, circling the AcronymCo parking lot in his car, driving by the house at all hours. So I got a gun (a Lady Smith and Wesson 9mm, which I simultaneously love and am kind of afraid of), and I learned how to use it. Thank God I never had to, but having a weapon goes a long way toward making a girl living all alone with a crazy ex on the loose feel a lot safer.

I heard from my lawyer that my ex’s lawyer had dropped his case. That coincided with the time that my ex kind of fell off the face of the Earth. Which was fine by me - what did I care if my ex was letting court summons pass him by, and letting paperwork revisions go ignored? He was AWAY FROM ME and that was all that mattered.

I spent a GLORIOUS weekend finally removing all of the junk computer equipment from my home. By this time the stacks and piles had migrated to “his” computer room, all the closets, and the entire garage. Calvin and his kids (Marie and Michael, aged eight and thirteen respectively at the time) came over and helped me transfer armful after armful of CRAP from the house to a pile in the side yard. I hired “the guy” to come and haul it all away. OH MY GOD YOU GUYS THAT FELT SO GOOD. You have no idea. Well, maybe you can guess.

I went shopping for new clothes (omg!). I bought a bicycle (one of those random weird items my ex forbid me to purchase). I got a puppy (GYPSY! Should have gotten a Rottweiler but I always wanted a Beagle). I nested. I went to the gym. I got my hair styled. I took all of my books out of storage and put them on the bookshelves that used to be entirely occupied by my ex’s programming texts. I cooked every single dish that I loved and pestered my Grandmother for all of her recipes. I went out with friends. I traded in the piece of junk my ex left for me to drive (he took the “good” car) for a brand-new Camaro - the first new car I’d ever owned. I delighted in just driving around listening to music. Oh, man, did I buy a TON of CD’s.

I got a tattoo. Heh. And a navel piercing. Heh again. I started rocking my true personality. My true self. Man, that was one of the best times of my life. It. Was. AWESOME. It still brings a smile to my face.

Every now and then I would get a call from my ex. He’d say he was in Florida. Then he’d say he was in California. Then he’d be back in Maine with his parents. Or else he wouldn’t tell me at all where he was. Since I was trying to get our divorce finalized, I’d take these calls. A couple of times he behaved as if he was planning on killing himself as soon as he hung up the phone. I fell for it… ONCE. The first time he called back with a “FOOLED YOU! YOU STILL CARE!” I set that misguided belief straight right away. I’m ashamed to say that I was angry at being played, and said back to him, “You know what? BLOW YOURSELF AWAY. I couldn’t care less.”

For months, my lawyer was sending paperwork everywhere we thought we could intercept my ex. His sister’s house, his friend’s house, his parent’s house. My ex didn’t respond to anything. I don’t think my ex realized that there was a one-year statute of limitations for him to respond to a petition of divorce. The final court date was approaching, and my lawyer and I made a last-ditch effort. I had to announce my intent to divorce in the paper. More documents were sent to all the addresses we had available - even the paternal aunt he stayed with in Maryland.

There was absolute silence, for once, from my ex.

On February 12, 1998, I met my lawyer in the judge’s chambers at the Maricopa County court. She reviewed the petition with us. She asked where my ex was. We explained all that we went through trying to get him to participate in his own divorce. She reviewed the statutes. Then she signed the document, stamped it, and said, “You’re divorced in absentia.”

Blink.

I figured there’d be an extension. I figured there would be more rounds of documents and trying to track my ex down. It was obvious that he was trying to prevent the divorce by avoiding it altogether. It didn’t work.

After ALL THE DRAMA I’d gone through for YEARS, from the beginning of our relationship until that point, the finalization of our divorce was kind of anticlimactic. I drove back to work from the court house in a daze. Nothing had changed from how my life was when I woke up that morning, but at the same time EVERYTHING had changed.

Irony of ironies, after several months of not hearing anything from my ex, he called me at work the very afternoon that we were officially divorced. He wanted to “try again”. He missed me. He thought that after so much time apart maybe I was missing him too. I said, “Not only would my answer be “no”, but it’s too late. We were officially divorced this morning.” He freaked out, and then hung up on me.

Fini.

Now, after ALL this stuff, my ex didn’t just drop out of my life forever. I know that he wandered as a homeless person in California for a number of months, before coming back to Arizona and moving in permanently with his sister. His parents moved to Arizona from Maine, and also moved in with my ex’s sister. The whole family is currently living a couple of towns away from me. For years I got what I call my “Annual Asshole Update”, in which my ex would call me and inform me of how much BETTER his life is without me, and how much he despises and pities me. There were also several e-mail exchanges, and his merry little bonfire back in ‘04. The last I heard from him was February of 2006 - a fun little e-mail which he wrote while he was “completely BLITZED” (words and capitalization his), in which he was STILL making “recommendations” on how I should live my life. I read it over again every now and then when I need a good chuckle.

Things have settled out. I am no longer looking over my shoulder. My ex went from the intimidating figure he used to be, to a pathetic bully that has no hold on my anymore. Dude, I could so totally take him. Still, I sometimes worry that there are long-lasting effects of my experiences (with him, with his family, with the Witnesses) that are going to pop up and smack me upside the head in the future. Some buried craziness or phobia or reaction that will come rushing up and burst out of me like that alien creature in the movie. Did I need more therapy? Was my self-imposed therapy (writing in my old hand written journals and here, talking about it and dissecting it with Calvin) enough to keep me from going crazy?

Eh. I think I’m fine. We are the sum of our experiences, and my experiences have served to make me a stronger, more together person. So even though it SUCKED to go through everything I did with my ex, I’m actually grateful for the things I’ve learned. I like the person I am today, and that person wouldn’t exist without the years that I lived that whole experience.

Still, if you can avoid brainwashing religions, marrying a crazy man, and marrying into a crazy family, I would highly recommend it.

THE END… NOT! There are so many more stories. I’m on a roll now, people! But this particular story starring my ex has now drawn to a close! Finally! Thanks for hanging in there.