Goodbye, 2008

Happy End to 2008!

If this wasn't the worst year of my life, it was at least in the top two. The last time I went through something like this was in 1991. Like cicadas, my depressions are on a 17-year cycle. I expect rough times again in 2025.

The good news is that I've bounced back a little from my lowest point on Sunday. It's nothing so dramatic as being saved by an angel trying to earn his wings, but I got a reality check and realized things are never so black and white. I have a gracious family that loves and supports me. I may have my faults and be annoying and obnoxious at times, but I do add value.

The good thing about hitting rock bottom is that it lowers your expectations. Doing things like getting out of bed or shopping for groceries or feeding your cats are accomplishments you can be proud of. And as someone pointed out, depression is easy to treat. It's the easiest mental illness to cure.

After holiday travels it feels good to be home again. There are lots of diversions here that allow me to escape the real world.

Tonight I've been invited to a New Year's Eve party by my friend who works in SnarkEx's office. I met him at one of her office parties a year ago. He and his wife have been a great source of support this past year. They're throwing a party tonight, and although they're inviting a lot of office people, SnarkEx is not on their list. They prefer my company to hers. So I've got that going for me.

I'm looking forward to the party and saying goodbye to the worst year of my life.

My George Bailey Moment

This year for Christmas there were only two things that I wished for:

1. That SnarkEx would have a miserable holiday

2. That I would start liking myself again

Now it's to the point that I don't have enough energy for my first wish. I'm too busy trying to fend off my own self-loathing.

Five years ago, the last time I tried internet dating, I could choose from lots of good pictures of myself to post on my profile. The person I saw staring back at me looked confident and fun. I can't find any pictures of myself from the past year that give me that same feeling. I don't like the person in those pictures any more.

I'm having a George Bailey moment, pre-Clarence. I've realized in the past few weeks that I don't like myself. I don't know if I have anything to offer the world.

I failed as a husband. I'm a whiny, burdensome brother. I criticize. I'm no good at dating. I throw tantrums on the tennis court, even when I'm determined not to. I'm a bad uncle who takes no interest in the lives of his nephews and nieces. I take my family for granted. I'm a slacker at my uninspiring job. I say the wrong things. I'm not good at giving. I sabotage potential new friendships with my neediness.

I add no value.

In nine months I've made no progress toward being a better person and getting over my divorce. In fact, I've gone in the wrong direction. I've become more of an asshole.

Have you ever been so tired that you couldn't sleep? So hungry that you couldn't eat? Right now I don't think I could recognize my own personal Clarence if he knocked on my door. Which he won't, because life is not a movie.

Real life is not always so wonderful.

Mocked By Commerce

Microbiology.com is mocking me.

Not on purpose, of course. They just want my online dating business. So they keep sending me emails that say things like, "Don't let your dating life go on holiday" and "Warm up your winter with Microbiology" and "Find someone to be thankful for in Snarktown" and "Who needs mistletoe when you have Microbiology?" and "Ring in the New Year with a kiss!"

They may think that this is great marketing, but all of their invitations to find love just taunt me. Because I've tried their site. I've tried all of them.

No one is interested in me.

I resent how easy they make it sound. As if all I have to do is pay $49.99 a month and I can have all the love I want.

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There was a billboard in my town a few months ago that declared, Married people earn more money. Underneath that was the slogan Marriage Works.

Apparently the sign was sponsored by a misguided campaign to lower teenage pregnancy rates. (How does encouraging marriage prevent pregnancy? Wouldn't birth control be a better solution?) Other billboards in the series claim that married people:

• live longer
• enjoy better health
• have lower rates of substance abuse
• are happier
  

Thanks for calling me a loser, billboard.

Hey, I know being married is better than being single. You don't have to convince me. But the sign implies that getting married is as easy as opening up a savings account. There are legions of people who would love to get married, but haven't found the right person yet. Or who tried marriage and failed. (And what about gays, who can't legally get married?) Way to taunt all those lonely people!

This is like putting a billboard in a poor neighborhood that says, "Rich people are happier. Wealth Works." Oh, is that all poor people need to do? They should just get rich!

I know that I'm not the target audience for the billboard, but it still pisses me off. If Marriage Works so well, then why do I see divorce all around me?

Masochist

Famous Lines From My Divorce, Vol 5:

Me: Are you interested in Skeezgeek?
SnarkEx: [Pause] Yes.
Me: Has anything happened with him yet?
SnarkEx: [Pause] No.... [She looks like she's struggling to decide whether to tell me something, or how to say it.]
Me: Well, let me just say right now that if you do hook up with him, that's a deal breaker for me.
SnarkEx: [Visibly angry] I'm not coming back. I don't love you.

My theory is that she was caught with her hand in the cookie jar, but I'll leave that up the ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

Skeezgeek is a friend of SnarkEx's. I never liked him. He's a weird mixture of obnoxious, creepy, and geeky. He wears pieces of flare everywhere he goes; a grown man who goes around wearing dozens of buttons on his jacket and kitschy objects hanging around his neck. In the weeks leading up to SnarkEx moving out, she was on the phone with him a lot. Ironically, his wife had just left him.

Prior to that, I can't remember her ever talking to him on the phone, so it's not like he was her BFF. Skeezgeek had been the roommate of SnarkEx's ex-boyfriend-- the one she dated for two years before she met me. After they broke up, SnarkEx remained friends with her ex and his large circle of friends.

One time I came home and SnarkEx was on the phone. At the end of the call she said, "I love you, too." I thought she was talking to her parents or brother. I asked her who it was and she said Skeezgeek. My skin crawled. Did she just tell another man, who's not been a big part of her life the past three years, that she loved him?

And Skeezgeek, of all people? Her attraction to the Committee Chairman I could at least understand. He was charismatic and compelling. But the Skeezgeek thing made me seriously question her judgement. As one friend remarked, "I hope she has better taste in men than to date that freak."

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When I was a kid I used to take a toothpick and work it around my teeth and gums til they would bleed.

I don't know why I did it. I must have liked the sensation. I didn't do it very often, and grew out of the phase pretty quickly. At any rate, I know I haven't done it in at least 25 years.

These days, if I want to have a sensation similar to jabbing my gums until they bleed, I do things like check SnarkEx's online journal. Which I did today.

For the past eight months I've been good. I hadn't checked the site since last April, back when she was still trying to convince people we were just in a trial separation. Back then I was still part of her "friends" network, so I could read her private posts.

She wrote about our separation, saying things like "This has been a long time coming" and "I'm not optimistic." Long time coming? Really? That's news to me. I guess statements like "I'm so happy to be married to you" were just a diversion.

The worst thing I read on her online journal involved Skeezgeek. We were separated and she wrote something like, "I feel loved because Snark called me last night." I read that the day after I had called her in the hope of possible reconciliation. At first it made me feel great. Unfortunately, Skeezgeek and I have the same first name (which for the purposes of this blog is "Snark.") So Skeezgeek felt the need to comment on her post, "That was me Snark, not the other Snark." I checked the date on her post. It had been written two days earlier, before I had made my phone call. SnarkEx confirmed this in her comment-reply to Skeezgeek, and I think she also took a dig at me, but I don't remember what she said exactly.

This was devastating for two reasons: 1.) She wasn't happy that I had called her after all, and 2.) She was happy (felt loved) that Skeezgeek had called her. And let's throw in an extra helping of obnoxiousness that Skeezgeek had to point out this difference in his comment. See! Me! I'm the Snark she likes! He's just the other Snark.

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Yesterday I was bored at work, since the semester is coming to a close and I've had one reference question over the past four days. So I logged into the social networking/blogging site where SnarkEx has her journal. I have a few of my own friends there, too.

I read SnarkEx's most recent public post. (In the meantime she's removed me from her "friends" network, so I can't read her private posts.) At Thanksgiving she wrote about all the things she was thankful for. Apparently she got a new kitten and has a new car. She was also looking forward to seeing her friends, including [shudder] Skeezgeek. She certainly didn't indicate any sense of pain or loneliness.

Reading all this upset my innards and jumbled up my nerves. My pulse quickened and a knot settled in my stomach.

Then I realized that her life might not be as rosy and she presents it in a pubic post. She's always hid her real emotions from public view. In fact, she's so good at hiding her feelings, you might live with her for three years and believe her when she says over and over again how happy she is to have you in her life, only to have her up and leave one day.

Always A New Set

I've been a tennis slump lately. After winning my league and going 12-0 to start the indoor season, I've lost five consecutive league matches. Since I moved up to a higher league, the competition has been a lot tougher, but I also feel like I've lost my mojo. I'm losing the close games that I used to win.

Last week I played a guy that I've been wanting to play all season long. He's new to the tennis center this year, and while I was winning my league, he was tearing through the league below me. So when we met in a different league at the other tennis center in town, it was a match-up of champions.

He kicked my ass, beating me 6-1, 6-3 and leaving me with a hopeless feeling that he had no weakness. (It was my second worst defeat of the season. My worst match was when I played a short, slight 76-year-old who is ranked nationally in his age group. He beat me 6-1, 6-0 and I'm still trying to figure out what happened.)

A week later I challenged him to an unofficial rematch when one of my league opponents had to cancel. The first time he beat me, I was just recovering from my cold/flu and I didn't feel like I had a whole lot of energy. Maybe we would be better matched when I was healthy, I told myself.

I wasn't better matched. This time he beat me, 6-2, 6-2. I felt like I played better, but he was just too good. There was no chink in his armor. I knew I would need to improve a lot to be competitive with him.

Since we had payed for two hours of court time, we decided to keep playing. He beat me again in a quick third set, 6-1. We still had about 20 minutes left, so I said, "If you want to keep playing, I'm ready for more punishment."

So we played a meaningless fourth set. And after losing spectacularly to this guy for five straight sets, I finally found a weakness in his game and was able to exploit it. I was leading 5-1 when our time ran out. I don't know if my new strategy would have worked when he was fresh, but at least I had won a little bit of my confidence back as we walked off the court.

In life, as in tennis, there is always a new set, a new beginning, where you can shake off your losses and try again. No matter how badly you lost in the last set, the score is always 0-0 at the beginning of a new one.

If I keep plugging away, there's always a chance I'll find my mojo again.

Kindly Atheist Stangers

"What the hell am I doing?" I thought to myself as I pulled off the highway at a small town about ten miles outside of SnarkCity.

It was one of my new "divorced activities"-- something that I would never be doing if I were still married. I was driving to a party of atheist strangers that had been advertised on a "Freethinkers" website. It was the fourth time I've tried to attend one of their events. The first two times I chickened out; the last time I attended a meeting at the public library where they showed some video clips, but I left before they were done and didn't talk to anyone.

So their Christmas party, also advertised as a Winter Solstice gathering and a Festivus celebration (they did have a Festivus pole there) was on Saturday night at one of their members' houses. The house was just off the highway in the small suburban town of Saint Snark that was a dark 20-minute drive from my home. (The irony of having an atheist meeting in a town called Saint Snark was lost on me until I told a friend about it.)

When I got off the highway, I drove through dark country roads to find the address. I was nervous about going to a house of strangers and wondered if the police would ever find my body. When I came to the address, I saw a big sign in the window that said Welcome, which put me at ease. It also put me at ease that my car was the third Prius to park on the road in front of the house. I think I may have found my people, I thought.

There were a dozen adults at the party, standing around the kitchen drinking beer, eating barbecue meatballs and cheese cubes, and chatting. (Various kids ran passed as we talked.) They were all very nice and welcoming. I even knew one guy-- someone who I worked with at a small company eight years ago. Another lady there was a librarian at the local university. So we talked shop. I'm not usually the life of a party, but I'm no wallflower and wasn't afraid to jump into the conversation, and even hold forth at times.

I contributed a six-pack of Leinenkugel's Fireside Nut Brown, which I loved for the name alone. The beer was good, too.

I didn't make any best friends or meet the love of my life, but it was a pretty good time that was worth three hours on a Saturday night. And I think I found a new social club where I'll have something to do once a month.

So I've got that going for me.

Holidays

All the divorce blogs agree: the first holiday season after your divorce sucks.

SnarkEx and I used to own a small fake tree. Last year we put it on top of a bookcase. It might still be in the closet in the spare bedroom where we stored all of our Christmas decorations. I don't know how much of that stuff she took and what she left. I haven't checked.

SnarkEx was the one who always initiated the Christmas decor in our home. She came into the relationship with more Christmas stuff than I did. The only thing I brought to the marriage was my "Sphere of Joy," a globe-shaped object made of plastic cups and Christmas lights glued together that my mom and her second husband made for all of us in the mid-90's. When I was single, it was the only thing I would hang up at Christmastime. It didn't survive the marriage-- I threw it out a few years ago. (I did manage to keep my Sphere of Joy longer than any of my siblings, so I should get credit for that.)

There are no reminders of the holiday season in my apartment this year. I have listened to a few of my Christmas CDs, but they haven't put me in a holiday spirit. It's not that I'm making a big effort to avoid Christmas, I'm just not really inspired this year. I don't miss it. It's already the middle of December, Christmas is less than two weeks away, and I keep forgetting about it.

I'll be able to spend Christmas day with my brother's family, so I should be alright there. And I'll be driving to my home state for the SnarkFamily Christmas. It will be nice not having to go down south to celebrate the holidays with SnarkEx's family. Last year it was 60 degrees when her parents picked us up from the airport. That's a ridiculous temperature for Christmas.

I heard from one of my informants that SnarkEx was worried about being lonely on Thanksgiving. Good. She should be lonely. She had a loving and supportive husband and she decided to throw him to the curb for some vague sense of "not getting what [she] needs."

I wonder if she's getting what she "needs" now.

Blogger's Remorse

I'm often gripped by a sense of unease when I publish a post on this blog. (In fact, I'm feeling it right now with this post.) I worry that I've revealed too much of myself, that I've gone too far with a sick joke, or that I've said the wrong thing about someone else.*

My last two posts have made me feel uneasy, but for different reasons.

When I wrote about VetStudent, I was under the impression that he was indeed interested in hanging out with me socially. Since then a different scenario has popped into my head-- one that terrifies and embarrasses me. He said that he had responded to my invitation to come and see my cat (and maybe have a beer), but I never got the message. So I don't know what he said in his response. He might have said, "Yeah, I can look at your cat, but I can't do the social stuff."

But I was going under the assumption that he was amenable to hanging out socially. So yesterday I sent him another email request to have him look at my cat. And I repeated my invitation to do something afterward. He hasn't responded.

If he never had any interest in hanging out socially, then I feel like a real dork for making the offer twice. And an even dorkier dork for having blogged about a potential friendship like I'm some insecure 7th-grader. "Maybe he'll be my friend!" I'm in my 30's for christsake. Why should making friends be such a drama?

I went to a workout at the tennis center last night and VetStudent didn't show. He's usually there, which makes me think, under my current paranoid scenario, that now he's avoiding me.

But the Asshat Guy was at the workout, which reminded me of my second uneasy blog post of the week. If he were to somehow, some way, discover this blog, I would be mortified. (I'd probably be mortified if VetStudent found it, too.) It's never a good prospect to have to confront someone you've referred to as an asshat. But I consider this blog like my best friend. I can tell it (almost) anything. And sometimes you just want to gossip with your best friend about people who annoy you.

Still, there's that slight twinge of unease that somewhere, in print, is proof that I was talking shit about someone that I interact with regularly.

Also at the workout last night was TennisGrrrl. She's another person who I'd be mortified if she read this blog. Not necessarily because I said bad things about her, but because she'd see how much I obsessed about her last summer. She recently friended me on Facebook. (Asshat Guy had friended both of us, so she found me through him.) Through my Facebook profile, she discovered my public blog, and told me what a good writer I was. (It always amazes me that people find the long, tedious and narcissistic accounts of my life interesting.)

So all three of these people, VetStudent, Asshat Guy, and TennisGrrrl have access to my public blog. Although there are no direct links between this blog and that one, it feels like they're one step closer to finding this one; to discovering the contents of my black soul.

And that makes me uneasy.

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*This does not include dishing on SnarkEx. I've never had any guilt whatsoever about writing about her. She gave up all rights to discretion when she unilaterally decided to abandon our marriage. Besides, I'm still too pissed at her to respect her privacy.

Right?

Following the theme this week of People I Play Tennis With, another guy I play with is kind of an asshat. This is not just my opinion, but the view of many other people I've gossiped with. He's arrogant and makes offensive comments during matches, like "You should thank me for giving you that game." He gives the impression that he thinks he's better than you, even when you routinely beat him (like I do.) He does have some really amazing shots, much better than anything I can do, but he's so inconsistent that he often loses to people who he thinks are beneath him (like me.)

For some reason, I had this weird vibe that he was a devout Christian. I didn't have evidence for this. He never mentioned Jesus to me, never made any statements that belied a rightwing Christian ideology, never talked about prayer or God. He never even made a passing reference about going to church when we tried to schedule matches. I just had a hunch. I told another tennis friend about my theory, but he didn't buy it.

(I don't mean to imply that his asshatitude and his Christian vibes have anything to do with each other. I know many devout Christians who are not asshats, and many asshats who are not devout Christians.)

So the other day the Asshat Guy "friended" me on Facebook. When I looked at his profile, he listed the following information:

Political Views: Republican Party
Religion: Christian
Favorite Music: Christian (most all types...)
Favorite Book: The Bible
Member of: One Body of Christ Experiment

When I told my tennis friend about this, he said, "Wow, you can really sniff out the Jesus freak, can't you?"

There was another time when I went out to dinner with friends, and after our waitress took our order I said, "I'll bet she's new." They all disagreed. No, she's doing a great job. I didn't disagree that she was a competent waitress, I just had a vibe that she hadn't been doing this very long.

When she brought the check there was a slight mix-up and she said, "Sorry, this is my first day."

I was right again.

My hunches are not always right, but I'm often pretty good at picking up on subtle clues and figuring out stuff. (Try watching a mystery movie with me.) The truth is my hunches are probably wrong as often as they're right, I just don't remember the misses.

But when I'm absolutely sure of something-- and it doesn't happen very often because I'm not usually so sure of myself-- I almost always turn out to be right. So when SnarkEx and I would get into an argument about facts (not about feelings, which is a whole other issue), I would remind her of this: I'm always right.

And I would be.

Sometimes it's a curse always being right. People resent you for it. It must have been hard to be married to me for that reason. Maybe that's why she left me. Or maybe it's because I was an asshat who pointed out that I was always right.

Check that-- I was almost always right. I was convinced SnarkEx was the type of person who took her vows seriously and was dedicated to her marriage.

In that, I was wrong.

Missed Messages

A guy I play tennis with is a student in veterinary medicine. So last week when we were playing doubles I told him about my dying cat.

He listened with a concerned and sympathetic ear and said afterward that if I had any more questions or needed further advice he'd be happy to help.

I'm not really good at asking for or accepting help, but when SnarKitty took a turn for the worse last week I decided to take VetStudent up on his offer. I sent him an email and asked for advice on what to do. I even sent him a link to my public blog (yes, there is another) where I had written a summary of all the problems SnarKitty had had over the past six months.

I was a little worried that I had shared too much or was taking advantage of his offer to help, so I was releived when he sent a long message back full of good advice and questions to ask myself about SnarKitty's condition. He also offered to talk with me over the phone and even come and see SnarKitty in person to examine her.

His advice made me realize how close The End was and I drove home from work trying to hold back a dam of emotion. I was ready to call my vet and make a decision. But when I got home, SnarKitty was her old self again. She greeted me at the door for the first time in weeks, talked to me and had a big appetite. Her will to live had returned.

I emailed VetStudent the good news. It was really great to have someone to talk to about my dying cat-- someone who appeared to take a professional and personal interest in her. And I realized that I enjoyed his personality on the tennis court. I don't know much about him, but so far he seemed like he could be a new friend. I had a good vibe about him. Maybe I could parlay SnarKitty's death into a new friendship-- it could be her parting gift to me.

So when I emailed VetStudent, I said I'd like to take him up on his offer to take a look at SnarKitty. And that I'd even be willing to buy him a beer or coffee in appreciation. I told him when I was available over the weekend, but added that I knew he was busy and if he didn't have much free time we could just see each other on Tuesday (when we'd be playing doubles again.)

I waited nervously for his reply.

It never came.

So then the second-guessing started. Did I overstep my bounds? Did I scare him away with the invitation to beer/coffee? Does he think I'm getting too friendly? Did I write/say something to offend him? Maybe his offer to see SnarKitty was just out of politeness, and he's trying to figure out how to get out of it?

I know that 99% of the time when something like this happens, it has nothing to do with me. Maybe he's busy or out of town for the weekend or hasn't checked his email or is trapped underneath a fallen bookcase. Whatever scenario I imagine, it never, ever turns out to be right one.

So after fretting for a day I got over it and went about my life.

Last night I saw VetStudent again for tennis. I learned a new word, necropsy, when he told me about having his whole arm up stuck up a dead cow in vet school that day. He asked about SnarKitty and I gave him a quick report. (She's still the same: probably dying, but not immediately.) Then he said, "Did you get the email I sent you? I said I was available Saturday or Sunday to come look at her..."

No, I didn't get any email. Of course that was a scenario I had never considered: he did answer my message but I never got it.

How many other times has this happened in my life? How many potential relationships/opportunities have been lost because of technical email glitches? Maybe some of the ladies on the dating sites did respond to my messages, but I never got them? What if SnarkEx had sent a message begging me to get back together, but I never got it? What if a prince from Nigeria was trying to transfer millions of dollars in funds to an American bank and wanted to give me a percentage for my help, but I never got the message?

I know it's probably unlikely that any real opportunities were lost this way. Even when messages are lost, if something is meant to be, it will work out. In the case of VetStudent, we were able to clear up the misunderstanding and last night we exchanged phone numbers and made tentative plans. So this glitch was not fatal to a possible friendship.

But it still gives me another thing to fret about. What other opportunities might I have missed?

What if a "nice lonely girl" is interested in my "man-pole" and sent me a link to her pics, but I never got the message?

Bussted

One advantage to being preoccupied lately with my dying cat (and my own cold/flu) is that I've been distracted from all the other issues in my life. But SnarKitty has rallied the last few days and seems to have walked away from death's door for the time being. So when I came home Saturday afternoon after running errands and tennis, I was able to turn my attention to another one of my many issues: my social life.

At 2:00 pm on Saturday I suddenly had Nothing To Do. It was the first time since before Thanksgiving that I've had such a wide open block of time. I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I caught up on some shows that I'd Tivoed, tried to nap, and played a computer game. But I felt uncomfortable that I didn't have any solid plans for the rest of the day.

I called four different people trying to line up something for the evening. Contacting people at the last minute always gives me a bad case of the Undecideds. Is it too late to call so-and-so to see if they want to go to dinner? Should I call person B while I'm still waiting to hear from person A? What do I do in the meantime?

Eventually it all worked out. Three friends called over the course of two hours. I ended up with two plans for the evening: I went to a party and then met up with my drinking buddies afterward. I hadn't gone out with them since Halloween, so I was really ready to get my drink on.

Perhaps too ready. It wasn't the five beers that did me in. Probably not even the minty shot that someone bought for the whole table. No, the taste that stayed in my sinuses the whole next day as my head ached and my stomach churned was the rum and coke that I drank because it was just sitting there, alone on a table. One of our group had bought it for someone else, who didn't want it. So I drank it. Big mistake. There might have even been two of them. It's a little fuzzy.

I do know that I was so "fuzzy" by 3:00 in the morning that there was no way I could drive home. I got a ride from someone and then passed out in bed. I woke up around 6:30, and after several trips to the bathroom* and then failing to sleep for the next two hours, I got out of bed. I had a lot to do that day. For some stupid reason I had put off all my household chores and errands to Sunday, even though I had spent a bored and restless Saturday afternoon doing nothing.

*I didn't puke. I've only puked once in my life from drinking. I usually know when to put on the brakes so it doesn't go that far.

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Now I was hungover and sleep deprived and had a list of 12 things I wanted to get done.

The first thing I needed to do, which wasn't even on the list, was to retrieve my car, which was still parked downtown.

Hey, there's a bus system in town! I hadn't used it in over five years, since I graduated from grad school. SnarkEx used to take the bus to work on occasion, so I knew there was a bus stop somewhere near our place. I couldn't find the bus schedule, which I assume SnarkEx took with her in the divorce. So I looked it up online and found out when and where the bus would be coming.

So at 9:50 on a cold, sunny Sunday morning I bundled up and walked across the strip mall next to my apartment. It was a calm, pleasant morning and it was nice to get out into the sun and fresh air, even if it was cold. I found the bus stop sign and waited. I had allowed too much time for the walk, so I was ten minutes early. Since I'd never taken this route before, I wasn't sure exactly where the bus would come. I kept crossing the street and walking around the intersection trying to figure out where I should stand. There was a schedule and a map on the website, but I didn't have the website with me. I was trying to work from memory. But there was a sign, so the bus had to come this way.

But it wasn't my sign. And it wasn't my bus. My bus came, right on time at 10:11, a block away from me. I watched it stop at the wrong (right?) intersection and then pull away, headed toward downtown and my car. Goddammit.

I walked over to where it had stopped. There was no bus stop sign. But I did recognize the street name. Oh, yeah, that's the intersection that's listed on the schedule. I had been standing on the wrong bus line.

Well, I knew another one would be coming, so I shlepped back home to look up the bus schedule again. On the way I considered calling someone and asking them to drive me to my car. But it was Sunday morning and the only people who wouldn't be at church would be just as hungover as I was. Plus it would be out of the way for everyone I knew, and why not just take the bus you lazy drunk?

Half an hour later I returned to the proper bus stop. But here was the next issue. On the schedule, it didn't list this location as a stop at this time. It listed stops before and after this one, but it was only supposed to stop at this location once an hour. The question was, does it take a different route, or does it just (theoretically) not stop here? Because the latter would not be a problem, considering it's at a stop sign and I could wave down the driver.

I waited. And waited. And waited. Because no time was listed for this stop, I didn't know when it would be here, if it came at all. I could only estimate based on when it was at the last stop. Also, I feared that I may have missed it completely, because I got there a little later than I meant to.

After about ten minutes I decided I must have missed it and started to trek back home again. Oh, I'll blog about this, I thought, as if that would get my revenge on the bus. As I was walking home, I saw the bus coming toward me. I tried to wave it down but I was, again, a block away from the stop. So I sprinted to the stop sign and waved my arms. Thankfully, the driver saw me and waited.

I stumbled onto the bus, ashen-faced, out of breath, cold, and hungover. I thanked the driver and paid my money. We rode through the streets of town while I tried to get my bearings. By the time the bus pulled into the downtown station, my hangover, lack of sleep, and outside adventure had all caught up with me. I was nauseous and weak and felt like I might either pass out or throw up.

Walking to my car cleared my head a little, but it was obvious I had no chance of running errands after that. I went home and laid down. I felt sick all day long, but managed to get the most dire of my chores done (grocery, laundry.)

When I went to bed, I saw that I had accomplished exactly half (6 of 12) of the things on my list.

This is what happens when a stupid little divorced man meets the evil drink.

Epiphany

Sometimes you can go weeks or months or years with certain assumptions, only to come to a sudden realization that they're wrong.

Maybe you spend a frustrating summer playing golf only to realize that it's really not good for you. Or you admit to yourself that you really like barbecue-flavored fried pork rinds. Or after years of clubbing it finally occurs to you that you're just a bad dancer.

Last night, on December 6, 2008, in my 38th year, I accepted that I hate winter.

I had just parked my car and was walking to a downtown bar when I had to stop at a traffic light. As the winter wind blew through my bones and my whole body clenched in response, my mind finally acknowledged what my body already knew: I hate this goddam weather.

Coming from a Midwesterner who grew up playing in the snow, this is almost heresy. I've always said I like Midwestern weather-- I like the change of seasons and the opportunity to wear seasonal clothing. There are certainly aspects of winter that I still like. I love the aesthetics of snow. Hot showers on a cold morning are one of life's joys. It's easier to sleep in cold weather than when it's warm. And don't forget snow days-- an academic's favorite friend.

But these things are overshadowed by the things I hate about winter.

I hate the shorter days and less sunlight. I hate all the time and energy I spend scraping ice and snow off of my windshield before I leave in the morning. I hate the germs that get spread around because we all are cooped up together. I hate not being able to open the windows and get fresh air. I hate the dry skin and chapped lips. I hate the (relatively) terrible mileage my Prius gets in cold weather. I hate having to choose between the comfort of a warm hat or messing up my hair. I hate being shut in and feeling like a hostage to the elements, and how that limits my options.

Some people prefer the cold to the unbearable heat in the summer. But here's the difference for me: When it's cold outside, especially with a strong wind, it actually causes physical pain. My skin hurts. My bones ache. My sphincter clinches. The summer heat may cause discomfort, but exposure to it is not painful the way the cold is.

When I was younger these things didn't bother me as much. In fact, there were times when I considered enduring a 0-degree temperatures (with a -17 wind chill) as a badge of honor. I liked the novelty of especially frigid weather. But over the years that's changed.

So my epiphany is not that I've always hated winter, but that I've come to hate it. I'm just too old for this shit. Not even 40 yet and I'm ready to retire to Florida.

How Many Purrs Left?

I know, I know: if I have any readers left, you're tired of reading about my dying cat.

Frankly, I'm getting tired of it, too.

Who knows how many more installments there will be of Snarkbutt's Dying Cat Sub-Blog. I know I'm testing the limits of how many posts one divorced man can write about his dying cat. Here's a quick recap:

• SnarKitty gets sick
• She's not eating
  
• Trying to pill her
• She's dying
  
• She's dying
  
• She's dying

I guess that's only six posts (out of 19 during that time period), but it feels like a lot more. I don't know how many more ways I can say, "My cat is dying and it sucks." But here's another:

-------------
Last night, at bedtime, I had to coax her out from under the bed so that I could put her on her sleeping pillow. The pillow lies next to me in bed. She curled up on it and I ran my hand along her spine. She's just a skeleton covered in fur. It feels unnatural, but those bones were there all along, they were just cushioned by fat and muscle. All of that is gone now, and I don't know how much thinner she can get.

I put my face up against her body and listened to her purring. It's not the healthy hum it used to be, but the irregular staccato putt-putt of an old car running on a cold morning. I thought to myself, how many more purrs does she have left?

Even though she's lying right next to me, I already miss her. She's not the same cat she used to be. She wobbles when she walks. She doesn't talk. She eats very little. She stays in the same place all day long. I've turned up the heat in the apartment so that she won't get cold now that she doesn't have any body fat. And I leave her with a heated pad during the day. She gets short bursts of energy where I see glimpses of her old self and think that maybe she'll be okay.

Did I do everything I could? Is there anything I can still do to save her? Should I have opted for surgery back when it could have helped? Is she in pain? Part of me wants this to be over with, but then I feel guilty and sad.

When I asked the vet on Monday about "putting her down", he said that it's not really a medical question but an ethical one. Thanks, that helps. He did add that it isn't necessary unless she's in pain. But how do I know?

If I were still married, I wouldn't have to be going through all this second-guessing on my own. SnarkEx and I could be making decisions together. (Then again, what if we disagreed on treatment? That could have added to the stress. See, I'm even second-guessing my theoretical scenarios.)

When will this end? And how? What is my role, and am I doing it right?

Creepy "Friend" Returns

Remember when I told you about the creepy guy who joined my online friends network and tried to hit on one of our regulars?

I kicked him out, but I think he's back under a new identity. He's got a different name and different picture up (thank God he's no longer showing off his chest hair), but last week he left public messages for nine different women:

• "Hi, Let's get to know each other and meet for a drink..."
• "...I would love to go...roller skating. Haven't been in years!"
• "Pat, Would you like to go to dinner some nite?"
• "Melinda, Would you like to get together and do something fun!?!?"
• "...Let's have dinner some time."
• "Hi, would you like to get together for dinner...or a drink/movie etc?"
• "Hi Marjorie...I would like to get to know you better."
• "Hi, I would love to try ice skating again, haven't been...in over 20yrs..."
• "Hi Amanda, welcome to the group...I'm a good listener. You can dump on me anytime."

(The last comment reminds me of the scene in Crimes and Misdemeanors when Woody Allen's character's sister has a date go horribly wrong: "A strange man...defecated on my sister.")

All of these greetings are posted publicly, one right after another, on our group's homepage. He's either really desperate or really dense or both. Even worse, I just checked his profile and three of the women posted responses. One said, "Thanks for your note. Dinner sounds nice..." Either they don't realize he's been hitting on every woman in the group or they don't care. I suspect most of these people (including our middle-aged Casanova) haven't quite got the hang of this interwebs thing and don't realize their posts can be publicly read.

Last week I sent a message to the whole group, saying that my tenure as the group's organizer will be ending in a few weeks and seeing if anyone wants to take over. The only person who volunteered? The creepy guy.

I don't know what to do now. I'll probably just leave the group. He's like a weed that's going to keep springing up until he gets laid.

Sickness

I'm sick, sick, sick.

And not in a good way.

I spent all yesterday on the couch, blowing my nose and wishing my head would just pop off and float away. It got worse as the day went on, and by the evening my whole body ached. I woke up feeling a little better this morning, but I'm getting weaker as the day goes on. I took the day off work. I really need to get back to work tomorrow, but it will be a miserable day if I still feel like I do today.

I caught the cold/flu bug at my sister's over the Thanksgiving weekend. I often catch stuff when I'm around my nephews and nieces, who pick up diseases at school and bring them home. I don't mean that my nieces are particularly germy, but schools are breeding grounds for germs and anyone who comes into contact with kids will get whatever's going around.

The last time I was this sick was last January during the semester break. SnarkEx and I came home from the family Christmas gathering (again, at my sister's) and she promptly got sick. I caught it a few days later. I was out of circulation for an entire week. (My recovery might have been quicker if I hadn't played tennis when I thought I was getting better. I pushed myself too hard and almost passed out driving home. I learned my lesson, though, and postponed a match I was supposed to play yesterday.)

This is the first time I've been sick since SnarkEx moved out. Last night I had to call my brother to moan at him.

But my health problems are nothing compared to SnarKitty. I had to take her to the pet emergency room on Saturday.

Because of her fragile health, I took her with me to Thanksgiving. I kept her on my lap for three hours as I rode with my brother's family to a neighboring state. While she was at my sister's, SnarKitty developed an abscessed tooth which bloated one side of her face and made her leak a stinky yellow liquid that smelled like death. I took her to the pet ER when I got home, and they diagnosed the problem.

It's clearing up with antibiotics, so now I just have to worry about her rapid weight loss. Between Tuesday and Saturday she'd lost more weight-- now she's dropped below five pounds. At her prime she was over nine pounds.

She's dying. I talked to her vet this morning who said the only care I can give her at this point is to make her comfortable. I finally brought up the phrase "putting her down" and he said that as long as she wasn't in pain, which he didn't think she was, there's no reason for that yet. But she can't keep losing weight and live, right? Will she keep fading away until she disappears? I have a pretty good idea what's going to happen, but I don't know how it's going to go down.

For today we're spending a sick day together on the couch.

The Public Face For Kids

Scene: I am in my niece's bedroom the day after Thanksgiving. My two nieces and my sister are petting SnarKitty, who I brought with me on the three-hour trip to my sister's house. Out of nowhere, the six-year-old SnarkNiece (SN) says,

Hey, where is your wife?

Me: [pause] We got divorced.
SnarkNiece: [opens her eyes wide and jolts her head back as if I just bopped her in the nose.] You did?!?
Me: Yep.
SN: What happened?
Me: [Silence]
SN: You guys were cute together.
Me: Yes, we were.
SN: What was her name?
Me: [Silence]
SN: Snarkatia?
My Sister: No, it was SnarkEx.
SN: Oh, yeah. SnarkEx.
SN: Why did you get divorced?
Me: [Silence]
SN: That's sad.
Me: Yes, it is sad.
SN: Did you break up with her or did she break up with you?
Me: She broke up with me.
SN: Did you cry?
Me: Yes, I did.

Will To Live II

Last June I made a joke about how SnarkEx and I would take delight in our cats' "will to live" whenever they ate or drank. I followed that up by saying I guess SnarkEx no longer wanted to exercise her Will to Live With Me.

Like many of my snarky comments, this one seems to be biting me in the ass. SnarKitty has been waiving her will to live.

Last week I thought I'd found a food that she liked and would eat. So I bought two cases (24 servings) of it. Then she decided she didn't like it. She no longer has a will to live in a world with turkey and giblets in beef gravy.

She's still eating tuna, but I worry about feeding her too much because then she won't eat anything else, and it's not good for her long term. But she's not eating anything else, so it's a moot point. Tuna it is. As the vet said, she has no dietary restrictions right now. She needs calories any way she can get them.

These days I'm gripped by a goofy sentimentality whenever she exercises her will to live. When she's crouched over a bowl of tuna I stroke her back and tell her how happy I am to see her eating. But even the tuna is starting to become ordinary, and she's not eating enough to make a difference.

She's lost another third of a pound in the past week. That's after losing two pounds in six months and half a pound over three weeks. She's going in the wrong direction.

Someone asked me if I've thought about putting her down.

No.

She may be wasting away, but she's still a functional pet. She still sleeps with me. She purrs. She lays on my thorax when I watch TV and rubs her head against my chin. She can still jump up on the bed and the couch to be with me. She walks a little more gingerly now, but the only distress she exhibits is when she demands lap time and I can't give it to her. She has lots of love left to give.

Someday, and it may be soon, I may have to deal with the issue of putting her down. I'm really not comfortable making a proactive decision like that, though. Just like with my divorce, I'd rather this is something that's done to me rather than something I take an active part in. I don't want to be responsible for my cat's death.

And I won't do it until I've squeezed every bit of love out of her that I can.

Flowers

Famous Lines From My Divorce, Vol. 4:

SnarkEx: But I bought you flowers! I sent you an e-card!

--------------

The first girl I gave flowers to was an Ethiopian-American named Elsie who I had a fling with the summer after I graduated high school. I was 18, she was 16, and we spent six weeks making out on her parents' couch. At the end of the summer she was leaving to spend a school year in Belgium, so I bought her a bouquet of roses. In a touching farewell letter to me, she said I was the first guy to ever give her flowers and she couldn't imagine a better person or occasion for it.

A few years after that, the excited voice of my first serious girlfriend would shout into my answering machine, "You're the best boyfriend ever!" after I had sent flowers to her workplace on her birthday. "Thank you! Thank you!" she said in a way that melted my heart.

See, I wasn't always such a loser in matters of love.

Over the years I honed my flower-giving skillz. I've tried lots of creative ways to surprise the women I've loved with them. I even bought flowers for myself once, when I was single and living alone and needed a symbolic pick-me-up. I sent SnarkEx bouquets on birthdays, anniversaries, and random occasions. Periodically we would buy flowers together at the grocery store to brighten up our kitchen.

-------------------

SnarkEx was the first woman who ever bought me flowers. She came home with them last February, soon after "Ground Zero," as I like to call it.

It was a nice gesture, but a nice gesture can't quite make up for telling your husband, right out of nowhere, that you're thinking of leaving him. A week after that, she got mad at me because I didn't want her to schedule a lunch with a married man she admitted to having a crush on.

So there was a lot going on that flowers couldn't quite make up for. She admitted that it was a mistake to have asked me if she could have lunch with him, but only because it was bad timing. She still thought it was unreasonable that she couldn't put the moves on another man while we're married, she just shouldn't have done it a week after telling me that she wanted to leave me. So she sent me an ecard, too.

She got frustrated when I didn't show enough appreciation for these gestures. She'd sent me flowers and sent me an ecard! Didn't I like them? I said, "thank you," what more do you want? You can't threaten to leave someone and then expect everything to return back to normal.

She had no idea how much damage she'd done to our relationship.

When I told our marriage counselor that I didn't appreciate how SnarkEx had chosen to deal with our problems by threatening to leave me, she said, "Well, it certainly got your attention."

"So would putting a gun to my head, but that's not a good way to motivate someone."

And in neither case can flowers make up for it.

------------------

Postscript: As I was checking my old emails to see when SnarkEx sent me the ecard, I noticed that she sent me another one a month later. It was on the day that she did, in fact, have lunch with the guy I didn't want her to have lunch with. This was the message she sent me: "You have nothing to worry about. I love you."

Less than a week later she told me she was moving out. Less than a month later she said, "I don't love you."

A Fate Worse Than Death

I wish SnarkEx were dead.

Lemme back up, because that's really not as spiteful as it sounds.

Last week I was eating in the college food court and a faculty member in Sociology sat with me. She remarked about how dark it seems since daylight savings time ended. I told her she was the fourth person who has remarked recently on the depressing darkness this year. For my own part, my drive home lately has been so dark it almost makes me feel claustrophobic. Even though it's the same darkness that I've encountered six years in a row, it's especially oppressive this year. I attribute this to my own mental state. This is the first time I've had to face the November commute without SnarkEx in my life.

I don't know the Sociology professor very well-- we served on a committee together once. But I opened up to her and told her about my divorce, so that I could share my theory about why the darkness is affecting me so much.

She was sympathetic and said that "they" say divorce is the second most stressful domestic event a person can go through. (Second only to the death of a child.) Even the death of a spouse is not as stressful, because in that case you at least have public support.

I was surprised to hear this, but it does make some sense. When a spouse dies, you have a formal public grieving process. Divorce you have to deal with in private. If SnarkEx had died, there would have been a formal event of shared grief. The Faculty Association would have sent me a sympathy card, like they do with every birth, death, and marriage of their members. Everyone would know about my marital status and I wouldn't still be having these awkward conversations where people ask me about SnarkEx eight months after our separation.

My boss's boss, a vice president, stopped by my desk on Friday and chatted for a few minutes. She asked me about my tennis league and while I was telling her about it, she asked, "Does your wife play tennis?"

I cringed, but answered the question. "No, she doesn't play." After a pause I said, "Um, I guess SnarkBoss hasn't told you, but, uh..."

She must have read my face, because she glanced at my ring finger and interrupted me, "Oh no, is this going to be bad?"

"Yeah," I said, covering up my ring finger with my right hand. I told her about the divorce, trying to perform that delicate dance of not going into too many personal details.

It's kind of silly to rank which personal traumas are easier or harder. Every situation is different and people have varied reactions. There are lots of things that just plain suck. Death sucks. Divorce sucks. Lots of things suck.

But when I think about it, I do think it would have been better if SnarkEx had died rather than abandoned our marriage. Either way, I'm sure I would still be going through a lot of the same things that I'm going through now. But knowing that she volunteered to end our life together, implying that I was unworthy of love, seems to add an extra kick to the ribs.

In short, it's harder to deal with the death of love than the death of a body.

I'd still rather not test that theory, however.

Mantra

No one will ever love me.

This is the mantra that goes through my head lately.

It happens every time I think about SnarkEx leaving me.

No one will ever love me.

Every time I consider my life as a 37-year-old short geeky divorced librarian with two cats.

No one will ever love me.

Every time I look through the meager prospects at an online dating site.

No one will ever love me.

Every time I get rejected.

No one will ever love me.

I was either optimistic or desperate when I re-joined an online dating site yesterday. It's the third time I've paid for a month's subscription, and coincidentally it was exactly one month since my last subscription ended.

I had widened my search to include any women within 250 miles and found about half a dozen profiles that looked promising. One in particular, Short Divorced Lady (SDL) really excited me.

I have an unfortunate combination of dating desperation and selectivity. Even though I'm desperate, I won't settle for just anyone. So when I find someone who matches my tiny window of demographic needs (physical compatibility, politics & religion, humor, education) I jump all over her. SDL fit that profile better than any woman I'd seen on a site so far. Plus her pictures were playful and adorable. Her only disadvantage was that she lives in a large city 170 miles away.

So far I'm 0-for-2 with women who've inspired me to join a dating site. And I've been rejected by half a dozen others. But with blind optimism I paid my money to respond to SDL's ad. I sent her a quick and clever (or so I thought, but what do I know?) message. I thought of responding to a few of the other ads at the same time, but none of them appealed to me as much, and I decided that I might as well go after the one I like the most first.

Meanwhile, I had a busy Friday evening and Saturday morning with tennis, where I lost two matches in less than 24 hours. After starting out the indoor season 12-0, I've lost three matches in one week. The first two were simply against better opponents, but the last match I played, I lost to a guy I'd already beaten a few times. He'd never beat me, until today. So I came home feeling like a loser. But I consoled myself with the thought that maybe it was time for me to lose a few tennis matches but win a few dates. I would gladly take that trade-off.

Then I checked my email. SDL had responded to my message! (This was further than I got with most of the others.) Her message was short: I recently started seeing someone...I hope you understand...

Of course I understand:

No one will ever love me.

Things Worse Than Your Cat Dying

SnarKitty's recovery may have been a mirage.

At her latest weigh-in she lost another half pound. In only three weeks. She's withering away despite the fact that I've been feeding her the equivalent of cat fast-food and she really likes it. The vet said I've been doing the right thing-- anything to get calories into her. But somehow the calories aren't staying. Our latest treatment strategy was for the vet to give her a shot that replicated the pills that I had such a hard time getting her to swallow. The shot is good for four weeks.

She looks really frail. I can feel how light she is when I pick her up. When I pet her I feel her spine protruding under the fur. Even her meow is muted. Last night she slept next to me, but in a different place and position than usual. When I tried to move her, she was lethargic and didn't resist, like one of those toy action figures that you can bend into any position and they stay that way. Maybe she's having a temporary reaction to the shot and will snap out of it, I tell myself.

I'm trying to work out what to do with her over Thanksgiving, when I will be out of town for three days visiting family. I used to just leave my cats alone with extra dry food, but with her medical condition that's not a good idea. I could board her at the vet's, but because of their hours of operation, dropping her off and picking her up would make me have to amend my plans and it's turning into a logistical headache. Plus, if her weight loss is as serious as I fear, do I want four of her last days to be spent in an unfamiliar environment with mean evil strangers? (To SnarKitty, all strangers are mean and evil.)

Let me confront the obvious: she may be dying. I would love for her to make a full recovery, but I have to be realistic. She will, in fact, die. Someday. I don't know if that's now or in five years. But "now" is not looking very good.

After the year I've had, losing the Best Cat Ever would seriously suck. But instead of wallowing in my misfortune, I should count my blessings. Here's a list of Things Worse Than My Cat Dying:

• one of my (human) family members dying
• losing my job and becoming homeless
  
• debilitating injury that prevents me from playing tennis
• experiencing war first-hand
• nuclear armageddon
  
• zombie armageddon
• any armageddon at all, really
• losing my penis

I'm sure there are more, but I'll stop here. It makes me nervous writing out this anti-wishlist, as if I'm tempting fate. But the point is my life could always suck worse.

My goal now is to make SnarKitty as comfortable and happy as I can. And enjoy her affectionate company as much as possible.

And brace myself for the possibility that she might leave me, too.

Web 2.0 Reality Divorce Show

There are six of us.

Three men and three women.

Two on the West Coast, two in the Midwest/Plains, two on the East Coast.

Some are past it and some are right in the middle of it. Some discuss it on a daily basis; for some it's a faint part of their past that only occasionally bubbles up.

Two hardly ever mention the D-word; the other four feature it prominently.

-----------------------
It's my own personal Web 2.0 divorce reality show-- a compilation of six random blogged lives that I follow-- including my own, because naturally I don't want to be left out of the party. All we have in common is that we're all divorced (or divorcing) and that we all have blogged about it, to some extent.

Like Candid Camera, some of them are probably unaware that I've included them in my group. But that's what blogging is all about-- putting your life out there for any stranger to read. As for reciprocity, I don't know to what extent any of them follow my life, if at all. I've commented on each of their blogs, so they at least know that I've read them.

Every once in a while I get bored and go out on the interwebs in search of a new cast member. It's actually hard to find good divorce blogs that are not written by lawyers trying to drum up business. I haven't done this in a while, though, because I like the balanced demographics of the current group.

---------------------
Two of them are public; they don't try to hide their identity. The other four are anonymous. Whether public or anonymous, we all like to use nicknames to refer to people in our lives.

Some are bitter. Some are sentimental. Some are funny. Some are clever. Some try to stay upbeat and some like to wallow in misery. Sometimes in the same post.

Some are good writers and some are not. But it doesn't matter, because we each represent a different perspective, stage, or face of divorce. Some are long-winded and some are... well, I guess we could all use a good editor, but sometimes we take the long way to tell a story and other times we take the really long way.

One has children. Two have cats and two others have dogs. That I know about.

Five of us have blogged about our enthusiasm for the new president-elect.

Our blogging frequency varies considerably. Some post four or five times per month and others blog as much as 35 times a month. Some have a regular blogging schedule and others just blog when the need arises.

We've all blogged about post-divorce dating, with varying degrees of success. Some kiss and tell. Some don't kiss and tell about that. (One has complained about going an entire month without sex. A month? Are you kidding me? Some of us routinely go years between bouts of sex. Some members of this group, who will remain anonymous, have already suffered eight months of celibacy and don't expect that to change any time soon.) Some of us overshare.

One recently got engaged. She wrote about it in a very touching and inspiring post. I really like her writing and wish she would write more about her divorce, but I'm happy for her anyway.

Sometimes reality has a happy ending.

The Greatest Fear

When I was in high school a good friend of mine asked me what my greatest fear was. I said, "That I'm going to be alone the rest of my life." He said, "You're going to be alone the rest of your life." It was a cheap pop psychology tactic designed to get me to face my greatest fear.

It didn't work.

I was watching Robot Chicken this weekend and they had a skit lampooning FDR's famous line, "All we have to fear is fear itself." He delivers the line to congress, and then someone stands up and says, "And spiders!" Someone else shouts, "And snakes!" And third guy yells "And werewolves!" which sparks a heated debate on the floor about the existence of werewolves. By the time they're finished, FDR amends his famous line to say, "Okay, all we have to fear is spiders, snakes, werewolves, dying alone, sharks, and.... fear itself!"

I love that they added "dying alone" to the list.

Last night This American Life did a story about a woman who died in Los Angeles without leaving any survivors. There's a lady whose job it is to investigate these deaths and try to find the closest living relative. The statistic that stayed with me from this story was this: 9,000 people are cremated each year in LA without having any family or friends to claim them.

They all died alone. This is not like a fear of werewolves or dragons or hell. This is a very real possibility that happens, in flesh and dust, to thousands of people every year.

I may well be alone the rest of my life.

Catwrestling

The good news is that SnarKitty is eating again. After experimenting with half a dozen different cat, baby, and people foods, I've finally found a good combination of things she'll eat. It warms my heart to see her crouched over her bowl and munching on Market Select Turkey and Giblets in Gravy dinner. Plus I love the saying the word "giblets."

She seems to have more energy now and I've convinced myself she looks heavier and sturdier than before. I think she's gaining weight. (Unfortunately, so is AuxilliaryKitty. Because I can't feed one cat and not the other, AK is taking advantage of her sister's sickness by pigging out on the extra food.)

The bad news is the fights we've had to get to this stage.

I think SnarKitty is eating now as a result of the cortisone pills I'm giving her that are supposed to help with her arthritis and intestinal inflammation. The first three days the pill went down fine. I opened her mouth, put the pill on her tongue, and then held her mouth down until she swallowed it.

Then she learned to resist.

It's getting harder and harder to get the pill down. The last time I struggled with her for 15 minutes. I held her on the countertop, pulled open her mouth, and tried to put the pill in. She squirmed. She jerked her mouth from side to side. When I would get the pill in, she would hold it on the side of her tongue and spit it out when I released my grip. I probably pried her mouth open 15 times in an attempt to land the pill in the right location. Cat slobber was all over her face, my hands, and the pill. The pill got smaller and smaller with each attempt as the slobber dissolved it. A few times I did the whole process only to find that the pill was still stuck to my finger with cat slobber.

SnarKitty is the most docile cat I've ever known. She never bites, scratches or hisses. If it had been AuxilliaryKitty in her position, there would have been much wailing and gnashing of teeth. My hand would be a stump of scratches with about three fingers left. But SnarKitty could give Ghandi a lesson in pacifism. Even when I jammed my finger against her jaw to prop open her mouth, she didn't bite down with much force, even though I know she desperately wanted to close her mouth.

I was afraid of hurting her. I'm sure all the struggling was not good for her arthritis, and I worried that I might dislocate her jaw each time I pried it open. I tried to reason with her. "Just swallow the damn pill and we can be done with this!" I shouted. "Then we can get to the yummy tuna." Like an abusive husband, I said things like "Why do you make me hurt you?"

It was awful, terrible, frustrating. It's so hard to see someone you love in pain, and even worse when you're the one causing it. I had to do this for her own good, but there was no way to make her understand that. Our test of wills lasted for 15-20 minutes, and finally, after the pill was about half its original size and her face was covered in stinky drool, I managed to make the pill disappear. I couldn't find any evidence that she'd spit it out, so I lifted her off the counter, put her on the floor, and served some cat food. She gobbled it up.

And I vowed never to make her swallow a pill again. I just can't do it. I'm not a veterinarian and it breaks my heart to struggle with her like that. I'll try some other way, like putting it in tuna or buying liquid medicine. Later I saw the pill on the kitchen floor, unswallowed. She must have held it somewhere in her mouth for quite a while until I released her.

After she was done with her dinner, she came over to me on the couch and jumped on my lap. The great thing about my cats is they hold no grudges. We can have a catfight to rival World War II and five minutes later all is forgiven, and I am once again their refuge, the place they go for comfort and love.

She purred and rubbed against my hand, giving me the purest form of unconditional love. It reminded me why I was trying to give her the pills in the first place.

Because I want her to be around for a long time.

Creepy "Friend"

Last week a new guy joined the online group of random internet strangers that I organize. His profile picture shows a beefy middle-aged man with a mustache. His Hawaiian-type shirt (or is it, dear God, a bathrobe?!) is completely open to show his chest hair. This is how he introduces himself to the group: "im single man 45 looking hopefully to meet a lady to spend time with."

For our latest meeting last Saturday, he RSVPed 'maybe.' Thankfully he didn't show up. We had a good mix: two guys and two girls, two new people and two who'd been there before, and no one in a leisure suit. But one of the cool young ladies who had RSVPed 'yes' (who I had met at a previous meeting) did not show.

When I checked the website this morning, I saw a good reason why she might not have showed.

The new guy had posted a public 'greeting' for her: "damn barbi you are cute."

Ewww. I'm not even the object of this guy's lecherousness and it made me feel all skeezy. And I don't like him scaring away the cool normal people in our group.

The website we're on brings together people of all interests, from hiking to gaming to God to parenting to Ron Paul for President. (This last group is huge and, curiously, still active.) Our particular group is called, generically, "New Friends" and its stated topics are friends, new in town and social networking. While dating isn't strictly prohibited, I don't think most members would appreciate being hit on by what is the online equivalent of the drunk at the bar. (But what do I know? Maybe 'barbi' was thrilled with the compliment and the two of them had their own meetup Saturday night.)

As an administrator, I could kick him out of the group, but I don't know if what he's done has broken any rules. Shouldn't I at least give him a warning before I kick him out? Like, "Hey Creepy Middle-Aged Guy, this is not a place to make clumsy advances on women half your age."

Besides, that's my job.

Solitude, Sleep, Darkness, Cat Food

This should have been a great week.

After eight years of political dark ages, our country is finally coming into the 21st century. We have chosen hope over fear and have shown the world that we can, eventually, do the right thing. With this historic and momentous election we have a chance to restore our reputation in the world. (Polls in other countries showed a ridiculously high amount of support-- 80%-- for Obama in this election.) On Tuesday night I watched the election results with relief and then joy.

But I was alone.

I knew this had the potential to be an historic election, so I made a few attempts to be with people, but none of them panned out. I didn't want to make celebration plans for fear of jinxing the results. I just wanted to hunker down at home and watch the election and then have someone there to share the moment with, if and when it came. I wanted to be married.

By the time the election was called, it was already past my bedtime. I stayed up a little later to watch McCain's concession speech, but then I had to get to bed. Lately I've been experimenting with my sleeping schedule. I'm trying to see if I can be less rigid about getting 8-8.5 hours of sleep a night. If I'm going to be tired anyway, what's the difference if I'm tired after eight hours or from seven? But I've been in a crappy mood all week and I wonder if less sleep is a contributing factor.

Daylight savings time has ended. That means I'm no longer getting up in the dark, which is nice (for about another month.) But the evenings are murder. The sun goes down as I drive home, and by the time I get there at 5:30 it's pitch black. It turns out that coming home from a long day of work and an hour commute to an empty apartment in total darkness is a real drag. It seriously affects my mood.

And then I see the cat food dish, three of them actually, that have hardly been touched. SnarKitty is not eating. She's already lost 25% of her body weight in the past year, the vet is concerned, and I'm buying a new kind of cat food every day. In the past week I have bought five different kinds of dry and canned foods, cheap and expensive. My kitchen looks like a cat food tasting center, and it smells awful (which was one reason I never got in the habit of feeding my cats canned food.)

Last week, when I first bought a few cans of the expensive stuff, she went nuts for it. I thought, "Aha, if I just buy her this stuff, she'll gain her weight back in no time." I thought she was just tired of her old food. The vet said that cats, unlike dogs, will actually starve themselves to death instead of eating food they don't like. So I just needed to find something she liked.

But I guess the novelty of that new food has worn off, since she stopped going nuts for it. She'll beg me for new food, but when I open a new can and set it down in front of her, she doesn't touch it. A little bit of the food is getting eaten when I'm not around, but I don't know if it's SnarKitty or AuxiliaryKitty who's eating it.

Her ex-rays showed some arthritis in her hips, and the vet thinks she might have some sort of intestinal inflammation. So he gave me some cortisone pills to give her for two weeks to see if that brings her appetite back. Giving her the pills is not fun. I have to wrestle with her and jam the pill down her throat then close her mouth to make her swallow. All the time telling her that this is for her own good, it'll make her feel better, and I still love her. But she doesn't understand. Thankfully, she has a short memory and forgives quickly.

The Return of the Blister has affected my tennis game. Last night I played for the first time in a week. I can't believe how out of shape I've gotten in that short amount of time. Plus the blister is threatening to come back, so I had to take it easy. "Taking it easy" is not my style of play, so I didn't play well. (Luckily it wasn't an official league match, but just a workout.) But if I don't play at all, I don't get that endorphin rush that I need during this stressful, dark week.

On Wednesday I came home from work and the refrigerator door was ajar. Unless the cats have somehow figured out how to open it, I must have left it open when I rushed out the door in the morning. Which meant that not only had it been running all day long, but that everything in it was room temperature. I had to throw out everything that was perishable. Which was almost everything.

Then I had to go buy new groceries.

By myself.

In the dark of night at 6:00 pm.

Which was convenient, because I needed to try another brand of cat food, anyway.

Blisters

Famous Lines From My Divorce, Vol 3:

SnarkEx: The situation with the blisters was too much for me.

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Last January I played too much tennis over the long Martin Luther King weekend. After losing a long intense match, I came home with blisters on the balls of both feet.

SnarkEx had to listen to me whine and obsess about my blisters for the rest of the week. I gave her semi-daily reports on the state of their healing, limped around the house, and made fun of myself as the "double-blistered loser." I didn't expect SnarkEx to take me seriously or do anything about it. It's not like I asked her to rub ointment on my feet or carry me around.

Staying off the tennis court for a whole week was torture. I had hoped to play tennis the following Saturday morning, but the blisters had not healed enough. I was upset and had a tantrum. "Goddammit, I just want to play tennis!" I probably shouted. Perhaps I ranted about it for five minutes. I don't remember exactly how long it was. Then I got over it and went about my day.

SnarkEx didn't.

That night she left our bed in the middle of the night and slept on the couch. In the morning I noticed she wasn't in bed and I asked her what was up. She wouldn't talk to me. When she came home from church, she said the words that turned my world upside down.

"I'm thinking of leaving you."

The rest, as they say, is history.

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Over the next six weeks we had many fights and discussions about our marriage. She gave lots of vague reasons for her unhappiness, like "I'm not getting my needs met" and "We've developed patterns of behavior that are not healthy for me." I don't think she really understood herself what was happening, but the fact is she was fighting an "urge to flee." When she brought up the blisters, it felt like she was grasping at straws.

The situation with the blisters was too much for me.

Really? Blisters? That's what led to the dissolution of my marriage? As one friend of mine pointed out, "What about 'In sickness and in health'?"

I don't know if it was my blister-inspired temper tantrum or my week of whining that did her in. I was probably too dumbstruck to ask for clarification. This is someone who thought she wanted children, and she couldn't deal with a husband whining about a minor injury?

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Since that blister incident-- that catalyst for my divorce-- I have taken great precautions to prevent further blistering on the tennis court. I read up on blister prevention and care. I now own five different types of white athletic socks and wear two pairs when I play. I switch out my socks between sets, since moisture is a major contributor to blistering. I buy new shoes every few months.

Over the past nine months I have successfully avoided any new blisters.

Until last week.

I played a practice match with a friend of mine. I was stupid and didn't change my socks out after the first set. My feet felt fine, I told myself. I was running all over the court and by the third set my feet started feeling raw. But I figured that we were almost done so it wouldn't make any sense to change socks now.

When I got home, I discovered a new blister on my big toe. It wasn't as bad as the blisters from last January, and I was even able to play on it two days later. But that just made it worse and I decided that I really needed to stay off of it and let it heal.

So I haven't played tennis in a week. I'm between league sessions right now, so it was a good time to take some time off and do other fun stuff. But I think I'm starting to go through withdrawal and I really need to start playing again.

The last time I had blisters it was the beginning of the end of my marriage. Now I have another one and my cat is having serious health problems. (Update on this soon.) If I were superstitious, I could make myself believe that they are an omen of bad things.

I will have to increase my vigilance toward those damn blisters.

Two Holidays

Near the end of last week I was looking at a pretty dismal weekend calendar. I had absolutely no plans-- not even my usual tennis or regular counseling appointment.

But things came together at the last minute to make it quite an eventful weekend.

I decided on Friday that I really really really wanted to go to a Halloween party. I haven't been to a party in a long time, and what good is being single if I can't "partay" on occasion? (Perhaps the reason that I don't get invited to more parties is that I use words like "partay.") There must be hundreds of Halloween parties going on in this town tonight, and I only need to find one. Hell, I could even buy a mask and crash one.

So I called one of my two local friends, the one who drinks, and asked where the party was. He was hanging out with a bunch of friends abusing their livers at a downtown drinking establishment. After helping my brother with trick-or-treating duties and then watching a DVD, I headed downtown at 11:30 to meet up with the drunken gays. The fact that they're gay is only important because we ended up at the gay night club, where we got to see lots of elaborate costumes and shirtless men grinding against each other on the dance floor.

It was a wild frenetic scene-- I had definitely found a party. But it was slim pickings for a straight boy looking for companionship. Most of the straight women there were attached to their male date.

I spied one cute lady who appeared to be unaccompanied. She wasn't alone-- she was with a group, but like me she didn't seem to be "with" anyone. I walked past her about a dozen times trying to work up the courage to talk to her. In my imagination she seemed to reciprocate my glances, but even after three beers I still couldn't bring myself to approach her. I suck at this.

What could I say? "So I noticed the big drag queen in the Nurse Feelgood costume hugging you earlier... I'm here with Castro and the dude in the huge 'fro-- the ones whose tongues are hanging out over the railing that overlooks the dance floor." In hindsight, that might have been a great icebreaker.

I've never actually met a new friend or date in a loud night club, but I hear it happens all the time. Even so, it's probably not the best venue for someone like me. I'm much more likely to meet someone in a library (my first girlfriend), at college (my second GF), or online (my third GF and ex-wife.)

We closed the bar and I didn't get home until 3:00 am.

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I awoke on Saturday, tired and cranky, to a beautiful day. It was sunny and 65 degrees. I had planned to get all my weekend chores done, but it was such a great day I felt I had to take advantage of it in some way. (This late in the year you have to grab as much sunshine as you can.) I called my other local friend and asked if he (+ wife and dog) wanted to go for a walk. We visited the local dog park late in the afternoon, went to dinner and then ran errands together. Between that and my chores, I was running all day long.

I wanted to get all my chores done because on Sunday I wanted to observe Sloth Day, a holiday of my own invention as part of the religion I created, Snarkicism. (Not its real name, but it should be.) It's supposed to be any day the first week of November, and since my calendar was so barren this weekend I decided to celebrate it on Sunday.

Sloth Day involves sitting on the couch all day long and watching TV & movies and playing on the computer. No work, physical exertion, leaving the house, or unfun things are allowed on Sloth Day. This year I watched three movies, two football games, and five TV shows. I also organized a bunch of files on my computer, which may sound like work to some, but as a librarian I do that kind of thing for fun. I ate warmed-up leftovers all day.

It was a great day until it started getting dark. Gourging on sloth takes its toll, and by the time I crawled into bed I felt "low and mean." (To quote Dylan in two consecutive posts.) I realized that I hadn't communicated with another human being all day.

So I guess I could call it Hermit Day, too.

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There's a computer game called The Sims that I used to play. You create little virtual people and you build them a home and decorate it, send them off to different careers, have them meet friends and lovers, and start families. Your characters would have little meters attached to certain needs and your goal was to keep all of their needs satisfied, which in turn kept them happy. Their needs were represented with bars labeled hunger, comfort, hygiene, fun, energy, social, etc.

After Saturday night, I felt like my "social" bar was full, but it slowly drained as the day went on. By the time I went to bed it was depleted.

Still Bitter

I wonder if my post-divorce growth is stunted.

I've had two experiences over the past few weeks that have left me feeling petty and embarrassed at my level of acrimony toward SnarkEx. Not everyone laughs or even sympathizes when I say that I just want her to make decisions that give her the best opportunity to be miserable.

My oldest brother is one of those people. When I told him about my hope that she's miserable, he said, "Do you think that's helping you to move on?" With just one question he shamed me into thinking I need to get over being bitter.

A faculty member at my college who I drink beer with once a month is also getting divorced. Over beers the other day we discussed the issue of blame. He said that his ex-wife's friends want nothing to do with him. "Every story needs an asshole," he said, "I understand that, but I don't like it."

I said that in my divorce, SnarkEx was the asshole. She was the one who left the marriage.

He said that these things are complicated. What if you're the one who's been working on the relationship for five years but the other person is not responsive, and then you decide you've had enough? Until this conversation, I hadn't realized that he was the SnarkEx in his divorce.

When she left me, SnarkEx kept trying to insist that this was no one's fault. It just didn't work out. It's funny to me that the people who take that approach are usually the ones who are to blame.

Hey, I know that it's not always cut and dry. I know complicated. I know nuance. But I also know anger, and I'm trying to wallow in it, okay?

My therapist says that anger feels good. That's why we often use it to mask more complicated emotions. I'd never thought about before, but I think he's right. I like being angry at SnarkEx. It's comfortable.

I don't want her to be miserable simply for the sake of increasing the misery in the world. What I want is her to regret her decision to abandon our marriage. I want her to realize what a great thing she had in me and how she really blew it. People who make bad decisions should suffer bad consequences. I want justice, not schadenfreude. And I don't believe that will happen if she's happy.

And, really, it's not like I spend every minute of every day wishing bad things to happen to her. I don't spend my time stabbing her picture with a bowie knife. Most of the time she's not even on my mind. (With all due respect to Bob Dylan.) She is really not much of a factor in my day-to-day mental energy. As evidence of that, it's been six weeks since I've blogged about being angry at her.

But when I do think about her, I can't, I won't, I don't want to, wish her well.

Every story needs an asshole.

SINK Nest Egg

I used to be part of a DINK (double income, no kids.)

Now I guess I'm my own SINK.

As I've mentioned several times on this blog, I really haven't had to deal with any financial hardship during my divorce. I was going to say that I've been lucky in that respect, but it probably has more to do with my spending habits and attitude of living well below my means. The divorce itself only cost me $300, which I know is almost negligible compared to the average cost of divorce. I also lost half my nest egg, but a case could be made that it wasn't really "mine," but "ours," even though I was the nest egg agent and we probably wouldn't have saved so much if it weren't for my 1.) income, and 2.) predilection for saving money.

This month was the first time since She Left Me that I haven't been able to put money into savings. In fact, I've spent more than I made, which is rare. I had to use my credit card for the first time in years. On top of my usual bills, I had to pay for the divorce ($300), my six-month car insurance ($330), my yearly car registration ($85) and vet bills ($330). (I may not be done with the vet bills since I still don't know what's wrong with SnarKitty. I'm expecting a call from the vet today about her ex-rays.) I still have plenty of money in savings, but I only like to touch that for special occasions, like going on vacation, buying large appliances, or paying ransom.

Speaking of vacations, I've been dreading the winter holiday break this year. I'll have three weeks off in December/January, and on top of being alone with too much time on my hands, it will be cold and dark. Those are prime conditions for a serious depression. I thought of taking proactive steps to avoid the depression by planning some sort of fun vacation. But what? And where? I've always wanted to go on a cruise, and I hear there are singles cruises, but I suspect they will be absurdly expensive. Can I justify dropping a few grand on a week's worth of potential fun? And what if everyone's having fun around me and I just feel lonely and isolated? Will that just make me feel even more loserish?

I've also been feeling a lot of pressure to buy a house lately. My oldest brother, the financial guru, keeps telling me it's the best time ever to buy a house. I understand that. Why should I keep throwing my money away on rent when I could be putting it toward equity in a house?

But there are other considerations for buying a house beside financial ones. Am I ready for the commitment of owning a home? All the time, money, and effort involved in maintenance and upkeep? I have every intention of one day buying a house. I need to grow up someday. I'm just not sure that I'm ready for it yet. Let me wallow in my divorce for a while and rebuild my nest egg.

Building up my nest egg, however, would preclude any fun expensive vacations for this year.