The weirdest thing is that  I’ve been pretty…okay. And I’m not sure how I feel about that. I was prepared to spend the whole day feeling devastated and wanting to hide under my comforter. I was prepared to feel like my heart is breaking–the way I was feeling when I wrote my last blog post.  I was prepared to have to call friends and say “stop me from sending the stupid texts that I want to send!”

But I feel…….mostly…..fine.

This is largely due to having a really super strong support system in place. I mentioned the day on Twitter earlier and my phone exploded with people sending me tweets and emails and text messages filled with supportive words and virtual hugs. It’s hard to feel like your heart is breaking when you have so many people making sure you know how loved you are.

It’s also really hard to feel sad when you’re wearing monkey printed underwear. (Now if only I could find monkey printed sheets that are both affordable and that fit my bed!)

Aren’t you glad you know about that?

To be honest I thought I’d have more to say on the subject, but the truth is that…right now, I just don’t. But I couldn’t let that last post be the top post anymore.

And I really wanted to tell you about my underwear.

I’m no stranger to grief. I know what it looks like and what it smells like and how it feels and how you feel like you’re going insane. I know how when you wake up it smacks you in the face with the loss you’ve recently gone through and all you see are the empty holes left behind by the person who is suddenly no longer there. I know how it is when later on in the day you start to feel better and realize that your life isn’t over just because the person is gone and you start to feel hopeful and ten minutes later you’re lying on your kitchen floor in a pool of tears because you forgot that you were out of soda and the store feels so far away and suddenly you are sure that you are never ever getting up from that floor ever again. No way. You are just going to stay right there forever and ever because while you can’t control who comes and who goes you sure as hell can goddamned control whether or not you pick yourself up off of your kitchen floor right then. And I know what it feels like to realize fifteen minutes later how bored and slightly ridiculous you are being and to laugh at yourself and want to tell others how ridiculous you have become.  I am intimately familiar with all of the stages of grief. I know what it is to hear the person you’ve lost in your brain and to talk to them like they are still there.  (A friend of mine, who is a professional psychologist, once told me “when you hear him in your head that’s good. It’s how you work through the pain. When you hear him in the toaster, you need to give me a call and get some pretty pretty pills.”)

It turns out that whoever said that going through a breakup is like going through the death of a loved one? It turns out they are not quite so full of it.

It’s kind of punching me in the face today.

I know that I will get through this part of it. That is the good thing about being so familiar with grief and grieving. I know this place. I know that I will come out of it. I know that even within the next fifteen minutes I could feel totally fine. Heck, give me thirty and it’s possible I will return to the “drunk with freedom” stage that carried me through the first couple of weeks after he left. I know that I will be fine because it’s what I do. I deal. I survive and I go on.  I also know that this part of it is fueled by all sorts of things: not having eaten much today, what part of my cycle I am on (sorry, TMI), not having gotten much sleep last night, feeling stressed about money and bills, not being properly caffeinated, post-PAX letdown, the first day off I’ve had with nothing else to take up space in my head since, well, since the day we filed.

But I think, while I wait for this fifteen minutes to pass, Imma go hug my cat.

You should know by now, though, that I tend to go radio silent when things in my life get chaotic, stressful and twirly-in-a-bad-way. Sixish weeks with no posting at all? Yeah. Now, I know what you’re saying, blog. You’re saying “but you still VLOGGED every day. What’s up with that?”  To that I say, with a shrug, “I promised.”  If I had made the same promise to this blog (which I’m thinking about doing soon, just to keep it all even so you don’t get so jealous) I’d have been posting here too. But the thing is? I don’t stop blogging because I’ve run out of things to say. I stop blogging because I’ve got too much to say but just don’t know how or if I should say it. The thing I need to tell you today (and I hope you won’t be jealous, but I’m telling the vlog too), though, it needs to be said. And it should explain everything.

Today Will and I filed for Divorce.

And blog? That’s the first time I’ve actually used that word.

Yeah. The big D. My marriage? Finitamundo. All done. Well, you know, except for receiving a judgement which, because we are co-filing and agree on everything and applied to have our required 90-day waiting period waived, could be handed down as early as tomorrow. I’ll find out for sure on Friday when I call to check in on my case.

I know, blog, I know. You’re probably thinking “Wow! Bomb Drop! What HAPPENED?”  And the thing is, to you it probably does seem sudden and out of the blue. But to me–the radio silent one–it feels like it has been happening for a really long time.

I’ll tell you all about it in due time. For now, though, I need to let the vlog in on what’s going on.

Be patient, blog. Soon I’ll be posting here so often you won’t know what to do with me.

XOXO, Me.

I don’t have any fancy excuses or tales of adventure.  My life is pretty boring.  So where have I been?

I spent the majority of the last two weeks working.  I worked like crazy.  Our finances this summer have been, for the most part, a clusterfrak of “we owe how much on that card?” and “wait, what’s overdrawn?” and “oh holy sh*t, how is the rent due in four days? Isn’t it still the sixth?”  I’ve been working like crazy fora couple of months now trying to keep up and it all came to a head during the last couple of weeks of July.  I won’t lie to you: it was pretty craptastic.  It felt (and still does but to a lesser extent) like every single conversation Will and I had was about money and our lack of it and why it was being spent on frivolities like food.

The good news is that now all of our bank accounts and credit cards are on track. I intend to keep them that way.  I did, after all, work fourteen hour days (also known as 20-30 page days) for weeks to get them there.

This past weekend Will had his annual WoWapalooza over in Bend with his friends from the game and I? Well, I worked on Friday and then I crashed.  I crashed hard core.  I rented half a dozen crappy chick flicks and spent all of Friday night, Saturday and most of Sunday lying on the couch and watching them.  I’m pretty sure my IQ probably dropped by a few points but it felt so good to just relax.

So now it is back to normal. I hope.  See you tomorrow!

See, I like to get in to things.  I like to get absorbed in the books I read (even the kind of boring non-fictiony stuff that I need to read for work).  I like to get involved in the television shows I watch.  I like to find something to do and just do it.  I am not one of those “I’ll do this for the five minutes before I have to leave” kind of people.  In fact, I find that kind of thing very jarring.  For me, trying to do that is akin to that feeling you get when you’re jussssssssst about asleep and you jerk awake because you’ve missed a step.  It is that disorienting.  Will seems to think that if I just “practice”  I will get over this.  That I will learn to be able to just read a half a paragraph in an article.  That I will learn to be satisfied turning off a television show fifteen minutes in.  That I will be able to learn how to pick things up and drop things without it bugging me.

Maybe I will.  That certainly seems to be a skill that would be good to have once we have kids.  But then I remember my Grandmother telling me that she only got into reading trashy Harlequin romance novels once she had kids because she needed a distraction but she needed something she didn’t give a damn about so that she wouldn’t mind when she had to put it down seventy five times in an hour.  And you know? I’m just not there yet.  Plus, I’m not sure how Will would feel about his being compared to a small child…probably not good.

So why are we going to go out and drive around the east side?  Because we don’t know it very well and we have “we want to move!” fever.  A couple of weeks ago we helped a couple of our close friends move into a super cute house in North Portland.  Last night they had their house warming party so we got to see how most of the house has been arranged.  It looks so nice!  They’ve done such a good job!  And it has very much reinforced our “we want to mooooooooooooooove” feelings.  We are so over living in an apartment.  And sharing walls.  And parking lots.  And having to walk a block to get the mail.  And having to share a laundry facility.  And living under the constant threat of being fined if we leave anything on our balcony that is not on the approved list for any length of time (approved items: patio furniture, grills, live plants. Nothing else. Ever).

Unfortunately we can’t really afford to move right now (we’re still catching up on our bills and I’m still trying to make this month’s rent).  We can, however, start really exploring our city and its suburbs and figuring out where we really want to live next.  We have a really great neighborhood right now and rarely leave it, except to go downtown, which is why we don’t know a lot about the other parts of town.  We thought it would be nice to have some frame of reference when reading rental ads that talk about neighborhoods instead of cross streets, so… as soon as my lovely husband gets bored with whatever he is doing right now, we will be on our way.  That could be in twenty seconds.  It could be in five hours.

*Sigh*

I figure that two kind of serious posts bookending a holiday weekend would be a little too much downer sauce so! You get this post instead!  In which I tell you about how today Will accidentally forgot to hang up after a he called me from work (about something totally not that important).  And I got to hear him order milkshakes for his coworkers and then take those milk shakes to his coworkers and hand them out and I got to hear him talk with one of his male coworkers about his ideal mate and boobs and doing certain activities in certain lady special areas and certain experiences there.  The whole time I am yelling into my phone “YOU FORGOT TO HANG UP YOUR PHONE!”  and “HELLOOOO WIFE IS LISTENING TO YOU!!!”  but he couldn’t hear me.  I know I could have just hung up on my own, but what would be the fun of that?  Finally, a few minutes later it got a little quiet on his end of the line (or signal, since we were on cell phones) and I yelled into the microphone at the top of my lungs “YOOOOOOUUUUUR PHOOOOOOONE IS STILL OOOONNNNNNNNNN!”

There was some fumbling sounds and then an incredulous “are you still there??? I thought I hung up the phone a long time ago!”  and I got to reply…

“So.  How many really tall, 105 pound, big boobed, pale skinned, green eyed brunettes have you been motor boating lately?”

(To be clear: am not mad at all and I know he hasn’t actually been doing nefarious things behind my back but still…would you pass up a moment like that one?)

Let’s just break it down:

On Friday my Mom got here at noon to do a belated birthday celebration for me (for those just joining us, the big 3-2 was Wednesday).  Of course none of us is very much a “bash”y kind of person so we went out to dinner and then came home and watched Sherlock Holmes on Blu-Ray.  This might not sound like very much but it kind of was because I finally found the perfect thing to order at Black Bear Diner.  The perfect thing, in case you are wondering, is the hamburger basket.  The burger is smaller than their average burger which makes it exactly the right size for me.  I ate all of it and still had room for fries, which made me really happy because that is something that does not happen very often.  I am glad to have found something that I can order and eat all of.  My daily world, it is exciting!  I also discovered that both my Mom and I have a thing for Robert Downey Jr. which is….actually? a tiny bit icky.  Apparently I am not adult enough to accept this sort of thing because this skeeves me out just as much as it did when I was younger and she’d proclaim one of the dudes in my teen magazines “a babe.”  Part of me seriously wants to still say “Mom! Stick with the Fonz! Or John Travolta (pre-creepy Scientologist-ness)!  Instead I just did my best to bypass the whole moment like it did not happen.  Maturity.  I haz it.

Saturday was the day I sat in a small ballroom at the downtown Embassy Suites and watched one of my oldest friends get married.  This girl and I have known each other since we were fourteen years old.  It’s been a long ride since then–we lost touch for a while, we’ve both grown up, we’ve both had our struggles–and seeing her all dressed up and so happy was, oh gosh.  It gives my heart happy flutters just thinking about it. This is the girl who “caught” the bouquet at my wedding (okay I might have shoved it right into her hands and forced her to take it because I knew she was engaged) last September. When Will and I got there (very early), she actually forced me to take my bouquet back with “It did its job! Take it! Take it! Thank you but please take it! It’s yours! It worked!”  The wedding itself was lovely.  It was simple and elegant and just… my friend all over.  It was also a great way for Will to meet a couple of the extended “in laws” (aka the parents of some of my best friends who were also there).   I think he was a little bit shocked at just how friendly and excited they all were to meet him.   All in all, the wedding was wonderful.  I’m still a little choked up over it.  My friend just looked so so happy and I’m so ecstatic for her.  And *sniffle* *tear* yay!   I was also happy to learn that the next one of us (my core group of friends) to get married was the one who caught the bouquet.  Will and I had to leave before everything was over because he had to go to a grad party for his best college friend in the evening so I missed the actual toss but I heard about it on Twitter and grinned from ear to ear.

Sunday was The! Big! Day!  Graduation Day!  Oh. Gosh.  I know how overwhelmed I am by the whole thing so I can’t even imagine how Will felt.  Mom and I scored awesome seats–close enough to be able to see Will clearly and take some pretty good pictures of him and his friend S (they sat next to each other).  Here’s a (slightly) zoomed in picture from where we were sitting:

Isn’t he handsome?? Swoon!

The ceremony itself was pretty okay.  The graduation speaker used her time to give a pupitty political speech that was not particularly uplifting or inspiring but one of the student speakers talked about rocking out in his cap and gown to Lady Gaga so it all evened out.  I’ve never been to a big University graduation before so I was not prepared for just how quickly all of the names were called.  The school I went to (which, for the record, I did not graduate from) was super tiny so it actually had all of its graduates walk across the stage when they got their degrees.  With Will’s gradution the rapid fire calling of the names just amazed me.   But! He did it! He graduated! Yay!  And I only nearly burst into tears once.  What? I’m very proud of him! He worked so hard to get to that moment and hearing his name called out took a little bit of my breath away.

Here’s my handsome and freshly graduated husband after the ceremony:

After graduation we went out to dinner with my Mom and Will’s sister and her husband (and a couple of other friends who decided to meet us).   I had a Turkey burger which was very tasty.  And then we came home and pretty much just passed out.

I’d like to say that next weekend will be lazy but it looks like we’re going to another wedding–we got Facebook invited to Will’s stepsister’s wedding on Saturday (they are not even a tiny bit close and he does not particularly care for the groom so don’t get offended by the Facebook invite, it is kind of appropriate) so it looks like we’ll be going to that and then on Sunday I’m getting together with a couple of friends for a few hours of girl time and downtown Portland exploration. That means that the weekend won’t be lazy but it still should be pretty okay.

Also? The gloves make it really hard to type this blog post.  Bygones.

Last night we went to Costco.  I have decided that there is no such thing as a store that isn’t dangerous for us.  Why is it that when I’m on my own I can walk away from stuff totally fine but when Will and I are together I lose all of my “save money dammit!” willpower?  Why doesn’t he ever get stingier?  It’s so not fair. Especially since our income can’t handle the extra pressure right now.

Last week I mentioned the possibility of us getting a new car.  We were denied an independent loan from Will’s credit union (bad debt to income ratio) and now we’re waiting for the dealership to get back to “us.”

I am still a little irrationally angry about the whole situation so its probably better that I don’t blog about it as I can’t seem to do so with out turning the blogosphere blue.

I think I will sing along to some Glee to cheer myself up (and warm myself up)!

Happy Friday!

Hell is a husband with new car fever and pockets full of holes.

E-gad.

The math is solid and it would only be a couple more years of payments and if he can get the numbers right I can understand how a new (to us) car would be a sound investment–it’s safer, has more “fun stuff” in it, has more space to transport stuff, blah blah blah.  I just think that it is the epitome of…something that during the weekend in which we are supposed to be giving thanks for what we have and appreciating our lives, someone is going “but I want something better!”

I sound like a total jerk right now and I feel like I need to put it out there (even though it should be totally obvious) that I do love my husband very much.  He’s a good husband.  But Oh. My. God. I do not want us to buy a new car right now and I’ve spent TWO days having to say that over and over again.  I’m beginning to feel like the ugly monster that stomped all over hope until it gave up and died or something else insidious that strikes fear in the hearts of people everywhere.

Again: I love my husband.  In the spirit of this weekend you could even say I’m thankful for him.

But SERIOUSLY.

SERIOUSLY.