In light of that crap news and some other bullshit I’m dealing with, I decided I needed to do something to lighten the mood.  Inject a little levity into my life.  So I did what anyone who is awesome would do, I built a fort in the living room out of blankets, pillows and a queen-sized blow-up mattress.  I decorated it with Christmas tree lights and not only did it make it look awesome, but it smells like Christmas and who doesn’t love the way Christmas smells!?  If you don’t, then you’re dead to me.

Not only did I build this amazing little fort between the bookshelf and the dining room table, but I also hung out in it and slept in it and as I type this I am sitting in it and I’m listening to No Doubt and thinking thoughts and trying not to worry so much about everything.  It’s sort of working except everyone else thinks this is their fort, too and FUCK THAT SHIT.

I’m going to keep this up until the end of the week and I’ll spend all my free time in here reading and writing and meditating and trying to do these things called LETTING GO and GOING WITH THE FLOW and trying to focus on good stuff that needs my attention and leaving behind crappy stuff that doesn’t.

Here are photos of my fort.  You should be jealous because it’s fucking awesome and it smells like the baby Jesus.

]]> http://uncouthheathen.com/2011/04/06/fort/feed/ 3 http://uncouthheathen.com/2010/08/20/motherfucking-international/ http://uncouthheathen.com/2010/08/20/motherfucking-international/#comments Fri, 20 Aug 2010 10:21:16 +0000 heathen http://uncouthheathen.com/?p=4356 In one week Janie and I will be on a plane from Los Angeles to Melbourne, Australia! We’re going to spend 15.5 hours sitting next to one another and doing our best not to talk about our feelings because when we talk about our feelings we end up in a fight and the last thing we need is to be arrested for rolling around the aisles of the jet punching and kicking one another in a fit of divorce-rage.

We’ll spend two weeks in and around Melbourne including a weekend road trip along the Great Ocean Road that Monica told me is a terrible, terrible idea this time of year because IN AUSTRALIA IT IS NOT SUMMER. It’s winter and rainy and bullshitty.

WINTER.

I know, right?  What IS UP with that?  I have no idea.

We’ll finally meet Monica and Donna which will be super fun even though we’ve been fighting like crazy – which is a bit of an understatement but WHATEVER.  I feel pretty certain the moment I walk out of customs I’m going to get the shit kicked out of me and I’ll spend the rest of the two weeks in the hospital while the three of them enjoy themselves and make jokes at my expense and eat pizza and candy.  The whores.

Did you see when I pushed her down?  DID YOU HEAR THE NOISES SHE WAS MAKING?  What a bitchy little girl.

I can’t even begin to tell you how fucking weird it is to be making this trip after everything that’s gone down in the last several months.  It’s just completely retarded crazy that Janie and I are in a space positive enough to be doing this together.  I can’t quite wrap my mind around it.  It’s been such a whirlwind of chaos here -  trying to get the condo ready for listing (which happens on Monday – OH MY GOD SHIT FUCK!)  and dealing with an intense wave of emotional shit from this divorce that the only plans made are hotel reservations and a car rental for the world’s most ill-advised road trip.  Janie bought a guide book but I can’t even remember what is in it.  I have no idea what exactly we’re going to do, which is pretty nuts considering I usually tend to have a strict Excel spreadsheet of plans made well in advance.  You probably do not recall that when I started this blog Janie and I were on a road trip to California.  We strayed from the spreadsheet near Pismo Beach and I COULD NOT HANDLE IT.  I lost my mind and cried in the parking lot of a strip mall while on the phone with my sister as Janie and her friend Shaelah ate sushi and wondered why I was so retarded.  Well, this is a new me!  This is me in therapy!  This is me on herbal anti-anxiety medications!  This is the new me smoking cigarettes to cope with the crippling pain of losing my wife and best friend in the span of several months!  THIS IS THE NEW ME WHO CAN DO ANYTHING BECAUSE IT CANNOT POSSIBLY BE WORSE THAN MY LIFE HAS BEEN SINCE MAY. I can plan or not.  Sure thing.  Do I want to go to the park?  I don’t know and it’s okay because three months ago Janie told me I was a terrible person* and it can’t feel worse than that!

(* She didn’t exactly call me a terrible person but it felt the same)

I’ll blog several updates while we’re away so you’ll know how things are going in that strange land I know relatively nothing about except that there are obscenely large spiders all over the place, some dingo ate Meryl Streep’s baby and they have a shit ton of crazy delicious candies the likes of which I have never seen and I plan to eat them all.  I’ll also blog about my thoughts and feelings about life and love and divorce and how to travel like a badass mofo.  Maybe there will be photos:  Photos of Janie ignoring me BECAUSE SHE CAN now that we’re divorced.  Photos of Janie and I drunk enough to do karaoke to the tune of Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 (we’ve agreed on the song ahead of time, yes.) Photos of me with a hangover, puking and peeing my pants uncontrollably (yes, hot ladies of Australia, I AM SINGLE.)  Photos of Monica and Donna beating me into a coma. Photos of me in a coma crying why why why but only on the inside where no one can hear my silent wails of pain on account of the paralysis and traumatic brain injury caused by enraged Australians and Janie who just had to get one good kick in.  Photos of Janie with her top on.  Photos of Monica calling me a fucking asshole idiot cunt whore.  Photos of me trying to drive on the wrong side of everything and dying in a fiery car crash.    GOOD TIMES, EVERYONE.  Good time ahead.

I promised Carrie I’d bring her a Bindi Irwin.  Who else wants a present from Australia?

TOO BAD.  We’re broke, son

Then we do about 8 million other things and then we paint some more.

I didn’t write a post about this because it’s another depressing situation that we’ll likely never get over, but a few weeks ago we had to take Harlow and Carson to the Humane Society so they could be found a new home.  Awful awful, awful day.  And when we got there I went inside to the office and it was filled with happy people talking and volunteers helping people find pets to adopt and take home.  Then there I was, crying, asking about where I go to drop off two cats and suddenly the volunteer who cheerfully and loudly greeted me would only speak in hushed tones.  She hunched over and pulled me aside and we sat crouched in the shadows, hiding from the happy adopters and she told me…NO NO NO…the next building is where you drop off animals.  This is for adoptions.  YOU ARE TOO SAD TO BE IN HERE.  GET OUT.  So we found the drop off site and after some paperwork, we walked out the door and drove away.  I miss those two fuckers every day.  Even Carson and the constant peeing.  I wish wish wish that they’ve found a good and happy home.  So now we have Gus and Ducati,  who keeps looking around the place and meowing.  If you listen closely you’ll hear him mumble to himself,  “What happened to all our hos? WE ARE MISSING SOME HOS.” Gus doesn’t care…it’s guys only now.  GUYS ONLY.  Guys time all the time, and that’s the best time.  GUYS GUYS GUYS. Sledgehammer!

In other news, I have contracted the plague from my sister who was selfish enough to comfort and hug me when I was crying in the middle of her yard sale a few weeks ago, therefore passing on her hideous germs and infecting me with the worst cold the world has ever known.  My good friend XUP likes to make light of my hideous affliction but she doesn’t know!  SHE DOES NOT KNOW THE HORRORS OF WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME EVEN AS WE SPEAK.  Disgusting things.  Snot the likes of which you would not believe.  This weekend I coughed so much that I threw up in the shower.  Earlier today I coughed so hard I peed my pants.  THIS IS A SICKNESS OF THE WORST KIND. Luckily Janie and I no longer touch, so she’s safe from the horrors, but I know that if she makes me mad enough I can cough on her toothbrush while she’s at work and GOOD DAY TO YOU, LADY.

In other news, I’m thinking of getting one of these for Ducati:

Hmmm…I think that’s about all.  It’s all house bullshit all the time around here until we get this place on the market.  Keep your fingers crossed that we sell it fast and for 8 million dollars because I would enjoy having millions of dollars.

1. Do not make it more complicated than it has to be.  By this I mean DO NOT MAKE IT MORE COMPLICATED.

2. When you chip out those tiles in the bathroom shower stall, don’t wait two years to fix it because when you get divorced and you have to sell your home it will only make it more stressful to deal with these kinds of repairs and by stressful, I mean expensive and by expensive, I mean it will cost more money than you have and it will MAKE THINGS WAY MORE COMPLICATED.

3. Also, save those old shower fixtures because that guy who retiled the shower will not accept the fact that you threw them away two years ago and will call you eight times at work to ask where they are and if you can please go look and find them so he can match them with a replacement.

4. Your real estate agent should never be involved in any way in your personal life.  IT WILL ONLY MAKES THINGS MORE COMPLICATED.

5. It is a BAD IDEA to scream at your ex “Well I guess you can get out of this condo when I’m dead!” Or something to that effect.  I can’t remember the exact words that crazy person used just then.  And yes.  That crazy person might have been me.  Maybe.

6. If you have been blocked from leaving your home because someone thinks you’ve gone too crazy, do not escape down the rockery in your pajamas and a pair of flip flops.  This will only makes them appear correct.  For the record, I didn’t DO IT, I only THOUGHT ABOUT IT.  So I wasn’t too crazy, I was only slightly crazy.

7. THERAPY.  YES.

8. If someone says they can’t handle one more thing, it’s probably best to believe them.  Just sayin’. If you don’t believe them, or don’t listen, be prepared to deal with the consequences.  And by consequences I mean #5 and #6 and some other select things that may include hysterical crying, yelling and all that stuff about your mom.

9. Do yourself a favor and make sure everyone else understands they don’t know the entirety of the situation and should not assume things happened for one reason or another, because they’re wrong.  No matter what they think or say, they’re wrong.  Even if only a little.  Because they can’t know.  Wrong.

10. WRONG!

11. DO NOT SLEEP TOGETHER EVER AGAIN.  See #1.

12. MEDICATION. YES.

13. CIGARETTES AND BOOZE AND CANDY. YES.

14. Just say what you need to say:  “It’s not me, it’s you.  You really are a bitch-whore.”

15. I’m just kidding.  You shouldn’t say that.  It’s okay to think it, quietly, when you’re sobbing in your bed at night, but not out loud, people.  NOT OUT LOUD.

16.  You will feel feelings you never imagined were possible.  You’ll feel them all times a million.  Then you’ll cry, breakdown, why? why? why?, you’ll admit things you shouldn’t and you will accuse people of things you shouldn’t.  You will forget to accept certain responsibility for a while, but then you’ll be able to, later on, when you’re drunk. So you can forget, but it’s still out there and they’ll probably remember unless they’re drunk, too and then it’s 50-50 and hopefully you’re both drunk enough not to remember the sex you shouldn’t have been having.  Get dressed and go to your room before she wakes up!  NOTHING HAPPENED HERE.  I don’t know what you’re talking about.  I got this hickey on my thigh from a gardening accident. WHY ARE YOU IN THIS SHOWER WITH ME?

17. Vanilla Lip Smacker will make the misery taste better.

18. Let’s just put it all out there in one big honest summary: YOU WILL BE ALONE FOREVER AND NO ONE WILL LOVE YOU BUT YOUR MOM, DAD, SISTER AND BROTHER.  AND ONLY BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO.  Oops!  Sorry.

19. That’s not actually true, but it will feel true for a very, very, very long time.

20. No, you are NOT getting back together.  No.  NO.  Maybe.  NO.

21. If your ex comes home wasted at 1100pm and throws up all over her bedroom floor it is okay a) to laugh at her b) to help her out and clean up the puddle of puke c) to let her sleep in your bed as long as you reassure her you won’t try to “put the moves on her”  and d) to cry when she says “GOOD BECAUSE I’D HAVE TO TURN YOU DOWN and why is Family Guy so funny?”

22. Family Guy is pretty fucking funny.

23. Maybe Carson peed on her comforter.  Maybe it was you.

24. I guess she’ll never really know.

25. Just keep swimming.  You’ll either find dry land or get eaten by a  shark but, either way, YAY!

First things first.  Janie and I are doing really well, all things considered.  We’re broken and sad and lost but managing to find our way through to something good.  We’re getting along.  We’re talking.  We’re managing to spend time together and make one another laugh.  We have to live together until we sell our condo so we were forced to find a way to get past the bullshit of a break up and develop a strong friendship.  It probably happened faster than most other people would have let it happen, but we didn’t have a choice because the only other option was to have World War III in our house every day and neither of us could have handled that.  We have worked really hard to talk and share our feelings and thoughts and to listen to one another; to attempt to understand what the other is dealing with.  It’s been hard, sometimes Janie has wanted to punch me in the face, but we’ve managed to settle into a comfortable place I like to call:

The only thing that’s different is that we sleep in separate rooms and everyone keeps their clothes on and we don’t touch, ever.

Things are so good with us, in fact, that I’ve got person after person asking me if we’re getting back together.  It seems logical…we manage to have fun, joke around, we love one another, we enjoy one each other’s company, we talk, we share stories, we live together, we still have a lot of the good things that made our relationship beautiful and strong.  We have each changed for the better and we continue to do so.  We developed new understandings of ourselves, our relationship, one another and what we want and need and what it is that caused us to falter and break.  But this does not make coming back together a good idea.  In fact, it is exactly why getting back together is a bad idea.  We’ve managed to get rid of all the crap that tore us apart, by being apart, and to get back together would likely bring much of that right back.  The truth is that we broke up for some very, very good reasons.  We let go of such a beautiful and massive and special thing, of an entire life, because it wasn’t possible to make it work.  It ended for very good reasons and it stays over for those same reasons.  We both know that if we tried again, as good as it may be for a few weeks or months or maybe even a year or two, things would slip away, we would still be who we are despite the changes we have made and continue to make, and we’d be right back in this place, only more broken, more hurt and likely never able to stand being around one another because it would be too much to go through all over again.  We stay apart because it is the very thing that will keep the remainder of our relationship special and beautiful and it will keep the massive amount of love we have for one another intact, though change it from a partnership to a friendship that I know will last for the rest of our lives.

Throughout the last eight years, Janie and I have said that if our relationship ended and we broke up, that was it.  There would be no break up and get back together, break up and get back together.  We had seen what it looks like, we had seen the hurt and anger it can cause and we both knew ourselves and one another well enough to see that it wasn’t something we were ever going to let happen.   Neither of us have ever believed that it should take ending our relationship to make it better, that breaking up should be the one thing that jolts either of us awake enough to change what would need to change so we could then get back together and try again.  It was never going to work that way and I do feel a certain amount of pride to see that we knew from the start that if and when this day should ever come, we’d only do it with the very firm belief that it was the best thing and that it was forever.  We knew that the only way things would end is if they were irretrievably broken and though to say that and to be it has been inexplicably hard, to know we’d never make such a decision without being certain is a comfort.  We know we’d never mess around enough with one another’s emotions to make our relationship a yo-yo, of a falling apart and coming back together; that we’d have enough respect for one another and ourselves and what we spent so long building that we’d never let go unless it was something we believed we’d never be able to save.  I am not saying this is how it should always work.  Absolutely not.  I know people save their relationships every day by falling apart and then managing to pick up the pieces, get back together and make it work.  I just know that we were never that kind of couple, and we knew from the start that should this day come, we could rest assured that it was the only decision we could make and not have to spend months and years debating whether or not we should have stayed together.  There is a certain sense of security in knowing we would never be here unless it was absolutely right and that neither of us would make a decision to end things unless we were certain it was the only possible decision we could have made.

This is also not to say that we haven’t discussed the possibilities.  We have seen many couples get back together and asked: if they can do it why can’t we?  But those questions never linger more than a few moments and we remember everything we’d always said and everything we’ve been through to now and realize that we’re in such a better place in so many ways and this is how it was meant to be.  Hard and devastating as it may be, and will continue to be, it is the best decision we could have made for ourselves and one another.

Along with the knowledge that ending our marriage is the best thing comes a lot of very difficult and painful emotional work.  There is not one day where I have not felt devastated by the idea that my entire life has crumbled to the ground and I have been left feeling completely alone.  This is the loneliest I have ever felt in my life, the saddest I have ever been, the most afraid and uncertain.  I am crippled by the vast array of emotions that I could never have anticipated.  Janie and I spoke last week about how it is absolutely impossible to come into this situation knowing how hard it will be, how many moments of despair and misery you will face.  They will come and go and come and go and when you think you’re finally getting to a good space, you’ll fall apart.  And then you’ll fall apart some more.  Most days I have a complete and total inability to focus and concentrate on anything for more than five minutes. I am unable to sleep for more than a few hours at a time (but better than the 45 minute increments of last month!).  I cry all the time and anywhere.  The bank, work, at home, at the grocery store, restaurants, coffee shops, therapy, friend’s houses, the car, etc.  I had, for a long while, stopped telling people anything about how I was doing because very often I have no idea.  So I said “I’m fine” and then I shut myself away and I fell apart and felt like I wanted to die.  People would tell me it gets better.  Things will be okay.  It was nice to hear.  Sometimes it was all I wanted to hear, but it was also impossible to see.  Every day is often the same:  sad, depressing, lonely, awful, scary and fucked up.  My sister called me last week and asked how I was doing.  “I just want to die.”  “It’ll get better,” she said.  “Every day is the same.  Every day I want to just disappear, ” I said back.  It’s complicated.  I just want to curl up so tightly that I cease to exist, that the world stops, that everything stops happening so I can make sense of something.  I want one thing to happen at a time but instead a billion things happen all at once and it is so overwhelming that it renders me incapable of moving.  I have no idea how I have made it here, two months later.  I have no idea of anything other than the realization that sometime very soon we’ll sell our place and move away from one another and I’m going to lose my shit again and it will be just as hard as it was before and, maybe, worse because I certainly don’t feel like I can handle having to fall apart even one more time.  But it will happen and I’ll just have to trust that I’ll find a way to pick up the pieces.