Happy Thursday, bitches! It's November! Mid-to-late November!
I don't really have much to say lately. I'm plugging along, just working, going home, working out (not as often as I should), getting into The Wire, enjoying the Trail Blazers, seeing the kids every couple days at the very least. All the divorce paperwork is done, the manditory "parenting after divorce" class taken, the paperwork refiled - TWICE - because the ex didn't bother to read her own lawyer's work.
Mistake one: they screwed up the child support. In my favor. Could have really helped the finances, but that's not how I roll. Not when the kids are involved. Mistake two: they put in a line to give the wife back her old name. Not a big deal to me. Except they moved to put her back to her LAST last name, which was the married name from go-round number 1. She didn't even catch it until I told her, a week after the papers were filed with the court.
"They wrote WHAT? And you knew? Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I assumed you read the documents, and it's none of my business. It was your former professional name, so I figured you wanted to go back to it."
Oy.
So I should be divorced any time now. May even already be done. Yippee.
So anyway, I won a couple tickets to a show at Doug Fir for Saturday night. Just sent in an email off their weekly newsletter, not even sure who the band is. And I decided - well shit. I'm free to be a grown up without kids until Sunday evening. And I don't have plans. And it was the end of the workday. And the girl from work, she of the shit-eat dilemma, was walking by, heading home. So I said goodnight to her, then called her into my office. And the conversation went something like this:
So. So much for that. It may have been the fastest rejection in the history of the world."Hey, do you have plans this wee..."
"Yes"
But for the first time in 15-20 years I made an attempt at asking somebody out. And despite the crushing rejection and the body shot to my already-damaged ego I feel ok about it, because I fucking TRIED. And for me that's a huge step. I'm still going to die alone with no human contact for the last 5 or 6 decades of my life, but at least I will have tried.
May still see the old friend this weekend, but really isn't looking like a hookup at all.
I post this only for those of you charting my sex life with charts and graphs and powerpoint presentations. No need to make any adjustments to your calculations.
Trying to decide to and/or get up the courage to ask out somebody...in the workplace.
She's a medical assistant in the neighboring department, 29. Very perky, petite, frankly kind of bug-eyed but cute in an unusual way. Seems younger than her age, which could be good or bad. Intellectually perhaps not a match (but I don't know that for sure). Very girly, but more Suicide Girl than Barbie.
But she's fun, has a great body and is always coming into my office to shoot the shit and joke around. I think she's single, or at least she hasn't taken the opportunity to declare any boyfriends (and I've tried to give her chances to talk about things like that).
This could of course cause a shit/eat conflict, which I'm leery of. Oh, and I haven't actually asked somebody out on an honest-to-god date since - and this is not hyperbole - 1989, when I took a girl from Lombard to see Rain Man. I don't count asking people to dances, nor do I count the women I wound up with through natural progression or whatever. I'm talking about "Would you like to do something with me Saturday night? Maybe dinner, a movie?"
The prospect terrifies me.
But this girl is cute, and fun. And I could use some of that.
Attractive, interesting friend coming into town in a couple weeks. Possibly a hook up, maybe even probably.
Calendar check: it's a kid weekend.
Heading out to have dinner at a friend's new place. Should be a nice time. Wine, giggles, maybe watch a movie.
But of course it will be a platonic evening. She's attractive, interesting, but boundaries were drawn long ago on this one.
I'm beginning to suspect that I'm going to have to really take a step out of my comfort zone if I ever hope to have a non-platonic relationship ever again.
The San Francisco Bay Area weekend summary:
- Night prior: 3.5 hours of sleep
- Early morning: PDX, A+ for Horizon Airlines. Seriously. SO easy.
- Mid morning: Long looping drive from OAK into SF. Over Golden Gate. Enjoyed.
- Late morning: San Rafael check in. Nap.
- Mid afternoon: Wedding party. Sweating. Drinking. Meeting lots of people recognized from facebook. Laughter.
- Late afternoon: Talking to cute woman in hot dress. Best chance for connection?
- Minutes later: Odd sense of humor not understood and/or appreciated. Fuck it.
- Evening: Hotel. Alone. Movie. Room Service.
- Mid morning: awake late. Stare at football game. Decide to not visit friends in the city. Too far, no time.
- Noon: Check out. Gigantic turkey sandwich consumed.
- Afternoon: Back to friend's home/party location. Sit by lovely pool for hours. Enjoy view of golden hills. Blood orange soda mixed with pinot noir? Not my idea, but surprisingly not shitty. Relaxing: si.
- Mid afternoon: to OAK.
- Late afternoon: Zero TSA line. A- for Horizon Airlines.
- Flight: Old lady, why in the fucking hell did you decide that it was a good idea to bring really fragrant Chinese food on the airplane? I mean come ON. Eat your goddamned potsticker before sitting next to me on this tiny regional jet. I like Chinese, but this is too much. You're 11 inches away from me. Mind your chopsticks.
- Night: Home. Quiet. Deeply unsatisfied. Also, a fish in the tank has died.
Nonspecific longing anticipated for the week ahead. Not for the fish. Although probably that, too.
I've written about 100 blog posts in my head since I last committed one to the screen. Not sure why they never made it this far. A chance to unleash creative energy and/or miserable blathering...lost.
Got served with divorce papers today. It wasn't a complete surprise. I mean she told me about 2.5 years ago that she had a lawyer. I moved out 7 months ago. I knew how this was going to end. The FE-W had warned me the papers were coming (she signed on 9/11...NEVER FORGET), and was kind enough to have her lawyer do it through the mail rather than serve me in person at work or some bullshit like that.
I'm so ready to be done with this thing, but I was still pissed off. It is a huge stack of paperwork. She has a lawyer, I can't really afford the multiple thousands it would take just to get one. We're playing nice, joint custody, no disputes over belongings. We gots us some ol' irreconcilable differences but we wish each other well. And she's being exceptionally reasonable. She even is asking for 25% less child support than she could in theory get based on the state calculator. She knows I'm giving pretty much everything I can within reason.
But to fill out the state-mandated worksheet on child support her lawyer used a salary that isn't accurate by...a lot. Starting this month I've been in my job for one year and my guaranteed salary is done. I work on production. See patients, get paid. See no patients, get no money. See more patients, get more money. I think the potential is there to make a fair bit more than my guarantee from year one (I've been above that threshold for a couple months) but it's really variable, especially in this economy, and I have no way to predict how much I'll really make. Past pay stubs don't accurately reflect my future earnings.
So even though our divorce agreement specifically states I'll be paying less than I could, I'm afraid that the salary they used on the final paperwork could come back to haunt me years down the line if she asks for more.
"But I don't have more"
"But the divorce paperwork you signed says you do"
So I need some legal advice. Cheap, preferably free. A friend's mother is a paralegal, apparently a good one, and I called my friend to find out what exactly a paralegal does and if one would be useful in looking over the paperwork to make sure I'm not walking into a trap. And then her mom offered to take a look at the documents. Mighty kind of her, truly. I didn't make the call for that purpose. I feel like I'm getting back just a little good karma. Not sure if I deserve any good karma, but I'm not opposed to it just the same.
In other news, going to the Bay Area this weekend to celebrate the wedding of a good friend. Going solo. To a wedding party. In another, romantic city. Where everyone else will be coupled. I love my friend dearly, because otherwise I wouldn't be doing this to myself. Sigh. I'm feeling so ready to move on. Just have to wait 180 days to make it official. But in the meantime I could go for some romance. Some excitement. Some anything. I'm ready to ease back into the pool.
i was walking home from some errand downtown. the town was sparse and i was by myself on the streets.
i am in my head so much sometimes. i am so surprised at how good i have become at not giving anything away. nothing slips out and little comes in. i'm drifting, i was walking down the street.
and someone had gone to town with sidewalk chalk the night before. most of the drawings and scrawl was uninteresting: a spiral, a face, a penis. as i walked i saw that someone had drawn a large heart in the sidewalk, with an "i" above it and my name beneath. i was just walking down the street and someone had written "i love david" in the sidewalk.
and i burst out crying and didn't pull myself together for over a block.
i dreamed it was you in some inconceivable drunken blackout spree. that it came from some dark and safe corner where no one would ever remember it but it would still be true.
which is just the stupidest thing when i think about it.
it doesn't make it any less important or significant to me, though.
at the edge of this diabolical street artist's work were large letters capping it all off. they read, "all hail cthulu". which i have to say was a nice touch. leave it to a lovecraft reference in sidewalk chalk to lend me the perspective i was looking for.
the message read:
i really regret ever dating you
it was from someone i don't have that many emotions tied to and i'm happy i'm not dating anymore, mostly due to the fact that this person says hurtful shit when she feels like she's entitled to it. we didn't date for long and i hadn't seen her in a month or more. she was leaving town the day after i spoke with her, i'm pretty sure the spite was unnecessary.
though, to be fair, i had just told her she should go get checked for chlamydia.
which sucks for anyone who's ever received or needed to make that phone call. and i can sympathize with feelings of anger, of feeling like someone else fucked with your world with their irresponsible behavior. and anger at oneself when you realize you may have fulfilled that very role for someone else. though i have to say, it feels sort of grownup and funny now that it's all said and done.
i'm glad i don't date this person anymore and i'm glad she left town. and i'm pretty sure the only reason for someone to send a message like that would be to hurt someone.
but goddamn, that one stuck with me. and in the past couple days, along with an accompaniment of related noise, that message bounced around my head quite a bit. it's severe and petty and i realize it's been a long time since i elicited such vitriol from someone. sigh.
oh, and just so it's been said, i no longer have crawlies in my jollies.
(that's my story about the clap)
