Divorce Sucks

Well, I'm sitting here at work. All of my cow-orkers have left because we are going to be getting about an inch of ice in the next few hours. I'm waiting on my workaholic roommate to finish up, so we can carpool back to the house. I've spent the last 28 hours as a single person, and it feels weird.

As a big time "Type A" control freak, this has been one of the most unnerving events ever. I've never felt less in control. Being told by the person with whom you'd planned to spend the rest of your life, that she didn't want the same thing will really knock your ass into the dirt.

Until yesterday, I'd spent almost 13 years connected to the same person. First dating (3 years), then living together (1 year) , then engaged (2 years), then married (6 years), then separated and living together(6 months), then separated and living apart(6 months) and now divorced(28 hours). With a $106 and a trip to the court house, that's now over. How does it feel? I'm not sure. Yesterday was almost a year in the making, and there's not much left to feel. (Note: I just deleted most of this paragraph. After I read it, it sounded like I'd been possessed with the spirit of Stuart Smalley. "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and, doggonit, people like me!" I can't stand sounding that pathetic. You of course are saying thank god, this is already pathetic enough.)

Ironically, I think this whole process would have been a lot easier, if she and I didn't still like and care for one another. If we just hated one another's guts, we could have just shouted "Go fuck yourself" into the phone yesterday, and got on with our lives. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, that's not the case. We are trying to figure out where the new boundaries belong.

On top of that, there are some other things that I need to figure out. First of all, how the hell do you ask a girl out? I haven't had to do that in 13 years. I wasn't very good at it back then. I can't imagine that I've gotten any better in the interim. I've made several attempts. None have ended well.

I think I've got the flirting thing down, but I only seem to be able to flirt with girls that I'm not interested in. How's that for screwed up?

Finally, there aren't that many reasonable opportunities for me to meet someone. I could ask out someone at work, but frankly there aren't that many that I'd like to get to know that well. On top of that I don't want to get the reputation of being "that annoying guy who hits on everybody at work". I guess there's the option of online personals. That seems to have worked for a lot of people. The downside is that when you create the account, they want you to include a picture. In all of the digital pictures of me I either look fat, drunk or like I've just been arrested. The worst of them looks like all three plus I spent the night in a South American jail. Yeah I know, I might still get a response. Some people really go for that sort of thing. I don't think I could handle that though.

At this point, I don't know. I guess I will figure something out eventually. By the way, Divorce Sucks. Enough of the self indulgent whining.

And finally..... Tom Waits is still cool. Somebody give that guy a throat lozenge.